Fear is our ally. The gasoline will be ours. Then you shall have your revenge.
the nano-rally 2k7 took place.
chris is making us t-shirts that read :
"i saw exactly one other person at the 2k7 merriden ct-peakskill ny nano-rally"
okay, he isn't, but he should be. i know he knows how. i also know my body was sore as a fuck after my ride up to connecticut.
the plan was simple. i had a sunday off, and my friend chris in connecticut, interstatement here, recently purchased a 1982 bmw cycle. we had planned to ride almost two months ago, but, like many things bought used, his bike needed repairs, and older german bikes are not the easiest things to find parts for, and if you plan to bargain shop for them, forget it. be happy they still exist anywhere.
in any event, parts delays killed chris' inner child just a little more for longer than he expected, and with his bike finally back, he was in the mood to take it out and tear up some road. the plan was this...i leave work saturday night, trek to connecticut, crash at my friends jackie and mike's place, chris rides there in the am, he and i head into new york state, and we part around 8 or 9 pm, somewhere equidistant from home for both of us.
i had nothing to contribute in terms of our route--i actually feel bad that i didn't do more to prepare for where we could ride. my week kind of rushed past me, i worked a real lot, and before i knew it, i was packing for both work and a cycle trip.
in my haste to pack, i forgot to bring something very important to work; each week, we submit a tip report. people got lazy about submitting them, so the new rule is, if its not in by sunday, you loose shifts, or get worse ones, and then get fired.
tip reports are done monday morning, so, technically, monday morning submission should be okay. this isn;t an office where everyone works the same hours. but no, sunday night. period. i ask, even, having never been late or inaccurate with a tip report, if i can submit it on monday.
no.
a clock begins to countdown--24 hours till 11pm sunday. there should not have been any "countdown clocks". but it didn't ruin my weekend.
first of all, the weather was weird that saturday, if you remember; it was humid, foggy as hell, and went from being very warm, the high 80's, to cool, the 60's, and still fog thick humid, and occasionally raining. not the ideal way to ride up to ct on roads you've never taken.
the problem with fog is twofold; first, it categorically affects visibility, secondly, it wets your clothing. wet clothing is a magnet for cold, especially at high speeds. and as far as visibility, it #1 fogs your goggles, #2 limits visibility, #3 headlights, especially high beams, become utterly blinding, all while your visibility was already limited and your goggles were covered with fog.
it was cold, and it was brutal. it rained a few times, and i admit, my nose ran, at some points for as long as a half an hour before wiping could begin. instead of going 55 like i wish i could, 45 felt like a safer speed. upstate and ct are country highways, or at least, that's what i chose, not expecting fog to affect my visibility. country highways are lit up like ours are in nj and nyc. they are dark as hell. so visibility at night is critical. this limited my speed even more.
work ended at 11:30 pm, earlier than expected. i got on my bike, already full of fuel, and took the lincoln tunnel into nyc, got on the west side highway and went north, to 9w. it rained the whole fucking time i was on 9w.
there was traffic, and this added time also. traffic also makes you more tired, more quickly. i had worked physically all night, and still had two hours or ride ahead of me. but anyway, i made it up 9w, and found the highway chris told me to take to catch the merit parkway. barely. it was a very non-descript sign, it was nothing more mentally rigorous than a coin flip in my head that made me pull over before an exit to recheck my directions.
but it all worked. no wrong turns. just took a lot longer, was a lot colder and wetter and slower, trecherous, and less fun than expected. but i got through it and hit jackie and mike's. mike had a friend over, and even thought it was 3 am, we drank beer and threw some darts. we called it quits at about 6 am. i didn;t sleep much, but i manged to wake up and call chris at like 11 am to tell him to head on over.
