Polar Bear Blog 2007/2008

If you've stumbled onto this page out of curiosity, you're welcome to stay and read the saga of riding motorcycles in the winter.

Several of us from Connecticut, participate in the Polar Bear Grand Tour, a winter-long set of destination rides sanctioned by the American Motorcycle Association (AMA): www.PolarBearGrandTour.com.

This blog allows me to preserve some great memories and to share them with my fellow Polar Bear motorcycle riders, you, and anyone else in the world. Enjoy! So despite my first editor's warning about committing to a weekly column, here it us, usually posted by the Wednesday after our Sunday ride.

Join the CT Polar Bear Riders!

Pattenburg, NJ; February 10, 2008

I departed Milford heading South at 8:30 A.M. by car after receiving warnings about the "Weather man's reports" for the region. At best I could expect to slide off the road, or not. The problem is to much information these days.

Well! At first blush all the information was right on, but by the time I got to I-287 off I-95 things were looking up then the rain came and I felt better and when the hail started I was convinced that the "Weather man" ain't such a bad person.

Anyway the trip was uneventful the "BobShot" and the Group shot are attached along with some of the riding adventure shots.

Sunday's ride is to South Wayne, HOOTERS. It's one of our closest destinations, about 75 miles and 1 1/2 hours one way. That means we should set a leisurely departure time of 10:00 a.m.

Saturday night.

11:00 p.m. It's 21 degrees outside.

I'm thinking about tomorrow. I missed riding last week with the crappy weather. I had to work anyway, so it wasn't so bad. All the same, I am so ready to ride tomorrow.

Warmer temperatures are forecast. So is rain.

Thank heavens for the Polar Bears. Otherwise I probably wouldn't get out at all, all winter.

All the same, I must prepare for riding in winter rain.

I've been sending out "friends" requests all day for The Maritime Aquarium's "My Space" page. Go check it out and if you're a My Space person, send me, us, a friend request.

As the day began to end I got to thinking about tomorrow.

Let's see . . . I will try the new electric glove liners first. If you've been reading my blog, Johnny B., Grumpy, turned me on to these a few weeks ago. Tucked inside hippo hands the light electric liners are warm enough. It feels great to ride with the least possible amount of gloves.

But if it rains, I'm not so sure the liners will be enough. I doubt they have any water fastness. So I will pack my big, heavy, leather Gerbing electric gloves too. They are warm. They are supposed to resist rain. But riding in them feels like wearing baseball gloves. My mittens are better, believe it or not. They're supposed to be water resistant too. Yet we all know how wet you get on a motorcycle. So as a final backup, I will have my neoprene kayak paddling gloves tucked in the saddlebags. They're supposed to keep you warm even when soaked. I have Harley rain gloves. But they're summer weight.

Sitting here on the couch, Cynthia and I are watching an "80s Movie Weekend" special on cable TV.

Me, I came more from the Seventies. Yeah, I know.

Anyway, one of the movies was, "Flash Dance." There's this one dance scene where a very hot looking chick is prancing around, her glistening body coated with glitter, wearing a minimal tough looking techno type outfit accented by fingerless leather gloves.

And I thought, WOW! I miss my fingerless gloves.

Like I said, It feels great to ride with the absolute minimum amount of glove, summer or winter. Fingerless gloves feel better, look cooler, than no gloves at all.

Yeah, I know they’re no good if I go down. They do provide a bit of protection for my palms. Gel padding isolates me from the vibration of my V-twin. Holes across the fingers and cutouts over the backs let my hands breathe in the warm summer sun.

When I first started riding I had a late summer doctor’s appointment, a routine physical exam. He checked me out, inside and out, and when he came in for that final consultation as I was getting re-dressed, he said, “Now the dark marks on the backs of your hands, have you always had those?” I said, “Heck no doc, I earned those.” He smiled. Thinking a moment, his physician’s analytical mind racing, he offered, “Golf?” I answered, “Close. Motorcycle.”

This summer I will once again proudly display those dark patches on the back of my hands, and the raccoon face where my half helmet and goggles and hours of sun stain my face in strange patterns.

