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Sail Away: First Long Ride on The Kawasaki Concours 14

First long ride with Big Blue/Nami-Chan (not sure what its name is yet) today up to Georgian Bay to listen to the water.  For a kid who grew up by the sea, living in landlocked Southern Ontario wears on me, so sitting by the shore listening to the water lapping on the rocks calms my permanent sense of dislocation.

Thornbury Harbour, Geogian Bay, Ontario – Spherical Image – RICOH THETA


What’s the Concours 14 like to ride over distance?  It’s a very comfortable long distance machine. Compared to the Tiger it’s smoother, significantly less vibey and quieter.  This isn’t necessarily a good think because riding a motorbike isn’t always about comfort – sometimes you want it to beat the shit out of you.  What is good is that the 1400GTR is a significantly different bike to ride than the old Triumph Tiger, so both fill a different need in the bike stable.

The Tiger (when it works perfectly which isn’t often recently) is a capable off roader on trails and fire roads and lets the wind pass through you since it’s practically naked, which is both exhausting and exhilarating.  After the long ride today the abilities of the Kawasaki are much more clear.  The only nagging issue is that my backside has gotten used to Corbin seat engineering and the Kawasaki stock saddle just isn’t up to the job, but otherwise the bike is a revelation.  Effortlessly quick, smooth and surprisingly agile in the corners, though you can still feel the weight carries but it carries it low.

Windshield down, lots of airflow, a great view
and the bike feels more likes sports-bike.

For the first time I adjusted the X-screen modular MCA Windshield to its maximum length and it did an astonishing job of protecting me at highway speeds.  So much so that I barely closed the Roof helmet on the ride.  The pocket of air it creates is stable and the wind noise so much less that it’s just another aspect of this bike that’ll let you do long miles without exhausting yourself.

Ergonomically, the windscreen also does something smart for airflow.  If it gets hot you can lower it to the point where it almost vanishes.  This pushes a lot of air through your upper body and supports your chest from leaning on your wrists.  I hadn’t put much stock in an adjustable windshield but it not only changes the look of the bike, it also changes its functionality too.  On long rides changes in airflow keep you comfortable and focused.

Windshield up while you’re making tracks
on less demanding roads and you’re in a
quiet bubble of air that lets you go for miles.

The bike itself seems to manage heat well which the old ZG1000 previous generation Concours 10 I had did not (it used to get stupid hot!).  If stuck in traffic, even over 30°C pavement, the temperature gauge never went above half way and the fans haven’t needed to come on yet.  The lack of wind-flow over my legs on hot summer rides may yet be an issue though, the fairings are too good.

The other complexity piece of the C14 that I wasn’t sure I was interested in was the digital dash but that too is proving valuable.  I’m no longer guessing what gear I’m in based on revs and road speed so I’m no longer trying to shift into a non-existent 7th gear, which happens often on the Tiger.  Though the 1400GTR revs so low while in 6th/overdrive (3200rpm @ 110kms/hr) that you wouldn’t be looking for another gear anyway.
Mileage has been a concern on this smaller-tank/worse mileage than the Tiger bike.  The Kawasaki’s 22 litre tank is 2 litres smaller than the Tiger’s which also gets 10+ more miles to the gallon.  I’m going to fill up a spare 2 litre gas canister and run the Kawasaki for maximum range a few times to see what this C14 can actually do.  When I fill it up it cheerfully states it’ll do 360km to a 22 litre tank which works out to 38.5mpg or 6.1 litres per 100 kms.  The display shows when you’re maximizing mileage so a long ride without wringing its neck to see what mileage it can achieve is in order.  If I can get 400kms out of a tank that’ll put me up into the mid-40s miles per gallon, which would be a good return on such a heavy, powerful machine.  The range indicator jumps around to the point of being meaningless and then cuts out when the bike gets low and you need it most – not the best user interface there, Kawasaki, but I’ve heard there may be a wiring hack to stop that from happening.

So, after a 290ish km run up to Georgian Bay and back I’m very happy with the bike’s power, which is otherworldly, it’s comfort is good but I’m looking at seat improvements.  I’ve heard other larger riders put peg extenders on so there is a bit less flex in the legs, which might eventually happen.  Many people also put bar risers on them so the bars come towards you a bit more, but I’m finding that I’m able to move myself on the seat to get a more vertical or more sporty riding position depending on what I’m doing, so bar risers aren’t on the radar.
I did pick up a spare fuel bottle that fits nicely in the panniers (which take a bit of getting used to for all the keying in and out but are huge and don’t affect the bike at speed at all).  Next time I’m on a long ride I’ll top the spare bottle up when I top up the bike and then see how far I can push the range.

