local fame

 

1. I almost died on a similar road here in Portland. It runs straight down from the ridge that separates the Willamette river from the valley around the bend.Anyway, High school,420,and an old 64 plymouth wagon with, well, old 64 plymouth brakes. This road is a switchback nightmare and we almost took the fast way down but luckily we caught a large swath of gravel which slowed our pace. Fresh underwear later we all had a good laugh but Damn, that is one nasty old road.Sorry no one died to make it a better story but I got that lucky star thing early in life.

   Posted by Rich K       08/14/2012  at  03:37 PM  



2. Slow news day at BMEWS? Or do our loyal( pfht) followers just not care about” jersey barriers” anymore,or,ever? OK, I give up, Lets see scantilly clad womens.No, not me ,thats Drew and Peipers job, Im just a loyal shill carping for donations for my favorite weblog, hint hint hint.

   Posted by Rich K       08/14/2012  at  11:46 PM  



3. Hey ... that was truly an awesome photo of the bridge. Looked like it dropped off to nowhere.
   Don’t think I’d have liked to approach that thing. Scary.
   Almost reminded me of the climb in the Calif. mountains going from Palm Desert up to Idlewild. Scary narrow mountain road and drop offs.  We did it in Dec. one year and the coming down while cleared in most places was still a hold your breath experience as there were some ice patches here and there.

   Posted by peiper       08/15/2012  at  06:37 AM  



4. Going down Iron Bridge Road is a matter of standing on the brakes. Going up it is a matter of staying in second gear the whole way and praying the engine doesn’t overheat.

   Several roads nearby are just as steep. A mile to the south Tunnel Road is nearly vertical in places I swear. The highway (rt 78) goes up over Jugtown Mt, so all the big rigs coming in from PA try to get up to 90mph before the big hill so they’ll be lucky to be doing 45mph at the crest. And the highway is blasted deep into the rocks, being much less hill than the regular surface roads get. It’s steep around here!

   Lucky us though, the steep parts are fairly short. The highways don’t need those run-off zones, truck catchers or whatever they’re called, like on the Blue Ridge Parkway. I think the long slow grades are worse for big rigs than the short steep ones; I remember driving back east from Ashville, watching the trucks trailing brake smoke for miles, with their drums glowing red hot the whole way down the mountains.

   Scantily clad women? Oh, I think we can manage some of that. Mostly.

   Posted by Drew458       08/15/2012  at  08:26 AM  



5. 1) They should put one of those blue signs on the Graden State Parkwey where the then Gov. Jon Corzine was almost killed when his State owned SUV turned over.

   2) I’ve driven US Rte-40 from West of Ashville to Raleigh several times when I was living in the Tar Heel state. Did you see the truck run-offs of dirt on the East Bound side coming down out of the mountains?

   Basically they’re lanes of about 100 yards of very soft dirt which ends in a high dirt mound.

   The theory is, if a semi loses brakes they can swing into one of these run-offs and the soft ground will slow them and the dirt mound will act like a huge “air-bag”.

   That sure beats the brakeless truck from wiping out a dozen cars.

   I never saw one used, but having to use them must cause the truck driver to need a change of underware.

   Posted by New Jersey Yankee       08/15/2012  at  09:08 AM  

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