we went to a diner for breakfast and planned our route. although my bike has more torque, and is a 2006, it also weighs six hundred pounds, and has less horsepower than chris; bike, which is at least 200 pounds less, and has about ten more hp...on bikes, these differences, which would mean little in cars, mean a lot. chris weighs about what i do, although i am the much skinnier of the two. he should be back to much heavier weight, like 160 or so, in a few months. again, these little things matter in terms of the routes we choose...my brakes are hella better, his top speed must be 30 or 40 miles higher than mine...we got straight on riding styles, what we both find stopworthy, ect...what we really wanted to do was ride, so this was fun and easy.
its hard to say no when the bike makes any road fun, especially with another rider.
i got eggs overlight, french fries, whole wheat toast, and candian bacon. i was fucking hungry--my ride up took energy. i only had booze at jackie's, an i waited till around 1pm for lunch so i could have it with chris. i could have eaten more.
i averaged 60 miles per gallon, which is superb for my bike; i'm planning some performance upgrades which will cut my mileage down, and this tells me my mpg will still be acceptable.
ny state, beware.
chris' bmw :
my ride :
sorry we didn't take more pictures. we were too busy riding.
perhaps partly in tribute to "the facts of life", we ended our cycle ride toegther in peakskill, ny. remebering that there was my countdown to 11:30pm to submit my tip report, which was home, not even on me...
a vintage harley bobber, chris knew its specs, parked in front of us while we ate. it was beautful, but it leaked oil right before our very eyes.
i'll condense the gauntlet home.
i was given wrong directions by a lady, and then the consensus of everyone at the restaurant. this cost me 20 minutes. it might surprise you to know that ct and ny state are full of ghettos and barrios, peakskill is no exception, and i had to ask a thug gansta if he knew where bear mountain drive was. how is that for a full social circle--akin, i think, to asking where martin luther boulevard is to a white lady in land rover.
anyway, i got on bear mountain highway. it turned out to be pitch black, and ulta twisty. locals know these twists so they get impatient for those of us who can't know how a blind curve is going to ferret out.
its already 9pm when i finally get to 9w, a country road that runs from the hudsn river, through southern nystate along the river, and then into nj. but fifteen miles down 9w, i see road flares being set up in the distance. an accident, i think.
no, cops are closing the road. i'm in the middle of nowhere, and they are closing the only road i know. i park my bike and walk over to the cop...
if i had been five minutes faster, i could have taken 9w...yes. will he let me take the road now? no. will he give directions to civilization? yes, thank god. only ten miles out of my way to do what he tells me.
pallisades parkway was where he rerouted me, and thankfully, it was a good road to use.
pallisades parkway runs paralell to the hudson too, so in edgewater or so, just before the gw, i switched off to roads i once again knew. i got to hoboken first, stopped off at work to find out if i still had time to run home, get my tip report, and make it back before they locked the door, and the answer was yes. fifteen minutes home, fifteen back...skin of my teeth, i made it to work.
wow, i was tired. over 12 hours of riding, six of it under really rough conditions, very little sleep...it was a series of long, hard days. but my cycle riding has once again improved. in the last few days, i'm taking turns faster, i'm learning about bikes...
this was the longest and furthest i've taken any bike out ever in one shot. it was actually really cool to see how many american cruisers were out in ct and ny state...in jc and nyc, all you see are crotch rockets.
nonetheless, this trip underscored the need for more power on my bike; a classic bmw, over 20 years old, should not be blowing me away.
i was sore for two days after the ride...my clutching and breaking hands, both of them, mind you, were sore, and my ass and legs were sore from sitting for so long, pushing the bike, shifting, braking...
but it was worth it. a lot of riding is about confidence, and mine has increased manifold, but thankfully, logically. i'm not a speed demon, and i'm not a risk taker. usually, there are two kinds of men...daredevils, and men who do not buy motorcycles. somehow, i manage to walk that line.
chris rocks to ride with. i hope we do it again. there is talk of north north to vermont and canada before the deep freeze sets in :)
all hail the lord humongous, warrior of the wasteland, and the ayatolla of rock n' rolla.
