My wife, Donna, is working on a cooking project, so I have time to talk about our big tour in August, in the past riding season.
We both got new bikes in March, 2011. We had ridden two 1985 Honda Nighthawk 650s for the entire 2010 season, and 200/250cc scooters (Piaggio BV 250, black and Vespa GT200, midnight blue, both made by Piaggio, and both excellent bikes) for a few years before that. We are in our mid fifties, and started riding five years ago, when I was about to turn fifty.
The scooters were lots of fun, but turned out to be inadequate for really long rides and touring. (We put way more miles on the scooters than expected by, for example, Kelly Blue Book.) If some scooter manufacturer made a really great sport touring scooter, we might not be riding motorcycles right now - we might be riding sport touring scooters.
Anyway, we wanted to get into touring on bikes, and this led us to get a 2009 Kawasaki Concours 14 for me, and a 2011 Kawasaki Ninja 650 for her, in March, 2011. The Concours 14 is an amazing sport touring bike (I know...I'm preaching to the choir.) The Ninja 650 is great, and Donna loves it, but it doesn't have the kind of wind protection that the Connie has, so it's really not great on the highway. Also, there don't seem to be any great aftermarket touring windshields out there. We don't consider highway riding fun, but sometimes, it's the only way to get out of Connecticut in a reasonable amount of time when you're taking a long trip. Because of this, Donna is planning on trading the Ninja 650 for a Ninja 1000 before the 2012 riding season gets here. It turned out that she needed about a month on the 650 before she was ready for a larger bike, but it took us until the middle of winter to figure out what to do. We are going to the International Motorcycle Show in New York City next weekend. Our dealer is New Haven Powersports. We highly recommend them. They will be at the show.
So, on to our first actual motorcycle touring vacation.
We took a one-week tour in August, 2011 on the Concours 14 and the Ninja 650, and it was fantastic! We started out from home in Middlefield, Connecticut on a Saturday in August, and rode to Ogunquit, Maine the first day. We stayed at the Riverside Motel www.riversidemotel.com in Perkins Cove Saturday and Sunday night. This is a sort of retro motel, but it's up to date and clean...a great place to stay on the ocean/cove in southern Maine. Our route took us through Southbridge, Massachusetts, and Rochester, New Hampshire. (My father-in-law grew up in Rochester, and my wife's best friend, Kay, grew up in Dover, NH, so I will be in trouble if I don't say, "Rochester by the Sea, Dover by the smell.) Our room was in the house, which was built in 1874, and overlooks the cove and the ocean. Really cool! The motel rooms are also cool, and many of them look out over the cove to the ocean.
Perkins Cove has several restaurants and shops, which are fun to browse. We did some browsing, and had dinner by the ocean at Jackies Too. We started dinner at 9 pm and it was fantastic! Donna (a real food expert) talked to the waiter, and ordered a seared tuna steak that wasn't even on the menu. It was great! I'm more of a mundane eater, so I had baked stuffed shrimp, which is my favorite seafood, anyway. We sat next to the ocean, with the warm breeze making the candle on the table flicker while we enjoyed our meals. Very nice.
On Sunday, we rode up to Freeport, the home of L.L. Bean and lots of outlet stores, for the day. We are not really big shoppers, and on the bikes, we had limited storage space, but at L.L. Bean, we discovered their top-of-the-line hiking boots, the Gore-Tex Cresta Hikers, and decided to try them as motorcycle riding boots. When we got back to Connecticut, we went to the L.L. Bean store in Manchester, and each got a pair. They have turned out to be fantastic three-season (warm weather) riding boots!
