FTC National Rally
Or
“You Fuckin’ Guys”
Chronicles
The first FTC National Rally is
to be held somewhere in N.Y. at points unknown.
The rally will be held July 6th – July 9th. All chapters of FTC will be meeting and
riding for no particular reason with no set
destinations.
Friday July 6th.
It is 6:15am, all members of the N.H.
FTC chapter, except for Spiderman, meet at Walrus’ house. Spiderman will attend to local FTC goings
on. Walrus, OneEye and Mongo set out for
N.Y., stopping in Townsend, MA at
Cliff’s Café for breakfast. Typically,
we give the waitress a difficult time, but this one is ready for us and nearly
has us for breakfast. Too early for
retaliation, we are off our mark and just take the abuse. We head up Rt. 119 through Ashby (nice twists)
to Vermont. Remember, we are headed to Pennsylvania after
N.Y., so of course, it makes FTC sense to head north to Vermont. Off to N.Y., we go – all back roads. We stop, I think to take a piss, but it
turns out that Mongo needs some additional poligrip
for his teeth, as he nearly spit them out.
I piss, because I’m laughing so hard.
Somewhere, we get on Rt. 30, good road with lots of twists and turns and
pretty good scenery, until we hit the mountains. Too many deer in the road;
a bit disconcerting, ride careful.
We come upon a beautiful doe and her fawn in the middle of the road,
beautiful sight, blasted away by Mongo’s horn.
Suddenly, we take an abrupt left turn off this marked road onto what will
forever be known as “Deliverance
Highway.” Mongo says, “you fuckin guys.” He is
looking for a kid playing banjo on a front porch along this road. We do discover an old covered bridge and lots
of s-turns. Our 300 mile ride has now
evolved into a 500 mile ride. We need to
cover a lot of ground to meet Trick (OneEye’s brother)
from the Michigan FTC
chapter in Hornel, N.Y. We get on Rt. 17 and fly to make up
time. Dinner becomes time for pirate
mode and hysterical laughter. We have
everyone laughing in no time. Meanwhile,
Mongo is trying to tell a story, but…. “nobody ever listens to me.”
Dinner leads to magic tricks which turn ugly when OneEye pours water
into Walrus’ hat to put out a fire.
Walrus retaliates with a toss of meringue onto OneEye’s
chest. Too tired to hang in the bar, we
all retreat to our rooms for the night.
Sat. July 7th.
Off to FTC rally headquarters to
pick-up a rally pin for Spiderman, but too many left/rights, we can’t find the
headquarters. Actually, we understand
other FTC chapters from around the US are
coming, but most are lost on back roads and will never be heard from
again. We go off for breakfast, which is
uneventful because for the first time, we have a man serving breakfast. He is a HD supporter, though, and asks us to
sign his guest book. Next stop is Arkport Harley-Davidson, because all FTC trips require
someone needing HD attention. Mongo has
problem with speedometer and hopes it can be fixed easily. No luck.
We see a HD pulling an Amish carriage with a horse’s head mounted where
the handlebars go. Interesting
machine.
OneEye is asking about good
routes into Pa., but
learns that one guy in particular has never been down certain roads. OneEye begins to explain the FTC philosophy
to try to help this poor soul improve his riding experience. We learn of Rt. 21 a great road into Potter County in Pa. Way too many deer dead along the roadside, need to be watchful. We come to a t-intersection, but straight
ahead there is a dirt trail through a farmer’s field. I suggest we take it and
off OneEye goes; naturally, I follow.
Trick and Mongo remain behind only to incur the wrath of the
farmer. At the top of the tractor track
in the middle of some fields, OneEye spies a paved road and suggests we take it
and see if we can loop back around to the guys.
We are able to do so, but only after negotiating an incredibly steep
drop down a hill to reach paved road again.
On we go, rougher roads, not much fun.
Potter County bills
itself as “God’s Country” but I guess the devil owns the roads. Eventually, we go into Tioga State
Park to see the “Grand
Canyon of the East.”
Mighty impressive views of the canyon/valley/river. We meet some bikers from So. Philly who are
staying at a campground where there is a bike rally. Then we meet a pack of riders from Maryland. We move on, OneEye down a dirt road and me
down a different dirt road, with Mongo and Trick waiting. We meet up again and backtrack to the crew
from Maryland, where
I warn them of dinosaurs and suggest they do as we are and make a run for
it. Lots of laughs. We get some lunch and discuss the fact that
it is getting late, so we head up Rt. 6 to make some time. We are headed for
the Allegheny Mountains, but we
cannot make it today. We begin stopping
in each town looking for a place to stay.
