bramfrank
BramFrank
After my day run to Americade on Friday and a lost cause run down to Plattsburgh on Saturday to get a pacel that arrived (wouldn't you know it) 10 minutes after I left the parcel place on Friday - and what I received was the wrong stuff . . . . (wouldn't you know THAT!!) my buddy called to see if I wanted to take a ride today. Naturally I agreed.
The usual 'what direction do we go' discussion took place and we hadn't been up the 329 into the lower Laurentians this year yet, so what the heck - off we went.
Too many cars. Lots of V-Twins chugging along, but with my Hellas and my new HID conversions on the main reflector I am painful to be in front of apparently because everyone waved me ahead - I guess that's what about 13,000 focused lumens will do for you.
I saw a silver FJR - he waved. I saw a burgundy one as well. There were a couple more . . . all in all a very pleasant, if not particularly warm day ride. Top speed was 192 kph - but that was simply me blasting by someone who was going too slow;
This part is for Pierre;
How'd your ride go? What route did you follow? Did you enjoy it?
I did my day ride to Lake George (out of Montreal) on Friday. Left at abound 9, got home about 13 hours later.
I don't like group rides (I prefer to set my own pace or to ride as part of a small group of like-minded riders), but I also have a very hard time keeping the speed down.
I also prefer to avoid interstate highways, though because I left late and to save some time I did slab it to the border.
I have a Nexus card, so crossing the broder took about 30 seconds I immediately headed to the East a bit and picked up highway 9 - deciding to head south on 9N and 22, to return on 9 (without the N) and also a bit of 22, which meanders across both of those 2-lanes.
The route is interesting in that there is a mix of turns and sweepers and straight road, some of which needs some repaving (9N in particular) and some of which is freshly paved.
Pulled in to Tourexpo just before noon and imediately headed to Sandies . . .the burger place. Sandie is the owner's wife and he is a state employee who takes summers off to run his travelling burger joint. There were line-ups everywhere, but they were especially long for this vendor only. 12 ounce Angus all-beef burgers cooked over charcoal and homemade french fries with a diet pepsi for about $12 - turns out that Tourexpo takes 35% of his gross . . . but that he makes half his income for the year (including his state pay) this week alone, so I'm not feeling sorry for him.
From there it was off to the vendor area. They've closed the indoor space that held a number of vendors, but they've expanded the outdoot areas. The rearrangement means that it is less circuituous to get from the free parking area to the vendor area - a good thing.
All the usual vendors were there - the tire people, the Givi and Shad group, Corbin, helmet vendors and so on.
Top gear (the ex-autocom dealer) was NOT there - and I was hoping to pick up a cable for my Zumo-to-Autocom project (note to self . . . more data needs to be put into the Zumo impressions thread . . .) and so on.
In the end I spent absolutely nothing beyond the $10 to get in and $12 for the burger before I pulled up stakes and headed North. I still had managed to spend 4 hours on site.
The total ride for the day was 600 km and the average speed was 77 kph going down and 86 kph on the return leg - noting that there was a traffic situation on the way down, plus a pickup stop in Champlain, NY as well as a shopping stop for a half hour oin trhe return portion and there were gas stops in both directions.
The usual 'what direction do we go' discussion took place and we hadn't been up the 329 into the lower Laurentians this year yet, so what the heck - off we went.
Too many cars. Lots of V-Twins chugging along, but with my Hellas and my new HID conversions on the main reflector I am painful to be in front of apparently because everyone waved me ahead - I guess that's what about 13,000 focused lumens will do for you.
I saw a silver FJR - he waved. I saw a burgundy one as well. There were a couple more . . . all in all a very pleasant, if not particularly warm day ride. Top speed was 192 kph - but that was simply me blasting by someone who was going too slow;
This part is for Pierre;
How'd your ride go? What route did you follow? Did you enjoy it?
I did my day ride to Lake George (out of Montreal) on Friday. Left at abound 9, got home about 13 hours later.
I don't like group rides (I prefer to set my own pace or to ride as part of a small group of like-minded riders), but I also have a very hard time keeping the speed down.
I also prefer to avoid interstate highways, though because I left late and to save some time I did slab it to the border.
I have a Nexus card, so crossing the broder took about 30 seconds I immediately headed to the East a bit and picked up highway 9 - deciding to head south on 9N and 22, to return on 9 (without the N) and also a bit of 22, which meanders across both of those 2-lanes.
The route is interesting in that there is a mix of turns and sweepers and straight road, some of which needs some repaving (9N in particular) and some of which is freshly paved.
Pulled in to Tourexpo just before noon and imediately headed to Sandies . . .the burger place. Sandie is the owner's wife and he is a state employee who takes summers off to run his travelling burger joint. There were line-ups everywhere, but they were especially long for this vendor only. 12 ounce Angus all-beef burgers cooked over charcoal and homemade french fries with a diet pepsi for about $12 - turns out that Tourexpo takes 35% of his gross . . . but that he makes half his income for the year (including his state pay) this week alone, so I'm not feeling sorry for him.
From there it was off to the vendor area. They've closed the indoor space that held a number of vendors, but they've expanded the outdoot areas. The rearrangement means that it is less circuituous to get from the free parking area to the vendor area - a good thing.
All the usual vendors were there - the tire people, the Givi and Shad group, Corbin, helmet vendors and so on.
Top gear (the ex-autocom dealer) was NOT there - and I was hoping to pick up a cable for my Zumo-to-Autocom project (note to self . . . more data needs to be put into the Zumo impressions thread . . .) and so on.
In the end I spent absolutely nothing beyond the $10 to get in and $12 for the burger before I pulled up stakes and headed North. I still had managed to spend 4 hours on site.
The total ride for the day was 600 km and the average speed was 77 kph going down and 86 kph on the return leg - noting that there was a traffic situation on the way down, plus a pickup stop in Champlain, NY as well as a shopping stop for a half hour oin trhe return portion and there were gas stops in both directions.
