DOCNYC Maine in September
DOCNYC in Portsmouth, NH |
We had an ambitious route planned by our trip leader Nejat, scheduling a 1000+ mile loop, circumnavigating Acadia National Park along the coast of Downeast Maine, then back to the city by Sunday night.
Braving some of the muggiest heat of the summer, riding four Ducatis deep, we
"slabbed" it Friday morning, sailing into Portsmouth, New Hampshire
around 2pm on a Multistrada 1200S Pike's Peake, an 1199 Panigale, a custom S4R Monster, my ST3 and a brand new BMW R1200GS.
I left feeling oddly nostalgic, as I remembered passing by Portsmouth a little over a month ago but not stopping, traversing I95 (en route to an epic motorcycle journey around Nova Scotia)
across an expansive bridge that lurched up out of a rolling cloud, the
road suddenly several hundred feet in the air, overlooking the city.
As opposed to last year, I've only ridden with the DOCNYC a
handful of times this year, and it takes a little bit of adjusting to
ride long distance with a larger group. At the same time, five bikes is
a pretty good size for a weekend trip, yet discipline, attention to
formation and patience are required much moreso than when riding with
one other person or solo.
The Panigale and the Monster only had a about 100 mile ranges for gas, and were also much more uncomfortable to ride, and numerous bathroom breaks in podunk towns were necessary. We stopped briefly in Portland, then for a quick dinner at Red's Eats in Wiscasset, ME and a finally arrived a couple hours later at a quaint little inn in Camden, Maine around 9:30pm. Cedar Crest Inn in Camden, Maine.
© 2014 Tigh Loughhead
0 comments :