Liberty NY – New Lebanon NY
Tues Sep 6, 2022
(~211 miles)

Out of habit, we awoke in our little AirBnB room around 07:00, though it didn’t do us much good. The skies were still dumping water full blast. We drank room coffee and watched the weather radar, hoping for a break in the patterns at some point. There were clear skies waiting for us to the west as the weather moved east, but we were in the thick of it now.

Finally, when 09:00 came and went, with no sign of the rain letting up, we decided to just bite the bullet and get moving to find those drier skies.  We set about collecting our gear that we’d draped around the room last night in a partially successful attempt to dry things out.

Instead of heading through town, we headed west on NY 52 for a couple miles and turned north on Dahlia Road. We crossed Highway 17 in Rockland and re-entered Catskill Park. We followed Beaverkill Road north along the creek by that name, rolling deeper into the wilds of the park. Though still getting spattered, the scenery was lovely, with the water runoff making Beaver Kill into a dramatic, rushing muddy torrent.

The bike seemed to be responding all right to throttle input, so I was daring to hope that just maybe, yesterday’s issue involved getting stuck between gears or something temporary. We came up onto NY route 30, alongside scenic Pepacton Reservoir and pulled over to get some shots of the misty hills beyond the water.

After passing by the western end of the reservoir, we picked up NY 206 and came down out of Catskill Park. We were treated to a scenic crossing of the East Delaware River, over Downsville Covered Bridge.

There is a very nice little riverside park abutting the bridge. The rain was finally starting to taper off somewhat, so we pulled into the empty gravel lot to stretch our legs and take some photos of where Downs Brook flows into the Delaware River. The river was swollen, muddy, and magnificent.

After a nice break, we mounted back up and continued northwest through Downsville and up into the next set of hills. Then our trip went all to shit.

Up near the top of those hills, a couple miles shy of Walton, the clutch finally seemed to ‘break free’ and began slipping almost constantly when I opened up the throttle. Oh God. Damn. It! Slip, then catch…. then slip…. then catch. After pulling over to briefly assess the situation (really what could I do on the side of the road in the rain?), we set off again carefully. By feel, I discovered that if I gave it just a tiny bit of throttle – not too much, mind you – I could keep the clutch engaged enough to make a bit of forward progress. Eventually. And we’re talking top speed of 30mph once I got momentum. Luckily, we’d crested the small pass and were heading down into a valley where lies the town of Walton. I threw on my hazard lights and stayed to the shoulder when any  vehicles came up behind me. Slow moving load, here.

Once we reached town, we needed to find a place to park, so I could think a bit – maybe reach out to some friends to try and confirm the problem. The first thing I saw was a NAPA parts store, so we pulled in there and took a bit of refuge under an overhang while I dialed up my friend Marc, who lives about an hour east of here. After describing the bike’s behavior, he agreed that the clutch was most likely burnt, thus confirming 100% the end of forward progress on our trip. Now our thinking had to switch over to recovery and getting home.

Marc offered to come get us and the bike with his trailer after he got out of work, which was an awesome offer. But I figured it was only around midday and even puttering along at 30mph, we should be able to make some decent progress east on our own, if we chose our path carefully. He also suggested lightening up the bike’s load, to put as little strain on the clutch as possible, which was a good idea. I thanked him and said we’d look into securing a rental car for Char and the luggage, to lighten the load.

After hanging up, the first order of business was to find some food, as we hadn’t eaten breakfast or lunch yet today, having been sated with our large meal at the New Munson Diner last night. We needed a place we could spread out a bit inside, have some coffee and food with minimal fuss, and come up with a plan. McDonalds was just down the street and would have to do.

With hot drinks and food in hand, we tried best we could to split up the next steps to try extricating ourselves from this debacle.  Char began looking up car rental places that might be along our way towards home, while I booted up the laptop and fed her possible towns and started plotting a route. She found an Enterprise Rental agency in Oneonta, some 25 miles north of us along I-88. After looking at a couple other options, that seemed like the best way forward for now, and she booked a one-way reservation online.

