Will try for a vacation day for that friday, if not I may have to be cough cough Ill. 

I made mine today!
 

Thanks Beth!

I made a scouting run to Marietta yesterday to hit a bunch of the "unusual suspects" I haven't been on in while. It was a long day: 80 miles to Bellaire, 300 mile loop, 80 miles back home. My Bellaire loop was:

147 - read a rumor it is getting re-paved. No sign of anything. It's in good shape. Fun road.
9 - same as 147. Twisty, fun, good condition
148 - a bit more open than 147 and 9, parts were re-paved a couple years ago. The goodness continues
26 - rode it all the way to Marietta. 148-to-145 is in very good shape. Must do. The rest is generally in good shape.
Stopped in Marietta for lunch. Note to self: Tampico opens at 11:30 on Sat, not 11am.
676 - rumored re-paving not found. Still a great road.
555 - rode it south to the river, turned around then rode it all the way north to jct 78 (Ringhold). It's in good shape. North of Chesterhill seemed dirty/dusty. The last few miles before 78 are nuts :-)
78 - to Caldwell. Really nice sweepers with good views. A welcome break from the roller coaster but there are still plenty to curves.
564 - starts off straight-ish then gets decent.
145 north - mixed bag on pavement. The part north of 78 was pretty beat. Otherwise a decent road
800 north - short stretch of nice sweepers
148 east - did the rest of 148 to jct 26. More sweeping goodness.
CR-26  north to Belmont - bombed out goat path that was closed on the edge of town. Did a few miles of gravel to re-connect with my route. AVOID
149 - back to Bellaire. Too many little towns. It's just not that interesting. AVOID. Use 147 instead, even if it's a repeat.

So I'm thinking that perhaps the twistiest day ride loop out of Marietta would be::

26 north to 148
148 east to jct 145 (short)
145 to Beallsville
556 to river
7 south to 78 (short)
78 to jct 536 (just east of Woodsfield)
536 back to river
7 south to jct 255
255 to jct 800
800 north to jct 26 (short)
26 south (repeat for 10 miles) to jct 537
537 to jct 260
260 to New Matamoras / river
7 south to Archers Fork Rd
Archers Fork to jct 26.
26 back to Marietta (repeat).

If you really want to include 555 in the mix, do an out and back on 676 and the south half of 555.

In,


And in honor of this momentous occasion, I finally updated my profile.

I would like to request that someone (probably from the Columbus area) cobble up a day route that is a grand tour of the Hocking Hills area (west of Athens, bounded by 33 to the north and 50 to the south). I know there are bunch of nice roads out that way (374, 664, 278, parts of 56, etc). It will probably look a lot like an accordian with lots of north/south twisty bits with east/west connectors.

That area is just a bit too far away for me to explore on a day ride or I would have a go at it. Hopefully the best twisty roads are in good shape for 2014.

With all this talk about routes have you included "Big Musky" ?

I drew out Garry's route above in RideWithGPS—and agree, this is an epic route!  Click the link below to check it out (I tried embedding it, but either we can't do that here on STO...or their embed code doesn't work.)
http://ridewithgps.com/routes/5030388

Too short to be epic. Needs to have a short loop to the west added on that includes:

60 to the south end of 555 (slab, but short)
555 to 78 (Ringhold)
78 to 377
377 to 676
676 back to Marietta.

THEN hit the main loop north on 26.