The idea of going camping via a moped has been in my brain since I started riding one. It doesn’t seem like that big of a challenge.
I mean you can make a moped go about 50+ mph without really a lot of work or even knowing what you are doing. You can make the 50+ mph bike reliable once you do know what you are doing. The US is covered in little roads that can get you any where , granted not very quickly but you are on a moped! So I figured that 80-100 miles out of the city to a campsite would be a reasonable first trip and Leah didn’t even think I was crazy when I asked her if she would come.
So we packed up our bags, over loaded our mopeds and headed north (crossing over to Manhattan, up through the Bronx and across to Broadway and then north to Yonkers and beyond).
We made it to Tarrytown, NY before it started raining, my pannier was a little melted, my throttle cable broke but luckily we “roughed it” in a Double Tree hotel…they gave us warm cookies and a place to chain up the mopeds. Phew!
The next morning we loaded back up (with better distribution of weight) and headed out…made it all the way to Montrose, NY when the magical nut that holds Leah’s Moby clutch in place vanished and the clutch rolled away as we pulled into a parking lot to figure out why she was over-revving! Oh yeah and on the way we had to stop as my panniers actually caught on fire…oops!
So after walking up and down about 3-4 miles of road looking for the escaped nut (yikes), and riding to every NAPA and other auto parts store on the map we gave up and camped out at a local bar until Larry and Becca could come save us…in their Fiat 500! Thanks to the bar owner we were allowed to lock our mopeds up in the basement so we could get them the next day.
So after getting home and recovering we rented a ZipCar and then our mopeds made it home….but don’t worry we didn’t give up that easily!
