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Tim’s Motorcycle Diaries
I did a round of name/moto themed logos, now I’m exploring some others.
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| One small heater does the job now that I have garage door insulation installed. |
A good couple of hours were spent in the garage today getting the scratches and dents out of various Concours panels. The previous owner had used some kind of plastic filler to put back together the lower right fairing after it had been dropped. With some hand sanding today I’ve gotten it close enough to prime and prep for a round of painting. If it isn’t perfect it’ll be much closer than it was.
I’m trying to find the Tremclad metallic red similar to the blue I used on the Ninja, but I’m having trouble finding it. Home Depot seems to have dried up on it. That paint with the gloss clear coat comes very close to looking like it came from a body shop.
I’ll keep looking.
The small heater did a good job of heating up the room to 18°C (it was -8°C outside). The garage door blanket is doing its job nicely.
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| Got the rear fairing piece around the seat off and prepped for painting. |
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| Everything sanded and cleaned, ready for some primer. |
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| Connie stripped down to the tank. |
The days are getting darker, damper and distinctly not rider friendly. One day this week was into the double digits Celsius, so we jumped at the chance to do a big Max & Dad ride, maybe our last one of 2017.
That night it was going to bucket down with a cold, pre-winter rain storm, but the day promised sun and clouds and a chance to ride, so we took it. We waited until the numbers got well above zero and then got the Tiger out of the garage and put on leathers and layers of fleece; this was going to be a cold one.
There is nothing more ragged and beautiful than a pre-winter sky over Georgian Bay. We pushed north across the barren farm tundra that we live in. Miles upon miles of mechanically tilled and industrially fertilized fields rolled by as we headed toward a first warm-up stop at Highland Grounds in Flesherton on the edge of the Niagara Escarpment.
We staggered into the coffee shop just past eleven. The weather wasn’t anywhere near where the Weather Network promised it would be. Our low teens, sunny morning had turned into a six degree, overcast slog north along your typical, boring, straight Southern Ontario roads. Fortunately, nothing cheers us up more than warming up in an independent coffee shop and then heading onto Escarpment twisties. Highland Grounds was as good as I remembered and we left with warm grins after a vanilla milkshake, a cookie the size of a pizza and a big, piping hot coffee in a ceramic mug. It was a lot of calories, but we’d shivered those off on the way up.
North past Lake Eugenia where I spend a lot of summers at a friend’s cottage, we wound our way into Beaver Valley and the twisties and views we’d been looking for – so much so that we stopped at the scenic look out on our way into the valley.
Of course, as soon as we stopped an elderly couple pulled in behind us and the driver immediately wandered up to find out who made our Triumph.
“Triumph?” I replied, somewhat confused by his question.
“Where are they made then?” he asked. He has (of course) owned old Meriden Triumphs from the pre-80’s collapse of the Motor Company and had assumed they were long gone. He had no idea John Bloor had saved the brand in the early 90s and it was now one of the biggest European motorcycle manufacturers. He’d assumed it was an Asian built Triumph branded thing. When I told him it was built in the UK at a state of the art factory in Hinckley he was gobsmacked. I always enjoy telling the story of Triumph’s phoenix like rise from the ashes. We left him thinking about dropping by the factory next time he’s back in the old country.
We hopped back on the trusty Tiger and headed on through Beaver Valley and out to the choppy shores of Georgian Bay where the sky looked torn and the waves smashed against the rocks, splashing us with spray.
We hung out on the lonely shore for a little while, watching the hyperthermic fisherman standing in the mouth of the Beaver River amidst the surf, casting into the grey water over and over. Georgian Bay skies always look like they are about to shatter, even in the summer, but with a Canadian winter imminent they looked positively daunting. Time for another warm up.
We rode back up the hill onto the main street of Thornbury and got ourselves another warm drink. The goal was to strike south east across the Escarpment toward Creemore for lunch. The sporadic sun had managed to get it up to about ten degrees, but it was only better compared to the frozen morning. We headed south behind Blue Mountain and through the glacial remains of Singhampton before turning onto the positively serpentine Glen Huron road for a ride down the hill into Creemore. Shaggy highland cattle watched us ride by, much to my passenger’s delight.
A hot lunch of philly steak and poutine refueled us at The Old Mill House Pub in Creemore. When we came back out mid afternoon the temperature was as good as it was going to get, eleven degrees. With warm stomachs we saddled up for the ride home through the wind fields of Dufferin County, but not before walking down the street to the ever popular Creemore brewery for a photo op and some brown ale.
