Tim’s Motorcycle Diaries – Page 50

A Living Motorcycle

Recent advances in battery technology have focused on bio-technology, specifically looking at how to draw electricity out of the energy rich nature of natural sugars. How much energy is stored in glucose? A recent experiment drew about 10 times the electricity of a lithium ion battery out of a glucose energy cell on a per kilogram basis. Battery weight has long been an issue, as has duration. Focusing on bio-technology might resolve both of those issues while also producing a green electricity storage solution.

Electric bikes will start to take on the aspects of gas bikes
if they suddenly have much lighter batteries.

Perhaps most promising, research labs around the world are seeing success with enzyme based bio-tech batteries. With many researchers pushing forward on this, we may see marketable solutions appearing in two to three years.

What does this mean for motorbikes? Imagine a Zero motorcycle with a battery that weighs half as much (making it lighter than a gas equivalent motor), that produces four times the range (better than a gas motor). If the glucose solution that provides the charge can be packaged separately, you may very well pull into a refuelling station in 2020, pull the spent fuel canister out from where your gas tank used to be and buy a new one. You’d be ready to go in five minutes, pretty much just like a modern gas stop.

That spent canister would get recycled, the spent glucose solution either reused or composted. Since new solution is created primarily from natural sugars, it would be a matter of growing more fuel. Enhancements to the enzymes that break down the sugars would open up a strange new bio-tech world of performance enhancements. People would customize how their bikes consume sugar in order to focus on performance or efficiency. Advances in enzyme efficiency would allow for greater range and power.

These living bikes would consume sugars just like their riders do, they’d even breath as they did it.

The Brammo Empulse, a shockingly fast electric bike still hobbled by battery weight and range, but for how long?

Then vs. Now

I’ve been wondering why motorbikes don’t seem to have moved on in the way that cars have. To that end I’m trying to find comparisons between 1960s (pre-oil crisis) vehicles and current vehicles. In trying to keep apples with apples and find stats for similar vehicles. The problem is a 1960s Cooper Mini doesn’t have anything like the crash worthiness of a new Mini Cooper, and that crash worthiness costs weight, though not as much as you might think. The real cost in weight is our expectations around size. The new mini is significantly larger mainly because minimalist, small cars don’t sell.

Our improvements in engineering efficiency are often overshadowed by our need for bigger, more plush vehicles. My thinking is that this shouldn’t be such an issue on a motorbike, it’s not like our bikes have gotten much bigger in the way that cars have turned into SUVs.

An example, the Mini Cooper. The new car has nothing mechanical whatsoever to do with the old one. Other than the name and marketing niche, these cars are very much creatures of their times.

length	3,054 mm (120.2 in) (saloon)
Width	1,397 mm (55.0 in)
Height	1,346 mm (53.0 in)
Kerb weight Horsepower Fuel Economy	617–686 kg (1,360–1,512 lb) 1275cc / 78hp (16.35cc/hp) 6l /100kms

via wikipedia

Dimensions (LxWxH): 3723 / 1683 / 1407 mm
Kerb weight: 1150kg – 1185kg
Fuel Economy: 6.1 l/100kms
Horsepower: 1600cc / 121hp (13.22cc/hp)
So the new car is:
18% longer, 17% wider, 4% lower
46% heavier all with the same mileage!
courtesy of Mini.

So what you’ve got is a much bigger car that offers all the modern amenities in addition to more space that gets about the same mileage, and it does it with an engine a third larger than the old one. Put another way, the new Mini is about twice as efficient as the old one (it uses the same amount of fuel to move almost twice as much car). On top of that Mini needs three less cc to get a horsepower out of an engine. It isn’t much, but it’s an improvement, unlike the bike below.

