Damn Yankees

I am a member of the Yankee Beemers Motorcycle Club (http://www.yankeebeemers.org/) and last weekend was the 25th anniversary of the Damn Yankees Rally in Heath MA. Heath is a tiny little town in the northwest corner of MA and it has some of the best riding in New England. It is an easy launch point to the great roads in western Mass, southern VT, southern NH, and NY. This is one of those gather, ride, and hang out kind of rallies. Camping is very popular in the BMW motorcycle culture. The rally was held at the Heath fairgrounds so it was easy for everyone to pitch their tents and camp out for the weekend. There was a record attendance of over 300 people there. I spent last Saturday there, but did not spend the night. I woke up at 3:30 in the morning on Saturday and left the house at 4:00 to get there by 6:30 for the morning cup of coffee and BS session about the hijinks from the night before. I spent a few hours chatting with everyone then I set out on a nice 300 mile solo ride around the area. I did 8a in Mass before jumping on 112 and 100 in VT for a little while. Dipped back into Mass and then into NY for an hour or so before riding back into Mass and returning to the Rally site. I rode to the top of Mt. Greylock and Mt. Sugarloaf. That was the first time for me and getting up there was some fun riding. I was back at the Rally by 4:00 in the afternoon. Just in time for the start of the Scottish Trials and Free Trials. The Scottish Trials is a course with a set of obstacles to overcome. It is a challenge of your maneuverability skills and usually includes a jump of some kind. Mostly dirt bike types will do this stuff, but I saw one Suzuki SV650 sport bike do a decent job, but did not crack the top three riders. One guy hit the jump too hard and smashed into the port-o-potty. He was fine and finished the course. The Free Trials are open to pretty much anyone. They have a slow race (last place wins), a two-up challenge to throw cans into a garbage can, a kick the doll challenge where you ride by this doll and kick it as far as you can, and a few other odd challenges. It was fun to watch, but I didn't try any of them. The RT is just too heavy for me to do any of that stuff. They had a charity group provide the catering for the Rally and they made an awesome barbeque chicken and corn on the cob. I ate and made the trek back. All in all a great day of riding.

92 and Rising

We spent the day Saturday in Provincetown MA aka P-Town. Provincetown is on the very tip of Cape Cod. We took the ferry there from Boston on Saturday morning and planned to spend the day walking around the little town, do some people watching, take some pictures, have lunch, and then take the late afternoon ferry back to Boston. The ferry is about 90 minutes. If we were to drive there it would have taken at least three hours so the ferry was a much better way to go. We had a nice day. On Sunday, I went to the Yankee Beemers monthly breakfast meeting in Southbridge MA. The Yankee Beemers is a motorcycle club with primarily BMW owners as members, but there are a few Triumph, Ducati, and other bike brand riders as well. My friends Marc and Valerie are members as well so we met along the Mass Pike and went down there together. After the meeting we hit the road for a ride around CT and RI. The temperature hit 92 around 3:00. We only did about 200 miles that day. It was mostly a social riding day. It was too hot to do anything else on Sunday. Les and I had an early dinner and went to Arlington MA for ice cream and then called it a night.

Vermont in the Heat

It hit the low 90's last weekend and I decided to go for a ride in full gear. Crazy? Maybe, but I always look at extreme weather as a rider training opportunity. It's good to ride in different kinds of weather to improve skills and push yourself to see what you are capable of. Many riders do not like to ride in the rain, but I love it. The harder the rain the better. I once rode four hours up Vermont in heavy pouring rain to a rally and I discovered that I really like riding in the rain. So, last Saturday morning I met Marc and Valerie at one of our meeting places along US 2. They beat me there which is not the norm. When I got there, Marc was topping off his tank and we chatted for a bit. The first thing he said to me was "are we really doing this?" It was 7:00 am and kind of cool outside, but we all knew it was going to be a scorcher. We booked up to Vermont through some very nice roads in New York while the weather was decent. Our routine has been to basically ride north until lunch time, park it for lunch, and then head back south on a different route to get home. The whole time I chase Marc's blue K-rocket beemer (see picture). That's basically what we did on Saturday and I didn't really feel the heat until around 3:00. We did the hills and curves along VT 9 on the way back and that is one of my favorite roads in VT. Very smooth, but traffic held me back a bit. We ended the day in Chelsea where we met Les for a nice dinner at Ecco in East Boston.

