Not really a ride report.... yet. But it will be. I'll take the camera and post some pictures.
I grew up listening to old timers (now I R 1) talk about driving from Ocean City, MD to Dayton, OH and westward on US Route 40. Aparently for a long time, it was the only game in town to go west, unless you took the south path and got on Route 66.
US Route 40 is hard to find. From Frederick MD east it is all but non-existant. It used to run right through city square of Hagerstown MD, and the signs are still maintained. In fact, heading west you can ride on something called 40, but it bears no resemblance to the original Route 40.
But once you get to Hancock MD heading west, you can get on quite a bit of original 40 going west, and let me tell you, THIS is a motorcycle road. Up into the mountain range it goes from Hancock, twisting and turning, and the only real problem is the road surface in places.
Nope, neither the Feds, nor the State, nor the County(s) seem to want to maintain old US 40.
US 70 has cut a path through the general area Route 40 covered. Route 40 went around peaks and followed the curvature of the mountain passes very closely. So in places it is on the "left" of US 70 (going west) and sometimes on the "right".
Not far east of Cumberland MD is one of the best motorcycle roads I have ever seen. It is labeled Scenic 40 and is all original road that never got covered up by US 70, because 70 just knocked mountains down and punched holes through them to keep its relative straightness and mostly gradual grades.
Scenic 40 has some down grade drops that are just plain breath taking. You come over the pass, the road cutting through forest (and nothing else) and as you drop to the other side of the pass, the grade down is so steep you feel like you are on a roller coaster. It just goes as straight as it can be, but undulating to follow the contour of the pass as it decends, and then at the bottom.... OMFG.... a corner with < < < < < signs all along the entrance. And they aren't kidding.
We, most of us, weren't alive, or were very young, when people adventured by driving US Routes 40 and 66. Heck, the gas stations along Route 40 are no longer visible, not even remnants of foundations. The forest has reclaimed the ground completely. And in places where access to MD 68 and US 70 are close by, housing developments have been built on top of where Route 40 ran, and now we have MD 144 and such.
So when I drive through Hagerstown and see the US 40 sign, or coming back from Cumberland and see the Scenic 40 signs, I realize how much I missed by not being alive when all that was there was US 40 going west through virgin forest, with a gas station every 25 or so miles. Makes me wish it was 1949, and I was riding an Indian Chief, heading out west.
Eisenhower gave us the great interstate network of roads, but in the process, we lost most of the truly FUN roads.
* Last updated by: privateer on 6/30/2011 @ 2:07 PM *