Don’t misunderstand. I love the Polar Bears. But tomorrow when I’m ensconced in my layers, even with my lightest possible electric glove liners stuck in hippo hands cocoons, I still will not be as comfortable as when humming along in tee shirt, jeans and fingerless gloves.

June seems far away still.

If you snuck onto the blog early, please be sure to stop back on Wednesday. By late Wednesday night I will have finished the concepts and polished the prose.

I am getting started too late on Monday and there is no chance of finishing it tonight. Tomorrow is not looking too good either. I get home after work, write and edit and Photoshop.

There are only so many hours in the day, and only so many "Law and Order" reruns to watch. Plus I have been putting in hours asking hundreds of MySpace people to be "friends" of The Maritime Aquarium.

If you are into MySpace, consider yourself officially invited:
www.MySpace.com/MaritimeAquarium.

Back to blogging, our objective last Sunday was Hooters. By all appearances from his photo dump, it is one of Johnny B.'s favorite places.

We turned out a good sized crew. It may have been the bright sunny morning and the weatherman's promise of a relatively warm day. Or it may have been the shorter distance. Hooters in South Wayne, NJ is 84 miles from Stratford, Conn. on Interstates 95 and 287 to the Garden State Parkway to Interstate 80 and a very short bit more. It is as easy a ride as Polar Bearing offers us CT bears.

Not to mention a fun destination.

If this offends our lady blog readers, well, get over it! This is motorcycling after all. Most of us are on Harleys for chrissakes! We're allowed. And it's not like Hooters is a strip bar or anything.

Heeeey! Now there's an idea for a new destination! Maybe we can have a strip bar PB destination! Me, I would have it in  March for those of us that can't make it down to Daytona. It wouldn't need to be a Daytona quality strip club. New Jersey must have a club or two.

Then again, you do not see many Goldwings, let alone Burgmans, outside of strip clubs.

Hooters is probably as wild as Polar Bears will ever get.

She had neither "T" nor "A" nor any idea how to waitress. Our other group finished their meals, Mark was on his third cigar out in the parking lot, before our food even arrived.

As our food sat cooling on the pickup counter, we spotted our Hooters girl waaay back in the back of the restaurant taking orders from another table.

As I have achieved maturity I have stopped apologizing for this and started enjoying my meals, peer pressure be damned.

Still, it was hard not to notice that everyone else had finished their meal, paid the check, and started putting on their Polar Bear motorcycle layers, just as I started on the second half of my now cold buffalo chicken sandwich.

Fortunately a good motorcycle ride with interesting friends trumps bad service and a disappointing meal.

Matthew lit up the room, literally, in his new day glow Darien jacket. We teased him about not allowing his jacket to share a stool with our other gear piled high. We were afraid that yellow-green might somehow rub off on our all black regalia.

We invited Matt to ride with us to the GSP rest stop for a coffee, only about 20 miles away. But apparently that exceeds his quota for the day. Being a New Jerseyite, he is used to riding like 10 or 15 miles to a PB destination.

Once again Randy was aboard his KTM dirt bike. I think it was his second ride of the year? He probably earned his patch on this one.

Mark and Selina made their second ride with us. Mark got razzed for needing a gas stop at Hooters. The rest of us likely could have stretched our one tank the full round trip. "A rather unique experience for you guys," quipped our Honda ST rider John H.

There ain't no Acura motorcycle. Mark (and the rest of us) quickly realized Grumpy was going off on automobile drivers.

Mark reminded Grumpy that BMW Corporation was making motorcycles before they built cars. He also assured Grumpy that BMW motorcycle riders are not necessarily the same kind of people as BMW car drivers.

I don't know if that's true or not. But you should be careful what you wish for.

Meanwhile we will do battle once again on the expressways of Connecticut and New Jersey this Sunday.

Our destination is the excellent Bahr's Landing restaurant. I think this is the one with the twin lighthouses and the excellent buffet. I am sure about the excellent buffet.

We might even have a surprise visitor.

