Hybrid Weekend

Looks like the weather will be perfect for my planned hybrid weekend.  Saturday planning on a 100 mile bicycle ride to Belmar, NJ with PFW; and Sunday planning on riding the motorcycle to the AMA District II Corn Boil and pick up 2 points towards the Polar Bear Grand Tour.

Ramapo 500

The Ramapo 500 has become a summer staple for a large group of my motorcycling buddies.  This two day event is run by the Ramapo Motorcycle Club and as in the past, they again did an excellent job choosing a wonderful selection of beautiful roads (less traveled) and preparing great cue sheets.  This year they added an option of downloading the routes to GPS devices to assist in directions.  I took advantage and downloaded the routes to my Garmin Zumo 550 as did everyone else in my group with a GPS.  I lead the ride for our group and still had to read the written directions, but the GPS helped to eliminate second guessing turns.

The ride registration is cut off at 400 with a wide range of brands and types of motorcycles.  With everyting from sport bikes to touring bikes to cruisers, one of the "rules" is when a faster motorcycle or group comes up behind you, move to the right to let them pass.  Every year we seem to encounter some folks that fail to read this section!  More on that later...

We meet at the crack of dawn, well not exactly, but when the Brass Ring opens on Saturday morning.

The ride starts up in Rockland County New York and right after a hearty breakfast we race up north to begin our day.  Keeping a group of ten motorcycles together is challenging, particularly when you are riding with 400 others.  We keep in touch with communication between myself and others in the group via our CB radios, but sometimes, particularly in the mountains, we lose communication.  About mid-morning on Saturday we had been passing through other groups of slower riders and got too far in front of some of our own riders.

Here we are discussing where the hell the others could be after waiting over 15 minutes!

The club likes to throw at least one gravel or dirt road into the mix and that appeared on Saturday afternoon (Hell Hollow Road).  I saw it coming up on the directions and we were stuck behind one of those slow groups that didn't read the move over and let faster groups pass instruction.  I kept riding up to the sweeper in the group and trying to signal him to let us pass; he didn't get it.  We got to a fairly straight portion of road and I moved left and began to pass the group in front.  Just as I get past the leader of the slower group the pavement ran out and we were in gravel.  That made for some interesting passing behind me by the rest of our group.  The road was not paved, had lots of huge potholes and at one point was dirt only; but a blast none the less!

There is camping available at the half way point but our group "roughs it" at the Hampton Inn for the night.

All in all a great event and fun 2 days of riding!  Pictures courtesy of Joe Holden, thanks Joe!

The motorcycle goes back into the garage now as I need to resume my training for the 2010 MS City to Shore in September.  Again this year I'm riding on Team Squash with John Ball.  Check my MS City to Shore Website and maybe contribute to the cause.

The Red Mile

The trip was originally to watch the AMA Flat Track Series at the Red Mile in Lexington KY, but somehow the track and AMA couldn’t come to agreement and the event was taken off the schedule. Not to pass up an opportunity to explore new back roads the decision was made to make the trip anyway; we already had hotel reservations and Paul had laid out most of the route. So on Friday morning 5 of us met at the Shady Maple for breakfast and to start our ride to KY. Breakfast was good but the news outside wasn’t as one of our group discovered a tire issue that would prevent him from continuing; and then there were four.

So the four of us were off to our first nights destination, Charleston WV, the route was to speed to exit 296 in Virginia and Route 55 west. Immediately into the Appalachian Mountains the road was nice and twisty as we headed west towards Seneca Rocks Park in West Virginia. I sing the praises often of not only the beauty of West Virginia but the fabulous condition of the roads. Not only do they build great roads through mountains and valleys but they build them to last. When there is an issue they patch the road with such care and expertise it is amazing to me (being from the land of throw a couple shovels of back top at that hole and let the cars tamp it down); in WV they cut a square hole, patch it properly, tamp it level so you can’t tell any difference between the patch and the road and then seal it with tar. Not only are the roads nice but who ever teaches people to drive in WV should start a national school! Most of the drivers are competent and not only go at the speed limit, they aggressively drive through corners! So most times you don’t have to worry about being behind another vehicle, they are willing to go as fast as you are. Even the trucks are fast; we had a red Dodge Ram pull ahead of us this trip and I had to work to stay with him. My excuse will be he had intimate local knowledge of the turns and therefore was willing to attack them more aggressively than us. If you do happen upon a WV driver that isn’t willing to drive fast and hard they all seem to find the first place to pull over and allow you to pass, very courteous!

