In 2004 my wife and I had our son Max. At the age of three his daycare provider was wondering about his reactions to sudden loud noises and encouraged us to have him in for assessment. This was a difficult process for me, I didn’t want him labelled and pigeon holed for the rest of his life, but at the age of seven he was diagnosed as being on the autism spectrum.
Autism presents in an astonishing number of ways. In Max’s case he’s hyperlexic, and has many of the social cues you’d associate with autism (lack of eye contact, nervousness around strangers, generally missing social cues). Encouraging Max into activities that other kids would leap at was always tricky. We tried soccer for a year, but it wasn’t his thing; Max does things in his own way. When we started him on a bicycle he was slow to get into it and then wouldn’t take the training wheels off. After an intensive week last summer with Kid’s Ability he was shooting around on two wheels. We built him a bike (pretty much from scratch) and he’s been inseparable from it since. Last summer was, coincidentally, my first summer motorbiking. While I was fettling my bike, he was fettling his. I took him for a couple of short rides around town on the Ninja, but I was worried about how much attention he was paying on the back there.
This past weekend we took the bike down to Guelph on a sunny but cool Saturday morning. With the topbox (and backrest!) on, it was a lovely ride. I was no longer worried about him disappearing off the back. He is very excited about the idea of riding which has me wondering about autism and motorcycling. I think he enjoys the anonymity a helmet gives him (something not uncommon in autistic people). In addition to the sense of anonymity is also the mechanical sympathy I see in a lot of autistic kids. My day job is as a high school teacher of computer engineering and we have a high number of autistic kids in our program. I think they enjoy computers because they are consistent in ways that human beings simply aren’t. That consistency creates a trust in those kids; they can work with a computer and know that it won’t be bizarre, random or emotionally difficult. Some of my most focused, strongest students are on the spectrum and present a deep, nuanced understanding of technology. Having a son who is autistic, I’ve moved from a professional relationship with autism to a much more personal one. When it’s your own son you start to see it in yourself as well. My own mechanical empathy has a lot to do with my seeing machines as more than a sum of their parts. Where I find people difficult, often frustratingly so, machines reward consistency and right action; I like them for that very reason, and suspect that my son does too. I tried looking around online to see if there have been any links made between autism and motorcycling but I couldn’t find anything other than a lot of ‘rides for autism’. The immersive nature of motorcycling fits nicely with the hyper-focus many autistic people are able to demonstrate. You get to be anonymous inside your helmet and alone with your thoughts. On top of it all, motorcyclists seem to have an intense relationship with their rides, what many ‘normals’ would consider to be mere chunks of metal, or worse, pointless infatuations. A sympathetic if not empathic relationship with machines is a trait many motorcyclists and autistics seem to share.
I suspect there is a deep and lasting relationship between motorcycling and autism. I wonder that there is nothing written about this anywhere.
From Canadian Thanksgiving (early October) to the first snows of December. All taken with the trusty Canon T6i in my own backyard. I have a thing for nature macros.
Amazing architecture, but by the end of the long walk up the history of humans being shitty to each other you might be tempted to step off one of the many ledges; I was.
I just spent a long morning walking up the architecturally astonishing Canadian Museum of Human Rights. By the end of it I was reminded of a comment one of my profs made after he visited the Holocaust Museum: “You don’t end up thinking worse about Hitler and the Nazis, you end up thinking worse about everyone else.”
By the time I got high up in the museum I was feeling pretty done with being human. The Museum tries to introduce a sense of hope, but I had trouble accessing it, especially when the subtext of the whole thing and how it presents itself highlights the horror of human social nature.
