After building my confidence on day trips and weekends, tweaking my DRZ motocamping setup and taking a few shakedown runs, I finally felt ready to take on a long-distance off-pavement trip on the DRZ. My plan was to ride West from Connecticut on the first two sections of the Northeast Backcountry Discover Route (NEBDR) then skip across Northern PA to the end of the Mid-Atlantic BDR (MABDR). I’d ride both BDRs backwards to the start of the MABDR on the Virginia/Tennessee border, then head Northeast to spend Tori’s birthday with her and her family in Maryland before loading the DRZ back on the truck and hauling it home.
The DRZ had the standard performance mods (3×3 airbox mod, Dynajet carb tuning, FMF slip-on) in addition to basic protection and ergonomics mods. I’d added a Tusk pannier racks and Wolfman Expedition soft luggage (saddle bags and duffle) for luggage, and I was planning on using my Kammok hammock setup for camping. I was feeling pretty confident, especially since the MABDR is generally considered fairly tame. I’d ridden the Massachusetts section of the NEBDR and had heard that the hard sections where in VT and ME, so I wasn’t worried about the two days in NY and PA.
Day 1: NEBDR Section 3
Day one started off great — I set off early in the morning and the first few hours were mostly pavement to get to the end of NEBDR Section 2 in Copake Falls, NY. The BDR started off fairly tame with some mild dirt roads connected by stretches of twisty pavement. Once I’d crossed the Hudson and started climbing, the route got a bit more technical, but nothing too challenging as I stopped at for a break at the covered bridge North Blenheim. I was really enjoying the next hour of riding through the Catskills when I came across the crux of the day.
When running the NEBDR in the intended direction, County Road 3 in NY is a short, steep, rocky uphill followed by a very long, very steep downhill section and it’s the only part of the NEBDR in NY that has an easier bypass. I was feeling pretty confident from the ride so far and decided I could tackle it, especially since the BDR is intended for large adventure bikes and I was on a smaller, off-road oriented dual sport.
Since I was running North to South, I had to ride up what was intended to be the long downhill section. I made it about 2/3rds of the way up when I lost momentum in the loose shale and dropped the bike when I couldn’t find good footing. I’d assumed that I just lost traction, but once I got the bike upright and taken a breath I realized that the rear wheel wasn’t turning at all. I figured the clutch had overheated and glazed over, and since I couldn’t make any progress uphill I decided to coast back down and resigned myself to the easier bypass. I slowly nursed the bike into the town of Fleischmanns, NY, hoping that as I rode the clutch would start to bite again and I’d be able to finish the trip. I let Tori know that I was having some issues and to expect me to make it to camp late.
I made it into camp at Bear Spring Mountain short-shifting the bike to keep the revs low and barely made it up some of the steep mountain roads. I realized after taking the clutch cover off that the clutch plates were completely toast and, using my InReach since I had no phone signal, updated Tori. She went to work the next morning calling every Suzuki dealership between Scranton and Hartford to see if they had any clutch plates that I needed in stock while I slowly limped towards Scranton. It wasn’t long before we realized that in-stock parts were a lost cause and we made the call to have her rescue me in the truck.
I barely missed a heavy rainstorm and booked a hotel room for a few hours to wait for her. We got the bike loaded up on the truck in Scranton, PA and headed back towards CT. At a rest stop on the NY/PA border an impatient driver backed into us while we were stopped at a Wendy’s, giving my brand new truck its first scars. During the drive I made the plan to switch all my luggage over to the Tiger to salvage the trip, but since it was currently set up for sport touring I’d have to ditch the BDR and make it a pavement-only tour of the Mid-Atlantic, loosely following the MABDR and keeping my original camping reservations.
