Respect My Authoritay

Connecticut's Rockaway riders, from left: Grumpy, Captain, Token2, Fonz, CT Blogger, John J., Anonymous Ed and Scott.

Connecticut Polar Bears at lunch, from left, Anonymous Ed, Token2, Scott, John J., Captain, Fonz, CT Blogger and Grumpy. Photo by Grumpy using wide-angle mode on his new LG cell phone.

Motorcycle Polar Bear Blog, Polar Bear Grand Tour, ride to Rockaway, NJ, February 19, 2017

By: Chris Loynd, a.k.a. CT Blogger

Mark Twain, longtime Connecticut resident, famously said, "If you don't like the weather in New England now, wait a few minutes." We weathered a wacky weather week. Last Sunday we were forced by snow to drive. This Sunday we were almost too warm, almost.

 In Connecticut some of our foot-deep snowfall lingered still a week-and-a-half later. What was left was decorative in places. It accented craggy rock faces and lightened shadowy forest floors. Admittedly we also saw side of the road snow banks black with dirt. Still, I thought snow added an appropriate winter look to what felt all of a spring day.

Even at daybreak our temperatures were above February's average daytime temperature. Due to our relatively close destination, we had a late start, 10:00 a.m. By then the temperature was near 50 degrees; on the ride home it climbed nearer 60. Our CT Polar Bears were changing out gloves and shedding layers.

Anonymous Ed took the lead. He was great on the highways. Once we exited, he struggled a bit. At lunch he said something about the GPS on his bike being different from the one he was used to in his car.

I give him a B+, four out of five stars. On the highway he was steady and reasonable and that counts for a lot. That right fork turnoff for Main Street in Rockaway is a bit tricky. Lucky for Ed I was riding in third position. Also lucky for Ed there was a connecting side street closeby, albeit down a wicked-steep hill.

Captain was riding second position and tried to signal Ed he was missing the turn. The turn once missed, Captain hesitated about whether or not to follow. Hey, you gotta stick with your ride leader, even if he leads you to the wrong destination. In third position I kept coming and urged, nearly pushed, Captain to follow his leader, rather than making the over-the-berm hard right turn he desired.

Fonz who was second to last in line, and therefore not the sweep, wanted to sweep still. Token2 as sweep is obligated to stay with any rider who falls out of line. So when Fonz ditched the rest of us, instead taking the correct right fork, Token2 had to follow.

As we descended the cliff, I mean sidestreet, we found Fonz doing his authoritarian thing and blocking the road to help us enter. Of course that did nothing for the closer lane of oncoming traffic. Fortunately that car driver took pity on us and blocked cars behind him to let us out all in a line.

Anonymous Ed did see the big "The Exchange" sign of our destination, but appeared challenged in making a split-second decision to park on the street in front or the parking lot in back. He went for the back and we followed, well some of us followed. Fonz went for the street and took a couple of our riders with him. Parking lot choices were slim; there is a wicked-steep hill built into the lot. Maybe a low-slung car would be able to park parallel and not roll over. I was taking no chances with my high center of gravity Honda ST.

After all the fork-of-the-road and parking confusion, you know what happened? We all found our Connecticut mates and a big booth and had lunch together, despite our bikes being scattered across two parking lots and the street.

The Exchange parking lots and street front were packed, but the restaurant and bar were not. Our theory was because it was such a beautiful day a lot of the more local Polar Bears rode to the destination early, signed-in, then went touring around in the unexpectedly warm February sunshine.

This is often one of the brutally cold rides on our schedule. Was it two years ago the temperature started in minuses and never went above five degrees on this run? Grand Tour Grand Pooh Bah Bob told us his outdoor thermometer said 52 degrees when he awoke at 5:00 a.m. Assuming the thermometer was broken, Bob booted up his computer to check the weather.

Scott rode in a windbreaker over a fleece vest. He's never cold. He said he was tempted to choose a tank top instead of the short sleeve tee shirt he was wearing as his base layer just to tease me. Me, I still wore my silks and electrics then actually turned up my electrics, just a little.

