The route on the Gypsy Run-as much of it as anyone could remember from the sketchy directions on the web site-led riders through eastern New Jersey, into upstate New York, and down the western border of Connecticut. Thankfully, once Gypsy Runners got off New Jersey's 1/9 north thruway-easily the shittiest 20 miles of tarmac in America-they were rewarded with smooth sailing on upstate New York's Palisades Parkway. Tiny bergs and villages painted the passing landscape with Norman Rockwellian appeal. Landmarks as varied and majestic as the Manhattan skyline and West Point Military Academy greeted the 20 or so Gypsy Runners who blazed their path on the western shore of the Hudson River at nearly every turn. For a chase truck driver used to bringing up the rear in the California desert, NYC and the tri-state area put me on scenic overload. I could only imagine how beautiful the ride was from the seat of a greasy death trap. As it stood, I whiled away my day eating Ding Dongs and swilling Diet Dr. Pepper.
Beauty And The Beast
Clever and challenging as the Gypsy route was, it didn't come without complications. Given its sheer enormity, the Big Apple proved to be logistically impractical as a starting place for most people who had committed to the ride. The preponderance of crews from so many widespread metro areas made the organizers' proposed mass exodus through Manhattan nearly impossible. Instead, groups of riders from Washington, D.C., upstate New York, Danbury, and Boston set sail independently from their respective jump-off points and arrived at our campground in the Catskills at their own pace Thursday evening. At 9 a.m. Thursday morning, ten lone wolves from New York and New Jersey met Bill, Chris, Rude Hog, Greaser Mike, and me at a diner on the west end of the Holland Tunnel and headed north to converge later with the hundreds of people rumored to be going on the ride. Exactly how many Gypsy Runners would be on hand to terrorize the little town of Oneonta, NY, wouldn't be known until later that day.
Fritz The Cat
Our leader for most of the adventure was a cat named Fritz. Fritz had ridden through the Catskill Mountains many times, and it showed. Fritz wrung the piss out of his Panhead chopper like there was no tomorrow. Greaser Mike, Bill, and Chris gave valiant chase, but a mysterious gremlin inside Bill's ignition ground things to a momentary halt outside Nyack, NY. Too engrossed in my co-pilot's storytelling to realize it, I blew past the huddled masses without noticing their plight. Fortunately, the gang sorted out the problem and got back on the road in record time. To make up for my shoddy chase truck services, I filled our 132-quart ice chest with cold beer outside Woodstock, NY-yeah, that Woodstock-and pulled into the Oneonta campground well before sundown. Barley beverages in full flow and fire pits ablaze, the 30 riders who made it to the first stop on our four-day ride settled into the campfire vibe in no time. The tally was a far cry from the 100 or so Jockey Journalists that talked about going on the Gypsy Run, but there was still plenty of cool guys and interesting iron for our collective entertainment.