Category: East Coast Bike Trip, US (2014)

The third day was marked by the start of The Road Trip itself.  The plan was to leave Suffern in the morning, and move north, stopping for lunch at Roscoe, not famous for anything in particular, but known to have a decent diner.  After the pit-stop in Roscoe we were planning to continue riding north and spend the night in Amsterdam, NY.  A total of close to 200 miles, on nice country roads, enjoying beautiful scenery.

Before lunch, however, Fletch planned a surprise for us – a stop at Bethel, NY, that in 1969 housed the Woodstock festival – the 4 flower-power days that changed the history of rock-n-roll!

The story of how Woodstock came to be is quite interesting: it was originally planned to take place in Wallkill, NY, about 50 miles away from Bethel.  The good people of Walkill, however, were not thrilled about what they considered to be a “hippie gathering“, and putting up a legal fight, successfully vetoed it out.  The organizers had to change the venue at the last minute, which turned Woodstock into a free concert.  Despite the fact that the initial 200,000 tickets were sold at rather steep prices, there was no chance to ensure security or tickets checking at the hastily changed venue, and the additional 200,000 that showed up on top unexpectedly for the organizers, turning the event into one of the biggest music festivals in history, enjoyed the party for free.  The 32 bands and singers that performed during the weekend, often in the pouring rain, and throughout the nights, were among the best there were at the time: Credence Clearwater Revival, Joe Cocker, Joan Baez, The Who, and Jimmy Hendrix, to name just a few.  And all this happened on a peaceful farm field, that never expected to become famous!…

Having visited the premises we could confirm that the area did look way too small to host almost half a million visitors. The stage was set near the lake, and the listeners gathered on the slopes of the hill, coming down to it. Standing on top of the hill we could only wonder at the stretchy capacity of the place back in 1969.

We paid a visit to the gift shop, and marveled at the surprisingly big number of visitors that seemed to still be reliving the flower power days: seemingly grown-up, and mostly grossly overweight individuals were walking around in psychedelic shirts and harem pants, smiling at each other and the surrounding world.  The spirit of the 60-es was definitely alive and kicking in the area…

Part of the road to Woodstock lay along the highway, which made me remember my road-trip hobby, acquired during a Christmas ride through the country two years earlier: comparative studies of anthropological diversity between different states through billboards.  East Coast could boast as many billboards as any other part of America, but offered a different variety of topics than redneck country or central states.  Billboards, advertising kosher supermarkets were competing in numbers with those offering contact details of doctors and medical insurance companies.  This symbiosis made one draw rather unsettling conclusions, and start wondering if kosher food was good for you, after all… Complementing them was a surprising number of billboards, advertising psychics and palm readers.  Those were obviously a local specialty: the number of psychic parlours, astrologer’s hang-outs and palm-reading shops, advertised quite openly and persistently, was the highest I have ever seen anywhere.  Don’t ask me why.  One would have thought that all para-scientific services would have much better success chances somewhere in backwater redneck country, or in crazy-ass Los Angeles full of celebrities.  Yet, it’s the “old” part of the country that fell victim to public superstition.  Go figure…

But this comparative analysis of roadside advertisements made us stray away from The Road Trip…  Having consumed some non-descript, but gigantic sandwiches at the flower-power landmark, we ditched the idea of Roscoe with its diner, and moved on in the direction of Amsterdam.  Either the unscheduled stop happened to be too far off our initially planned route, or we were getting tired by the end of the day, but the afternoon part of the ride seemed to last forever.  Of the four of us only Fletch was used to long rides, and Nic with his periodic 2-hour trips from Munich to the office and back was probably the next experienced rider.  Last time I spent more than a couple hours on the bike was probably two years earlier at the redneck camporee.  Jane, who got her bike off Fletch only last year, was not a marathon-rider either.  The last stretch to Amsterdam tested our endurance, riding abilities and tempers.  By the time we checked into what looked like the only motel in town, all four of us were quite edgy.

The curious thing was, that the end of the 2nd riding day marked some sort of a break-through point for me.  The longer the ride lasted, the more tired I got – the better the bike felt, and the easier it seemed to handle. Go figure!…  The skills seemed to be coming back – it was all just a matter of time and practice.  My second wind came in as unexpected as ever, and from then on everything seemed as comfortable as it could be.

Getting into traffic at a steep rise from a side road?  No problem!  Taking in sharp curves?  Easy!  Parking the bike backwards and at an angle?  Can do!

I was a bit afraid that the ease will bring in carelessness, and made sure to remind myself not to get too comfortable.  Don’t know if the reminders worked, or my newly re-acquired aptitude did not make me as self-assured and arrogant as I feared, but everything went well, and my familiarity with the bike continued to improve.

