One Sunday in November 2008 my wife and I were at
her brother’s house. At the time George was very interested in following
MotoGP, the epitome of international motorcycle racing. As with other forms of
racing, MotoGP teams spend millions of dollars each season in order to compete.
Some of the teams are “Factory Teams” in which a manufacturer (Honda, Yamaha,
Ducati, etc.) officially sponsors the team with money, and more importantly,
research and development. The technology that proves itself on the MotoGP track
often makes its way into the manufacturers consumer products in subsequent
years. Satellite teams also use bikes made by these manufacturers, but they
make their own modifications.
George told us stories of MotoGP races that his
friends and colleagues had attended. He explained how these were huge events
similar to a motorcycle rally with vendors, exhibits and parties, but with a following
of dedicated racing enthusiasts. He lamented that while he really wanted to see
one of these events for himself, the opportunity had never presented itself.
Conflicting schedules with work or family or simply the lack of funds to take
on such an endeavor always seemed to prevent it from happening.
My wife, ever the planner and ever wanting to make
other’s dreams come true, latched onto this idea with both hands and a scheme
was hatched. Before we knew it our schedules were synchronized, vacation time
was approved and tickets for the 2009 MotoGP race at Indianapolis Motor
Speedway were in hand.
As motorcycle enthusiasts George and I could not
simply arrive by just any means to this, the holy grail of motorcycling events.
No, we had to ride to this event or we would not deserve the title of
motorcyclists. My wife, Rosie, would follow in the car with George’s wife,
Lisa, and their daughter (#3) Megan.
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| Some of us had to ride in the car. |
It is a real pleasure having a “Follow Car”. First,
you can use the car to carry all your luggage. This means you can bring more “stuff”
than you would on your bike. Second, you can leave your gear (helmet, gloves,
jacket) securely in the car whenever stopping to eat. We also used the car to
hold a cooler with “Road Food”: Water, Gatorade, pretzel rods and beef jerky.
With the small tank (about 3.5 gallons) on my Triumph Bonneville, we’d stop for
gas, the toilet and a snack about every 100 miles. By this time we could use a
break from the Super Slab and we met quite a few interesting characters this
way.
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| This was actually taken at the MotoGP by neice, Megan. Pretty good shot for a 10 year old. |
As George started to plot our route to Indianapolis,
I recalled a letter to the editor of a major motorcycling magazine that I had
read some time ago regarding a particular road that we would be passing in
Ohio. The writer complained that he could not fully enjoy riding this road in
early spring due to the amount of sand washing out onto the road from adjacent driveways. His letter and the editor’s response
described a rollercoaster of a road full of turns, both on and off camber, and abrupt
elevation changes. The writer called the road “The Triple Nickel”, the nickname for Ohio Route 555. Our
route would be passing the northern end of this road.
George had been riding for a few years before I
started and had shared tales of many adventures with us including his ride on
the Tail of the Dragon; 318 curves in 11 miles. I was jealous to say the least.
Here was my opportunity to share a ride on another legendary road. We were not disappointed.
While The Triple Nickel doesn’t come close challenging
the Tail of the Dragon’s number of turns per mile, it is less famous, less
congested and can be taken at a quicker pace. In fact, we had the road pretty
much to ourselves when we road it in August 2009. Only once did we find
ourselves stuck behind a few cages.
And the directional changes are non-stop. Up Right,
Down Left, now Up Left, Hard Down Right. The only thing I don’t recall on the
Triple Nickel were decreasing radius turns and there were very few straightaways.
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| Going back for more! |
I’ve had the opportunity to ride some terrific roads
throughout the North East United States. Some of the roads up in New Hampshire,
Vermont, and the Adirondacks and Finger Lakes of New York are simply amazing,
but this was, without a doubt, The
Best Motorcycling Road I’d Ever Ridden. No other road has matched its
ability to keep me smiling from ear to ear, and for so long!
The road starts just South of Zanesville and
continues South until it hits the Ohio River; covering almost 100 miles. We
only had time to do a short (8 mile) section between Portersville and Ringgold.
Here it runs right through Burr Oak State Park.
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| Not the best map, but the best I could find. |
I would love to do this section again and possibly
more of the Triple Nickel. And I may just have that chance when the club rides
out to the AMA Motorcycle Hall of Fame this summer. Ringgold is about 50 miles
South East of the Hall of Fame. It may require adding a day to the trip, but I
think it would be worth it. Hmmm…
Some more shots from our trip:
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| Valentino Rossi "The Doctor" Pre-Race Interview. He'd crash out of the race. |
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| Jorge Lorenzo, the latest and greatest, pre-race interview. Jorge won this race. |
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| Colin Edwards, the "Texas Tornado" signing autographs. |
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| Fly Over before the start of the race |
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| The view from our seats |
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| Dani Pedrosa comes off right in front of us in a low side crash. He got back up and still made it back to 10th place. |
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| Oh, did I mention that the Indy Mile is in the same area on the same day? We saw more spectacular crashes here than at the GP. Some were really horrific. |
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| Flat Track at its best. |
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| 4 Days on the road, 3 Days of racing. The least I could do was take the wife and niece to the zoo! One of the best zoo's we've been to. |
Evidently we were not unique in our approach to
reaching the race. Here is a link to another motorcyclist who followed a
similar path and also made time for the Triple Nickel. http://www.ducati.ms/forums/22-ride-tales/52013-long-way-2-indy.html
Check out the following videos for more on the Triple Nickel.
The last one will give a true feel for the road.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V654_BZ89tI
Ohio Route 555 Motorcycle Ride and
Review
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rAViB_hGxc
Part Two: Time lapse of whole road. It gets really good at about 3:30 minutes.
http://www.openroadjourney.com/rides-and-roads/view/oh-555-the-triple-nickel/868
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