The Ride
Regular readers will know we’ve had a few bikes we’ve used on these coffee rides. I recently made a change to the fleet, reducing the number of bikes and replacing one of them with a new one. Today, I took the new BMW F900GS bike and programmed the Beeline to head to the coffee shop in Greenwood Lake. It indicated 35.9 miles. See our article on discovering new roads with Beeline.
The F900GS replaces my older R1200GSA. I’d had that bike since new, & as a 2012 model, it was showing a bit of its age. For me, the biggest issue was that the R1200GSA was a bit too heavy to use off-road. For long-distance road trips, the boxer GS was perfect & the nearly 9-gallon tank meant fuel stops were few and far between. But with a few different motorcycles in the garage and the responsibilities of raising two small children, that country crossing capacity wasn’t as critical. The F900GS has similar power, but weighs 80 pounds less, making it feel more nimble and quick on the street, and even better off-road. So, today’s ride was meant to hit a few of the dirt roads and the fun back roads to stretch out all of the capabilities of the F900GS.
I headed north on Route 121 and then left onto Bogtown Road, which heads toward the back side of Titicus Reservoir. It’s a fun little twisty road that leads to Mills Road, running alongside the southern side of the reservoir.
Mills Road brings me to Route 22, where I turn north toward Croton Falls. Here, a quick diversion gets me onto Stoneleigh Avenue, which runs along the Croton Falls reservoir as it heads to Carmel. In Carmel, I pass Lake Gleneida and then turn onto one of my favorite roads in the area, one popular with many motorcyclists, Route 301.
I begin to stretch the legs of the F900GS, and it carves the corners beautifully. My unit comes with the off-road and enduro packages, so it’s more dirt-oriented from the dealership and features knobby tires, which means I can’t push it too far on pavement. But even with knobbies, it is happy to lean over and handle exceptionally well, the 80lbs savings from my old GS very clearly evident in how quickly it changes direction, even as I’m still breaking in the new tires.
I turn left onto Dennytown Road, which is a fun road in its own right, but my goal was to take the first road after getting on Dennytown, which is called Indian Brook Road. The road leads to the Taconic Outdoor Recreation Center, but it has one other characteristic that I wanted for this ride… It’s all dirt with plenty of ruts and tight turns. I switch the GS’s mode to Enduro Pro, which removes the traction control limitations on the rear wheel, as well as the ABS. I can roll on the throttle & get the back wheel a little loose, which makes for some smiles. It runs roughly parallel to Route 301, and then, as I pass the Bird and Bottle Inn, the road exits onto Route 9 a few miles south of where Route 301 crosses Route 9. A quick diversion onto the pavement of Route 9 heading south gets me to where the Indian Brook Road continues on the other side of Route 9 and returns to the dirt road surface.
The road follows the curves of the brook for which it is named, and the hollow it follows has me descending in altitude. I pass by one of the supports for Route 9D a couple of hundred feet above as it crosses the hollow. Shortly after this, the road turns north to parallel Route 9D and then intercepts it. I turn south on Route 9D, now crossing the bridge I had just passed under as I make my way to the Bear Mountain Bridge.
Once on the other side of the Hudson, I pass the Bear Mountain Inn and follow Seven Lakes Drive to Tiorati Circle, where I get onto Arden Valley Road. This is my favorite road in Harriman, which has all kinds of twists, including a full hairpin switchback. It lets out onto Route 17 after crossing over Interstate 87.
I head south on Route 17 to take 17A, which heads west toward Greenwood Lake. The road begins as a divided highway with two lanes in each direction, but narrows to a two-lane back road as it approaches the Renaissance Fairgrounds. Here it begins the climb up over one of the ridges of the Ramapo Mountains. On the other side, the road descends into the northern edge of Greenwood Lake. I turn left onto Windermere Avenue (Route 210) and head into the downtown area of the village. At the point where Route 210 breaks off to head along the edge of the lake, I find Greenwood Lake Roasters on the left and grab a parking spot right in front.
If you haven’t experienced one of the new BMWs with the TFT display, there are numerous tech features available for recording your ride. While I typically use Rever to record my rides, and I still do today, the BMW Motorrad app provides navigation prompts on the TFT and records your ride. If you are particularly into statistics, it can provide more information than Rever, as it is tied into the bike’s computer. This provides some interesting statistics, including your maximum lean angle for both left and right sides, as well as the maximum acceleration and deceleration in Gs. While the 28 degrees I managed on both sides is still a far cry from what a superbike does, it’s not bad for one of the first rides on a new bike sporting knobby tires.
Heading back to Rever, my recorded route ended up being 65.2 miles, so there was plenty of diversion from our initial 35.9-mile straight Beeline distance. See the route below.
