Page 97 – Mechanical Sympathy

A Ride Stolen From Winter

February isn’t a giving month for motorcyclists in Canada. Last year, with the twenty three year old Kawasaki in pieces, I was unable to get the thing out on the warm weekend we had in December, and couldn’t even get it going when the snow finally cleared in March.

Since the Tiger was only getting regular maintenance done, it was turn-key ready when we suddenly had a warm break in February. With snow melt running across the road and the temperature a heady 7°C, I enjoyed a foggy ride in to work, and a slightly warmer ride the long way around home in the afternoon:

Music by Shannon Rose & The Thorns: Seasons is a brilliant album, you should get it!

Once home I power washed the sand and salt off the Tiger and parked it up again. A single day on the bike blew off the cobwebs and renewed the promise of things to come.

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Shop Class as Soulcraft Deep Thoughts

I’m a big fan of Matt Crawford’s fantastic book on the value of skilled labour, Shop Class as Soul Craft. If you get a chance, it’ll change your mind about the value of working with your hands.

I just finished his latest book, The World Beyond Your Head, where he makes a compelling argument for our’s being a situated intelligence (we aren’t brains in boxes) that is evident because of our manual connection to the world around us, not in spite of it. It’s a deep, rich read that does a lot of dismantle the idea of the empty expertise of the digital economy/liberal arts student.

I recently came across a video where Crawford is talking about the book, and other things. This bit struck me as funny after my recent thoughts on biker culture:

“You might say the B.S. quotient it low… unless you’re dealing with Harley owners. Then it can actually be quite high.”

You’d think most people would buy the dependable ones, right?

That idea of a B.S. quotient led me look up motorcycle reliability indices for the first time. Consumer Reports gets into it by explaining how customer satisfaction is different from reliability. You’d think the two things are closely linked, but they aren’t so much.

“If you want to know how satisfied riders are with their motorcycle, ask them about comfort. We found that comfort ratings track most closely with overall satisfaction scores. “

You know those leather clad tough guys in their Motor Company regalia? They like comfort the most. Potato, potato, potato…

Gold Winging It

My buddy Jeff is heading off to the West Coast and a golden retirement shortly, so he’s cleaning up and vacating Ontario (good time to be doing it). One of his motorcycle herd is a GL1800 Goldwing. He offered Max and I a ride last weekend to see if it worked for us since Max is now a full sized adult and your typical motorcycle is overloaded with two big guys on it. A few years ago I rode Jeff’s daughter’s Honda Firestorm, by far the sportiest bike I’ve ever ridden. This time around we were way up the other end of the spectrum with the ‘Wing.

That seat looks mighty appealing to a kid who has been forced to ride motorcycle saddles since he was eight. Not only is it recliner comfortable, it’s also heated! The rest of the bike is equally enormous and astonishingly appointed. With fourteen year old, adult sized Max on the back, we had no points of physical contact, which is strange because we’re usually back to chest on the Tiger, which is a big bike in its own right.

We rode out of Jeff’s place on a dirt farm road in South Western Ontario, in April, so it was really wet and soft… on an eight hundred pound ~~gorilla~~, uh, bike, with 430ish pounds of us on it. The ‘Wing handles our size without a problem, but the whole thing rolling down the road is massive, so massive in fact that you just ride through puddles and mud and ignore variations in the road that I’d be skirting around on a typical bike. The Tiger is a sure footed thing, but it felt a bit skittish on the muddy driveway, not so the ‘Wing.

Once out on the road the first thing that hits you is no wind, at all. I ended up flipping open my helmet even though it was a cool day because of the zero wind blast. No wind noise, no buffeting, it didn’t really feel like riding a bike. All the elemental cues that I get from riding were gone. I’m looking out through a screen instead of over one and the fairings cover you head to toe.

The dash looks back at you with a staggering array of buttons. My car doesn’t have half that many. The tachometer looks like the one out of my old Civic, and red lines lower. It took me ten minutes of riding to work out where the heated grips and seats were. The grips themselves are meaty, way thicker than any I’ve used before; my hands didn’t quite wrap around them.

On pavement you twist the throttle and get whooshed down the road without drama. The ‘Wing is motorbike quick and smooth, but I wouldn’t call it inspiring. Jeff set a quick pace on his Yamaha Super Ténéré and I had no trouble keeping the twelve hundred pounds of us in sight of him. I was tentative in the first couple of corners, but once I realized how nimble the ‘Wing felt, I just dropped it into corners and trusted the tires to handle us. I often feel weightless when I’m riding, but as well as the Goldwing handles its size, I was always conscious of it. In fairness, it also had over four hundred pounds of human on it as well.

