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Affordable Beemer Services LLC
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Trip Reports - Dual - Sport 40th Birthday Ride
Back from my ride. We had a great time and the whole trip story is below. The Dual-Sport portion was laid out a few years ago by the BMW MOV club and runs from Greenfield, Ma. to Troy, Vt. on the Canadian border. Nearly all dirt roads with a "HERO" section...Knobby tires required! Heeheehee! Not for GS's...unless equipped with a winch!!! So, if you are interested in the ride report, read on.
Day 1-Sunday 27 August: Sean Murphy, Mike Hillhouse and I all on Kawasaki KLR 650's leave my house at 1:00 PM and ride to Greenfield, Ma. in the rain where we get a room for the night so we can get an early start and attempt to do the entire dual-sport route in 1 day. Besides a wet and slightly chilly ride to Ma. it was pretty uneventful. Soaked and tired from the previous nights birthday party for me we ate and were sleeping by 8pm.
Day 2-Monday 28 August (My 40th birthday!): Up at 4am and on the road at 5am. Rain has stopped but it is still dark and very foggy. We begin the route and quickly realise that we can't see the damn route sheet in the dark. Dumb F*&^ that I am, during all the confusion in getting out of the house yesterday and a last minute change in riding gear, I have no flashlight! We wait for 20 minutes or so and can then read the route sheet well enough to continue. (Being mostly dirt roads through Vermont, this ride requires a route sheet...a long strip of paper with specific mileages written on it ie; 1.2 turn left on dirt...1.7 turn right on dirt...2.9 turn left on paved road, etc. , rolled up into a route sheet holder mounted on the handlebars and viewed through a window of the holder. So, it is very critical to see what is written and not make a wrong turn as this would throw off your mileage and cause you to continuously try to calculate the discrepancy against the route sheet...yes we scerewed up a few times!) We stopped in Woodstock, Vt. for breakfast and as soon as we got seated it began to pour. Day 2 of rain??? We continued the ride after a great meal and the rain finally stopped an hour or 2 later. "Less dust...More mud" Mike had been saying for days. Besides the reduction in visibility, it was fine.
We reached the "Hero Section" later in the day and decided to try it. Very muddy and Sean & I were wishing we had the dirt bikes instead of the KLR's but it would have been boring, easy work on the dirt bikes. I was lucky enough to get through it all with no tip-overs and just a torn saddlebag due to the excess weight of luggage packed and a couple of deep whoops that bottomed the KLR's suspension. Sean & Mike both tipped over in the mud when they both got stuck. It was VERY "gooey" and you had to be careful of which line you chose through this slimy section. At the end I lost my music, radar and GPS so did some diagnostics and found a blown fuse. Simple fix and back on the road. We were unsure of the route sheet at this point and raced around for a bit until getting back on track and continuing the ride. More dirt roads and further north towards Canada. There was 10 miles left to the route when I made a wrong turn and just headed for Newport, Vt. for a room and meal. We found a nice place and headed to the restaurant after changing for my birthday meal. Later at the motels bar, we all had a few beers and went to sleep early. Nothing exciting.
Day 3-Tuesday 29 August: We wake up to, what else?, RAIN & FOG!!! Having still not decided where we are going to go we have something to eat and spend extra time suiting up for the rainy day that was forecast. We decide to go to Derby, Vt. and get some pics of us at the Canadian border. OOPS! We crossed the Canadian border! So we decided to ride through Canada and reenter the US in Vt. near W. Stewartstown, NH. A beautiful ride through Canada and it made me wonder why I haven't been riding up here since 1996. Then I remembered, I have a business to run which has kept me too busy to travel too far north. But I will do more Canadian trips in the future. Great roads and awesome scenery! We cross over NH and into Maine which also had a great stretch of road that saw my KLR cruising along at 85+ mph causing the speedometer cable to retire! Always wondered when the original cable was going to snap. It finally did at 23910 miles! We continued through Bethel, Maine and into Conway, NH where we stopped at Whitehorse Press to do some shopping for more motorcycle stuff. If you have never been to Whitehorse...GO!!! Very nice people and a great selection of goodies for you and your bike. We spent an hour or so there and decided to haul ass home and try to beat the rain that we had been fortunate enough to avoid for the most part of the day. So we blasted home and only encountered rain in the last 10 miles of the ride. I need to check with Mike for total mileage but it was over 700 miles. The KLR's got consistent 50 miles per gallon! A truly awesome ride and a great time...couldn't have had a better birthday on the road. Looking forward to doing this ride again next spring. That's about it. Relaxing and doing some yard/personal bike work today and tomorrow and will be back in the shop Friday. Hope everyone is well and thanks for all the birthday cards and gifts.
See you soon, Chris