On Monday, we headed out to Lincoln, New Hampshire, where our son, Erik, met us for two days. He has a motorcycle endorsement, and is a music teacher and professional musician, so he had the summer off. His daily ride is a Vespa GT 200, since he lives in a sort of touristy town on the coast. He also has our favorite Nighthawk 650 (out of three, the other two sold) since we have moved onto other bikes. Donna stayed at the pool while Erik and I rode the Kangamaugus Highway to Conway, NH, and White Horse Gear whitehorsegear.com, a retail and online motorcycle gear store. Donna and I had ridden the Kangamaugus Highway on the way to Lincoln, and it's a great road through the White Mountains of New Hampshire. There are lots of rest stops with pavilions and scenic overlooks that look out over the various parts of the White Mountains. These areas are well maintained, and some have rest rooms. Some also have wading pools in rivers that flow down the mountain. There is a cost to stop in these areas, and it's done on the honor system. If you want to park in a scenic stop, you put a couple of dollars in an envelope, and take the ticket stub(s) to display on your bike when you stop at any of the areas. The ticket is good for one day. The fees are used to pay for the maintenance of the scenic areas. White Horse Publications publishes lots of motorcycle-specific books...about motorcycle maintenance and some Motorcycle Safety Foundation books...good stuff. They have lots of stuff in stock, including First Gear gear and their books. Erik and I enjoyed looking through their stockroom. I bought a really good rain suit for myself, and waterproof glove covers for both of us (it was starting to rain.) Erik already had a really good rain suit. Just sayin'.
White Horse Gear is cool. The two people who were there when Erik and I were there were very nice, and helpful. Visit them or order online if you can.
In Lincoln, New Hampshire, we stayed at Woodward's Resort motel, on route 3 www.woodwardsresort.com. This motel looks like a ski lodge from the outside, which it is (it's in the White Mountains, for flip's sake - and close to some great ski resorts) and is next-door to a water park, and, at first, we thought about looking for a better-looking motel in the area. We didn't find one, and decided to go with it and just stay there, and it turned out really good. I think the water park closes at five o'clock, so no noise, etc. when it matters. If we had it to do over again, we would go there again. They have their own restaurants (yes, plural), one for breakfast, and one for dinner. They recommend their included meal plan, which includes one breakfast and one dinner per person per day. We took it, and were amazed at the quality of the breakfasts and dinners!
Woodward's Resort Motel was also very nice. If you don't need the outside of the building to be flashy, it is a good, maybe great, motel. The restaurant is outstanding, and the room was really nice. The beds were comfortable, and the bathroom was up to date, like you would expect at any descent motel.
On Wednesday, Erik went home, and we rode south to Gilford, NH, to Lake Winnipesaukee, where Donna had spent many summer vacations with her family as a child in the sixties, at the Silver Sands Motel ssmotel.com. The Silver Sands has a marina, and there are lots of yachts moored there. They also have a launch ramp. The beach is nice. The motel rooms were just like Donna pictured them, from 1967. No air conditioning. An efficiency-type kitchen, which we didn't use. A bathroom with a tiled tub area, from 1960. Not bad, just retro. Gilford is next to Laconia, which is quiet when not inundated with motorcycles from around the country. We didn't need air conditioning, due to the proximity to the lake, and the really nice weather when we were there. Donna noted that the diving board at the inground pool, which she and her siblings had spent hours diving from, has been removed. We spent some quiet time on the pool patio, and enjoyed talking to some of the pool goers, who were motorcyclists but had not arrived on bikes, and took note of the fact that we had arrived on two bikes, and that Donna was on a Ninja. They also noted that we don't look like motorcyclists. And that I should get my legs out in the sun more often. Thank you, Captain Obvious.
In Gilford, NH, we had a great seafood dinner at Sawyers' Dairy Bar www.sawyersnh.com, which is named wrong. It is a great seafood restaurant, with great food and great service. We had fried seafood entrees, with soda and onion rings. One of the girls who works there approached us at our table while we were waiting for our order to be ready, and offered to bring it to us. What great service! The food was excellent, and it was right down the street from our room.
From Winnipesaukee, we rode south to the in-laws, in central Massachusetts. We stayed there for a couple of days, then rode home. One of our favorite rides from there is to Quabbin Reservoir, which is the main water supply for Boston. It was created in the 1930s, by flooding five towns in central Massachusetts. One of the coolest stops in the area is the overlook where you are looking at what once was the town of Enfield, Massachusetts. There is a rest area there which is a nice place to eat lunch (if you packed a lunch,) and some diaramas and photos showing what Enfield looked like from there before it was flooded. We ate lunch on the way back from Quabbin at Harry's http://www.westborough.com/harrys/harrys.htm, on route 9.
The entire trip was 1000 miles over eight days, a record for us, and it was a blast! In 2012, with Donna on her new Ninja 1000, we hope to go further, and enjoy it even more.