The brakes haul it down from speed quickly and it picks up with piles of torque and very little need to change gears, which were smooth and direct when I did use them. By the end of the ride I was up and down in the gears without a second thought, so that’s a thumbs up from my foot. The first time I realized I didn’t need to cancel the turn signals after a corner was a nice surprise, but habit had me turning them off anyway. The GPS in the middle of the dash is nice too, but wasn’t very bright.

We did a short, half an hour ride around the area, looking for some of the few twists and turns available to us in the agri-desert that is rural Southern Ontario. Jeff is moving out to Vancouver Island where the riding season is virtually year ’round and the roads are never dull, but the ‘Wing isn’t making the trip. The Super Ten and his customized BMW Cafe Racer are going in the container though.

After parking it back up I can say I get the Goldwing. I understand why it’s as popular as it is and what function is serves. As a device to transport my son and I in comfort it does that, but I find myself back where I was in 2014 pondering the CanAm Spyder. There comes a point where a motorcycle is trying so hard to be something else that it isn’t really a motorcycle any more. The Goldwing, with its faceful of buttons and speakers and radios and weatherproofed rider cocoon, removes me from what I think riding is all about.

I’m a number of years into riding now and I’ve been on all sorts of bikes in all sorts of strange places. That experience has refined my aesthetic sense of motorcycling. For me it’s all about getting to that feeling of flying. It’s a visceral experience with wind, noise and a sense of lightness. When you bend into a corner that feeling is amplified. You can probably see where this is going. The ‘Wing will lean into a corner, but it feels stately and remote when it does it. Everything feels far away, and ends up begging the question: why suffer the indignities of motorcycling when the bike is trying so hard to be something else?

I can get a lightly used one of these for the same price as a Goldwing.
Given a choice, I’d go for the mini-Mazda Ferrari in a second.

It might sound perverse, but the other side of motorcycling for me is embracing the physical difficulty of the activity. I don’t consider motorcycling a hobby, I consider it a sport and want to attack it with the same physicality. This philosophy doesn’t only contrast with the Goldwing. Any bike that does all it can to not delivery that immediacy of riding experience misses the mark for me. Whether it be a Harley tourer or a BMW K1600, any big, heavy cruiser with windshields and fairings and every gizmo imaginable makes me wonder why in terms of motorcycling. If you want to bring that much stuff with you, go in a car. In many cases the car is cheaper and more efficient, and contrary to biker prejudice they aren’t all cages.

I love to ride, but I’m still smitten with bikes that feel like bikes and focus me on the aesthetics of riding. When a lightly used Mazda MX-5 RF costs the same as a new Goldwing and looks like a piece of rolling art rather than a compromise, that’s where my eye wanders. Motorcyclists call car drivers cagers trapped in their boxes, but a massive bike that does all it can to not feel like a motorcycle is more of a fetishy gilded cage than any number of cars designed to be entertaining drives.

So, the Goldwing is not for me. When I get to the point that I can’t handle the elemental feeling of riding (a moment I hope I never see), I’ll be looking for a Lotus, not a mega-bike. My son is only a couple of years away from starting the never-ending and sickeningly expensive licensing and insurance process in Ontario. I’m hoping that he has developed a taste for riding and will one day join me on a ride on his own machine, then we can both revel in the visceral feel of flying down the road together.

Jeff will have no trouble selling his Goldwing on. He has meticulously maintained it and there is a strong market for ‘Wings since there are so many older bikers who are looking for that kind of ride. I, for one, will miss him when he’s gone. As a motorcycling mentor, he has been a great friend and teacher. I hope I can get out to see him on the West Coast and ride those magical roads in the future. In the meantime, I’m feeling more and more like Ontario is getting too tight for me, yet here I stay.

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On bike 360 Media and Digital Abstraction

Setting up a 360 camera on your wing mirror using a gorilla pod and setting it to automatically take a photo every few seconds seems like the best way to catch some interesting self portraits while you ride. It’s a set up and forget system so you can just enjoy the ride.

Afterwards you download what the camera caught and then frame the photos as you wish (the 360 picture lets you move the point of view around until you’ve framed something interesting).

I’ve been trying to replicate the tiny planet view that the Ricoh Theta could do in its software on the Samsung Gear360. GoPro makes a little planet capable app that they give away for free, so I’ve been using that. Here is an example of a time lapse video tiny-planeted in the GoPro software:

The photos are screen grabs of time lapse scenes on the Samsung 360gear. They’ve all been worked over in Photoshop to give them a more abstract look. I’ve included the original photo to show variations:

Here’s the original photo.

Here is a posterized, simplified version.

Here it is with an oil paint filter and a lot of post processing.

