New York | NEBDR

Hey, welcome back to my channel. I'm Sterling Noreen and I've got something really special to share with you today. It's a first look at the newest BDR route, the Northeast BDR. Let's get into the first video of this series. It's going to be the state of New York, and after this video come back for the other ones. We'll be doing one on Connecticut and Massachusetts, another one on Vermont, one on New Hampshire, and then one on Maine. Enjoy the video. It's going to be about a 1400 mile journey as we head north starting in New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, and then Maine. Over here is the bike that I'm riding. It's a BMW 1200 GS. It's pretty stock. The only thing that I've changed is I put some Woody's wheels on it and accessorized it with a few Touratech parts. I've got the bash plate, crash guard, hand guards, and panniers, and I put a set of bar risers on it. This morning we hit the road and drove about three hours to where we are now, which is Hancock, New York. We're here at the Hancock house and they've got a bar, a restaurant. I'm not riding alone on this trip. One of the persons I've been riding with is Tim James. He's a Backcountry Discovery Routes board member. I'll be cruising with Todd. He lives around here. He's a local helping us out with this route. There's a dual sport rally here at Hancock every year and we just happen to catch the beginning of it, so we're going to watch them take off on their dual sport rally ride before we take off on our ride. So this is what the beginning of the route looks like. The route almost immediately goes into Pennsylvania and then returns to New York. Riding through the river off through the trees on the left. We're going up one side of the river and then we're going to cross the river and we're going to be coming back down on the other side. Now it's opened up a little bit. It's a lot sunnier without this tree cover and we're just kind of riding down some country roads. I like this, riding right next to the water here. We could encounter a lot of those signs that say road closed. What they mean is that it's not maintained during the winter, but that does not mean that you're not supposed to travel down that road. It's definitely a little muddier back in here. I can feel the bike slipping around and sliding a little bit on the mud. We've only went 15 miles so far and I already found this old general store and went in there and here's a really cool little place to stop and then get back on the road. We have a good selection of things here. We're at the edge of New York and Pennsylvania to serve the community and all the people that pass through. Navigation is going to involve really paying attention to your GPS and understanding how to follow a track. We're following a track right now that was created by our scouting team and just like that we're back on the pavement. It's one of the things I love about backcountry discovery routes is how you get to tag team between the pavement and the dirt and so you kind of get the best of both worlds. Military surplus, firearms, used cars. Our tour of Hankins is now complete. We're about 30 miles into the route and we came into this little cool town. Stopped and had a espresso. Yeah things are getting a little bit squirrely heading up this rutted out road. I would say that there hasn't been a section of dirt or pavement that's been longer than about 10 miles continuous you know before you transition from one into the other. So this is Blue Stone behind me and I imagine it must be mined out of the mountains here and it's brought down here to be refined and shipped and sold and I just point this out because it's just one of those things that you wouldn't necessarily think about but you see on a ride like this you're always encountering how the places that you go through are utilized and turned into products and resources and you often see this kind of activity at work and in this case here it's a rock from a quarry I would imagine somewhere around here it's called Blue Stone Rock. I just stopped a couple minutes ago to take some pictures of an old bel-air rotting away in the bushes on the side of the road. I just love seeing old things in various states of repair. So to me these little roadside stops like this that make a BDR so unique and so charming and interesting and fun to ride on. This is definitely a dual sport motorcycling territory around here. Here they go now. Wow you really have to have big lawnmowers out here. I can tell that this grass just grows tall and thick in the summertime. So this is the Shinhopple Memorial Center. It was built in the 1930s and the name Shinhopple comes from the Native American word or name for a plant that grows around here called the hopple bush. The stem of this plant bends and takes root in the ground causing people to catch the stem on their shin and trip or hop or hobble so it's the hobble bush. Okay I'm going to turn left here on Bridge Street. I imagine we'll cross the bridge. Oh how cool it's a one-lane bridge too. The Downsville Covered Bridge. 