NY & PA Mountain Tour - October '04
I just returned from a wonderful 6 day trip that included 5 days of riding through the mountains of New York and Pennsylvania.
Here’s Me At The Start of the ride.
All total I rode 1,450 miles in 5 days of riding.
I left Saturday morning at 9:45 temp was 38 F. I was very glad I listened to all the advice from The Chain Gang members and bought myself a heated vest (AeroStitch Kanetsu). There’s no way I could have done this trip without it. I rode up to Bennington, VT via CT 44 and US Rt 7. Had lunch at a nice little café owned by an elderly Swiss gentlemen and talked about motorcycles with him for quite a while.
From Bennington I took a nice little valley road Arlington VT (Rt 313) before turning north along the Hudson River and the Champlain Canal.
You can see a number of locks on the Canal along Rt. 4 south of Hudson Falls.
I finished the day in Lake George, NY.
That night I found the Adirondack Pub & Brewery where I had a couple great heffeweissen’s some good food and relaxed while reading (what else) Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.
I woke up at 7 AM on Sunday hoping to give the sun a chance to warm things up a bit – HA! No chance! There was nearly an 1/8th inch of frost on my bike, heavy cloud cover and it was 28 F. So what to do? Why, ride north and climb in elevation of course! By 9:00 I was riding up into the Adirondack’s, which are just beautiful.
If you’ve never ridden up there, I strongly recommend it. The only down-side is the frost heaves in places make it feel like you’re riding on washboard even though it’s paved.
By the time I got to Long Lake in the heart of the mountains, I was thoroughly frozen even given the vest and winter (non-heated) riding gloves. I went on to Old Forge and stopped at a little diner where one of the locals commented “You must be one cold boy!” – he was right. From there I rode on to Syracuse to meet up with a few old college friends.
I stayed Sunday and Monday nights at my buddy Marc’s house – I hadn’t seen him in nearly 11 years and it was good to catch up on old times. Monday morning was miserable weather – in the low 40’s light rain and drizzle, so we decided to go down to the shooting range. We met another college friend there, and had a blast going through about 400 rounds of ammo. It’d been years since I fired a .45 hand gun, but did quite well – we also took some practice blasting targets with an M1 and a couple other rifles that I’ll decline to ID, in case Big Brother is monitoring this blog.
After saying goodbye to Marc on Tues. morning, I rode along NY Rt. 20 out to Geneseo. I graduated from SUNY Geneseo in 1988 and hadn’t seen the campus in over 10 years – beautiful place:
Of course I had to see if my old drinking establishments were still there – and they were:
The Inn Between
Idle Hour
Vital Spot
Geneseo’s a quaint little town with a Bear in a fountain at the center of town.
Legend has it that if a virgin ever graduates from SUNY Geneseo, then the bear will climb down off his pole, do a dance around town, and disappear. Thanks to everyone giving it the old college try, it’s reported that the bear has only disappeared twice since the college was founded in 1871.
After Geneseo, I rode south through Letchworth State Park - aka The Grand Canyon of the East.
Bike at Letchworth State Park
Deeply Incised Meander at Letchworth State Park
Mount Morris Dam in Letchworth State Park, NY
Then on to the Allegany National Forest and Camped in Kinzua, PA. This is a beautiful area with a Reservoir formed by the Kinzua Dam.
Allegany Reservoir at Kinzua, PA
I camped out at a the Kinzua KOA. The place wasn't too bad, especially in October, hardly anyone was around, so it was nice and quiet. I rolled in around 4 PM. Unloaded my gear, set up my tent, and went to the only place around for dinner: a local roadside bar & grill.
Bike at Kinzua KOA
The place was great. The barmaid was real nice and let me use their phone to call home.I watched a movie (Second Hand Lions - Michael Caine, Robert Duvall, and Kyra Sedgwick),it was actually pretty good. Had some of the best chili I've ever had, a burger, and a beer (only had to ride back about a 1/2 mile). After dinner, I went back to the campsite, read for a while, then listened to the Red Sox win a playoff game on the radio and crashed for the night.
Wednesday morning I rode south through the only disappointing section of my whole ride. Once south of the Allegheney National Forest, you get into oil, coal, and paper mill country. The towns all appeared very economically depressed. I kept riding on toward Altoona and decided I need to take a break. I knew I was near Horseshoe Curve and saw a sign for the Allegheney Portage Railroad National Historic Site so I decided to pull off and check it out. When I stopped & took off my helmet, the front of it was completely black from coal dust coming off the trucks and the road surface. The Portage Railroad is basically the place where the first railroads were mechanically pulled over the Allegheney mountains. The park has excavated the former subgrade mechanisms that they used to haul the trains over the mountains and has reconstructed them as accurately as possible. This thing is truly amazing. Steam-power, wooden timbers huge horizontal gears and pulleys all set up to hook a train up to a hemp rope and haul it over the mountains. Later on they switched to braided steel cables. It's worth a stop.