After finishing up our tasteless McMeal, we got back on the ST, which was now behaving like a recalcitrant horse, with the clutch only barely able to catch and give us forward progress from a standstill. From being the quickest and most maneuverable vehicle on the road, gobbling up the miles through mountains and forests, we had now become your basic farm tractor, putting along the shoulder and trying to build up a head of steam on the flattest roads we could find. Once we got out of town following CR 21 and allowed the buildup of traffic behind us to pass by, it wasn’t as bad. We cruised through some nice farmlands and hill country on the way out to the interstate.

In the little hamlet of Franklin, we picked up NY 357 up to NY 28 and down into the civilization hub of Oneonta. I felt more hopeful now that we were out of the proverbial woods, so to speak, and welcomed the sight of multiple lane roads and chain businesses. At this time, I figured that my worst case would be following the interstate system most of the way home, albeit at a much slower pace with flashers on. Every stop sign and stoplight meant another slow burn on the throttle, patiently waiting for the bike to build momentum while traffic surged around us. The drivers were likely unable to understand why the big fast-looking bike was wobbling on like a lame mule.

We pulled into the lot of the Enterprise Rental place and headed inside, only to discover that they had no available cars. Absolutely nothing, despite the online reservation system allowing us to book it. I tried explaining to the rep how we were stranded and probably unable to make it home two-up under our own steam. He apologized while cancelling our reservation, but couldn’t do anything for us. I was pretty pissed, but the guy did try to help us out by calling the local Hertz agency, who were also booked solid. He then found a possible availability at the Enterprise branch in Albany, but I wasn’t sure we could make it there in time before they closed.

I was so angry and frustrated with this poorly-run company at this point that I figured if we made it as far as Albany, we might be fine to just keep going. We took down the Enterprise office’s information, just in case, and figured we’d try our luck along I-88 toward the capital city and call them if things weren’t working out. We resolved ourselves to going slow and remaining patient and careful. We were now the tortoise and not the hare, and we had no real deadlines to keep.

We made our way a couple miles to the next onramp and joined the interstate. Even getting up the ramp was a chore, as it hit me just how hilly interstates can really be. Not something you generally pay much attention to with a functioning clutch and breezing along at 75+ mph! I’d been counting on pulling into the breakdown lane as needed, if traffic got heavy or the bike couldn’t maintain at least 30mph. However, we entered the highway right in the middle of a one-lane construction zone, with no breakdown lane, and the bike was struggling. We had cars building up behind us and I had my hazard lights flashing and was pulled as far right as I could next to the jersey barriers to allow a few cars to trickle by us in the single lane.

We got out of the construction, but after about 10 miles, I realized this was probably not going to be a sustainable route. When reviewing Google Maps, I’d noticed a secondary highway, NY route 7, that runs parallel to the interstate all the way up to the Albany area. Figuring the speed limit would be a better match for our current capabilities, we exited at a town called Maryland and continued our slow and erratic pace northeast, but on the much less stressful two-lane road. Now it was just a matter of managing our patience and emotions as we puttered across New York state, flashers on and hugging the white line whenever a car came up behind us.

After an eternity, we hit US 20, which had mostly two lanes of travel each way in most sections, so we could at least own our lane a bit more. The traffic grew and grew as we approached the city in the heart of Tuesday rush hour. We had to make a decision on how to get through the Albany area, as we hadn’t really had time to plan much beyond that. Heck we hadn’t even known if we were going to get this far! I was really getting sick of the stoplights and slow starts with the cars behind us riding our ass. Our progress had been slow and boring, but we had made progress, so we both agreed to continue on and not try to deal with trying to get another rental that might not even be available. Looking back now, I wish we had just decided to pack it in at that point, found a hotel and rented a car or U-Haul, even if it wasn’t until the next day.

