March, 2007

Iron Butt Denied
Always a bridesmaid, never a bride                                    By Chuck Tolley
Congratulations Ed and Katherine. I have to say I was severely bummed out to come in second AGAIN especially when I thought I had “First” all locked up. As Ed mentioned in his article, it seemed everyone was having mechanical problems. Lesson here: never place the trophy on your mantle until it is in your hand.

My name is Chuck and I have a problem, well a number of problems. But I only have room to touch on a few of them here. I love my motorcycle. I love to ride all day. I have this compulsion for snacks from out of the way places and I was determined to win the Iron Butt trophy.

This year started with a trip to Daytona for Bike Week in March. It was 17° when we left. This should have been the first clue I had a problem. I thought, I’ve got to be out of my mind, there’s no way we can go 1,500 miles when it’s this cold. Truthfully, the ride wasn’t that bad. I had all my electric stuff cranked up and by the time we stopped in CT for a snack it was already in the 30’s. At a gas stop in NJ it was a toasty 42°, things were looking up. By the end of the day we were in NC and it was 60°. The next day it rained a little but it was warm and by mid afternoon we were in Daytona BABY!

There is nothing like the feeling of that first really warm sunny day after a cold winter and the experience of riding into spring. In 24 hours the temperature had changed 50°, I was ready to enjoy Daytona. This was my first trip to Bike Week and it was spectacular. What a great place to people watch. I checked out the vendors, went to the beach, took a day trip to Cape Kennedy, took in the Art of the Motorcycle exhibit at an Orlando museum and went to the Supercross races. Then I had to come home… to the cold! It’s a lot more fun heading south than north. It rained from Maryland to Providence, I’m glad I have good raingear.

Most of the spring was spent visiting more local favorite roads and indulging in one of my other favorite past-times, eating. Have you ever noticed that some of the best places to eat are near great roads? If I asked Donna if she would like to take a ride for ice cream she always asked suspiciously what state we’re going to? I don’t know why, but she thinks it’s odd that I’ll ride all day just to get a snack. Doesn’t everybody do this? You need to have some kind of destination when you leave the driveway, don’t you? I know we’re Mystery Riders but still you have to have some sort of plan; the mystery is how you get there. I usually have at least two ideas of where I want to go when I leave the house, just in case traffic, weather or other things get in m y way.

Always have a back up plan; you can get hungry out there! I learned a valuable lesson this summer about not getting too psyched for something to eat. I went for an evening ride on the Cape. I headed down 28A from Cataumet to Woods Hole; by the time I reached Falmouth I knew what I wanted for dinner. There is this little place in Harwich and they have excellent onion rings. One hour later, I’m rounding the corner only to discover the restaurant is gone, it’s now a t-shirt shop. Well now I’m in Harwich, I’m close enough to go to Arnolds’ in Wellfleet; another half-hour and I’ll be munching on some good Cape Cod food! As I pull into the parking lot, I notice the line, about 50 people waiting outside the door, that can’t be good. So much for dinner, I went to P-Town for an ice cream. I didn’t have a plan, I almost came home hungry. Be careful out there people. Some rides are determined by food I’m in the mood for and others are for the great roads.

One ride I really enjoy is RT 2 out to North Adams. My favorite section is from Greenfield along the river and then up and over the hill. The twisties just past the state campground are some of the best in the state. From North Adams it’s up RT 100 into VT. RT 100 brings you to Wilmington (RT 9 & RT 100 intersection). After a lunch at Dots Restaurant, I head back across VT on RT 9 to Brattleboro then 119 into NH and then 78 back to RT 2 and home in time for dinner. The southern end of RT 100 is nice but the northern end is even better.

There is a place in Northern Vermont that has the best homemade pies and it is my personal highlight of Americade every year. If I call ahead they will make sure they have a warm strawberry rhubarb pie waiting for me. We stop there for breakfast every year. After breakfast we take the ferry across Lake Champlain then cruise back to Lake George along the shores of the lakes. Ice cream is OK locally but there’s this great place out near Worcester, The West End Creamery, just down the street from Purgatory Chasm, is that too far t o go for a sundae?

The spring brought some time off from work that actually ended up being days that were nice. I really enjoy the roads in Northeastern CT. You can be there in two hours and there are so many choices and most of the roads have very little traffic with good scenery. Almost any road in that part of the state that is a three-digit route seems to be designed just for motorcyclists, 241, 171, 169, 197, I recommend them all. As an added bonus the Vanilla Bean is smack in the middle of it all. They have really good chili, sandwiches and very tasty desserts. I’ll go there anytime. Just let me know when you’ll be there, save me a seat. Best of all, you can be there in a couple of hours with minimal highway riding, a great day trip destination.

The Northwestern corner CT is almost the same, lots of great roads and mostly light traffic. It takes 3 to 4 hours to get out here but there is usually some other event to go to and the ride is just an added bonus. I’ll sometimes go to the dirt bike races at Southwick with one of my kids. Another fun place to go is Lime Rock Racetrack. They have various events that draw everything from people on shoestring budgets to national caliber race teams and you can walk through the pits and check out all the cars and drool over the equipment they have. I thought motorcycling was expensive, some of the transporters these people have for their toys are worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. At one race I went to, a guy in a Subaru wagon was beating people in race prepped Porsche 911’s. I suspect his Subaru was s lightly modified; it just looked like a Plain-Jane wagon.

