🧠 Need to know this week...

1. 🏕️ Americade kicks off in Lake George tomorrow and runs May 27-30. Big rally, demo rides, a million touring bikes, and probably at least three guys explaining tire pressure in a parking lot.

2. 🏍️ Babes Ride Out East Coast is June 4-7 in Narrowsburg, NY. Worth flagging if you want a Catskills-adjacent moto weekend that is not just a bunch of dudes standing around a Harley dealership.

3. 🛵 Motorcycle Mall in Belleville has the Indian Motorcycle Riding Experience listed for June 12-13. Demos are dangerous because they turn "just looking" into "can I hide it from my wife"

4. 🏁 AHRMA has the Vintage Motorcycle Festival at New Jersey Motorsports Park listed for June 26-28. Old race bikes are objectively cooler than most things we pretend are cool.

5. 🧭 Laconia Motorcycle Week runs June 13-21. Not exactly local, but close enough that someone in your group chat is absolutely going to suggest it like it's a casual brunch ride.

6. 🎡 Gettysburg Bike Week is on the PA calendar for July. Put it in the "maybe if the weather isn't trying to murder us" folder.

7. 🚧 NYC construction zones are doing their usual spring thing: plates, seams, gravel, weird lane shifts, and zero apology.

The season starts on the second ride

Memorial Day weekend is supposed to be the unofficial start of riding season.

This year, the weather had other ideas. It rained enough that a lot of bikes probably stayed parked, and a lot of riders got to call it "being responsible" instead of "I don't feel like getting soaked today."

I wasn't exactly living the cover of a motorcycle magazine either. I was in Central Jersey with the in-laws, which honestly would have been a lot harder if the weather had been perfect.

I did see a few bikes on Route 80, though. Just enough to remind me that someone is always going to ride, and also enough to make me feel pretty good about not being one of them that day.

But that's kind of the point.

The first ride of the season gets all the attention. The second ride is where the season actually starts.

The first one is ceremonial. You charge the battery, put air in the tires, do the little neighborhood loop, grab coffee, take the bike photo, and convince yourself everything feels fine. It probably does feel fine. You're excited. The bike is moving. Your jacket still smells like a closet. Everyone's happy.

The second ride is when the truth shows up.

That's when you notice the visor is scratched to hell. Your gloves are packed somewhere stupid. The chain clean you skipped in October is now your Tuesday night problem. The bike feels fine until the first hard stop, and then you remember that "fine" is not the same thing as sorted.

The roads do the same thing.

Upstate looks perfect from the gas station. Then you get ten miles in and find wet shade, gravel in the apex, branches from last night's weather, and one local asshat in a pickup using the yellow line as a suggestion. I've seen too many guys go down on graveled-up turns to treat that stuff like scenery.

Jersey backroads are no better. They just add mystery mulch, lawn crews, and the occasional driveway gravel trap placed exactly where your front tire does not want it.

So no, I'm not declaring the season open because Memorial Day happened.

The season opens when you take the second ride seriously.

Before everyone starts chasing 200-mile Sundays, do the boring grown-up check:

1. Tires, especially pressure before the first real highway stretch.

2. Brakes, because hope is not stopping power.

3. Chain, belt, shaft, whatever keeps your bad decisions moving.

4. Battery terminals, because electrical problems suck.

5. Gear fit, because winter you and riding season you may not be identical people.

6. Documents, inspection, insurance, all the admin crap that only matters when it matters.

None of this is sexy. Neither is waiting for a tow truck in riding jeans while your friends send "you good?" texts from lunch. Hopefully they are actually waiting with you, but still.

The calendar says riding season is here. The second ride tells you whether you're actually ready.

Speaking of parking… I’ve got space in my garage

I park on 57th & 1st and can see the entrance right from my apartment. The owner’s pretty chill and rides himself. There is a ramp down into the garage which makes it a bit more of a challenge of pulling out but essentially makes it theft-proof (yeah, I’ve heard of bikes stolen from garages).

The owner is looking to allocate an entire level of the garage for bikes so I’d love to get some 2 wheel things in there.

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