As it was, I finally made the last-minute dubious decision to hop onto I-90 to chance a direct path straight through the city. I mean, we were the slowest thing on the road right now, so any jammed traffic would only help us blend in at this point! With much cursing and sweating from the stress of it all, we motored our way along the edge of the interstate, across the Hudson River, and took the first exit we could onto NY 43 heading due east.

I knew I-90 had some steep sections near the NY/MA border, so my muddled plan at this point was to continue on these back roads towards the state line and through the Pittsfield MA area, before making our way back down to the Mass Turnpike at some point further east. Locals may notice I was conveniently forgetting about those little bumps on the earth called the Taconic Mountains. Not particularly impressive in overall elevation, true, but for a motorcycle with a fried clutch, as it turns out…impassable.

The going began to get hilly and the bike was struggling with any long inclines. We hit a few more pockets of sprinkling rain along this section, which didn’t really help our mood. I stopped for gas at a Stewarts in Sand Lake and filled the tank, which was probably a mistake, thinking back, as it added several more pounds to the overall inertia that the the failed clutch had to overcome. Still we managed to keep it moving up the next few hills, always pulled to the narrow gritty shoulder and letting traffic pass. And it was definitely busy along this suburban thoroughfare.

Bearing south on NY 66, we made it a couple miles, started climbing up a long incline and… the bike just gradually slooowwed, engine revving, until we just simply stopped making forward progress. Shit! We were simply not going to get over this hill using the engine. Putting it in neutral, I zoomed out on the GPS and spotted a parallel road just west of us along a stream or river. I figured that meant it must be a valley and would likely to have an easier grade to traverse.

In between the traffic, which was much lighter by now, I wheeled the bike in a u-turn across the road, huffing and puffing, and Char mounted back up. We rode back down to the last crossroad, turned left twice, and found ourselves on one fun-to-say Tsatsawassa Lake Road. And it worked out! We found ourselves puttering down a pretty little valley lane with minimal slope, which brought us around to reconnect with 66 on the far side of the hill. From there we picked up 20 east again, down into New Lebanon NY, a nice little rural village in a valley, which lies right on the border with Massachusetts.

We turned south on NY 22 and almost immediately the road began climbing. Nothing dramatic, nothing that you would really even register while riding a functional motorcycle. But our speed dropped while the engine continued revving, and no amount of finesse that I tried to apply via the throttle was going to get that clutch to grab any harder. It is really one of the worst, most impotent feelings I’ve felt riding a bike – squeezing back on that throttle and getting nothing more out of the engine but noise, like you accidentally shifted into neutral. I hung on as long as I could until the RPMs got up into the 6000s and we were standing still. I finally rolled off and switched off the bike.

Now what? We still had a hill in front of us of unknown distance to get over before getting down to route 295 to cross into Mass, and I wasn’t sure how much further that would be. We decided to turn back down the hill and try our luck on the bigger US 20. We were both feeling exhausted and getting pretty hangry, but we didn’t spot any likely restaurants open in town and passed on by the Stewarts convenience store, intent on trying to keep moving towards home after getting through these god damned mountains! Unfortunately, the slope of US 20 wasn’t any easier for the ST and our forward progress ended pretty quickly, not even a half mile past the split with NY 22. Shitfire.

OK time to regroup. It was now almost 18:00 and we hadn’t eaten anything since McDonalds in Walton at midday. We wheeled the bike around once more and headed back down to the Stewarts store that we’d just passed. There wasn’t much of a selection so we just grabbed some pre-made sandwiches and cold drinks. I began questioning one of the store clerks, telling her about our bike trouble and asking which direction might be the flattest route out of town? It was a weird conversation because it isn’t a question I ever thought I’d need to ask in this modern day and age.