What all the apartheids (the travelling exhibit on the first floor was called Mandela), holocausts, genocides and the general disharmony of human history had in common was our urge to establish ourselves as a dominant culture and then destroy anyone weaker or non-compliant. This self serving, centralizing behavior is a foundation of human group think. In the senior year of my philosophy degree I suggested that human beings are, by their nature, violently tribal and selfishly motivated when in groups. They’ll use any means at their disposal, from ability, race and gender to religion, culture and politics to isolate and attack each other for the benefit of their own tribe. We’ll invent a reason to segregate and attack each other if there isn’t an immediately physically obvious one. The prof adamantly and immediately shut down my line of thinking, saying that it had been proven in some kind of scientific sense that this wasn’t true, but there is a museum in Winnipeg that shines a bright light on this central aspect of human nature.
We’re not falling far from the family tree. Just like chimpanzees, baboons and most other apes, humans feel the urge to attack and victimize strangers, not usually at an individual level but at a group/social level. We have an in-built urge to aggrandize our own culture at the expense of others because it offers us a chance to be selfish while dressing it in virtue. Murder becomes patriotism, genocide becomes an act of faith. Human society is founded on this urge and the ones that survive embrace it wholeheartedly, the ones who didn’t have already been eaten. Our complexity has allowed us to glorify and express this viciousness in ways that are unique on our planet; our cruelty is truly boundless in regards to the natural world, but especially with each other.
You’re supposed to reach the Israel Asper Tower of Hope at the top of the museum and feel hope, but I wasn’t. The Museum suggests an evolution of human rights towards something greater, but the world today seems to be awash in technology that is at best confusing any sense of advancement even while we’re staggering under the weight of global issues we’re all too selfish to address.
The Museum seems to have stopped recording human rights abuses at about 2012. Considering the delicate political dance being done this isn’t a surprise. Pointing out the human rights failures of current governments and corporations while they’re funding you wouldn’t keep the lights on for long.
The museum describes social media as a great democratization of media and a powerful means of giving everyone a voice, but nowadays we have a differing view on that. Western democracies were soaring under black US presidents, politically strong European Unions and an expansive sense of hope when they stopped recording this selective history. Sure, we were staggering under the weight of a banking collapse of international proportions that was designed to drive wealth from ninety-nine percent of us to the one percent, but that’s not mentioned anywhere either unless you look to the sponsors list.
The human rights march we’re all supposed to be on towards an ideal the museum tries to present feels like it has faltered now that we’re in our unscripted future; maybe it was never there to begin with. It would have been wonderful to have seen new pieces on fake news, modern economic terrorism (banking), modern propaganda (social media), and how populism in Western democracies has put pressure on many human rights. White supremacy in the Twenty First Century? Human rights problems didn’t end five years ago, we’re not at the top of a mountain of human rights achievements we built, we’re on a rickety house of cards that seems doomed to collapse, but the museum is strangely silent on this.
There also seem to be some gaps in the museum’s historical analysis. No mention of Palestinians, or Syria, or dropping nuclear bombs on untouched civilian populations to get accurate statistics, though the Japanese comfort women system was mentioned. You can’t help but feel there are some Western political undercurrents going on here, which of course leads me back to what kicked this whole thing off: we’ll use any means necessary to gain and keep a social advantage, even if it means weaponizing human rights themselves as a political tool.
Insights from the general public at the end of six plus floors of human rights atrocities.
The idea of online echo-chambers where you only ever see ideas that imitate your own bias has been a recent topic of concern. Since battling my way through a philosophy degree at the University of Guelph, I’ve made it a point of trying on difficult ideas even if my first reflex is to disagree with them. I was once again testing myself like this at ICTC’s Future of Work Summit this week.
One of the main themes that kept popping up in this summit was people from private for-profit sectors suggesting that we completely rejig the public education system to serve up graduates who integrate with their employment needs more effectively. Ontario’s new government has a similarly reductive view of public education’s role. I teach technology and have always encouraged my students to discover and cultivate pathways that will lead them to a meaningful and financially effective careers, it’s one of my go-tos, but this subsuming of public education into the needs of private business pushed me further down that path than I care to tread.