Here is a tiny-world ‘wrapped’ image taken with the 360 degree camera. Below are some variations on it…

Below are some other 360 grabs – they’ll give you an idea of how you can select certain angles and moments and then crop a photo out of them pretty easily.

One of the few things the Samsung does well is make time lapse video fairly straightforward (I miss my Ricoh Theta). The software Samsung bundles with the gear360 only works with Samsung phones (which I don’t have). The desktop software won’t render 4k video at all (it ends up so blocked and pixelated from artifacts as to be almost useless). And when you’re first importing video it takes ages for the software to open a video for the first time. By comparison the Ricoh renders video almost instantly, has never had artifact problems when it renders and has never crashed on me (the Samsung software has crashed multiple times). If you’re patient and are ok with crappy results, go for the Samsung. Meanwhile, here’s what I could get out of the damned thing:

This is a 360 fly video sped up, the weekend after the April ice storm:

Software used: Adobe Photoshop CC, Adobe Lightroom CC, Paper Artist, Windows movie maker, Go-Pro VR Viewing software

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Expectations

In a very hands-on computer technology grade 12 class, we’ve built our own network from scratch and students have been working through the A+ CompTIA technician‘s course. The final goal of the course is to get students into the position of actually getting certified as PC technicians. If they go on to college for courses, they’ll already have the first certification they need. If they go to work, they’ll be able to work in Futureshop, Staples or whatever (all those computer support people must have A+ certification).

The goal was a relevant, purpose driven class with real world value and as much technology as I could possibly provide.

I’ve spent a lot of time and energy getting my hands on equipment and making space for the students to be able to develop technology from the ground up. I hadn’t spent as much time walking students through some very information heavy review, my hope was that the hands on technology would offer us in-class opportunities to review the material.

Some students, once they got the network to a functional level, got very distracted by the fact that it can play networked games. This conversation happened recently when I suggested they needed to be ready to review the entire course because we were running out of time. One student felt that he hadn’t been handed the learning on a silver enough platter:

Grade 12 student: “but you’re the teacher, shouldn’t you be making us learn this?” (instead of letting us play games)

Me: “I’ve done back flips to get you guys access to multiple A+ courses, material and testing practice. I’ve also drilled you on the material on a daily basis. When we get done with that, you are given time to read ahead on future material, review what you missed, or apply your theory hands on. At that point I want to help people on a one on one basis. If you choose to play games with that time, it’s my job to force you to learn?”

student: “…”

me: “I’m not here to force you to learn, no one can do that. You’re senior students on the verge of graduating. If this were a junior class, we’d have more regimented lessons, but it isn’t. I expect you to be able to address yourself to what’s going on. I’m not about to force your head into the learning water here, if you don’t want to drink, that is your choice. It puts you in a bad place in post secondary though, they don’t spoon feed at all.”

student: “but we’re not college students, you shouldn’t run the class like that.”

me: “you’re about to be, at what point would you like to transition into post secondary if not in grade 12? Do you think they are going to spoon feed you next year?”

Not ten minutes later we wrapped up the chapter review and students were let loose on the network. Guess what he did…

me: “After our recent conversation, what you’re doing there is quite provocative. Are you trying to aggravate me?”

He didn’t stop, he just minimized the window. I feel sorry for the guy.

This class has a truly awesome amount of technology at their disposal, I’m jealous. When I took my certifications, I had to take apart and reassemble the only PC we had in the house, and look at pictures of other ones because I had nothing on hand. I didn’t have a certified technician there enthusiastic about experimenting and throwing everything from imacs to netbooks, to laptops to multiple desktop formats into the mix. I also had to pay four times what I’m getting the certs for this group of students for. This guy is spoiled for choice but all he wants to do is play lame, online games and whine about not being treated like a ten year old. I’m not saying they shouldn’t take a break and blow off some steam, but they seldom put in the effort to deserve the break.

I’ve got some good students in that class, but they’re all bitten to a greater or lesser degree by their wealth; it makes them complacent and lazy. When I think about what the students in my computer club at my old school in the suburbs would have done with all of this equipment, it makes me sad. Even when you make the learning, meaningful, individualized and pack it with technology, you can’t force a spoiled, lazy horse to drink it up.

Gear Upgrades & Bike Tribes

After a couple of weeks on a bike, I’m starting to get a feel for what I like in kit. I think having a real set of boots and pants really paid off at the course (near freezing and windy). Windproof clothes are worth their weight in gold. The other day I did my longest ride wearing the jeans I wore to work and it wasn’t very comfortable. I’m a big fan of wearing kit that suits the activity, jeans are a poor second choice.

