You get the strangest looks
when you pull up to the drive-thru on a motorcycle.
Hey, it’s a motorized vehicle, ain’t it?
when you pull up to the drive-thru on a motorcycle.
Hey, it’s a motorized vehicle, ain’t it?
Saturday, January 6, 2007. New England Motorcycle Show at the Expo Center. Got to see the bikes from an upcoming Biker Build-Off. It’s incredible to see these machines up-close and personal. When we left the show at noon or thereabouts, it was 70 degrees. Let that sink in. Seventy degrees, at the 43rd parallel. In January.
So we did the only thing that we could. We hopped on our bikes and headed for the shore. We weren’t the only ones with that idea.
Lenny and Joe’s, on the patio. In January. And other motorcycles rolling by. There were hundreds of bikes out.
If this is what global warming means, bring it on!
Pictures when I get them developed. Yes. Film. Up yours.
How does rain make a bike dirty? I mean, seriously. The paint, it has spots. The saddlebags are hazy. The chrome, it is gray. The bike, it is sad.
If I didn’t have so damn much work to do, I’d spend the next 8 hours cleaning it. It deserves that much.
Monday. St. John to Portland - the longest leg of our trip. This time, it rained for about half of it. On the good side, the rain gear worked as advertised. But the rain seems to take even more out of you than the wind. Just tiring.
In any event, we’re here, and we’re alive.
and Rachel foolishly challenged us to the 80’s edition of Trivial Pursuit. The game is half done. She’s not winning. Some folks never learn.
Yeah, it was a good week. Internet? We don’t need no stinkin’ Internet! Hell, cell phone was spotty at the house.
Which was beautiful. I want it. One of these years, I’ll post pictures.
Saturday - travelling to the Canada. There was wind, rain, cold, hot. finding the Hilton in St. John in the dark was interesting. Oh, and the ride from Portland to St. John? Not recommended. That’s a lot of miles to cover in one day.
Sunday - Confederation Bridge. 9 miles of bridge across the Northumberland Strait. Interesting, that. You can see the island when you get on the bridge. but on either side? Nothing but wet.
Tuesday - drove to Charlottetown to wander about and see ODP (with genuine Harp). Off to Peake’s Wharf to wander before the show. Rachel was introduced to the wonder that is Cow’s.
Wednesday - back to Charlottetown. Gordon Belsher was performing. He was joined by his lovely daughter Savannah (what a voice), and Todd MacLean on sax. Completely different fare than I was expecting, which was wonderful.
On Thursday, Joe and I rode pretty much all the way across P.E.I. and back. That is one windy island, I’ll tell ya. 300 miles round trip, fighting to keep the bike going where it was aimed.
Friday - East Point Lighthouse. Harry lives next door - he’s the last remaining lighthouse keeper. After him, there will be no more. Now, they just have young people tending them as they are really nothing more than tourist attractions and historical footnotes. Still worth a visit, if for no other reason than to see how we got here in the first place.
Saturday - winding down, packing, cleaning. Gotta be out by 10 on Sunday. Rachel challenged Joe and I to a game of Trivial Pursuit. She lost twice. I am the master of useless information!
Sunday - Departure. One last lunch at Peake’s Wharf, and a final visit to Cow’s before going over that bridge again.
Bristol to Portland.
Because I am perpetually late, we got underway at about 10:30 (instead of the 9 we were aiming for). Made it into Westfield around 12:30 and stopped for lunch. We decided to take the Mass Pike to 495 instead of follwing 10/202 all the way through New Hampshire.
Pulled in to Portland at about the planned time (6ish). Overall not bad. Frequent breaks are a must though, since we went pretty much solid from Westfield all the way to Portsmouth (about 150 miles, all highway). My butt was not amused.
But I don’t think I’m too terribly interested in travelling on highways any more. People are either stupid, blind, or deliberately inconsiderate. I cannot count the number of times that cars cut in between the bikes for no good reason (I’m not going to fault someone for merging, but if you’re in the middle lane, and there’s nobody in front of you, and no exits in sight, let me have my zarking lane, OK?
Oh, and another thing. If you’re going to change lanes in front of a motorcycle, could you consider staying a bit more than two feet off our front tire? We’re kinda exposed out there, and the last thing we need to see is your bumper where the road used to be.
And I cannot stress how important this is: do not tailgate a motorcycle. If we have to make a sudden move or a sudden stop, we can do so in a far shorter distance than you can. In which case you’re going to hit us, and that’s not going to be pretty. I’ll let you try to explain to my mother why there’s little bits of me embedded in your grille, because you were in too much of a hurry to actually DRIVE NICE.
There’s at least one reason to love the Northeast. There are so many roads that are absolutely great for riding. Left at around 10 on Sunday morning (late, as usual because of me.)
Headed North through the northwest hills, the Berkshires (in MA), and the southernmost portion of the Green Mountains. The view from a motorcycle is quite different than from a car - you see EVERYTHING. I can tell you, those mountains are GREEN! Just an amazing wall of green.
Lunch in Bennington at a little diner. Good clam strips. Gassed up and headed west on Route 9.
VT 9 is a great ride. Twisty, generous hills, not a whole lot of traffic (but good passing zones for when you get a twit that insists on going too slow). Stopped at the lookout point. More bikes than cars there. It was a perfect day for riding, so there’s no surprise there. Onward to Brattleboro.
Brattleboro - hippies and construction. We walked around for a bit, decided to hit the road a little early. Route 5 South. Joe’s GPS kept insisting that we needed to take I-91. We saw signs for 5, and folllowed those. Never did touch 91. Lesson: don’t always trust the computer. In Mass, Route 5 and MA 10 run together for a while, then split off. MA 10 runs with 202 until you get to Connecticut, and then you run right into CT 10. Took 10 all the way back into Bristol.
Round trip, about 260 miles. Averaged 58 mpg.
Do that in your Prius.
I made my first real journey on the interstate highway system. I’d made a few experimental rides, just to get used to the handling at speed.
I was going home from a friends house on Sunday night (Monday morning, really), and I didn’t feel like navigating back roads in the dark. So I took I-95, I-91, and 9 to get home from West Haven.
Not bad, really. The bike handles well at speeds up to 80 mph (which I got to entirely unintentionally, by the way). The grooved pavement on the concrete sections of route 9 make the bike dance around at anything much over 55 or so, so I went considerably slower than I would in the car.
A standard leather jacket, in a word, sucks. The cuffs of the jacket kept popping out of the gauntlets on the gloves, causing a cold wind to blow up my sleeves. The zipper is entirely useless at keeping cold air out, as it has no flap covering it.
I had to pull off the highway several times to adjust equipment. At least I learned how to deal with rumble strips (answer: glide over them without actually turning - no problem).
A standard backpack is problematic at speed, the air gets underneath it and messes with your aerodynamics, and makes you feel like you are about to get yanked off the bike. I’ll be looking for a pack that has a waist strap to go along with the standard shoulder straps.
And I now know why serious long-distance riders wear leather chaps. Having the cold (65 or so degrees) air hitting your legs at 60-80 mph makes your legs seriously cold. The fronts of my legs were so cold that I had to wear my sweatpants to bed to warm the legs back up. It seems that tucking my legs up against the motor only helped to take the edge off.
I can say that I am no longer afraid of travelling on a highway, but it is still not my preferred method of travel on the bike.