It was an uneventful ride except for one incident.  Leaving Thornbury harbour the 360 camera fell out of my pocket onto the road.  I pulled over quickly and safely and then ran back to scoop it up off the road.  There was traffic back at the lights in town just starting to move and 3 cyclists riding on the side of the road coming towards me but still some way away.  I ran out to the camera, scooped it up and ran back to the curb and almost took out one of the cyclists who had elected to accelerate towards me rather than giving me space to get off the road.
She yelled, “bike!” and I made a dexterity check that had me dodging around her rather than taking her off the bike.  They kept going but I was left standing there wondering what the thinking was.  You see a guy duck out into the road to pick something up so surely you would ease up a bit and let him do what he needs to do to get out of the way – but not in this case.  From what I’ve seen of cyclist’s approach to sharing the road, I imagine that I’m entirely at fault for that.  It left me shaking my head at their thought processes.

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Triumph Tiger 955i Rear Brakes

I came home last weekend to a lot of noise from the rear brakes.  A closer look showed virtually no pad material left, so it was time for new pads.  I thought I had some at the ready, but it turns out they were for the Concours.  A quick online shopping trip to Fortnine got me sorted out.  Surprisingly, the rear pads are the same as the front pads – I think the Tiger is the only bike I’ve owned with the same pads front and back.


Everything went smoothly until I got to the caliper pin – it’s the bar the brake pad hangs on as it it presses into the disk.  The end of the pin was (rather bafflingly) a slot screw, which isn’t a very nice choice for something like a caliper pin which will get hot and cold over and over again for years between service.  Slot screws aren’t famous for great purchase and tend to strip easily, like this one was.


It was only after looking at the parts blowup that I realized the slot screw I was trying to remove was actually only a cover and the hex-head pin underneath was actually hidden away.  Once I realized I was only removing a cover, I applied some heat with a propane torch and got the thing loose.  I wouldn’t have tried that had it been the pin itself – too much thread resistance.


With the cover removed, the pin, with its easily grippable hex-head came out easily.  Once disassembled I soaked the retaining clips and calipre pin, both of which had years of dirt and rust on them.  The next morning I greased everything up and reassembled the caliper with shiny retaining clips and pin, along with the new brake pads.  I had to force the caliper piston back to make space for the new pads, but this was relatively straightforward with the rear brake fluid container cap removed.  The fluid back filled into the container as the piston pushed back with little resistance.


With the new pads on, I put the two body panels I’d removed for access back together and tightened it all up.  The caliper was still moving freely – not bad after seventy thousand kilometres on it.  Judging by the rough edges of the caliper pin cover, I wasn’t the first one in there.  Before I put it back I used a hack saw to deepen the groove.  Hopefully that’ll make it easier for getting into it next time, that and some judicious lubrication.


I took it for a few loops around the circle in front of our house and bedded in the pads.  After a minute or two they were biting so hard I could easily lock up the back wheel, so them’s working brakes.


A ride up and down the river to double check everything showed it all to be tight and dry and working perfectly.  No drag with the brakes off and quick response when I applied them.


That’s how to do your rear brakes on a Triumph Tiger 955i.  I’ve got the front pads on standby.  Hopefully what’s on there will last until the end of the season then I’ll do the fronts over the winter.  Should be a pretty similar job as the pads and calipers are identical.

The Tiger stops faster than that guy…


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What’s a Kawasaki GTR1400/Concours14 like to ride? NUCLEAR SHINKANSEN!

I picked up this Concours14 (or 1400GTR or ZG1400 depending on what market you’re in) back in April for $5500CAD.  It had been sitting for some time and was full of spider nests.  I got the safety sorted yesterday and got the bike licensed and on the road today so we’re ready to finally make some tracks with this thing.

What’s it like to ride?  I’ve owned more Kawasakis than any other kind of bike and their engines have always been what makes them special, and this bike is no different.  The 1352cc inline four at the heart of the Connie was identical to the ZR1400 hyperbike’s motor back in the day, and it shows.

On my first ride I pulled out to pass a truck and it was behind me almost too quickly to process.  I’m coming off owning a late 90s Fireblade so it’s not like I’m inexperienced with quick bikes, but the 1400GTR not only has the horsepower but also has the torque to back it up.  Where the ‘Blade was staggeringly quick (and light), you had to wind it up to make it go.  It felt like a light but not overpowered machine at sub 6000rpm engine speeds.  At 6k it became seriously quick and if you were brave enough to chase the 13,000rpm redline the bike turned into a total head case.

You don’t need to wring the Kawasaki’s neck to make astonishingly rapid progress.  It weighs over 100 kilos more than the Fireblade but makes over 30 more horsepowers and pound-feets of torque; it doesn’t feel heavy, which is an amazing accomplishment for a bike that can carry over 500lbs, has shaft drive and feels like it’s ready for five hundred mile days.

It’s not telepathic in corners like the ‘Blade was, but that bike’s focus was so singular that it made everything else difficult.  The 1400GTR does a good job of cutting up corners, hiding its 300 kilo weight well, but then it can also ride all day, still hit 40mpg and carry two up with luggage.

Ontario makes you buy a vehicle history when you buy a new bike but I don’t mind because it offers you insight into the machine’s history.  This bike is a 2010 model but it wasn’t first licensed for the road until 2014 (!) meaning it’s only been rolling for seven years rather than eleven.  The first owner had it two years and then sold it on to the guy I got it from.  He rode it for a couple of years and then parked it after it tipped over on him in a parking lot (hence all the spider nests).

