My wife Melissa and I decided to go to the Americade Rally this year in Lake George, NY. I know you're all thinking, "It's all Harleys and Goldwings, and the two of us are 20 years younger than the average Americader." Well, you're mostly right, but since the Capo is a sport-touring bike, it seemed reasonable to go to a rally for touring and sport-touring riders. In reality, we saw a lot of younger riders there, mostly on sportbikes, including one on an RC51 with Mass. plates and throwover bags on the back. I don't care what anyone says, that's a tough rider. There were also a lot of GS's and Stroms, plus one other Aprilia (if Ken is wondering, there weren't any KTM's, they were all getting the weekly oil changes and valve adjustments
)Anyway, against both of our family's wishes, we decided to ride there instead of trailering. We set out on Sunday around noon with the goal of making it to Newburgh, NY that evening. The Capo was a heavy bitch with all of our gear on it, but as long as I didn't park it leaning downhill it was OK. The traffic on the DE Turnpike and through Philthadelphia was terrible, and wore my clutch hand out pretty quick. On top of that, the temperature was 92 degrees, it was humid, and yet still windy. We fought through the heat and wind for about 4 hours until we hit a severe thunderstorm, luckily we needed gas at that point, so it wasn't a problem to stop. Even after the storm, the wind stayed with us the rest of the day. Here is my lovely wife when we stopped for a leg stretcher on I-287 at the NJ/NY state line.
We woke up Monday morning to sunny skies and cool temperatures, but the wind was still there. No trip up I-87 would be complete without a stop at Orange County Choppers, especially since we were staying 2 minutes away from their shop. We went over there before checking out of the hotel and each picked up a t-shirt(I don't know why, I don't really like choppers, but what the hell)
Some cool brick-laying
I guess this would be the OCC Museum
The legend itself...if you want your picture next to it, it's $20
OK, I said I didn't like choppers, but I lied, I liked this one
Back on topic, the Ramada Inn in Newburgh, NY is a nice place to stay if you're passing through. They'll let you park your bike right outside the main entrance where the attendant can see it. After being gouged at the tourist trap, we hit the road again, stopping about every hour to let Melissa stretch (I didn't mind it either). The wind was with us all the way into Albany, but on day 2 we got some ear plugs, which made it a lot easier to cope with.
Stopped at a NY Thruway rest stop in New Baltimore.
We arrived in Lake George about 1:00, too early to check in to the hotel, so we went down to the Holiday Inn to pick up our pre-registration packets for the rally. Then we rode out to the Roaring Brook Ranch to gather some more information. We checked in to the hotel at 3:00 and then went back to RBR to see the Lee Parks seminar and NY State Troopers do their motorcycle skills demo.
State trooper on his steed, showing off the slow ride skills.
They asked for volunteers to ride out there too. Not being shy, I got right on mine and went out into the arena. Slow turn here, I was the 6th person to try, and the first to succeed.
Trooper: "Do you know how fast you were going back there?"
Me: "I don't know, 2 or 3."
Trooper: "Son, I clocked you at almost 4 miles per hour."
Me: "Sorry, it's a sport bike, they don't like to go slow."
Trooper: "I'm giving you a warning, but in the future, try to keep it under 3."
Didn't really happen, but that was my failed attempt at humor. Tuesday we spent most of the day at RBR doing some demo rides. We hit the pavement on a Roadsmith GL1800 trike first. I'm not getting soft, I rode the trike for 2 reasons: 1) Honda wasn't there, so it was as close as we could get to a Goldwing; 2)my dad is disabled and I wanted to see if he could handle a trike so he could ride again. My conclusion is that, unless you're completely stopped, a trike is very easy to handle and with a few mods he could be back on the road again. Next we rode a '09 KLR 650...don't ask me why WE rode it instead of ME rode it. The Kawi demo route took us onto I-87 two times, and we were with a pack of sportbikes riding solo. I DAMN near had the throttle pinned doing 70 and they left us in the dust. Fortunately, we caught up to them at the exit ramp and the road back to RBR was a nice twisty backroad. Funny thing was, all the solo sportbikers left us on I-87, but in the twisties, this DAMN rider kept up with them while 2-up on a KLR. I guess I'm a little better than I thought I was. The afternoon found me solo on a Ninja 650R, it's not a supersport and it uses the same 650 twin that's in the Versys. It's a more neutral riding position, but still aggressive enough for me to keep the pressure on the other riders. Finally, we both rode the Kawi Voyager 1700. If you haven't seen one, think Electra Glide style with Japanese power and reliability. It was a phenomenal machine with one major flaw, the exhaust resonates through our helmets and became annoying very quick. If they could solve that, I'd buy one in a hearbeat.
I'm getting tired, so the conclusion to the story will have wait until tomorrow.