1969 Honda CB750

Dimensions Wheelbase	L 85 in (2,200 mm) W 35 in (890 mm) H 44 in (1,100 mm) 1460mm
Seat height	31 in (790 mm)
Weight	218 kg (481 lb) ^[1] (dry) 491 lb (223 kg) (wet)
Fuel capacity	19 L (4.2 imp gal; 5.0 US gal) ^[1]
Fuel consumption Horsepower	34.3 mpg_-US (6.86 L/100 km; 41.2 mpg_-imp) 68hp (10.82cc / hp)

via wikipedia

Here is Honda’s modern ode to the CB750:
The Honda CB1100A
Dimensions: 1490mm wheelbase
Weight: 248kgs 547lbs – wet
Mileage: 41mpg
Horsepower: 82.5 hp (13.8cc /hp)

At 1140cc, the new Honda is 390ccs larger, though follows the same engine layout as the old CB750. They are within 3 cms of each other as far as wheelbase goes – bikes aren’t significantly physically bigger in the way that four wheeled vehicles have put on weight in the past forty years, though cars seem to have done it while finding ways to get way more out of each litre of gas. That new mini is a much bigger vehicle, almost twice the size of the original in terms of mass. Bikes haven’t grown anything like that, yet their mileage is pretty much the same.

Keep in mind we were comparing a twelve hundred cc 1969 Mini with a 1.6l modern Mini, a 25% increase in displacement. The new CB1100 has 33% more displacement on a heavier bike and gets the same mileage as the old carbureted one. Why is the new bike so much heavier? It’s not like a car – it isn’t larger than the old bike, it isn’t carrying airbags and all sorts of other modern safety gear other than ABS. To top it all off a carburetated 1969 CB750 used to use 10.82ccs to make a horsepower, the new one uses 13.8ccs to make a horsepower. A lot of that could be tuning the engine for more torque, but here we are, 45 years later using more displacement to make less power? What the hell is the point of fuel injection?

In 45 years of material development, the new Honda is 56lbs heavier. The 1969 CB750 is within point one of a mile per gallon of the 2014 CB1100. You might say it’s not a fair comparison because they’re not both 750cc bikes. Honda’s only current ~750cc bike is the NC750x, which is a parallel twin rather than a four cylinder. Even with that disparity the NC750x tips the scales at 483lbs, still 2 pounds more than the 1960’s 750 four cylinder. And it’s not like Honda isn’t an engineering powerhouse.

If you say the motorbike vs. car argument isn’t fair, how about motorbikes to bicycles? A Tour de France bike in the 1960s weighed about 22lbs. Modern bikes are limited to 15lbs, though in 2004 Armstrong had a 14.5 lb bike and without the limit a 10lb bike is more than possible. If bicycles have dropped 30% of their mass in the last 45 years, why not motorbikes?

If we look at this from an automotive/bicycle equivalent efficiency angle, the new Honda CB750 should have a 20% more efficient engine and weigh 30% less. The 2014 CB750 happy memories bike should get about 80mpg, weigh 344lbs and produce about 82hp. This bike would have a power to weight ratio of about 4.2lbs per horsepower, approaching what some of the fastest sports bikes in the world have. The sensible choice then would be to make the bike a 650cc CB throwback, which still produces a better power to weight ratio than the CB1100 and weigh even less with the smaller engine.

I asked before and I’ll ask again, why haven’t bikes advanced at the same rate as cars (or bicycles)? Why isn’t the new ode to the CB750 a CB650cc bike that produces more power, uses less gas and rides far better than its prehistoric inspiration? Motorbikes are stripped down, simple machines, in many ways still very similar to the machines made decades ago. With that in mind, why don’t we see the radical evolution in technology evidenced in the Mini and in racing bicycles in the past 45 years in the Honda CB750/CB1100? If we aren’t larding up bikes into SUVs (though some people are), the efficient burning of gasoline should have produced astonishingly high mileage numbers by now. Where is the direct injection? Where are the intelligent drivetrains and engine management systems that have produced cars that weigh twice as much and still burn the same amount of fuel? Where is my frictionless magnetic drivetrain with integrated brakes? Where is my kers?

With an integrated kers system, I could be riding a 400cc bike that when the kers kicks in feels like a 1000cc bike, then recharges while I ride. I could pull onto the highway or overtake on a super light bike that can feel like a one litre rocket when I need it and sip fuel like a 400cc machine when I don’t.

