Chris' Ramblings

Posted By cablebandit on June 7, 2010

This past Sunday was supposed to be the monthly NRR lunch ride.  The destination was the Hotel Manor in Slate Run, PA.  Good food and great riding all around the place.  I awoke to wet roads but it looked like we might get lucky and the rain would hold off.  I suited up and headed over to Kissell’s expecting to find a few hearty souls.  I only found one,  John Johnston.  John was this month’s ride leader but wasn’t expecting anybody either.  We waited for about 15 minutes and decided to bail on the days plans.

At this point I whipped out my handy netbook and sent out an email to let people know I would hang out a bit longer if anyone wanted to head out a little later.  The band of storms was very thin and would probably only rain for about 5 minutes once it passed through.  When I got no response I decided a change in plans was in order.  The storm was heading northeast so I decided to head southwest.  I’d put together a nice little route heading down to Bedford county and linking together some of the more prominent covered bridges in the area.  With the route loaded into my GPS I was off like a prom dress!

I headed out to Marengo Road and out Route 45 to Water Street.  Heading east on 22 a days old fawn ran (walked) out in front of me.  He slipped an fell as I was just about stopped next to him.  Just a side note.  Your rear brake doesn’t work all that well when the tire is in the air. I turned shortly after that and took the back way into Williamsburg.  Then it was pretty much a straight shot down 866 to 869.

Our first bridge was the Osterburg-Bowser Covered Bridge off of Fish Hatchery Road.

Then is was a short hop over to Snooks Covered Bridge.

You can see in the picture above that I was headed toward one of the storm cells that I figured I would have to ride though at some point.  A little farther down 671 the sky went from “I might have to grab my rain jacket” to “I’m looking for the funnel cloud”. 

Like any good adventurer I pressed on. 

Just a little further down 671 I came upon the Ryot Covered Bridge.

Heading south on 96 I went to the site of the Cuppett’s Covered Bridge.  Much to my chagrin, a brand new modern bridge with no style or panache was in it’s spot.  Luckily, the county moved the original bridge across the road.

Take note of the sky in the above picture.  I’m only about 2 miles down the road from the last picture.  Foiled again nature!!

At this point I took a brief detour to run up to Gravity Hill.  Unfortunately,  the only thing gravity was working on at this point was the clouds.  The sky opened up for exactly 4 minutes.  After that the sun came out and the rest of the day was gorgeous, albeit a bit windy.

From here it’s east on 30 to the edge of Shawnee State Park and the site of the Colvin Covered Bridge.

The last bridge of the day would be the Claycomb Covered Bridge.

I made sure to remove my panniers so I was below the weight limit.

At this point I was bridged out and hungry.  A short hop north on business 220 put me at Ed’s Steakhouse for lunch.

No pics from this point on I was headed for home the long way.  Lower Snake Spring Road is a nice alternative to head north from 30 to Loysburg.  I then hopped on 36, over to 26 and up to 913.  A quick stop for fuel in Saxton and I continued across 913 to 994 up over the mountain.  I then followed 829 north on the east side of Raystown Lake up to 22.  At that point it was the usual suspects heading home through Huntington, McAlevy’s Fort, Pine Grove Mills, then back to Stormstown. 

Total mileage for the day was 260.   

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Posted By cablebandit on June 6, 2010

Friday we decided to head over to the spring NVAM show.  This years featured marquee was Ford, but the same tractors that are there every year seemed to be the only ones there this year as well.  We strolled the grounds for about two hours but I didn’t take hardly any pictures.

Here’s a tractor done up for the Boy Scouts of America’s 100th year anniversary.

While woofing down my ice cream I took this video of an antique saw mill in action.

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Posted By cablebandit on April 29, 2010

Well I rode down to Seltzer’s Honda today for the upon house and to specifically check out the new VFR and Nt700V.
Since it was a Thursday I pretty much had the place to myself except for a few Goldwingers.  So without further ado here’s my brief observations on the two bikes.

When I sat on the VFR I thought there was no way I could do a big ride with this thing with it’s current ergonomics.  The seat to peg layout was ok but the clip-on’s were way too far forward and low for my liking.  There is a lot of weight on your wrists, but I think this could be easily solved with helibars or something.  While riding the bike it almost seemed like riding a naked bike.  I could see the top of the windscreen but I had to deliberately look down to see the instrument cluster.

The engine on this thing seems to make torque all over the place.  Very responsive, but as others have said, the fuel injection is VERY twitchy.  The transmission was silky smooth and suspension seemed more than adequate.
One thing to note is that as I entered the highway from 1st gear I rolled on the throttle and the engine cut power twice.  I think this bike has some fuel injection glitch.
I also think anything over 3rd gear seems to be just to conserve fuel because under 70 you don’t need to be above 3rd for any other reason.

Overall, it’s a nice bike.  However, the ergos would prevent me from considering this as anything other than a long heavy sport bike.  The rear sear is almost non-existent.

I wanted to like this bike, I really did.  I mean it’s got everything a Vstrom rider looks for in a bike.  It’s butt ugly, has a v-twin, bags and an awful windscreen.
Sitting on the bike it has a fairly upright seating position.  The pegs and bars seam to be where you think they should be.  A very neutral position.  That’s where the good ends.
The engine is horrific.  I mean really bad.  If you don’t rev it to about 2700 RPM when getting going it will stall.  Power seems to come on above 3000 rpm, but by 6500 rpm this thing is weazing. on it’s way to an 8000ish redline.  I was used to the Wee-strom that will pull away from idle and pull quite nicely all the way up to 10,500rpm.  Oh did I mention that the Wee will do all this very smoothly as well.  Well as smooth as a twin can be.  The Honda had vibration all over the place.  Bars, pegs, and seat.  Hopefully what they saved in engine development they put toward loctite to keep all the bolts on this thing.
Other than that the bike was ok.  The windscreen was a little large for my liking but the integrated bags are nice and have a nifty handle to open them.  Larger lids are available overseas if you want to increase capacity.
The rear seat seamed to be about the same size as the V-strom, but the V-strom weighs less has the same or better range and makes more power.

Overall it was an enjoyable day.  Perhaps I’ll head back over this weekend and take the Goldwing for a spin again.  It’s really a hoot.  Of course the DN-01 was there calling to me as well.  Maybe take the 50cc Ruckus out on the freeway, who knows.

Oh, they also hooked me up with a free bottle of Honda Spray Polish so that was worth the price of admission.

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