The Catskills

My friend Marc and I met along the Mass Pike at 7:30 Saturday morning for an adventure in the Catskills. I knew it was going to be a long day. It was 4th of July weekend and it was going to be hot. I was, of course, in full Aerostich gear. I had my long LD comfort undergear along with a nice wicking shirt so I stayed relatively cool until the end of the day when it got really hot. I probably drank about half a gallon of water and only had to go to the bathroom once so that gives you an idea of how warm it was in all the gear. Anyway, the ride started out very nice with some great roads through MA and CT heading to NY, but slowly the traffic started to increase. Marc warned me that there was no easy way to get to where we were going. We hit a lot of lights and traffic heading to 23a in NY. Once we got there though, the road was as advertised. 23a is one of the best motorcycle roads I've been on. It wasn't as nice as the White Forest in NH, but it was pretty nice. We buzzed uphill most of the way on 23a and then had lunch at a place called Maggie's Krooked Cafe in Tannersville NY. Marc was really bragging-up this place. I guess he's been there a number of times, but I thought it was just alright. The location was perfect though. It is right on top of the 23a mountain. We hung out there for about an hour before hitting the road back home. We decided to take a different way home through part of VT. It started to get incredibly hot once we dipped into western MA around 5:00 in the afternoon. We took Hwy 2 in western MA which is basically the Mohawk Trail the whole way. It was a nice ride with no traffic. I've been along the Mohawk Trail before, but I always hit traffic so it was nice to really book through there without traffic. It was shady most of the way until we exited the Trail and got on the straight route back to Boston along Hwy 2 and baked in the sun the whole way home. I got home around 8:00 pm so it was a little over 12 hours and about 550 miles on the clock. A nice bit of riding. I am planning to take the RT to Second Wind BMW this Saturday for some much needed mid-season maintenance.

Italy 2010 Part 2

I'm back from Italy. Not much more to add to my Part 1 post. I was glad I rented the GS bike while I was there. I am planning on buying a new motorcycle in a couple years and heard a lot of great things about the GS so I wanted to try one and put it through the ringer. I put on about 1500 miles during the week. I rode in a bunch of different conditions. I spent a day riding around the twisty hills of Tuscany, Umbria, and Marche. I rode 300 miles of slab in the rain to Venice. I spent a day riding around urban traffic in Rome. The bike performed well in all conditions, but it just doesn't have the same comforts I am used to with the RT model. I do a lot of long distance riding and the GS doesn't have the wind protection the RT has so you get fatigued a lot faster on the GS. I found myself laying on the tank bag and crouching to stay out of the wind stream on the autostrada. I got tired after a 300 mile day and that normally doesn't happen to me. I think I will stick with the RT when the time comes for a new bike. I stopped at the Ducati World Headquarters in Bologna on my way up to Venice. I spent a couple hours walking around the museum and parts of the factory. I was surprised of the lack of security at the place. I just walked around and no one said anything to me. I even ate lunch in their cafeteria. A crowd of people gathered around my BMW in the parking lot and they were all looking over the bike. The parking lot was filled with Ducati bikes so I suppose a BMW is a novelty to them. I talked to one of the guys in the parking lot who designs parts and I asked him why I was able to walk around so freely and he told me that once you are through the gates, you can pretty much do whatever you want. Not sure about that. Anyway, I spent a few hours there and then made my way up to Veneto to visit with friends for a couple days. I spent a day riding around Rome on Friday which was a lot of fun. I was surprised how easily I was able to get around. I had the best meal of the week at a little place next door to the one-star hotel I was staying in near the train station. I took the train to the airport and that was it. I would like to live over there again one of these days, but I'll settle for the occasional trip to the timeshare.

