Joy Dutta’s blog

Had plans for a longer ride but this weekend was busy with projects and errands. After yesterday’s rain and gloomy weather, it was a lot of sun today and was hard for both myself and Bret to just sit at home.

Bret suggested a visit to Heckscher state park, a place for clicking some good ride pictures as well. A short 20 mile ride, but a superb place to unwind and just to stare at the sea. Located on the south shore of Long Island, it is place for picnic and camping. Saw first time how a campground looks like, and visualized that on the upcoming long rides I would put up a tent in a place just like this.

Upon return we stopped by the campus parking lot to test each other’s bikes out. Test rode Bret’s CBR600 and it just shocked me with its power and pickup. Never had any idea of what those sportbikes are and I knew it only today. I could not go beyond third gear and could not even imagine what a hayabusa would be like. I still love my cruiser, and Bret liked it too.

Snaps: Heckscher state park ride - 24 Apr 05

The original plan was to drop vaibhav as far west of long island as possible, satisfying both my urge of riding on the beautiful 25A-west and making him travel less by train. as usual, for me, any plan that is not really impromptu, fails. vaibhav was too uncomfortable with the thought of facing cold winds despite today’s noon temparature of 19 degrees C. dropped him at the rail station early afternoon.

As soon as I got home, a campus biker friend Bret messaged me and asked if we could ride a little today. A quick glance at the map later we both decided a short 50 mile roundtrip over 25A-west with a detour to Eatons neck beach will be a good start for joint rides. We gave just 10 minutes of time to each other to meet at a campus location. No way this ride could fail, I knew it by then.

It was nice to see Bret’s red Honda CBR600 pull up beside me, a bike I always admired for its 100+ horse power coming out of the 600cc inline 4-cylinder monster of an engine. Mine despite being the same size, delivers only 40bhp, a nice way to keep the insurace as an insignificant nothing.

So my first ride in the USA with another biker took off. This should be the start of an active campus biker club, given we can manage a couple decent rides. I always thought that sportbikes and cruisers were like oil and water and that there cant be a ride with a mix up of them, but I was proved wrong in as little distance as 20 miles. We didnt even have to decide who would be the sweep and lead, it just happened automatically. Quite pleasing to be able see a bike in front or in the mirror to check up.

A lot of bikes on road today. Loud harley riders in half helmets and t-shirts doing speed stunts away to glory. And they could be heard a hundreds of feets away. I grinned and kept riding on.

Eatons neck beach is one of the nicest beaches I had been to. A narrow winding roads climbed up and then down to almost at the water level. A place to return to many more times, especially around sunset.

The CBR600 is an awesome bike. But less ideal for touring. I convinced Bret to look for a sport tourer like a ST1100, but he likes the VFR750. Whatever it is, we just need to do more trips, and long ones with a tent and sleeping bags. There are campgrounds everywhere and it is easy to avoid motel expenses when travelling on a budget and for the real taste of a motorcycle tour. Those days seems to be nearing, as we shall see…
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Snaps: Eatons neck ride - 17 Apr 05
Map: http://www.pbase.com/jdutta78/image/42213876

The day has finally come. Ironically, without much of a plan, if any. With a broken heart dreaming how the weekend would have been spent on 1000 miles of interstates and interior roads in some far off place, I found Vaibhav to be free after friday night. I insisted to come down to my place on friday night itself lest the “plan” becomes a bit long term, increasing expectations as well as the chance of screwing up.

Vaibhav took the first train in the morning from his place to Stony Brook. Looking at the warm weather, I could not at all ignore the possibility of a small ride, given that Vaibhav has accustomed to the comfort of cages in so many days on anything but a saddle.

Surprise ! Despite the overtight pillion helmet, he gave a grin - the green signal for a good enough ride for the rest of the day. Given sundown at 8pm we had pretty much time to make it to the upper east-most point of long island - the Orient Point.

A long queue of weekend cagers slowed us down beyond any kind of tolerance. We both were starving and planned to eat at a roadside mac at typical touring style, but the sight of a chinese buffet lunch restaurant could not keep me on the road with that traffic.

After filling our stomachs well despite the worries of nature’s call it was good to find the traffic speed had improved, and after a couple agonizing miles, we were finally able to do the speed limit for that road. Around 40-50 mph, but much better than bumper to bumper.

Stopped at a motorcycle dealer en route where Vaibhav could lust over the shiny cruisers and deadly sportbikes, including a hayabusa. I wish I could capture the grin of the shop manager when I introduced Vaibhav as the founder of our bangalore biker group.

Soon we were cruising through the real long island, with wineries on both sides of the road preparing for the coming season. Acres of land had been tilled and looked like those picture-book farms. The whistle of the wind and the growl of the engine suddenly reminded us - RTMC, the bangalore bullet club founded by Vaibhav on september 2001, was doing its first official US-chapter ride ! It had to start someday, with at least two members riding together, and it happened today. The first official RTMC ride was to Nandi Hills, 60 kms from Bangalore. The first official RTMC-USA ride was to Orient Point, 60 miles from Stony Brook ! Coincidence ?

It was simply a beautiful short ride. At the Orient point state park, we just relaxed and spent time with our nikons. On the way back, we enjoyed an all-american ambience sipping coffee at a small restaurant overlooking the sea, watching the sunset, while the american families enjoyed their dinner.

Coming to the routes, we took 25 east all the way to our destination. I deliberately took the unknown route 48 on the way back, but it turned out to be amazing for doing some photography which I plan to do later on, possibly around fall. After sundown, I took a detour to 495 for gas and covered a lengthier way home. Well, thats the way bikers choose their route - the more the merrier. The 60 mile destination finally ended up as a 150 mile roundtrip…

Still trying to brainwash Vaibhav to get his own bike as soon as possible…
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Snaps: Orient point (LI) ride - 16 Apr 05
Map: http://www.pbase.com/jdutta78/image/42163354

whenever i have expected something too much i got hurt badly most of the time. today was no exception. was already planning meticulously about the long ride this weekend to PA and washington DC, but thanks to a stupid left turn i managed to fail my motorcycling license test after all these years on the road with 40k kms in India and 3k miles in the USA.

the circling on the parking lot, the double 8-figures, all went just fine. then i was told to make a left, then a right, then another right to come back to the same place. but damn, the first left was meant to be turning on a very narrow road, and i just missed it while looking at the next left… i still cant figure out how i made that stupid mistake. anyway, i took my own left turn, then right and cud still see a car that i thought to be them… alas, i was already failed by then. i took the last right and suddenly found no one was following me. a severe chill went down my spine and a bitter feeling of frustration and anger engulfed me up. i reversed way and reached the test site with a completely broken heart.

80 miles of roundtrip journey. had a good time with the guy who came with me. we met the first time only today and it was nice talking to another biker face to face after a long time.

next test date: 9th june. i just messed up my summer today.

:((

——- follow up ———
Karma !

one biker said “Perhaps it is Karma. Perhaps there was a Cadillac with a cell-phone yakking driver behind the wheel with your name on the front grill on one of these road trips you were planning.”

at the same time i got a mail from google that they want to interview on friday, at a time when i was supposed to be riding to PA !!! what a coincidence !

More than 6 hours of brainwork finally rewarded me with a motorcycling page on my personal domain with my attitude towards this unique way of life. I have started writing a very fundamental article to put down in words, why I ride and why I never get tired of it. “Why I Ride” - can be found as a link in the following page:

http://www.joydutta.com/motorcycling