Category: Tim’s Motorcycle Diaries

Barely above freezing, but the sky is clear and winter blue.  The camera is a Ricoh Theta S on a Gorilla Pod wrapped around the rear view mirror, until it wasn’t.  Without a hint of a problem it suddenly let go at 80km/hr as we rode down a country road.  The tripod and camera slid down the pavement for 50 odd metres before coming to a stop.  We turned around and went back to find the camera case popped open and electronics hanging out, I figured it was dead.  (check out the bottom of this post for an update – it looks like the Theta didn’t survive after all).

Once home I put the guts back in and snapped it shut again and it powered right up.  All the photos on it were fine, only the plastic piece at the top shattered.  It’s now covered in tape and looks like the tough little camera that it is.  If you’re looking for a hardy 360 camera, the Ricoh Theta has survived thousands of miles on a motorcycle taking all sorts of photos and videos, and now it has hit the road at high speed, and it still keeps on ticking (kind of – see below).

I’d kinda hoped that this nixed the Theta S so I could upgrade to the new Theta V.  That might be what ends up happening now.


I had the camera set to take a photo ever 10 seconds.  I hoped that it happened to be taking one as it came off the mirror, but no luck.  In the meantime, here are a selection of stills and 360 movable images from the Ricoh on the ride:

Dress warm for a cold ride. – Spherical Image – RICOH THETA

Cold, easly spring #Triumph ride #theta360 – Spherical Image – RICOH THETA

Westmount Rose Covered Bridge https://goo.gl/maps/sCEvFbtqgrC2 – Spherical Image – RICOH THETA

FOLLOW UP:

I tried the Theta on the way into work today.  It has gone cross eyed!

It looks like the old film double exposure shots I used to take in college.  The speaker doesn’t make the byooup noise it used to when you press the shutter and it doesn’t fire on every touch.  When it does take a photo it’s a psychedelic experience…

On the downside, the tough little Theta didn’t manage a super-heroic save on the 80km/hr slide down the pavement.  On the upside it still fires up and the memory works fine, it’s just cock-eyed.  The other upside is a Theta V is on my short list for a replacement.  In spite of this understandable failure, the Theta is still by and far my favourite 360 camera for on-bike shots.  It’s small but easy in the hand, aerodynamic and has hardware buttons on it.  Many others only have software control through a smartphone which is fiddly and awkward.

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I stole one from February last year.  This year the weather aligned again and I was able to get a ride in between snow storms.


It was a cold commute in before 8am, about freezing, but clear and sunny.  I took it on the chin knowing that it’d be worth it on the way home.


Coming out of work past 4pm it was about 10°C and windy, but I can go all day in ten degrees.  I took the long way home, 27 kilometres of leafless trees, rivers with cubist banks of ice shoved into  the new mud by our recent floods, and a sky so winter blue that it wriggles before your eyes; all while leaning into fifty kilometre hour gusts of wind.  It was glorious!


I can still operate the bike without a thought, but I missed all sorts of apexes.  I’m rusty with neglect.

Note the snow pile in the middle of the road….

The smug I-stole-one-from-winter face

Icy verge

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It’s a long way back to the East after finding the Ténéré

After hitting Yellowstone it’s a long arc back to the east.  That isn’t what the Ténéré is about, but if I did it focusing on back roads and trails, it’d be an interesting way to find my way home.


It’s over 700 miles east before I get to Deluth on the west end of Lake Superior.  From there it’s still a long way home.  In previous dream rides Deluth has been the apogee of around the Great Lakes rides.  This time it would be the half way point on a long ride east.

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The legendary Austin Vince put out the video below about this year’s orienteering trail rides in the Pyrenees in northern Spain:

If there was ever an excuse to load up a shipping container with old enduro bikes and send it to Europe, this is it.  The Twinshock Trailfinder is a two day event that focuses on older bikes (with twin rear shocks).  I’d dig up four old XT500s, clean them up and have them ready to go, in team colours.

Some soft luggage would make them as touring ready as they are going to get while keeping everything as light as possible.  The Trailfinder event starts on June 6th in Tremp, Catalunya, Spain and runs until June 8th.  An option is to container the bikes over to Antwerp, Belgium.  It’s a two thousand kilometre ride if you go the pretty way around through the Alps down to Spain.  Two thousand kilometers on thirty-five year old enduro bikes is pretty hard core, but that would kind of be the point.

If the container got into Antwerp mid-May, we could get them sorted out and on the road by May 21st.  We could then wind down through Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, Switzerland and France before reaching Spain.  At 300kms a day that’s a seven day trip.  With a couple of days off in there to explore, we could roll into Barcelona at the beginning of June and get the bikes sorted at the Yamaha Motor Centre before heading up to Tremp the next week.

