nicholasdejong.com

I took a good long ride this weekend to load everything onto the bike and try a few things out along the way. I got up early on Saturday morning and was on the road by 6:00am. I had wanted to get an early start so I could get some good photos from the new camera mount now attached to the front of the bike.

NYC > Rhode Is.
Apart from being on the road early this journey was pretty uneventful. For the first ~3 hours I was able to get photos out the front of the bike (one shot every 30 seconds) however once I got back to review them it's all rather boring shots of an interstate highway. No surprise in that of course but it has got me thinking that I'll re-orient the camera such that shots are taken at a slight angle off the right-hand side of the bike. I did experience the speed-wobble problem again that seems to be associated with the side panniers and had a moment of elevated heart beats as the wind blast from beside a large semi trailer caught me.

Twisted Throttle BBQ
The reason for Rhode Island was the fact that an online company, Twisted Throttle that I'd purchased bits from some sent out an email stating they were having a BBQ. When I arrived I realized just how early in the morning it was when I departed Manhattan since I was the first non-employee to arrive in the car park. It was a great day and I met quite a few great people and bikes. Of particular note was Roy and his VStrom with load of great enhancements all over the bike. Roy has developed a most enviable component, that being his moto-office which is literally an "office" located inside a waterproof pelican case in which he has a laptop, power and a solar panel attached to the top. In the afternoon I decided to participate in the "slow race" and got quite over zealous about the whole thing as I dropped my bike in the middle of the race quite to the amusement of onlookers. Whooops! No dramas, not even a scratch, just somewhat embarrassing. While I was in the carpark chatting a guy by the name of Gerard gave me the idea to move my Givi backcase forward on the bike. As it turns out this not only bought the weight in the bike further forward but also seems to have removed much of the speed-wobble effect I was getting which makes perfect sense in hindsight. My guess is that the back case was getting "caught" in the air blast as it passed around me and would at certain speeds get into harmonic where the case would wobble. It seems this wobble was then being picked up by the side panniers which then amplified the whole thing due to their weight and thus result in a rather unpleasant sensation from the backend of the bike. Anyway, the problem here has been greatly reduced by bringing the backcase forward which I'm quite happy about.

Rhode Is. > Hamptons
In the afternoon I rode down to New London to catch the ferry across to Orient Point and then across to the Bridge Hampton on Long Island. My timing was perfect and I was on the ferry departing within 20 minutes of arriving. Once you get to Orient Point you can do one of two things, go down to Riverhead and loop back up Long Island or cut across Shelter Island taking more short ferry rides. I took the ferries but I reckon on a moto it would be quicker to ride down to Riverhead and back.

Hamptons > Montauk >NYC
I stayed overnight in Bridge Hampton and in the morning took myself up to Montauk affectionately known as "The End" since it is the last place on the end of Long Island. There's a lighthouse there so I paid my $8 climbed the lighthouse and got back on the road headed for the city. The journey to NYC was a real pain with the traffic and being Memorial Day weekend it was probably twice as bad as usual but after wrestling with the traffic made it back to the city by Sunday afternoon.

I still have photos and GPS stuff to add here but I'm still building "stuff' to make all that easier to detail so for the time being this is just a boring old blog-post.

N