chris is making us t-shirts that read :
"i saw exactly one other person at the 2k7 merriden ct-peakskill ny nano-rally"
okay, he isn't, but he should be. i know he knows how. i also know my body was sore as a fuck after my ride up to connecticut.
the plan was simple. i had a sunday off, and my friend chris in connecticut, interstatement here, recently purchased a 1982 bmw cycle. we had planned to ride almost two months ago, but, like many things bought used, his bike needed repairs, and older german bikes are not the easiest things to find parts for, and if you plan to bargain shop for them, forget it. be happy they still exist anywhere.
in any event, parts delays killed chris' inner child just a little more for longer than he expected, and with his bike finally back, he was in the mood to take it out and tear up some road. the plan was this...i leave work saturday night, trek to connecticut, crash at my friends jackie and mike's place, chris rides there in the am, he and i head into new york state, and we part around 8 or 9 pm, somewhere equidistant from home for both of us.
i had nothing to contribute in terms of our route--i actually feel bad that i didn't do more to prepare for where we could ride. my week kind of rushed past me, i worked a real lot, and before i knew it, i was packing for both work and a cycle trip.
in my haste to pack, i forgot to bring something very important to work; each week, we submit a tip report. people got lazy about submitting them, so the new rule is, if its not in by sunday, you loose shifts, or get worse ones, and then get fired.
tip reports are done monday morning, so, technically, monday morning submission should be okay. this isn;t an office where everyone works the same hours. but no, sunday night. period. i ask, even, having never been late or inaccurate with a tip report, if i can submit it on monday.
no.
a clock begins to countdown--24 hours till 11pm sunday. there should not have been any "countdown clocks". but it didn't ruin my weekend.
first of all, the weather was weird that saturday, if you remember; it was humid, foggy as hell, and went from being very warm, the high 80's, to cool, the 60's, and still fog thick humid, and occasionally raining. not the ideal way to ride up to ct on roads you've never taken.
the problem with fog is twofold; first, it categorically affects visibility, secondly, it wets your clothing. wet clothing is a magnet for cold, especially at high speeds. and as far as visibility, it #1 fogs your goggles, #2 limits visibility, #3 headlights, especially high beams, become utterly blinding, all while your visibility was already limited and your goggles were covered with fog.
it was cold, and it was brutal. it rained a few times, and i admit, my nose ran, at some points for as long as a half an hour before wiping could begin. instead of going 55 like i wish i could, 45 felt like a safer speed. upstate and ct are country highways, or at least, that's what i chose, not expecting fog to affect my visibility. country highways are lit up like ours are in nj and nyc. they are dark as hell. so visibility at night is critical. this limited my speed even more.
work ended at 11:30 pm, earlier than expected. i got on my bike, already full of fuel, and took the lincoln tunnel into nyc, got on the west side highway and went north, to 9w. it rained the whole fucking time i was on 9w.
there was traffic, and this added time also. traffic also makes you more tired, more quickly. i had worked physically all night, and still had two hours or ride ahead of me. but anyway, i made it up 9w, and found the highway chris told me to take to catch the merit parkway. barely. it was a very non-descript sign, it was nothing more mentally rigorous than a coin flip in my head that made me pull over before an exit to recheck my directions.
but it all worked. no wrong turns. just took a lot longer, was a lot colder and wetter and slower, trecherous, and less fun than expected. but i got through it and hit jackie and mike's. mike had a friend over, and even thought it was 3 am, we drank beer and threw some darts. we called it quits at about 6 am. i didn;t sleep much, but i manged to wake up and call chris at like 11 am to tell him to head on over.