The motel in Amsterdam could not boast of anything in particular, and was booked by Fletch for the sole reason of having a bar next door.  Upon arrival we confirmed with disgust that despite big billboards advertising said bar around the area, the place was all boarded up, and looked like it had stayed this way for at least a couple of years already.  This did not help with lifting our sinking spirits one little bit.  Besides, it was starting to rain…

We ended up having dinner (chicken wings!!!) in a local sports bar, that the hotel clerk swore was “the best place in town”, and was located right at the other end of it.  The ride through Amsterdam that looked very run down, shabby, and partially deserted did not let us get our hopes too high.  Our non-existent expectations were totally confirmed.  Luckily, the sports bar had a liquor store next door, and we prudently stocked up on wine.

Having returned back to the motel, we all gathered up in Fletch & Jane’s room, and spent the evening drinking wine out of plastic glasses, in the best traditions of high school class trips.  At around midnight, tired, but less pissed off than we were upon arrival in Amsterdam, we all turned in for the night.

The morning of the next day greeted us with an unexpected problem: just when we were ready to roll, Fletch’s bike would not start.  The boys poked around in the engine area, and declared that somehow during the night the battery must have run out, so we needed to jump-start the bike.  I flagged down a grandpa, who was trying to get out of the parking lot with three oversized daughters in tow.  He kindly pulled over next to the bike, dug out the jumping cables from underneath a pile of crap in the trunk, and patiently waited while the boys continued their poking around.  After about ten minutes and no obvious success, grandpa started getting visibly nervous and fidgety, and confessed that he and his daughters were in a wedding party, and were late for the Sunday brunch.  We apologized profusely, thanked all four, and set grandpa free to enjoy the brunch.

I went around the parking lot in search of another Good Samaritan.  The area around the motel was not overpopulated by any stretch of imagination, but I got lucky: a skinny black guy covered in tattoos and wearing pants that were sitting closer to his knees than his waist popped out of the motel, and became my next victim.  Despite his scary ghetto looks, the guy turned out to be extremely friendly and helpful.  He pulled his big truck next to the bikes, gave us the jump cables, and stood by chatting amicably.  Turned out, the bike needed just five extra minutes of juice, and to our joy the engine came back to life!  We thanked our new ghetto friend, and he cheerfully pulled out, to continue with whatever he was doing before we found him.

Our eyes were set on breakfast, but before that we had a chore to run.  The previous day’s ride, that had a fortunate empowering effect on me, seemed to have the exact opposite effect on Jane.  We decided to leave her bike at the nearest Harley dealer in Amsterdam, and continue on six wheels instead of eight.  That’s another good thing about America, and the Harley brotherhood spirit there: each Harley dealer, regardless of their financial interests or affiliation is supposed to help riders in distress.  And they do.  We weren’t exactly in too serious a distress, but Jane’s foot was playing up, which made further riding for her not only stressful, but painful as well.  We pulled into the Harley dealer parking lot, and within five minutes Jane’s bike was parked safely (and for free!) in their garage.  Not wanting any more morning surprises, we also bought a new battery for Fletch’s bike, showing good will on our side of the free bike storage deal.

After all that, breakfast was definitely in order.  Following directions, provided by a sweet lady at the dealership, who was celebrating her last day at work before retirement, we pulled into the parking lot of Jackie’s Diner.  The place made a lasting impression not due to food (which, by the way, was delicious – with hearty portions, and home-made hash-browns), or service (also fantastic, with waitresses pouring endless refills of coffee, and inquiring every five minutes “Is everything ok there, sweetheart?“), but due to the Christmas tree.  Yes, even though we happened to stop at Jackie’s in August, the Christmas tree was proudly on display right in the middle of the diner.  The only seasonal adjustment was the replacement of Christmas balls and fairy lights with plastic roses of varied shapes, sizes and colors.  This added some surreal feeling to the atmosphere, and the place forever remained in our memories as “The Christmas Tree Diner”.  Maybe Jackie should consider a name change…

This day’s destination was Malone, NY, and we continued in that direction without interruptions for several hours.  The ride was good – great scenery, curvy roads, I was enjoying every minute on the bike!  If at the beginning I was downshifting to 2nd (and sometimes even 1st) gear before every road bend, no matter the speed limit indicated, by this time I figured out that only very steep bends required actual downshifting, and was comfortable taking most curves in 4th and even 5th gear.  I was definitely getting the hang of it!

The digs booked at Malone, NY were right on the road upon entry into town.  We pulled into the parking lot next to the (surprise, surprise!) another closed down bar/diner.  On close inspection the place looked more burned down than just closed, but the pattern definitely started presenting itself.  While checking in the motel, we met a friendly Canadian biker couple – the woman did not speak a word of English, but the man quickly established rapport by giving us tips on the best places to buy beer in the neighborhood.  We decided to follow his advice, and went across the road to get a six pack of Guinness, just in case.  Turned out, this was VERY good thinking – thank you, thank you, thank you, unknown Canadian friend!  After that brief shopping detour, we changed into clean T-shirts, and went to explore the town.

Malone, NY, has sure seen better days: definitely well off at some point in time, the town showed all signs of decay.  Boarded up shops, buildings that could do with a make-over, and a surprising number of old-fashioned potty-chairs turned into flower-pots – a nice touch.  To its credit, though, the place did not give anywhere near as desolate impression as Amsterdam.