The other piece that I’m not feeling are my gloves. They’re sufficient (they are Joe Rocket biking specific gloves) and they are comfortable, but plain black and not particularly warm. I was aiming for a white/grey vibe when I started, the Alpinestars SP-1 gloves shown are a nice, gauntletted glove that look like they offer a much wider range of comfortable temperature options (they close up or vent as needed). They also cost four times what the beginner gloves I got cost. I imagine they are whole levels of awesomeness beyond the basic gloves I started with.

I did the same thing with boots, I picked up the cheapest pair of bike-specific boots that were available. They are warm, dry and quite tall. I’ve always wanted an ankle boot, for cooling and the Alpinestars S-MX1 boots on the right give me the monochromatic look I’ve been looking for in a boot that isn’t huge. I purchased pretty low-rent gear to begin, mainly because what was available in the shop in the budget I was looking for. It was all purchased without any time in the saddle, so I didn’t really know what I needed, other than it should be motorbike specific.

The pants I got (I hadn’t planned on buying pants), happened to be on sale. They’ve been great, and as early/late season pant they’re wind resistant, have a liner that would let you ride in a snow storm and have a zipper, so you could get some air going through them. They are too long and way (WAY) too hot for summer driving. Looking for well ventilated pants I could wear over shorts, these Rev’It Airwave pants fit the bill, and continue the monochromatic theme I’m looking for. A light coloured pant would also help keep the heat out.

The one piece of kit I wouldn’t want to change is the jacket I got. The Joe Rocket Atomic 11.0 textile jacket is fantastic. Great wind resistance, a removable liner, vent openings, it fits me perfectly and feels fantastic… this is a jacket for all seasons, I have no regrets with it at all. I imagine the more expensive jackets might offer lighter weight, but this particular jacket is my favorite purchase. It’s padded in all the right places and I even like the break with my monochromatic vibe. I’ve yet to find a situation where the jacket hasn’t been just what I wanted it to be.

The other purchase I’ve been really happy with is my Zox Helmet. The funny part was I was treating it like a

full face helmet until one day I wondered what the red button on the chin did, and suddenly it was a modular helmet that flipped up! It’s comfortable, but the wind noise isn’t ideal. I’m guessing more expensive helmets offer a tighter fit and finish meaning less wind noise. It has nice venting, and when I treat the visor with a bit of soap, it’s fog free. As a cheap first helmet, I’ve no regrets. It does more than I hoped it would and didn’t break the bank to do it. It also lets me live my inner Stig, which is never a bad thing. The built in sun visor is a nice touch too. It really is a full featured helmet. The double adjustable top and bottom vents work very well and the storm trooper vibe is cool.

If I had any advice for buying kit your first time it would be: don’t rush it, try on lots of stuff, and then walk away and think about it. Waiting a couple of weeks saved me a couple of hundred bucks as things went on sale for spring time. Trying on a number of different styles also lets you decide what fits you better, and what feels right. I need to adjust the pants (too long in the leg) but I can probably pin them up. After a bit of looking, I’ve found pants that offer the same size with a shorter inseam. My next purchase will be more pinpoint accurate in terms of sizing.

In riding I’ve noticed that there are tribes. I definitely fall into the sport bike/standard bike crowd with my textile gear and full face helmet. The ‘I’m too cool’ leather cruiser crowd are so busy putting out a vibe they don’t have time to wave. I’ve found everyone who isn’t a Harley knob makes a point of giving me a wave. As a new rider, that’s a nice feeling. To all the ZZ Top chopper types, I say, “whatever dude.”

ECOO16: Virtual Reality & The DIY School Computer Lab

A chance to see some of my favourite
people and study one of my favourite things!

ECOO 2016 is coming this week. As a chance to catch up with tech-interested teachers from across the province it’s unparalleled. It’s also a wonderful opportunity to see what those people are doing in their classrooms and get tangible information on how to work with technology in a classroom. I end up with a full brain and a great deal of enthusiasm after a few days at the annual ECOO conference.

I’m beginning the conference on Wednesday by demonstrating virtual reality to teachers from across the province at Brenda Sherry and Peter Skillen‘s Minds on Media. MoM (or in this case MEGA MoM) is a showcase of #edtech in action, and a must see event. As an emerging technology VR is going to have a profound influence on education in the future. Having a chance to give people a taste of that future is exciting. The only reason I’ve been able to explore VR as it emerges is because of the DIY lab I’m presenting on Friday.

I get to spend the Thursday soaking up the latest in technology and how it can amplify pedagogy. On Friday I’m presenting on why you should develop your own do it yourself school computer lab and how to do it.

