Meet & Greet Check In, Post Your Stories & Pictures

[Hulked Up]

Hope everyone made it back okay.  I appreciate everyone that came out for the ride, about 30 people by my count.  I especially take my hat (helmet) off to the hearty souls from New Hampshire.  I rode home with them and it was pretty damn cold going back through the mountains with temperatures dipping down to freezing at the peaks.  I was impressed that some of you guys did the ride without heated gear and on sport bikes and naked bikes.    Lee, you really made that KLR move bro.

I'll have some pictures and stories later.

BTW, Mototown USA was a great place to start the ride.  That facility is incredible and they had everything we needed.

[brucev]

Keith:
It sounds like you all had a good day.  I was glad to stop down this morning and hang out for awhile.  Good to see all you guys.  Hope to ride with you all soon.  

[brucev]

A few pics in the parking lot at Mototown USA.  

[brucev]

I will try to repost the pics,  For some reason they got cut in half.

[gforce]

Nice to see you all.  

And good that you dodged the weather bullets this year, Keith!  

[Hulked Up]

Lots of pictures from today.  This first batch is from the Mototown USA parking lot.  We had 15 bikes from Conn., Mass., RI and NY.  Mototown was great.  Sorry, no pictures from inside, but it’s pretty amazing, an indoor motocross track, motocycle shop, chopper shop, Gold’s Gym, Dunkin Donuts and more.  The owner had coffee and donuts for us.  






The group from Long Island arriving


It was easy to spot Fran’s Gold Wing running sweep, the headlights are as bright as the space shuttle’s.














Nice to see Bruce’s brand new K1200S


Bill’s Triumph Trophy



We left Mototown about 10:30am and headed up Rte. 189 to 20 to 318 to Berkhamsted Reservoir to Rte. 8 north and then 23 into Great Barrington.  The further north we got the colder it got.  The forecast called for temps around 50 today, but I never saw anything over about 42.  

Some pics of the route:


 

 








Got to Great Barrington at 12 noon and met Paige and Chris at Four Brothers Pizza.




I rode down from Greenfield with Craig.

After lunch we hooked up with the group that came down from New Hampshire at Price Chopper.  The Long Island crew had to grab the ferry and split.  Missed you guys there.




I was impressed with the diversity of bikes there, in years past we’d have 3-4 VFRs, ST’s, etc.  Lots of different bikes here, especially Mike’s Yamaha XS up front.





Got some comic relief out of this guy, usually we have some squid try to impress us with a rolling burnout.



Gforce felt he was disrespecting us by “lifting his leg.”  You decide.




Not many other people to show off to in Great Barrington I guess.
 

 

 






Craig and I hooked up with the New Hampshire group and headed north on Rte. 7 up to Bennington, VT.  In Lenox we got involved in this road rage incident where a woman in a BMW cut me and Leebo off.  She ended up tailing us for a long time and following Hoss right on his back wheel.  I didn’t see exactly what happened, so he’ll have to explain it.  At one point she peeled off.


Taking a break discussing the nut in the BMW.


After Bennington we climbed to 2300 ft. and it got really cold and snowy.  The temps dropped to a low of 32 degrees and the snow had seriously accumulated.  It felt like the middle of winter.





Taking a break at the top of Hogback Mountain before splitting up.








Chuck still had 2 more hours to go to get home.  It was getting colder and looked like it was going to snow.  Real diehards out there today.  Pleasure to ride with you guys, we’ve got to do a ride up in New Hampshire sometime.


 

[scott-sts]

Good to see everyone.  Sorry I missed the NH bunch but we had to make the 3:30 boat.  It was rather nice to have a little extra time to reach Bridgeport; we only had to do 87 all the way this time.

[negruber]

Hey Hulked Up,

Great Pics, thanks for posting.  I feeled honored that you posted pics of the old triumph.  Yeah, it was cold on Hogback, but what was funny, no wind.  Gotta Love New England.

Cheers

Eric

[Leebo]

Thanks to Sean for leading the group from NH.
 I was real suprised when I got to the Citgo station and there where 5 bikes there already.
 Cold ride but a good one...
Thanks once again to Keith for the set up of this. 3 years running.... same weekend again next year????
Lee

[Hulked Up]

Hey Hulked Up,

Great Pics, thanks for posting.  I feeled honored that you posted pics of the old triumph.  Yeah, it was cold on Hogback, but what was funny, no wind.  Gotta Love New England.

Cheers

Eric

Hey, I wanted to tell you guys it was a real pleasure to ride with you all.  Interesting trip back for sure, but you guys know how to ride.  

