This year I once again attended the DirtDaze Adventure rally put on by Touratech and Americade. This year the event was moved to the North Haverhill, NH fairgrounds on August 20-23rd. The new facility provided a lot more room for camping, and to spread out which was critical this year given the Covid situation. Thankfully the timing worked out so that the Covid numbers were pretty low during the event and there were no travel restrictions between NH and CT that I needed to worry about.
I arrived Thursday afternoon after a few TOH / Grand tour stops on the way up and picked out a camp site. The sites weren’t terribly well defined, but there was plenty of room. I was told there was an area set aside for quieter campers and in retrospect I probably should have chosen that. The camping arrangements were certainly better than last year though.
I spent the rest of the day Thursday demo riding bikes from Yamaha and Triumph. Originally there were supposed to be demo rides from several other manufactures, including BMW, but they all had to cancel due to travel restrictions. I was able to ride the Triumph Tiger 900 and Scrambler 1200 as well as the Yamaha T700 and Super Tenere. The T700 was defiantly the most fun, lots of power in a little bike. Unfortunately I think it’s a bit too small to do the distances stuff. As Long Haul Paul has shown it’s certainly capable of doing the distance, but not ideal, and I really want to get away from a chain. The Triumphs were both nice bikes and fun to ride, if I were seriously considering a new bike the Tiger 900 would get a second look. In the back of my head, the Super Tenere has been the leading contender for my next bike. Demoing the one here didn’t leave me overly impressed though. It rode nice, but the throttle response was very touchy and due to it’s size wasn’t as nimble as any of the other bikes. It had been left in sport mode, which I realized after the fact probably contributed to the throttle behavior. It’s also pretty common to re-flash the ECU on those bikes to smooth out the power curve.
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Friday morning I took a self guided route on the mild dirt roads and had a good time. In the afternoon I took the Intermediate Class taught by D.A.R.T. Adventure bike school. I’d taken the introductory class last year and this built on it with a number of exercises covering breaking, slow speed maneuvering, hill climbs and descents and towing. I enjoyed the class and it was good to brush up on the techniques. It was pretty warm though, and made me realize just how out of shape I’ve gotten.
Saturday I participated in the guided “Green Granite” ride that covered some pretty nice trails in Vermont and New Hampshire. There was one pretty challenging climb, and a few sections that pushed my comfort level a bit, which I enjoyed. Dinner back at the fairgrounds was a steak dinner by the local fire department. The dinner was pretty standard for such things, but it was a nice change from the single food vendor that was on site. That was another area impacted by Covid, they’d originally planned a whole bunch of food and beer trucks, but weren’t able to pull it off with restrictions in place.
I’d originally planned a circuitous route though NH and MA on the way home Sunday, but was pretty tired, and had some other commitments so I ended up departing pretty early and just heading home. Overall I had a great time and am looking forward to seeing what they have in store for 2021.