Friday the 8th I spent the day at Lake George at Americade. Triumph wasn't there this year, which was a major disappointment to me. Didn't ride anything spectacular as I missed out on the Ducatis. I took out a Kawasaki ZX9R, some piece of shit Buell and a Suzuki 650 SV, which turned out to be the best ride of the day.
I started in the Kawi sign-up line and for the first time in forever, I got a ZX9. Hot damn, I'm on the 9:45 ride. I show up and am standing around while the mouthpiece gives the standard lecture about not having too much fun on this ride and I notice that there are a pair of gloves on the bike I wanted. See, there's 2 ZX9's; one is 3rd in the line and the other is 3rd from the end. I've positioned myself so that I'm standing real close to the first one when I notice someone has already staked it out. Hmm. Well, I fully intend to go over there and accidentally knock this refuse off the seat when I see that the owner is already moving for the bike and he's huge ... and I'm not so interested in arguing with him. So as I mount the one in the back, I notice that the ZX6 in front of me is being occupied by a woman (LadyRider) who can't figure out how to start the bike and clearly isn't familiar with sportbikes and I'm thinking that I am totally screwed.
There's some guy getting on the bike behind me who's saying something but I'm not listening to him as I'm wondering if I can just blow this woman off in Roaring Brook before we hit the road. So the line starts to move out and of course LadyRider does not launch smoothly but does get moving after a fashion. I never get an opening to pass her. We hit the road and what happens is that everyone is supposed to form a staggered line off of the factory leader. You can always tell who the problem riders will be by 3 things: first, they can't come to grips with a staggered column. Either they ride directly behind the person in front of them or they weave across the whole lane. Second, they leave their directional flashing the last turn they signaled, until they get to the next turn. Third, they brake to a crawl anytime anything that deviates from the Bonneville Salt Flats comes into sight. Shifting is driving? Well, cornering is motorcycling.
So it turns out that once under way, LadyRider is doing pretty well, no problem at all actually. The problem is the jerk in front of her. Out of stagger. Directional flashing the whole time. We turn onto a nice twisty section of road that runs about 2 miles and this guy brakes down so much that I expect flagmen to jump out at the turns, place cones and wave him through. We come up to where the road intersects with Rt9 and we all have to turn left onto 9. What's the number one rule of the road after you've been following a total jerk? That's right: The jerk in front of you ALWAYS gets through the light, and leaves you sitting there.
So the guy makes the light and LadyRider is the last one through. I stop at the intersection, Chatty Cathy pulls up next to me and starts telling me about how he had this bike yesterday and what do I think of it, there's another guy behind me on a Concours and then the factory chick on the chase bike. She says that the next light where we turn left and get onto the Northway is a long one, so we'll form up with the rest of the group there. Light changes and we move off. I see the turn arrow, downshift twice, swing across the lane and hit the ramp. I look in my mirrors and see that everyone else has stopped. Fabulous. So I'm sitting there on the shoulder, debating just taking off after the rest of the group -- but I'm a good boy -- and waiting for the light. After what seems like 90 minutes or so, the light changes, but they continue to sit there while 40% of vehicles registered in the state of NY proceeds past in the opposing lane, possibly in a loop. Another half hour or so later and they must have gotten the arrow again as I see them come loping up the ramp. I can't pull out in front of them as they are following a car, so as they go past, I fall into the rear. I cannot believe the turn of events that have transpired. At this point I’m hot and annoyed and considering just running straight into the first overpass abutment I come to.
We are coming up a long on-ramp and I see a Winebago-like vehicle towing a boat in the left lane, which goes past us. Our Factory Fearless Leader merges onto the highway and proceeded to pull up alongside the mobile home. And then paces it. She is in the left side of the lane and the person on the Concours is in the right-hand side, about 3' from the mobile mountain. I'm incredulous. This goes against everything you read in mags, common sense and a couple laws of nature. For several miles this continues until finally the grade is so steep that the Rolling Storage Bin falls back and I zip past it up to the rest of this merry little band. The ride continues back to RBR where Concours leaves directionals on, slows to a walk for every turn and almost dumps the bike twice that I see. I'm fuming by the time we park. Scott walks up and says "What happened? Everybody passed you." And as I'm removing my helmet I see Chatty Cathy approaching as I say "That is the most f'd up ride I've ever been on!!" as CC spins on his heel and peels off in a U-turn while I explain all of this to Scott. Not a great start.
We head down to the village to meet up with Tim and a friend who came up with him. Patrick has just gotten his license and isn't actually in possession of it yet and he's on a Suzuki Intruder. We're walking down past the parked bikes and Scott sees a 1983 Honda 900F and says to me "Hey, didn't you used to want one of those" and I said yeah, an 1100, until I bought my '84 GPz1100. Patrick comments "In 1983 I was 6 years old" and I said "Really, I was married."
Scott has developed an interest in HDs and wants to go take a ride. I'm not interested in riding a Harley so we ended up on Buells as a compromise. I don't remember the model I was on but it was the first one in the line on the right side. I sit down and turn the key and push the starter and nothing happens. Over and over. Damn, I'm LadyRider... Finally get it running and the Harley demo guy takes the first bike on the left and pulls out. After we finally get into traffic heading north in the village, Harley Man (no slam there, that's what his black t-shirt says) is riding in the left side of the lane so we stagger off of him. Then a while down the road he has moved to the right side. After he stays there for a little while I switch the stagger and everyone behind me switches. A few minutes later HM has switched again. Well, I can see where this is going... I reluctantly switch the stagger back. He does it again and I just assume he's oblivious and prone to weaving, so I leave it the way it is. The ride is uneventful. At one point we pull onto the Northway and HM squirts away so I go with him and suddenly the whole bike is sputtering and shaking worse than usual and I look at the tach and I've redlined the thing at 6 grand and need to shift before the rev limiter kills the bike, I assume. Since most sportbikes rev to 13K, a limiter is needed on Buells. I'd say that the performance from the bike I was on, if you overlook the shaking, lack of handling and lack of braking, is about on par with a metric 600cc, and not my cup of tea right now.
After some lunch and a circuit of the expo tent area, Scott and I are heading back to RBR for a final ride. I have the Suzuki 650SV at 15:00. This time I got the one up front in the pack and that was a good move as the line got held up by the guy behind me, so I finally caught a break. While we were listening to the pre-ride speech, the factory guy kept making references to and singing the praises of, a young gentleman who had taken this ride about a dozen times during the week. He was the person who ended up on an 1100 right behind me. We pull out and there are 4 bikes in front of me and we form up and take off. I look in the mirrors and the line behind me is falling away like it's parked, thanks to -- you guessed it, who’s directional is flashing profusely. This was a 28 mile ride over some seriously nice roads. At one point there are a series of uphill s-turns, some requiring 1st gear. Most of the ride was just us up front and when traffic interfered, the back of the line would join us. Briefly.
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