Zero Motorcycles: all electric, but I don’t know that we
have to go to that extreme yet, we’re not exploring
internal combustion that well.

Because motorbikes are small and inherently efficient compared to cars, manufacturers haven’t pushed engineering limits in the way that they have with other vehicles. I’m looking for the future of motorbiking, and it doesn’t feel like manufacturers are testing limits in a way that makes my choices feel any different than they were a decade ago, let alone four.

Snow Honda

Driving in to work I pass by this old CB750 (?) Honda every day. As the snow has piled up and the temperature dropped I’ve watched it get buried.

It looks in pretty well cared for, other than the sitting in the snow in -30° winter.

My first urge is to leave a note on the door asking if they’d be interested in selling it.

While my Ninja is getting cleaned with a toothbrush, this old classic sits in the snow, it makes me sad. I’ve been looking for a project bike. This might be a bit more project that I was first thinking, but there it is.

I’ve been reading a lot of bike history. The big Hondas were one of the first super bikes. There was a time when someone brought this home and it was the bleeding edge of motorcycle engineering, it must have oozed cool.

Of course, these old Hondas make for fantastic cafe racer projects too…

Maybe one of these days I’ll swing by and ask if they’d want to sell it. I’d wait for a day with clear roads, get it going and ride it the few kilometres down the river to my garage, where it would get stripped down next to the Ninja and prepped for spring.

Everyday I go by it reminds me of fantasy art pieces of skeletons lying forgotten. With the morning sun shining on it, I’d like to go with something other than the smartphone and take some serious photos of it – it strikes me as buried sculpture, a story slowly being forgotten, an opportunity being lost.

North American International Motorcycle Show

Hey NAIMS, you coulda had my wife there… a master’s degree,
great job, but you’re not appealing to her demographic…

My son and I went down on Friday morning in -25°C temperatures for our first ever motorcycle show at the International Centre in Mississauga. My wife didn’t come because the advertising on the website (which also had a complete lack of social media) put her off. I suspect you’ll get a better class of customer with more in their pocket if you appeal to educated women interested in the sport. I’m not sure who you cater to with the twinkies, but I suspect they aren’t great customers. You’d also bring in many more younger riders (I think the average age at the show was about 50) if you embraced social media.

Old white guys & twinkies, it’s a weird,
backwards, and kinda creepy
dynamic, time to change it up

Since it was my first time at a show like this I was a bit worried that I was bringing my son to a de-tuned strip club, but I was pleasantly surprised. There were a few other families there and the crowd represented a typical Canadian cross section. With the bike clubs on hand, the variety of bikes on show and the various supporting retailers, this wasn’t a biker bar scene at all – it’s a shame that the advertising doesn’t show this for what it is.

There were little herds of Harley aficionados trying too hard in their leathers and badges, but they were a minority. On our way in from the parking lot an older fellow we were walking in with gave us a discount coupon, and the people in the show were encouraging, accessible and not at all snobby (which is nice when you’re a n00b).

We spent the better part of four hours walking around and missed an entire hall. The amount of material was prolific, from the gear to the bikes themselves. Two brands really stood out for me and the others were generally a disappointment.

You’d normally be hard pressed to get me interested in a
Harley, but they make it easy to like them, and what a
good looking bike!

I’m the furthest thing from a Harley Fan, but Harley Davidson Canada put on a great show. They took a good chunk of floor space, had a lot of room to try out bikes and were more than willing to focus on developing a relationship with their customers rather than leaving it to dealers who are only interested in moving units.

Having dealers take care of your brand loyalty is like have the tigers at the zoo do the job of the zookeepers. If they can drum up any customer relationship building at all they’re only pretending, all they really want to do is feed themselves a sale.

I ended up throwing a leg over a bunch of Harleys and I’m much more curious now than I was before, well done HD.

Shows like NAIMS are an ideal opportunity for manufacturers to develop a relationship with their customers, and I was surprised that so few did. I want to be a Triumph fan, I’m from the UK, I love their bikes from a design point of view, but they were only there through a local dealer who parked the bikes so close together that it was impossible to sit on many of them (which was no doubt the idea). The special ‘deal’ on Triumph t-shirts had them on ‘sale’ for $60… for a t-shirt. Between the inaccessible bikes, the over-priced merch and the dealers rolling their eyes whenever your kid wants to try and sit on a bike, we didn’t spend much time in Triumph land.

