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If you live in Delaware or eastern Maryland than you should try this route. The Lower Susquehanna River Tour is marked clearly as all Maryland state scenic byways are. It runs from Perryville, MD through Port Deposit, Maryland , across the Conowingo Dam to Havre de Grace, Maryland. Diana and I had the perfect day last Sunday riding up and down the Susquehanna on our motorcycles, just the two of us. We put on 130 miles round trip from our house, took some nice pictures and had a great lunch. A good ice cream too!

The Susquehanna River is the largest non-navigable river in the United States. It pours 19 million gallons of fresh water into the Chesapeake Bay every minute. At some points it is 1 mile wide. At the end of the river where it meets the Chesapeake Bay you have Perryville, MD on one side of the river and Havre de Grace, MD on the opposite side.

The scenic byway starts at the very beginning of Frenchtown Road in Perryville. From there you merge with Rt 222 and enter into Port Deposit, Maryland. We stopped in Port Deposit to take some pictures and had an ice cream. We found an ice cream shop called Shiver Me Timbers which had a tropical island pirate theme going on. The bananna split was very good!

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Tags: Trips & Places To Go by Jay Green
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Tags: Cool Video, Deep Biker Thoughts by Jay Green
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Tags: Cool Video, Deep Biker Thoughts by Jay Green
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The first time I wore my First Gear Sierra nylon rain pants they melted onto my chrome exhaust pipes just a HOG’s whisker past the heat shield. I was pissed! FLHX Dave from the Road Grits Cafe came to my rescue with another one of his now famous product reccomendations.

 See that nasty black plastic?

At the time I was more amused by the product name: Blue Job. Shortly thereafter I wrote a post on the product but was still focussed on the amusing name and partly goofing around. Then the owner and inventer of Blue Job contacted me and we got to talking about the unique qualities of Blue Job. Blue Job was originally invented as a polish for valuable gems. Unlike traditional chrome polish Blue Job is non abrasive and does not create swirlies. It is a deoxidizer and will take the blue out of heat stained pipes. It comes with a special non abrasive cloth similar to a gem cloth that will not scratch. Jeff was kind enough to send me a Blue Job care package which included some Blue Job for me to try out. So I tried it!

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Tags: Product Reviews by Jay Green
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Keith Myers, President and Founder, of Moto-Maps didn’t want you all to wait till June for me to test and review the Moto-Maps system on Road Captain USA…  so he sent me the Delaware & Maryland Moto-Map Back Road Touring Guide along with a Map-Sak. Diana had to go to Baltimore Saturday so I took the opportunity to try the only Delaware Moto-Map route. It’s called the Red Ride and is documented as being 210 miles and taking approximately 5 hours. I measured 250 miles in 7 hours.

After riding in the rain in staggered formation with a passenger for three days straight the previous weekend I needed to get out on the road all by myself unrestrained for some 96ci V-Twin therapy! No worries, just me and the pavement! I stripped all touring accessories off the bike and put the compact Stop & Go tire repair kit in my riser bag. My bike felt feather light as I backed it out of the porch-garage. Without a passenger, loaded saddlebags and two tons of raingear I guess it should feel lighter. Ah the acceleration! All stress from the past work week melted away when I hit the throttle.

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Tags: Product Reviews, Trips & Places To Go by Jay Green
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For those of you who read my January 25th, 2008 post titled Dyna Touring Bike - 2 Bikes In 1 you know I have been adding only detachable accessories to my Harley Davidson Dyna Low Rider motorcycle. Without the accessories the Low Rider has a chopperesque look but with the accessories it looks like a touring mount. The best of both worlds! I call my motorcycle The Transformer.

The latest accessory is this Harley Davidson hard coated polycarbonate windshield. The retail cost of $340 was an issue for me. A fellow HOG member offered to loan me his new shield for my trip to Pennsylvania. I wasn’t going to take him up on the offer until the weather report started to scream RAIN! Fortunately for me, my friend decided to trade in his Dyna but kept the shield. He sold it to me for a price I couldn’t refuse!

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Tags: Product Reviews, Technical Stuff by Jay Green
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The 25 motorcycles from First State HOG took to the road for the return trip to Delaware Sunday morning May 18, 2008. We departed from the Brookville, PA Days Inn shortly after 9:00am

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We thought that we had seen everything Mother Nature was going to throw at us, but we were wrong! She took one last dip into her wicked bag of tricks to try our metal once again. The first leg of our Sunday return trip from the mountains of Pennsylvania would be a final test of our fortitude.

