Americade 2007 - Day 3

This year I'm going to try publishing highlights of Americade 2007, day-by-day in this blog. This is the 25th year for Americade. It's scheduled for June 4-9 this year. The blog will also include my preparation in getting ready to take the ride to Lake George, NY, my observations while there, the ride home, and getting back to normal.

I missed getting my blog entry in for yesterday so here it is.

Tuesday is always the day we go to the Tour Expo vendor area. It opens at 9 a.m. and if you're registered, you just walk in by showing your armband. Others pay $10 a day.

We approached the parking area and noticed that everyone was lining up and parking on the side street instead of entering the big grassy field. We continued on ignoring the crowd. We soon realized that the grass was wet and many of the bikes, especially with co-riders, didn't want to take a chance on spilling their $20,000 bikes ($25,000 with full chrome). We were all on trikes so it didn't matter what the surface was. We were waved in and parked very near the end of the grassy area near Tour Expo.

We walked the quarter mile down to Tour Expo and flashed our armbands to get in. Jane headed for the helmet vendors while I went to Cycle Gadgets to look for a camcorder mount to put on my trike.

Jane needed a new helmet and finally decided on a fancy Nolan N102. It had a flip up front, sunshade, and fog eliminator feature. It also contained a headset and microphone to hook up to the trike's radio and CB.

I had already found the components I needed at Cycle Gadgets and decided to walked back to my trike and see if they would work with the existing mount I got two years ago for my Garmin 2610 GPS. Half way there, I got a cellphone call from Jane wanting me to come back and look at the Nolan before she bought it. So I walked back and essentially agreed that it looked like a good helmet. The only possible problem was the hookup cord. Would it mate to the trike's existing connection? I said I'd walk back to the trike and bring the cord back -- just to be sure. So I took another half mile jaunt to fetch the cord. It matched.

Jane wanted to go over to the other side of town to the second part of the Tour Expo called The Forum. I said I wanted to try out my new camcorder mount so We went in separate directions. I walked back to the trike and put my camcorder in the new handlebar mount, started up the trike, and turned on the camcorder. I left it on for the whole trip back to my motel -- maybe 8 minutes of video. That worked great, with no shakiness.

We got a bit of rain today -- big surprise. We also got a big drop of pollen from the trees that covered everything including us and our bikes. We even got a rainbow out of it that appeared low over Lake George. See picture, above. While downtown all of a sudden we got a 50 mph wind that came out of nowhere and lasted about 20 seconds. Then it got real cold. Did I mention that the weather is totally unpredictable at Americade?

Tomorrow (actually today), we will be heading up to the Lone Bull Restaurant for breakfast and then back to Tour Expo. I am beginning to see a new helmet in my future.

Americade 2007 - Day 2

This year I'm going to try publishing highlights of Americade 2007, day-by-day in this blog. This is the 25th year for Americade. It's scheduled for June 4-9 this year. The blog will also include my preparation in getting ready to take the ride to Lake George, NY, my observations while there, the ride home, and getting back to normal.

We watched the weather reports and finally reconciled ourselves to having to get on the trikes and ride in the rain from tropical storm Barry. I don't mind riding and having it start to rain. Usually, you can ride through storms like that. This was different.

We started out at 9:15 a.m. to ride four miles up the road to meet Valerie. We pulled in and looked for Valerie. No Valerie. She ended up arriving a bit late because of slow traffic in the rain. It was still raining as we pulled out with three riders. We rode up Route 9 to the Garden State Parkway and over the Driscoll Bridge and onto 440 leading quickly to Route 287. Last year Jane and I got separated on the Driscoll Bridge. (Check last year's blog.) This year we had already made a test run to the Jersey Shore to check out the CBs. The squelch had not been set correctly. That caused the communication problem last year that resulted in us getting lost.

We picked up Marion at a rest stop near Morristown. It was still raining as the four of us headed back out on Route 287. We rode on to our only stop at the second rest area on the NY Thruway. It was still raining.

We completed our trip which, for us, was 250 miles and it had rained the entire time sometimes so heavy that I had to stand up regularly on the pegs and look over the windshield to see what was ahead of me.

We arrived at registration about 4 p.m. and there was no line at all -- an advantage of arriving late.

We had dinner with NJ members of the GWRRA. It was still raining.