Ride safe. Thanks for reading.
hud
We both got new bikes in March, 2011. We had ridden two 1985 Honda Nighthawk 650s for the entire 2010 season, and 200/250cc scooters (Piaggio BV 250, black and Vespa GT200, midnight blue, both made by Piaggio, and both excellent bikes) for a few years before that. We are in our mid fifties, and started riding five years ago, when I was about to turn fifty.
The scooters were lots of fun, but turned out to be inadequate for really long rides and touring. (We put way more miles on the scooters than expected by, for example, Kelly Blue Book.) If some scooter manufacturer made a really great sport touring scooter, we might not be riding motorcycles right now - we might be riding sport touring scooters.
Anyway, we wanted to get into touring on bikes, and this led us to get a 2009 Kawasaki Concours 14 for me, and a 2011 Kawasaki Ninja 650 for her, in March, 2011. The Concours 14 is an amazing sport touring bike (I know...I'm preaching to the choir.) The Ninja 650 is great, and Donna loves it, but it doesn't have the kind of wind protection that the Connie has, so it's really not great on the highway. Also, there don't seem to be any great aftermarket touring windshields out there. We don't consider highway riding fun, but sometimes, it's the only way to get out of Connecticut in a reasonable amount of time when you're taking a long trip. Because of this, Donna is planning on trading the Ninja 650 for a Ninja 1000 before the 2012 riding season gets here. It turned out that she needed about a month on the 650 before she was ready for a larger bike, but it took us until the middle of winter to figure out what to do. We are going to the International Motorcycle Show in New York City next weekend. Our dealer is New Haven Powersports. We highly recommend them. They will be at the show.
So, on to our first actual motorcycle touring vacation.
We took a one-week tour in August, 2011 on the Concours 14 and the Ninja 650, and it was fantastic! We started out from home in Middlefield, Connecticut on a Saturday in August, and rode to Ogunquit, Maine the first day. We stayed at the Riverside Motel www.riversidemotel.com in Perkins Cove Saturday and Sunday night. This is a sort of retro motel, but it's up to date and clean...a great place to stay on the ocean/cove in southern Maine. Our route took us through Southbridge, Massachusetts, and Rochester, New Hampshire. (My father-in-law grew up in Rochester, and my wife's best friend, Kay, grew up in Dover, NH, so I will be in trouble if I don't say, "Rochester by the Sea, Dover by the smell.) Our room was in the house, which was built in 1874, and overlooks the cove and the ocean. Really cool! The motel rooms are also cool, and many of them look out over the cove to the ocean.
Perkins Cove has several restaurants and shops, which are fun to browse. We did some browsing, and had dinner by the ocean at Jackies Too. We started dinner at 9 pm and it was fantastic! Donna (a real food expert) talked to the waiter, and ordered a seared tuna steak that wasn't even on the menu. It was great! I'm more of a mundane eater, so I had baked stuffed shrimp, which is my favorite seafood, anyway. We sat next to the ocean, with the warm breeze making the candle on the table flicker while we enjoyed our meals. Very nice.
On Sunday, we rode up to Freeport, the home of L.L. Bean and lots of outlet stores, for the day. We are not really big shoppers, and on the bikes, we had limited storage space, but at L.L. Bean, we discovered their top-of-the-line hiking boots, the Gore-Tex Cresta Hikers, and decided to try them as motorcycle riding boots. When we got back to Connecticut, we went to the L.L. Bean store in Manchester, and each got a pair. They have turned out to be fantastic three-season (warm weather) riding boots!
