The tour, as most tours, needs to be planned backwards and forwards. Sundown in the fall is much sooner than in even in August.  This time frame means off the mountain in broad daylight and be almost at dinner around 6:30. In addition, plan when lunch will happen, this needs to be around lunchtime. Stretch breaks, gas stops before 100 miles for any peanut tank rider, snacks before going up the mountain, all silly obsessive things as one sweet person pointed out, but details needed just the same.

I thought about going to Northampton for dinner.

The biggest issue, we don’t know exactly when we would pull in for dinner. Northampton restaurants are decent, but want reservations and for us to keep them (and still make us wait). Also, the more people you have, the longer it takes to assemble the tables (that I understand) and the slower the table service (who knows why and I was in the business too).  All-you-can-eat fixings with dinner works for all folks.
 
 

After lunch, which will end around 1 p.m. we have roughly three hours to occupy before the ascent of Mount Greylock.
A storm was supposed to come through on Sunday, I figured to get a jump on part of the tour.  I wasn’t able to hit the road on both days until the afternoon. Saturday, I made it home around 11 pm. Sunday, home at 8 pm.

Saturday –

The planned tour, as it originally stood, on Saturday is too long. Too much riding for the hours allotted. I need to fix that. I had us touring New Hampshire, heading south, ending down 15 minutes from where I though lunch would be in VT, then heading slightly south again to head north. That portion of the ride (route 35) was nice – a little bit of dirt road, but nice.

Alas, when adding up the hours so far, and under ideal no cars in front of us conditions, we’d make Greylock by 6-7 pm – too late. Time to scale back.  The place I thought would be good for lunch has ok seating; we’d have to eat outside, not what I would want if the weather were inclement. The deli folks would get overwhelmed by 10-15 orders and would take 5-7 min for each order – chipping away an hour.

It gets cold in dem hills!  I was wearing my phoenix jacket from Joe Rocket during the day, not thinking I could get cold. It’s a mesh-like material that makes one wonder how abrasion proof can it be. I was fine with a short sleeve shirt during the day, until I started to climb into the mountains. I eventually pulled out the rain slicker and wore that to shield the cold wind; worked well. After a reaching the intersection of route 100 and 112, I peeled off the trail and went home, making sure I recorded times and mileage.

In my travels, I saw a Honda transalp just parked next to a house. Didn’t look like it was for sale, but it was parked in such a way, it looks like it’s for sale, that front yard off to the side of the house look. I couldn’t afford one right now unless someone gave it to me. The transalp is a cool bike though…
 

Sunday – try to leave the house, but can’t – finally leave around 4pm. I make my journey to where the light never trips off. I even watch a frustrated left hand turn two-up sit as the light changes over and over, but not in their favor.  We will be coming to the light and turning right, we just need to watch out like any other right on red folks.

It’s drizzling/raining/spitting out. I’m glad I made the lion’s share of driving on Saturday night. Up route 116 I head, following the same path as last year, though this year, we will be using the opposite direction. In Ashfield, I was checking out a gas stop and run across a friend of mine who has been away for a bit. That got me thinking, possibly a bathroom stop, even a munchie stop, you never know…

I get to Adams and there is this long windy twisted road, marked notch road, which parallels route 8 and connects into the road for mount Greylock. I’m thinking “perfect!”  Then I go find this “road” – seems to be all washed out, really!  There is something to be said to pre-running a ride...   After running just ½ mile of these roads, standing on my pegs it’s so bad, I turn around and go back down, and pick up route 8. We will be going up from the north (rte 2), and coming down the same way, until we hit an intersection of which we will peel off and head slightly southeast into North Adams to route 8. Last year, we came up from the north and went down the southern side. This would put us way off where we’d like to be for dinner.

Since I am running this backwards, I head north on route 100, into Vermont to meet up with route 112, which I note the time and mileage and again, peel off for home. I went riding by the transalp yet again, this time to notice its brush guards.
 
 

Yes, still working on the tour. I am figuring if it rains or the top of Mt Greylock is fogged out (no sense in going up) that we could go to MassMOCA at the town at the base.

There will now be three high look-off areas, each with their own unique views. If you make the early ride, you will see off Mt. Sugarloaf.  In addition, we will go up to poet's seat tower in Greenfield. On a good day, you can see over both sides of the ridge.

August 27, 2001 - I still need to ride the full ride, but as it stands right now, It's a non-issue. I could run the whole thing without ever going on the route again. I have 30 minutes after lunch of which I'm not sure what to do - I may just use it for padding (slow traffic, longer breaks than normal). If we go up Greylock "early" so be it…I'm pretty sure everyone will be really hungry.  We could try to set up a break at Ted's house…  Let me see  - hmm