I first presented the concept at ECOO four years ago. It’s taken me that long to develop the contacts and build a program that can do the idea justice. I’ve always felt that offering students turn-key no-responsibility educational technology was a disservice, now I’m able to demonstrate the benefits of a student-built computer technology lab and explain the process of putting one together. I realize I’m swimming upstream from the put-a-Chromebook-in-every-hand current school of thought, but that’s my way.

There are a couple of things that have changed over the years that have made this once impossible idea possible. Our board’s IT department underwent a major change in management and philosophy a few years ago. The old school was all about locking everything down and keeping it the same for ease of management. The new guard sees digital technology as a means of improving teaching rather than as an end in itself. They encourage and enable rather than complain and prevent.

The other major change was that my department got reintegrated into technology (it was formerly a computer science based mini-department of its own). Back in tech I was suddenly able to access specialist high skills major funding and support and found I was able to build the DIY concept – something I could never have done without our board’s tech-support funding model.

Thanks to that new, adaptive, open concept IT approach I’m able to access a BYOD wireless network with anything I want. I don’t have to teach students on locked down, board

imaged, out of date PCs. My computer engineering seniors helped me build what we now have and the results have been impressive. In addition to students in our little rural school suddenly winning Skills Ontario for information technology and networking, we’re also top ten in electronics and, best of all, the number of students we have successfully getting into high demand, high-tech post secondary programs is steadily rising.

When I thought it might be interesting for students to get their hands on emerging virtual reality hardware in the spring it was only a matter of finding the funding. We built the PC we needed to make it happen and then it did. We’ve had VR running in the lab for almost half a year now at a time when most people haven’t even tried it. Because we were doing it ourselves, what costs $5000 for people who need a turn key system cost us three thousand. We’re now producing those systems for other schools in our board.

A do it yourself lab is more work but it allows your students and you, the teacher, to author your own technology use. Until you’ve done it you can’t imagine how enabling this is. My students don’t complain about computers not working, they diagnose and repair them. My students don’t wonder what it’s like to run the latest software, they do it. Does everything work perfectly all the time? Of course not, but we are the ones who decide what to build and what software to use to get a job done, which allows us to understand not only what’s on stage but everything behind the curtains too.

If that grabs you as an interesting way to run a classroom, I‘m presenting at 2pm on Friday. If not, fear not, ECOO has hundreds of other presentations happening on everything from how to use Minecraft in your classroom to deep pedagogical talks on how to create a culture that effectively integrates technology into education.

Thursday’s keynote is Shelly Sanchez Terrell, a tech orientated teacher/author who offers a challenging look at how to tackle technology use in education. Friday’s keynote is the Jesse Brown (who I’m really looking forward to hearing), a software engineer and futurist who asks tough questions about just how disruptive technology may be to Canadian society.

If you’re at all interested in technology use in learning, you should get down to Niagara Falls this week and have a taste of ECOO. You’ll leave full of ideas and feel empowered and optimistic enough to try them. You’ll also find that you suddenly have a PLN of tech savvy people who can help, enable and encourage your exploration. I hope I can be one of them.

If you can’t make it, you can always watch it trend on Twitter:

#bit16 Tweets
note: to make a feed embed on twitter, go to settings-widget-create new and play with it, very easy!

Spring Riding On-Bike Photography

A Sunday in the teens (Celsius) meant that riding was inevitable. The Tiger had been sitting in the garage as it hailed and snowed outside this past week, but once again we get a break in the neverending Canadian winter, so off I go.

In the fall I got a Ricoh Theta V, so this was the first go at on-bike photography with it. Using the mount I made last year, I attached the new camera (same form factor and similar size to the SC I’d used before) and off I went for the first ride over to The Forks of the Credit and Higher Ground.

The ThetaV has better processing power for video than the older model, but the camera is similar spec, so still photos, where I like to work, weren’t likely to change. Once nice thing about the V is that it processes way faster, so can do a photo every 4 seconds instead of the old camera’s one every eight. Having twice the chance of catching a good corner was no bad thing and resulted in a number of good shots as I rode up and down The Forks, usually behind confused people driving beige minivans as slowly as they possibly could. I waited for a gap on the return ride and got a bit luckier with space, though it was pretty busy on the first sunny Sunday of the year.

Winter run-off everywhere meant a cautious line, but the Tiger on Michelins is always sure footed whether it’s on snow runoff or piles of sand left over from winter.

I guess someone missed the switchback – bet it was a fast and furious type…

Stuck behind that tool in a big maroon mini-van again, so I’m waiting for a gap. Nothing more frustrating than riding for an hour to find some curves only to be stuck behind a yobbo in a mini-van.

Quality of photo is similar between the ThetaSC and the ThetaV, but the V takes way more photos quickly, so you’re more likely to capture a good moment.