Forcing myself to identify my three favorite roads from this trip was hard as we enjoyed many beautiful, challenging, twisty strips of asphalt in both WV and KY. Perhaps it was my surprise that there were so many nice roads in KY that caused me to pick two of the three from there. In any case my three favorite roads from this trip:

1. Route 22 from Fernleaf to Williamstown KY – This road was much different than most of the roads we traveled on this trip. A ribbon of asphalt laid across some beautiful rolling hills of Kentucky. A challenger to the Tail of the Dragon for turns per mile and loaded with blind hill crests; this road was fun to drive! Amazingly the speed limit was 55 MPH and you had to be aggressive to get close to that speed with all the turns. I wanted to turn around and ride it again.

2. Route 32 from Louisa to Elliotville KY – More of a traditional mountain road that you would find in WV, Route 32 had it share of climbs and descents. Mixed in were tight twisty corners that you couldn’t see around, switchbacks that exercised your neck muscles to look where you wanted to drive and incredible scenery.

3. Highway 20 from Hines to Buckhannon WV – We rode over 100 miles on this road and it seemed to have a perfect rhythm that kept you energized and didn’t wear you out. Plenty of climbs, descents, tight turns, high speed sweepers and switchbacks were spaced between small towns and valley stretches that allowed you to rest prior to the next mountain challenge.

A fabulous trip!

Arctic Adventure

A fellow Polar Bear Grand Tour motorcycle rider, Tony A., is embarking on an epic journey this summer he is calling Artic Adventure; riding over 10,000 to Alaska and back.  Tony is riding to raise awareness and money for the South Dakota Coalition Against domestic Violence and Sexual Assault (SDCADVSA).  This past Thursday I attended the launch party in downtown Philadelphia.  Held at a Mac's Tavern on Market Street the place was hopping both inside and out when I arrived around 5:30pm.  I asked Tony if the place was always this busy and he informed this was their opening day!  They have a great selection of fine beers on tap.

There was a small cover charge that all went to support SDCADVSA and got you a wrist band for discounted drinks and food and some raffle tickets that you could place in bags that represented door prizes.  There were some great door prizes, gym memberships, gift certificates, concert tickets, spa treatments and much more; I was impressed.  There was also a 50/50 being sold.  Tony was able to raise around $3,000 at the launch but has set a goal to raise a dollar per mile he rides, if you'd like to contribute check out his website.

Ride with GPS

Alan, a British gentleman who rides with the Tuesday night Griggstown Grinders bicycle group, utilized this new site to post the rides; Ride with GPS .  It really is a great site for bicyclists and motorcyclists.  You can upload routes from your GPS device or create routes and then print cue sheets.  The elevation profile is the most accurate I've found showing elevation and degree of slope along the route.  IMHO it is far superior to other GPS sites.  And you don't have to own a GPS to utillize features of the site, you can create a route and print cue sheets.  They are running on a shoestring budget, so it may be slow during peak times.  Tell me what you think.

Polar Bear Grand Tour - Cape May VFW - Sunday, April 11th

Sunday, April 11th is the last Polar Bear Grand Tour of the season.  We'll be heading back to the first stop of the season, the VFW in Cape May, NJ.  We'll be meeting at McDonalds for a prompt 9:15 am departure.

Polar Bear Grand Tour - The Chatterbox - Sunday, March 14

Sunday we visited Long Valley Pub and Brewery on a magnificent spring day; the sky was clear, the sun was bright and temperatures were in the low 50's.  A great day for a motorcycle ride but we were saddled with a slug waiter for lunch.  The food was good and came quickly once we were able to order; but getting the waiter to take our order and getting him to give us the check took forever.  But it was worth the wait as the roads back were nice and twisty!

Next Sunday we'll head to Augusta NJ and The Chatterbox.  A group will meet at McDonalds on Lincoln Highway in Langhorne for a prompt 9:30 am departure.