Wmako’s moped army rides from Jersey to Una-F’n-dilla

[wmako]

Background

I’ve always wanted to do an ADV Rider type trip. Five or six years ago, a friend told me about ADVRider.com and I’ve been hooked since. I’ve done a few 2 or 3 day trips by myself, but I wanted to do something with my sons. I was tired of waiting for them to get older. When we got a moped for my oldest son, it hit me. We would do a moped trip when my youngest son turned fifteen. We started planning, and decided we were going to ride mopeds from NJ to Una-F’n-dilla and go see the pro MX race. The race was two weeks after my youngest son turned 15. Perfect. We could set up camp at the RRMC property in Deposit, NY, and from there go to the race the next day.


The Machines



Moped #1 (Green) - This is 1994 Tomos that we bought for my oldest son last year when he turned 15. It had been sitting forever, was completely unmolested, and only had 300 miles on it. It started the first kick before we did a thing to it. Every light and button worked. We cleaned out the carb, put in a new spark plug and it ran perfectly. The boy polished, waxed, and Armor-All-ed it for about 40 hours and it was gleaming. This moped has never given us any trouble.

Moped #2 (silver) - This is a 2005 Tomos with a 70cc big bore kit and a big pipe. It is the anniversary edition, and has electric start. We got this from a kid last fall who was selling a KDX200. We purchased the moped and the KDX as a package deal. It was exactly what you would expect a moped owned by a 16 year old kid to be like. Every screw was stripped, broken, or just wrong. Wires were hanging everywhere. It ran strong, but the pipe wasn’t really attached, and nothing else worked. My son loved it because of the big bore kit. We figured it would be the perfect winter project for him, due to his compulsive nature, and we could pass the green one down to my younger son when he turned 15. It would have been the perfect plan if my boy didn’t get a girlfriend. Now I love his girlfriend, but now all he does is sit on the couch in front of the TV with her (notice I didn’t say watching) and no work was ever done on this moped. (I was 16 once - I understand.) At the last minute, we did a few quick things, and attached the pipe more correctly, but we never did get the wiring straightened out. I know the kid we got it from rode it all the time, so we hoped it would be reliable.

Moped #3 (actually #5) - Moped #5 is a 1992 Tomos we threw together at the last minute from three different junk mopeds. I could do a whole report on all of that, but I won’t bore you. Because everything was done so last minute, we really never tested it extensively. I’m a gambling man, but this concerned me. We got the lights, blinkers, and the horn to work, and it seemed to run pretty well, so I was going to take my chances.


The Route

I tried to piece together the smallest, least travelled roads I could find, with as much dirt as possible. Between Bing Maps, Google Earth, and a lot of help from the people on this site, I came up with what turned out to be a great route, and was probably 50% dirt.


View Moped trip in a larger map

[GaM]

Sounds fun. Here's my project: 1977 JC Penny Pinto.

[PsychoSayWhat]

I was following your trip planning thread - looking forward to seeing your report.

[johnnygequinunk]

Keep up the good writing. I look forward to reading more.

[93-610]

more pics!!

[marty_uiuc]

awesome! i'm currently trying to get the SO's moped in ridable condition. it's a '79 vespa/piaggio grande. we're trying to find some spokes for the rear wheel, but otherwise it is ready to go:

[wmako]

Gasoline

Gas was one thing I was worried about. This is where my plan to piece together the smallest, least travelled roads I could find was going to hurt me. I had no idea what kind of mileage and range these mopeds where going to get, especially with me on one, all loaded up with gear. I knew there was gas in Hancock, NY. I knew there would be gas on the NY side of the Delaware in one or two places, but I was not familiar at all with my route cutting across the northeast corner of PA from Dingmans Ferry, to Barryville, NY. Using all of the available online tools (Google Maps, Bing Maps, Microsoft Streets, etc.) I could not find a gas station along my route, or even nearby. So my hope was to make it from Andover, NJ to Barryville, NY, but I wasn’t even able to confirm a gas station there, and might have to go all the way to Narrowsburg.

