Next Group Weekend: Oct. 3-5, Adirondacks!

[ZZRStew]

Killed my chain,boots and a couple of steaks. Good times good times.

[scott-sts]

Made it back to Summer 5:30 yesterday.
Awesome trip gentlemen.

[CPB]

Made it home in under 5 hours.  Traffic was light and saw few LEOs.  Took a "wicked good" nap.  

Great weekend!  Really enjoyed the riding and BSing with everyone.  

[Hulked Up]

Damn, I'm finding it hard to come back to work today.  We had an awesome weekend and one of the best group rides ever.  Great riders, amazing roads, good weather, peak foliage, nice motel and food, etc.  Everything worked out very well.  

The Adirondacks are so incredible that we could have done 1-2 more riding days up there and not duplicated our routes.  Forget Vermont and Maine, in my mind the Adirondacks have got to be the best place to ride in the Northeast.  It was saying something for Scott & Mike (who have each ridden up there numerous times) to tell me the roads we found on Saturday were incredible.

I have 200+ pictures to sort through when I get home.

[JETSET]

Gregg and I got home around 8:30 pm did some sightseeing at Whiteface and then to Lake George where they were having a Blues fest.Some bee took me down bastich.
We had a great time the trip was well planned and ecellently executed.The rides the food and the company were out of sight.I would ride with you guys anytime! it was a pleasure.

Great job!

I'll post pix later

[Hulked Up]

I need to thank Greg (GRN) and Charlie (Chas) first off for their route suggestions and critiques.  Everything you gave me was spot-on.  Those roads were out of this world and if anyone is interested in riding in the Adirondacks I highly recommend you download the route in reply 37 of this thread.  You can’t go wrong with any part of that route, even if you can’t complete the whole thing.

I also have to thank everyone who gave up a three day weekend to make the ride, all 8 of you.  I always have fun riding with old friends like Doug (Nightflight), Mike (ZZRStew), Scott-sts, Chris (CPB), Andrei (Russian Bear) and Joe (long:haul).  There’s a lot of confidence riding with a group of people you don’t have to worry about.  I also had the pleasure of riding with Trevor (Jetset) and his brother-in-law Gregg.  You guys fit right into the group and I hope we get to ride together again.  

This time I’m going to rely on the pictures to tell most of the story.

Friday

7 of us met at the McDonald’s in Adams, Mass, which is as depressing a place as you’ll find.  We headed north into Vermont and crossed into New York at the Crown Point Bridge.  It rained the first half of the day:  on & off showers, nothing too heavy.  That was the only rain of the weekend.









Once we crossed into New York we hit the fabulous Tracy Road.  3 of us loved it so much we did it back and forth 3 times.  We got into Lake Placid at close to 6pm after a full day of riding.






Doug


Our hotel, was founded by Art Devlin, who was a champion ski jumper in the 1940’s and ‘50’s, a local hero from Lake Placid.


Great motel, very clean and recently updated.  There are many dumps in the area; this one is a winner.




Scott-sts and Doug at dinner Friday night


Mike (ZZRStew)


Chris (CPB)


Fireside Steakhouse, so good we ate there twice

[Hulked Up]

Saturday

I got up at 7am and took an walking tour of Lake Placid


The 400 meter speed skating track


Eric Heiden won gold medals at all distances in ‘80






downtown Lake Placid




looks like an old dorm from the Olympics…note the Harley “dealership” below


a toboggan chute built onto Mirror Lake




Lake Placid from Mirror Lake




1932 arena


1980 Olympic Ice Arena


The Miracle on Ice – Ice



We had breakfast at the “MILF Diner” but there were no MILF’s to be found.  They had a lot of good looking young women all tattooed up however.  We then met up with Trevor and Gregg and hit the road.  Our plan was a loop I put together with input from Greg and Charlie (GRN & Chas).  The route was incredible; we were on amazing roads as soon as we left Lake Placid.  Try CR-33 and 18.  Route 30 south had some of the fastest sweeping turns of the trip.

On Route 56 a long straight-away was too much for some of the guys on the super/super sports to resist and they made a nice full throttle run.  Truly stupid street speeds were reached.  Before we could regroup, the fast group blew the next turn.


waiting to regroup




Stark Road was not the fastest road, but it was very remote















I was having a bit too much fun and let the pace get way out of hand.  The speeds were pretty ridiculous but seemed like a good idea at the time as there was no traffic, LEO’s and the roads were in perfect condition.  The turns were very well marked and accurate.  If you took them at 2x the listed speed you were fine.

