Washington's Crossing

April 17, 2011

Gypsy stats:
9 hrs Elapsed Time
6 hrs 5 min riding time
229.4 miles
37.7 ave mph

Beemer stats:
235 miles
39 ave mph
45 ave mpg

Paid $3.99 a gallon for premium today. The price of fun and good living is going up!

Tim: ’96 BMW R1100RS
Dave: ’03 BWM F650GS
Lindsey: '07 BWM R1200R (Grin!)
Rich: ’00 Triumph Trophy 900 Triple (which was keeping its oil inside the crankcase)

The day dawned with bright sunlight under a mixed cover of scudding clouds. It rained like hell yesterday afternoon, so the streams are full nearly to overflowing with muddy brown water and the ground is covered with puddles. At 50 F, the air feels balmy and it promises to be a beautiful day for a ride. I thought with the temp above 45 I could fore go the flannel lined jeans, so I was wearing just the LD Comfort base layer with the riding suit pants. Thinking is was spring and warmer, I left off the fleece wind scarf and Goretex windproof jersey, also. As I was heading out, I realize that "balmy" is relative and at the last moment plugged in the electrics. I was glad I did. Heading across the Oley valley, the temperature dropped to 45. The wind was blowing the clouds around, and the bike, too. I don't think I have ever been blown around so much on a bike before. I felt like my head was going to pop off with the aerodynamic lift on the helmet. And at 45, the wind was cutting through where I had cut back on gear. I could feel a little chill in my legs and my chin got cold, not to mention the wind cutting through on the upper body. When I stopped for gas, I put on the fleece scarf and turned up the temp on the electric jacket and when I stopped at the form-up point, I took time to add back the Goretex jersey.

Except for the wind, the day was living up to its promise. This time of year, southeastern Pennsylvania is beautiful on a day with bright sunshine. The grass is greening, forsythia is just passing its peak (awesome this year), daffodils, hyacinths (also awesome this year), woods flowers are all in bloom in the front yards, the cherry trees (pink and white) are blooming, azaleas are just coming into full bloom, the willows are leafing out, the red maples are in bud and blooming... it just goes on and on.

Third Sunday means breakfast at the Masonic temple in Birdsboro. The old coot in the toque standing behind the counter really does offer to serve "eggy-weggy" and "backy- wacky". However, the custom omelets hit the spot, the potatoes come with or without (onions, that is), and, as mentioned before, it is the only place I know to get salt mackerel for breakfast. Today's special was sausage gravy on biscuits. All you can eat - $7, leave a $2 tip in the basket for the bus-girls.

Breakfast conversation left little direction to go: we may not be aligned on politics, but we are aligned on politicians, a subject to which we could not give voice at full volume in such polite company as the Masonic Temple breakfast room. I mentioned that the bike was squirrley: ever since we put the new rear tire on, I have been unhappy with the feel in turns. We moved on to destinations for the day. There was a regatta on the Schuylkill in Philadelphia at boat house row and a Norton rally at Washington's Crossing State Park. Lets see, Boats...Bikes, Boats...Bikes; Bikes win!!! (no shit, as we do not say in the polite company previous mentioned). Off we go, via Oley fairgrounds to see if there is an antique motorcycle show there which usually happens around this time of year (negative). We head east, towards the river, thinking to stop at Van Sant airport in Ottsville, always a bit of a happening, even if they may not be flying bi-planes today due to the wind. This was not to happen. It appears that the fight between the local residents and PennDot over the Headquarters Road bridge has escalated into an extended detour that makes it nearly impossible to even find Van Sant. By this time, we move on towards Washington's Crossing and the Nortons. "Towards" I say, rather than "to" because travel down the river on Rt 32 turns out to be somewhat problematical; one detour after another. The river is up, the canal is full of water, the cliff side to he right are pouring down wet-weather streams, and there are blockages on the River Road.

We deke around the circus in New Hope and finally make it to Washington's Crossing, passing numerous Nortons and Triumphs with a friendly wave heading the other way. The end of the Norton rally (appears to end at 1:00, so we were late) is the expected collection of old farts on old machines with the occasional hot-head on a modern-day screamer of some sort plus one or two HD heads with overly loud pipes and tinnitus (what?), not to mention a collection of interesting Beemers of various ages.

The kid selling food had run out of sauerkraut and hot dog rolls, but the Nathan's all beef frank cut in half on a hamburger roll with yellow mustard for a buck was primo. A cuppa joe went down pretty well at that point too.

Time to head home with the intention of being direct, but in addition to it being detour day, Tim' s internal compass was busted so we kept going north to go south and south to go west until we wound up in Coopersburg. Oh, well, it's all good helmet time. And remember that breakfast time complaint about squirrley performance? Seems to have faded by the end of the day. I guess I just didn't have the new tire scrubbed in yet. Here is a picture of the new tire, with tread.