Southeast MA – Watertown, NY
Friday June 1
(~431 miles)

When my friend Ken mentioned to me that he was planning to ride the Great Lakes Challenge GOLD certification ride (around all five lakes in 50 hours or less) with a couple other riders, I was intrigued and jealous. It sounded like a lot of fun, but I didn’t think I’d be able to swing another weekend away from the house and a couple more days off from work. I’d been interested in the Great Lakes series certifications for a while and had completed the Lower Great Lakes 1000 ride in 2017 as part of a longer ride. In my head, the plan was kind of to do all the individual lakes first and then eventually attempt the circle them all in 100 hours (the non-extreme version of the ride). But when opportunity comes knockin…

I’d never completed a certification ride with other riders, but I knew Marc and Roy a bit from various rallies and events and thought they would be a great crew to ride with. When I presented the idea to Char, she was supportive, so I finagled my time off at work and let Ken know I was in. Most of the pre-ride communications between the group was occurring via a long SMS text thread (which I was added to) along with some emails to exchange .gpx mapping files, since we all aren’t on Facebook.

This ride was originally Roy’s idea and, after getting a hold of the route file, I realized that the fuel stops had been planned out for bikes with auxiliary tanks that could get 300-350 miles/tank. My ST has a good-sized 7.7 gal tank but the most I’d ever squeezed out of it to-date was 299 miles with a tailwind in Wyoming (while searching for a gas station). I am generally looking for fuel after 220 miles or so, especially at higher speeds.

Since the GLG ride rules list mandatory “corner” towns you must stop in for a receipt, I had to map out four additional fuel stops to the route, in between those already chosen. I sent the updated file to the guys and they were amenable – although I had to (and still do) put up with a lot of ribbing about the inadequacy of my tank and how many stops we would have to make, blah blah blah. 🙂  Here is the overall route we intended to tackle in under 50 hours:

Once the Mason Dixon 20-20 rally was over, I was able to focus solely on this ride over the intervening days. I’d completed a bunch of maintenance items before the rally (including brakes!) and my tires still had plenty of tread to cover the few thousand miles that would be required (going double darkside was showing real benefits here).

Since I’d be riding in a group of serious LD riders with a need to keep moving, I wanted to ensure I really had all my shit together in terms of getting things done while on the go. I experimented with ideas for storing easy-to-reach food nuggets in my tank bag and purchased a replacement RAM GDS phone cradle after the frustrating experience I had with a bad charging connection during the MD2020.

Our loop would start and end in Watertown NY (one of the required cities for the cert) so we booked a couple hotel rooms for the nights before and after. We agreed to meet up there Friday afternoon to go over last minute prep, get an early dinner, and get into bed for an oh-dark-thirty start. I decided to lengthen my staging ride a bit by collecting a few grand tour bonuses en route to the hotel.

Also important (as my Facebook friends kindly reminded me) was pie. I added Crazy Otto’s Empire Diner (in Herkimer NY) to my route for a late morning snack – the coconut cream pie (with decaf coffee) was delicious.

I did have some trouble with my EZ-Pass while exiting the NY turnpike at Herkimer, when it didn’t register. The toll booth guy called me back (somehow I heard him) and made me walk the bike backward a good 75 feet. There was very little traffic at this exit, or I would have refused due to concerns of safety and just dealt with whatever consequences. I showed him my transponder on the windshield, but it just wouldn’t register even when holding it up, so he noted down the number and finally allowed me on my way. I knew it had worked when I entered the turnpike, but for the remainder of this trip it did not function, causing me some frustration later in the trip.

I exited the turpike again toward Rome and joined NY-69 northwest toward Lake Ontario. I made a brief roadside stop at the Mexico NY town limit sign for the Melting Pot tour.

Turning north, I made decent time on the straight rural roads up to the Salmon River and took a break while collecting a photo of the Selkirk Lighthouse, located next to the marina at the river’s mouth. This lighthouse has what they call a birdcage lantern room, which is an older style and not as common to see any more.

It was getting hot, so I picked up a cold drink at the little marina store while taking in the view. The breakwater and marina there at the river’s mouth made for a nice backwater scene on a summer-like Friday afternoon..

I continued north on NY-3 along the east coast of Lake Ontario, enjoying the sun and scenery. In Henderson I turned west toward the shore and rode mostly residential roads to my next photo stop at Stony Point Lighthouse, which is now a private residence. The fog was almost completely hiding the lake water here, making it look like there could be a cliff on the other side.

I continued north on Route 3, passing through Watertown and again jogged west, following 12E out on Cape Vincent, at the head of the St. Lawrence River. The Cape Vincent Breakwater Light is now land-locked and on display at the municipal complex, making for an easy stop.

I proceeded through the village of Cape Vincent and scooted along a picturesque lakeside road out to Tibbets Point Lighthouse.

Tibbets had a small visitor museum that was actually open and had the Lighthouse Society passport stamp (only my third since most of these places are closed when I visit). I chatted a bit with the docent, who told me the fog had enshrouded the entire peninsula earlier in the day, but was now burning off nicely enough to see across the river. There was actually a refreshing cool breeze here, and I wish I could have sat a spell to enjoy the view.

The guys would be waiting on me soon, however, so I mounted up and made the final run into Watertown, pulling in at the dumpy outdated EconoLodge hotel we’d booked. I stay in a lot of EconoLodges, but this one hadn’t been updated in a loooong while – had hallways that smelled of smoke, and was well used. There was actually an arcade game in one of the entryways (!). The rooms were clean enough, however and nothing ended up getting stolen, so there’s that.

The other guys were all checked in, Ken having arrived just before me. Somewhere along the road today, my new Sena 20S Evo headset had stopped working in the right ear, so I fiddled for a while until it was time to get some dinner. Conveniently, there was a nice (inside) pub-style restaurant called Tully’s right in front of the hotel and we had a good meal together, talking about the logistics of the venture and swapping stories. My pulled pork mac & cheese was delicious and the plate big enough not to be able to finish. I didn’t want to be too stuffed to sleep early.

After dinner, we moseyed back to the hotel to get our Sena Bluetooth comms all set up for the ride. Everyone had a 20S model headset, but none of us had really played with the group intercom settings all that much. We had some fun (?) trying to get everything to work while understanding how each rider could join or drop the conversation, etc. I’m still not convinced we did everything correctly, but we managed to get it working by having everyone create a group in their phone app, so that any of us could start a new group conversation as needed.

We decided on a 03:00 start time from the Mobil station down the street, and we hit our racks around 20:00 with the alarm set for 02:30. Everything was packed and ready for quick departure. I’d gone easy on the caffeine today and woken up extra early, so had minimal problems falling asleep.

 

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SIDENOTE: I’ve got mixed feeling so far about my new 20S Evo headset. When compared to my trusty SMH-10, the overall max volume seems quieter, which is a problem due to my hearing loss. I do like the mounting mechanics, which make it easy to take on/off while wearing the helmet, as well as having the USB charging port on the underside of the unit to help avoid water intrusion while charging on the go. The wired boom mic wires are a bit too short when routing them under the edge of the helmet liner from the headset and could use a bit more slack. I never did fix the one-speaker issue with my first headset so I swapped to my backup from the dual pack. The jury is still out, but overall my second unit worked fine (albeit too quiet) for the duration of this trip.