Guided by a symphony of commands, the tires of my V-Strom 650 carve graceful arcs along the ribbon of pavement draped at the base of a rock wall. A different type of carving, to be sure, than that of Yellow Creek, whose efforts helped form nearby Cumberland Gap. At the moment, however, I could care less about semantics.

It's now late September, temperatures have moderated to the low 70s, and traffic is scarce on the Ohio River Scenic Byway. I'm back in Maysville, KY, on my Honda ST1300, with riding buddy Steve Mauk straddling his Suzuki V-Strom 650. We're both saddled up and rarin' to finish my expedition up the Ohio River to its headwaters in Pittsburgh.

Our time on the Ohio River Scenic Byway is a journey that starts at river's end and flows almost a thousand miles upstream to its beginning, passing through an ever-changing landscape of people, history, scenery, and events.

I've grown "comfortable" with the wiggle pulsing through the big Bandit's bars as I transition from the banked front stretch on to the flat of the track apron. I tickle the front brake lever to scrub off some miles per hour that a mere second ago were probably surging past 130 or more. That's just a guess though. I taped over the speedo so I wouldn't even be tempted to look.

The wondrous back roads of Eastern Kentucky unravel in crazy-quilt complexity. Hewn from time-scarred mountains and rising and falling along creek bottoms and ancient hunting trails, they wriggle in madcap fashion through boundless forests and hidden hollows. To a motorcyclist, it's country like this that represents the finest form of intoxication there is.