We end up in Lantz Corners at a totally vacant motel. I mean nobody!! I obtain a fine looking coonskin hat across
the street and use this to entice other bikers to join us at the motel. Becky and Joe Eagles pull in and Becky says
it was the coonskin hat. I think they
thought they’d met relatives. Joe Eagles is Louisiana Redneck all the way, tall, thin, unwashed
clothes, gritty beard and shaved head, constantly spitting tobacco. Becky Eagles is southern biker babe, gut
hanging out of her shirt, but what a hot shit.
They get talking and we can’t stop laughing. A couple of farming,
redneck, survivalists on the road having some adventure. We couldn’t pay for entertainment like this;
good bike people. After, a few snorts of
whiskey and a couple of beers, they are ready to go. Can’t do justice to the
sight of these two and their stories.
DeSio restaurant is next door, so off we go,
into a fairly empty restaurant and start our usual antics with the waitress and
patrons. We invite people to join us at
our table and a guy named Dan takes us up on our invitation. There is a couple in their 80’s and I ask if
they are having a weekend rendezvous affair.
They laugh it off and tell us of their 53yrs of marriage and why it
works. She makes good gin &
tonics. The guy invites to his house to
have a g&t with them; they turn out to be
terrific people. He served on the US Franklin; this
guy is a real American hero. We buy him
dinner. We have some more laughs with
them and finally they head out. Dan
provides us with some interesting roads to try on Sunday. We head for the
bar. Later that evening, the Boskee boys
present me with a genuine H-D Walrus.
Way too cool!!!!!! I show it off
to the people at the bar and declare. “I am the Walrus, goo,goo,ga,choo!”
Quite a day.
Sun. July 8th.
Extremely foggy start to the day
will make riding difficult because visibility is low and deer just waiting to
test your skills. We ride down into Kane
for breakfast at the Texas Hot
Lunch. From Kane we head off to Warren for gas
and off to Jamestown, N.Y. so
Trick can get on his way to Michigan. When we reach Jamestown, Trick
decides he will motor down the highways to get home by evening. We have no real idea where we are headed,
except that we will be heading home.
Naturally, we turn north, which will do nothing to get us home, but put
us closer to Buffalo. Somewhere down some back road, OneEye
relinquishes the lead to me and I take a series of turns culminating in rides
down county roads through an Amish community.
Very curious, very interesting; we are the only motorized vehicles on
the road. We are passed in the opposite
direction by two young Amish in a buggy; I think they were speeding. Mongo says they do a double take when they
see the bikes. On we ride, at one point
only 53 miles from the Canadian border, but suddenly, I spy a sign that
indicates we are all the way back to the Pennsylvania border. Mongo says, “you fuckin guys.” He
knew we were in trouble when I began taking turn after turn down county
roads. He says, “you
never listen to me.” Suddenly, we are back in the Allegheny
mountains headed
for Warren, Pa., where
we started the day. After
5hrs. of riding, we find ourselves back at the
same gas station we started the day from.
Wow! Pretty
cool, not easy to do that. Mongo
says, “you fuckin
guys.” This has been a series of genuine
FTC turns. Ok, I admit, I took us in a
circle, but how many people can be nearly at the Canadian border and find
themselves just as quickly back in Pennsylvania, all the while trying to get
back to N.H. We begin to backtrack the previous day’s route and are now back at Lantz
Corner at the motel we stayed the night before.
OneEye says, “anybody forget anything in the room?” Mongo says, “you fuckin guys” and decides he will take a new route and
lead. We stop later in the day at a
roadside stand for a quick lunch and head for 17E to make up lost time. Seems like that’s all we ever do, we find
back roads that are amazing, get lost, lose part of the day and then look to
make up lost time. We are having a debate
over direction which will not be resolved until we stop for gas. Ironically, guy who served us breakfast the
day before, pulls in for gas and says hello. Amazing, we could run into someone we’ve met
before by chance. We decide on a new
route, including one more hour on Rt. 17E.
