Dreaming of Dakar

I woke up Sunday morning with a bit of energy.  That actually surprised me since I still felt a little bit grubby from the day before because the lovely Howard Jonsons in Bowmanvill evidently hasn't replaced their water heater in my lifetime.  I had tried showering when I got back from riding and it started out cool then ended up ice cold.  An hour or so later they said it was fixed and I verified I did have hot water.  I didn't feel like re-showering right then so I waited until I was ready for bed and it was ice cold again.  Between that and the fact that much of the hotel looked like it was about to be torn down I was less than impressed.

I had been considering doing the full return trip in one day.  I thought that would be more good long distance practice for the P2D and would save me the price of another hotel room.  I have set a budget for my motorcycling adventures and am already over it so saving a few bucks would be a good thing.  Since I didn't get to bed really early the night before and didn't get rolling until after 7:00 I wasn't sure if I would do the full day or not.  But I had energy and felt like riding.

The first couple of hours I was just blasting down the 401.  Ok, by blasting I mean doing the speed limit of 100kph (62 mph) but on the DRZ with no widnshield that feels like blasting along after a while.  I made it to Kingston at 10:00 and decided to cross back into the US via the ferry.  I lost a little time since the next ferry was to leave at 10:30 but this gave me a good opportunity to hit the restroom and snack on some trail mix.

The ferry ride across was nice and gave me the chance for a little more of a break.  I wasn't planning on taking many other breaks for the day so I relaxed a bit and enjoyed the ride over to Wolfe Island.

Going this route actually means taking 2 ferrys.  The one from Kinston to Wolfe Island is a free ferry (I believe it is run by the city of Kingston).  Then it is a short but nice ride across Wolfe island to a privately run ferry to get into the USA.  This one costs $7.50 but I think even the bridge was $2 to get across so that isn't bad.

This one is a much smaller ferry but it doesn't appear to get as much traffic.

There were only 3 cars but I think 7 of us on bikes.  It as actually kind of a cool site with all the bikes lined up along the front of the ferry.

Obviously this isn't the high traffic border crossing.  Nice thing about traveling lightweight on a dirt bike is they believe you when you say you have nothing to declare!  Really wasn't room for me to bring anything back.

I think by the time I had gotten on the road again it was about 11:30.  So about 1.5 hours to get across with ferrys, customs and everything.  Certainly slower than just riding down the road another 20 miles and taking the bridge but was something different.

I had decided a day or two before I left on the trip that I was going to try out a road in Vermont on the way back.  Someone on ADVrider.com had mentioned the "Bayley Hazen Military Road" which was built during the revolutionary war.  Much of the road no longer exists but what does exist is supposed to be a mix of good gravel along with some fairly challenging washed out unmaintained roads.  I thought this would be a good chance to hone some of the skills I had learned the day before.  Of course going this route meant my 490 mile route became closer to 550.

Through New York I headed east and a bit north following the border.  After about 30 minutes or so I come up over a hill and see 7 or 8 police cars along the side of the road with lights flashing.  My first thought was there had been an accident but the I noticed they were briefly stopping each car that came through.  When I got there the officer told me they were doing a motorcycle safety check and asked me to pull over to the side of the road.  I was a bit concerned they were going to be looking for something wrong but he then said mostly what they were doing is checking for DOT approved helmets (lots of the harly guys wear things that look kind of like helmets but really are just plastic hats) and motorcycle licenses.  So, the fact that I was not only wearing a helmet that was DOT (and SNELL) approved but was wearing all my off road gear including knee braces, elbow pads, chest protector, and boots probably helped me out.  He didn't seem at all concerned about me, glanced at my license and seemed satisfied that I was a good safe rider.  I think the whole thing took under 5 minutes.

Having had a good long break on the ferry I decided the rest of the day I would do no more than stop for fuel as needed and no more than 1 stop between fill ups.  This gets me about 100 miles (160k) which is about the range Robb and Brad (my P2D teamates) can do on their bikes.  I do like my oversized tank!  I tried to keep these breaks quick.

I made good time across northern NY and reached Lake Champlain which borders Vermont.

Around 4:30 I reached Montgomery which is the northern end of the Bayley-Hazen road.  I stopped at a gas station for a mid-fuel break.  I had drank my camelbak dry so I bought a big bottle of water to refil it and also a powerade to drink then.  I gave Jane a call to let her know I was OK and was off.

This part of the Bayley Hazen road was really just a well maintained and often traveled gravel road.  It was certainly more interesting than riding down the highway.  Then I came up a hill and was surprised to see a BMW 800GS in the ditch!  He had been coming from the other direction and it looks like he had a little too much speed coming down the hill and around the corner.  He and the bike were OK (other than being in its side and in the ditch).  I gave him a hand getting the bike out and grabbed a pic afterward, didn't think to get one with it still in the ditch.  By this time his riding buddies had figured out he was no longer behind them and had turned around to help as well.

I slowed a bit after this, honestly I wasn't going all that fast to start with but it was a good reminder that surprises can happen.  Was glad to see he was OK.

The GPS route I had been given had 2 different tracks.  One was the "big bike friendly" route and the other was the "with hero section" route which hit the unmaintained parts of the road.  I was very disapointed that when I got to where they split off the "hero" one was marked with a "No Trespassing" sign.  I have mentioned this to others since I got back and they were surprised to hear that.  Most people take this from the south to north so they said if the sign was there when they did the road it would have been to their backs and they didn't see anything coming from the south.  I was very disapointed since this meant I was not going to hit the interesting bits of road.

It was still a good ride, even if it wasn't as challenging as I had expected.  There were some nice sweeping corners with some loose (but not deep) gravel which were kind of fun and good practice.  A few bits of the road did have the desired remote adventurous feel however.

I reached the south end of the road at Wells River a little before 8:00.  At this point I was too close to home to bother stopping although I knew it was going to be dark for the last bit of the ride.  I quickly fueled up and drank 1/2 a gatorade and got going.  It was still light at this point and I wan'ted to make the most of the failing daylight while I could.  It was a clear evening so I still had some light well after sundown so it was close to 9:00 when I would say it was completely dark.  At this point I needed one last break to clean the bugs of my faceshield as oncoming headlights were making quite a bit of glare through all that mess.  A quick 5 minute break to clean it and down the last of the gatorade and I was on the final push home.  I figured Jane would be up waiting for me and didn't want to keep her up too late so I hit I93 a little ways north of Concord and came home the fast way.  Around 10:15 I was home.  Yes, Jane was still up so I was glad I didn't keep her up too late.

According to my GPS I did right around 550 miles and total time was 15 hours.  I figure that isn't bad for a bike that really won't go over 60 and I lost a good hour taking the ferry.  Most importantly I was happy to see I could maintain my energy riding that long with only quick snacks of trail mix and cliff bars.  I had not even had a proper breakfast before I started.  So, as long as I don't tire myself out too badly in the more difficult off-road sections of the P2D I should have the endurance to do it.

I am however going to have to head up to northern Vermont and try the Bayley Hazen road from the south sometime this summer!