After the show I’m reconsidering how and why I might become attached to a specific make, or even whether I should (though motorcycling seems particularly intense in its tribal approach to brand).

Beautiful naked bike, the Z1000… it’s got me
thinking…

Another manufacturer who didn’t take my loyalty for granted was Kawasaki. My first bike was supposed to be a Honda or a Suzuki and it ended up being a Ninja. It’s been a great first bike and the KLR has long been on my mind as an alternate/multi-purpose bike (though the insurance chat later is making that unlikely). Kawasaki has been good to me so far, and the show only made me more of a fan.

Like Harley, Kawasaki showed up instead of only being there through dealers. The reps they had on hand were friendly, helpful and approachable. The bikes were displayed in a way that encouraged you to try them out, and Kawi also brought the bling (which I immediately put up in the garage).

Kawasaki was never on my bike lust list when I was younger (I was all about Interceptors and Gixers), but as an adult buyer they have my attention. Well done Kawasaki!

The rest of the bike show was a whirlwind of gear and meet and greets. Two Wheel Motorsport was there, and I had a quick chat with my motorcycle course instructor (while getting a great deal on a Bell Helmet for my son – I’m all about Bell helmets since seeing Rush).

I had a chat with Riders Plus Insurance. They insured me in my first year of riding and were helpful and efficient. This time round I was curious about how insuring multiple bikes work. They told me that buying a second bike means you’re doubling your insurance payments. This doesn’t make a lot of sense to me as I can only ride one bike at a time. I expected something like you’re insured at the rate of whatever the highest cost bike is plus 10% for the paperwork on the other bike. What I was told was that you get a 10% discount on your second bike and pay another full set of insurance on it… which makes owning multiple bikes not really financially viable, so that dream goes down the toilet.

I was looking for Motorcycle Mojo as we wandered about since I’ve been emailing with the publisher, but couldn’t find them! This show really is huge. But I did find The Widow’s Sons. After a round of secret handshakes I got some contact information. A number of guys in my lodge have bikes but don’t ride with others. I’m wondering if I can start a local chapter, or perhaps join the Grand River Chapter.

My son and I both really enjoyed the show. It let us throw our legs over a lot of bikes and talk with a wide variety of people in the sport. It was a wonderful thing to get excited about riding again even as the temperature outside turned truly arctic. Kawasaki & Harley both get nods as my favourite manufacturers of the show. Their stand up showing has me questioning brand loyalty based on some weird sense of belonging rather than a manufacturer’s interest in genuinely developing a relationship with their customer. As a new rider I’m looking to be wooed. Harley & Kawi both did some quality wooing.

My suggestion? Get yourself out to the North American Motorcycle Show and bring your family along, they’ll have a great time and maybe even get a sense of why you love riding like you do.

I hope the show will reconsider the marketing angle and get away from the twinkie/biker thing on the website and embrace social media next year. If they do, maybe I can convince my wife to come along with us.

Some pictures from the show.

The Wolverine & Corporate Product Placement

Filmed In Japan, Manufactured in Italy

I just saw The Wolverine and enjoyed it. I lived in Japan for a couple of years and have a soft spot for it. The idea of Logan in Japan was cool and I was looking forward to seeing what local vehicular colour they put into it (Japan does a lot of domestic one-offs that you don’t see anywhere else).

Unfortunately I’d forgotten that Marvel is in bed with Volkswagen Group. Imagine my disappointment when everyone in Japan is driving Audis or riding Ducatis (Ducati is owned by VW Group). To top it off most of it was filmed in Australia and made to look like Japan. If you’re looking for a film that shows you Japan, this ain’t it.

