We had a nice veggie egg scramble breakfast at the diner across the street from our hotel in Andes. It was a picturesque setting. Sitting on the veranda on Main Street surrounded by typical upstate New York buildings. A general store. A pub. A hotel.
We met John Veglak the night before while he was riding his KTM 690. We had a long conversations about motorcycles, the BDR, trips around the world, and life in general. He decided to join us for today's ride. He is from NYC but had a house close by. He also has a GS and used to do track days. Great to have him along as he knows the area very well.
The only warning he gave us was a "nasty hill" before Prattsville. Apparently, this should have been labeled expert in the BDR map but instead there was only a note for an easy bypass on the map. We decided to give it a go and see what this "hill" was all about.
Well, we thought it was only the downhill that was hairy but when we least expected we were faced with a very steep incline full of big loose rocks with water (rivers really) coming down the road. Just enough time to downshift and hit the throttle to get some momentum going. There was no stoping once committed! Wow.
Richard was going to take the detour given that he was riding a new motorcycle but John told us at the top of the mountain that he was right behind him at the start of the hill so we waited. After a while, we assumed he turned around before the "hill" to t are the detour so we went on to Prattsville for lunch and to wait for him.
Once in Prattsville we were able to briefly connect (bad cell service) with Richard. He was indeed stuck so Chuck decided went around the detour to meet him. After a brief message, we knew they had met and after a couple of hours with no more news, John, Andy, and I assumed they had gone on so we set out to catch up. The ride in the afternoon was one of the most beautiful areas we have ridden so far.
Great riding through beautiful woods and mountains. For a while we rode though very tight, overgrown, unmaintained roads with lots of water puddles, and areas where we had to crouch to get through the low lying branches and vegetation. Fun.
Eventually, we all met in Windham at around 4pm to load gas and to decide our plans for the night.
We said goodbye to John as he headed back to Andes. Richard and Chuck decided to stay at a hotel in Lee. Andy and I loaded water and decided to camp. I went ahead to scout our camping site while Andy finished working some real estate deal with Richard.
Found a great camping site next to a nice lake in the North-South Lake State Park.
First night of camping. Dehydrated beef stroganoff for dinner and a nice cappuccino before bed.
Ooops. A big storm is coming. Time to batten down the hatches.
Tomorrow we are planning to make it through Massachusetts to reach Vermont where allegedly the best and most challenging riding is.
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