I usually tweet my responses to ideas that come up in conferences in order to document them. It helps me remember what happened when I’m reflecting on them later. My initial response to a number of for-profit businesses asking that the entire public education system get rejigged for their benefit was to try and point out the difference between what public education does and what they think it does. Contrary to popular belief, our sole function isn’t to crank out employees whose only function is to make profit.
There was a strange tension, for me at least, between the aboriginal opening prayer song and talk of inclusion with the profit driven interest that kept bubbling up in various presentations. Perry McLeod-Shabogesic‘s thoughts on the wisdom of honouring everyone’s contribution and his careful wording around being a helper regardless of profit or personal benefit felt sharply at odds with the keynote by Cheryl Cran, whose lean, aggressive management strategies produce small but exceedingly efficient profit driven teams. Part of me likes that vicious efficiency. Drop the dead weight and maximize your effectiveness. I continue to participate in competition because of that drive, but I can’t let it motivate my teaching as a whole because my function is to serve the whole. I couldn’t help but think, “all business speaks from a place of privilege but has no idea that it does.” The idea of profit only exists as an option when fundamental needs are met. For many of the people in the world (and it’s the majority) who are still battling with fundamental needs, profit is a privilege they can’t afford.
In a public classroom I teach students who will never earn profit for someone else in their lives. Some will choose to work in the public sector helping society as a whole in healthcare, education or support services. Others will want to push back against the profit driven economy that is putting the fate of humanity in jeopardy. Others still may want to focus on meaningful work that is ignored by the private sector, like raising children or volunteerism, and some of them simply aren’t capable of working in the exclusivity of a for-profit workplace. I think Perry would think laterally and find ways to value all of those contributions. That indigenous philosophy based around the health of the community over the wealth of an individual is very helpful for a teacher considering their clientele. In the privileged world of business, all those people in my classroom don’t exist. Business focused speakers would want to ensure you never hired any of that sizable chunk of the population in the first place.
The changing Canadian job market: between public sector and NGO employees, a sizable chunk of Canada’s working population doesn’t operate in for-profit business. There is much more to society than business need.
If a sizable portion of Canada’s population doesn’t work in for-profit business, rejigging public education to serve that single sector demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of how society works. From a social justice point of view, you could argue that public education should focus on producing engaged and socially aware citizens. From an aboriginal point of view, we should be speaking to people from a place of community. From a special needs point of view, we should be working toward greater compassion and understanding of everyone’s contribution. An environmental point of view might also be a driver in public education. Environmentalism is increasingly diametrically opposed to globalized business and an ever-expanding economy in a world that is fraying under the weight of this unsustainable philosophy. Public education needs to address all of these perspectives of human society.
During the 2008 market collapse, one of those periodic moments in history when profit driven people lose their minds and fictionalize the world we all live in to such a degree that it becomes obviously unsustainable and collapses in on itself, I saw an online comment that said, “you don’t feed profit driven business steak, you let it feed off society’s waste, like the cockroach that it is.” That’s a harsh thing to say but people were pretty mad in 2008, though most seem to have forgotten all about it now, though we’re still paying for it.
The idea of inclusivity was a recurring theme at the summit. One example given was was how remote communities don’t have digital connectivity yet and this was held up as an example of a lack of equity. It is indeed a lack of equity, but you can bet that no profit driven business is going to provide that infrastructure. The infrastructure we build in society, especially the stuff to address remote communities where profit isn’t going to motivate action, is always done with public money. Roads are built not by the corporations that ruin them with transport trucks, but by governments supported by taxpayers. ICT infrastructure is no different. Corporations make their profits on the backs of infrastructure built with public funds. In this way, there is no real private company – they all rest on the back of publicly funded infrastructure. This is neither good nor bad, it’s just the way it is. Business is too fragile to make profit without support – fragility is the underbelly of that business privilege. That many business people wave their profit focus around with pride is always baffling to me. There isn’t a single billionaire who hasn’t made their wealth on the back of publicly funded infrastructure. To make that fragility the primary focus of public education is absurd.