My favorite ride of the year was to Virginia this fall. I got to take my bike to work in Roanoke. When I was done with the job, I met up with a fellow BMW rider I met through an on-line riders group. He took me on a route through the mountains of Virginia and West Virginia. We rode 300 miles and after leaving Roanoke, we only went through one other town that had stop lights/ McDonalds/Wal-Marts. We would sometimes not see another car for thirty minutes. We passed through tiny little villages; it was like going back in time. Some of the roads we were on were just a single lane wide that wound up and over the hills. It was one of those magical days. Good company, the roads were great, the weather w as beautiful and of course great food.

The next day I was in PA and passed by Amish people in their buggies heading to church. I took this cool little paddlewheel ferry across the Susquehanna River from Liverpool to Millersburg. To signal the ferry you want to cross, you swing a door attached to a tree out so they can see it from the other side of the river. The ferry is powered by a small diesel engine that drives a last experience of living the old days. Three hours later, I was stuck in traffic on a crappy road, welcome back to reality. The rest of the fall were day trips to some favorite places in New England.

In early December, I met a friend at The Moto Market in Acton for lunch and he decided to visit a friend in CT after lunch so we rode together to RT 14 in CT where he continued south and I headed east through RI and southwestern MA. We each did about 350 miles that day. This turned out to be the last ride of ’06 for the BMW. About 10 miles from home, it had a mechanical failure and I coasted to a stop at a gas station at the Bourne rotary. I was horrified that my beloved bike had stopped running but was grateful I was so close to home. It turns out, it suffered a burnt exhaust valve and will be back on its wheels again this spring.

Specials thanks to Donna for letting me borrow her bike to finish out the season. I like to do some Christmas shopping on the bike and this year the weather has been great for late season riding. I feel like I could be in one of those MasterCard commercials. Two tires and new brakes, $540; gas, $973 on debit card; oil for motorcycle trips, $175; $450 for two more tires; $48.50 for tolls; $237 for chili, pie, cookies and ice cream, (fuel for the driver); new top end for engine $2500; 15,000 miles to win the MMR Iron Butt Trophy, priceless!

Here’s to a new season of riding, get out there and explore. There are so many places to see, fun things to do and it’s always better when you are on your trusty steed, of course don’t forget to sample the tasty food along the way.

Paulatics Conquering My Fears                             by Paula McCallum
OK yes, I’m taking you as far back as nursery school ... to my little class which was about to perform “I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing” to a proud audience of our parents. Just before our big debut, I came down with a bad case of stage fright and was escorted out of the assembly to barf.

My fear of performing in front of an audience (Scaredycatophobia) was nowhere to be found when I landed the lead role in our 6th grade play “Mirror, Mirror.” I starred as the wicked Queen in a 60’s version of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Miraculously, I managed to pull off singing an entire solo in front of a packed auditorium!

On another occasion, while I still sought comfort in Winnie-the-Pooh, my parents planned a road trip to New Hampshire. New Hampshire, gulp, isn’t that on t he other side of the world?

We stopped along the way in Needham to pick up my Aunt and Uncle then ate breakfast at the IHOP. When it was time to hit the road, anxiety of the “Live Free or Die” State got the better of me. I tossed my pancakes and had to be driven back home, happy that I did not have to leave the South Shore.

In my junior year of college, I spent a semester abroad in Florence, Italy, remembering this time to pack Winnie. It was there that I developed an itch to boldly explore foreign countries so after graduation, I backpacking across Europe for seven weeks with a friend. That trip was one of the best experiences I’ve ever had. I no longer have a fear of the unknown (Startrekophobia).

Another type of fear had been festering inside me throughout my education. Rearing its ugly head while I attended Emmanuel (at the time, an all women’s Catholic College). I was required to take a World Religions class with 8 other young women and assigned an essay on a Saint that had to be presented to the class. I pulled my teacher aside to confide in her my fear of speaking in front of others, otherwise known as, Assofmyselfophobia. She told me not to worry about it, I’d do fine. W e were only a small group after all.

I sucked it up and wrote the report using index cards for my presentation. When my turn came, I got so nervous that as I looked at my notes, the words literally blurred together and I choked. The nun gave me a “C” f or my efforts. So much for my candid confession to her.

Today, I’m required to lead meetings each month for the Mystery Riders by reading notes from our agenda. I still don’t particularly like speaking in front of a large group but at least the words aren’t going on a psychedelic trip i n front of my eyes.

Riding a motorcycle has its own set of understandable fears. The fear of speed, the fear of others on the road, and death come to mind.

The twisty up and down turns of the Pine Hills scares the crap out of me. (Ohshitophobia). Every time we ride over them, I concentrate really hard, look through the turn, twist the throttle and know that if I just get through this spot, I’ll be fine the rest of the ride.

Yet, just before the end of the season this year, I rode over the Pine Hills doing 50 mph, leaning into the turns and zooming around them like an old pro. Wait a minute, where did that fear go? That was a piece of cake.