Rather than get all GPSy with the ride down, we could do it all with survey maps like the ones used in the Twinshock Trailride.  By the time we found our way to Spain we’d be very familiar with how European survey maps work and would be able to find our way around without looking like lost North Americans.

After three days of trail riding with THE VINCE in the mountains, we could then spend an extra week getting better at it now that we’ve had a pro show us the ropes, maybe with some Jo Sinnott style wild camping in there.

When we’re all done we could find some storage for the bikes and park them up, waiting for the next time someone needs to go trail riding in Spain.

Digging up old, twin shock enduro bikes is tricky, especially in the icy wastes of Canada where old machinery quietly rusts away under the snow and salt.  Ten years in Canada is like thirty anywhere else.  Looking country wide, the only XT500 I could find was in Victoria BC, over four thousand kilometres away.

Expanding the search into The States means I might be able to find non-rust belt bikes that have had easier lives.  Unrestored but road worthy bikes look to be about two grand.  Restored bikes go for over three thousand.  There is one in North Carolina, and one in Mesa, Arizona.  With some some searching and a US broker I think I could collect together four road worthy or thereabouts XT500s for under ten grand, and then spend some more prepping them.

If I started now I could probably have the bikes at hand by the end of February and then spend March sorting them out.  April could be spent breaking them in and shaking them down for any last minute issues.  They’d be shipped the end of April to show up in Antwerp when we needed them.

I’d be dangerous if I had money and time on my hands…

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 Ice forming on the Theta meant very blurry images – Photoshop made them a bit more abstract but less blurry.

Oct 8-12

Oct 16-19 – a thick frost had me stopping and using the phone instead of the Theta…

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Crossing Canada (and we’re not even going coast to coast) isn’t a little trip.

Next summer we’re aiming for the family cross country trip.  If you live anywhere except one of the largest countries in the world that might not require too much forethought, but it takes over 2000kms and 3 days just to get out of the province we live in, then there are another four provinces to cross before getting to the family reunion in British Columbia.  The thought of doing this on a bike is both invigorating and a bit overwhelming, and besides, I’d like to spend some time in the car with everyone soaking up the views together.


What to do?


Is it possible to get a vehicle that would get us across Canada reasonably comfortably but would also allow me to drop two wheels down when the roads demand it?


I’ve had the van itch before, but is there a vehicle that could carry the three of us and a bike well?

Guy Martin’s Transit Van fascination has long been an influence.  It turns out you can buy a special Guy Martin Proper edition these days in the UK.


Choices for North America aren’t that special, but you can still put together a custom enough van that might be the Swiss-Army knife of a vehicle that I’m looking for.  What’s interesting is that on the UK site they talk about using a Transit as your 24/7 vehicle like that could be a thing, but North Americans would find Transits impossible to live with (because North Americans are just too precious?)


The long wheelbase, medium roof Transit will handle four seats with room enough to comfortably swallow a Triumph Speed Triple as well.  With a finished interior it’d be a comfortable way of making the epic cross country trip and could handle all the luggage we could throw at it.


In cross country mode it’d have the four seats in and plenty of room to stretch out and cover big miles.  I’d be tempted to swipe some of the “Proper” Transit and sporty it up a bit, but the main idea would be to have a modern, efficient van that is able to do many things.


With the bike out we’d be able to stretch sleeping bags out in the back, and there are some other interesting options I think I’d explore.  The Aluminess Roof Rack turns the whole roof into a patio, which would be handy on trips for photography, as a base for drone filming operations or as a vantage point when the van is taken to events.  It has a cool LED spot light bar on the front too.

There are a number of interior finishing options available.  I’d take the van to a finished interior, but I don’t know about a private jet on wheels, I’d want it to keep some of its utilitarian appeal.  Being able to rotate the front seats would have obvious benefits though.  A number of companies finish these vans, from use based needs to full on camper conversions.


The medium roof, long wheelbase version of the Transit will take in about 163 inches long in the cargo area – a Triumph Speed Triple is about half that, so it’d fit behind a second row of seats.  Maximum load width is almost 70 inches, the Speed Triple is less than half that wide at the handle bars and much less elsewhere, so it’d fit comfortably on one side of the rear cargo area.  Maximum load height is 72 inches, the Speed Triple is less than 50 inches tall.  Even a big bike like my Tiger (54 inches tall, 34 inches wide, 89 inches long) would still comfortably fit in the Transit.  Since a Transit will take close to 4000lbs in payload, the thing could easily handle a pair of big bikes without breaking a sweat.  One bike, 3 people and a pile of luggage wouldn’t make it break a sweat.

The ten thousand kilometre odyssey across Canada would be a lot more fun with such a comfortable, spacious and capable vehicle… and being about to ride the Rockies and the West Coast west and then back east again would be spectacular.

