Friday December 4th 2009, sunny with temps in the mid 40′s for the day meant only one thing for me. Im riding! Especially since the all the local weather men were calling for our first snow storm of the year on Saturday the 5th.
I had a few things to take care of at the office in the morning so I didnt get on the bike until 9:45ish. My plan was to ride Rt 62 from Sterling to Barre then up Rt 122 working my way north over the Quabbin Reservoir.





I arrive at the meet spot right on time, and look who’s here waiting on me.
So we hopped on the bikes and headed west. Rt 2 or also know as “the Mohawk trail” was our first destination of the morning. How can a road be a destination you may be asking? If you ride motorcycles you know the answer, but I can explain with one simple photo..


It sure did, and low and behold we find none other than Jim Conde inside finishing up a cup of joe
I knew I seen this before…oh that’s right it was a tag location on the North East Ducati Rides forum (NEDR) that I spend some time on. Seems MrGrompers had set the tag earlier in the year and no one had claimed it yet
When the shaft was only 500 feet deep an explosion occurred trapping 13 men down at the bottom of the hole. Rescued efforts were never attempted and the men drowned from rain water filling the hole. It took several months for the bodies to be removed from the hole. Here is that shaft

Okay…so where did I leave off….oh I know, we were on Adams rd in the lovely town of Savoy Ma. Here is Jim with a big smile on his face. And yes this is a “town road”
Did I mention that Jim has a KLR650 sitting at home, do you think he wished he was on that and not his wide glide?
Dave on the other hand had a different kind of smile.
Now these photos were taken at mile #2 of a 7.8 mile long dirt ride. I would pull up to a section that looked like this…
Stop and look back at Dave, hoping he would pull up next to me to give me some advice on which path to take..but all I would get is this look..
I wish I took more photos of the rest of Adams rd, but quite frankly I was a little nervous, I take that back, I was freaking scared! We had gone much to far into the woods to turn around, and I was just hoping that it would get better. Now for a funny part (if you haven’t laughed at me yet ) as we approached the intersection of Adams and Bannis, we were supposed to stay on Adams. But there was a 4×4 truck coming towards us. We had just made it thru about 50 feet of mud and puddles when the truck saw us and stopped. He had just come thru Adams and his truck was covered in mud, I took one look down that road and quickly changed plans and headed up the hill that Bannis road was.
The truck let us all go by as he watched a Ducati, Honda Sport touring bike and Harley go past him. Can you imagine what he was thinking. This was the only time we saw anyone else in the area. And it was by far the deepest part of the woods we were in.
We crested the hill and we found ourselves on a much improved roads.
We finally made our way to Rt116 and onto Pavement! We had survived and no one hit the ground! Looking back at it now I really wished I pulled out the camera more and even video taped some of the really hairy mud/water crossings…I guess I gotta go back and redo this section!
Once we made it out of the woods we found ourselves on 116. This was the western part of this road, or should I say west of 112. This road is a little different then the east side of 112, much straighter and the pavement is a little rougher in spots.
A right turn on 112 south brings us to the next stop. Another Tag! This time the ST owners tag. Which is the Old Time Stove Store
This is a really neat store with some interesting art around the outside…
Inside was just as spectacular…with many restored stoves. Simply beautiful pieces of work scattered about the small shop.
We stood outside and talked with the owner for a few minutes. I told him about the whole tag concept. I did warn him that maybe some other bikes might stop by, but he could tell them “OSJ” beat them too it. However inside I knew that would never happen, see the ST tag had been sitting for a few months…seems they talk about riding more then they actually ride. Present company excluded of course….STdave puts on some serious miles…he just rides too fast to stop and take photos!
I followed Dave and Jim to our next stop…Lunch!
That is Jim riding his Harley…did I mention that he rode up from NYC to meet us Gill MA. No electrics, no long johns, just jeans and a leather coat! I don’t think the temp ever got above 45 for the day, and quickly dropped into the high 30′s once the sun went down.
But before all that we needed to stop for some eats! Dave led us to this little place in downtown Williamsburg MA.
There were only 3 parking places out front, all filled with identical Volvo Station wagons. I wasn’t sure what type of looks 3 bikers would get walking into this place. Would we scare the locals? Was the menu filled with dainty finger sandwiches that cost $18?
Okay so the last I left you guys I was standing in front of Chef Wayne’s Big Mamou restaurant. I’m not usually a big fan of spicy food, or Cajun for that matter so I was a little apprehensive on going in. And the fact that there were only Volvo station wagons in the parking lot might be telling me something… or maybe that last item was more about the village of Williamsburg more than anything else.
http://www.chefwaynes-bigmamou.com/
We walked in and quickly grabbed a table. The menu seemed interesting, it certainly had some Cajun items on it like..Chicken Etoufeé, Crawfish Quesadillas & Louisiana Fried Oysters but also things like Corn Chowder, Meatloaf sandwich and steak tips with grilled vegetables.
I love corn chowder so I ordered up a cup…
It was the best corn chowder I ever had in my life! There was chicken in it and other items I didn’t recognized but boy did it taste great! Next up was a awesome pull pork Poor Boy with rice. Another great meal!
Dave and Jim seemed to be happy with their choices of Meat Loaf and steak tips. They wouldn’t look at the camera for me…I think they were still mad about the mud!
No…they love following OSJ on a ride…its always a adventure when the red duck is leading!
After a hour or so we waddled out the front door and back to the bikes. Dave lived west of here so we said our goodbyes to him as he turned the big Honda toward home. Jim just wanted me to get him to I91 so he could get home before midnight. I took him for one good run up on Mountain Rd in Williamsburg heading toward Whately and finally into South Deerfield. As we crossed over I91 Jim turned and started his journey home.
I crossed the Connecticut river on rt 116 than took some back roads thru Sunderland, Leverett and finally Shutesbury which led me to Rt 202 at the Quabbin Reservoir. I can remember as far back as 1986 riding my RZ350 on Rt122 thru towns like New Salem,Petersham and Barre, this was an old familiar route to me. Every bike Ive owned since that little Yamaha 2 stroke has taken me along that route.
I stopped for a few final photos along a small pond in Harvard Forest. I changed my tinted shield to the clear one, set my Ipod to play the collection of George Winston and tried to take in the moments that may turn out to be one of the final rides of the 09 season. Only did 204 miles on this day…but oh what a adventure it was!
Just a fan
Great story…love reading your ride tales…hopefully some day I can meet you!