Day TWENTY SEVEN, frostburg md to front royal va

Leaving Frostburg we headed east on the I66 about 20 miles just to get us onto the 219 south, the Garrett Highway, aka Mountain Maryland Scenic Byway. This is a nice ride, has a bit of altitude so keeps the temp in the low to mid twenties for perfect riding conditions. Took us through a wee town called Accident then on to Deep Creek Lake. This is a ski area in the winter and more or less a mini Queenstown, a slutty wee spot oozing money and still packed with holiday goers, with a week to go left of Summer break.

I had originally hoped to stay here but hotels were packed to the gunnels and waaaaay above our budget anyway. We were happy to ride slowly through taking pics. The Garrett Highway is a nice way to head south out of Maryland into West Virginia.

We re caffeinated at a town a bit further south called Oakland then down to Redhouse where we turned left onto Route 50. Route 50 runs east/west across Maryland, West Virginia and Virginia and was very highly rated for motorcycling by the bloke that wrote the best motorcycle rides in the Appalacians so that was why it was on the agenda for today.

He nailed it again, this is an awesome road and has to be ridden by anyone having a wee ride in this state. For most of the West Virginia segment the road is between 2000 and 3000 ‘ asl so the temps stayed in the mid twenties. Horse loved the road so much he reckoned it was his favourite ride so far on the trip, great scenery, no traffic and plenty of Twisties.

Getting toward Virginia there was a four mile downhill with lotsa Twisties and the temp rose a couple of degrees and more as we dropped into Virginia. But what an awesome downhill, couple tricky twists here and there to keep the ride interesting.

The nice riding on Route 50 ends at Winchester, so don’t bother going any further east. We did as it had been recommended as good riding…….. had us going all the way to Middleburg, across the plains road and looping back to Front Royal, but Na, we bailed early off the section east of Winchester, a glorified interstate. Boring az, maybe ok for a big bagger if you like that sort of thing!

Long story short, Route 50 running east/west in West Virginia and Virginia as far as Winchester, Ride it if you can, awesome.