Days 2-3: Getting back on the Route
After frantically switching all my luggage over to the Tiger and getting a few hours of rest, I set off from Connecticut (again) and beelined on I-84 to my next reserved campsite. Unfortunately, I ran into a huge rainstorm once I hit the PA border and, despite the temperature being in the 80s, I ended up shivering and blue as the evaporative cooling sapped all of my body heat. I stopped a few times to warm up but kept going to make sure I made camp while it was still daylight. Luckily, the weather broke with a few hours of sunny riding left, so I managed to mostly dry off by the time I made it to Bald Eagle State Park to get camp set up.
The camp hosts were kind enough to let me ride my bike down to the site. I was thankful for my rainfly as caterpillars rained from the tree canopy throughout the night, but it felt good to be back on the route. I made my way South, following as much twisty pavement as I could to approximate the MABDR route and keep largely to my original schedule. The roads and views through Southern PA made for great sport touring, but I couldn’t help staring longingly at every dirt road that I intersected.
My navigation strategy was to enter my final destination for the night into Google Maps, then scroll along the route and add detours and waypoints to make the path as squiggly as possible. The more a road looked like a toddler scribbling with a crayon the better, since that would pretty much guarantee either carving up & down mountain switchbacks or following a river or creek; either way it’d make for good riding. I’d continue that process until my ETA was in the early afternoon, giving me enough time to get camp set up and make dinner before resting and starting over the next morning.
Eventually I got brave enough to hop onto the BDR when I came across it, but it only took a few mountain switchbacks before I washed out my front tier and nearly went into a ravine. I’ve ridden plenty of dirt roads on the Tiger and even taken it through the Nevada BDR, Death Valley, and Moab, but that was with 50/50 tires. The close call was enough to jar me into accepting that I’d stick to the pavement when the bike has sport touring tires on it.
The roads got twistier and the elevation changes more rapid as I got further south and into the foothills of the Appalachians, promising more fun in the days to come. Camp for the night was in Furnace Grove State Park, where I attempted laundry for the first time. The Mid-Atlantic humidity wasn’t my friend and I had to finish air-drying my clothes the next day by weaving them through the cargo net stretched over my duffle. My camping neighbor took pity on me as a lone traveler setting up camp and offered me some coals from his fire and shared his hot breakfast with me in the morning. The eggs and sausage were good, but I could have done without his evangelism.
Day 4: Crossing the Mason-Dixon Line
The next day I continued almost due South into Maryland. There were some fun roads here and there, but it was a fairly uneventful ride and a pretty short day. Once I hit the Potomoc near Harpers Ferry, I followed the C&O Canal back North to Antietam for the next night of camping.
Honestly, the Antietam campground wasn’t great. Parking is on the opposite side of the canal from the camp sites, so setting up means hauling gear through the mud or taking the long way around to a foot bridge. There’s heavy foot and bicycle traffic from the C&O Canal Trail and the pit toilets hadn’t been cleaned in some time. The water is straight from the Potomac, so it’s all treated with iodine and doesn’t taste great while leaving a yellow residue in all your containers. The brutally hot and humid day left me aching for a shower to scrub off the sweat and road grime, but Antietam was a surprisingly primitive campground despite being in a popular national battlefield.
Despite being pretty disappointed by the campground itself, walking up and down the canal trail was beautiful and once the sun started to set behind the trees the evening became much more pleasant. My camp neighbor was a traveling nurse who was living out of her car, camping and bicycling her way across the country between gigs — a lifestyle made possible by all of the COVID nurse shortages.
Day 5-6: West Virginia to Virginia
The route from Antietam led Northwest, bouncing back and forth between WV and MD following the Potomac and the C&O Canal. As I got into WV the roads got higher and the views more spectacular. I stopped for lunch at a dilapidated roadside picnic with a stunning view off Old Route 40. The route continued through Green Ridge State Forest in WV, where it turned to the Southwest. The gorgeous mountain roads led down to the Smoke Hole caverns, where I had my first indoor night of the trip.