Parked up at Higher Ground in Belfountain. Don’t order a specialty coffee if it’s busy – the regular brew is good and you get it right away.

As capable as the V is, it suddenly flashed out on me when I went to ride home and wouldn’t start. This was a bit of a surprise as all previous Thetas have been astonishingly tough. The Theta V seems to have magically fixed itself today, but now I’m wondering if it’s up to the job.

In the meantime they’ve come out with the Theta Z1, a higher resolution 360 camera with a faster lens and even faster processing performance, including in-camera stitching of images together. It looks very nice, but if my first upgrade won’t take photos when I need it to after it’s first real weekend of use, I’m second guessing a bigger, more expensive step further.

In another meanwhile, GoPro has the Fusion 360 camera, which is tough and offers similar high resolution imaging. It’s a bit of a brick, so the Theta still seems like a more aerodynamic and logical choice for on-bike photography, but not if it doesn’t work. More to come. Hopefully this in-and-out Theta V was a one time thing.

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Across the Halliburton Highlands

411kms across the Highlands

After a few days of R&R recovering from our ride out to the 1000 Islands and seeing the sights, it was time to pack up and prepare for our return home. The plan was to travel through the Halliburton Highlands, where it is claimed that Ontario’s best roads reside.

The Tiger morphed from light weight, single rider mode to two-up, full luggage touring mode in about ten minutes. The rear suspension was tightened up for the extra weight and we were ready to go.

The plan was to cut north west from the Thousand Islands and get onto the twisties as soon as possible. It worked well. We soon found ourselves leaning into corners more than we were upright (a rarity in Ontario). When I’m in corners like that i don’t stiffen up in the saddle and I can ride for hours without fatigue.

Regional Road 15 got interesting almost immediately, weaving around lakes and pieces of the Canadian Shield peaking through the earth. As we travelled north those rock outcroppings became the norm rather than the exception and the roads only got better. 38 up to Highway 7 was a lovely ride with constant bends and big elevation changes as we bounced in and out of river valleys that had cut their way through the rock. If this road was a sign of things to come, then the riding the highlands was going to be special.

We stopped at Fall River Restaurant on Highway 7 because I figured it would be the last place with a busy enough road to warrant an open business, except it didn’t. This turned into a theme on this ride: don’t depend on the tourist trade to keep a business open, instead look to a stable community to keep a business open.

The lady from the post office came out and told us only the post office is open, the general store, ice cream and restaurant are all closed and only open on the weekend. There wasn’t even a toilet available. Three vehicles pulled in looking for a stop while we were there, but were turned away. We drank our own water and stretched in the empty parking lot before hoping on the bike and continuing up the winding country road 38.

In Elphin the plan was to turn with the 38 and continue west, and even though Elphin is a tiny place with only one major turn, we missed it. This spoke to another thing we learned on this ride; you’ll see signs for corners and bumps everywhere even though these things are self evident, but navigational signs are small, missing or incorrect. I guess most people follow a screen telling them what to do nowadays, but for the rest of us, some accurate navigational signage would be appreciated.

When I saw a second sign for regional road 12 which we weren’t supposed to be on, I pulled over at the Mississippi River (when I take a wrong turn, I don’t mess around!). It was a beautiful, shady spot and we had a good stretch and watched the kingfishers getting their breakfast before saddling up again and u-turning back to Elphin.

Back on the 38 again, we wound around lakes before finding the 509 I turned left toward Ompah, but it turns out that should have been a right (turning signs around is fun!). When we arrived back at Highway 7 I just shook my head and made a right turn, figuring I could angle north again on either Kaladar or Madoc. By now the heat was back and moving at speed down Highway 7 was a nice way to cool off. This was the prettiest part of 7, with few towns and no reduced speeds, so everyone was clipping along nicely. We stopped in Kaladar for gas even though we didn’t really need it and got sports drinks. By the time we got to Madoc it was wicked hot and we sought air conditioning in the only open restaurant we’d seen so far – a McDonalds. I was beginning to despair for local food in the Highlands.

Coe Hill Cafe – cool ceiling, good
bakery and coffee.

After a much needed cool down and hydration we hopped back on the bike and hiked up highway 62 to Coe Hill, which is where we learned that you’ll find local businesses, but only in small towns where people live year round. The cottage crowd and travellers are too fickle and passing to support a business up here.

The ride up 62 had us stopping at various bridges for up to five minutes at a time due to construction, so we got into Coe Hill ready to get out of the sun for a few minutes again. Fortunately, the Coe Hill Cafe was open and got us sorted out even though we were looking a bit ragged. It’s amazing what a good cup of coffee in a cool shady place can do to get you back on your feet.