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I declined to take the lead position as I didn’t feel my best but agreed to ride wing. Al took the lead and off we went. It was raining miserably and the temperature was below 50! My boots were soaked immediately. The plastic trash bags I wrapped around my wool socks didn’t work. The wool hiking socks felt like they had been dipped in a bucket of ice water and soaked it all up like a sponge. If my feet weren’t so damn cold I might be complaining about my hands being cold, but my feet were ten times worse! Route 322 meandered through small mountain villages twisting and turning, dipping and climbing. As we entered a small town the bank sign read 47 degree’s and someone said it was warming up! The constant up, down, twist and turns through small towns in the slippery rain was stressful.  I think we got less than an hour of riding in before everyone was ready to stop at a gas station. We all ran in dripping wet and frozen looking for hot coffee or cocoa. We were so miserable it was funny. Yes our fingers and toes were numb but the only thing we could do was laugh and laugh we did! It seemed no one wanted to mount back up, we just wanted to huddle and wait for the sun to come out and dry things up. Finally everyone had used the one bathroom and it was time to leave. Wet and freezing the mighty First State HOGs mounted their trusty iron steeds and rode forth for the final skirmish with Mother Nature.

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Tags: Trips & Places To Go by Jay Green
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OK everyone here is the story of day 2. I used up my creative juices on the Day 1 story and will try to make Day 3 a post to remember. This may be on the dry side (poor choice of words). I will try to make up for it in pictures.

On Saturday morning forty members from First State HOG awoke like children on Christmas morning in Mansfield, PA. We eagerly peeked out our motel windows to see if Santa brought us good riding weather. What would it be like? Would it be another miserable rainy day or something better? To our pleasant surprise the sun was rising and it looked like a great day to ride!

Excitement was in the air! Men were wiping down motorcycles and women were taking pictures. Bikes were heading back and forth from the closest gas station. Everyone headed over to West’s Restaurant for an excellent breakfast at half the price we are used to paying back home. We packed up our stuff and checked out of West’s Deluxe Motel, then headed across the street to Cox’s Northern Tier Harley Davidson. It was shopping time!

Rebecca Dunbar and the rest of the excellent staff at Cox’s helped us with our purchasing needs as our excited crew relished in the prospect of a fun vacation after all. T-Shirts and souvenirs were purchased by all. We love Cox’s Northern Tier Harley Davidson, it’s a great dealership! It’s like a warm cozy cabin in the mountains with a big deck and Adirondack chairs to rest in.

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Tags: Trips & Places To Go by Jay Green
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Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty & well preserved body…but rather to skid in sideways, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, champagne & strawberries in hand, loudly proclaiming “Wow–What a ride!”

On Friday May 16th, 2008 forty die hard Harley Davidson Enthusiasts from the First State HOG chapter in Delaware embarked on an adventure that will be remembered for a lifetime.  We experienced rain, sleet, fog and cold temperatures. Like Marines training for amphibious assault missions we endured everything Mother Nature threw at us and kept to our mission. The wetter we got the more we laughed. The colder we got the more we huddled together in defiance. We were determined to enjoy our two wheeled vacation!

I was surprised that everyone showed up Friday morning at the Prices Corner Boston Market.  It was drizzling and everyone one was wearing their raingear. All twenty six First State HOG riders and their passengers left at 0900 hrs as scheduled.  Darrel Willis decided that he was going to pass on the trip, but he was present to see us off.

Forty minutes later we pulled into the Wawa in Gap, PA soaking wet for our first pit stop. I announced that this would be a good time for anyone who wanted to abandon the mission. No one was backing out. It was clear that we were all dedicated, or just insane. So far we had been assaulted by killer rain drops that were accumulating in tree branches and waiting for us to ride by. They nailed us in the face, often times right between the eyes. Those trees have taken sniper training, I know it! We regrouped and initiated our invasion into the Amish farmlands of Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

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Tags: The way I roll: Stories, Trips & Places To Go by Jay Green
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Diana purchased a bottle of Doc Bailey’s Leather Black a long time ago and it was sitting in the shop unopened. As our Soggy Hog Trip approached my thoughts drifted to waterproofing our gloves and boots.

I sprayed my work boots with a cheap aerosol water proofer from K-Mart. The brand was Texas Steer and it didn’t work. even though I sprayed several coats on my boots. Oh well, who needs warm dry feet?

Back to the Doc Bailey’s Leather Black which is sold at many motorcycle shops and by J&P Cycles. This leather treatment is made special for black leather. It’s great for motorcycle jackets, motorcycle chaps, motorcycle boots, motorcycle gloves, motorcycle seats and almost anything that starts with motorcycle. It’s like goopy shoe polish. The treatment promises to clean, nourish, restore color and waterproof. Doc Baily’s proudly advertises “Developed in Canada for extreme conditions”. I treated our leather gloves, Diana’s River Road boots and my motorcycle seat. It definitiely made the boots and gloves cleaner and softer. Diana’s boots looked like new. For these benefits it worked well and gets an A+. For waterproofing to endure ”extreme conditions” it did not work. A big fat F! Thirty minutes into the trip my gloves were soaked. Oh well, who needs warm dry hands?

The bottle of Doc Bailey’s Leather Black came with an application sponge that you use to apply the goopy black substance. This is something you should apply with latex gloves on. I think there was more of this inky black stuff in my skin than in the leathers. The good news is that I work at a printing company and we have special cleansers for pressmen that takes ink off. It did a good job but didn’t get it all off. Oh well, who needs clean hands?

Do you have any suggestions for good leather treatment or waterproofing products?

Tags: Product Reviews by Jay Green
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