The prolonged park is what shrank the seal in the clutch that I’ve since replaced.  The drop also stopped the windshield from moving but both things have been solved now and this Concours, with only 32k on the odometer, is finally ready to do what these bikes do best:  make big miles.  One of the guys at our local dealership is a Concours fan and got his over 400,000kms, so these things have staying power as well as horsepower.

I’m looking forward to getting to know this nuclear shinkansen (Kawasaki Heavy Industries makes bullet trains too!) better this summer.

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For Whom The Bell Tolls

Once you’ve discovered riding a motorcycle, especially if you do it later in life as I have, you quickly come to realize that this isn’t something you’ll be able to do forever.  Motorcycling is physically and mentally demanding and you’d be crazy to do it without your faculties intact.  The thought of not being able to ride after discovering how freeing it is isn’t a comfortable one.  If you get so decrepit that you can’t do the things you love, what’s the point of being here?  Melissa Holbrook Pierson does a wonderful job of conveying that feeling in The Man Who Would Stop at Nothing.  If you’re looking for a pensive, profound motorcycle themed read, that one will do it for you.

***

The other day my buddy Jeff was finally able to make a deal for an old BMW R100RT that has been sitting in a shed in the woods for over a decade.  My son Max and I burned out of school on Friday afternoon and followed Jeff and his lovely wife up to their cottage on the shores of Lake Huron.

A neighbour five minutes down the road had purchased this BMW back in 1999 and had ridden it until 2005.  On a cool September day eleven years ago he rode back to Kincardine from a conference in Peterborough and parked the bike, it hasn’t run since.  Jeff discovered the bike a year ago while over there at a garage sale, but the old fellow didn’t want to part with it.  There was hope that he’d eventually get it out, clean it up and feel the wind in his beard again.  Jeff gently persisted, letting him know that if he ever did decide to sell it he had a buyer.

While over there getting the bike out of a shed hundreds of yards back in thick trees the owner told me, “I came to the realization that I’m not riding any bike, let alone this bike.  When that happened I finally decided to let it go.”  He’s still physically active even though that activity has landed him with metal pins where his bones used to be.  Struggling against old age is a pointless exercise, but I was right there with him – I’ll be him in thirty years if I’m here at all.  The real tragedy is that he’s as sharp as a whip; the mind is willing but the flesh is weak.

We were both enjoying the stories he was telling of how he went down to North Carolina to pick up the bike, and what it was like to bring it back across the border in the pre-internet age.  This guy had always wanted a BMW but when he was younger he couldn’t afford it; this was his dream machine but it has been sitting in a shed as the seasons spin by outside, alone but for the sound of creeping rust.  It turns out this Bimmer was Jeff’s dream machine as a young man as well, but you can’t buy a $3500 bike when you’re making six bucks an hour.  You can when you’re older and it’s under a decade of grime though.

We were both so excited going over there to get this bike out of the woods, but Jeff had said the owner was having a hard time doing it and our excitement quickly turned to ambivalence and then reflection as we heard the story of how it ended up parked under the trees.  While we struggled with conflicting feelings we were at least confident in the fact that we could bring this old machine back to the world.  Machines can sometimes offer this kind of immortality.

If you never take any risks and lead a sedentary life of caution, being old is just another day like any of the others in your tedious, careful life.  It makes me wonder what you hold up as your accomplishments if fear drives most of your decisions; I bet it’s nothing good.  However, if you get out there and take risks and live, perhaps the memories of that life well lived, the chances you’ve taken and the adventures you’ve had, will make easing into old age less onerous, and perhaps even rewarding.  To me motorcycles are a symbol of that belief in embracing risk.  I hope anyone who has ever looked at me with a disapproving frown when it comes to riding is very comfortable in their old age; I imagine it looks like any other day in their beige lives.

Knowing me I’m going to be very bad at old age if I get there at all, but I’m trying to take care of that now, on two wheels.

 

 If you’re looking at another clear eyed examination of death and our society’s inability to deal with it, check out:  https://temkblog.blogspot.com/2020/06/a-psychologicalmetaphysical-one-two.html

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Media Arts Lab 2.0

Redesigning media arts to create, not consume

http://prezi.com/9ow8h2urx1va/dream-media-arts-lab/

The Macs in our media arts lab are getting old and plastic.  They can’t push the high-def video coming out of our latest cameras, so it’s time for a hardware upgrade, but it’s not just about the hardware.

One of the biggest problems we face in our static, desktop centred lab with ordered rows of imacs are the bad habits students fall back into.  Because our lab is like every other lab in the school (factory like rows of desktops in Pink Floyd The Wallesque rows of conformity),  students do what they usually do in a computer lab; they zone out and become passive media consumers.  Passive TV viewing has evolved into passive computer use.