When it comes to the end of October in Ontario, Canada, you take what you can get, and I’m glad we did. Soon enough the snow will fall, the roads will salt up and the Tiger will have to hibernate, dreaming of the far off spring.
| All on bike photos courtesy of the very easy to operate Ricoh Theta 360 camera – with simple physical controls and an ergonomic shape that is easy to grip, it’s my go-to 360 camera. No worries about framing a shot or focusing, it takes a photo of everything! |
Georgian Bay 2017 end of season ride #triumph #roofhelmet #theta360 – Spherical Image – RICOH THETA
| Our last big ride of the year? Perhaps – it was hot baths and fireplaces when we got home. |
| Leather, fleece and armoured trousers, and it was still a cold one. |
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I rode in to work this morning in near zero temperatures. It was sunny but cool. The ride home was in the mid-single digits and sunny. Winter gloves handled 8°C with ease, they were streteched a near zero. Tomorrow might be my last 2 wheeled commute of the season. I threw the 360Fly on the front for the ride, these are screen grabs of the video:
It’s amazing what you can get away with thanks to grip heaters and an extendable windshield. -5°C might be a bit more than I’m willing to put up with on the ride in to work, but if it’s clear I might just steal one more before the snows fly.
There are still some autumn colours hanging on, but the trees are starting to look skeletal.
For these shots the camera was suction cupped near the bottom of the windshield and aimed forward.
I just turned forty four; that’s just a number. A day later Dusty World is going to cross the thirty thousand page view mark. That’s just a number too, but I like it a lot more than forty four.
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| Noon on May 18th!!! |
It pays to give your insurance broker a call each year and make sure you’re paying the best rates available. In my first year of insurance I went through the best insurance company for a starting rider and paid $1250 (this is in Ontario). I called this week to make sure everything was in order and suddenly found my rates dropping by over $200.
It turns out that Echelon Insurance has some strange ideas about how to judge your insurance rates. According to them if you live in a rural area (with less people and less chance to run into them) you pay more in insurance. You’d think that most insurance companies would consider urban and city areas more accident prone because, you know, they are, but Echelon doesn’t. If you live in a rural area (I know most people don’t, but I happen to), then make sure you keep looking for alternatives to Echelon.
RidersPlus checked out alternatives for me and found Intact insurance doesn’t have Echelon’s bizarre logic when it comes to insuring motorcycles. Suddenly I’m paying $1015 a year for insurance on the same bike because Intact doesn’t work under the strange idea that riding alone in the country is somehow more dangerous than being surrounded by distracted drivers in the GTA.
It pays to check with your insurance broker each year as you renew your insurance. Don’t just renew, have a conversation. That quick talk saved me a couple of hundred bucks this year.
What came of me almost losing my mind while riding underwater a few weeks ago? I finally got to test my rain gear from Royal Distributing. It did the business in light rain, but after a couple of hours in steady downpours they leaked through the waist leaving me with a nasty case of wet crotch and a foul attitude.
The key to happiness seems to be a zip up coverall rain suit. No seams means no leaks. Failing that, a pair of pants with a bib would prevent rain from working its way into the front of the jacket. I’m bound to want something not sold here, so I immediately found a rain-suit that I’d like that isn’t available for sale in Canada.
The Kawasaki rain-suit is sold in Europe and Asia, but not North America. Sigh. Fortunately, a German bike accessory company has it for sale on ebay and is willing to ship to Canada.
I’ve put in a request for sizing and shipping information, we’ll see what comes of it. In the meantime I found some waterproof bib-rainpants at the local TSC for $85. Since the Kawi-rain suit is only $40 more, I’m going to hold out and see if I can nab one, but the cost of importing it might make that impractical. Why doesn’t Kawasaki offer this suit everywhere? It does rain in Canada.
If you’re ever looking for stuff tough enough to bike with TSC offers an interesting alternative. TSC sells farm-ready work-wear, so everything is super tough. It doesn’t come with fancy bike related logos on it but it’ll do the business. A set of work boots that cover the ankle would be half the price of bike boots. Leather work gloves (they have very nice mechanic’s ones) are double reinforced at 1/3 the price of ‘bike’ gloves. Jeans and jackets can be found with double stitching and thick material for a fraction of the cost of bike specific gear. Likewise, their rain gear is classed to industrial levels of water resistance and durability at much less than branded bike wear. If you’re looking to bike on a budget TSC might be the ticket.
In the meantime I’ll keep the Royal Distributing rain suit handy and hope it isn’t too torrential while I wait for a reply from zee Germans.