I never did make it over to Horsehshoe Curve which is something of a Mecca for railroad buffs, which I'm not. Anyway after the Portage Railroad, I tried to get through Altoon and find a back road heading north towards State College. After about 1/2 an hour of confusing exchanges, backtracking, and dead-reckoning, I finally made it out of Altoona. This was when I wished I had a GPS.
After Altoona, the ride got more interesting, I took PA Rt. 26 up to State College. It was a fast, twisty road. From there I hauled butt all the way up to Williamsport on superslabs, found a hotel, had dinner and a beer & went to sleep before the Red Sox won the series.
Thursday AM was cold again – 37 F. I left Williamsport and rode along the Loyalsock Creek on Rt. 87 – fantastic road with hairpins, whoop-de-whoops (very quick ups & downs) and I was really pushing my limits. That was until out of the corner of my eye I saw a sign that said “Loose Gravel” It turns out the geniuses at PennDOT fix the roads by cutting out the bad sections and patching them with long strips (parallel to travel) of tar and chip stone. Each long strip is raised above the rest of the road surface creating a channel that’s very good at catching one’s tires and causing you to wobble as you bounce in and out of asphalt and loose stone! Needless to say, I slowed down a bit from my 70 MPH average (on the speedo).
Once through that mess, I wound my way through back roads over very hilly, twisty terrain with poorly maintained road surfaces into NY. It was like riding on dirt – I was getting bounced around a ton and my shoulders were sore from working the bars so hard on the turns and fighting the bumps – of course I’m grinning all the way.
I then made it to the best part of the entire ride – the Catskills! Riding along Rt. 30 through the core of the Catskill Mountains is akin to riding heaven.
Route 28 Catskill Mountains, NY
Beautiful terrain, 180 degree hairpin turns, high speed sweepers, pulling 70 MPH on posted 35 MPH turns, in and out of the shadows cast by the mountains, you name it – it’s all there. And, since it’s not tourist season, I had it nearly to myself.
After the Catskills, I hauled back into CT and arrived home to see wife and kids by around 7:30 PM.
Here’s Me At The Start of the ride.
All total I rode 1,450 miles in 5 days of riding.
I left Saturday morning at 9:45 temp was 38 F. I was very glad I listened to all the advice from The Chain Gang members and bought myself a heated vest (AeroStitch Kanetsu). There’s no way I could have done this trip without it. I rode up to Bennington, VT via CT 44 and US Rt 7. Had lunch at a nice little café owned by an elderly Swiss gentlemen and talked about motorcycles with him for quite a while.
From Bennington I took a nice little valley road Arlington VT (Rt 313) before turning north along the Hudson River and the Champlain Canal.
You can see a number of locks on the Canal along Rt. 4 south of Hudson Falls.
I finished the day in Lake George, NY.
That night I found the Adirondack Pub & Brewery where I had a couple great heffeweissen’s some good food and relaxed while reading (what else) Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.
I woke up at 7 AM on Sunday hoping to give the sun a chance to warm things up a bit – HA! No chance! There was nearly an 1/8th inch of frost on my bike, heavy cloud cover and it was 28 F. So what to do? Why, ride north and climb in elevation of course! By 9:00 I was riding up into the Adirondack’s, which are just beautiful.
If you’ve never ridden up there, I strongly recommend it. The only down-side is the frost heaves in places make it feel like you’re riding on washboard even though it’s paved.
By the time I got to Long Lake in the heart of the mountains, I was thoroughly frozen even given the vest and winter (non-heated) riding gloves. I went on to Old Forge and stopped at a little diner where one of the locals commented “You must be one cold boy!” – he was right. From there I rode on to Syracuse to meet up with a few old college friends.
I stayed Sunday and Monday nights at my buddy Marc’s house – I hadn’t seen him in nearly 11 years and it was good to catch up on old times. Monday morning was miserable weather – in the low 40’s light rain and drizzle, so we decided to go down to the shooting range. We met another college friend there, and had a blast going through about 400 rounds of ammo. It’d been years since I fired a .45 hand gun, but did quite well – we also took some practice blasting targets with an M1 and a couple other rifles that I’ll decline to ID, in case Big Brother is monitoring this blog.
