Top Gun
01-22-2006, 13:30
Billy Wilson, Gary Allnut and I took a spin to NYC for the 2006 International Motorcycle Show Friday and Saturday and had a spectacular time. Our ride down in a 2005 Lincoln Navigator complete with navigation system was great. I even got to bust on Billy as we left, asking him if he was going to punch in the Byrne Dairy at Grant and B'nut as a stop on the way out of town. I have to say that my Bitchin' Betty sounds so much less refined than the lady in the Navigator! Over the next 4 hours, we talked a lot about the route and trip plans for the Spring Ride and what we were all looking forward to.
Our hotel (the Skyline Hotel at 51st. and 10th ave.) was a short drive from the Lincoln Tunnel. The checkin staff were very cordial and efficient, and 10 minutes after our arrival, we had our bags in the room and were ready for the short walk to the Javits Center. It was a beautiful day, so much so that we often said, on the way down,"we should have ridden here!" It would have been a great ride down, not so on the way back though!
We arrived at the Javits Center and there were a few hundred motorcycles parked outside, again, we were a bit jealous. We'd seen many a crotch rocket on the way there. Not many cruisers, though! Oddly enough, we got 3 beers on the way into the expo and lo and behold, the 3 manufacturers right inside the door were BMW (we all stopped to look at the new K1200LT, Gary and Billy both sat on it. . . I wish I'd snapped a couple of photos!), H-D (no, I didn't sit on anything, there!:rolleyes: ) and Honda (I sat on the Wing. The LT has a better seat) (oh yeah, Kawasaki was on the left)! We started to meander about and quickly realized that this show was mammoth. Every motorcycle manufacturer in the world was there! Every custom maker was there! Every aftermarket manufacturer with any business accumen was there! Motorcycle magazine publishers were everywhere! I renewed my AMA (http://www.ama-cycle.org/) membership, got a free bandana and a motorcycling book, and re-upped my subscription to Motorcycle Consumer News (http://www.mcnews.com/mcn/) at a show special rate of 2 years for the price of one. Oh wait, there was one motorcycle manufacturer that was NOT there! I won't throw them under the motorcycle trailer, you'll have to guess which one it was. Here's the link to the show;
http://nyc.motorcycleshows.com/imsnyc/v42/index.cvn
Since the book the AMA gave me for renewing my 3 year membership was one I'd already purchased, I'll have a raffle for it at our 2/2 meeting and give the proceeds to the Club. It's titled "Ride Guide to America."
We spent the rest of the afternoon whetting our appetites for motorcycling, more than once, we made reference to the Spring Ride, which is now only 30 May 2006 09:00:00 away! We went an hour and decided on another beer and then went another hour and thought maybe we were hungry, so we discussed it over a final beer at the Center, watching the thousands of bikers and wannabe bikers walk by. Man, what a mixture of people. Old, young, tall, short, skinny and not-so, tattoed, pirced, coiffed, bearded, clean shaven, 1%'s, well dressed and no-so. Glaring evidence that this hobby or even a mindset, is deeply rooted in many of our cultures and stratas. We couldn't imagine what sort of lunacy would prevent a manufacturer from being there!
Anyway, we left the expo and found our way to the Blarney Rock, a quiet little bar across from Madison Square Garden and discussed our dinner plans. The Rolling Stones were litrelly a stones throw away, playing that night at the Garden! We watched a T-shirt bootlegger work his way through the bar, selling from under his own shirt at 2/$40. Nice looking shirts, too! The juke box got people in the mood, pumping out brown sugar and the likes! My friend, Tom Dwyer, the owner of the place, was out of town, but his beautiful daughter Allison was as gracious a host(ess) as you could find! The Blarney Rock was rated a 9.7 out of 10 here;
http://www.newyorkmetro.com/pages/details/4476.htm
Finally, we settled on a ride to Chinatown/Little Italy for dinner. We set Angelo's as our destination as we climbed into Muhammed's yellow cab. Our ride started right away, with a gentle bump to rear of Samir's similar looking cab. He wasn't happy about that and was about to throw down with Muhammed right in traffic in front of the Garden! Apparently, both of these guys just wanted to earn fares rather than duke it out there and Muhammed put the pedal to the metal and we were off to the races. This guy made our drivers in Asseville (remember Daryll and his other brother Daryll the NASCAR twins??) look like they were in Driver's Ed! Holy s**t, talk about an E-ticket ride, we pulled up in front of Angelo's with smoke boiling off the brakes, laughing our asses off and kissing the sidewalk in Little Italy! This, as the line 2 hours long inside, looked out at us! We