Day 9 Recap

I'm going to tackle Karl's demise and the rise of the K1200RS in another post, so this will seem a little under dramatic.

We get up, relatively early, because we have an appointment to get tires put on Karl at 10:00, but I want to get there early. It's a 30-40 mile speed shot down I-90 to Max BMW Motorcycles in Troy, NY. I bought the tires a couple days before, and everything is ready and waiting. We get there at 9:30, which would be great, but I now know the full extent of Karls's issues (re: dead clutch). And it's not good. While I'm at the service counter trying to assess how badly life sucks, Eric spots a K1200RS he wants to take for a test ride. As he should. I've been trying to talk him into buying one of these for 4 years.

I decide it might be in my best interest to test ride some other bikes. '09 GS, '05 GS ,etc. I get Steve to start running numbers on bikes. Much agonizing and number crunching. Steve isn't exactly known for his sense of urgency, and I'm not certain about buying a new (to me) bike. There are all kinds of issues along the way. How to get down payment cash. How to deal with my insurance company that isn't open on the weekends. How to salvage what I can off of Karl. All in all, it's one of the most stressful days I can recall having, and certainly the most stressful day for me ever on a mototour. Texts are flying in wondering what I'm going to do. Encouraging phone calls are being fielded. Overstimulation and mental overload are the order for the day.

I felt bad for ECG. I tied him up all day at the dealership. I have no idea how he kept himself entertained/sane. But he did. He was awesome. Supportive. Excited when he should have been, and skeptical when called for. He was fantastic. And any time I brought it up, he just encouraged me to do what I needed to do, offered his assistance, and did his own thing when I was tied up.

We're at Max from 9:30 until 4:00. Our average speed is down to 15mph. I end up trading in Karl and buying the K12. We have to unpack the giant Jesse cases on my bike, and strap everything as best we can to Connie and the K12. It's a shitshow. We had considered bailing on the rest of the route in order to just get home, but I talk ECG into staying with the planned course and going over Mount Greylock in Massachusetts' Berkshires. I want to run the new bike through its paces. In practical application, it's a very aggressive road that goes from 700 ft to over 3000 feet in 4 miles. I'm so hesitant on the new bike that it becomes a totally nerve wracking ride.  Greylock has a cool history, though, and it's neat to see. We head from there over to the Taconic.

A couple stops to gas up and adjust all of the bags strapped on, and it's a fairly uneventful and easy 130 miles down to Hopewell Junction. We pull the K12 into the garage so we can go over it, celebrate our own homecoming with scotch and beers, and stay up way too late wondering just what I've gotten myself into.

Day 8 Recap

Woke up in Rutland which, from what we saw of it, was a dirty little industrial town (used to mine marble). We decided to pass on breakfast and just get out. I had to fix my tail/brake light, which has been acting up for a while. This was the third time, but it only took a few minutes.

The plan was to grab the first thing we saw for food. Of course it took ages. We were headed to the Adirondacks, the problem is that everything east/west there has to route through a pinch point between Lake George and Sacandaga Lake. And that means traffic. We rode totally boring roads stuck behind cars until just after Fort Ann. It was good to be out of Vermont, but the traffic was a killer. Road construction meant a detour south, but i didn't like the looks of it. So we stopped for a couple hot dogs and i sent some time with the maps.

We found NY 9L, which rides along lake George, and then dumps you into town. From there we strung together some roads that get increasingly nicer and decreasingly trafficked. We finally hit NY 28, which was great. We were behind ann SUV the whole time, but this guy was a baller, and he never held us up. We shot from 500 ft to 2000 feet in a few miles. It got colder, but then we hit our only real rain of the trip. It was only 5 minutes, but the temp was down to the low 60s at altitude, and we were freezing. We stopped off at a Stewarts to warm up and put on some layers.

From there we got on 30 south, through the lower Adirondacks. This road definitely gets top five status of all the roads we took this trip. Great condition, perfect for speed, no traffic, and beautiful. We spent a big chunk of time on it, but it felt like it went by so fast. We stopped for gas about half way through and ECG commented that it was more like flying than riding. He was dead on. If that road was 2500 miles long, i'd be happy to agree to doing an entire mototour on it alone.