We are hopeful of a bit less rain tomorrow as we expect to have an early breakfast and hit the vendor area about 9 a.m. We are told that we may actually see the sun tomorrow although a thunderstorm with high winds is forecast for the afternoon.

Americade 2007 - Day 1

This year I'm going to try publishing highlights of Americade 2007, day-by-day in this blog. This is the 25th year for Americade. It's scheduled for June 4-9 this year. The blog will also include my preparation in getting ready to take the ride to Lake George, NY, my observations while there, the ride home, and getting back to normal.

This will be the 14th consecutive Americade rally that Jane and I have attended. I think we're in a rut.

I had bad arthritis last year at this time. For some reason, it seems to be greatly relieved this year.

Jane had knee replacement surgery on Election Day 2006. It took awhile for her to get back to a point where she could ride but she set riding goals and achieved them all. This trip of 270 miles will be the longest distance she has traveled on her trike since her surgery.

Today, we are getting packed for the trip to Lake George. We will be leaving at 9:30 a.m. Monday morning. Unfortunately, tropical storm, Barry, is bearing down on us and promises heavy rain this afternoon and tomorrow morning. That could make the ride semi-miserable.

Jane is the sunshine lady in our Gold Wing chapter. She announces birthdays and anniversaries and also has a remarkable record of making the sun shine when the chapter takes a ride somewhere. Right now, she's driving home on the Jersey Turnpike after attending a birthday party for our granddaughter in PA. The storm is right behind her pushing her north. She needs to somehow steer it to the right, out into the Atlantic Ocean to clear the way for our trip. Go Jane Go!

This afternoon we will be packing up and loading the bikes.

We will be meeting another female rider about four miles north tomorrow at 9:30 a.m. and then picking up another female rider near Morristown, NJ about an hour or so later. We'll have three trikes and one Gold Wing two-wheeler (could be a Valkyrie) in the group.

Next year, our daughter and her family will be moving from PA to Saratoga Springs, NY. That's only 20-some miles from Lake George and right on the way for us. We probably will be tacking a few days on the beginning and end of our Americade tour from now on to visit with them.

Tomorrow, we take the trip to Lake George. Rain, rain, stay away.

Kawasaki Recalls 2003 VN1600 for Fuel Leak

Kawasaki has issued a recall of certain 2003 VN1600-A1 and VN1600-A1L motorcycles.

On certain motorcycles, the fuel tank is mounted to the chassis by means of tabs that are spot welded to the tank, then braised/welded around a portion of their circumference. Under certain conditions, repeated stress can crack the tank at the location of the tabs, and allow fuel to leak.

4352 units are affected.

Check out my Motorcycle Recalls feature for more details.

Rolling Thunder Motorcycle Rally

I had the good fortune to attend Rolling Thunder over Memorial Day weekend in 2005. In fact, I wrote an article about it with pictures. Take a look.

I also noticed that a great video about Rolling Thunder is also available on YouTube. The year of this video is not mentioned but it's either 2005 or 2006. It looks pretty much like the sights that we saw in 2005. Here's the video.

Kawasaki Recalls 5906 Motorcycles for Stalling Problem

Kawasaki has issued a recall of certain 2006 VN900B6F, VN900B6FL, VN900D6F, and VN900D6FL motorcycles.

Certain motorcycles may stall under deceleration due to an improper setting of the engine control unit (ECU). This could create the potential for a crash, resulting in injury or death.

5906 units are affected.

Check out my Motorcycle Recalls feature for more details.

Family Fun with Motorcycles

Here's a great family story I just saw that involves motorcycles. In my family, it's just my wife and I that ride. Can't get the kids interested and probably won't be able to get the grand kids interested either. This story is about a complete family that rides. It's by Matthew K. Roy of the Salem News in Massachusetts. Here's an excerpt:

"Look at the photograph taken a half-century ago. Mom's on her motorcycle. Dad's on his. Sitting behind him is one of their children. And in a side-car attached to the rear of his bike are four more. Meet the Blais family. They took to the road on motorcycles back then and haven't stopped. The matriarch of this motorcycle family is Peggie Blais of Danvers. She has nine children in all, six sons, three daughters. 'They all ride motorcycles,' said Peggie, 79."

Read the complete article.