In a media arts class where they are supposed to be in a creative, active mind-space, this is an ongoing class management headache.  Battling the Facebook zombies and youtube droolers becomes an ongoing headache in the typical computer lab, especially with the weakest students who tend to be the most non-experimental and habitual in their technology use.

I’ve looked at this from a typical school IT/lab point of view, advocating for a mini-lab concept that emphasizes diversified, mobile technology, but this is the media-arts angle.

Many of the ideas are similar, but the idea of mobile, adaptable media tools also spurred the realization that students in front of an online desktop act much the way that students in front of a television do; they become passive, unquestioning media consumers.  In a media arts lab this is an ongoing crisis.

There is the culture of entertainment that most digital natives subscribe to.  Computers with internet access are toys to be used for entertainment.  Their habitual use of computers at home and throughout their school careers have only enforced these bad habits.  Unfortunately, those habits extend to most educators too.  From PD days where the presenter assumes that if you’re on a computer you’re not paying attention, to teachers booking labs to have a period off, computers aren’t considered anything other than an entertaining distraction by just about everyone.

We then get them into media arts where they are creating large amounts of digital media, and most of them are trapped in their bad habits and social expectations of technology.  The fact that school related computer lab time is often unsupervised only adds to the problem.

Trying to break them out of that rut in a room with rows of desktops isn’t working.  Time to free up the tech, and break the passivity.

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Lunch in San Francisco

One Whacky Timeline:

12:46am our time: worst earthquake in Japanese history happens.

1:55am Fri Mar 11: woke up before the alarm and got ready. 3.5 hours of sleep, not bad.

2:30: On way with Roy by 2:30,on way to get Oliver

3:00: in Guelph, on our way to Pearson

4:00: at Terminal 1 meeting students and parents

4:30: printing tickets and checking luggage. No one has a phone because we’re all worried about horrific stories of cell phone charges from overseas trips

5:30: lined up in customs (no cell phones allowed anyway)

6:15: cleared customs with front end students, got food, went to the departure gate. The United Airlines floor manager is there. He had seen our group on the computer and had gotten out front, trying to find out if flights are still going in and how bad things are.

6:45: Our Narita plane is enroute to San Francisco (SFO) and will be ready to return when we land. We get on the Toronto to San Fran flight because of this.

9:30: Enroute, our (fantastic) flight attendant was on the radio to SFO, they confirmed that Narita is receiving flights, the damage is localized in the north.

Notes from the plane:

Rumours of an earthquake/tsunami in the ticket line – one agent said we were crazy to be taking kids into that, thought she was talking about the quake from a couple of days ago.

Through ticket line and into big customs line, cleared customs, got most expensive food ever and got to the San Francisco flight to see the CBC news images of the tsunami hitting North East Japan. Seemed terrible. Talked to the floor manager who was already there to intercept us knowing our final destination.

At 7am, Narita was open for flights and we were ok to board for the SanFran flight, so we did.

About 2 hours into the flight the attendant came up and told us that our plane wasn’t there. Unclear information about what’s happening and no access to news.

About an hour later, he came back to say our connecting plane made it out of Osaka and would be there for us in SanFran. It’s currently 11:47, about 4.5 hours into the first flight and above the Rockies. Currently we believe that Tokyo is open, Narita is open and we have a plane to take us there. Damage was mainly due to tsunami along the North East coast, and we are heading south after the Tokyo days at the beginning.

Will write again when we’re on the ground and know more. Will try to contact school with updated info (get on wireless in SFO).

12:50 (9:50local): We land in SFO and head over to the international gate immediately to find out what’s going on. The 747 is fueled and ready to go, Narita is receiving planes, no information whatsoever on damage in Tokyo, other than that the mass transit had been closed for several hours and is now operating again.

 

1:15 (10:15local): Finally get in touch with our tour group – they have been contacted by the board and we are being recalled. Students very disappointed, tears in the airport. We’re trying to balance keeping them on their feet and working out what we’re supposed to be doing now (we’re told we’re flying back, but no one at the airport knows anything about this).

1:45 (10:45local): We have a return flight in 2 hours. I call my wife, Alanna and my VP, Francis and get some clarity. Then I take some students to eat (the flight to SFO did not include a meal – the return flight didn’t either).

3:00 (12pm local): We’re at the departure gate of the return flight trying to get tickets printed. Computers aren’t cooperating, general confusion, but it finally gets worked out and we get the tickets.

4:00 (1pm local): we’re on the return flight getting ready to depart.

9:00pm: landing at Pearson. Clear customs immediately (unlike US customs, Canada customs actually hires enough people to process passengers in less than two hours).

9:30pm: parents pick up students and we stand there stunned.

Notes:

Watching the news Saturday morning, I have no doubt that Northern Japan around Sendai is a disaster. We weren’t going there, but many people think of Japan as one place. If you heard that there was severe flooding in Montreal, would you not fly to Toronto that day?

