Mt Washington with JeffAshe & ionbeam

[FJRed]

My wife Grace and I met up with Jeff & Karen Friday night when they arrived in Waterbury. The original plan was that we were going to tag along with Jeff and ride over to the Maine coast on Saturday and then drop off and head home as we came back through Vermont on Sunday. Based on the prediction for significant rain on Sunday, Jeff decided to change his route so that he didn't have to ride 400+ miles in the rain from the coast to his planned stop Sunday night. We did some quick route planning with Google maps and came up with a loop from Waterbury over to Mt. Washington in Hew Hampshire and then back to Waterbury for Saturday night. Then on Sunday, Jeff & Karen were going to head straight down Rt. 100 in Vermont and eventually join back up with their original route.

We had a nice dinner Friday night and had some serious Farkle discussions. Saturday morning, Grace and I met Jeff & Karen at their hotel about 7:30am. When we got there, we found out that Alan (ionbeam) and his wife were going to ride up and meet us at Mt. Washington. Alan also told us that there was a road race (sneakers, not cars) up Mt. Washington on Saturday so the mountain road wasn't open to traffic until 1pm. After a quick reversing of the route we had planned the night before to put the longer leg of the trip on the way over to Mt. Washington so we wouldn't get there too early, we headed out. It was a little foggy in the morning, but it eventually burned off and it was generally dry for the rest of the day. Only a few short passing showers.

I started out leading from Waterbury over to St. Johnsbury where we stopped for Breakfast. From there Jeff took the lead and I spent the rest of the day trying to keep up. (Just kidding, Jeff took it pretty easy on me. There were only a few times where I lost sight of him) On the other hand, I did learn a lot about how to go faster through sweepers and how you really don't need much distance to pass slow cagers.

OK, enough of the blah, blah, blah... Here's the part everybody wants to see.

Pictures of New England scenery on the way over through Vermont and New Hampshire.

Here we are at the parking area for the Mt. Washington Auto road.

From left to right - Helen (Mrs. ionbeam), Alan (ionbeam), Ed (FJRed), Karen, and Jeff (JeffAshe)

I hope I got Mrs. ionbeams name right. I remembered it as Ellen, but my wife remembered it as Helen and she's usually right.

Here we are starting up the Auto Road. It was pretty busy so we basically rode in a slow single-file line all the way to the top.

Heading up the road towards the clouds.

This is one of those places where you definitely don't want to go off the side of the road (even a little bit)

There were a lot of motorcycles on the road (Laconia Bike Week)

The road has a pretty steep grade at some points.

Pretty cool to look down on the clouds.

Almost to the top.

Here we are in the parking lot at the top. Calm and 80 degrees at the bottom, 41 degrees with 18mph winds at the top.

Here's the cog railway car chugging it's way up to the top.

In this picture you can see how steep the railway tracks actually are.

Here's some of the views from the top.

The moisture in the air from the clouds actually created a rainbow below us.

Some of the views from the Auto Road were incredible.

We ended up riding back along Rt. 2 through northern NH and VT, then took Rt. 15 up to Rt. 108 in Jeffersonville and then down Rt. 100 through Smugglers Notch. (now that's a cool road)

The loop totalled about 310mi. for the day.

Many thanks to Jeff and Karen for letting Grace and I tag along on part of their vacation ride.

Ed.

 

[snikr]

Good to see Jeff is having a great ride and is getting to meet up with some of us "local" FJR riders.. Nice photos as well. Stay safe Jeff.

Tom

 

[03HiYoSilver]

FjRed,

Thanks for sharing your marvelous trip and beautiful pictures!

I am especially please to see a smile on Ionbeams face now that his bike is back in shape after his drawn out ordeal.

 

[FJRed]

FjRed,
Thanks for sharing your marvelous trip and beautiful pictures!

I am especially please to see a smile on Ionbeams face now that his bike is back in shape after his drawn out ordeal.

Well, not quite...

ionbeam's bike is running, but there's still something wrong with it. It's got a really bad vibration that's shaking the bike apart. He's taking it back to the shop to give them another try at fixing it right.

Ed.

 

[EasyRider]

Do you guys all have the new ECUs? I was up there last year before they come out. I got a few scary surges from my bike at about 4 thousand feet.

I stopped about two more times after that on the way up, not knowing I was reseting the ECU. It did stay come with those stops reseting the ECU, but I did not.

How did you bikes do? No altitude sickness?

One more question for ya; do you have a still camera mounted on the bike to get those shots?

 

[camera56]

verrrrrry nice pics

 

[Joevelocity]

Spectacular pictures. Adding a "must-see-in-person" place to my list.

 

[FJRed]

Yes, both Jeff and I have the new ECU's in our 07's. No issues at all with the altitude change.

As far as the pictures go, I have to give my wife Grace the credit there. She took all of the pictures (which is why she's not in any of them). She used a Nikon D70s just hand held from the pillion seat.

Ed.