I missed the poor signage for Lower Faraday Road (the reason we’d come this way in the first place), and then missed another turn thirty seconds later. I cannot over state how random the road signage is up this way. I really wish the MoT would take the money put into redundant cornering signage and apply it to identifying the roads themselves.

They show a couple of sports bikes riding down Lower Faraday on the website, but the section they’re showing is the last mile up to Ontario 28. While this road is indeed twisty, much of the surface is atrocious with big pot holes and gravel everywhere from the many driveways that feed onto it. You’d find it frustrating trying to explore any section of this road on a sports bike.

Even with the big shocks on the Tiger it was a rough, perilous ride. You couldn’t push any corners because of the debris, quality of the road and traffic. Lower Faraday has no centre line for much of it and every vehicle coming the other way was the largest possible pickup truck you’ve ever seen moving well above the speed limit in the middle of the road, and this was on a Tuesday afternoon. We road out of our way to see this ‘ten best’ road, and it wasn’t.

We headed in to Bancroft after the disappointing Faraday experience and stopped at the information tourism building. They have an excellent little mineral exhibit showing the various mining that goes on in the area, as well as being a cooling centre. Half an hour in the air conditioning with cold water and some cool rocks got us ready to ride again.

Some of the best roads of the day were ahead of us. We took 62 north out of Bancroft and then cut across toward Highland Grove. This roller-coaster of a road was well marked, clean and had a consistent surface. Corners varied from tight switchbacks to long sweepers with big elevation changes, what a joy! We followed the 648 around to the 118, passing Old Ridge Authentic BBQ (closed) where I’d hoped to have dinner.

The bike looks fine, we were
exhausted!

We quickly discovered that the 118 is no boring connecting road, with beautiful scenery and engaging corners all the way in to Haliburton. Even though it was heading towards evening the air temperature was still well in the thirties and humidity was high. We’d done over 400kms entirely on twisty back roads and were wiped. We limped in to Pinestone Resort just south of Haliburton and parked it up.

The Pinestone offered a quiet room with good beds for a reasonable price. We went for a swim (salt water indoor and outdoor pools) and then had an excellent dinner at Stone 21, the onsite restaurant. By the end of the evening we were back on our feet again.

I had us up early the next morning, hoping to beat the heat. I’d looked up good local breakfasts and found The Millpond Restaurant in Carnarvon, right on our way to Bracebridge. It was a short hop over there on very windy, but rough backroad for an excellent breakfast. Great price, great food, great service. If you’re anywhere around Haliburton, give the Millpond a go, you won’t be disappointed.

The most perfect 100kms of the trip.

Outside afterwards the hydro line-men who were there for breakfast were curious about the bike. For the fifth time this trip I explained the resurrection of Triumph and how they are building new bikes. The general public seems to recognize the brand as historical, but our post-modern/art-deco Tiger raises a lot of questions.

It was only just past 9am at this point, we were well fed, well rested and it was a perfect 20°C under a cloudless sky. We pulled on to an empty 118 and rode the weaving, smooth pavement in bliss. No sweat, no traffic, beautiful scenery, this was the moment we’d been searching for.

We passed through Bracebridge and got into Port Carling about 10:30am. Traffic had picked up once we were into the Muskokas, so we pulled over at the information/tourism place for a stretch and a heads up on where to get a coffee. Stopping at the info/tourism spots on this trip was never a disappointment.

Port Carling is a pretty little place. We were told it was a short walk to the Camp Muskoka Coffeehouse which helps support a camp that teaches leadership to students. The coffee was excellent and the walk into town offered a good stretch.

Back up at the info-stop we bumped into a fellow from Barbados who was puzzled at our very modern looking Triumph. He said there are lots of old Triumphs on the island, but they’re very expensive. Once again I told the phoenix like story of Hinckley Triumph and how they are building some of the most modern bikes on the planet. He had no idea, but thought there would be a huge market for a modern, small Triumph (they have cc limits in Barbados). Perhaps he’ll contact Hinckley and see about the 250cc little Triumph that hasn’t happened yet.

We saddled up and left the shade of the info stop. The sun was blistering now, but we were nearing the end of our Highlands road ride. We quickly got to Bala, but I missed the poorly marked turn out to the 400 (surprise, surprise). No worries, we just stayed on the 169 down the Gravenhurst. A couple of ten minute stops at bridge construction had us both sweating heavily by the time we got into Gravenhurst. I’d only ever seen the highway side of Gravenhurst, so I was surprised that it took us 15 minutes of traffic lights to get through it.

Ahhh…. air conditioning!