We tried to act on facts relevant to what we were doing and where we were going. I wish we’d have had more and earlier contact with the tour group, but we were trapped in US customs, surrounded by ABSOLUTELY NO CELL PHONES USE signs, for the better part of 2 hours right when we needed to be in contact with them. Had we been enjoying the efficiency of Canada customs, we probably would never have gotten on the first flight to SFO.

The lack of cell phones on the trip because of all the travel horror stories didn’t help. Don’t know that cell phone access would have helped, but we’re more likely to be able to do this than we are able to ask US customs at Pearson airport to actually respond to the busiest travel day of the year by opening up all of their stalls (less than half were open, the line went on for ever). Their indifference was staggering.

The news is sensational. Watching it the day after, the same pieces of the most exceptional footage. If I see one more stunned English teacher in Tokyo throwing around terms like “melt down” as if they know what they’re talking about, I’m going to pop. People keep saying 3 Mile Island or Cherynoble – two nuclear disasters caused by incompetence and poor management. What you’re seeing here is just how resilient and safe nuclear plants can be. These were hit by a freaking tsunami and one of the largest earthquakes in history, and they are contained, and any flooding and damage will be managed with Japanese efficiency. I really wish the news would stop skyping with wild eyed idiots with no background or knowledge of nuclear power generation and taking their sketchy opinions as fact, just because they live in Japan.

I suspect that in the next week, this will fall out of the 24 hour news cycle, when that happens no one will care any more. The nuclear plants are locked down and cooling, the damage up north is surreal, but it will get sorted out. I’ll be really surprised that if, in a week or two, Japan isn’t normalized and life in 95% of the country isn’t back to normal.

The field trip being recalled was the right move. You don’t bring other people’s children into such uncertainty. Ultimately, some students, many of whom hadn’t traveled internationally, got the chance to cross the continent, and return. Students were miserable, but perhaps learned the greatest life lesson: through no fault of your own, sometimes, circumstances will take from you what you most want. Learning how to deal with will be one of the most valuable things they ever learn.

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Dakar Dreams

I just finished this year’s Dakar and it always starts the itch.  As a bucket list item it’s well beyond my ken, but I still sometimes think about it.  The cost is in 1%er territory and a school teacher from Ontario isn’t likely to find support from advertisers that would allow him to compete.  But hey, what’s mid-life for if not your last chance to do the impossible?  The other day a buddy said, “you don’t want to be sitting around when you’re old wondering what you might have done.”  Even an attempt at a Dakar would be special.  Finishing one would be a crown jewel in a life well lived.


In an interview during Charlie Boorman‘s Race to Dakar, one of the competitors says he does it because it’s two weeks of singularly focusing on one thing, which he found relaxing.  Simon Pavey, Charlie’s teammate, said he does it just so he doesn’t have to do dishes for two weeks.  I get the angle.  Being able to singularly focus on something is a luxury few of us can afford.  Life is a series of compromises and multiple demands on our time.


I’ve been watching The Dakar long enough to not harbor any illusions about winning it or even placing well, but I would certainly hope to finish.  Having a Dakar finishers medal puts you in a very small circle of excellence, and toughness.  The people who know what it is would have mad respect when they saw it.


To get there you need to take on the almost religious piety of a professional athlete.  I’d give myself two years to get the experience and fitness levels I’d need to give it an honest try.  I know I wouldn’t stop unless circumstances stopped me (I’m perverse like that), so it would simply be a matter of preparing as well as I could for it.  I turn 48 this spring, so I’d be doing a Dakar in 2019, the year I turn 50.  My goal would be to complete a Dakar and document as much of it as I could in the process.  From the beginning to the end I’d be making notes that would eventually turn into a book:  Mad Dogs & Englishmen: A Middle Aged Man’s Dakar.

A Zero electrically driven Dakar Rally bike?  Yes please!

Maybe by then there would be an electric motorcycle that could manage the stages with quick battery swaps at the stops.  Maybe I should be asking Zero if they’d like to consider a Dakar run.  Being the first electric bike to finish a Dakar would be something.  Electric cars are getting there now.


Finding sponsorship with companies I already have a relationship with would be a nice way to make this attempt a more personal one.  Everybody runs KTMs, Hondas and Yamahas, but I’d love to ride a rally prepped Kawasaki, Triumph or maybe a CCM; all companies who have had an impact on my motorcycling career.  Getting some degree of factory and dealer support in that would be fantastic.


A lot of riders gopro their experiences from within the Dakar itself, but I think it would be cool to get some next level media out of the event.  Running a 360 degree camera would be a goal.  Having a small, agile, media production crew along who could capture drone footage and support the 360 footage from inside the race could eventually lead to an immersive video of the event that gives some idea of how it feels to be in the Dakar; an everyman’s view of the race.  Dreamracer does a good job of this.  I’d try to emulate that approach with newer technology.  Since not a lot of Canadians participate in the rally, I might be able to drum up local support that other rally riders could not.


Deep winter, mid-life dreams about doing something impossible… all I’d need is an opportunity.

