Day 10 began at the Best Western - Lock Haven. Grabbed some complimentary breakfast and headed out on the road for the last day. Gassed up around the corner, then headed up route 664. This is one of my favourite rides in PA. The road was paved fairly recently and is smooth and winds through the forest up to Haneyville. No curves are too sharp, but it is a blast to ride through at 15mph over the speed limit.
Once in Haneyville, we went north on Route 44. The ride along here is pretty nice until you get to Hyner Mountain Road (SR1012). Once you get into Lycoming County the road then turns to crap. High crown in the middle, no shoulder and full of frost heaves and potholes. Its murder on your back and your suspension. There are some pretty treacherous spots where the road crests a hill, then makes a hard right followed by a hard left. When you come across the crest, you can't see the road at all ahead. I have seen riders nearly go off the road here right in front of me. Too bad the road is in such bad repair becuase it is a beatiful ride through the Sproul and Tiadaghton state forests.
The route from The Best Western Lock Haven to NY state line
Thankfully, once you reach Potter County and the Susquehannock state forest, the road gets a lot better. Some of it is freshly paved as of 2006. Along this section of route 44, the road follows the side of a mountain as it decends into a valley. Nice switchbacks along here. Once at the bottom, it joins with route 144. The road then follows a creek and winds along for about 5kms. It is nice and twisty and the road is in pretty good shape. They filled some cracks along here, they look like tar snakes, but they aren't soft.
From there we stayed on route 144 up into Galeton. In Galeton we stopped at the Acorn for some gas and a snack. Then we headed west on US 6 over to route 449. At the intersection of Route 449 and US 6 there is a place called the Deer Park. They have about 20-30 deer in a pen in the back, a large gift shop and a mining chute. Whenever we come through this way, we make a point to stop and feed the deer. A couple of bucks buys you 2 packs of what appear to be Graham Crackers, although I have never had the cajones to taste it to confirm whether it is in fact what I think it is. Feeding the deer is extremely entertaining.
The deer come running when they hear the cracker's wrapper crinkling!
Hungry deer. These crackers must be tasty!
These deer REALLY like the crackers!
Baby deer!
Deer snouts all in a row!
Up close deer snouts!
Once we had finished feeding the deer, we headed up route 449 into New York state. This is another really great stretches of road, it winds through forest and farmland. Fresh pavement again. Once you hit NY it gets a little tedious as you go through a bunch of small towns but it is still a great ride that I highly recommend. Right now (July & August 2008) there is construction at Belmont and Belvedere and you get detoured off route 19, not too far out of the way, but its a little annoying. Once you get to Caneadea we went west on SR 243. Along here you pass by some campgrounds and resorts along the lakes. Traffic along here can be slow as there are tourists and boat towing pickups. Nothing too bad this time though. 243 turns into SR 98 and goes through farmland along here.
At the end of 98 in Arcade, we headed west on route 39. You have to go through Arcade and Yorkshire along here and its full of sunken sewer grates and manholes. Don't care too much for this section. Once in Yorkshire we headed north on Route 16. In Chaffee there is a restaurant called Earl's. This place is something else. The food is great, inexpensive and dining there is always an experience. The place is filled with John Deer items, seats at the counter are John Deer Tractor seats! The Broasted Chicken is worth the drive alone! Apparantley "All of New Yorks eyes are on Earl's pies". Personally I have never tried Earl's pie, Amy has and says they are really good. Not much for pie myself.
Anyway, we pulled into the parking lot. The lot was completely devoid of cars. Uh oh, this isn't good. Sure enough, closed mondays! Augh. I was starving at this point as all I had was a light breakfast and a hotdog at a gas stop! We went across the street to Pioneer Motorsports. I am in need of some new saddlebags as my current ones are getting a little long in the tooth (had them for at least 12 years now). Looked at some tourmaster coretech bags. Tribag saddlebags, they have an optional tailbag that clips into the saddlebags or can bungee down with its own built in bungee cables. Sweet. I think I now what I want for christmas! Amy was looing at the new HJC Sy-Max II helmet. Personally I think they are too big, but Amy likes it, especially for the "Red Leader" built in sun visor. I think it makes one look like you should be doing a trench run on the death star, but whatever blows your skirt up I guess.
After thanking the very helpfull staff, we headed out in search of food. The staff at Pioneer suggested a couple places, we opted for Subway. Rode up 16 looking for food. Finally finding it we got our much needed lunch, at 4pm! Gassed up and headed up the Aurora Parkway into Buffalo. Once we were in the outskirts, we stayed on i90 and went up to i290. We planned to stop at Prime Wine and spirits in Kenmore. We used to stop at the Supermarket Liquors and Wines in Niagara Falls whenever we went to the US, but Prime Wines has a much better selection and more often than not a better price. Its a little futher but Prime Wines is worth the drive. They also have a gourmet shop with food and cooking utensils etc etc. We got to Prime Wines at and grabbed a few bottles of wine to bring back duty free. We bought a bottle of 97 Newton unfiltered Merlot, a bottle of 2005 Ravenswood Lodi Zinfandel and 2 bottles of 2006 Seghesio Sonoma County Zinfandel. Had the Newton Merlot a week later and it was ok, not as good as I hoped and not worth the $50 for it. The Seghesio 06 sonoma zin was amazing. I highly recommend picking some up as it is only $20 a bottle and the 2nd best Zinfandel I have ever had. Its 2nd behind the 2005 Seghesio Sonoma County Zin. I picked up the Ravenswood Lodi Zin because I had a bottle of 2003 that I rather liked and wanted more of it. We packed up our bounty and headed to the border. Crossed the border at the Rainbow Bridge in Niagara Falls without too much difficulty. Had a slight delay but not more than 10 minutes. Once across the border we jumped onto the QEW and booked home. Rolled into the driveway at about 7pm. The round trip according to the GPS was approximately 4200kms. The exact number is not known as I forgot to charge the GPS one night and it died before the end of the day, combined with the loss of signal at many points along the way, I would estimate that we lost about 50kms on the GPS due to lost signal.
Got home safe and sound after what I have now dubbed "the greatest riding holiday of all time". Best roads ever, without a doubt.
The less exciting half of the ride from Lock Haven to Hamilton.
This is a picture of the crack in my bottom exhaust pipe. The pipes are Hard Krome Equalizer Staggered Drags. Love the pipes, love the looks, the sound and the fact that they are both exactly the same length. I was washing the bike the next day and the towel I was drying it with snagged on the pipe! I look and lo and behold the pipe is cracked. The crack is right in front of the support bracket. It starts where the outer pipe is open on the back and the bracket is welded across. Apparantly this is a common problem. Some people on the All Aero forum on Delphi have had this happen. Actually I believe ALL of the HK pipe owners with single pin 1100 Shadows have had this happen. On the trip I did notice a different sound coming from the bike. Kinda a squeaking sound. I guess that was the cause.
