It all started Friday evening when I went to Motorcycle Mall in Belleville to see if they had a "splash guard clip" for my bike's fairing. They did (and their prices on in-stock items/regularly stocked items aren't too bad either), and while the guy was getting me the part, someone else walked over and asked me if I was the guy who rides south on the GSP every morning. Turns out, he's one of the guys I pass in the morning who's going north. He recognized me by my leathers. We'd been passing and waving to each other for a couple of months now, and we finally met. Robbie then introduced me to Lou, who is the other one I know from the ride in the morning. They invited me to go with them for a ride on Sunday, and I went...
I met with them Sunday morning. Robbie on his 1991 F2, Lou on is GSXR750, and 4 others... "Turner" on his VFR750, Mark on his 94 F2 (he and I almost looked like twins riding down the road), some other guy on a 1992 ZX6-D (which he wants to sell, as I remember), and Tony, the biggest squid I have ever met, on his 1993 GSXR750. Robbie, Mark, and I show up in full leathers, Turner, Lou, and the guy on the Kawi are wearing leather jackets, jeans, and boots, and Tony in his "Co-Ed Naked Motorcycling" t-shirt, jeans, and sneakers. Everyone except Tony was wearing gloves. I think I was the only one with a stock bike... Most everyone had Hindle or V&H pipes, jet kits, and possibly steering dampers... OK, so I felt a little naked... but at least I was dressed a bit more properly than some... Off we went... up 21 to 3 to 46 to 80 to 287... good thing the road was pretty much devoid of life (especially cops)... OK, so I hit 2x the speed limit and then some... but I pressed on to kindasorta keep up with the guys... Change to NY 17 once we cross the border, stop at a small parking lot to repair Tony's helmet (he lost one of the face shield pivot screws... one of the seat bolts from the Suzukis worked very nicely to replace it), and we continued...
We followed 17 for quite some way... stopping a few times... once, because Turner got caught by a county-mounty in Sullivan County (who gave the rest of us a generic warning... the county-mounty rides, too :-) ) and got a ticket for "unsafe passing." OK, I figure, as do the rest of us... they're going to be looking for us on NY 17... BACK OFF... We get to NY 30, and stop at the gas station there... We checked on Tony's "fix-a-flat" repair job, and had to put a plug in his tire, too. As we're leaving, after having gotten some juice and other drinks, Shaun pulls in to the lot on his 93 CBR900RR, wearing full leathers. Shaun stayed with us most of the day from here. We followed NY 30 to the intersection with NY 28 (damn, that road was fun... :-) ) and I now know EXACTLY what you guys are complaining about when you get caught behind a cager (sorry, I'm not passing in the curves... I don't care how squidly everyone else was going to be). NY 30 is not patrolled, that I could tell... 30 MPH curves at 60+... 50 MPH curves without backing off... adrenaline rush time... :-) Well, we got to the NY 28 intersection, went the wrong way (we were going to stop at a diner, but stopped elsewhere for lunch... here, I found out, that Shaun is the driver for the Commanding General of Ft. Monmouth... CG's driver is about the easiest job in the Army... he told me to look for 2 stars on the car to find him...). We got back on NY 28 going in the right direction, passed where we made our wrong turn, and continued... same thing with the curves and all... the guy on the Kawi and I were probably the two slowest ones... many times, the others left us behind, only to have us find them along the road stopping for various reasons (including just waiting for us to make sure we made the proper turns). We switched to a county road for a short while and then picked up NY 10... again, none of these roads seemed to be patrolled... We followed NY 10 back to NY 17... Took 17 east... at this point, Shaun left us, because he trucked his bike up (he's got race compound tires and doesn't want to burn them up just riding to the site), and Robbie and Lou left, because they had to get home... We passed two state cops going in the opposite direction (fortunately, neither of them turned around). The rest of us got off at NY 97 in Hancock, stopped for gas right there, and the guy on the Kawi left us, because he wanted to get home faster... down to 4 people... Mark, Tony, Turner, and me. Here, I warned/reminded the guys about the po-dunk little towns along the way and their reduced speeds...
Of course, Tony and Mark just took off, as did Turner... I caught up with them after having gone around a truck, stopping at a red light, and a good 20 mins of riding alone (no biggie to me... I was used to it from earlier), and slowing down for the little towns and such along the way... Now it's Turner's turn to fall behind... the rest of us got around some RV and other slow-moving cages before the legal passing zone ended... we didn't see Turner behind us, Tony waved to me, asking if he was back there... I said yes, and Tony and Mark took off (no surprise to me). So we come into this town with a 40 MPH speed limit, for which I slowed down to 45... about the ambient speed of traffic... I passed a "constable" (that's what was on the car) and he looked at me... I found Tony and Mark at a gas station, pulled over, and topped off, which they were just about done doing. Here comes the constable... wants all of our information and asks how fast we think we were going... I told him, "about 40 or 45... I was alone." He replied, "I know that, but I still want to see your information," to which I responded very simply, "Yes sir." I handed him my license and registration, and he handed them back to me, after looking at them. Tony and Mark, however, were doing 75 when they passed him. The cop gave them tickets for "failure to obey a traffic signal," but wrote their speeds on the tickets... in case they decide to plead "not guilty" and fight it... Well, Mark takes off as soon as the cop finishes with his ticket, and told Tony that had he known Mark was going to take off like that, he wouldn't have written Tony's ticket... Finally, Tony calms down... Turner pulled in as the cop was writing Mark's ticket...
So now it's Turner, Tony, and me... we stay together, and come across the same cop and another a little further down the road doing inspection sticker checks... (bullshit... they're letting us know they're out there) The other one asks me if we have inspection stickers, not seeing one on the front fork, as they do it in NY... I told him, "Yes, sir... on the license plate." He looks at mine (Oct, 1994) and waves me on... Checks the other two, and waves them on... We get to Port Jervis, stop for a few mins... then get onto NJ 23 south... Turner leaves us to head down 521, and Tony and I go all the way home...
I can only guess that Robbie and Lou got stopped at some point... They're heading back on 17... where the first ticket incident happened... and they were keeping up a pretty good clip... Don't know about the guy on the Kawi... He once got a ticket for doing 190 trying to catch up to those guys, and I don't think he wanted another, so I'm guessing that he took it a little easier.
At least I had the good sense to heed my own advice about the small towns, as did Turner.
Well, I now know some decent roads in upstate NY... don't think I'll be going at Warp 10 to get there, though... Luck was just with me that day...
I'm not kidding about Tony being one of the biggest squids... He's in his t-shirt and jeans, doing wheelies and all kinds of shit... coming close to dragging his knee in a few curves too...
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