On the way home we decided to shoot over to the Garden State Parkway so we could enjoy our stop-at-the-top. Once again Captain tried to drive Anonymous Ed from the second position. Ed made a right turn right in front of a big sign that said go straight for I-80 East. I don't know if it was luck or lucidity but no sooner than we turned we picked up an I-80 East on-ramp.

There was still a bit of confusion getting to the Garden State Parkway. At one point our sweep shot to the front, partly to help Ed find the GSP and maybe also out of Fonz frustration. We called Fonz out at our stop-at-the-top and he admitted to being challenged in having the patience to wait for the sweep on lane changes. Maybe we make him sweep next week, or leader.

Any of us who have been at the front or the back of the pack can attest that it is not easy. I had one of the most disastrous leads with a confused and likely illegal loop at the foot (or was it head) of the Whitestone Bridge. I too blamed my GPS. I too was saved by my sweep.

So kudos to Anonymous Ed for stepping up for the lead. Study your maps and set your GPS Fonz, I hereby publicly challenge you to lead next week's ride to Hooters. There are some nasty turns on the local roads after you exit I-80. If you like, I can ask Captain if he'll ride second. And we will all respect your authority . . . at least for the duration of the ride there and back.

Bob pic of the week.

Renegade sweep and leader Fonz, left, with never-cold Scott, right. What you see on Scott is the totality of his warm gear.

Scary parking lot for motorcycles.

John J. climbs the hill.

Captain earned his 60-point pin.

Chris did too.

Flight B Leaders Rich and Joan.

Ski slope parking.

It was . . .

. . . and some did!

Better Part of Valor

East Hampton "riders" CT Bears came by car. From left: Captain, CT Blogger, Grumpy, Jim and Connor.

Motorcycle Polar Bear Blog, Polar Bear Grand Tour ride to East Hampton, NJ, February 12, 2017

By: Chris Loynd, a.k.a. CT Blogger

Our Sunday freeze line hovered somewhere over New York City. To the south our New Jersey brother bears would experience only rain. North, at departure time in Connecticut, snow was falling and accumulating. Since it would rain only in Jersey we were sure the ride would not be cancelled. Our perfect attendance was at risk.

Riding looked pretty dicey, so Captain and I decided to drive, a fairly long drive, 150 miles and 2 1/2 hours one way. Grumpy came along even though he was not going for perfect attendance. Plus we picked up Jim and his son Connor driving in their own car, a Jeep, at the Darien rest stop on I-95. We convoyed across the parkways and over the GW Bridge. Captain led and Jim did a great job as sweep, clearing lanes and keeping pace.

It's a little nuts, we all admit, to drive to New Jersey for lunch in the snow, sleet and rain. All to sign a paper proving our consistent feasance.

Truth is, the Polar Bear Grand Tour is a great excuse to get together, tell stories, rip on each other, debate politics and get out of the house. It's better on a motorcycle. But we had a great time Sunday without the bikes all the same. Driving in a car together actually gave us much more time to talk. On our motorcycles we are isolated in our full-face helmets.

Our destination, O'Connor's American Bar and Grill, had a distinctly Irish theme, despite the "American" adjective in its name. This is a great destination, new to the Polar Bear Grand Tour schedule. Hopefully they will stick with us. Turnout this year was pretty light. It rained fairly steady most of the day. Good food, plenty of space, plenty of parking, easy to get to, O'Connor's has it all.

Connor and I enjoyed the shepherd's pie. It was excellent and almost, almost, more than I could eat. Captain had the chili and pronounced it spicy.

Because we came in a car, we received only a single point at sign in. So Captain and I still need one ride more for our 60-point pins. What a difference a week makes. The coming Sunday is forecast to be sunny and near 50 degrees.

Can't really see it in the rainy, blurry photo taken through the car window, but we were fascinated by this Polar Bear's ponytail. Either the ponytail is fake and stuck on or she drilled an appropriate hole in her helmet. We'll have to see if we can find her at another Polar Bear ride to find out.

CT Bears catch up with Quartermaster Gary Rosen outside the restaurant. Photo by: Bernie Walsh.