Turns out this lady was not actually from town and didn’t seem to have any clue at all about the roads in the area. I mean, OK you don’t live here, but you work here and live in a nearby town for the past few years – you must know something! Nope, guess not, thanks anyway. She asked one of the local older gentlemen, who was there having some coffee with a friend, if he could help me. He was not only equally unhelpful, but his incredulous tone seemed to suggest I was an idiot for even asking for a flat road out of their town.

“There ARE no flat roads, you’re in a valley like a giant bowl!”

I looked him in the eye, my patience worn thin. “Look sir, we’re in trouble and I’m just asking for help here. We didn’t ask for this to happen, we’re having bike trouble. We’re just really stuck.”

I asked about hotels in town, but that drew similarly bewildered looks between the regulars.

“Well back down at the main corner there’s a bed and breakfast of sorts, and they might take you in…”

Thanking them politely as I could (for nothing), we went outside to eat our meagre sandwiches while trying to avoid some interested yellowjackets, and take stock of our options. I figured we’d try route 22 one more time. It had seemed like we might have been getting pretty close to the top flattening out during our first attempt. After finishing our food, we tiredly mounted back up and headed out of the lot at a snail’s pace.

First, we explored another side road hoping for another miracle parallel “valley road” escape, but that small lane started going uphill too and became unpaved to boot as the bike started slowing down. So back we rode out to route 22 to give that hill one more try….

Yeah, I held on to that throttle just a might too long this time, just willing things to happen. And happen they did. After we came to a full stop in forward motion and I kept gunning it, Char said she could smell burning and see smoke, so I quickly got the bike onto the side stand on the shoulder of the road. Smoke was pouring off the bike with a horrible hissing sound, so all I could think of now that we were off it was trying to save our belongings in case the thing was about to catch fire. I grabbed the keys from the ignition and removed the top box and began emptying the saddlebags into a pile on the roadside.

Once the initial excitement wore off, we could see that the bike was cooling down and no flames were apparent. Things started to make a bit more sense when I saw the large puddle of coolant flowing downhill from under the engine. I’d simply pushed things too far and the engine had overheated and puked out a bunch of hot fluids all over the asphalt. But I knew now that our riding was officially done.

So here we stand on the side of a country road, on a hill, no people or houses around, with evening setting in and the sky fading quickly to twilight. At least we had a bit of a shoulder to stand in out of traffic, but the ground dropped off quickly away from the road into the underbrush. I started up a call with AMA to get a roadside assistance request logged. Traffic along this road was sporadic, but noisy enough (and me deaf enough) that I couldn’t hear the representative on the other end of the line very well. I handed off the phone to Char to communicate while I thought about how to improve our immediate situation. Once the AMA person promised to get back to us and ended that call, I asked Char to also call AAA to get a case started with them as well. I simply didn’t trust either company to get us help quickly, so figured we’d go with whichever one got a tow truck en route the fastest.

I didn’t want to go back down into New Lebanon, so I figured we should probably get up to the top of the slope we were on, as it looked like it opened up more just ahead, and there would likely be someplace a bit safer to wait things out. So I began lugging our gear uphill about 100 yards at a time to make the bike lighter to push. After Char finished the first call with AAA, she helped me push the bike up the slope, me using the handlebars while she just pushed from the back. We were completely wiped at this point, short-tempered, sweating, and out of breath.

It took us three trips, hauling luggage, going back, pushing, the bike, repeat. Taking breaks as needed, however, we finally moved the bike perhaps a third of a mile up the hill and then across the street into a large driveway. There was a compound of buildings up on the hill above the driveway, comprising what appeared to be a state-run social work center for youths (“yutes” to you New Yohkahs).

It was closing on 20:00 by the time we got the bike to its final spot out of traffic, and settled down on the curb to wait. The youth center complex was set way back from the road up the hill and we were at a T-intersection with another local road that led down the hill to the west, so there wasn’t really anything or anyone else around. We felt quite isolated as darkness fell and traffic grew less and less.