LINKS


Where to find your rally kit:  Rebel X SportsNeduro

Sample Dakar budget, another sample budget


A 2017 Dakar how-to video series by Manuel Lucchese

What Dakar riders wear article


Dakar advice on putting together an entry:


Before setting off in an active search for sponsors, it is important to define your project clearly by

answering the following questions:


Why am I taking part in the Dakar?
What are my motivations?
What are my objectives?
What are my assets in achieving those objectives?
What sort of crew do I want to set up?
What resources do I need to achieve this?
It is important to detail the various cost items in order to have a clear idea of your expenses (Vehicle preparation – Registration – Trip – Visas and passports – assistance vehicle(s) – mechanics registrations…) After this stage, you must have answers to the following four questions:


What is my budget?
How should I present it to my potential partners/sponsors?
What are my available funds?
How much should I ask for from my potential sponsors?
Your potential sponsors must be targeted : better to count on your relational, personal, professional or regional fabric rather than “major sponsors” who may be less inclined to support you. Make a list of your potential partners and characterise them:


What do they do?
Why would they be likely to help me?
What specific arguments should I put forward?
What funds do they have available?
Which companies should I see as a priority?
“Do not make mistakes in what you say or who you target”. There is no point in talking about your potential sporting achievements if you are taking part in your first Dakar! Your aim is to finish, not to be placed! So, assess what you say and in particular your media exposure: amateurs will be the subject of one-off reports, they are frequently mentioned in the local and regional media but do not promise the TV news or a daily sports newspaper!


Prepare a personalised dossier to present your project. This presentation must be clear, concise, persuasive and imaginative; it must make them dream of the rally but also convince them of your personal qualities.


You need to highlight your special features, your motivation :


What is original about your entry?
Why are you passionate about motor sports (and cross country rallies in particular)?
What previous experience do you have?
Consider presenting your sporting profile: draw inspiration from statistics on Dakar 2015. Put yourself into the rally: in terms of age, type of vehicle, number of entries, status (professional or amateur). Stress your nationality and your region! Identify potential media spin-off: media statistics can help you identify press, radio or even TV spin-off in your region.


Regional media are frequently looking for a potted history of amateur competitors; so do not hesitate to contact them and suggest an interview, your potential sponsors will only be more impressed!


Present your arguments to justify sponsorship:


To give out a good image of the company at local, regional or national level thanks to media spin-off. The company’s name (and/or one of its brands) is associated with your entry and the adventure of the rally.
To change or strengthen the company’s image internally. To advertise the company’s main values, the directors can use event sponsorship to motivate employees and/or associate the company with values such as courage, surpassing oneself, competition, human adventure,… which characterise the Dakar.
To build a relationship with their suppliers/customers. Sponsorship may be a way for one of your suppliers/customers to build strong links before or after the conclusion of a partnership.
To involve your sponsors indirectly in the adventure. The Dakar is a mythical trial in which everyone who is interested in motor or extreme sports will want to take part one day… These fans, potential sponsors, will be all the more inclined to help you in this challenge if they can live the adventure by proxy.
To enable the partner company to enjoy tax relief. Depending on the country, sponsorship offers tax breaks. Consider putting forward a small sales pitch to demonstrate these tax breaks according to the legislation in your country.


Highlight the benefits of financial support or support in kind :


Visibility of their brand/company name on your vehicle, your clothing, your helmet, your Leatt-Brace, your trunk, your assistance vehicles…
A free trip on a rest day or on arrival: for the most generous sponsors, a day at the rally is a weighty argument for those who want to taste the atmosphere of the Dakar!
Event organisation: exhibiting the vehicle before or after the rally, or a photo exhibition…
Finally, do not forget to…
Keep them up to date with your exploits during/after the rally (sell IRITRACK!)
Give them a DVD collection of Dakar articles, or a detailed press review, or a photo album to thank them.

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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.


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Do Or Do Not: 2021 Competition Season Reflection

The competition season is finally winding down.  Student competition is one of my favourite parts about being a teacher.  It allows for radical differentiation in a wide variety of directions, shines a light on my gotta-market-it-or-it’ll-die program and helps guide our program development by clarifying what we’re already covering and pointing us in the direction of emerging digital trends.

I got a good piece of advice from a prof at Nipissing teacher’s college back in 2003.  We were all struggling to get through a dense curriculum when he suggested I leverage my computer skills to take a swing at Statistics Canada’s yearly awards for post-secondary research (you might have noticed Stats-Can coming up in Dusty world a fair bit – that’s why).  We were using Stats-Can to research the communities our practicums were in and I found the data gave me a better understanding of my teaching environment, but doing the contest seemed like more than I could manage at the time.

My professor, John Lundy, said, “you’ve almost talked yourself out of doing this but so has everyone else.  If you stay with it you might be surprised at the results.  You’d be amazed how often you can win things by sticking with it.”  It was good advice.  I stuck it out and the award paid for my last semester at teacher’s college.  You’d be amazed how often you can win things just but toughing it out and not giving up.