Almost four thousand kilometres of Rocky Mountains and West Coast?  Magical!  Having a vehicle that can deliver it together AND on two wheels?  Bazinga!

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The ride to work –
fifteen minutes of
morning mist, 
warming sun, 
cool air,
filling my lungs
before the day begins.

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 Work has been picking up and I’m having trouble finding time for a ride.  After watching Dovi win Silverstone on PVR I jumped on the Tiger and went for a short ride down and up the Grand River.  I’d like to be able to go on longer rides, for days and weeks and months, but can’t seem to find the time and space to do it.  In the meantime winter is coming so I want to get as much saddle time into my head as I can to last the long, cold dark.


The sky was bruised ahead with a passing thunderstorm.  My favourite moment was riding past a murmuration of starlings as they came to ground like a massive jelly fish after another day on their long migration south.

Back in Elora, I made my way through town and back home.  It was only a half an hour ride, but it’s another one to put in the memory bank for those frozen January days when the possibility of riding seems as remote as walking on the moon.

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Iceland is at the intersection of the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates, so in essence it’s part of North America and Europe. Unfortunately, only Europe is making an effort to connect to the place.

You can take a ferry from Denmark to Iceland with your own bike and tour this spectacular island for just over 1000 Euro (personal cabin – half that if you share) in the summer and for less than 400 Euro in the off season. If an enterprising ferry operator would start sailing from St John’s Newfoundland to Reykjavik, not only would we North American types be able to explore this beautiful and relatively empty piece of the world, but we’d also have a land line to Europe since we could explore Iceland and then ferry to Denmark if means and time permitted.

It’s in between them!

Costs to get to the European leg of your ride.  With a St John’s to Iceland ferry you’d be able to surface travel without special cargo headaches from Los Angeles to Tokyo across Eurasia.

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I’ve only got about a week left before we’re off on airplanes, so I’m trying to find reasons to exercise the Tiger before five weeks of motorcycling abstinence.  After a couple of days of crowded rooms and even more crowded Canada Day festivals I needed some quality alone time.  Nothing does that like a motorcycle ride does.


It wasn’t an inspired ride, and it took me to my usual haunts, but it was a lucky ride.  With thunderstorms passing through the area, they were where ever I wasn’t, which was good because I was travelling light.


The idea was to get to Higher Ground at the Forks of the Credit before it got long-weekend crazy.  I managed to get a coffee, look at some Italian exotica and then get out of there before it got really full.  


With the ice cream shop owner moving bikes that were parking out of the way anyway and signs all down the rest of the building stating no motorcycle parking, I’m starting to wonder if Belfountain is getting fed up with its place as a summer time ride stop.  It’s a boon to the local economy, but some people seem intent on stopping it rather than embracing it.  Every rider I saw there was considerate and cautious in entering the parking lot without revving loud pipes or blocking others, but I guess the locals have had enough.  I’m not sure how much longer Higher Ground can be the sole reason to stop there if everyone else in the town is telling us to go elsewhere.

I had Lee Park’s Total Control on my mind as I navigated The Forks, and damned if I wasn’t more stable and smooth through the hairpin corner by looking over my shoulder into the corner.  You’d think looking away from your direction of travel would be counter intuitive, and I don’t get much opportunity to practice it on arrow straight SW Ontario roads, but with some practice it’s definitely the way to go.

After a ride up and down The Forks I aimed north past the Caledon Ski Club and toward Hockley Valley.  It was a lovely, relatively empty ride up to the Terra Nova Public House.

The TNPH had a summer salad with fresh rainbow trout on it that was pretty much perfect, and it let me duck inside and watch the tarmac dry off from the downpour that had passed through ten minutes before I got there.


After a quick lunch I did the TNPH loop before heading down River Road to Horning’s Mills.  Mr Lee’s Total Control habits were still playing though my head and I was focused on late apex entries and clean lines while looking through the corners.  It’s funny how you feel like you’re going slower when you’re going faster on a motorbike.

River Road was generally empty and I got a clean run all the way to Horning’s Mills.  It was time to head home, so I cut south west through the wind fields of Shelburne before stopping in Grand Valley for a coffee.  A GS650 rider and his wife were sitting in the cafe and we got into a good bike chat.  As a fellow rider intent on making miles rather than a scene, we had a meeting of minds on what a motorbike should be for, it was a good talk.


The final ride home was, again, relatively empty and I pulled into the driveway mid-afternoon.  I’m still hoping to get down to the full eclipse over the Tail of the Dragon when I get back from and Iceland/UK foray.  Perhaps a motorcycling opportunity will appear while away, but if not, I’ll get in some miles this week to make sure my riding battery is topped up.

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