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 Post subject: 576 miles round trip from Syracuse to Brooklyn and back
PostPosted: Fri Jul 25, 2014 7:34 pm 
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Syracuse Ska
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Joined: Fri Jun 03, 2005 3:25 am
Posts: 4843
Location: Syracuse, NY
576 miles roundtrip on my Stella scooter that tops out at 50mph -- so I took all back roads through Upstate NY on Rt11 to Scranton PA, through the Poconos and the Delaware Water Gap, across New Jersey on Rt46 (when I wasn't getting lost in NJ) and then through the Holland Tunnel and the Williamsburg Bridge to Bushwick, Brooklyn, New York where I stayed in a cool loft. And then reversed the whole process to get back. Left Syracuse NY on Fri, June 27th @ 7:51am and got back to Syracuse on Tue, July 1st @ 2:27pm.

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Ostensibly, I was trying to join the annual NYC Scooter Club Block Party. Except instead of getting to NYC by Friday night as I had originally planned, I got there Saturday morning very sleep deprived, physically and mentally exhausted and just overall rattled. I ended up staying in a cheap motel in Wayne NJ on Friday night, because besides my utter exhaustion, I also had everyone on Route 46 in New Jersey screaming out their windows at me and generally trying to run me off the road. :shock:

In fact, I spent altogether too much time over the long weekend constantly getting lost in New Jersey. Friday night, Saturday morning and then again coming back on Monday morning.

I stayed the weekend in a loft apartment in Bushwick, Brooklyn and Saturday morning I just couldn't get myself to head to the other end of Brooklyn (which was a lot further than I had realized) to join up with everyone. So then I was going to meet up with them later in the day in Red Hook and join their annual traditional scooter ride into Times Square, but sleep in the loft got the better of me. Then my next fallback plan was to ride the subway to Times Square to catch them and/or at least see them go through. So, I'm standing at the corner of 42nd and 7th for an hour, waiting. I've been to Times Square enough by now that the novelty factor is long gone, but I like to people watch and this was a good corner for it. But 99% of these people are tourists and the other 1% are trying to make money off of them.

And then I heard 2-strokes and got excited. First I see one isolated Lambretta, which I thought was odd. Then I see maybe 8-10 scooters and by the time I get my camera out, I catch one straggler:

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And that. Was. It.

I felt like I'd been sucker-punched in the gut. I rode all this way for THIS?

At least there is a Moaz down the block, so I at least got a good falafel for dinner and all my trouble. I even got lost on the subway going back, because I got confused about the M train limitations late at night. But I eventually got back to Bushwick, Brooklyn with my tail between my legs. Except walking down the block where I was staying, I passed the artist warehouse next door (think Gear Factory, but on one floor only) and saw a nice, loud party going on with the people I was staying with as ringleaders. Long story short, that salvaged the evening majorly. I bailed at 2:30am when things were quieting down, but I heard the next day it cranked back up at 4am from people jumping out of cabs, leaving clubs that had closed.

Sunday I wandered around, grabbing brunch at the 983, waiting out on the bench out front for my to go order -- it was majorly crowded -- and eavesdropping conversations that were priceless ("Yeah, Karen is just having problems adjusting to living in Brooklyn"). Then later hitting up the coffeehouse Little Skips to hang out for awhile. I highly recommend the Vegan BLT. Think of Recess Coffee, but filled with hipsters. And the whole weekend I stayed at this really cool complex and met really awesome people from all over the world that are mostly either artists or artistically-inclined. We watched a lot of FIFA World Cup action out in the courtyard:

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So, the joys of Brooklyn salvaged my trip. And coming back was a lot less stressful then the ride down was. Would I do it again? Probably not. It was a lot harder than I had realized. But I melded with my scooter as never before and pushed myself past my limits, which is always empowering. And I did get to see a lot of back country that was really cool, especially in the Poconos and the Delaware Water Gap. And I saw way more of New Jersey than I ever really intended. :twisted:

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"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man." -- George Bernard Shaw


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