This isn’t to say that private, profit-driven business does not have a function in our society, but it isn’t the heart and it certainly shouldn’t be the brain. At best, profit driven business is an appendage, like the arms or legs. Important, no doubt, but it can as often injure the body politic as it does help. Healthy, supported private business is important, but it isn’t the beall and endall of human society, and tailoring public education to cater to it is, at best, myopic and self serving.
***
Over this past weekend in Toronto I’ve had a strange breadth of experience. On the Saturday night we went to the Tiff Lightbox to see Apollo 11, incredibly restored and rendered footage of the Apollo 11 Moon mission…
I was born two months before that happened and spent my early years in love with the US space program. I was in tears watching this film. I consider it a pinnacle of human achievement that points to a possible, sustainable future. My love of technology was fostered by NASA’s work around Apollo. I fear we’ve lost anything like the vision and drive needed to get back to this summit. Watching the film, I couldn’t help but remind myself that this wasn’t a public or private enterprise, but a brilliant combination of what we are capable of when we combine our various talents and work together.
The next afternoon I was at Sting’s The Last Ship, a heart wrenching and de-humanizing tale of conservative globalization in 1970s England. I have family from Tyneside where this takes place and it rocked me. As a pro-union story valuing humanity over the economic forces that diminish us, it amazed me that it was playing in the capital of Fordnation. That the theatre was full of one percenters who daily throw people on the heap for their own profit was a disconnect, but that’s Toronto for you. As we stepped over homeless people laying on the sidewalks on our way back to the hotel, I wondered how Torontonians can keep it all straight. Perhaps seeing Sting is all that matters and the story doesn’t, but it should.
The next day I was sitting in this summit on the future of work where well dressed business experts talked about how we should rejig the public education system to better serve their profit margin. The Last Ship part of me was struggling with a rising anger, but there is more to this than just dismissing the needs of business. The purpose of public education isn’t to serve business elitism, but there are a number of situations where what we do in public education aligns with business need. A literate, numerate and digitally fluent population helps everyone regardless of the sector of society they go on to participate in. The digital divide we contribute to by graduating students with little or no digital fluency is hurting much more than business’s bottom line. From that point of view, business and the rest of society are in alignment.
If you’re digitally illiterate in the Twenty-First Century, you’re in real trouble whether you’re working in the public sector, the private sector or at an NGO. It even hurts you if you’re not working at all. Canada as a whole would benefit from a more digitally fluent society. ICTC may have aimed this summit at the needs of private enterprise, but addressing that new literacy goes well beyond the needs of business. ICTC’s drive for a digital skills continuum jibes with my expanded view of public education as much more than human resources training for business. Our country and our planet would benefit from more digitally effective citizens. How to make changes to Canada’s complex ecosystem of educational organizations was also a concern at the summit. Canada is the only leading OECD country without a federal ministry of education or a centralized idea of education, yet Canada performs astonishingly well in the world. Could it be that our mozaic of often competing education systems has protecting it from gross simplification by other social interests? A central system would be much easier to manipulate.
At the end of three days in Toronto, I’m stretched between being excited about the ideas of agility and efficiency advocated in the Future of Work Summit and worried about the dehumanizing effects that globalization and business efficiency tend to bring with them. In a more perfect world I’d hope we could chase efficiency for something other than profit.
Real estate and rental and leasing (13.04%), Manufacturing (10.36%), Mining, quarrying and oil or gas extraction (8.14%), Finance and insurance (7.1%), Public administration (6.33%), Wholesale trade (5.66%), Retail trade (5.41%), Transportation and warehousing (4.44%), Utilities (2.27%), Accommodation and food services (2.17%) and Agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting (1.65%)” http://www.imaginecanada.ca/blog/getting-know-canadas-nonprofit-sector-why-we-need-better-data
I’d originally read about touring around Lake Superior and called it the Gitchigoomee Goaround. I figured it’d be a week of riding. I came across another motorbike blog where the guy was talking about doing it in 24 hours. It turns out that focused, long distance, intense rides have a club! The IBA.