It was a little scary charging up that mountain after Bennington with the increased snow and decreased temperatures.  I'm leaning the bike over and notice water runoff on the road and my thermometer dropping to 32 degrees.    Luckily nothing frozen.  You guys were right there though.  

  to you guys who did it w/o heated gear.  I had on the full kit:  socks, pants, liner and gloves and I was cold.  Really appreciate the effort to make a ride on a day like yesterday.  

Definitely do this again next year.  Last year, rain; this year cold, maybe 08 will be like 05 and we'll have a beautiful day and 50 bikes.

Tom B.:  sorry we missed you.  Someone said they saw a "bumblebee" bike go by while we were gassing up, just west of Mototown USA.  Must have been you.  The way we were going you probably could have caught up to the "fast" group   without too much trouble.

[Hoss]

Thanks for a great time everyone!

I left my house around 8am, the sun was starting to show itself and the temp readings on my back deck were climbing into the low 40's. So at the last minute I grabbed my backpack so I had a place to shed some of the 10,000 layers of clothing when the high of 50 degrees hit.

....at least the backpack stayed fairly light with just a camera, maps and flat repair kit eh?

Not too much I can add on from what has already been said. Thanks to Sean for leading, thanks to Hulked and Lee for getting it together.  It was great to meet all of you, and I hope to ride with you guys in the future.

Looking at my pictures I have many of the same shots as already posted, so here are a few:

mmmm Triumph. I love the Speed Triples, old, new...doesn't matter.  





On Hog Back. I wanted proof we were crazy enough to fly up that mountain in quite literally freezing temperatures. I think I was doing ok without the electrics until Keith told me the temperature reading off the VFR

[JETSET]

Looks like you guys had a great time looked a little cold in spots.You're probally having a snow storm right now.It was too close to the meet and eat to make this one trying to keep the War Dept at bay.Maybe next year if the timing is right.Its great that everyone made it home safely.

[Hoss]

I just realized something...


On the way up Hog Back,  I saw a sign that said: "Bridge Freezes First".


Thats the first time that sign has ever had any meaning to me while I was on my bike.  


 

[01YZF6]

great pics and tales of treacherous terrain........

glad everyone was safe and made it home ok....

wish i could have made that trip........

maybe next time....

[NHFZ1]

Thanks to everyone that was there.  Keith for putting it together and picking Saturday rather that Sunday.  You should be a weatherman. 

Lee for putting together the New Hampshire meeting place. 

Sean for being the tour guide par excellance.  If I can remember those roads you took us on I will be exploring western Mass more this summer. 

To the guys with no heated gear I am glad that is just a memory for me. 

It was a great group...everyone friendly, sharing  stories, just wanting to ride...no squidly things going on.  Just a great day.

I made it home from Hogback mountain by about 7:30, ending up with 427 miles for the day.  A decent day's ride anytime but even more so this early in the season.  I definitely can feel it today though.

The crazy woman with the cellphone left us and turned on to Rt. 43 north.  No doubt going to find someone else to piss off and terrorise.

Chuck

[Lon]

I'm mostly posting to say Linda and I made it home okay.  We rode back with Mike (XS1100) too - the same route (US7N -> VT9E) over Hog Back - but an hour after you guys  I'll post pictures later.  Consider this a placeholder.

[mrrock]

It was good to meet many of you at Mototown. I'm sorry my scedule did not allow me to continue on up to Ma; not sure if I would have gone further north after hearing about and see the pictures of the snow; I'm a non-electified ...and a wuss in the cold.
I liked to seeing the diversity of bikes in the group.......and the diversity of hair color....like I wasn't the only gray one!
Look forward to the possibility of meeting up again in the future.
thanks for the hospitality

[Clint]

Looks like a good time. Quite a diverse assortment of bikes. I'd like to get in on the next ride. Anyone planning it yet?

[Hulked Up]

It was a lot of fun.  Glad that cold weather is a thing of the past now though.

People post up rides in Region 6 all the time, keep checking back.  I know I'll be doing some overnight, weekend trips this summer.  Maybe we could try another fall foliage ride again.  

Like to do a Meet & Greet in 08 though.

[Hoss]

Bringing an old thread back to life.

Just thought I'd share a few photos I took of Jason from Loudon this weekend (Blue Honda CB-1). He was the guy on the Red 636 with us  

[Hulked Up]

very cool pic; very cool bike  

In case anyone missed it, Bruce posted up a copy of his video of the ride on YouTube.  Great job on that Bruce.

Hope everyone is riding in warmer weather.  I'm looking forward to riding again with you all sometime this season.