So while Logan and his sidekick are on Ducatis (in Japan, sort of), I wonder what the local manufacturers are thinking. Since the whole advertising/placement thing is sorted out by lawyers, I imagine that Honda, Kawasaki, Suzuki and Yamaha had no say in it anyway. Isn’t it a shame that brilliant local engineering like that can be made to not exist in a film? Can you imagine if they did a film in America and everyone was riding Ducatis with not a Harley in sight? It would seem unrealistic. If film makers are more interested in milking advertisers for product placement than they are in making a film seem properly placed, it bodes poorly for the future of film.

I’d read an online discussion about the best summer riding gear and someone suggested looking at what Boorman & McGregor wore on Long Way Down. It was immediately suggested that this wasn’t the best kit but merely the one that sponsored them. Like Ducatis in Japan, media is more about advertising than fact. With that in mind, can you trust anything you see on film about motorbikes or even the kit being used?

Ninjas! On motorbikes!

One scene that was motorbike crazy was Logan taking on a squad (clutch? herd?) of ninjas on motor-cross bikes. I couldn’t see what they were (it was dark, there were ninjas everywhere), but it made for some frantic fight scenes, especially when one of the ninjas did a stoppie and hit Logan in the face with the back wheel.

I enjoyed The Wolverine, it was a good action flick, but it would be nice if they made more of an effort to create a genuine vehicular experience in the film instead of chasing hidden advertising revenue.

Motorbike Books

I just finished Melissa Holbrook-Pierson’s The Perfect Vehicle. She has a wonderful writing voice, you really get to know her and her love of two wheels through reading the book. The anecdotal pieces on trips she’s taken and the history flashbacks are very immersive and informative. At other times she prosetalizes and it wanders a bit, but she always seems to find her way back to that love of bikes again.

The most memorable parts for me are her poetic descriptions of how it feels to ride. She has come closest (by far) in describing the feeling of riding a bike. If you are willing to let her take you on a ride and aren’t freaked out by her intelligence or gender, you’ll find the trip rewarding.

I then moved on to Motorcycling: A Life Long Passion, and after the Ondaatchi-esque prose of Melissa I’m having trouble getting into this strange book.

I previously read Odessey To Ushuaia by the very entertaining Andres Carlstein, who makes a trans-American trip sound both naive and remarkably slutty at the same time; I really enjoyed it.

So here I am reading a less engaging road trip and then alternate chapters on the experience of motorcycling whose prose isn’t up to the task. I’m only a couple of chapters in, but it isn’t grabbing me as the other two books did. I’ll keep at it with the hopes that it ups its game.

On a different angle I also picked up some more tech-orientated books. I got the Ninja Haynes Manual when I got the bike in the spring, but I was looking for more general overviews of bike mechanics when I came across the Basics Techbook and Motorcycle Maintenance on Amazon.

I’ve started the Techbook and after skipping the explanations of two and four stroke motors, I got a good explanation of the variety of motorcycle engines out there. I’m finding the book detailed and well written so far.

After spending so much time finishing the garage, the only gratuitous purchase was the How To Set Up Your Motorcycle Workshop. It’ll be both enjoyable and frustrating to see what a more perfect bike repair area would look like.

If I can’t be riding at least I can work my mind around other aspects of the sport.

Motorbike Magazine Mania

Since I’m in riding withdrawal I’ve been continuing my overdose on motorcycle media.

In one of the many magazines I’ve been picking up I came across the Overland Adventure Rally, which happens to be only about half an hour away from where I live. I won’t be participating on a Ninja, but I’m working on that.

The magazine picks have been many and varied. On the Canadian side I have picked up Inside Motorcycles and Canadian Biker.

IM is very race focused so I’ve been trying to use it to get a grip on what racing is offered/popular in Canada. I stumbled across the last MotoGP race of the year on SPEED and gave it a watch. Utter madness! But more entertaining than any F1 race I watched this season.

I’m still partial to British bike magazines and pick them up when I come across them. Motorcycle Sport & Leisure is written from older perspective but the mag holds up the quality end of British magazines. Few ads, lots of articles on a wide range of subjects, well written too.

BIKE magazine is a big one in the UK and I can see why. The writing is top notch, I was laughing out loud as I read one piece on all the ways an author has fallen off a motorcycle.