When I picked up teaching computer technology almost a decade ago we stumbled across a robotics competition at Conestoga College and gave it a shot – and medalled!  I’d been supporting students in media arts at Skills Ontario so I looked at all the digital competitions and started lining us up for them.  As a new teacher attempting to deliver a ridiculously far-reaching curriculum I found competition invaluable for directing our research and development.  Ontario covers IT, networking, electronics, robotics and low and high level programming in the computer technology curriculum.  All of those things would have their own program in any other subject.  No teacher has advanced expertise in all of them (my background is in IT), so Skills Ontario in particularly really helped us get our program into focus and allowed me to differentiate for students developing in those many diverse pathways.

Students almost always doubted their ability to participate let alone compete, even when we found ourselves at national finals, but I was always able to pass on that simple advice:  give it a shot, see what happens.  This consistent approach, though quite minimalist in appearance, has paid dividends.

I’d spent many years coaching various sports teams in school prior to shifting my focus to program based technical competitions.  For many students sports are the hook that keeps them in school but I found that it often ended up providing entertainment for the most privileged students (you don’t have time for practices and games four days a week when you’re working).  The technology competitions we participate in are accessible to all students and I’ve seen them raise kids out of difficult home lives and launch them into meaningful careers, so there is equity in this as well.


This year the show-up-when-everyone-else-is-looking-for-reasons-not-to approach has been greatly amplified.  While COVID has caused particular suffering in marginalized populations, it has also dampened the enthusiasm of privileged schools who leverage their socio-economic advantage to win competitions.  Those privileged schools haven’t developed the resiliency needed to push back against disparities like those caused by the pandemic and have evaporated from competition, leaving opportunities for the rest of us.

At the Canadian Cyber Defence Challenge our two teams finished well into the top 10, in 6th and 7th place with our female team once again showing the value of communication skills in the field of cybersecurity.  I like CCDC for their multi-pronged approach to cyber defence.  They don’t just run it like a hack-a-thon but place emphasis on the team’s ability to communicate their technical findings to non-technical management, which is very much a real world aspect of cybersecurity that gets ignored elsewhere.


The girls finished behind the boys in technical scoring but overtook them in the communications round, once again emphasizing for me how important it is to have a gender diverse team that leverages the strengths inherent in different values and approaches.  I’m once again trying to figure out how to develop co-ed approaches to team competition that appreciate the value of diverse and complimentary skills – boys, especially high school boys, can be difficult to work with and present an on-going barrier to this approach.


We were gutted last year to see Skills Ontario vanish in the chaos of the first wave of COVID19.  We had the most finalists in our short history lined up for the 2020 provincial finals and several gold-medal prospects.  It was heart wrenching to see those opportunities borne from years of effort fade away.  A competitive Skills Ontario student takes years to develop so losing an opportunity to compete isn’t the loss of a single year of effort.

Skills Ontario was still very much a
‘hands on’ competition, even in this
year of COVID remote schooling.

This year the organizers have done a spectacular job keeping as many competitions running as they could remotely.  This is especially challenging in a hands-on technical skills competition where many of the students are working with tools, live electricity and other safety challenges, but Skills Ontario pulled it off magnificently.

When our electronics competitor, Rhys, got a package in the mail for electronics engineering I was buoyed by the hope that these weren’t going to be all screen based simulations.  We do well on tactile skills at Skills so seeing them retained was encouraging.

It didn’t start well though.  Many students are struggling with work life balance in harsh and inequitable quadmestered hybrid scheduling.  Web development is a tricky competition as it’s half technical/back-end coding and data management and half front-end graphic design, marketing and ergonomics.  We had one of the most ambidextrous technical and artistic students yet lined up to do it but she couldn’t participate due to pandemic related stressors.  I had a graduating student who was already working as a web-developer in the summers.  He didn’t have the graphic design skills but he was spectacular at back-end programming and would have been very competitive, but he ended up dropping out due to crushing homework loads that he thought, “should be illegal”.  So, our first Skills competition of the 2021 season was also our first ever DNF.

This induced a great deal of anxiety in me.  I coach in these events to engage and enable students, not to make them feel like they’re being run over, I shouldn’t have worried though.  The next week Max and Russell cranked out our first run at Geography Information Systems (GIS).  We don’t work with GIS and didn’t know what it was two years ago, but last year we had two students leverage the digital skills we develop in class and figure out the software.  Max continued in it this year and when paired with the incredibly technically talented Russell, they both did a great job winning a bronze medal!

Two days later two of our top digital artists from last year’s gamedev class took a run at 3d Character Animation.  This was another competition that we don’t cover in our curriculum, though our game development class uses Blender 3d modelling and the Unity game engine, so I thought we might be able to bridge that gap.  Evan and Alexander worked away at their animation over the weekend and submitted the minimum six seconds of work by the due date.  They didn’t medal but I hope they placed.

