Cold, cold, cold!

A few times during the night I woke up because I was cold, so that was not a good sign. I woke up to 40 degree temperatures and frost on the bike. Again I donned my rain jacket to ward off the cold, with just a t-shirt and a perforated jacket underneath.

Today’s major activity was a “Premium Guided Mini-Tour” to Whiteface Mountain. Reading the forums on www.tourexpo.com, the official Americade website, said this was the best tour to take. Since this was my first trip to Americade, I wanted to get a little taste of everything.

I double-gassed (last night and today) for the Whiteface ride. The 620 multistrada has a unique issue that when filling the tank you develop an air pocket that prevents you from getting more than 3.5 gallons in. A quick mile ride or so frees up the bubble and you can pour in another 1.7 gallons or so. Very odd design!

I was in line by boat dock around 7:30. I was quite surprised at the huge number of bikes there, and also how organized the Americade folks are. They had 6 (I think) tours getting ready to depart in 3 waves each, and they had the whole thing running smoothly. Of course they’ve had 24 years to practice.

I got a donut and juice from the booth that was setup there, but I passed on the port-o-pots, which had attendants and a tip jar.

At the riders meeting they announced that because of construction on 9 we’d be doing the first 50 miles on I-87, the Northway. Boooo. I was in the second wave, and we headed out around 8:55am.

Starting Whiteface ride

Very boring 50 mile ride up the Northway, including a rest stop to get snacks and ‘take care of business’. Once we got off I-87 the roads were very nice up to Whiteface Mountain, but of course we were not going very quickly in any way, shape or form. I didn’t expect to, so no big deal for me. Another rest stop, another chance to chat with the other riders. For most of the ride I was sandwiched between 2 trikes. There were a LOT of trikes at Americade, or Trike Week as they call it. In our group of around 50 bikes there were 3 trikes.

On the Northway

Rest stop #1

Rest stop #2

Nice helmet

The swerver

The Lake Placid Turn on the way up Whiteface Mountain

Once we got to the toll road up Whiteface (we rode right through, this being included in our fee for the tour), the signs indicated “rough road”. We switched from staggered to single file (though it’s hard to stagger behind a trike), and the road did indeed get very bumpy. Lots of frost heave moguls which had me standing on the pegs with knees bent. Very funny to watch the trike in front of me slalom around them. The first time he did it I thought he was gonna drop a wheel into the ditch on the shoulder, he was quite a violent swerver.

The road up Whiteface

Rough road

The top of Whiteface was very cool, both literally and figuratively. There is a u-turn you do sort of in a tunnel, and the tour the day before couldn’t do it because of the ice that had formed on the road. We didn’t have any ice, but it was still freezing cold. After parking the bikes I took the tunnel to elevator, and rode up to the summit. I could have walked it (I do a lot of hiking in Colorado), but how often do you get to do a tunnel in a mountain and an elevator in rock?

Highest elevation the Multi has been to (so far)

Parked at the top of Whiteface mountain

The tunnel to the elevator

View from the top

Lake Placid

Who's that goofy-looking guy?

Very goofy self-portrait

There was ice on top. There were cool rocks to climb on, great views but very hazy. Took the steps/rocks back down. While waiting to leave I talked to a couple from Indiana for a bit, and the trike couple that were in front of me. Nice folks, but you could say that about pretty much everyone I met that week.

Looking down at the road we came up on

Posing

I got more comments from today's shirt than any other. It reads "You call me a biker like it's a bad thing". At least 3 people came up to me and said they liked it. One lady walks up to me, points at me, and starts saying "You, you, you". I'm not quite sure what she's getting at, I don't remember doing anything to her, and then she continues "call me a biker...". Oh. Whew.

We then rode on to lunch in Lake Placid, at Nicola’s on Main. Decent chicken, salad and rolls. Very decent dessert selection. I initially grabbed a table by myself, then I saw the guy at the next table had a hat on from Barb’s H-D which is about an hour from me at home. I asked if I could join them, and it turned out they were from Deptford, NJ, only 20 miles from me. Cool!

Coming into Lake Placid the ski jumps are right in front of you

Coming up to the ski jumps

Coming into Lake Placed

After lunch the “official” tour was over, and we were free to get back to Lake George however we wished. I couldn’t help but notice that the restaurant was literally right across the street from the Olympic Center, so I headed over there. Got to stand at center-ice on the 1980 Herb Brooks rink. “Do you believe in miracles?!” I’m by no means a big sports fan, especially hockey, but being able to walk around in that place was pretty damn cool.

Headed back on 73, which was excellent. Very scenic, nice sweepers, and basically empty. I decided to take 9 after that, figuring the talk about construction that morning was exaggerated for the ‘touring riders’. 9 was very nice until the construction, which only lasted 8 miles but sucked. I finally had to do a little northway to get back.

73 was very pretty

I did the TourExpo, which is basically a big vendor setup in 2 locations. I bought the tire patch kit I had been trying to find, but didn’t see anything else that jumped out and grabbed me. They had a free shuttle bus that ran continuously between the 2 locations, which was great because parking was a pain there. Pretty nifty that they work on your bike at the vendor booths (seats, lighting, tires, pinstriples, etc).

Back to the campground for a shower, where a GS rider started talking to me from the next shower stall. Nice enough guy, I guess, but kinda odd to talk in the shower.

Back into town for the show (the ‘scene’ on Canada Street). I met a nice 900ss rider named Claudio from Boston on the lawn near HD - i saw his imitation Corse jacket and started talking to him. It was his first time here as well, and he was also disappointed (as was I) that there were not many ducs around. He sort of expected to see a Ducati booth of some sort, I suggested we plant a big Italian flag on the lawn next to us and we could start our own Italian Bike Hospitality Center.

I ran into the 'might as well put it on the moon' guy outside Quizno's, and sat with him and his friends while I ate yet another Prime Rib and Peppercorn sub (no onions) on white. He had a funny story about being there last year – he was sitting in the same spot, watching the thousands of bikes on Canada Street with a married couple at the next table. After a while, the husband asks him “So what is this, all these bikes?” He explained about it being Americade, the largest touring rally in the US, etc. Turns out the couple booked a room at a hotel on Canada Street for their 10th anniversary, and had no idea that this was going to be happening as well. Needless to say they weren’t exactly amused.

Back to the campground around 11pm.

Would I do an organized tour next year? Probably. It certainly wasn't the most exciting ride of the week, but the scenery was great. I got to meet some nice folks, which was nice since I was up there by myself.