We went from there to NY 10. This was much twister, and i was thrilled to get the chance to run Karl through some real twisty stuff. I wish i had known it would be my last chance to do it. I played it pretty conservatively, but would have really wrung it out if i knew.

From there we followed some recommended roads hat turned out to be total crap. We were about 25 miles from our destination (Amsterdam, NY) and decided to bail out and do a speed run down I-90 to finish off the day.

The wind had been picking up all day, and by the time we hit 90, it was awful. We were getting blown everywhere. It was more a matter of trying to hang on and keep things pointed straight than it was about enjoying the ride. We finally got to our exit, and i had to pull over on the off ramp because my shifter was jammed. Our nerves were so frazzled from getting blown all over the place that ECG forgot to put his kickstand down and dropped Connie. I've done that before, myself. Twice. We looked things over, and finished getting off the throughway, and started looking for our hotel.

I took a guess, and decided to try 30 north. 5 miles of crawling bumper to bumper traffic later and i realized we needed to be on 30 south. But these weren't any normal 5 miles. Amsterdam, NY is a shit hole. Carpet factories are the only reason it exists, but it looks like it does a healthy side business in crime and seediness. It was a totally unpleasant town. Probably one of the worst any of the 4 mototours has hit.

We finally get to the hotel, which we realize was right at the base of the interstate off-ramp (if only we had bothered to look left). It's miles from anything, directly next to the interstate, dirty, ugly, and the only people staying there are the Suzuki Owners Group, who are a nice group of people of the kind i never like to hang out with. Our hatred of this hotel is palpable. The lack of food, drinks, amenities is obvious. And we hit a 4pm, so we have a lot of time to kill in this nightmare.

We take a restaurant recommendation from the desk clerk (Olympia Diner: bad idea) and it's supposed to be close (1 mile). We go the mile, and it's not there. We followed the clerk's directions and we're on the spot google maps says, and no restaurant. So we start heading north looking for anything else. 4 miles later,we spot the place. We stop. It's awful. We realize we didn't lock up the room and get it to go. ECG waits for the carryout. I head down to check the room, and stock up on beer at the gas station.

We eat in the room. And drink beers. And finally decide  to head outside to the hotel's only amenity. The picnic table. The room is awful, so it's nice to be outside. But outside it's I-90, the school bus maintenance facility, the parking lot and mosquitos.

We played spades, listed to 70's brown rock, cursed the hotel, cursed Amsterdam and drank vodka and beer until we were drunk enough to be able to stand heading back into the room.

Seriously, that place was awful.

The only other note is that the magnets in my. Tank bag finally fried my EZ-pass. I'm blowing through all the tolls unpaid. We'll see how well their system works for recognizing vehicles that are in the system but don't register at the toll booth.

Day 7 Recap

Woke up late and were moving slow after a night at J's Corner in Gorham, NH. After dragging for a while, we managed to be the last people to check out, and barely made checkout time. From there it was a half mile down to the gas station, where we proceeded to kill another 40 minutes gassing and rehydrating and talking.

From there it was 8 miles to Mount Washington. I had entertained the idea of heading up, taking the motorbikes up the fabled treacherous road. But once we got close and saw that the top of the mountain was wrapped up in black storm clouds, I decided to pass on that, so we kept rolling.

I was in a funk all morning, and couldn't get my head into the ride for a while.  We took a different route across the white mountains, which wasn't nearly as good as the route we took 2 years ago. There were a couple stops along the way. One 30 minute stop to discuss a business venture led to a treacherous bathroom trip into the brush. No snakes, but some steep slopes.

We wound our way over to Vermont 102 after winding in kinda lost but generally ok circles. I liked the road a good bit, ECG was less enthused, but it turned out to be one of the most interesting little runs. About halfway in, we rounded a turn and came a cross a dead turkey, sprawled across our lane. The thing was recently killed (all of its feathers in place and ruffling in the breeze), and took up almost all of the lane. It was huge. ECG and i both managed to miss it, but i still wonder how that thing got there. In all of my years, including 17 on bikes, I've never seen a roadkill turkey. They just aren't "getting killed on the road" animals. My guess would be that a hunter had recently shot it and it fell off of his truck. But I don't think it was anywhere near turkey season. So it remains a mystery.

