Northeast ST.N Meet & Greet, 5/2/09, Great Barrington, Mass.

[dmarrier]

The weather turned out great today.  Good ride out to Gr. Barrington and back.  It was nice to put some names with faces. GREAT TIME!!!

[malbojah]

Last of the Mohicans just getting back home and checking in

[fhaze]

  Great Time today. Dean here, I had the 07 FJR .Met you guys at Mototown.  Had a nice (safe) ride home as well.    Hope to meet at some other rides.                    


                                                                                                          Dean

Dean..it's Fred w/ the '05 FJR..nice meeting you too..good lunch, and good riding. No performance awards..but I did get Lidar'ed on the way home. 55 in a 45, but he never spun around..whew.

Nice meeting some new people, and seeing some old faces...we really need to put ST-N names on our gear for these events!

and fer fucks sake, somebody please show up to an event with aftermarket pipes on an FJR!

[malbojah]

My one and only performance award for the day:

[Mr.Black]

Heres a few more pics. Im new at the Photobucket thing so bear with me.

http://s731.photobucket.com/albums/ww311/JOHN1COOK2/Meet%20and%20Greet%20Region%206/?albumview=grid

[happybusa]

I am glad I hauled my HappyassedBusa out to Great Barrington to see a bunch of you again!
I did manage to take **some** pics...............



 

[Hulked Up]

Great time again folks.  The threat of rain kept the numbers lower than last year, but I counted about 50 bikes in the parking lot of McDonalds (thanks Vince!).  Here are my pics:

The meet location at Mototown.  Even Dunkin Donuts was closed.  Next year we're going to meet right off exit 38 where they have gas and DD right there.




Dean's FJR - lots of FJR's out today...they are the new VFR


well, that and the ST1300...a number of those out today too.  This is Eric's.


George's GS


Mike's (ZZR) son Chris brought his 1985 Honda VF1000R.  It attracted more attention than anything else.  Fun to compare how things have changed in the last 25 years.




Andy's ST3, Bill's (STalker) FJR and John's Bandit 1250








took a ride over the Sevielle Dam




Beautiful day today, not one drop of rain, temps in the 50's


This c-sucker in the Civic was tailgating John pretty bad all the way through Route 8.


Crowd at Manhattan Pizza - the Long Island folks (Scott, Art, Jay & Ed) had to leave from here to catch the 3pm ferry




Drool worthy




Sport-touring is so easy, even a _______ can do it.  






I lusted after this bike back when I first got into riding...ridden all the way from Cape Cod


I got to take Chris' VF1000R out for a short spin.  OMG, that thing is cramped...it felt like it had the wrong footpegs on it.  After a short time I got used to it though.  Great bike...a lot narrower than the newer VFR's but it still had plenty of power and handled well.  



After the Meet & Greet about 13 of us took off from McDonalds.  We went north on 41 and took a nice side road up to 102 and then 22 north into New York.  We then took 43 back into Mass.  There was a bridge out on 43 so we had to take 7 into Williamstown and then North Adams.  A couple of riders split off here and we took Route 8 into Vermont and did the famous section in Searsburg.  It was pretty frost heaved.  From there we rode Route 9 into Wilmington and split up the rest of the way.  Doug, Mike, Chris, Andy and I took Route 112 into Greenfield.  Can't say enough about the group...considering the size everyone stayed together and the pace worked out really well.  Fun times.


This is Route 43 headed into Massachusetts


2 min. video running the twisties of Route 8


We split up here.


Walt (R1150GS) and Leebo (r)


Riding 112 with Mike.

Our group of 5 had a very close call with a statie coming back.  Forget performance award...we were probably looking at steel bracelets.  4 of us were well into triple digits on the interstate when we noticed the blue lights a half-mile back.  We slowed down, but the cop just kept going.  I guess there must have been a triple murder today because he had bigger fish to fry.    

Thanks everyone for showing up and traveling (some) insane distances to make it.