couldn't wait that long for dinner so we began walking along Mott St. checking out the menues and fare along the way. As we approached Umberto's Clam House, I recalled a story about a mob man that was hit many years ago as he left Umberto's. Since then, the place has moved several times to escape the stigma associated with it. We decided to eat there. I wasn't going to sit with my back to the door, but I had my back to the piano player, figuring if I heard his pleading,"don't shoot me, I'm only the piano player!" I'd have enough time to move out of the way! Billy and I ordered the veal, his was good, mine was not as good as. and Gary ordered the linguine with oil, which he said was good. I'd say mine was kind of bland, but then again, maybe they are shy of excitement since the hit and require blandness! Here's how Joey Gallo met his maker and some history of Umberto's http://www.americanmafia.com/Feature_Articles_46.html
We left Umberto's and walked in Little Italy for a couple of blocks, continuing over to Chinatown for a stop at Asia Roma, the only Italian, Asian, Jazz, Karaoke, Sports bar that I know of. We received a warm welcome there, did shots of vodka with a band of vets who were there to honor a martial artist mentor, drank some more and then went downstairs to drink some more and we all ended up singing karaoke! Man, we sounded good! (See above. . . we drank shots. . .we drank some more. . . and we drank some more. . .) well, maybe we weren't that good, but Gary was! Finally, before we knew it, it was 4am and they were kind of like," well you guys have had a lot of fun, should we call you a cab??" Not really, we elected on our own to leave. Ouch! Shades of Asseville again!
We got back to the hotel, went to bed and next thing we knew, it was time to get up! Gary was already bumping around and went downstairs to get some coffee and wew were ready for another day in the Big Apple! We walked to Times Square and then back uptown to visit Rockefeller Plaza and St. Patrick's Cathedral. Both, spectacular places! We came out of St. Pat's to find the Secret Service had taken over the block for someone, although after watching the doings for half an hour, we still never saw who. Only that several agents emerged with shopping bags from an upscale store and they all zoomed away. My guess was that the Cheney's were in town.
We ate lunch at Rosie O'Grady's at 52nd and 6th, having 3 great burgers amidst the Saturday lunch bustle! And then took a short walk back to the hotel to pick up the Navigator and have Navigator Nancy show us the way home. We stopped at http://www.arbys.com/ for the 5 for $5 special which lasted us for the rest of the "quiet" ride home.
All in all, a great trip with great traveling companions and I look forward to the show next year!
How did I do, Walshy and Howard?? I didn't even give you guys up!:D
Don't forget 2/2 at the Pace. It's 02 Feb 2006 17:00:00 away.
Our hotel (the Skyline Hotel at 51st. and 10th ave.) was a short drive from the Lincoln Tunnel. The checkin staff were very cordial and efficient, and 10 minutes after our arrival, we had our bags in the room and were ready for the short walk to the Javits Center. It was a beautiful day, so much so that we often said, on the way down,"we should have ridden here!" It would have been a great ride down, not so on the way back though!
We arrived at the Javits Center and there were a few hundred motorcycles parked outside, again, we were a bit jealous. We'd seen many a crotch rocket on the way there. Not many cruisers, though! Oddly enough, we got 3 beers on the way into the expo and lo and behold, the 3 manufacturers right inside the door were BMW (we all stopped to look at the new K1200LT, Gary and Billy both sat on it. . . I wish I'd snapped a couple of photos!), H-D (no, I didn't sit on anything, there!:rolleyes: ) and Honda (I sat on the Wing. The LT has a better seat) (oh yeah, Kawasaki was on the left)! We started to meander about and quickly realized that this show was mammoth. Every motorcycle manufacturer in the world was there! Every custom maker was there! Every aftermarket manufacturer with any business accumen was there! Motorcycle magazine publishers were everywhere! I renewed my AMA (http://www.ama-cycle.org/) membership, got a free bandana and a motorcycling book, and re-upped my subscription to Motorcycle Consumer News (http://www.mcnews.com/mcn/) at a show special rate of 2 years for the price of one. Oh wait, there was one motorcycle manufacturer that was NOT there! I won't throw them under the motorcycle trailer, you'll have to guess which one it was. Here's the link to the show;
http://nyc.motorcycleshows.com/imsnyc/v42/index.cvn
Since the book the AMA gave me for renewing my 3 year membership was one I'd already purchased, I'll have a raffle for it at our 2/2 meeting and give the proceeds to the Club. It's titled "Ride Guide to America."