If the weather forecast holds, Sunday should be fine for riding. All the snow and sleet crap should be over by Saturday evening. It looks to be cold but manageably so, twenties at night and forty or so for a high.

Week 18 Bears: From left are Matt, Captain, Grumpy, CT Blogger and John H.
Geeze! It sounds like the cast of a Disney movie gone wrong.
(Photo by Johnny B.)

What a beautifully perfect day for Polar Bearing! Temperatures were no warmer, even a bit cooler, than last week. Brilliant all-day sun made it feel twenty degrees warmer.

Our attendance was limited to the hardcore few: Johns K., B., H. and me. Attendance was down for the Polar Bears overall. Maybe it was fear of ice. We found very little. Roads were clear if salty.

Maybe it was the snow a couple days earlier. By Sunday the snow was reduced to mere decoration.

Not to discount its beauty. Snow did not impede our travel. Indeed it made it wholly more enjoyable. This is winter motorcycling at its zenith.

The parkways were absolutely beautiful. Friday's was a sticky snow. Each deciduous tree bare and brown was drawn with white highlighter across the top of every horizontal surface. Stark trees were outlined in bold stripes of starker white. Conifers were frosted in finer strokes.

Matthew from New Jersey figured it was a good day for a ride. He got up extra early and rode a few extra miles today, just for the pure joy of it.

Matt rode up from his home in New Jersey to Connecticut, just so he could lengthen his ride. Earlier in the week he sent me an e-mail to find out the departure time. But I did not tell the other guys.

So it was a big surprise when the big guy in the very bright jacket showed up at our departure Dunkin' Donuts in Stratford.

You would have to ask Matt why he did it. The smile on his face made it clear he was glad that he did. We ride in all weather, over distances long and short, for the pure pleasure of traveling on two wheels.

Me, I get every part of it except one. My fellow riders would gladly confirm that I am not one of those "up early" guys. Oh, I will ride the wheels of any bike next to anybody, just so long as we can leave after 10 a.m.

March 16, 2008 Special Notice . . .

Someday I will look back at this entry and, hopefully, smile.

I have fallen a few weeks behind in writing the blog. You probably do not realize how many hours go into its creation. Nor should you care. But most weeks I put in six to 10 hours over a couple evenings. It is a labor of love and a lot of fun. I am glad you enjoy reading it too.

Since starting a new job and then following up with other things, and running a full time ad agency down to part time, well, it has been a challenge. I am "decommissioning" an 800 square foot office (anybody looking to rent?) and adjusting to life in a 10-foot cubicle. I went from a two block walk around the corner from home to a 60 + minute train commute.

The Aquarium is a great job and wonderful place to work. There are lots of things happening there, new exhibits, new IMAX Hollywood movies (we get the Rolling Stones movie "Shine A Light" April 4th), a new monthly social (attendance went from 137 in February to 250 in March), the big yearly fundraiser coming up in April. Remember those old Western movies where the train came through town, steam engine churning at full speed? They hung the mailbag on a special pole. The train went flying through the station with a special hook to grab the mail, never slowing. That's how I feel joining the Aquarium. Pow! Up to full speed with nary a "fare thee well."

I am not making excuses. I am merely letting you know that the Polar Bear blog has had to take a back seat to bigger priorities. Fortunately, I was able to make every ride.

Thanks for your indulgence and patience.

Here's Grumpy's take on it, "Hi Chris! I'm back from Florida. So what's happened to the Blog? I see nothing for the last two weeks. You miss me so bad you can't write? LOL. See you Sunday."

So now I start up where I left off. I will dig into the best of my recollection from February 24th and over the week, and maybe a bit of Easter weekend if need be, I will catch up to today's ride to Chatterbox.

Last year Johnny B. and his bride Margaret, stopped on this run with his bike on a trailer on their way to Daytona. This year Grumpy decided to forego the perfect attendance pin and enjoy a fuller Daytona week by departing Friday.

So the pictures are by me, but was too lazy to bring a tripod like Johnny B. So I recruited Matt, who was sitting with his buddies at the table next to ours, to take the group photo.