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| Neck to ankles – that should keep it out. |
After doing a partial dismantling of my son’s new (to us) ’04 Yamaha PW80, I put it back together again and learned a valuable lesson in dirt bike ownership: always turn off the fuel tap. Other than carb pressure and gravity, there is nothing else stopping your garage from smelling like gas and a puddle forming.
The second dismantling came when it wouldn’t start after the flood. The spark plug was always dodgy, so I’ve gotten a pair of new ones (no problem finding them at Canadian Tire).
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| Good advice, straight from Yamaha |
A tiny amount of Googling found me the Yamaha shop/operating manual, that covers everything from not carrying dogs on the bike with you to how to tear down the engine.
This is such a simple machine that it’s a great way to get a handle on the basic motorbike system. If you want to get handy with bike maintenance, start with a dirt bike (I started with a Concours…).
The next strip down has been more comprehensive, though to remove the tank, fairings and seat takes all of seven bolts. The air filter was pretty bad with chunks of mud in the air box. It’s a shame that people treat a bike like that then just chuck in storage. Why not clean it first? In any case it’s clean now.
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| The metal shop at school sorted out the broken muffler. |
I’ve got a busy hands afternoon after work checking the new plugs for spark (it’s definitely getting gas) and putting it back together again knowing that I’ve taken it right down to the engine. With how it took off last weekend (I impromtu wheelied down the driveway thinking it would barely be able to move me on it), I’m looking forward to seeing how spunky it is with a complete tune up.
With a new plug in it has strong spark – the carb is stinking of gas and it still won’t start. Time to pull the carburetor and sort it out before giving it another go. Leaving it open overnight doesn’t appear to have done it any favours.
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| The unhappy carburator |
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| A Yamaha PW80 down to the mechanicals |
I’ve got to get my mits on a me-sized dirt bike so we can go into the woods together up at the inlaw’s cottage. That DR600 Dakar is still for sale, I wonder if he’d take a grand for it. It’s a bit more than a mid-sized dirt bike, but it would do the business and also eventually adventure bike for me too.
It’d make a good Swiss army knife bike.
I’ve been putting miles on the Tiger and have a developed some ideas about why it’s awesome in comparison to what I’ve come from. Here they are in no particular order:
1… The tiger growls. The Ninja had a nice snarl to it with its 270° twin, and the Concours’ massive inline four thundered like a Norse god, but the tearing silk growl of the Tiger can be virtually silent (less noisy than the wind) when I’m cruising, or growl like its namesake when you twist the throttle. It has enough presence to make people jump when you give it some revs – maybe because it’s so quiet otherwise.
The 955i Triple (an epic engine) has that same lopsided warble that the Ninja had, but amplified by a third cylinder. I’ve had a twin and a four, but now that I’ve gone triple I don’t think I’ll ever go back, it feels like the best of both worlds.
2… Lithe tigers are fun tigers. At 50 kilos (almost 110lbs!) less than my last bike, the Tiger does everything better even though it’s taller. From backing it out of the garage to winding it through corners, I don’t miss an ounce of that chubby Concours. While the Connie hid its weight well in motion, it was always lurking in the background. There is no substitute for a lighter bike.
The engine barely seems to produce any heat at all and what there is is so well managed that I only occasionally feel a breath of warm air. Time spent in the saddle is cool and comfortable, and much less like meatballs in hot sauce.
The one place I’m warmer are my hands. Between the hand guards and heated grips I’ve been able to ride the Tiger in near zero temperatures with no issues and without winter gloves. My legs went from getting cooked to being one of the coolest parts of me when I’m out on the bike.
4… It’s not wise to upset a tiger. Between that radical weight loss and an engine that puts out 7 more ft/lbs of torque 2000rpm lower than the Concours, the first time I wound out the Tiger it almost wookie-ed my arms off. It’s amazing what a small bump in engine grunt and massive weight loss can do to a bike’s forward velocity. The Tiger will comfortably lift a wheel in the first three gears, and it isn’t a little bike.
5… Suspension that soaks up lousy Ontario roads. Kawasakis have a rep for budget suspensions. Between that and the barely paved roads of Ontario, I’d often hit bumps that would lift me out of the seat and rattle my bones. This led to constantly worrying about knocking something loose on the bike. The long, pliant suspension of the Tiger makes Ontario’s wonderful roads ride-able without any such worries. Another benefit is that I’m able to corner and brake more effectively because the bike is never juddering over potholes, it just soaks them up.