174 feet long across the east branch of the Delaware River. Restored in 1998 for 1 million dollars. We're riding right next to the reservoir on the right through these trees. So I was told that the reservoir is a lot lower than it normally is because it's so dry out. They haven't had as much rain as normal lately. Some logs on the road. Lots of embedded rocks. Branches in your face. Grass growing up in the middle. Now we're getting somewhere a little more adventurous off the beaten track. This is cool. This is the first slightly technical section of the route. A little rocky. A little bit of a descent. Just enough to get the blood quickening. You know what? It's all good. That's the thing about riding these BDRs is in my opinion you just take whatever it gives you whether it's easy or hard. Just roll with it. Have a good time. If you don't really come into it with expectations you won't be disappointed. Feast your eyes on these little sections of pavement. Blissful. Idyllic. Here's one of the joys of riding in this kind of a place on these kinds of routes. You don't see a lot of other traffic. How nice is that? That said though you do have to ride as though there could be a vehicle coming around the corner in a place where it shouldn't be at all times. State of the right. It's pretty amazing that we can come up with a route that links together all these little sections of forest roads into one big journey that can take you 1400 miles through the backcountry of the northeast. It's been said that the backcountry discovery routes are all about taking the least efficient way from point A to point B. There we go. Now we're getting into a little bit of rock. A little bit of climbing. I don't like to be constantly changing my tire pressure on a trip like this because you're on and off the pavement so much that you just you can't always be trying to find that perfect tire pressure. You just have to strike a happy medium. So for me I guess on a trip like this maybe I would lower them a little bit. Maybe I'd drop the rear down to 33 and the front down to like 28. We just went up to a scenic overlook where we could see the Catskill Mountains off in the distance. The Catskills are a protected wilderness area that contains the water supply for the We're in Andes, New York. Looks like a pretty cool little town. There's a diner, a gas station, it looks like pizza, the Andes Hotel, a tavern, museum, bank. Everything that a little community needs. Andes looks like a pretty cool little town. It is cool. It's an awesome little town and it hasn't been invaded by the crowds yet so it still has that authentic Catskills feel to it. And where are we going to go for breakfast? We're going to go to the diner. It says diner on the front of it. We're going to probably sit amongst all the farmers in town. What you don't want to do is sit at the bar. First year that I was there I never actually sat at the breakfast bar because I didn't want to take somebody's seat. Typical BDR style gas station. Only two places to get gas in Andes. That would be the general store on Main Street and right here at Ed and Candy's. We're going to go inside this store and Tim says it's kind of special. Who are we going to meet? Ed and Candy, the proprietors of the Tremperskill General Store. So this is Candy's own. Did you bake those yourself? Yeah. Really? Wow. That's good. A lot of people ride backcountry discovery routes for a lot of different reasons and having done eight of these routes over the last 10 years multiple times I have seen so much of this country of ours that I would have just never seen had it not been for the BDR routes and it's been it's been pretty eye-opening to me just to get a different perspective on the country that I live in and the people that share this country with me by actually going to these places firsthand and seeing these little towns and you know stopping there, spending the night, interacting with the local townsfolks, seeing the world that they live in, the nature that surrounds the places, learning the history. It's all part of the journey. There's so many creeks and rivers that run through the Catskills and create beautiful swimming holes like this with a waterfall feature and that's a big summertime activity in the Catskills is to find your private waterhole. This is the first I've actually seen this one. I'm usually going behind the bike too fast to notice it. Heading up Cross Mountain Road. You know when you go through somebody's property like that you want to slow down a little bit. That's where people live. It's their front yard or their backyard. That's the only way that these routes are going to stay open. If we get too many people that start complaining about the speed of motorcyclists tearing through their yards, it's going to cause a problem. So there are definitely places where you can open it up and have a little more fun but when you're in those kind of more populated little sections just slow it down a little bit. Wow there are a lot of trout down here. Most of them you'll see you can tell the difference between browns and brookies. Browns have the spots. I mean rainbows have the stripes. Frank says that he stocks local restaurants around here. He drives these trucks with the fish up to different private resorts and lakes and stocks those as well. And he's like the fifth generation. The farm to table movement is a really big initiative here in the Catskills. Kind