Timetable

According to Google Maps, my route would take 6h 15m in a car. These were back roads, with lower speed limits, so even though I knew it would take longer on mopeds, I didn’t think it would take a whole lot longer. I figured if I’d add 50% - it would take us a little over 9 hrs. We could have a nice leisurely lunch in Barryville at the Carriage House, and once we rolled into Deposit, we could unpack the peds, set up camp, and go back into town for supplies and diner. We weren’t taking a lot with us in the way of food, the idea being to travel light.


Day 1

So we left Andover about 9am and filled the peds with gas. We headed out through Sussex County, through Freedon, and Stillwater, towards Old Mine Road in the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area.

About 15 minutes after getting gas, my moped seemed like it was getting slower. It was having more and more trouble on the hills, and was taking forever to shift from 1^st to 2^nd. This was not a good start, but what can you expect from a moped you pieced together from three junkers, only days before a trip. As we got further from home, the moped was having more and more trouble on the hills. It would practically come to a stop, before dropping down to first gear, and then wouldn’t have the low end to get going again. I had to pedal it up every hill going into the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area. I started to seriously consider turning around and aborting the mission, but I kept it to myself. After a while, it seemed like the moped had stabilized, and at least wasn’t getting any worse, so I decided to keep going. After all, this was supposed to be an adventure, and we hadn’t even left NJ yet.

Looking back now, I’m not really sure if the performance deteriorated or not. Maybe it just sucked to begin with. It definitely sucked now. On a nice rolling up and down type of road, it seemed to run pretty good, although it had no low end, and would not rev up very high. Give it a little more hill then it could handle, and it just fell on its face. The kids tell me it ran better than that at home, but I only rode it for a few minutes, so I guess I have to go with them.

So eventually, after a lot of pedaling, we roll into Millbrook Village. Let’s stretch our legs, take our first picture of the trip, and see what might be wrong with my moped.




Upon inspecting my ped, I notice the banjo bolt for the oil line that injects the 2-stroke oil into the intake looks loose. Maybe this is the problem. I must be sucking in a lot of air. I try to tighten the bolt, but of course it was completely stripped, and never gave a hint a tightening. It didn’t want to back out either. I grab it with my fingers and am able to pull it straight out. There are barely any signs of threads on the intake. We decide to clamp it down with a hose clamp. Might not help, but it doesn’t seem like it could hurt.



While we were working on my moped, two guys came over that had ridden in on big adventure bikes (sorry I forgot your names). They were looking to borrow a pair of pliers. We talked for a few minutes, and I asked them where they were headed. One of the told me, “there is this professional motocross race way up in New York State...”, I interrupted, “Yeah, that’s where we are going!”. After a few moments of silence, they responded, “Today?” I said,”Yeah, maybe we’ll see you up there.”

We repacked all of the gear we had unpacked to get to the tools, and continued on our way.

[DC950]

this is good!

[YamaGeek]

Little bike fun, I'm subscribed..

[wmako]

We head back out onto Old Mine Road. My moped seemed to maybe be running better for about 10 seconds. No, make that 3 seconds. I’d see later that the hose clamp did not stay put. The road turns to dirt and we continue along, me pedaling up all of the hills. For those of you who have never ridden or pedaled a moped, the front and back sprockets are almost the same size, so pedaling it is about walking speed. You can barely keep it straight, you are going so slow. I am starting to realize this is going to take a lot longer than I thought.




We come upon the Van Campen Inn and stop for a picture.




We talk for a few minutes. My oldest son is really excited about the road we were on. I hadn’t told them much about the route ahead of time, and knew if he liked this road, he was really going to like the others I had planned. Riding this distance on dirt roads, really makes you feel like you are travelling through the woods, and being dirt-bikers, they were really enjoying it. We each drink a little water and continue on.




We stop at this nice spot closer to the river.




Here we are later, still on Old Mine Road, and according to the time stamp from the camera, this was an hour and twenty minutes later. I thought we’d be in Barryville by lunchtime, and we haven’t even crossed Dingmans Ferry and it is 1:20pm. I am really starting to get concerned about how long it is taking.

[TomN]

Great Stuff

[stbob]

Subscribed....

[CA Stu]

Cheap transpo with milk crates?

I love it!

More!

[TK-LA]

Back in HS I had a Puch that looked similar to these. Did a couple of long trips back then before I knew they were called Adventrue Rides.

The hills always killed me.

[treefrog]

This is the way to have an adventure.