 

[Fubar]

Haven't been up there for a couple of years. It's is amazing that it can be down right hot at the bottom and very, very cold at the top... Love the videos they play of the observation deck with the wind howling and everything iced over... :blink:

 

[vagabond]

maybe the location for 2009 nfo? Very nice!

 

[EasyRider]

Yes, both Jeff and I have the new ECU's in our 07's. No issues at all with the altitude change.
As far as the pictures go, I have to give my wife Grace the credit there. She took all of the pictures (which is why she's not in any of them). She used a Nikon D70s just hand held from the pillion seat.

Ed.

Thanks for the reply and the Great photos. Thats cool that the bikes did well. :yahoo:

It takes a lot of nerve to ride up that mountain on a bike. B)

 

[ionbeam]

[Pre-Edit -- FU Photobucket, to view the photos you will need to install one of these addons Firefox fix Chrome fix ]

We sure enjoyed meeting Jeff and Karen with an unexpected bonus of finding Ed and Grace from Waterbury, VT with them. Grace has done a tremendous job with her photos!

The day started warm with beautiful puffy clouds, just perfect for the 4 hr ride up to the mountain. We were trying to hustle up to Mt. Washington but found all the main roads clogged with traffic so we were forced to take hilly, winding back roads

We started with scenery like this:

Then, those beautiful puffy white clouds became a lot darker. Then I could see rain in the distance. It must be a guy thing like asking directions… I told Helen I would pull over in a minute to put on the rain gear. It started to sprinkle. I tell Helen that I’ll pull over at the next good spot to stop, it starts to rain. Finally I pull over and we are already a bit wet. We open the side cases and it starts to pour rain. As we are struggling to get into the dry stuff it really starts to pound rain. By the time we were geared up we were so wet that it was almost pointless. The camera went undercover for the next 1.5 hrs. Finally we break into some open skies:

Getting closer to the big mountain:

Everyone had patiently waited for us at the foot of Mt. Washington for nearly an hour, THANKS guys! Grace has done such a good job with her pictures from the ride up the mountain that I will only add a few more:

Obligatory tip-top shot for Jeff and Karen:
(Note: Southern boys don't do well in the cold, Jeff wore his helmet almost the whole time to keep from freezing.)

There is a '03 in the lower center. Also, on our way up we were passed by a GREENGen II that was on the way down. I don't know if it is a repaint or an import over for a tour of the US.

Over the shoulder shot as we are going down hill. This is what the road looks like during the week when we normally ride up the mountain.

On our way to dinner:

Hi Ed!

The very nice Ed and Grace:

The road warriors, Jeff and Karen:

After a good meal we all headed off. The long shadows at the end of a Fine Day Out:

Shortly we were in dense fog which gave way to yet more rain. We arrived home ~10:00 pm, after 300 miles of fun. Hopefully our gear will dry out soon. We look forward to riding with you all again in the future!

=====================

Helen took most of these pictures with a very fast Canon A720IS camera that I bought for her, just for bike pixs. She used her Nikon D80 for other shots. Interspersed are some of my Canon D20 shots. All pictures are hand held by both Grace and Helen. Both earn the Fearless Pillion™ award for their camera work under some, uh, stressful road situations.

=====================

As for the Paint Shaker/Harley Wanna Be, it’s going back to the shop Tuesday. It has a profoundly strong buzz, tied to engine speed. It has buzzed out screws, nuts and other hardware. It has buzzed the bars so hard that it fractured the metal bracket that my AVCC control pad was mounted to. With the bike on either stand, when you turn up the throttle you can feel the ground shake more than 5 feet away. Hopefully the dealer will do the right thing and will pursue the problem to root cause and not tell me that he fixed it by putting rubber under the handlebars.

 

[bluejag]

Nice shot's great report hope the bike get's RIGHT then another run up the hill? catch you then.

 

[weekend rider]

Those are some great pics and what beautifl country you have back there to ride

 

[wheatonFJR]

One question...is there a rebel flag at the top of Mt Washington? :lol:

Thanks for the great piccies everybody...and for escorting the southern boy around. :clapping:

Ride safe Jeff.

 

[cota95]

Nice shots! I was in NH on Saturday also and there was a ton of bikes. I saw a canadian red 07 (not cranberry) on the way to Lincoln saturafy morning

 

[bluejag]

Might that have also included riding with an 05 2up 93N exit 23/24 8am ?? My wife and I ??

 

[08FJR4ME]

Nice shots! I was in NH on Saturday also and there was a ton of bikes. I saw a canadian red 07 (not cranberry) on the way to Lincoln saturafy morning

Nice Ride Report!

My friend wanted to this ride with me but his wife fell and hurt her shoulder. So because of docters visits he cancled out. So the wife and i did the Mountain vista's tour ride on Saturday. I saw one other 08 FJR at one of the stops and it was a group from Canada. They were all speaking French. Ended up doing 479 miles for the day.

For those further away This was NH bike Week. Thousands of bikes come from all over. +1 on the NFO for next year.

 

[raclow]

Very Nice Report!!! Thank you for sharing.