The high speeds caused us to burn through a lot of gas very quickly.  The big bikes were sucking wind at about 110 miles.  Unfortunately there weren’t many gas stations out in the boonies, so we limped into Saranac Lake and grabbed some lunch.


Jetset





After lunch we found some more great roads.  The best ones were county routes or just had regular names like Silver Lake, Ore Bend or Guide Board Road.  The state highways had more traffic; the county routes were the best places to play.











Our goal after lunch was to ride up Whiteface Mountain.  They had received 2” of snow the day before and we didn’t know if it was open.  When we got there the road was open but we missed closing time by 10 minutes.

These videos give you a good sense of what the roads were like.  Note the numbers of twists and turns and quality of the pavement:


Hey Mike, you left your turn signal on…




Riding around the front side of Whiteface Mountain




What’s up?










Andrei

We did most of the 280 mile loop.  Had another great dinner at the Fireside.

[Hulked Up]

Sunday

Sunday morning we all split into smaller groups and headed home.  Chris had the longest ride and left early.  Joe, Mike and Scott made their own beeline south.  Trevor and Gregg got a later start.  Sorry we missed you guys in the morning.  Andrei, Doug and I decided to do some tourist sightseeing before leaving Lake Placid.


Gregg’s Concours 14


Trevor’s FJR


Mike’s ZZR1200


Andrei’s R1200RT, soon to be replaced by a dual sport


Doug’s VFR


Mirror Lake is well named




a country road around Lake Placid


This is the actual Lake Placid

After doing a loop of the village we went to the Olympic Ski Jumps, which had just opened.  It’s really an amazing place and worth the time to explore.  We were amazed that people would huck themselves off those jumps.  Andrei said it best, “They had a mountain and then they built a 25 story tower on top of the mountain.”






Art Devlin & me






view from the end of the take-off ramp, you can see our three bikes down at the bottom






Mount Marcy, the highest point in New York


you take off from here and land over the hill




they don’t have to worry about me violating that rule


The bobsled and luge runs are visible on the mountain


Lake Placid from the top of the jump



Our next goal was to get to the top of Whiteface Mountain






After a 10 minute wait to get in we took the road up to the summit.  The snow was still visible but calcium chloride had been used to melt it off the road.




Lake Placid, the lake from the north






Andrei throwing a snowball






This tunnel takes you to an elevator, which you ride to the summit






This is Doug’s friend.  The signs all said, “Save Your Brakes.  Use Low Gear.”  They insisted on using up their brakes anyway.


Heading down the hill from North Pole, NY

After lunch at the A&W we left the High Peaks area.  It was 1:30pm.  We did manage to find a lot of nice roads headed south.






We did Tracy Road one more time.  



Route 7 from Tracy Road was great and then we took 22 south towards Mass. & Conn.  Although there were fewer twists, it was also a very fun road to ride.







I said my goodbyes to Andrei and Doug in Hoosick Falls, crossed into Vermont and took some more twisty roads to get home.

Great way to close out the group riding season guys.  I had one of the best times ever and wanted to thank everyone for showing up and making it great.  It’s a big testament to the riders that we could have so many people and have so few problems.  Don’t know if I’ll be able to do these rides again for a while, but maybe someone can carry the torch next year and plan another trip to the ‘Daks.

[scott-sts]

Great pics from the top of the ski jump Keith.
I'm sorry I didn't get to Whiteface Mtn.  Never been up there in the snow.

[googus]

Greta pictures guys!!

[JETSET]

Great pics from the top of the ski jump Keith.
I'm sorry I didn't get to Whiteface Mtn.  Never been up there in the snow.

Ditto,work sux!

[JETSET]

Lake George

[JETSET]

White Face

[JETSET]

Jetset

[JETSET]

Reg 6 ST.N Adirondacks  Olympic Crew

[googus]

Trev you went fishing?

[CPB]

Plenty been said about what a great weekend of riding it was.  Here are a few more pics.







Keith, Andrei and Doug


Trevor


This pic sums up the wknd nicely......great smiles

[ST3Andy]

My favorite pix. You guys on the podium. Looks like you  had another great weekend. Wish I could have made it. My November schedule is wide open. We might have to head south though.

http://i258.photobucket.com/albums/hh271/hulkedup/Adirondacks/68-medalstand.jpg

[Hulked Up]

Here are Scott's pix:

[Hulked Up]

If you want to get an idea of what it was like at dinner, check this out...