6… Lucifer Orange is magical. I’ve yet to own a bike that a coat of spray paint didn’t radically improve, but there is only so far you can go with a can of spray paint. The clear coated, metallic, red-orange on the Triumph is mind-bendingly brilliant. Sure, the tiger stripes are a bit over the top, but that paint can manage it. When my eleven year old first saw it he said, ‘oh yeah!’. Pulling up behind a school bus creates an avalanche of kids in the back window giving me thumbs up. It’s the opposite of the too-cool-to-care leather clad biker pirate, but I’d rather give an enthusiastic thumbs up back than sit there trying to look indifferent about everything.
I picked up my first ROOF helmet last summer, and it has quickly become my go to lid. The combination of an open face or fully safetied close faced lid (most flip up helmets only pass open face standards, the chin guard is ornamental) makes this a brilliant all-rounder. I got it in orange because I liked the design, but it happens to look splendid and intentional with Triumph’s Lucifer orange. It’s a happy accident, but I’ll take it.
7… It fits. Less bend in the knees, my feet just go flat on the floor, less bent forward riding position with no weight on the wrists with a comfortable, upright stance, the Tiger fits like nothing I’ve ridden before.
Those wide bars mean I can leverage corners easily and with precision. Other than keeping you tight to the bike aerodynamically, I’m not really sure why sportier bars are considered better, the wider geometry encourages finer control.
I also look like I fit on the Tiger. I looked like a circus bear on a tricycle on the Ninja. On the Concours I still looked like I was too tall for the bike, but the Tiger fits my 6’3″ frame like it was made for me.
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| Ready for my first night ride – those lights work great. |
8… the bad things aren’t. The first owner seems to have addressed every shortcoming on this Tiger. Last night was my first time out with it after dark and the supposedly anemic headlights were as good as the Concours’ lights ever were, and when I hit the highbeams it was like having a football stadium light up in front of me.
The fueling is smooth and perfect, and I haven’t even fine tuned the Power Commander on it yet. The front fork does dive a bit under heavy breaking, but some adjustment seems to have resolved that and made the bike respond to my weight perfectly. I have no trouble getting the Tiger to chase its own tail around corners.
With the second wing on the windshield adjusted I have at least as much upper body wind protection as I did from the fully faired Connie, so I’m not missing all the plastic of my last bike either.
9… a made in the U.K. success story. Riding a British bike fills me with pride. Riding such a good British bike makes it even better. Triumph’s rise from bankruptcy in the 1980s to a multi-million dollar, international success story suggests that British manufacturing is anything but history, and that British habits around manufacturing can change and become competitive in a global economy. It’s nice to ride such a fine machine made in the same place I was.
10… brilliant panniers. I’ve enjoyed built in luggage since the Concours, but the Tiger panniers are totally next level. Unlike the finicky attachments on the Connie, the Triumph panniers slip on and off effortlessly and lock into place as well as locking closed. They are a good size and look right on the bike. That they’re colour matched is just another bonus.
As you might have gathered, I’m enjoying Triumph ownership so far.
Went out for a nice ride on a beautiful spring evening. The bike was low on gas but I was still in the red, so I pushed on.
Couldn’t have asked for a nicer night. Bikes were out everywhere, me along with them. I looped out east and then passed south of home and followed the river west.
From there I continued west downstream and turned onto highway 86, wondering when the gas light would come on to give me the immanent fill up warning. Instead of the light coming on the Tiger hesitated as I accelerated up to speed on the highway, and then stalled. I rolled to a stop on the side of the road and it wouldn’t restart. I gave the bike a shake and it started, so I looped around and started heading back toward the river and the road home, when it stalled again. I kept it rolling and pulled back on to the side road I’d just ridden up.
As I ran out of momentum I could see the Kissing Bridge Trailway parking lot. It was only a short push up a slight hill into the lot. The sun was casting its last rays across a beautiful evening. I got out the phone and called home – fortunately my son picked up and mobilized the cavalry.
I pushed the Tiger out to the front of the empty lot so my rescuers could see it and spent my time in the dying light reading about the Trailway and taking photos. There is a video where a guy is riding his old Triumph and it won’t restart after he stops for a pee. He rages at the machine, but eventually ends up soaking up the nature around him. With a Zen like calm, he eventually kicks the old bike over and it starts – it wouldn’t while he was angry. I wish I could find that video and share it again here. No point in being angry, best to be where I am doing what I’m able to do.
Soon enough my lovely wife and son showed up with the gas can. I put a litre into the tank and the Tiger immediately fired up. They followed me the ten minute ride back to Elora and we topped up the bike and refilled the gas can.
Now to figure out why the low gas warning light isn’t working on the Tiger.
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