We finally get off and ride south on back roads till we are in Pennsylvania
again. That’s right – PA/NY/PA/NY/PA/NY
all in one day. Mongo says it best, “you fuckin
guys.” We come across some Amish
children at their farm on some back road, while on our last leg up into
N.Y. They wave and we wave and continue
on into town, only to find the motel does not have any rooms available. It seems more likely that they just don’t
like our looks, because they are reluctant to help us at all. We have to get on 17W now to get to Owego, N.Y. to get
rooms and we are riding into the mouth of a monster looking T-storm. We pull up at the hotel, just in time. Definitely dodged a bullet! We are still a long way from N.H. We have dinner at the Treadway
Inn, a boring place to eat. Still we
have our fun. Mongo and OneEye make
disparaging remarks to me, so I do the only fitting thing I can – throw water
on the person closest, Mongo. Back to
the rooms, for needed rest; this has been a long day.
Mon. July 9th.
Breakfast
at Wimbledon in a diner in downtown Owego. The common theme of each morning starts with
OneEye saying, “Ya know, I was thinking” and this always leads to another back
road, dirt road, single-track path or some road that will surely get us
lost. Today, he pronounces that since we
are headed to N.H. (which in Northeast from here), we should start the day
heading West. Mongo says, “you fuckin guys.” Down Rt. 268 and Rt. 10 into the Catskills, we stop
along a lake, where Mongo continues his abuse of the Walrus giving him a broken
lifesaver. This is not the first time,
Mongo gives me a broken lifesaver and he knows I don’t like it. He finds this quite amusing. We are riding through a magnificent valley,
past mountains and lakes; good eye candy.
We take Rt. 206 up Bear Mtn., down
Bear Mtn and on.
OneEye takes a bug in his good eye, which causes him to pull off the
road. He takes us on Rt. 82, which
suddenly becomes Rt. 83 and he didn’t expect that. This road turns to dirt and we pull over,
clearly lost again. Mongo says, “you fuckin guys.” I stopped the only car do come down this
road, only to learn the driver is as lost as we are. We give him credit for adhering to the
left/right philosophy and the fact that he doesn’t really care that he is lost
either. We continue on, looking for Frost
Valley, N.Y. over
roads so rough, that gravel would be welcome.
Lots of beautiful streams looking chock full of fish. Eventually, we come to Frost Valley and Rt.
47, down Slide Mtn., where
we have to stop, because we are lost again.
Mongo says, “you fuckin
guys.” We take Rt. 28 down to a local
pizza parlor with wood fired ovens and have some great pizza,
before we turn onto R.t 214. What a great road; awesome scenery and turns
up a mountain. We stop at the end of Rt.
214 and begin to imagine we could reach N.E. by early evening. Mongo mouths off regarding kicking my ass, so
we end up on a miniature golf course to settle things. Mongo is a skilled golfer, while I am just
whacking the ball around, yet, psychologically I feel I will get to him. Mongo begins to falter and I am coming
on. Doesn’t matter,
because it is OneEye who is winning.
Yeah, that’s right, Mongo and Walrus lose
miniature golf to a blind man. We finish
our round of golf and it begins to rain and rain hard. We are getting caught in some more big
t-storms. We try to out ride them, but
this proves difficult. I am supposed to
lead us across a bridge over the Hudson
River in Catskill, N.Y, but miss the turn which results
in us having to head north to Albany for the
next crossing and entry onto the NY Thruway.
I don’t want to be on this road for long, so I bail at the earliest
opportunity. We head up Rt. 295 to Rt.
41 to Rt. 7, finally, in Massachusetts. We ride through Pittsfield to get
to Rt. 2, where we will ride the Mohawk Trail.
Up the mountain, through Florida, MA
around the hairpin turns, on we go. It
is apparent we will not make it home until nearly 10pm. Without pushing too hard, we resolve to
continue and ride to Rt. 63N and into Winchester, N.H., where
we pick up Rt. 119. We stop at Rindge,
where we determine we will split off, Mongo & OneEye to Rt. 123 and me down
Rt. 119 to Rt. 13. I head off down Rt.
119 only to find the sky darkening and lightening flashing all around. I wonder if those guys are finding the
same. I ride harder, with hopes of
beating the storm, but I am actually riding into it. I am fortunate as I get on Rt. 13, that so
far, no rain. As I head for Hollis, I
can see lightning flashing toward Mont Vernon and Amherst and
hope those guys are dry and safe. I make
it home without getting wet. It is just
before 10:00pm and I
am beat. Glad to be home. Another great adventure.