It turns out that circumnavigating Lake Superior is 1673kms, which happens to be just over 1000 miles. Leaving and returning to The Sault and going south through Michigan and around Superior to Ontario again, it would be a two border crossing trip with an awful lot of winding lake-side roads in between. That would be an ironbutt you’d earn the hard way.
What better time to do it than Thanksgiving Day weekend (October 12-14) in Canada? If we met up at Sault Ste. Marie on Friday and prepped, we could leave early Saturday morning before sunrise when there is minimal traffic at the border. As the sun rises we’re already making tracks through Northern Michigan.
The route: Sault Ste. Marie and back to The Sault, 1039 miles in 24 hours!
44 miles per hour (70 km/hr) average speed is needed, so packing in fifty miles per hour (80km/hr) gives you the wiggle room to stop for things like gas, or peeing, or eating, or a cat nap.
In a world of perfect efficiency with no road works, border crossings, traffic lights, mechanical considerations, weather, or traffic, keeping a steady 44 mph would be pretty easy. Doing it with all those things and the onset of a Canadian winter (along with early sunsets and late sunrises) raises the stakes.
I think I’d want to get in shape for this one. I was going to dare a buddy of mine to do it this year, but maybe this would be a better next year dare.
Update:
With next year in mind I’m adding in the weather this Thanksgiving weekend for Thunder Bay and Sault Ste Marie, which should give us an idea of what to expect. With showers on Saturday a Sunday to Monday run looks like it might have been the best bet. Cold at night, cool during the day, the right kit would be imperative. Leaving The Sault about 4pm so that the last hours are done in daylight on the afternoon of the next day. By the time we’re pushing east again the sun should be getting high in the sky so we’re not riding into it.
Sault weather days
Sault weather nights
Thunder Bay days
Thunder Bay nights
Warming up into the teens during the day, flirting with freezing over night.
When you see this in the morning, it’s hard not to be inspired!
ECOO13 was bigger better, and better located that any of the ECOOs I’ve previously attended. If you believe in ley lines then putting ECOO on the edge of a natural wonder captured some wonderfully thunderous energy. I’m told that back in the day ECOO was enormous, much bigger, but those early immigrants were following a huge first wave of personal computing. Since then computers have insinuated themselves into so many aspects of life that they often feel like just more work. Informational democracy courtesy of computer networking on social media is a slow burn and is still building. Instead of feeling disenfranchised by machines more and more people are recognizing them as an enabling influence, allowing individuals a voice where only mainstream media and large organizations once broadcast their influence. ECOO has been building on this new wave of social media democratization every year since I’ve been attending. It’s always in peril of being spun by the powers that be, but I still hold out hope that places like ECOO will allow people to realize how powerful they are in our new, flattened mediascape.
How to think in a new era? ECOO asking some big questions with Jaime Casap.
On a personal level I’ve been finding it difficult to engage with educational technology in the past few months. Between a new infatuation and a year of difficult technology events (GAFE summit. Pearson Social Media Event), I’ve been finding the business of education to be politically charged and inexplicably restrictive. The cavalier and simplistic manner in which technology is rolled out frustrates me. In a difficult year I’ve been finding personal growth in other areas. I’d signed up for an ECOO presentation without any really clear sense of direction. The past two years were pretty easy, I knew what I wanted to say and went after it, but after developing a digital skills continuum around pedagogy rather than cost cutting, and instead watching monopolistic corporate buy in, I’m not feeling overly engaged. Sometimes rolling the rock up the hill just gets too heavy.
They ain’t kiddin!
It was with this sense of unease that I went to ECOO, but quickly found my happy place again. From the conversations I had with intelligent, interrogative educators to the fantastically chosen keynotes that went straight after the larger questions around the information revolution we are living through, ECOO does indeed tackle tough issues. I really enjoyed all three keynotes and they didn’t shy away from asking what education isn’t doing to help our students get ready for a world most of us have no idea is coming.
