FromMaine

Next morning I was up early and after making a mug of tea went out to the garage to read a bit, I knew my buddy and his wife had a busy week so did not want to disturb them. A while later my buddy found me and said what do you want to do today ,ride? I thought about it but said no, I'll take a break. We decided to call a mutual friend and visit him and have lunch. I thought my niece would like that. When the time came he threw me some keys and said you're driving. I walked over to his Nissan and he said, "not that, company car, you can't drive it" He then pointed to his Mustang GT

This is great!

The next morning I was faced with shoe shopping, something I really hadn't counted on this trip, I grabbed a box breakfast down in the lobby and some coffee and went up to the room. Nothing opened until 10 so I went out to the bike and checked/waxed the chain, checked air/fluids etc. At 10 is was in a Marshalls, at 1002 I was strapping a pair of shoes to the bike. My buddy had texted me that he was going for a ride today and could they join us. Sounds great. We pulled up to his house and then followed him. We were headed to Lake Oneida, to visit with another friend of m

We were the last off the boat, good thing as I drove off the ferry I was staring at quite a steep hill. I pulled over and had a walk up. OH yeah this was interesting. If you actually stopped at the Stop sign you were on a 30 degree incline and had no line of sight to the right. They may as well put up a sign with an arrow pointing down saying "Drop bike Here" If you crested the top even a little bit you were in the roadway. Right I loaded my niece up and said Hold on tight as we are either pop up onto the road or hit the brakes hard. If you think were are falling get away from the bike.Her ey

I had booked a room in Albany as there are some nice roads on the NY side of Champlain, plus I wanted to surprise her. We got to Charlotte in VT and got off of rt 7. WE drove down this little road for a while and there it was, an operating ferry, quite a big for the Lake. We got our tickets and waited until called. There are 3 Phases to your first ferry ride, on a motorcycle no less. The first is the excitement of it all called "The what are we doing here?" Phase. The second is the "Are we there yet?" Phase. The third as

Before going to sleep I had a look at the weather, it called for heavy rain in the morning clearing in the afternoon. So I told my niece to sleep in and booked the room for another night. Next morning I walked across the road and bought some breakfast, I was soaked by the time I got back, probably a good call hanging for the day. Years ago when I had my daughter we did 2 days in heavy rain in the Pacific Northwest. I checked into a Hotel just outside of Seattle and ran out immediately to grab some dinner so we did not have to go out later. When I got back to the room my daughter ha

Lots of people just look at me when I tell them its a 97. I always liked the look of white wheels and Italian red on the third gens, and the fairings on the fourth, so when I sold my 3rd gen in the UK 5 years ago I kept the rear rim🙂 I thought the same thing, if I do go to SD, might as well head north and have a look.

I had a chuckle when I saw this post, Vintage? My 4th Gen is my second newest bike🙂 Yeah, SD, certainly have been by it enough, but it always seems to be just before, during, or just after Sturgis and I'm just not that guy. This is my 45th year of riding and to be honest I've had my fill of Posers, Trailer Queens, and Doo Rags. As I said to a guy next to me in traffic in South Carolina years ago, who was easily half my age, with a big truck and Harley in the back "Cant be much fun to ride if you have to stick in the back of a truck" I did consider going with my buddy to

I miss Canada, lived in New England my whole life and trips to the Gaspe, Cabot Trail, Baie De Chaleur, Quebec City Carnaval, Montreal were a part of my life. They were generally closer and less crowded than my options in the US.

Thanks Cogs, I was very lucky also. 10 years ago I was lucky enough to take my daughter cross country after graduating High School despite my wife being an ICU/Med Surg nurse for 25+ years. That to was unexpected :). When I pulled into my driveway I thought that I was lucky to have the opportunity as I would certainly never have it again. As usual I was wrong. Trust me I swallowed long and hard while sitting on the bike waiting for it to warm up on an early Monday morning glancing over at my niece.

I got up early and snuck out of the room so my niece could sleep in, Ben and Jerrys did no open until noon, so rush and I had some calls to make. First my wife. Despite being a nurse at the hospital she could find no way around the testing thing, so it was quarantine if she came. No way I said. My wife then indicated that I could take as long as I wanted if I took her back, just let her know as I did have surgery on my left foot scheduled for next week. Oh yeah, had forgotten about that. I called my nephew and they would come out and get her if I wanted or take my time

The next day we headed down to the bike, I left the keys at the desk as there was no one there, honestly they probably only had 20 rooms rented. Well by the time we were loaded up the manager came out to say goodbye, she spent about 10 minutes with us and directed her attention to my niece, what a good person. We headed out after the traffic thinned and got on rt 8 to head north through the Adirondacks. My niece seemed ambivalent to the nature around us so I gave up offering to stop at rivers or quaint towns. A note, a number of these places have decided to call themsel

Hi Cogs: Homemade frame sliders/tip over protection. Click on the links and the pics will come up. They work well 🙂

With the Canadian side closed a lot of it was not available, so probably a good year to miss it.

Amazingly my niece was ready to go at 0615. She wanted a picture of her bike with mine so we set it up. If you look at the right side of the pic you can see the back of my nephews 84 VF1000F. Wish I had taken a picture of it as its in amazing shape. That done with I loaded up and I went over the rules, feet on the pegs always, don't get on/off till I say so, sit up straight, that kind of stuff. I got on the bike, started it up and looked over at my niece. Well the full weight of responsibility hit me like a tractor trailer. I sat there for a full 2 minutes having a thin