Has anyone here toured eastern USA? | Page 2 | GTAMotorcycle.com

Has anyone here toured eastern USA?

Wow, ok I'm wrong with my advice. Must be riding style and 50++. It's always taken me the better part of a day to do Placid. Then there's enjoying Placid itself making it a 3 day event. I cannot even fathom a 3 day weekend involving Bar Harbour ... respect for sure!

Cheers.

Well, I did it on a comfy bike, my old HD FLTRX, left on the Saturday morning and got into Bar Harbor around 23:30h that night. I was pretty sore. Sunday I road around Acadia National Park and up the mountain there, flew an open air cockpit biplane (the pilot let me have the controls because I have previous flying experience), went to the Bar Harbor Inn and got a massage from a biker chick who knew exactly where I was sore, had a nice steak dinner at the Bar Harbor Inn Restaurant. Enjoyed a cigar and a nice walk along the Harbor, retired to bed early, and Monday I started riding back. Going there I had gone through Ontario in NY, Vermont, NH, Maine. Going home I went through Main, NH, Vermont, Quebec, I hit Montreal around 15:00 and was going to get some smoked meat for lunch but the traffic around and into the city was so awful that I just hightailed it to the 401 and got home around 20:30. Fun three days! I toured a lot on that Harley, did my across the USA and up the PCH trip on it. I could do 15 hour days on her. I don't know if that will be the case with my new bike, a Triumph Street Triple R.
 
Complaints last year about horrendous frost heaves that I can certainly attest to.I'd have to chase it but too lazy atm :D
Good but hot couple hundred Ks in Australia partly off pavement. 33 but discovered my armoured shirt is the treat.

Ya i can attest to the above statement.
I road NY - VT last year and some of the roads were ridiculously bad.
#100 was about as bad as it gets.
 
My experience with frost heaved roads.

5 years ago I decided to sell my then FZ6 and make the switch back to a cruiser and picked up a Vulcan 900 custom. I hit highway #86 south of Ellicottville for a frost-heaved 1 hour nightmare ride (each way) ... I sold the bike a couple weeks later and bought another FZ6, which I kept for 2 years.

Frost heaves on a cruiser = just say NO!!
 
#100 was about as bad as it gets.

da - that was it....bike damage level for some destruction patches.

Worst I was in was The James Bay Road....buddy on wee would float over them....Burgman would bottom on every one.

To its credit it never was unstable or went off line - even one memorable one on a sweeper at 150k. Whitel knuckle and a sore back for me....bike just stayed right on the line with nary a wobble.....I did slow down after that.

Mind you 100 was a really bad continuously in some areas....no relief.....
There is a small chunk of 6 in PA that has repetitive frost heaves for a few miles.....very annoying.
 
Casually pondering a 2-3 week road trip of the Eastern USA including, but not limited to PA, NY, VT, WV, VA, NC, SC, TN, KY

Has anyone done such a trip? Suggestions? Do you have a map of your route?

Thanks in advance.

There is so much prime riding area in the states you mention that it's kind of like being a kid in a candy store.

Some areas that you might want to include on your route:

Allegany Forest area including Route 666.
Eastern Ohio 555 and nearby roads
Monongahela area.
The Snake
The Back of the Dragon
The whole area around Tail of the Dragon including Cherohala Skyway (you could spend a week riding that area alone!)
Blue Ridge Parkway and Skyline Drive (and there are TONS or roads running off hem that are incredible rides!)

I tend to stay away from the built up areas that are Washington,. New York and Boston but there are things there to see of course. (Delaware Water Gap is a decent thing to include in your way around much of the built up stuff.)

In the eastern Area:

Lake Placid is well known
Vermont Route 100 is very scenic and fun as are the "Gaps" (Lincoln gap, etc.)
Mt Washington in New Hampshire and the roads south of there are quite nice.. Kancamagus HWY, 92 through Crawford Notch.

113 (mainly) in Maine is a “feel good" road that last time I was through had this wonderful canopy over the road. Not challenging but just felt good. Hurricane Mountain Rd near Conway can be real fun.

Acadia National Park near Bar Harbor is very scenic, Heck from there you are pretty close to the Gaspe and if you are doing the Gaspe might as well do the Cabot trail and take a run across the Confederation Bridge to PEI.

I have jsut scratched the surface..I'm sure there are tons more places to see!

If I had two or three weeks to spare I would stitch those together and enjoy!

..Tom
 
Digesting this thread now. Thanks for all the advice. Will post a map at some point. Lots and lots of options.
 
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Wow, ok I'm wrong with my advice. Must be riding style and 50++. It's always taken me the better part of a day to do Placid. Then there's enjoying Placid itself making it a 3 day event. I cannot even fathom a 3 day weekend involving Bar Harbour ... respect for sure!

Cheers.

I've done Bar Harbor in a long weekend a few times. The best trip though, was making it a 4 day weekend. To do the trip in a relaxed way, you really needed to be able to start your Saturday in Northern Vermont or North West Maine. The long part of the trip is slabbing it out of Ontario, usually a 700-900km trip. The middle/fun days are generally 350-450km. You end up waking up in Eastern NY state on your last day, then it is a 800km or so trip to get home. About 2,500kms round trip.
 
My friends and I do a trip to the BRP on an extended long weekend. The key to slab it out of Ontario, get south of Springville, NY and take the twisties where ever possible. In 4 days, you can generally only get as far south-west as Roanoke, VA as your half way point (we start Saturday morning in Hagerstown, MD). Every year, we stay at roughly the same hotels on the same nights. The difference is changing up the routes between the hotels a little every year.
 
That sounds realistic tho a bit of a rush on a 3 day weekend....not so bad if you can get a big jump on Friday.

I can do a mix of slab and twists 675-750 km day and still not be trashed tho it usually means a late time hitting the border coming home.

Front Royal is 700 and change to get to the start of the Skyline but even 100 km north would be fine then an early start to get to Skyline....you don't want to jump on Skyline too early due to deer.

Still OP has lots of time and wandering PA before hitting BRP would be my suggestion ....then drop down to interesting roads as he travels south ( the BRP can be a bit too much "same" and too slow speeds.
 

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