Wired caught up with our ECOO keynotes in their latest issue. Coming back to the 19th Century, factory designed education system hasn’t been easy after soaking in the future for a few days. ECOO is what education could be like if there wasn’t all the friction from dinosaurs. If nothing else, ECOO reminded me that change is inevitable and not to give in to the pessimism of bureaucratic thinking. Being an agent of change is difficult. There are a lot of entrenched educational interests that have no interest in adapting to change. After being at ECOO for a few days surrounded by educators who have already made steps into the future I realize I’m not alone in this, and I’m on the right side of history.
One of the pieces they had in the recentbig 100th edition of Practical Sportsbikes was a 10 bike wishlist. Being a magazine focused on older sports bikes, that’s what their lists were. My wishlist is more wide ranging, covering everything from pre-war classics to the latest digital machines. There is a bit of 80’s representation, but it also has a pile of other bikes both old and new.
My dream list would lean heavily on the dreams…
Tim’s Ten Bike Wish List:
1) Granddad’s Coventry Eagle I’ve talked about my Granddad’s Coventry Eagle previously. This particular wish involves me coming across old NG4743 in a barn and restoring it myself. Being able to restore and ride a bike that should have been in our family for multiple generations would be a moving experience. I saw some Coventry Eagles at the British Motorcycle Museum a couple of summers ago and got surprisingly emotional at the idea of riding one. The most magical one would be the one Bill owned. If you’re going to wish list, wish hard! I couldn’t begin to guess what this would cost as it probably doesn’t exist.
2) Kawasaki Z1000
There are a number of modern bikes that have caught my eye. A consistent choice has been the shamelessly anime inspired, Sugomi designed Kawasaki Z1000. New ones go for about fourteen grand Canadian. I’m partial to the orange one from a few years ago. There is a low mileage one in Drummondville, QC for about nine grand. As modern naked bikes go, this one is big enough to fit me and scratches every Robotech Cyclone anime dream I had as a kid. The only thing better would be if it could transform into battloid mode – and it looks like it might.
3) Honda VFR750F
Most of my 80’s bike fantasies revolved around the Honda Interceptor. The VFR-750F RC30 came up on many of the Practical Sportsbike lists as well; it’s an ’80s kid’s dream superbike. Because it hits that nostalgic twang, it’s now a collector’s item and an expensive proposition, but hey, this is a dream list! Something like this would allow me to maybe edge into vintage racing and track days, though both things are pretty thin on the ground in Ontario. The RC45 race bike derivative would be an even better choice for vintage track riding.
4) Yamaha XT500
Another nostalgic choice would be a twinshock trail bike that I could use in vintage off road events. I’ve thought about trying to get my father-in-law’s old Suzuki, but he sold it on and I’d probably end up paying more than it’s worth to get back. Thanks to Henry Cole and crew, I’ve got a soft spot for Yamaha XT500s. A restored XT would let me pursue silly things like classic enduro rallies and the V.I.N.C.E..
5) 1938 Triumph Speed Twin
With all the research into World War 2 I’ve been doing, the Triumph Speed Twin keeps coming up as a huge leap forward in two wheeled technology. If I were to own a pre-war bike, this would be a more likely dream choice. Perfect versions go at auction for $24k+ Canadian. I’d be happy with a less perfect bike that I could actually use.
6) 2019 Ariel Ace
The Ariel Ace is one of those bespoke and bizarre machines that could only exist for me on a dream bike list. Since first seeing the almost architectural design of the Ace’s girder front forks and trellis frame, I was smitten. The Ariel uses a stock Honda motor but is otherwise a custom machine that you can design to your own wishes. At £24,950,this is very much a dream list bike.
CCM’s Spitfire custom model comes in a variety of styles, but my favourite is the classically styled Royal Air Force Benevolent Fund Spitfire. This 600cc customized thumper is a lightweight thing that looks like it would be a blast to ride on twisty roads. As a modern bike with classic styling, it would fill a niche in my dream garage that nothing else does. £18,000 isn’t cheap, but dream list, right?