We spent the rest of the afternoon whetting our appetites for motorcycling, more than once, we made reference to the Spring Ride, which is now only 30 May 2006 09:00:00 away! We went an hour and decided on another beer and then went another hour and thought maybe we were hungry, so we discussed it over a final beer at the Center, watching the thousands of bikers and wannabe bikers walk by. Man, what a mixture of people. Old, young, tall, short, skinny and not-so, tattoed, pirced, coiffed, bearded, clean shaven, 1%'s, well dressed and no-so. Glaring evidence that this hobby or even a mindset, is deeply rooted in many of our cultures and stratas. We couldn't imagine what sort of lunacy would prevent a manufacturer from being there!
Anyway, we left the expo and found our way to the Blarney Rock, a quiet little bar across from Madison Square Garden and discussed our dinner plans. The Rolling Stones were litrelly a stones throw away, playing that night at the Garden! We watched a T-shirt bootlegger work his way through the bar, selling from under his own shirt at 2/$40. Nice looking shirts, too! The juke box got people in the mood, pumping out brown sugar and the likes! My friend, Tom Dwyer, the owner of the place, was out of town, but his beautiful daughter Allison was as gracious a host(ess) as you could find! The Blarney Rock was rated a 9.7 out of 10 here;
http://www.newyorkmetro.com/pages/details/4476.htm
Finally, we settled on a ride to Chinatown/Little Italy for dinner. We set Angelo's as our destination as we climbed into Muhammed's yellow cab. Our ride started right away, with a gentle bump to rear of Samir's similar looking cab. He wasn't happy about that and was about to throw down with Muhammed right in traffic in front of the Garden! Apparently, both of these guys just wanted to earn fares rather than duke it out there and Muhammed put the pedal to the metal and we were off to the races. This guy made our drivers in Asseville (remember Daryll and his other brother Daryll the NASCAR twins??) look like they were in Driver's Ed! Holy s**t, talk about an E-ticket ride, we pulled up in front of Angelo's with smoke boiling off the brakes, laughing our asses off and kissing the sidewalk in Little Italy! This, as the line 2 hours long inside, looked out at us! We couldn't wait that long for dinner so we began walking along Mott St. checking out the menues and fare along the way. As we approached Umberto's Clam House, I recalled a story about a mob man that was hit many years ago as he left Umberto's. Since then, the place has moved several times to escape the stigma associated with it. We decided to eat there. I wasn't going to sit with my back to the door, but I had my back to the piano player, figuring if I heard his pleading,"don't shoot me, I'm only the piano player!" I'd have enough time to move out of the way! Billy and I ordered the veal, his was good, mine was not as good as. and Gary ordered the linguine with oil, which he said was good. I'd say mine was kind of bland, but then again, maybe they are shy of excitement since the hit and require blandness! Here's how Joey Gallo met his maker and some history of Umberto's http://www.americanmafia.com/Feature_Articles_46.html
We left Umberto's and walked in Little Italy for a couple of blocks, continuing over to Chinatown for a stop at Asia Roma, the only Italian, Asian, Jazz, Karaoke, Sports bar that I know of. We received a warm welcome there, did shots of vodka with a band of vets who were there to honor a martial artist mentor, drank some more and then went downstairs to drink some more and we all ended up singing karaoke! Man, we sounded good! (See above. . . we drank shots. . .we drank some more. . . and we drank some more. . .) well, maybe we weren't that good, but Gary was! Finally, before we knew it, it was 4am and they were kind of like," well you guys have had a lot of fun, should we call you a cab??" Not really, we elected on our own to leave. Ouch! Shades of Asseville again!
We got back to the hotel, went to bed and next thing we knew, it was time to get up! Gary was already bumping around and went downstairs to get some coffee and wew were ready for another day in the Big Apple! We walked to Times Square and then back uptown to visit Rockefeller Plaza and St. Patrick's Cathedral. Both, spectacular places! We came out of St. Pat's to find the Secret Service had taken over the block for someone, although after watching the doings for half an hour, we still never saw who. Only that several agents emerged with shopping bags from an upscale store and they all zoomed away. My guess was that the Cheney's were in town.
We ate lunch at Rosie O'Grady's at 52nd and 6th, having 3 great burgers amidst the Saturday lunch bustle! And then took a short walk back to the hotel to pick up the Navigator and have Navigator Nancy show us the way home. We stopped at http://www.arbys.com/ for the 5 for $5 special which lasted us for the rest of the "quiet" ride home.
All in all, a great trip with great traveling companions and I look forward to the show next year!
How did I do, Walshy and Howard?? I didn't even give you guys up!:D
Don't forget 2/2 at the Pace. It's 02 Feb 2006 17:00:00 away.