Baptism by Ice

Schaefferstown CT Bears, from left: Grumpy, new guy Paul, CT Blogger, Captain, Token2 and Mac.

Motorcycle Polar Bear Blog, Polar Bear Grand Tour, ride to Schaefferstown, Pa., February 5, 2017

By: Chris Loynd, a.k.a. CT Blogger

Admittedly riding interstate highways at 20 degrees Fahrenheit on a motorcycle is not for everybody. Even so, anybody can be on the Connecticut Polar Bear distribution email. So what happens is I send weekly emails about our Polar Bear departure time to many more motorcyclists than show up for any given ride. Some never show. Some ride occasionally. And every now and then an email recipient surprises us all.

Sunday may have been our coldest ride of the season so far. It is long too, a rare six-pointer. At 200+ miles and four hours' travel one-way, the cold can start to get annoying. Even Captain, who eschews electrics, admitted he was getting more than a little tired of being cold that last half hour of our morning ride to the destination. Coming back home in the afternoon we enjoyed another 10 degrees of temperature, still chilly but not biting. Believe me, it makes a difference. On the way over I cooked my toes.

People who don't ride motorcycles in winter ask me, "Well when it's that cold, what does 10 degrees really matter?" But if you think about a summer day, the difference between 80 and 90 degrees is the spread between hot and miserable.

Just because I ride in winter does not mean I like to be cold. In fact, I am fairly cold intolerant. Not like Polar Bear Grand Pooh Bah Bob who strolls around the parking lot as bikes arrive in 20 degree weather in nothing more than one of his hundred polar bear themed sweatshirts. He's like our Scott, never cold.

Last season I switched to the full electric set after years of toughing it out with just an electric jacket liner and gloves. I used to wear multiple layers of long johns and put those disposable HotHands(r) packs under my toes. On really cold days I'd put two under each foot, one for toes another under the insole. One year, early on in my Polar Bear riding experience, a couple of us went in together to buy a case of the things directly from the manufacturer. The next year they would not sell them direct. Now, every November I'm stalking sporting goods aisles, buying a full box when they first appear.

Retailers are season sensitive and you cannot find the warmers in March, sometimes neither in October. When you do find them, you must guess correctly about how many you will need to fill out the Polar Bear season, I ran out one year when my daughter was a high school cheerleader and we blew through my supply trying to stay warm at football games.

I carry them still on the bike as backup in case my electrics fail. If your electric clothing stops working, you still have to get your motorcycle home. Unless you're like Token2 on this ride. You'll have to read a bit further before I get to his drama. Right now I'm writing about, what was it, oh, cooked toes!

I have my new, full-suit, Warm and Safe gear wired with a dual thermostat. (If you don't know, the electric clothing plugs into a lead attached to your battery terminals. It runs off the alternator, electric current coursing through multitudes of special wires woven into the special clothing.) One thermostat dial controls my gloves, the other is for the rest of the suit: jacket liner, pants liner and socks all together. That way I can control the amount of heat for the suit versus the gloves.

This is helpful because I've not yet found a pair of electric gloves that truly keep my hands warm enough. For one thing, I have long, thin fingers. For another, my hands are the part of me most exposed to the wind, unprotected by windshield or fairings. So on a day like last Sunday, I have the gloves at full crank -- thermonuclear hot. If I had the suit at the same setting, my body would melt. I've yet to see a day cold enough to turn up the jacket, pants and socks full blast.

After our last few rides I tried something new last Sunday for the inadequate gloves and it seemed to work. I supplemented my electrically heated gloves with a HotHands packet in each glove. Not bad! My fellow Polar Bears tell me I need heated motorcycle grips. I am amenable, but my finances are not.

So the hands held up fairly well last Sunday. Unfortunately, I did not properly set up the rest of the getup. My heated socks were over just silk socks. Overtop both silk and heated socks I wore heavy, insulated wool socks. Whereas the pants and jacket liner were over my insulated riding onesie. Therefore my chest and legs were cold, my feet were hot, too hot, way too hot. I couldn't crank the thermostat on my riding suit enough to warm most of my body without burning my toes. And it was cold enough toward the end of our morning ride to Schaefferstown, and I was annoyed enough with being cold the past 100 miles, that I did just that.

