Joy Dutta’s blog

I decided I would just relax and leave the route for the sunday ride up to Daman. I assumed we would be back early afternoon and I would reach home by 10pm.

Assumptions. So laughable. Little did I know that the “planned” 550 mile weekend ride would be stretched to 820 miles over 3 days.

Day 2 of my trip started as a lazy sunday morning. I woke up early to catch with my everyday ritual - checking mail and some net surfing. Ordered a tire plug kit and a 12v air compressor for the upcoming trips.

Went to meet Sue of xv_cruisers yahoogroups forum so that she no longer treats me as just another online stranger. It was nice to meet an yahoo-messenger buddy in person too. Sat on her newly acquired V-Star 650. It is a nice bike, but somehow it seemed a lot smaller than my connie.

A quick breakfast later we (me on connie, daman and harmeet on daman’s Triumph Rocket-III, and Shweta on the Lincoln towncar) were on US-3 N cruising towards Lincoln, NH. The scenary was quite different than I am used to around long island. Unfortunately for me, the fall colors were already over in that part and I had no reason to stop for pictures. We rode non-stop along US-3 N, the I-93 N to arrive at Lincoln. Yummy lunch at mcdonalds. Daman and Harmeet was too cold at hands and feet so they got some hand and foot warmers. First time I saw how good they actually work. Kinda like magic, open the sealed packet to get the small sac out, and it just heats up. I later tried it in my gloves today morning on the homebound ride, and it worked beautifully.

We were already at the foothills of white mountains and the loon mountain ski range. Lot of ski shops around. Really made me want to ski sometime. I should have done it in the two winters I spent at the east coast.

We took the scenic mountain road kancamagus highway (112) from Lincoln. Hairpin bends and lot of twisties. I was a little scared to lean with the behemoth of the bike I was riding, 650 lb with gas. After two turns I was like being back to my royal enfield, curving the roads in the western ghats of south India. It was like going back in memory lane. Except for the cold, the salt spray on the asphalt and the frozen roadside springs, it was all much like the rides back home. We did quite a few photo sessions on the mountain roads. Went down to a stream too. Wished to raft someday. Oh well…

This was Daman’s last ride in this season and his bike was going to be stored at the dealer for the winter. A great bike that is huge but also handles well.

We were back to Daman’s place around 6pm. It was not just possible to ride home, another 260miles with that kind of drowsiness and cold. I am taking my time to get used to long rides here, so it will be a while before I can do 500 mile days without thinking twice.

Started at 6am today morning to reach home around 12:30pm, with stops for gas and food. The plugged tire held up the whole 42 psi of pressure all along the trip !!!

My heartfelt compliments to Daman and Shweta who had been a wonderful host. And Harmeet was nice to talk to and discuss about Photography.

A great first multi-day trip in the USA. More to follow.

Map: http://www.pbase.com/jdutta78/image/52588538
Pics: http://www.pbase.com/jdutta78/nashua19nov05

This entry was posted on Monday, November 21st, 2005 at 6:21 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.