I met Craig, (Newvalker) for breakfast at 8am at Olde Village Grill in Sturbridge. Great local place to get chow with home cooked, large portioned, reasonable priced breakfast & lunch.
It was a beautiful sunny brisk morning with temps in the 50's.
After eating, we headed north up 148 to the Brookfields and hopped on 9west to 202 north, all secondary roads in great condition for New England.
Got off 202 and took the local roads thru Shutesbury and Levertt over to 116.
They just paved the lower part of 116 from I-91 to Colrain and they had paved from Colrain to Ashfield last year. So other than a bridge repair in Colrain, it's all new pavement from Deerfield to Ashfield on one of the best roads in New England, certainly the best in Mass. It reminds me of the BRP.
Great riding on a beautiful day with low traffic, being a Saturday morning on a holiday weekend. cooldude:
We gassed up in Ashfield, but as I always make it a must stop, the Ashfield Lake House was probably not open that early.
Craig is a semi train freak, not a geek about it, but a interest and knowledge not held by most folk. I told him I wanted to chase a train with him, so we were looking.
We cruised up 112 north to Buckland and got back on a local road called Charlemont Rd to Charlemont, go figure. Got on rte 2 west. The Deerfield River is up, so there were a ton of water sports people getting ready to hit the water.
We got off 2 on Zoar Rd and that turned into River Rd. My experience is, any road with the name "River" in it, is usually a great ride. This one didn't disappoint.
We stopped at the East Entrance to the Hoosac Tunnel in Florida.
I took the only picture of the ride there, but then saw the exact same one on the Wikipedia website and being mostly lazy, I'm not going through all the steps to post it.
If you don't take the time to read the website, I've included the line that made me laugh out loud.
(sorry Jess & Oss)
The project was nicknamed "The Great Bore" by its critics, including future Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., who said he'd like to "wall up a dozen lawyers at one end of the tunnel and put a good fee at the other."https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoosac_TunnelAwesome story.
We headed north to Vermont and got on Rte 100, which has mostly been rebuilt within the last 10 years or so after Hurricane Irene hit, taking out just about every bridge and road in southern vermont.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_IreneWe're hitting it, enjoying the weather, great clear roads and staying just a head of a Cafe Triumph, when I look down and see I got no clock, fuel gage, odometer.
ut oh.
About 2 miles later, the motor starts to stumble, then quits.
Luckly, I had a hill to stop at, cause I was sure I'd need to bump start, if I could start at all.
We pulled the seat and battery cover and discovered the ground was slightly loose. Could it be that simple? We hoped. Tightened it down, turned the key and the electrics fired up. Won't turn over, but she started on bump start.
Seemed good, for about 2 miles, then the electrics went out again, then the motor quit again.
It was Craigs idea, we put my drained battery in Craigs bike and his fully charged battery in mine, bump started his bike and bogeyed for home, about 100 miles or 2 hours. We also pulled the headlight fuse in my bike, to save as much battery as possible.
Rte 100 to Rte 8 to I-91 to I-90. Got all the way to Palmer, about 5 miles from my house and the electrics quit.
We swapped batteries again, Craig bumped started again and he followed me to my road, then split off.
End of ride.
Moral of the story, check your alternator.
That bike has just under 70K. 99 Interstate, which I understand is prone to this, more than most.
My original 99 Tourer has 116K and it's original alt is running fine.