Once clear I hopped on 11 South and made time. We pushed through the heat and steady but fast moving traffic all the way past Barrie before stopping at an ONroute for gas, lunch and a cool down. I’d been getting over 49mpg solo without luggage. The astonishing Tiger was still getting 47.2mpg two up with luggage. We’d done over 430kms since our last fill up the day before in Madoc.

I used every trick in the book to cool off, soaking my head and arms to let the water evaporate and drinking a lot of fluids. We took our time before stepping back out into the oven. It was over 40°C with humidity when we finally left.

We bombed down the 400 and turned toward Orangeville on Highway 9, which was chockablock with traffic on a Wednesday afternoon. Aggressive drivers on the highway were lane changing without indicating around typically poor Canadian lane discipline (you’re supposed to pass on the left). We got cut off a couple of times, once badly enough to prompt a salute from me. On Highway 9 with eighteen wheelers spitting hot gravel at us and cars sitting at green lights while staring at their smartphones, I was at the end of my patience. We finally got around Orangeville only to almost get hit by a car passing a line of traffic coming right at us on the Fergus Road. This was as far from the 118 on a cool, quiet morning as we could possibly get.

We rolled in to Elora mid-afternoon. Once parked I pulled out the laser temperature tester from the garage. The driveway was over 50°C. A cold shower and feet up on the couch ended our 750+km ride through the Haliburton Highlands. The last leg back into Southern Ontario was the most dangerous part of the whole trip, and made me wish those sublime Ontario Highland roads weren’t so far away on the other side of these overcrowded, frustrating and tedious Southern Ontario roads.

The whole shebang – including the boring straight bits at the end.

Top of the tower in 1000 Islands

Canadian rider…

Riding through the Canadian Shield… literally!

The beginning of the big bake-off to get home

Data Exhaust

At a recent educational technology conference in Phoenix Constance Steinkuehler mentioned the term ‘data exhaust’ in passing to describe the numbers pouring out of testing. The idea of data as pollution has been with me for a while. The statistics I’ve seen derived from data in education have often been farcical attempts at justifying questionable programming. It’s gotten to the point that when someone starts throwing charts and graphs up in a presentation I assume they are hiding something.

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Constance’s term ‘data exhaust’ had me tumbling through metaphorical implications. If the data we generate out of education is the exhaust, what are we doing when we turn the education system toward producing data exhaust for its own sake? No student will ever face a standardized test in the working world, it’s a completely unrealistic and limited way in which to measure learning let alone prepare students for the rest of their lives. Using standardized testing to measure learning has us revving the education vehicle at high rpm in neutral; we’re making a lot of smoke and not going anywhere.

Is data always useless? Not at all, but the tendency to find patterns and turn data in statistics takes something already abstract and abstracts it even further. That people then take these inferences and limited slices of information as gospel points to the crux of the crisis in American education. We end up with what we think are facts when they are really fictions that use math of lend an air of credibility.

Even with statistics and data metrics off the table, the idea of looking at the data exhaust pouring out of education as a way of directing future action demonstrates staggering shortsightedness. Education is not a data driven, linear or binary enterprise, it is a complex human one. We are not producing expert test takers, we should be producing well rounded human beings that can thrive in a complex, competitive, data rich century. No standardized test can measure that.

If you took your poorly running car into a mechanic and they just kept revving the engine harder and harder while watching smoke billow out of the back you’d think something was wrong with them, yet that is how American education is tuning itself. They then wonder why they aren’t scoring well in world rankings. If we want the education vehicle to take us somewhere we need to crack open the hood and take a look at the engine, but what is that engine? What actually makes the engine of education run well? It isn’t fixating on the data exhaust.

Canada has performed very well in world education rankings. We find ourselves able to keep up with some of the world’s best education systems, like Finland, and we do it at a much lower cost per student than the US has managed to. It looks like all that testing and data exhaust fixation costs a lot more than your students’ well being, it’s also hugely inefficient.

A well running education system focuses on pedagogy. It is what fuels it, it is what makes the system serve its students using the best possible learning practices. Pedagogy is a tricky concept, and it doesn’t offer simplistic solutions that digital technology companies can app-up, but it does give everyone, no matter how much they may disagree on the details, a common goal.

There was a lot of talk about coming together and pulling in the same direction over the Common Curriculum at this conference. We aren’t all on the same page in Canada when it comes to processes or how the system should run, but pedagogy is on everyone’s mind. Best practices have to drive education. Having standards isn’t a bad thing, but when you’re so fixated on the data exhaust you’re producing that you forget fundamental pedagogical practice, you’ve lost sight of what education should be in the data smog you’ve created.

In Canada we pay less and produce more by focusing on pedagogy rather than empty data gathering (aka: standardized testing).

via USC Rossier’s online Doctor of Education