Route 7 North Leaving Friday Morning May 30th 2008 . . .
Posted: Fri Dec 14, 2007 3:48 pmOk my fellow RAT's, as I have said before, Route 7 begins in Norwalk, CT and ends in Montreal Canada with Bennington VT located along this stretch.
I live in Stamford, CT between I-95 and the Merritt Parkway which both roadways give easy access to the very beginning of Route 7. Bennington is roughly 150 miles North of Norwalk which if we go at a leisurely pace will take us about 4 hours maybe a little longer because we will stop for gas and lunch along the way.
The ride from Norwalk CT to Danbury CT is un-eventful and fairly dull, except we will pass the world famous Marcus Dairy, home of the Spring and Fall Super Sunday where upwards of 5000+ motorcycles come for that day. It will only take us about 45 min at the most to complete this part.
After that we will wallow through one lazy New England town after another and the scenery and ambiance will be relaxing and beautiful. We will pass the famous Toymaker's Cafe in Falls Village CT a place I never new about until UncleCharlie brought me and some other Rat’s up there.
Owners, Greg and Annie are up bright and early in the morning, ready for breakfast. Definitely a local place, with good food but the coolest part about this place is that Greg is a hard core Triumph / English bike enthusiast.
Out back, he has 2 big barns.
Although, I have never personally seen the inside of them yet, I have gotten the full story from UncleCharlie. The small one has a complete machine shop where he can fabricate or fix just about anything and the large one is supposedly full of old Triumph’s, BSA’s and Norton’s. If I ever do get the privilege of getting invited inside I will take pictures. I figured we would stop here, eat, talk and move on. If he isn’t busy cooking who knows, maybe we will get the tour; especially if UncleCharlie can make it up to Bennington with us! We will have to apply peer pressure on Charlie!
After that it is a short run to the MA State line so we will continue on through towns like Ashley falls, Sheffield, Great Barrington, Lenox, Pittsfield, New Ashford, Williamstown and finally White Oaks before we cross into Vermont. From the VT line to Bennington there are only a few towns so we will cruise accordingly to our final destination.
On the way back I was thinking about taking Route 8 all the way down which pretty much ends in Bridgeport, CT at I-95. This is the preferred route of bennybmw who actually was raised in Vermont but now lives on the Island of Long! He swears by this route as an even more beautiful way to traverse up to Bennington so if as we get closer to our launch date we decide we want to go that way we can easily cruise down I-95 to the Bridgeport Ferry and pick up Benny there and let him lead us up on some of his well known routes. It’s all very flexible and an easy ride for that Friday. I’m hoping that many of you Bennington Triumph Bash (BTB) will join us for the ride up. All are welcome and we will go at an enjoyable pace so as not to freak out our passengers. The faster rides will launch from Bennington itself!
I live in Stamford, CT between I-95 and the Merritt Parkway which both roadways give easy access to the very beginning of Route 7. Bennington is roughly 150 miles North of Norwalk which if we go at a leisurely pace will take us about 4 hours maybe a little longer because we will stop for gas and lunch along the way.
The ride from Norwalk CT to Danbury CT is un-eventful and fairly dull, except we will pass the world famous Marcus Dairy, home of the Spring and Fall Super Sunday where upwards of 5000+ motorcycles come for that day. It will only take us about 45 min at the most to complete this part.
After that we will wallow through one lazy New England town after another and the scenery and ambiance will be relaxing and beautiful. We will pass the famous Toymaker's Cafe in Falls Village CT a place I never new about until UncleCharlie brought me and some other Rat’s up there.
Owners, Greg and Annie are up bright and early in the morning, ready for breakfast. Definitely a local place, with good food but the coolest part about this place is that Greg is a hard core Triumph / English bike enthusiast.
Out back, he has 2 big barns.
Although, I have never personally seen the inside of them yet, I have gotten the full story from UncleCharlie. The small one has a complete machine shop where he can fabricate or fix just about anything and the large one is supposedly full of old Triumph’s, BSA’s and Norton’s. If I ever do get the privilege of getting invited inside I will take pictures. I figured we would stop here, eat, talk and move on. If he isn’t busy cooking who knows, maybe we will get the tour; especially if UncleCharlie can make it up to Bennington with us! We will have to apply peer pressure on Charlie!
After that it is a short run to the MA State line so we will continue on through towns like Ashley falls, Sheffield, Great Barrington, Lenox, Pittsfield, New Ashford, Williamstown and finally White Oaks before we cross into Vermont. From the VT line to Bennington there are only a few towns so we will cruise accordingly to our final destination.
On the way back I was thinking about taking Route 8 all the way down which pretty much ends in Bridgeport, CT at I-95. This is the preferred route of bennybmw who actually was raised in Vermont but now lives on the Island of Long! He swears by this route as an even more beautiful way to traverse up to Bennington so if as we get closer to our launch date we decide we want to go that way we can easily cruise down I-95 to the Bridgeport Ferry and pick up Benny there and let him lead us up on some of his well known routes. It’s all very flexible and an easy ride for that Friday. I’m hoping that many of you Bennington Triumph Bash (BTB) will join us for the ride up. All are welcome and we will go at an enjoyable pace so as not to freak out our passengers. The faster rides will launch from Bennington itself!
If you want, there is a nice route from where Martin lives in NW CT over to Rt 8 and from there it's real nice, and eventually joins Rt 20 which I take into Lee and hook up with 7 south of Pitsfield anyway. So maybe we can meet there. There's a Ben n Jerry's there 
Again, I may head up a day early, so we'll see...