Ithaca, NY Shamrock Tour®
Finger Lakes tours are unique and epic in beauty, loaded with vistas of lakes, gorges, waterfalls, vineyards, sunsets over water, and historical sites. Touring this region differs from many others, because it’s more about the destinations than the riding. The attraction is in its places.
The winding roads are short, climbing the hills embracing each lake. Motorcyclists, like everyone else, are drawn to the Finger Lakes because it’s a nice place to be. Having grown up nearby, I am intimately familiar with the places of this area, some of which are part of who I am.
Tales of Wine, Wheels, and Wit
Joining me in the riding group were my girlfriend, Sylvia Keita, and longtime riding pals Phil Arnold, Pete Dumanian, and Damon Dardaris. For our first day’s route, we rode counterclockwise around Keuka Lake. The small city of Penn Yan was once home to the Penn Yan Boat Company. Today, it is known for making the world’s largest pancake in 1997, measuring 28 feet in diameter and weighing over two tons. The pancake is gone and so is its record, but the griddle is on display against the side of the Birket Mills building.
We rounded the west side of the western fork of Keuka Lake to Bully Hill Vineyards. It stands out philosophically from the plethora of wineries in the Finger Lakes due to the colorful, artful, rebellious, and tragic history of its founder, Walter S. Taylor. After a huge conglomerate bought the Taylor family’s vineyard, Walter went rogue, respecting his grandfather’s dedication to the culture of winemaking. Sued by the new owners, he was forced to stop using his given name on his wines.
Motorcycle & Gear
2024 Moto Guzzi V100S Mandello
Helmet: Alpinestars Supertech R10
Jacket: Alpinestars T-SPS V2 Waterproof
Pants: Alpinestars SP Pro
Gloves: Heroic ST-R Pro SM Shorty
Boots: TCX Street 3 WP Waterproof
Luggage: Moto Guzzi OEM sidebags and top box
He trumped his metaphorical Goliath by bottling wine with grapes of wrath, featuring his last name boldly blacked out on the labels. His “Love My Goat” wine proclaims: “They took my name, but they didn’t get my goat.” Walter was wheelchair-bound for the last years of his life following a car accident, and his wife Lillian has lovingly managed the winery to Walter’s standards for over three decades.
Hammondsport, at the southern end of Keuka Lake, is where Glenn Curtiss invented and manufactured airplanes, boats, travel trailers, and—best of all—motorcycles. The Glenn H. Curtiss Museum displays his original creations alongside restorations, full-sized reproductions, and personal items donated by his family. The exhibits include an original Curtiss Aerocar travel trailer, airplanes, and motorcycles, including a reproduction of the V-8-powered machine that Curtiss piloted in 1907 at 136 mph, the fastest speed any human had achieved at the time, at Ormond Beach, FL. The brakes felt like wood, because they were.
We continued south to Bath, following the Cohocton River to the Chemung River and Elmira, the hometown of Mark Twain and site of his writing study and grave. The Clemens and Langdon family plots, where Samuel Langhorne Clemens (Twain’s real name) is buried next to his wife Olivia Langdon, is in Woodlawn Cemetery. Twain spent his summers in Elmira on East Hill, where he authored Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. I doubt he was a great writer because of his choice of pen, his Mississippi days, or his mustache. However, it might have been because of his stunning study. I clearly need one.
The ride back to our base camp, the Grayhaven Motel, from Elmira was, finally, about the roads. We cut over to the village of Erin, descended the twisty SR 223, proceeded to Spencer on SR 224, and returned to Ithaca on SR 34 that ran nearly to our boutique housing.