It couldn't come soon enough, as always, but my friends and I descended on Lake George, NY more than ready to ride. This year I wanted, more than anything, to demo ride a few bikes. First I saddled up a CF Moto CL-C 450 which was like a twin cylinder 250 Rebel on growth hormones. Big growth hormones. Now I must confess that I had never ridden a fuel injected bike before so I assume that was the reason for its surprising performance. Each shift was rewarded with a surge of acceleration that felt out of place on an entry level bike. I wasn't alone in my praise for its power as more than a few people demo riding it were laughing in a sort of nervous, amused shock after their ride on it. I also tried the first day to get on a Vespa 310 but was thwarted by a scheduling mix-up.

On to the Triumph 400 singles. Both bikes had adequate power but didn't come on like the CF Moto. The 400 Speed was fairly civilized but nothing I would use. It had a mild case of single rumble but was fairly comfortable and handled well. Now the Scrambler was, in short, a bike looking for its next dirt road. Tall in the saddle to me and rumbled harder than the Speed. I can't imagine a day on the Interstate on it.

We took off for an afternoon ride after that and got to see Lake Champlain in the distance. Day two saw me standing at the Guzzi, Aprilia, Piaggio and Vespa desk reminding the people how I was bumped off the Vespa the day before. "No Problem", They said, "We will have you out in ten minutes alone with an escort." He rode a Liberty 155 and warned me that 310 had some surprising poke. After checking out the poke with a brief twist of the throttle we were off. I gained some perspective on the 310 in our 25 minute ride and the escort and I had a friendly conversation following the ride. What I was really surprised at was the speed of the Piaggio. He was tooling along at 60 mph on my speedometer fairly easily. He said he's seen 65 mph tapped out.

After riding the CF Moto Rebel copy I just had to try the crotch rocket 450 SS. I spent the next twenty minutes laughing my butt off. Once I got accustomed to the race horse jockey footpegs I was fine. You sit in a pit of gas tank front, passenger seat against your butt behind and clamping your knees to the gas tank locked in place for the burst of acceleration to follow. While it's supposed to have only seven more horsepower than the CL-C it felt like more. It shifted like butter, handled curves like it was on rails and accelerated with impressive thrust. Keeping in mind that I was there on my old 750 Kawasaki that doesn't embarrass itself I was quite surprised. Fuel injection has put some surprising response on board left me sure that when the time comes for me to step down in size I won't be disappointed. That Kawasaki Eliminator looks pretty good right now. I prefer the foot peg location on the 450 Kawi.

We left a day early as the forecast for impressive showers loomed on Saturday. I was glad we did. The ride home was relaxing and sunny and left us with happy memories instead of rowing through the downpours that happened this morning. Next year can't come soon enough.