I’d pick up Adventure Bike Rider again, but it was hard to find even when I was in the UK this summer.

These hard to find British magazines may drive me to reading on a tablet just so I can get at them.

Cycle Canada is the only bike magazine I’ve gotten a subscription to so far, no regrets there.

Bike Hole

No room for a car, but a bike…

A long Canadian winter approaches. Rather than look longingly out into an unusable, uninsulated garage full of junk I’m getting my home reno on and finishing it.

It’s supposed to be a single car garage, but with the vent system intrusions and everything else in there I couldn’t even fit a Mazda2 into it. It’s turned into more of a shed than a garage.

Since getting the Ninja I’ve been working on it in the garage. It was fine over the summer, but with frost on the ground the floor is nasty cold and the wind seems to push the cold through the unfinished walls.

Unfinished, cold and messy…

Step one was to figure out how to finish it. Rather than dry walling it like the house side of it is, I’m going with wood panels so I can mount shelves where I want them rather than only where studs are available.

It cost under $300 for the paneling, insulation, paint and hardware to do it, not bad for what will be a warm garage at the end. I’m also going to look at some rubber garage flooring for parts of it, so that will push it over $300, but still a bargain considering I’ll get a huge work space out of it.

Saturday afternoon, halfway there…

This past weekend with lows in the -4c at night, I started on it, stripping the shelving off the walls and removing the home made bench at the back. With all of the stuff under a tarp on the driveway (in the rain), I insulated and hung the board.

By the end of Sunday I had the three unfinished walls insulated and the board up. The only slow down was not looking up as I moved down the wall putting up the board. As I went up the ladder I drilled my head into the garage door hardware hanging from the ceilling. Head wounds bleed a lot, especially when you get a jagged cut from a rough metal hanger.

I took Monday off (head hurting), and went back at it again Tuesday after work, putting on an unfinished can of primer. I’ll finish the priming this week and paint it next weekend. Last night when I was doing the priming a single, small space heater made it comfortable in there, it was below zero outside.

The end result will be warm and finished with better lighting and twice the workbench area, more shelving and better organization, so the gardening equipment doesn’t take over again. I’m still thinking about what to put on the walls…

Sidecar for my Side Kick

Side cars are cool!

I’ve been thinking about getting a second bike, one that lets me do some distance with my son (and wife if I can convince her). I’d initially wanted to get a Royal Enfield with a side car so we could Harry Potter it up.

Like a fish in water.

All together that’s about a $12,000 new piece of kit. I love the classic looks but with a 500cc engine, the RE wouldn’t be brisk, though it would be frugal.

Something that might fit better happens to be for sale in Guelph just south of us with an asking price of $5000. I didn’t know anything about XS1100s, though the sidecar was done by Old Vintage Cranks so it’ll be done properly.

Looking into the XS Eleven, I found some interesting history. A monster bike in its day, it was known as a fast, heavy machine that you needed a sledge hammer to roll over in corners. Since it’s with sidecar I’m not so worried about laying it down. It would certainly have the pickup needed to move a sidecar rig and would have enough grunt to manage all three of us. At less than half the price of the Royal Enfield (though with less of the classic look I like and over 70k on it), it has some appeal.

As a second bike I’m hoping for something very different from the Ninja which I’d still like to hang on to because I’m not finished learning from it yet. A big, classic Yamaha with side car is about as far from an ’07 650r Ninja as you’re going to get.

http://guelph.kijiji.ca/c-cars-vehicles-motorcycles-touring-xs1100-yamaha-special-with-sidecar-W0QQAdIdZ529601037

…bike is vintage & in great shape needs nothing for cert, sidecar is new cost $5500 to purchase & have installed by OVC the sidecar pros! comes with gel pak in newly recovered seat,, am/ fm/ USB for ipod or iphone cd sounds fine on the highway.

The Perfect Fall Ride

Originally posted on Tim’s Motorcycle Diaries back in the Ninja days of September, 2013

Other riders I know are talking about putting their bikes away already, I just can’t bring myself to do it. Riding in the cool autumn air as the leaves turn around you? How on earth can you put a bike away with that going on outside?

