Americade Report

[56Elwood]

Had a really great week at Americade. Ride up (223 miles) was pretty uneventful, did get rained on briefly but soon dried. Tuesday was pretty much an unpack, grab a bite then walk downtown to watch the people. Wednesday we were signed up for the Amish Country ride. Not a long ride mile-wise (106 miles) but rode through some very pretty country to the first stop at The Miller Farm. Very educational tour then onto the Tuscan farm for a great lunch at the Dancing Ewe Restaurant (everything from the cheese to the vegetables come from there) then a tour of the farm. Very interesting and informative. This ride sold out before all the others. Rode back in a little bit of rain but dried off and took the trike down to the Expo. Got and F4 +4 installed on the trike and they gave me a 10% discount for being a repeat customer. (got one on the 2012 bike a few years ago. This windshield makes such a difference in noise reduction alone. More shopping then called it a day. Thursday's weather was on and off all day so spent a lot of time at the expo stopping at just about every vendor. Speaking of vendors, there seemed to be less of them this year. I didn't see Roadsmith at all. Did get to do a couple of demo rides though. First up was Motor Trike's version of the Goldwing Reverse Trike. I was very skeptical of this but I'll be perfectly honest: this thing blew me away! Handled great, steering was a little cumbersome at real low speed but over 5 MPH the steering was very light, very responsive, not twitchy at all and had good feedback through the handlebars. Ride quality was incredible. I'm not kidding when I say this was the most comfortable riding trike I've ridden. Wife liked the ride quality and feel better than our trike. Definitely something I would consider in the future. Hannigan had a couple of reverse trikes on display and they were beautiful but I didn't get to ride them. Then on to the Slingshot demo. Wife came with me for this too and I wrung this thing out as much as I could on a public road. Stick like glue through some nice twisties, rode OK and had good acceleration. Roasted the rear tire leaving a stoplight (whoops:AGGHH:
Not something I would own though. Friday saw us head up to Whiteface Mountain and did the auto road. Temperature at the summit was in the 30's with ice on the vegetation. Road was clear and dry so I tried a little different mounting setup with the GoPro, here's the video:


All in all a very good week and we already made our reservations for next year. Seems like there are more and more trikes and Spyders every year.
Hope to see some of you next year!

 

[Ed Hobgood]

Thanks for sharing, sounds like there were plenty of vendors to check out their new products.ThumbUp

 

[poppajim]

Thanks for sharing your video and experience for the week

 

[DblTrbl]

I arrived there around 2pm Friday after working all night and driving up with a major headwind the entire way.

After stopping at the Holiday in and spending money on stuff I never used (parking sticker and wrist band) I made my way to the Expo and parked my trike at the Hannigan display. Talked with Dave a bit and then grabbed a bite to eat and looked around at the vendor booths.
Only made one purchase, a set of Rivco horns. Didn't pay attention to what he put in the bag and when I got home (200 miles away) and opened the bag I was pissed to find a set of black plastic horns when I thought I was getting chrome..... I looked through the catalog I had grabbed and found that the "chrome" was $20 more then what I paid. I have sent an email explaining the situation to see if we can do an exchange (I will pay the difference). I REALLY don't want black horns on my trike out where they can be seen.

Around 5:30 I headed for Schroon lake where I had a room reserved for the night. I checked in and inquired about local eateries.... Headed to Flannigan's for a burger and a couple beers.

I had been up since 9:30pm the night before so since it was pushing 9pm, I had no problem getting some zzzzz. Next morning saw that the rain was arriving several hours earlier the report I saw Friday evening so I hit the road and made it home beating the rain the entire way.

Now that I have an idea of the layout of the events, next time I will plan to spend some time there in the evening and maybe enter the light show and trike judging.

 

[56Elwood]

Found a news video report, at 42 seconds in we're pulling in after the demo ride. We're on the Grey Motor Trike Prowler right after the lead trike.

http://cbs6albany.com/news/local/americade-draws-thousands-to-lake-george