The next week we were in a three day marathon with our three core competitions:  electronics engineering on Tuesday, IT & Networking on Wednesday and Coding on Thursday.  Rhys volunteered to take a swing at electronics.  Being new to secondary competition and only in grade 9 I signed him up as a no-stress reconnaissance of the competition, but I’ve learned never to underestimate Rhys who astonished everyone with our first ever silver medal at Skills provincials!  Wyatt is one of our most talented IT technicians to date, and we’ve had many.  He was worried that he’d fumbled the competition in his first run at it online, but I suspected even a bad day for Wyatt was better than most people’s good days.  That turned out to the be the case as Wyatt kept our string of five consecutive Skills Ontario medals in IT & Networking alive with a bronze medal.

On the final day the mighty Matteo, who was also still competing in the national finals of CCDC, did Skills Ontario’s coding provincial finals.  I’ve thrown exceptional students at this previously and we’d broken into the top ten but with our school shuttering on-site computer science I’ve been left as the only teacher in the building covering coding, which seems incredible in 2021.  While juggling CCDC (I had to get him excused from Skills for twenty minutes to present to the judges in CCDC finals), Matteo battled to an astonishing silver medal finish in what is always a very crowded and competitive Skills Ontario competition.

Four out of six (it would have been five if we could have stuck the webdev) is a spectacular run for a program that had only previously cracked IT & Networking.  I’m hoping we can build on this momentum next year as every one of our medalists is returning.


With Skills Ontario behind us we turned to CyberTitan National Finals this past week where our senior co-ed, female captained team was potentially dangerous and our all-female top wild card team simply wanted to do their best and enjoy what would be the second and final national finals event for the senior Terabytches who started the team and changed the complexion of the event three years ago.

My son Max and I were watching the awards ceremony online on Wednesday afternoon.  This event feels like battling giants because the schools we’re up against are specialists with access to resources we can only dream about.  I was eating pie and waiting to see who won when I was astonished to see FalconTech Plagueware being awarded the Cyber Defender Award.  I frantically started searching for my competition t-shirt so I could have it on as asked when we went live for an interview.

We’ve had more academically focused teams (our two 5th place finishing teams in 2018 and 2020 for example) in this competition, but Plagueware is by far the most diverse.  Our team captain (the webdev artist/technician) is a Cisco networking wizard who got some of the highest scores in Canada during CyberPatriot – and she’s in grade 10!  Unfortunately, that network architecture skillset doesn’t get any exercise at CyberTitan nationals.  Our Skills coding silver medalist is on the team as is our Skills GIS bronze medalist.  The team also contains one of the team members from last year’s 5th place team who connected us to that team’s skills and experience, along with our first ever grade 9 to get a perfect score in Windows 10 on CyberPatriot and the coop student who ran our award winning junior team last year.

Plagueware are an incredibly diverse and talented group.  A third of the team are applied stream students who couldn’t even get into the schools we’re up against.  A third of the team are autistic and the majority of the team have individual education plans due to special leaning needs.  From the academic streamist’s point of view this team wouldn’t rate, and yet they finished 4th in Canada beating most of the competition.  Their audacity and out-of-the-box thinking also won them the Defender of the Year award for the team the judges felt demonstrated the most innovative and team based approach.

That result has me thinking about how to remix teams for a wider range of skills and approaches.  As our first Terabytches graduate I’m thinking maybe it’s time to work towards co-ed teams that offer a complimentary set of skills that make students not only competitive but also valued for their differences.

Convincing students to take the risk and compete against students from other boards and provinces gives me a barometer for how effective our program is and offers support and direction as we continue to develop skills in a wide variety of digital disciplines.  For students these experiences can be defining both in developing confidence and technical fluency.  This approach benefits students in all streams and offers both a tool for equity by providing enrichment for students who can’t otherwise afford to participate in extracurriculars.

The most difficult part remains convincing students to give it a go, but when they do they often see great success just by giving it a shot.  If you are interested in developing digital fluency in your students there are a variety of competitions available that can help you make that happen for little or no cost.

COMPETITION LINKS

Skills Ontario:  These are the scopes for competition (they describe what each competition is about and how it will run): https://www.skillsontario.com/competitions/secondary/scopes
Whatever you teach, Skills will have a competition that aligns with your curriculum.

CyberTitan: National Student Cybersecurity Competition.  CyberTitan is the Canadian arm of the international U.S. based CyberPatriot competition.  It costs a couple of hundred dollars to participate but the students get a lot of cyber-swag and the competition is very well run and accessible.  The event runs from October to January in three rounds that can happen as an in-school field trip.

Canadian Cyber Defence Challenge:  CCDC runs out of Winnipeg and has good pickup in Western Canada, though I think we still may be the only team east of Winnipeg participating in it.  It is a very accessible and innovative competition with live drama student performances bringing the competition to life and a points assessment that includes quality of student understanding that prevents schools who are scripting their wins from doing well.

CanHack:  based on the PicoCTF U.S. based cyber competition.  It’s very computer science/mathematics based and would work well as an enhancement for any comp-sci program.  With no local comp-sci at our school, we use this competition to help fill that hole.

ECOO Programming Contest:  another comp-sci/maths focused contest.  We haven’t done it because the math department usually does it, or doesn’t.


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