Bennington Triumph Bash

Rode back to WNY with AtticaTiger and Jefff1 and got in about 11:30. Not much rain but wild wind the last 30 miles. Thanks to Matt and Jeff for leading the way all weekend and letting me keep up. Thanks also to Mark, Alan and all the others who helped make this another great Bash. But next year can we arrange for a giant exhaust vent over the balcony for room 115!

Not a Tiger, but made it back down to Philly. Rain threatened, but stayed on the other side of the ridge from 209, so all was good. I'm looking forward to next year, and Trish, the lady on the Purple Bonnie can't wait. She's a convert!

Thanks Jeff for leading the way and Brian for keeping me in your draft! Had a great time! Thanks to Rich for the Adrirondack Adventure! Thanks to Mark, Alan and everybody who helped make this happen and especially all those who donated prizes. Great to meet Paul & Robin and thanks for the great prizes they donated. Thanks to King of Fleece & Jeff for the shirts! We need more Tigers next year...the Tbirds are catching up!
Matt you are still a trip!

310 miles back to Ottawa. I raced a system north from Ticonderoga but it opened up on my head 3 minutes from Tracy Road, almost a carbon copy of what happened to me last year. But, it let up and I had a good run on Tracy since the worst of the rain hadn't arrived and the surface wasn't soaked yet.

Past Tupper Lake I punched through the edge into the next front and fought a hellacious crosswind for the next two hours home. bike-leaning, trees-bending sonofabitch wind. Border services left me alone and I rolled in about 5:15pm.

First major outing on the XC. Including the little tour with Mark and David preceding the bash last week, 5575km. Thanks fellas.

Buzzy head, beer time.

Well, my phone rang about 6:30 this morning with my wife informing me the dog had chased something into the pond. He was coated with wetlands black muck(looks pretty on an all white dog!). She locked him in the mud room and let me know he was there for me to clean. I come home and open the door to a dried on mud dog and the walls covered from his shake off. Got most of it off but he's off to the groomer.
I had a great time with everyone. Sorry I didn't get to say goodbye to you Brian B. Jeff, you're always fun. Maybe this fall we can do a ride somewhere. Mark, Alan, Robin & Paul-as usual you guys did a great job in organizing and planning. Kudos.
Matt

Took the indirect but quick way back home to arrive just in time to unpack the bike and listen to the severe thunderstorm warning on the radio then watch the edge of it hit. Sounds like the same one that hit Tracy Road, though they were also threatening 1" hail which I'm glad didn't hit there (which is for the best, it would've been 2.5cm by the time it hit Canada). All the slow cars from yesterday must have been having brunch, since I had the roads either to myself or shared with people who (get this) pulled over at the next opportunity to let me pass. Happened twice (?!).

That's a big number of kms. The Tiger seems suitably broken in and functional so it's time to get that Bonnie back together!

Thanks to everyone who put the Bash together, had a fire, told a story. There were surely some interesting ones this go round. Hope everyone who came for the first time enjoyed it. See y'all next year if not sooner.

- Spad

Thanks to Mark and Allan for all the organizing work done each year...we sure appreciate it

Always look forward to hanging with my riding buds of Brian B. and Matt....don't forget the lunch counter diner we found in Granville for next year's riding...great food and atmosphere...whipped cream for everyone on everything...

Brian...I guess you got your share of gar smoke this year...we had that balcony covered...good fun with Jim M. MeMe Jeff...Rich...Rob..Matt and Brian up there...didn't know a balcony could hold so many..of course it was HQ for the Bennington TIGER Bash....oh yeah

There has to be one lucky guy when he gets home and I guess that was you today Matt...nothing much happening here....just resting up for more hole digging this week and countin' the days till next year...

Must remember more variety of gars....and more german pastries....Thanks for making it so much fun
More gars and more variety

From the north shore of Massachusetts round trip of just under 800 miles. Four days and 3 nights of awesome Bash! Great people, great ride on the DAKS and T**** Rd!

Thanks to Mark and Alan for a great time and job pulling the BTB together.

Thank you thank you thank you!

P.S.

Wicked ride on the Mohawk Trail on the ride home with Jeff, Mark, Bryan and David!

As per usual, another great Bash. Many kudos to those that put in the hard work to make it a success. We need to support those that support it! It was great seeing everyone and riding around with so many. Jane met so many nice people....she enjoyed herself a lot. We had a nice, hot ride home....and as we approached our house we weren't sure we were going to stay dry, as the skies were getting ugly. We pulled in, went to open the garage door and it was jammed. I opened the other bay and it went up all the way.....just as it was completely up, the power went out. I was able to manually open up the bike bay just in time to keep the bikes dry....pretty damn cool. I waited awhile and finally decided to give the generator a little work out. Now it's a race to see if the power company gets us up and running before I run the coleman out of gas. See you all next year, Scot

Pete, Mladen & I made it back to Harrisburg at 7:30. Left VT at 10:45. all back roads the whole way except for 5 miles on the expressway through Albany. No rain either!

It was great to see all the old familiar faces as well as many new ones.

about an hour away from home I saw a guy on a Sprint ST so I chased him down & made him pull over. Told him about the bash & asked why he wasnt there...said he heard about it & wanted to come but just never knew how to get any info on it. So now he has it. Pete & Mladen were laughing that I was trying to recruit new people already on the way home!

Cheers,

alan

Made it home about 2:30, having avoided the rain, though as I was riding north from Middlebury I could see the nasty front off to the west that was presumably soaking Mike at right about that time.

3126 miles, including the lead-in trip Mike, David, and I did before the Bash.

Thanks again, everyone, for making this event worth the effort! We keep doing it each year because YOU guys make it a great event.

--mark

Thanks to Mark & Alan, the SPONSORS and all the others who put effort into making the event such a huge success!

I had a grand time sharing cigars and creating clouds of offensive (to the uninitiated) smoke when not indoors or riding, and lots of fun at riding and eating & drinking competitions.

Kudos to Dan Bisbee for keeping it moderate (with a few turns worthy of moving off the seat.) Trish was just great, on and off the bike. What GREAT sense of humor she has Bill....keep her! Plus, she can actually ride "Bonita" pretty damn well.

I thought Jeff's "Bennington TIGER Bash" sign was just great. I'm not too worried about the T-Bird thing, these Tiger 800's are probably Triumph's best selling bike at this point. They have a distinct "ride it and you will own one" thing about them.

I did a paltry 560 mile total for the weekend, partly because I'm only 110 miles from Bennington to start. I got home around 1:30PM, it didn't get stormy until much later. Windy as hell all day though.

Thanks again all!

Ken

Thank you Alan, Mark and everyone else involved in planning! Great to see friends I met last year and make new ones. Was only there for one night but had a blast and can't wait for next year!

Had an interesting Sat... Turns out the new battery I bought in Bennington didn't fix my bike stalling problem and I got stuck on the side of the road a few more times in 3 different states waving down random passers by for a jumpstart till I got to a safe place to leave her and had to borrow a car to make it to the wedding on time. But it all worked out in the end.

See ya next year!

Jessica

Thank you for such a great time!

My father and I made it home dry until about 3 miles from home when we hit a bad storm. Then dad rain out of gas or something on our exit off of rt90 less then a mile from home. We ended up soaked to the bone. What a ending to a great weekend.