Friday, April 15, 2016

Great North American Adventure - NYC to Lake Placid

Time of departure - 915 am
Time of arrival - 445 pm
Distance covered - 292 miles

Morning of any motorcycle trip is always hectic. Despite all the pre-planning there is something always missing. In my case that was my motorcycle pants without which I couldn't really go! After looking frantically for my pants I found out Amina had taken it out of the bag where I keep all the motorcycle gear and put it in a random closet. I don't think it was her way of stopping me from going, just her way of making me feel stressed out.

 After having successfully located and putting on my pants as I do wear the pants in my house :-) I headed out to meet Vishal on the next block. Vishal and I have riden together for almost 8 years now. In that time he has lived in NJ while I was living on UWS, then him living in London and me in São Paulo but still managing a trip to the Swiss Alps from London, then I was living in São Paulo and he was back in NYC and we rode to Shennendoah national park. Now we are literally living one block from each other so logistics are a little bit easy. However, one thing never changes... He is always late. After texting me he was ready to go he still took 30 mins to come down blaming it on his boss.

Anyway, we finally took off and one the first light while I was trying to fix my head set, I dropped my glove in the middle of 2nd avenue.  So had to pull over, and do a frogger type of move to get my glove back from on coming traffic.  When we finally got on the road the first hour was super uncomfortable.  My hands were cold since I was not wearing my winter gloves. It is April after all. My new shoes were hurting my feat and most importantly my playlist stopped working on my headset. So we ended up taking a break pretty early.

Our goal was to do half way to Albany by lunch time and we actually made it


there around 12 40 pm. We had lunch In downtown Albany at a pretty nice pub but the service was Slowwww. We ended up spending almost 1 1/2 hour for lunch. Post lunch the riding was relatively easy although Vishal complained I was going too fast. His sweet spot is 75 MPH and mine is more like 85 but we compromised and settled at 80Mph.

The trip was uneventful and the road was non exciting as we always planned to take the fastest route to Lake Placid which was I87. Once we reached Lake Placid we checked into a very old Best Western which made me nervous about the sheets and bed bugs but so far so good. Dinner was at a very local restaurant called Liquids and Solids which made me wonder what they were talking about.

For those who don't know, Lake Placid and the nearby white face mountain are the home to the USA ski team and has hosted two winter Olympic Games. Perhaps the best known one is the USA versus Soviet Union Ice hockey final on which the great movie Miracle is based on. I highly recommend it.

Anyway, it's almost 10 pm. I just finished writing this and now it's time to rest. Next up ...Montreal. 

The Great North American Adventure- Pre Planning

Hello everyone, it's been a while since I published this blog. I won't use the lame excuse of being lazy. The truth is I had done nothing or visited anyplace interesting on the motorcycle in a while.  My last great trip was in Brazil to Serra do Rio Rastro in September 2014 and since moving back to NYC it's been rather dull as it comes to trips. So V Man and I decided to break the inertia and started planning a real trip.  I was intrigued by going and visiting our neighbors up north, the ones Donald Trump doesn't hate.  Initially, the idea was more ambitious, ship our bikes to Seattle and the ride to Vancouver and Whistler and all the glorious twisties. But work ruined that plan as we both quickly realized taking 2weeks off would be tough so we settled for something closer. Ride to Montreal and visit Mountains north of Montreal.

Montreal is approximately 329 miles from NYC and not something we wanted to do in 1 day so we have planned to spend the night in Lake Placid and the ride to Montreal the next day. The night before a big trip is always full of anxiety and excitement.  Making things more complicated is packing for 6 days in one bag that will go on the back seat and be evenly balanced. It requires skill!! The anxiety stems from looking at riding 300 miles on two wheels at 80 mph against the wind. It may not seem like it but it is actually a test of your endurance, concentration and of course balance.

Anyway, the packing is done and I need to get a good night's sleep to be on the road at 9 am sharp.