The motel rooms at Smoke Hole Resort were cozy, and the resort is located entrance to a massive cave with guided tours. While I was inside the caverns for the tour, a group of motorcyclists on off-road modified Harleys had started arriving. They were riding the MABDR from South to North and apparently had a rough start, but they were super cool to talk to and their bikes had an awesome Mad Max vibe.
The next day, the route continued Southwest along the WV/VA border. I rode some of the best roads I’ve ever ridden on Route 33, crossing between WV and VA near Switzer Lake in the Shenandoah Wildlife Management Area. The route continued on some amazing mountain roads through the George Washington and Jefferson National Forests before ending near Covington, VA.
I was somewhere in the Washington & Jefferson National Forests when I realized I’d left my Kindle, maps, and travel journal back at the Smoke Hole Resort, but they had thankfully found it while turning over my room and agreed to ship it back to CT for me.
My site at Morris Hill ended up being right next to a large family, but I was able to switch to a more secluded site pretty easily. There were some long-term campers who left their generators running most of the night, but they did have much-needed shower facilities after another hot, humid day. I took a bit of time to hike the surrounding woods, but I didn’t quite make it to the waterfalls or reservoir before the sun started setting.
Days 7-8: Through VA
I woke up to a foggy morning in the Blue Ridge mountains and started the last day of what should have been the MABDR, heading Southwest towards Damascus, VA. The roads were similar to the previous day in WV, with some tight mountain switchbacks and great sport touring roads. I stopped for gas and breakfast at a gas station that was also a restaurant, grocery story, and game butcher — complete with a winch for butchering deer right next to the pumps.
This is a pretty remote area and I ended up on some unpaved roads even with skipping the BDR. Keeping my close call from PA in mind, I kept it slow and and took corners with caution to avoid any more drama.
The last night of camp at Beartree was quiet, and I had a gorgeous spot surrounded on three sides by a brook. I had another evening of rain while I decompressed and reflected on the trip, but thankfully the skies cleared overnight and my gear was mostly dry as I packed it in the morning.
The following day I pivoted Northeast after gassing up at the official start of the MABDR to start towards DC and Tori’s birthday. Through sheer coincidence, my route ended up parallel to the Blue Ridge Parkway. I ended up taking the opportunity to spend most of the day on the parkway, figuring I wouldn’t be back in the area any time soon. While the road is definitely twisty and the views phenomenal, the low speed limit got to be a bit of a slog after a few hours. I’m not sure I could do an trip of the entire length, but I’m glad I did the sections that I did.
I spent the last night of the strip at a hotel in Charlottesville, VA, taking the opportunity to let my gear air out in the low humidity of the air conditioning. It was here that I realized the slight leak I knew I had in my left-hand fork seal had gotten substantially worse. Luckily the other fork leg was totally fine and seemed to be picking up the slack well enough to feel comfortable(ish) riding to DC and then back to CT on the superslab.
Final Thoughts
While I was certainly disappointed that I burned out the DRZ’s clutch on day 1, it still ended up being a great trip. While I’ve spent time in almost every state on this route, this was the first time I’d really explored South-central PA and Eastern WV. I definitely want to redo the route on the actual BDR at some point.
I had been considering trading the Tiger in for a pure sport touring bike since I have the DRZ for more aggressive off-road riding, but this trip helped me fall back in love with the bike and deciding to keep it around for a few more years (with a few more upgrades, like a Seat Concepts seat).
This trip also prompted me to plan out a complete overhaul of the DRZ. While I’m 100% sure I could have avoided the burnt clutch with better technique, I’m also sure that trying to take on a trip like this with a mostly stock bike was definitely stretching the original design intentions of Suzuki. I decided to make a proper lightweight ADV bike out of the DRZ by giving the bike a big bore kit, hotcams, a new carb, full exhaust system, a heavy duty clutch, and RaceTech suspension upgrades to help handle the heavier load. Along with the performance upgrades I’ve also made plenty of ergonomic and functional upgrades to the bike to make long distance travel a bit more comfortable.