we went to a diner for breakfast and planned our route. although my bike has more torque, and is a 2006, it also weighs six hundred pounds, and has less horsepower than chris; bike, which is at least 200 pounds less, and has about ten more hp...on bikes, these differences, which would mean little in cars, mean a lot. chris weighs about what i do, although i am the much skinnier of the two. he should be back to much heavier weight, like 160 or so, in a few months. again, these little things matter in terms of the routes we choose...my brakes are hella better, his top speed must be 30 or 40 miles higher than mine...we got straight on riding styles, what we both find stopworthy, ect...what we really wanted to do was ride, so this was fun and easy.
its hard to say no when the bike makes any road fun, especially with another rider.
i got eggs overlight, french fries, whole wheat toast, and candian bacon. i was fucking hungry--my ride up took energy. i only had booze at jackie's, an i waited till around 1pm for lunch so i could have it with chris. i could have eaten more.
i averaged 60 miles per gallon, which is superb for my bike; i'm planning some performance upgrades which will cut my mileage down, and this tells me my mpg will still be acceptable.
ny state, beware.
chris' bmw :
my ride :
sorry we didn't take more pictures. we were too busy riding.
perhaps partly in tribute to "the facts of life", we ended our cycle ride toegther in peakskill, ny. remebering that there was my countdown to 11:30pm to submit my tip report, which was home, not even on me...
a vintage harley bobber, chris knew its specs, parked in front of us while we ate. it was beautful, but it leaked oil right before our very eyes.
i'll condense the gauntlet home.
i was given wrong directions by a lady, and then the consensus of everyone at the restaurant. this cost me 20 minutes. it might surprise you to know that ct and ny state are full of ghettos and barrios, peakskill is no exception, and i had to ask a thug gansta if he knew where bear mountain drive was. how is that for a full social circle--akin, i think, to asking where martin luther boulevard is to a white lady in land rover.
anyway, i got on bear mountain highway. it turned out to be pitch black, and ulta twisty. locals know these twists so they get impatient for those of us who can't know how a blind curve is going to ferret out.
its already 9pm when i finally get to 9w, a country road that runs from the hudsn river, through southern nystate along the river, and then into nj. but fifteen miles down 9w, i see road flares being set up in the distance. an accident, i think.
no, cops are closing the road. i'm in the middle of nowhere, and they are closing the only road i know. i park my bike and walk over to the cop...
if i had been five minutes faster, i could have taken 9w...yes. will he let me take the road now? no. will he give directions to civilization? yes, thank god. only ten miles out of my way to do what he tells me.
pallisades parkway was where he rerouted me, and thankfully, it was a good road to use.
pallisades parkway runs paralell to the hudson too, so in edgewater or so, just before the gw, i switched off to roads i once again knew. i got to hoboken first, stopped off at work to find out if i still had time to run home, get my tip report, and make it back before they locked the door, and the answer was yes. fifteen minutes home, fifteen back...skin of my teeth, i made it to work.
wow, i was tired. over 12 hours of riding, six of it under really rough conditions, very little sleep...it was a series of long, hard days. but my cycle riding has once again improved. in the last few days, i'm taking turns faster, i'm learning about bikes...
this was the longest and furthest i've taken any bike out ever in one shot. it was actually really cool to see how many american cruisers were out in ct and ny state...in jc and nyc, all you see are crotch rockets.
nonetheless, this trip underscored the need for more power on my bike; a classic bmw, over 20 years old, should not be blowing me away.
i was sore for two days after the ride...my clutching and breaking hands, both of them, mind you, were sore, and my ass and legs were sore from sitting for so long, pushing the bike, shifting, braking...
but it was worth it. a lot of riding is about confidence, and mine has increased manifold, but thankfully, logically. i'm not a speed demon, and i'm not a risk taker. usually, there are two kinds of men...daredevils, and men who do not buy motorcycles. somehow, i manage to walk that line.
chris rocks to ride with. i hope we do it again. there is talk of north north to vermont and canada before the deep freeze sets in :)
all hail the lord humongous, warrior of the wasteland, and the ayatolla of rock n' rolla.