Today I was off work for a periodontist torture session, so when the day broke sunny and cool I jumped out for a ride before the terror was to begin. Rather than ride the barren agricultural desert of Centre Wellington again I made a point of aiming for some of my favorite geography.

The route! Elora, up the Grand River to Shelburne, a short jog up to Horning’s Mills and then down one of my favorite roads to Mansfield, south on Airport Road to the Forks of the Credit, through Erin and over to Guelph

The road north east out of Fergus through Belfountain is nicely winding as it follows the Grand River. The twists continued through Grand Valley where the road drops right down next to the river. North to Shelbourne takes you through a science fiction landscape of massive windmills. The blast down 89 into Shelbourne had me looking at the fuel light so I pulled in for gas and then stopped for a coffee.

I’m bad at looking after myself when I get going, I tend to push on rather than take the time to stay warm and charged up. After a quick coffee I saddled up again and pushed on up 124 to Horning’s Mills. Located in a river valley north of Shelbourne, Horning’s Mills has the feel of a place that time forgot.

Nothing says Shelburne like an old
Buick LeSabre!

I have a theory that when the geography rises up around you and blocks you off, all the the psychic static from those anxious, frustrated people in the GTA is deflected away; River Road out of Horning’s Mills feels wonderfully isolated and far from the world.

We’re probably still a week or two away from the fall colours, but the ride was gorgeous. It was getting on toward noon and the sun had finally warmed everything up. In keeping with my look after yourself on a ride theme I brought a fleece sweater that I put on coming out of Fergus and three pairs of gloves, to try and find the perfect set for the cold air. I ended up switching to the winter leather gloves after the warm up coffee and was glad for them.

With the first colours in the trees, crisp, cool air and a road that was very un-Ontario like in its bendiness, the warm and eager Ninja thrummed down the road with an urgency that washed away every care.

River Road between Horning’s Mills and Mansfield

The ride south on Airport Road, usually a quick road with big elevation changes, was horrible. There was some kind of grey hair convention going on, and combined with the construction, the ride was a disaster. Rather than trying to pass every pensioner in a beige Camry in Ontario, I ducked right through Mono Cliffs and over to Highway 10. While not as geographically exciting, Highway 10 did offer two lanes, and even though trucks were determined to drive side by each in them, I was able to flit through Orangeville and south to the last bit of interesting road on my trek.

The Forks of the Credit is a short bit of winding road that follows the young Credit River as it flows out of the Niagara Escarpment. Once again construction ground things to a halt, but the crazy 180° hairpin and constantly twisting pavement reminded me of how a road can talk to you, especially through two wheels.

Forks of the Credit

By this point I was getting pressed for time to get back to Guelph for my torture session so I opened up the Ninja and hit Highway 24 through Erin and south to Highway 7 past Rockwood before ducking in to Guelph just south of the University for a quick lunch and then the blood letting.

The ride did a couple of things for me. Taking longer trips I’m finding the Ninja remarkably easy to sit on for extended periods. The seat is comfortable, the handlebars fall to hand and the bike is a joy to ride, it really wants to go. What’s getting me are the pegs. Being as swept back and high as they are, my knees don’t enjoy being folded up like that for long periods. I find myself standing up on the pegs and resting my legs on the front frame sliders just to try and work out the kinks. That 14° lean angle I could live with, but the 74° bend in the knees just isn’t working for me. Being long in the torso I also get a chest full of wind even with a larger, aftermarket windshield on the Ninja.

Having said that I covered about 230kms in between four and five hours with a few stops here and there, so it’s not a show stopper. There are other bikes that would fit me better, but I’d miss the Ninja’s friskiness and eagerness to connect and become a single entity. I’m afraid that something that would fit me better would be heavy and dull by comparison.

If you’re thinking about putting your bike away, wait until the end is nigh and the snow is about to fly. You never know when that perfect autumn day is going to suddenly appear in front of you and give you a ride that you can keep in the back of your head all winter long. Yesterday’s ride, complete with sore knees, wind burn and cold hands was a revelation.