The other eventful thing about the road was that we saw our first real cop of the trip. We had gone days without seeing anything. No speed traps, no cruisers, no nothing. We got behind an Essex County sheriff's cruiser for a few miles. After a bit he turned off on some obscure road to some park. We thought nothing of it. Turns out he knew a shortcut, and was getting out ahead of us and looping back on us. 10 miles or so later, he came at us in the other lane. I was out in front and was doing 60 or so in a 50. He hit the rollers and i thought i was getting my first ticket. He just wagged his finger and made a sloe down notion, and kept on going. A rolling warning.

At the end of that road we hit Brunswick we made a pit stop to get our bearings, hit the head and drink a little gatorade. There was a Suzuki Boulevard there that we didn't even bother looking at. Turns out it belonged to Mike Cyr. I did a "people we like"post on him, so i won't go into detail. I will say that even though we were so far behind the day, and not nearly as far as we wanted to be, we were happy to spend an hour talking with him in the parking lot. Great guy, Mike Cyr.

From there we tried a couple more recommended roads, that turned out to be traffic clogged messes that wouldn't have been that great if there were no cars around. And then we hit the school buses. There were three of them, traveling in formation. Too tight to pass one at a time, but taking up too much length to pass them all at once. Moving slow enough to infuriate. And of course the road got tons more interesting after we got stuck behind them. ECG was in the number one spot, and was looking for a chance to pass at every passing zone and around every turn. After 15-20 miles, I figured out that we were 10 miles from a spilt where we could take whichever branch they didn't. That eased things a bit, but it was still painful. Inevitably, they turned off right before we came to the split where we could have lost them.

Some more misguided maneuvering and finally we hit VT 100 south. 100 is a pretty well known road in VT. It runs the entire state north to south, and goes through Stowe, has the Ben & Jerry HQ/factory and hits a bunch of other stuff you'd recognize. But it was awful. Traffic was thick, and all of the towns it rolled through were clogged messes. If you're in DC, it's like when you're rolling down the GW parkway and hit old town. Moving, moving, moving, stop lights, traffic, not moving, traffic, slow, traffic, stoplights, and then it opens up again. We were stuck behind a blue Chevy Impala for ages (VT tags: ELF 400). The impala driver was willing to tear up the road, but kept getting stuck behind other slower cars, and we were behind her. ECG did ages behind her, and we swapped positions, and i got to stare at the thing for forever. We were both sick of looking at that thing.

We made it as far south as Stowe, and then pulled off at a gas station to reassess. A couple gatorades, smokes and some map reviewing later, weT met a nice couple who were riding bicycles from Montreal to Boston. Super-nice, friendly people. The girl was riding this crazy folding bike that had a case which doubled as a trailer to tow. I would be leery of riding that thing down to the grocery store. We were amazed at what she was doing with it.

We decided to bail out of 100, and hit I-89 south. 89 is an incredibly gorgeous interstate. And not just by interstate standards. It's a joy to ride. We did 30-40 miles in what felt like 10 minutes (acclimated to road time) and saw maybe 5 cars the whole time. One was a VT state trooper I spotted about a mile behind us (straight roads with big rolling hills), and slowed down in plenty of time. We weren't even moving fast enough to bother pulling over, but ECG caught my cue from up ahead and adjusted his speed to "prudent" as well.

The hop from 89 over to Rutland was nice. Deserted little back roads in fine repair. The only battle was racing sunset with our tinted visors on. We were trying to figure out if we could power through and make it to rutland before it got too dark, or if we should take the time to switch out the gear.

Red Roof Inn for the night. It was surprisingly nice, even with the shirtless rednecks drinking beers in the parking lot. The only restaurant around was a Ponderosa. I won't go into the horrors of the ponderosa here. Rest assured it was a total nightmare. It's as if they are trying to drive the brand into the ground.