9) Honda Goldwing Touring
Say what? A Goldwing? One of the functions of my dream bike garage would be to participate in as many different kinds of riding as possible. Of all the big touring bikes, Honda’s new, lighter Goldwing is the most capable all-round tourer there is, and it’s Honda bullet-proof. Another bike north of thirty grand, it’s something that would only be on a dream list, but it means I could take a happy pillion with me and tour like we mean it.
10) Husqvarna 701 Enduro
Husky’s 701 Enduro is an off-road capable bike that’ll also handle the roads needed to get you to the edge. This would be another one of those bikes selected to let me experience a specific kind of riding. The 701 only weighs a bit more than I do but is a big, capable off roader that would fit me, keep up with traffic when needed and still be able to off road. At about $14,000 Canadian, it isn’t a cheap dream off roader.
I feel like I’m missing a modern track day bike. A Honda Fireblade or Yamaha R1 would be on my shortlist for that duty, though with no Ducatis in the mix here, the new V4 Panigale R would probably win dream bike wishlist status over the more mundane Japanese choices. I might be convinced to swap the Z1000 out for that.
I’m also partial to weirdness, and a sidecar outfit would scratch that itch. I like older styled outfits, so a Royal Enfield or classic modern Triumph with a bullet sidecar would be a cool thing to add into the list, perhaps after swapping out the XT500. I only leaned toward the Goldwing as a touring option instead because you get to lean on the Honda.
Rather than go the Husky route, a stranger choice there might be getting a Lyndon Poskitt rally bike made. At thirty to sixty thousand Euro, they aren’t cheap, but that’s what a dream bike list is all about, right?
***
I’ve managed to cover a range of bikes from the early 1930s to the latest models. With a sweep of almost ninety years and what are some truly weird options, I hope I’ve managed to express just how diverse and strange my motorcycling proclivities have become. My final list would include bikes manufactured in England, Japan and Europe and range in price from pretty accessible to pretty much unattainable.
If nothing else, a dream bike list lets you stretch your expectations and expand your considerations around what you might ride. From doing the Distinguished Gentleman’s Ride on my grandfather’s Eagle to seeing the wrong side of two hundred miles per hour on a supercharged dream machine, for me the dream stable is about opening up possibilities rather than creating a museum exhibit.
Why you going looking for the Niagara Escarpment: it’s the only place where you’re not riding on the crown of your tire all the time in Southern Ontario.
A bit windy, but otherwise perfect weather. 24°C in Elora down to 18°C on Georgian Bay in Thornbury; comfortable without ever being sweaty. The 360° shots are from a Ricoh Theta 360° Camera, the rest are taken from my Samsung S5 smartphone. Videos are at the bottom.
Getting ready for liftoff.
The wind fields of Shelburne
The look on my face when I’m about to ride up River Road out of Hornings Mills.
A thumbs up from Max, he likes the twisties.
A pheasant and baby! But you can’t see it due to poor resolution and lens distortion. The Theta is an interesting idea, but even with giant, unwieldy files, it still has poor image quality.
