Sport-Touring.Net - ESTN 2008: West Virginia

West Virginia was the landslide winner in the poll for ESTN 2008. Now we need to decide exactly WHERE and WHEN. This thread is for open discussion and the top choices will be put to a poll. I will volunteer to help organize it as I've organized rallies in WV before and spend more than a little time there. R Doug has offered help as have others. I have already started checking on proposed locations. To date, the contenders are:

Canaan Valley State Park (Davis, WV) - state run facility with camping on site. In recent years the group rate was $80/night for a room with 2 double beds. No advance deposits required. No penalties for people not booking the rooms blocked out. Very Moto friendly. They have been willing to honor the group rate even after unbooked rooms are released. Plus, no one ever said anything about drinking beer in the parking lot while hanging out. The STN National was there in 2006 and people had a great time. There are many, many, many miles of back roads and dirt roads for an ADV ride too if you want to get a little dirty (big bike friendly).

Chief Logan Lodge (Logan, WV) - state run facility located south of Charleston in the middle of coal country. I got a packet of info from them about group rates/etc and was not impressed. Rate is higher than Canaan at $89/night. All manner of stuff in the packet about absolutely no booze can be brought on the property. No smoking. They appear to want a big deposit up-front from an organizer (that'd be me/whoever) complete with penalties if you don't book 90% of the rooms you block out. They will NOT honor the group rate after rooms are released. Seems to be a good central location for exploring the Tazewell/Marion corridor, eastern KY, southwestern WV and maybe even north into Ohio. As R Doug points out, this is coal country (think Deliverance), so the locals are less enthusiastic about visitors. I was kinda excited by this option at first, but after getting the group info packet, I'm not interested. Maybe there is another moto-friendly lodging option in that Charleston area to consider?

Marlington - someone suggested Marlington Motor Inn in another thread. I'm waiting for group rate info, but the regular rate is only $80/night. Marlington is about an hour south of Canaan. Most people would probably ride most of the same roads/routes as at Canaan, just starting from a different point in the loop. It does offer the option of exploring south of 39 which was about the limit for routes based out of Canaan.

Regarding dates:

The National will be in June. There will likely be a Region 6 Meet and Eat in May (Catskills anyone? Runner up in location poll). There seems to be interest in a September date. How about late September to avoid conflicting with the MotoGP at Indy? Leaves don't really change until mid-October, but the weather in September is usually quite nice.

Topic: ESTN 2008: West Virginia - exactly where and when? (Read 8702 times)