The news from our roadside assistance companies was little and far between, with occasional text updates saying they were still working to get us a tow truck. We finally got what seemed to be a final result from AMA which was: “We cannot find you a tow truck driver willing to come get you.” I was incredulous and told the guy this was unacceptable, that we were literally stuck in the middle of nowhere, and had no options with night closing in. He apologized and said there was nothing he could do.

Our hopes were now pinned on AAA now, which had generally come through for me when needed, over the 30+ years that I’ve been a member. We got a call from the AAA rep and she was having similar bad luck finding a tow. She seemed fairly obtuse and unsympathetic towards our situation, asking us “Can’t you just get an Uber or Lyft?”

Looking around us at the pitch darkness on that country road, with Pittsfield MA being the nearest town of any size and probably a good hour away, I was like, “lady we are in the middle of NOWHERE. I mean, there is literally nothing here where we are, nor back in the town center we came through. We were lucky to find a spot to get off the road. There is no place to leave the bike.”

When I suggested that they needed to offer the tow companies more money, she acknowledged that she had already tried that, but wasn’t optimistic about finding anything tonight. She said she would keep looking, but then also mentioned that most tow drivers wouldn’t be able to take both of us in the truck anyway. I was like, “What!? There is no way one of us is going to be left behind on this roadside, that’s just unacceptable!”.

I had kept in touch with my friend Marc via text as things were unfolding. He had repeated his offer to get us with his trailer, but I’d been holding out hope for the tow. At this point, I knew I had to accept defeat and take his offer, despite the incredible inconvenience that I knew it would mean for him.  I texted Marc, “Please come get us.” Without hesitation, he asked for our location and gave us a rough ETA, saying he’d keep us updated once he was on the road.

I thanked him and briefed Char, and then we settled down to wait for our rescue. It would be poetic to say that then the skies just opened up on us at this point just so the universe could make a point, but in reality, we just had to put up with some misting and a few sprinkles. With the sun long down by now, it was getting colder, so we huddled together in our Gore-Tex gear and layers of fleece. At least we had water to drink and a couple Clif Bars to feed our body heat.

When we got our next call from AAA with no good news, I proceeded to tell the woman that we had been counting on her and been paying good money to AAA for decades, and they absolutely failed us when most needed. We’d find our own solution, thank you very much. The “fuck you” was unsaid, but was hopefully understood in the way I ended that call and conversation.

One of the night managers from the youth center did come down at one point to find out what we were doing there, but was cool with us staying once he’d heard our predicament. Around 22:00, Marc arrived out of the darkness in a blaze of headlights and whipped his truck and little 7′ flatbed trailer around in the driveway. Our hero!

We were both pretty much useless at this point, but I did my best to help get the bike up on the trailer and strapped down. Luckily, Marc’s a BMW owner and knows his way around trailering motorcycles. 😬 In short order, the bike was securely fastened, our gear and ourselves were stowed in the cab, and we were heading down out of the Taconic countryside to find our way to I-90 and the fast road home.

We didn’t waste time, with only one short stop for fuel and caffeine for Marc at a Mass Pike service plaza. We pulled into our driveway some two hours later. Quickly getting the bike off the trailer, Marc packed all his straps up, made a quick pitstop, refused our offer of a place to sleep, and headed back out into the night, to his home near Newburgh NY, some three hours away. He’d get there just in time to clean up and head in to a full day at work in the city (!). What a hero! Char and I just have no words to describe how grateful we were and are for the help of a good friend in stressful circumstances. It would have been a much longer, colder night for us, plus unknown hassle and expense if he hadn’t stepped up to come to our aid. Thank you, again Marc!

We were completely knackered at this point and pretty much hit the shower and bed. Despite being cheated out of what would have been a fun week with friends in Williamsport, neither of us was quite ready to give up the rest of our vacation and go back to work. Lucky for us, there happens to be another black ST1300 in the garage with a fully functional clutch…