On Monday, we headed out to Lincoln, New Hampshire, where our son, Erik, met us for two days. He has a motorcycle endorsement, and is a music teacher and professional musician, so he had the summer off. His daily ride is a Vespa GT 200, since he lives in a sort of touristy town on the coast. He also has our favorite Nighthawk 650 (out of three, the other two sold) since we have moved onto other bikes. Donna stayed at the pool while Erik and I rode the Kangamaugus Highway to Conway, NH, and White Horse Gear whitehorsegear.com, a retail and online motorcycle gear store. Donna and I had ridden the Kangamaugus Highway on the way to Lincoln, and it's a great road through the White Mountains of New Hampshire. There are lots of rest stops with pavilions and scenic overlooks that look out over the various parts of the White Mountains. These areas are well maintained, and some have rest rooms. Some also have wading pools in rivers that flow down the mountain. There is a cost to stop in these areas, and it's done on the honor system. If you want to park in a scenic stop, you put a couple of dollars in an envelope, and take the ticket stub(s) to display on your bike when you stop at any of the areas. The ticket is good for one day. The fees are used to pay for the maintenance of the scenic areas. White Horse Publications publishes lots of motorcycle-specific books...about motorcycle maintenance and some Motorcycle Safety Foundation books...good stuff. They have lots of stuff in stock, including First Gear gear and their books. Erik and I enjoyed looking through their stockroom. I bought a really good rain suit for myself, and waterproof glove covers for both of us (it was starting to rain.) Erik already had a really good rain suit. Just sayin'.
White Horse Gear is cool. The two people who were there when Erik and I were there were very nice, and helpful. Visit them or order online if you can.
In Lincoln, New Hampshire, we stayed at Woodward's Resort motel, on route 3 www.woodwardsresort.com. This motel looks like a ski lodge from the outside, which it is (it's in the White Mountains, for flip's sake - and close to some great ski resorts) and is next-door to a water park, and, at first, we thought about looking for a better-looking motel in the area. We didn't find one, and decided to go with it and just stay there, and it turned out really good. I think the water park closes at five o'clock, so no noise, etc. when it matters. If we had it to do over again, we would go there again. They have their own restaurants (yes, plural), one for breakfast, and one for dinner. They recommend their included meal plan, which includes one breakfast and one dinner per person per day. We took it, and were amazed at the quality of the breakfasts and dinners!
Woodward's Resort Motel was also very nice. If you don't need the outside of the building to be flashy, it is a good, maybe great, motel. The restaurant is outstanding, and the room was really nice. The beds were comfortable, and the bathroom was up to date, like you would expect at any descent motel.
On Wednesday, Erik went home, and we rode south to Gilford, NH, to Lake Winnipesaukee, where Donna had spent many summer vacations with her family as a child in the sixties, at the Silver Sands Motel ssmotel.com. The Silver Sands has a marina, and there are lots of yachts moored there. They also have a launch ramp. The beach is nice. The motel rooms were just like Donna pictured them, from 1967. No air conditioning. An efficiency-type kitchen, which we didn't use. A bathroom with a tiled tub area, from 1960. Not bad, just retro. Gilford is next to Laconia, which is quiet when not inundated with motorcycles from around the country. We didn't need air conditioning, due to the proximity to the lake, and the really nice weather when we were there. Donna noted that the diving board at the inground pool, which she and her siblings had spent hours diving from, has been removed. We spent some quiet time on the pool patio, and enjoyed talking to some of the pool goers, who were motorcyclists but had not arrived on bikes, and took note of the fact that we had arrived on two bikes, and that Donna was on a Ninja. They also noted that we don't look like motorcyclists. And that I should get my legs out in the sun more often. Thank you, Captain Obvious.
In Gilford, NH, we had a great seafood dinner at Sawyers' Dairy Bar www.sawyersnh.com, which is named wrong. It is a great seafood restaurant, with great food and great service. We had fried seafood entrees, with soda and onion rings. One of the girls who works there approached us at our table while we were waiting for our order to be ready, and offered to bring it to us. What great service! The food was excellent, and it was right down the street from our room.
From Winnipesaukee, we rode south to the in-laws, in central Massachusetts. We stayed there for a couple of days, then rode home. One of our favorite rides from there is to Quabbin Reservoir, which is the main water supply for Boston. It was created in the 1930s, by flooding five towns in central Massachusetts. One of the coolest stops in the area is the overlook where you are looking at what once was the town of Enfield, Massachusetts. There is a rest area there which is a nice place to eat lunch (if you packed a lunch,) and some diaramas and photos showing what Enfield looked like from there before it was flooded. We ate lunch on the way back from Quabbin at Harry's http://www.westborough.com/harrys/harrys.htm, on route 9.
The entire trip was 1000 miles over eight days, a record for us, and it was a blast! In 2012, with Donna on her new Ninja 1000, we hope to go further, and enjoy it even more.
Ride safe. Thanks for reading.
hud