Italy 2010 Part 1

I am in Italy this week. Les and I purchased a timeshare in Tuscany back when we lived in Naples. The website for the timeshare is: http://www.borgodivagli.com/. Back in 2002, this place was a pile of rocks in the Tuscan hillside with a goat path leading to it. It is very remote. Les and I came here and saw the potential of what it would look like when it was complete so we purchased a week/year for the next 50 years. I have travelled throughout Italy and most of Europe and this is the most beautiful, serene, calm place I have ever seen. Unfortunately, we don't get here every year due to work and scheduling and a bunch of other excuses. We have given the week as gifts to friends and they have all had the opportunity to enjoy it as well. Last summer, I decided I would come here and booked the trip a long time ago. I decided to rent a bike while I am here this time. I rented a brand new 2010 BMW R1200GS (in the picture). I rented the bike in Rome and rode up here yesterday. It is a different experience riding a bike around the hills of Tuscany and Umbria. The plan for the week is to relax today, hit the roads around here tomorrow, ride up to Venice and Vicenza to visit friends on Tuesday, return to the Borgo on Thursday, spend the day riding around Rome on Friday, and fly back on Saturday. That's it.

2010 Minuteman Rally Report Part 3

I took my rest bonus at a truck stop somewhere in VT. It was a productive rest bonus because I got 5,000 points for the rest; the truck stop sold VT-made syrup so I got 3,000 points for purchasing the syrup there, plus I filled the tank. All in all I thought I was in pretty good shape even though the last couple bonuses were a bust. At 1:15 am, I moved out into the darkness and found the next bonus location (an auction site) within about 30 minutes. I was ready to begin my routine. I got off the bike, went to get the flag and rally book to bag the bonus when it hit me. Pow—no flag! I thought for a moment and realized I likely left it at the last bonus location. Shit! I just started to laugh and say out loud “rally over.” All I could do was laugh. I got my head straight and realized I still had four hours until the rally was actually over which gave me time to go back, get my flag, and maybe bag one or two more bonuses. It was a long haul back to the flag; about 75 miles on the slab and then 75 miles back to where I started. The picture in this post is where my flag was parked for about four hours. During that time on the slab I was doing all sorts of calculations on the GPS to figure the best route back to the bonuses and rally headquarters. I quickly figured that I only had about an hour to bag as many points as possible so I only went to the two with the highest value that were left on my list. I hit a 750 pointer which I was so happy about; then the sun started to come up and I knew I needed to book. I made one more stop in Brattleboro VT, but could not find the bonus so the last third of the rally was basically a bust with only 750 points nailed to my rally book. I quickly filled the tank near Brattleboro and hauled ass back to the barn in Northampton. I checked-in at 5:51 am. I had nine minutes to spare. I spent those nine minutes thinking I should have spent nine more minutes searching for that stupid bonus in Brattleboro. Anyway, the line at the scoring table was long so I gathered my stuff and found a dark corner of the hotel and crashed for about an hour. When I got up, the line at the scoring table was longer so I just wandered around the hotel and talked to the folks and started to hear about the top scorers. I had calculated 24,000 points and was hearing numbers like 30,000 for the top finishers so I thought I would be in the middle of the pack somewhere. My friend Paul Saucy and I were the last two to get scored. Paul ended up with 27,175 points. He only went 891 miles so that was a very efficient ride for him. It was his first rally as well. He ended up in 5th place. At the scoring table, I argued a bit with the Rallymaster regarding one of the bonuses, but I lost the argument and didn’t push it. Paul was next to me at the table and just said “it’s 50 points dude, forget it, he’s the Rallymaster.” I took his advice. Paul ended up losing 350 points at the table so I guess I couldn’t complain too much. Brunch was then served around 11:00 and we all ate and waited for the results. The Rallymaster announced the top 10 finishers and I wasn’t in the announcement, but I knew I must have been close because 10th place had 24,124 points. It was Adam Peirce who was riding on a KTM bike and only went 721 miles. Very efficient. I went a total of 1,078 miles for 24,045 points. I would have been under 1,000 miles if I didn’t go back for my flag. I ended up heading for home around 12:00. I was probably the first one out of the parking lot after the ceremony; I just wanted to get home and take a nap. I was very happy with my results for my first rally, but still a little pissed that I did not break into the top 10. Fast forward two days and the results get posted on the Minuteman website: http://www.minutman1000.com/. Guess who’s in the top 10? Oh, hell yes—Me! There was a tie for 4th place so everyone moved up one from there. I must have been in 11th because my name is now in the top 10, misspelled, but in the top 10 nonetheless. I was pumped when I saw that. Even with all the mistakes, I still cracked the top 10. If I rode my plan perfectly, I would have been in 6th, right behind my buddy Paul. It was a good rally and I am looking forward to the next.