[teamcubco]

A good portion (most) of this ride was better than lots of the sport bike rides I go on!  You guys all know how to rock and roll....Bela,Jay and I headed north after the covered bridge two way...I'll have to say that those VFR's, Bandit's etc all do very well in the twisties!....  I know, I know it's the Magician not the Wand.  Crossed the CT river at Walpole headed north to 123 to 9 to home.  Rt. 123 since the floods is still in being repaired but the road was in awesome shape where repaired and the sweepers, oh the sweepers.  Must have been some good karma because no one in front of us and we could let it rip.  Thanks for putting this together, I'm thinking of coming in from the north next year......Bob  (Yellow SV)

[mwt]

   Just a few more pics......I was impressed  by the Yamaha Raider. That's probably the cleanest style I've seen on a cruiser, simple but elegant. I don't think I'm ready for a bike that different, but it was a nice looking bike for sure.

  Great chatting with some new folks, and a nice surprise seeing Fred there. Wow, with all the V-STROMS there (and other adventure series machines), I felt like I brought a knife to a gun fight.  

      See ya all again sometime. Ride safe.

             http://matt-t.fotopic.net/c1677101.html

   

[cjgauthier]

          Good to see everyone again! The riding season has officially begun.

          HappyBusa, that was a great camera angle on that shot of me on rt. 20, it gave the appearance  of movement.  Some guy said  when I went by all he saw was a yellow blur, then he put on his glasses.

          Hulkster, I missed the casting call because I was out on the bike.

[FreeTheBeast]

http://freethebeast.smugmug.com/gallery/8080948_QTaRd/1/526478424_P8uiB#P-1-12.

   Nice riding with everyone..up until I broke off to head back.  :~)

[Beldude]

Great event, awesome ride, great group, and great routes. Started 6am, arrived home 8:30pm. Over 450
miles. A little sore. I(Bela,SV650 blue) had a blast. Great way to start the riding season.

Thanks,
Bela

[Peter_MA]

What a great day to ride

Special thanks to Keith and also to Shawn King for putting up the post on the FJR forum. It was great to meet you all and check out the bikes and farkles.

Brian (R1150RT) and I (05 FJR) dropped down to Rt 57 on the way out. Just after we turned onto it following a couple of pokie cars, prepping to blow around them, we came around a corner and found a local officer with his radar gun out.    Whew!

Hope everyone got home safe.

[Bravo12]

I'm sorry I couldn't make this ride.  It looks like the rain held off for most of it, which is always a good thing.  As it is, I'm doing some much-needed work on the VFR, so she'll be ready for the rest of the season.

[scottzilla]

We ended up having to leave after lunch to make the 3pm boat.  Sorry I missed everyone at McDonalds.
Figure it best to get home to a 4 mo old girl with an ear infection to relieve the wife.

[Brider]

Hey all,

This is sort of my introduction thread as well as my mini ride report. I just signed up here last night after getting home and before I crashed on the couch.

I had a fantastic time yesterday. Met everyone in Rindge at about 8:15 and left promptly at 8:30. (Thanks Lee!) Had a fantastic ride down to Gt. Barrington and was glad the weather held. Lee, Walter and I arrived back at our starting location in Rindge at about 6:30 after a nice 380 mile day! A few close calls with the boys in blue, but no one in our group got tagged. Hope everyone made it home safe..  A lot of nice bikes and a great group of people.

I'm looking forward to getting in a lot of miles this year and joining in on a lot more of these group rides.

--Brad

I'm the guy that was on the K1200R.  

[fhaze]

It seems like most people had a close call with the Po-Po..I hope this isn't a sign of things to come. I have always had good luck with the old addage, ride where the cops aren't. Well now they seem to be out in the boonies and hills, I guess it's time to terrorize Main St.

[Fav]

 I guess it's time to terrorize Main St.

Naaa they'll get while on the Mountain bikes and/or radio for helicopter  

[venk25]

I had a great time.  Left Nashua at 7:15 AM to ride to Rindge to Orange to Gt. Barrington.  Great ride.  On the way back, I split off at Rt.2/Rt.8 North Adams and headed back home on Rt.2.  Reached safely around 6:20 PM.  382 miles total; about 8.5 hrs on saddle. Obviously was sore and had a real good sleep    My knees started complaining after about 7 hrs on saddle and realized it was 1.5 hrs since last break.  A short 10 mins stop made it feel better.

It was nice meeting some known faces again and meet new folks and put faces to names.

[thetallstewy]

Hey, just joined the forums. I had a great time and hope to do more rides!

BTW, for those who saw my finger, I got it x-rayed and it ended up being a bad sprain thankfully.

-Chris (85 vfr)