After saying goodbye to Marc on Tues. morning, I rode along NY Rt. 20 out to Geneseo. I graduated from SUNY Geneseo in 1988 and hadn’t seen the campus in over 10 years – beautiful place:
Of course I had to see if my old drinking establishments were still there – and they were:
The Inn Between
Idle Hour
Vital Spot
Geneseo’s a quaint little town with a Bear in a fountain at the center of town.
Legend has it that if a virgin ever graduates from SUNY Geneseo, then the bear will climb down off his pole, do a dance around town, and disappear. Thanks to everyone giving it the old college try, it’s reported that the bear has only disappeared twice since the college was founded in 1871.
After Geneseo, I rode south through Letchworth State Park - aka The Grand Canyon of the East.
Bike at Letchworth State Park
Deeply Incised Meander at Letchworth State Park
Mount Morris Dam in Letchworth State Park, NY
Then on to the Allegany National Forest and Camped in Kinzua, PA. This is a beautiful area with a Reservoir formed by the Kinzua Dam.
Allegany Reservoir at Kinzua, PA
I camped out at a the Kinzua KOA. The place wasn't too bad, especially in October, hardly anyone was around, so it was nice and quiet. I rolled in around 4 PM. Unloaded my gear, set up my tent, and went to the only place around for dinner: a local roadside bar & grill.
Bike at Kinzua KOA
The place was great. The barmaid was real nice and let me use their phone to call home.I watched a movie (Second Hand Lions - Michael Caine, Robert Duvall, and Kyra Sedgwick),it was actually pretty good. Had some of the best chili I've ever had, a burger, and a beer (only had to ride back about a 1/2 mile). After dinner, I went back to the campsite, read for a while, then listened to the Red Sox win a playoff game on the radio and crashed for the night.
Wednesday morning I rode south through the only disappointing section of my whole ride. Once south of the Allegheney National Forest, you get into oil, coal, and paper mill country. The towns all appeared very economically depressed. I kept riding on toward Altoona and decided I need to take a break. I knew I was near Horseshoe Curve and saw a sign for the Allegheney Portage Railroad National Historic Site so I decided to pull off and check it out. When I stopped & took off my helmet, the front of it was completely black from coal dust coming off the trucks and the road surface. The Portage Railroad is basically the place where the first railroads were mechanically pulled over the Allegheney mountains. The park has excavated the former subgrade mechanisms that they used to haul the trains over the mountains and has reconstructed them as accurately as possible. This thing is truly amazing. Steam-power, wooden timbers huge horizontal gears and pulleys all set up to hook a train up to a hemp rope and haul it over the mountains. Later on they switched to braided steel cables. It's worth a stop.
I never did make it over to Horsehshoe Curve which is something of a Mecca for railroad buffs, which I'm not. Anyway after the Portage Railroad, I tried to get through Altoon and find a back road heading north towards State College. After about 1/2 an hour of confusing exchanges, backtracking, and dead-reckoning, I finally made it out of Altoona. This was when I wished I had a GPS.
After Altoona, the ride got more interesting, I took PA Rt. 26 up to State College. It was a fast, twisty road. From there I hauled butt all the way up to Williamsport on superslabs, found a hotel, had dinner and a beer & went to sleep before the Red Sox won the series.
Thursday AM was cold again – 37 F. I left Williamsport and rode along the Loyalsock Creek on Rt. 87 – fantastic road with hairpins, whoop-de-whoops (very quick ups & downs) and I was really pushing my limits. That was until out of the corner of my eye I saw a sign that said “Loose Gravel” It turns out the geniuses at PennDOT fix the roads by cutting out the bad sections and patching them with long strips (parallel to travel) of tar and chip stone. Each long strip is raised above the rest of the road surface creating a channel that’s very good at catching one’s tires and causing you to wobble as you bounce in and out of asphalt and loose stone! Needless to say, I slowed down a bit from my 70 MPH average (on the speedo).
Once through that mess, I wound my way through back roads over very hilly, twisty terrain with poorly maintained road surfaces into NY. It was like riding on dirt – I was getting bounced around a ton and my shoulders were sore from working the bars so hard on the turns and fighting the bumps – of course I’m grinning all the way.
I then made it to the best part of the entire ride – the Catskills! Riding along Rt. 30 through the core of the Catskill Mountains is akin to riding heaven.
Route 28 Catskill Mountains, NY
Beautiful terrain, 180 degree hairpin turns, high speed sweepers, pulling 70 MPH on posted 35 MPH turns, in and out of the shadows cast by the mountains, you name it – it’s all there. And, since it’s not tourist season, I had it nearly to myself.
After the Catskills, I hauled back into CT and arrived home to see wife and kids by around 7:30 PM.
posted by dbtgeology at 1:30 PM
0 comments