Picked up some beer at the Hannaford to take back to the room, grabbed a martini at 99 Horseshoes, and headed back to the RRInn. A little maintenance on the broken wire to my PIAA lights that caused them to go out. And then back to the room. Rain hit heavy that night, but the red roof turned out to be a tin roof, and the rain sounded great all night. Looking back, i think that hotel was the most unmolested of all the ones we stayed in come morning.

On a side note, Google maps are a mess. The distance calculations aren't even close. We've seen distances off by major amounts. Google says 300, turns out to be 350. Google says 275, turns out to be 225. Totally unreliable. We have to triple check against other mapping apps. Everybody else nails it. Google never does.

Day 10 Stats - Finals

Hopewell Junction, NY to Washington, DC

Day 10	RP	EG
Time out on bikes	7h10m	--
Moving time	5h46m	--
Miles (GPS)	295	--
Miles (Odometer)	--	90ish?
Overall average speed	41.1	--
Moving average speed	51.1	--
Max Speed	86.6	--
Totals
Time out on bikes	75h33m	61h51m+
Moving time	43h51m	32h12m+
Miles (GPS)	2536	--
Miles (Odometer)	--	2077
Guaranteed miles (GPS)	--	--

Day 9 Stats

Amsterdam, NY to Hopewell Junction, NY

Day 9	RP	EG
Time out on bikes	12h23m	12h23m
Moving time	4h09m	4h17m
Miles (GPS)	201	201
Miles (Odometer)	--	--
Overall average speed	16.2	16.3
Moving average speed	48.4	47
Max Speed	84.4	83.0
Motorcycles Purchased	1	0
Totals
Time out on bikes	68h23m	61h51m
Moving time	38h05m	32h12m
Miles (GPS)	2241	1945
Miles (Odometer)	--	--
Guaranteed miles (GPS)	2551	1945

Connie and Karl, Hanging Out

People We Like: Mike Cyr

Mike Cyr. A remarkable guy. We came across Mike at a gas/food stop in Bloomfield, Vermont. We were late to start the day, ambitious about how far we needed to get. And yet we still spent over an hour talking with him.

Mike's a true renaissance guy. He's a retired history professor, originally from Fort Kent, ME. designed and is building his own house. He's a motorcycle tourer extraordinaire. His son is a conductor and musician. His wife is in education administration. 

We got more from this guy than you can get from most people in a month. 

He was on a Suzuki (that he hated) but has toured almost all of Eastern Canada on Goldwings. The islands, the ferrys, the long hauls and the local roads. He was just out wandering. He had a map with him, but it was from eastern Canada and had nothing to do with where he was. 

He talked a mile a minute, and everything you said launched him into another story. Sometimes this happens and you can't wait to end the conversation. But with Mike, it was pure gold. Every story, every word.

Day 8 Stats

Rutland, VT to Amsterdam, NY

Day 8	RP	EG
Time out on bikes	6h30m	6h30m
Moving time	4h34m	4h34m
Miles (GPS)	222	222
Miles (Odometer)	234	--
Overall average speed	34.1	34.1
Moving average speed	48.6	48.6
Max Speed	80.5	86.5
Totals
Time out on bikes	56h00m	49h28m
Moving time	33h56m	27h55m
Miles (GPS)	2040	1744
Miles (Odometer)	2147	--
Guaranteed miles (GPS)	2434	1860

Day 7 Stats

Fort Gorham, NH to Rutland, VT

Day 7	RP	EG
Time out on bikes	8h42m	8h42m
Moving time	5h35m	5h35m
Miles (GPS)	277	277
Miles (Odometer)	291	--
Overall average speed	31.7	30.9
Moving average speed	49.5	49.5
Max Speed	410*	83.4
Totals
Time out on bikes	49h30m	42h52m
Moving time	29h22m	23h21m
Miles (GPS)	1818	1522
Miles (Odometer)	1913	--
Guaranteed miles (GPS)	2274	1690

* GPS read error