When we got to our destination restaurant, Franklin House Tavern, as discreetly as possible, and before lunch was served, I took off my boots and socks to check for damage. There was a red circle on top of each foot from the heating element. One toe blistered on top pretty bad . . . it is blistered still almost a week later. Lesson learned. I switched my heated socks to the outside of my heavy insulated socks and rode home warm and happy.

Our new rider last Sunday, my friend Paul, picked one heck of a cold and long Polar Bear challenge for his baptism. We've known each other for years as Stratford neighbors. He was also in one of my motorcycle riding classes, where he first heard about the Polar Bears. After being on the Connecticut Polar Bear email list for something like a year-and-a-half, Paul was suddenly there Sunday at our departure Dunkin' Donuts ready to ride. Paul complained not a bit. (In contrast to me whining to everyone about my cooked feet.)

Paul fit right in, rode well in formation and seemed to like it. In fact, he's looking to do a late season signup for the Grand Tour. Chairman Bob was willing, but did not have his release forms with him. Paul will sign up on his next ride and we hope to see him earn his red rocker this season. There are plenty of rides -- and miles for Connecticut Bears -- for him to achieve it.

(If you're not familiar, the Polar Bears give you two points for showing up to the destination on a motorcycle, plus one point for every 100 round trip miles you rode to get there. Being from Connecticut, we have much longer rides than a majority of our fellow Bears from New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York and Delaware. The Grand Tour is not really for us, but they have graciously accepted us for 15 years now, since I first discovered them in a magazine article.)

Paul rides astride a big Honda Valkyrie with lots of personality, the bike, not Paul. Paul is more quiet and mild mannered than the skeleton hand mirror mounts and gun permit saddlebag statement would have you believe. Although we did not talk much politics, I am guessing he's a conservative, so that faction of our group will be pleased.

Thumper, if you're reading this, Captain actually said he missed you. I guess I'm not strident enough a liberal to keen his conservative sparing wits. We have some shorter rides coming up. Chances are good that President Trump topics for discussion will continue to proliferate.

As I hinted earlier, there is one part more to last Sunday's story. Token2 earned his nickname for riding foreign motorcycles. At first it was just one. Then he bought another and we squared his nickname. I guess he couldn't help himself because he tumbled down the exotic bike brand slippery slope finding Moto Guzzi somewhere near the bottom. He hasn't found bottom yet. There's probably a Ural or Royal Enfield or Hyosung somewhere further down the slope in Token2's future. (Sorry Lynn, your travails may not yet be concluded.)

Owner of a rock-solid Honda and well-engineered BMW, Token2 decided to bring his Guzzer on this long and cold ride. And it operated as expected.

At least the Italian showed good manners. It stranded Token2 in the parking lot of our destination. We could have all been piled up on the shoulder of an Interstate instead. His bike rode just fine to our destination. But after sitting out in the cold parking lot while we ate lunch inside, it refused to shift into gear. Token2 is a pretty good mechanic; he was stumped. After some fits and starts around the parking lot, he gave up. The folks at Franklin House were very supportive. They gave him a place to park his wounded bike directly in the unblinking gaze of a security camera.

Logistics of getting Token2 back home without his bike were our next priority. Captain suggested I take him. Certainly I was willing, but I have the worst second seat of our crew, with the exception of Paul who has none. Our next challenge was finding some power for Token2's heated clothing. No one had the right adapter for the outlet on Captain's Goldwing. Fortunately I had a Y splitter cable that allowed Grumpy and Token2 to share the same lead on Grumpy's Harley. And we had those extra 10 degrees of warmth for the ride home.

We got to the stop at the top of the Garden State Parkway just fine. There Token2 called his wife Lynn who fortuitously was out driving nearby and she picked him up there. Token2 rode the rest of the way home in warm car with a full seat.

Grumpy offered rescue the next morning. He and Token2 drove back out to Schaefferstown in Grumpy's monster truck to retrieve the Guzzi. I will post Token2's technical explanation of his mechanical travails below.