The new adventurers (a Kawasaki Versys & Suzuki V-Strom), along with the Tiger that has always been (mine’s 13 years older – made back before Ewan & Charlie did that thing)
It can be done! Coast to Coast to Coast in Canada. It’s a monster ride though, over twenty thousand kilometres, all in the second biggest country in the world. Leg 1: Go West Young Man
Starting from home in Southern Ontario I’d strike west up the Bruce Peninsula and over Manitoulin Island and up around Lake Superior. From there it’s a straight shot across the Prairies and then through Calgary into the Rockies. Through the Southern Rockies and Vancouver and then a ferry over to Vancouver Island and on to Tofino on the Pacific Ocean. Leg 2: True North, all the way
Dempster Highway, North West Territories
From Tofino it’s back across Vancouver Island and then north up the coast before taking the ferry from Port Hardy to Prince Rupert. The ride from Prince Rupert is where things start to get tricky. You’re on paved if very remote roads all the way up to the Dempster Highway and then it’s hundreds of kilometres up to the arctic circle and the mid-night sun. By 2016 they hope to have an extension of the highway all the way to Tuktoyaktuk on the edge of the Arctic Ocean, then it’ll really be coast to coast to coast. Leg 3: Eastern Promises
After dipping a toe in the Arctic Ocean it’s back down the Dempster before striking east through Grande Prarie and Edmonton. The trip east retraces a bit of the Trans-Canada past Winnipeg before crossing Northern Ontario to Montreal. It’s then up the North Shore to Quebec City before crossing the St. Laurence and making the turn at Rivière du Loup and heading into New Brunswick. Crossing New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, it’s then a ferry ride to Newfoundland for the final leg to Cape Spear, the eastern-most point in Canada.
I think I’d have to make a point of crossing Confederation Bridge on the way past just to have set foot in every province and every Territory you can ride to in Canada.
The round trip is over twenty thousand kilometres, all in Canada, crazy! Between higher kilometre days on highways and the lower mileage moments in the north, I’d hope to average 800kms a day. If I could keep that up it could be done in just under a month (27 days). Aiming at July of 2015, leaving on Canada Day (July 1st), I’d aim to be back home by July 31st, giving me four extra days in the mix to get the job done. Leaving at that time will also mean seeing the mid-night sun above the Arctic Circle.
At about $60 in gas a day (3 fillups), a conservative $100 for lodging and $40 a day in food, I’d have an operating budget of $6200. BC Ferries look like they’ll be about $260. To get on and off Newfoundland it looks to be about $180 in ferry costs. I’d land at Port Aux Basques and cross NFLD on the way to Cape Spear, but take the Agentia Ferry back directly to Sydney for the ride home. All in I think I’d be looking at about seven grand to cover the trip.
Bike-wise I think I’d be considering sport touring options. The vast majority of mileage would be on pavement, with only the push north on gravel. Tire-wise I’d start on street tires and then switch over to something more multi-purpose in Whitehorse for the ride to the Arctic. If John Ryan can go from Prudhoe Bay on an FJR, I don’t think I need to go full-SUV motorcycle with an adventure bike to get up to and back from the arctic. The rest is a high mileage ride on first world roads. I’d want to do it on a bike that makes corners fun.
My current choice would be a bike that handles long distance duties well. The Kawasaki Concours is just such a machine. Two-Wheel Motorsport happens to have just what I’m looking for, a low mileage 2006 that would do the deed. With a shaft drive and a bullet proof reputation, it would cover the miles enthusiastically. My other bike choice would be the new Honda VFR800F. It’s another sports tourer that could swallow these huge distances with confidence.
The final piece would be the media. A Gopro clipped onto the bike would be running whenever the bike was in motion. I’d also have a mobile video camera and my trusty Olympus SLR for other footage. The trick would be not to get hung up with the photography, I tend to lollygag when I have a camera in my hand.
If the production was stepped up a notch, I’d meet up with my production crew at various spots along the way to off load footage and do some stock footage of me on the bike (which wouldn’t happen so much when I was alone). Ideally I’d have a wingman for the trip and we’d both take turns at filming (and half the cost of lodging). The trip itself would offer a live webfeed of mileage covered and where we are, including uploads of recent images and footage.
In the more fully-decked out version I’d go to OLN or Discovery Channel or the Travel Channel for some media support. Then Telus, Rogers or Bell for some communications support, and finally to Kawasaki Canada or Honda Canada for some bike support. It wouldn’t hurt to hit up local, provincial and federal governments to help as well, this is a uniquely Canadian focused trip, and with the final leg of the Dempster Highway finally happening coast-to-coast-to-coast is at last a possibility, it’d be nice to get the word out.
For more check out Coast to Coast to Coast 2.0.
