Dawn breaks slowly, emerging with a fitful reluctance. A light overcast hazes the sky, reflecting my mood, which is anything but ebullient. The thrumming in my head, the cottony numbness of my tongue, and the sandpaper which passes for my eyelids bear silent witness to too many beers and too little sleep.
But we are here to ride, so come eight o'clock we've shrugged into our riding gear and are rolling down the mountain. When we get to the bottom I drop in behind Dave and immediately switch to autopilot, steering dumbly onto his wheel tracks.
I'm kicking myself for the late night and the surfeit of "okay, one mores" smiled to the pretty barmaid, like we were singers doing a bunch of encores or something. But at least the cooling breeze coming through the chin bar of my Arai gives faint promise that maybe I'll feel human again. Someday.
If there's a saving grace, it's that our group is larger on this run than most. Kevin has brought along a bunch of friends from North Carolina. Because of the new guys and the general unwieldiness of the group, Dave is keeping the pace down.
I'm glad when we pull into Watoga for breakfast an hour later. Eggs and toast and sausage and a couple glasses of ice water bring the first tendrils of relief. And when we walk outside the sky is likewise brightening, with occasional patches of blue appearing through the broken cloud cover. Maybe the day won't be such a bust after all.
Dave's plan for the day is ambitious. He has us heading south and west toward some squiggles on the Delorme Atlas we've never been on before. New roads and new mountains to try.
But first we have to get past the traffic through this section of West Virginia. Dave has us on remote, secondary roads wherever he can, but at some point you have to deal with Route 219, the only major north-south artery through Pocahontas County. We're stuck behind a line of slow-moving cars when we get to the really nice stretch south of Droop Mountain. That sucks. And it's a struggle to keep our dozen-odd bikes together when we begin the double-yellow-line dance.
So it's with a palpable sense of relief when we finally turn off onto an obscure county route.
We haven't gone more than a handful of miles when Jim rolls around me and slots in behind Dave. He's one of the new guys on this run but is anything but inexperienced. He and I had reminisced long into the night about bikes we had owned, roads we had run, and trips we had been on. And he had spent much of yesterday goosing the throttle, pulling wheelies, and otherwise making it plain that he was impatient to get it on. Now, apparently, having passed a sign alerting us to the mountain just ahead, is that time.
Dave waves him on around, offering him a clear road. Jim answers aggressively, spooling his CBR600 into a long, loping wheelie as he powers around into the front. He immediately lays down the hammer, putting quick distance between himself and the rest of our group.
I watch all this unfold with surprise. Our years-long protocol has been to choose a lead rider-usually either John or Dave-let them choose the day's route, then stick to the roads and the pace that they select. Jim has just broken that unwritten rule.
But even as I am processing this development, I'm charged with an enervating, predatory excitement. A moment passes. Then with a quick glance in my left mirror I likewise pull out, punching a downshift even as I roll the throttle of my BMW hard around to its stop.