of like a win-win thing as far as I can tell. Everybody wins. The local rural residents have an opportunity to make some money growing fresh vegetables and livestock and preparing it for the city folk who like to come out and have a good meal in the country. Definitely has not been a technically challenging route so far unless you are just an absolute beginner at this but if you have any off-road GS riding experience you just won't have any problems with this one. I thought I'd come down here and show you this cool old train depot that was decommissioned I believe back in the 1970s. Now it just stands here as a relic of the past. So this little town here is called Fleischmann's. A charming little village. Some beautiful old Victorian homes. And we found this place here. It's called Bay Bears Cafe and Gallery. But I definitely think this is like the kind of place you want to stop at if you're doing your BDR tour. It's these little hole in the wall quirky out-of-the-way places that kind of define the character and the culture of these kind of rides. And you get something good to eat and a coffee to go. So I just entered this kind of a cool two track in the woods. That's the kind of spot that could be a little treacherous if you go too slow and you have to dab and your balance is off before you know what you're down. So you just got to have a little momentum. And you got to pay attention to the slipperiness of the surfaces on this kind of a descent where it's you know it's kind of wet in some spots. Okay it's smoothing out somewhat now. So there you go. The first real little technical section on the northeast BDR. I can definitely see a few people picking up their bikes in that section and that's why it's advisable to go with someone else on a trip like this. Especially if you're a beginner not to do it by yourself. When you do tip over your motorcycle you've got friends to help you pick it up. Makes it a lot easier. So one of the things I love the most about the Backcountry Discovery Routes is that you get to see new places. Different parts of the country and for example where we are right now in the Catskill Mountains of New York. I've never really given them a thought much less been here before. But now that I'm here it's apparent how beautiful this area is and this terrain, this country, the farms, the little shops, the people that live here. It really is a joy and a pleasure to explore these little byways and scenic parts of the world that we live in. The country that we live in. So this is Prattsville. Hurricane Irene wiped out this bridge. Wiped out a lot of buildings in this town. A lot of the houses had to be put up several feet higher above the ground in order to get the federal funds to rebuild. You can see these buildings put up on the concrete blocks. Much higher than they were originally. A new bridge up here. This bridge was destroyed and rebuilt. That's the town of Prattsville, New York. So happy that you're with me on this journey taking a first look at the brand new Northeast Backcountry Discovery Route. You guys are the first ones to see this online. So I'm hoping that you get an impression of what this route is all about. What the riding is like. That's why I'm doing this and filming it with my helmet camera to show you a little bit about the roads themselves. And then also the other things along the way that you can do and see and learn about. Experience if you want to. Thumbs up to the Bridgestone off-road tires that I'm using. They seem to be getting the job done pretty good. They've been there every step of the way as far as I'm concerned for what what we've been through. A big shout out to Woody's Wheels. Fully confident that I'm not going to have wheel issues like I was plagued with in the past with these tougher, better engineered, better designed, better constructed wheels than the stock BMW wheels. So we just went by the Blenheim Covered Bridge. It's the longest covered bridge of its type in the world. So now we're in here checking out a campground. There's lots of camping possibilities on this BDR route, but they get busy from what I understand. You might have to have reservations ahead of time if you plan on camping. So it's a Sunday night and I think a lot of these cars are heading back into the city after their weekend out in the mountains. The back streets of Catskill, New York. Look at these houses. Wow. Oh this is going to be so cool. We're going to drive across the Hudson River. Thanks for sticking around. Thanks for watching this. If you like this video, come back for more on this channel as I continue to ride the entire route from New York all the way up into Maine. So I hope you guys really enjoyed this first look at the newest BDR route, the Northeast BDR. What you just saw is only the beginning. That was the state of New York. There's going to be other videos coming up about the rest of this route, so check back later and you can see a preview of this entire route. In the meantime, check out the BDR website. Go to ridebdr.com. You can learn all about the program and its mission to preserve off-road riding opportunities in the United States, download maps, watch movies, and become a member. Thanks a lot for your support and we'll see you next time.