I do not believe in jinxes, but Token2 pointed out this is the very same destination where Fonz had an issue with his bike. He, unfortunately never made it all the way there. And the broken springs fished from deep inside Token2's Moto Guzzi make the number 60 (see photo below). And the New England Patriots came from behind in an unprecedented sudden-death Superbowl win, the final score 34 to 28, added together that's 62, all made possible by a second Patriots 2-point conversion. Subtract that 2 points and the Patriots never had a chance. Take two away from 62 and you end up with . . . 60. Coincidence?

Token2's Account:

Hi All: First of all big props to Grumpy for retrieving the bike and getting me to the dealership on Monday. Thanks Big Guy. I spent a couple of hours in the shop with the tech yesterday trying to get to the reasons for the mechanical problem. So here is the skinny, the starter motor was removed and yielded a steel fragment (the larger of the two in the picture) from the gear well. After examination and checking another Guzzi starter for appearance it was concluded that it did not originate from the starter. It looks like a fragment of a spring, but does not fit the shaft diameter of the starter. However it was sufficient to  wreck the starter. After removing the starter and turning the crankshaft the clutch was locking up at certain points. The bell housing was scoped and another piece of metal was fished out from the bottom of the housing, it appears to be another piece of spring but of different diameter to the first part. Take a look at the clutch friction plate pictures from the shop manual I have attached and you will see four cush springs (which appear on pictures to be a spring within a spring), the belief is that one (or more) of them failed, or were released from the captive housing. (You are viewing the engine block looking forward). A piece of the larger spring ended up in the housing of the starter as the clutch rotated, probably before arriving in the FH. That was jamming the first attempts to start the bike after lunch. It moved a bit allowing it to start…which is when the death rattle was heard. Thankfully the busted clutch made it to the destination and after we got it started at FH the rest of the spring was rattling around and with the difficulty changing gears it was parked. The motor was then started in the shop, no rattling, so it was possible all the pieces were ejected. Today with better weather we pushed the bike outdoors and ran it through the gears under power with the bike on the center stand several times. At one point as it was running (low revs of course) through the gears the motor locked a bit like a stall. Then reason to run it is that those springs only serve to reduce clutch chatter, one missing would leave the bike serviceable. The other parts of the spring could have dropped through a drain port at the bottom of the bell housing. So the conclusion is that either more bits of failed spring are in there or there is a more significant failure of the friction plate, which released the spring and is now interfering with the smooth operation of the clutch. To find out it needs to be opened up, open it up you put in a new clutch of course. So, new starter motor and new clutch assembly required. Eye-watering repair bill as the engine has to be dropped and the back half separated to get to the clutch. Before the job is started I have asked for the tranny oil to be drained, if there is metal in there as well then even more damage has occurred at which point I will reconsider options. Just have to shrug and be happy the problem did not reveal itself at speed within the center of the CTPB group and reflect on the fact that with 200,000 miles under my belt since getting back in the game this is the first serious pocket hitting repair event (got the money returned on the Buell thank the Lord for CT lemon laws and warranty). Of course such a catastrophic failure should not happen on a clutch that has not been abused with only 24,000 miles, but it did. I got unlucky with the failure,  but lucky with the point the failure revealed itself. Hope we get out on Sunday. Cheers. T2

A bit of the local charm in this beautiful colonial town.

Our destination really is an old colonial inn.

Token2 earned his gold rocker on this run. Hmmm, maybe wrongly so. He likely reported ROUND TRIP mileage for points and I don't think riding back with your Moto Guzzi in the back of Grumpy's pickup truck counts for that. But then again, I do believe passengers get equal credit for miles and points and rockers. So Token2 is likely okay.

Grumpy to the rescue did earn his gold rocker this run.

Mac has furthest to go of our CT Bears so he earns big miles. But he misses some rides due to Caribbean vacations and other such retirement distractions. 

Newest CT Bear, Paul.

Is this thing on?

Non-CT Polar Bear proudly displays her red rocker. It's all about the patches and pins!

Flight B.

Flight A

Bob Pic of the Week

Photos of us Astride our Rides by Polar Bear Photographer Bernie Walsh: