I got a copy of The Greasy Hands Preachers through Vimeo the other day. I enjoyed Long Live The Kings, though the hipster meter got pegged a couple of times, TGHP was similar. The Greasy Hands Preachers interviews builders in the current custom motorcycle scene under the pretext of emphasizing the value of skilled manual labour. The movie is nicely shot (though sometimes gratuitously hand held and pull zoomed). By using off-the-cuff interviews you get glimpses into the deeper motivations of these custom builders, most of whom have more in common with sculptures than mechanics. I’ve spent most of my life in an orbit back to valuing my smart hands. In my late teens I was apprenticing as a millwright and struggling with the idea that I was undervaluing my mind. The thought of decades of repetitive, menial work drove me to eventually quit and go to university where I could finally prove to myself that I’m smarter than people told me I was. But smart hands don’t like inactivity. The intimate act of dismantling, understanding and healing a machine stays with you, and your hands itch to make things work again. Cars had devolved from a special interest to a utilitarian necessity for me. Working on them was menial rather than scratching an infatuation. It wasn’t until I started riding a couple of years ago that I found a machine that fostered a sufficiently intimate relationship to warrant infatuation. The ability to express my smart hands on a motorbike and heal the machine is half the thrill of riding.
The Greasy Hands Preachers are preaching to the converted with me. The
arc from white to blue collar work experienced by several of the people in the film is one familiar to me. But rather than pierce the veil and coherently express the underlying urges behind the resurging DIY ethos, GHP only hints at it. I think this is a result of their unscripted interview approach. Asking an artist to spontaneously and coherently express their process is unlikely to produce a clear view of what they do. Expecting them to be able to do so while on camera isn’t going to lead the viewer to a deep, nuanced understanding of how a mechanical artist values their hands. Were it me, I would have started with the interviews and then had a scripted followup that clarified and deepened the narrative. I can’t help but think GHP is an opportunity lost. If you want to look right into the heart of the DIY resurgence pick up Shopclass As Soulcraft and discover an intelligent explanation of the value of skilled labour. I was hoping that Greasy Hands Preachers would approach Crawford’s brilliant little book in terms of realizing the value of hands-on work, but instead it’s a pretty, sometimes banal film that hints at deeper ideas. Would I recommend The Greasy Hands Preachers? Certainly. It’s a beautifully filmed opportunity to consider an important part of being human. If you read Shopclass As Soulcraft first (as I’m guessing the makers of GHP didn’t) you’d be ready to create your own meaning, which is probably better than being spoon fed anyway.
It’s just past 8am on day one of the ride. Even this early in the morning it’s already in the mid-twenties and the sun is relentless. The padding I thought I’d try in my helmet was a bad idea, and by the time I reach Creemore I’m working on a full scale headache. Thirty seconds after we stop the Roof lid is back to normal and it works like a champ for the rest of the trip. Motorcycle gear is an ongoing process of fine tuning, especially when you mess around with something that already works.
This trip grew out of a friend’s cross country anniversary ride with his wife on his new-to-him Goldwing. We were originally going to drop down to the ferry on Manitoulin Island for the ride home after day one, but the ferry is booked solid during the day so I started looking at another way home. Having never been to Northern Michigan, it seemed like a good idea to wrap around Lake Huron. It’s just over 1500kms of wilderness riding with few people in between.
The goodbye in Creemore went long as we’d been accompanied by friends out that far, so we got back on the road just as the sun was going fully nuclear. Day One was the longest of our trip, five hundred kilometres around Georgian Bay up to the small town of Massey, Ontario. A gas and lunch stop in Perry Sound followed by a couple of road side stops along the way made the heat bearable with lots of consuming of liquids at each stop. You know it’s hot when you’re sweating freely at highway speeds.
Mohawk Motel: clean, cheap & odd!
We rolled into the Mohawk Motel in Massey just past 4pm. The grass was brown and crisp, just like us. The motel was basic but clean with air conditioning. Everyone cold showered and relaxed for a while before we wandered out into town only to discover that the only restaurant was closed early due to it being hot. We were told to walk down the street to a variety store that also doubled as the local fast food joint. Forty five minutes of waiting in forty degree heat later I’d paid forty bucks for a cheeseburger, fries and a couple of slices of pizza. We staggered back to the hotel and called it a day. The next morning Massey totally redeemed itself with a fantastic breakfast at the Back Home Bistro. As we finished up the eggs and bacon, rain moved in. It was still in the mid-twenties, but humid and wet. We rode into heavier and heavier rain as we traveled west over the top of Georgian Bay. A brief stop in Blind River to check on my stoic pillion had us bump into a couple doing a similar route to our Huron circumnavigation; it wasn’t the last time we’d meet them. The rain came and went before finally relenting as we rode into Sault Ste. Marie. We parted ways after a surprisingly excellent and cost effective lunch at Pino’s Supermarket where you can get a brick oven baked pizza and amazing sausage on a bun for next to nothing.
Jeff & MA were on their way to Wawa up on Lake Superior, while Max and I were headed over to the border crossing into Northern Michigan. After a day and half together we’d made good time, covered a lot of ground in all sorts of weather and everyone still had smiles on their faces (a good Italian lunch helped there). After a quick goodbye we saddled up and headed over to the bridge only to bump into the couple from Blind River again. We followed them up onto the bridge to discover a massive line up. Inching a fully loaded two-up bike five feet at a time up the side of a suspension bridge is about as much fun as it gets. Fortunately we had a great view of the river beneath us. Sault Ste Marie is one of those places that reminds you just how big the great lakes are. In the hour plus we were inching our way over that bridge I tried to imagine the tons and tons of water that rushed beneath us out of Superior and into Huron, it feels very powerful and boggles the mind. A highlight of the interminable wait was getting to the peak of the bridge. From that point up until the customs gates we were going downhill, so the bikes stayed off and in neutral as we glided forward, inches at a time. As I said to our doppelgangers, ‘at least it isn’t yesterday!’ That bridge on a forty degree sunny day would be unhealthy. My magic power kicked in at the split into lines for each gate. Which ever one I pick will immediately stop, and of course it did. The couple ahead of us were down the interstate a good fifteen minutes ahead of us while we sat there pondering karma, or just plain old bad luck.
Once finally freed into Michigan we headed south into the tail end of some very violent
thunderstorms. The mist became rain, and then strong winds came up out of west. It was an hour of tacking against the wind down i75 to St. Ignace and The Breaker’s Resort. We got in about 4pm drenched and weary after a long day in the rain broken up by the better part of two hours crossing the border in five foot increments. Java Joes provided a first class milkshake and coffee before we headed over to check in. They weren’t ready for us, but housekeeping did back flips to get us into the room ASAP.
We enjoyed the hot tub and pool, but Breakers is a family resort, kind of like Disney World but with a great lake instead of mice. If you like screaming, unmanaged children and drunk, indifferent parents on smartphones, this place is for you. Max and I vacated the pool in a flurry of OCD after a kid pretended to be vomiting water out over and over again. Dinner was takeout pizza from Java Joes, and it was exceptional. With everything scattered around the room in a vain attempt to dry it out, we crashed on the beds and watched Seth Macfarlane cartoons as the fog rolled in outside. After two days and the better part of a thousand kilometres on the road, we were both pretty knackered. We woke up early in backwards world to blue skies and the sun rising out of Lake Huron (the sun goes to sleep in Huron where we’re from). A savoury breakfast of heavily processed meat pucks and bad coffee with large Americans eating all they could while watching Trump speeches on FoxTV (we are far from home my son), had us ready to hit the road. I wiped down the trusty Tiger and we loaded up for a day that was more about exploring than making distance (though it eventually turned into both – you’re always making distance if you’re trying to get around a great lake). After a quick fill up and a slow ride around St. Ignace’s lovely harbour, we got onto the interstate and headed for the Mackinac Bridge, it was spectacular:
The Mackinac Bridge is worth the ride!
We took our border-buddies’ advice and headed over to the Tunnel of Trees. This put us on the shore of yet another Great Lake (Lake Michigan). The micro-climate on the west shore of Michigan’s northern peninsula produces fast growth. As you ride onto that side of the peninsula everything is super green and the trees get Pandora big. The M-119 is a twisty little blacktop that runs through those forests along the shore. It’s barely two lanes wide with no curbs or runoff. You need to keep your eyes on the narrow lane, but you’re never moving that quickly. Surrounded by a sea of green, you quickly get into a meditative mood. The Tiger can be whisper quiet when it wants to be, and we purred through that green cathedral in near silence.
You can’t help but get that look on your face on the M-119.
We ended up getting redirected off the tunnel road due to construction and never found our way back. We eventually got to Petoskey, which I was interested in seeing because it was where Earnest Hemingway used to spend his summers as a child. It’s box stores and hotels bent under the weight of lots of tourists nowadays. If Hemingway were to return, I’m not sure much of it would ring a bell. Out of the heat in a McDonalds at lunch we ran into our doppelgangers again. They suggested an alternate route out of Petoskey and we wished each other a safe trip once again. A short time later one of the retirees working there walked up to chat about bikes, he had a big old Harley in the lot and couldn’t identify the Tiger. When I told him it was a Triumph he got the same happy, nostalgic expression that a lot of people did when I told them what we were riding. There is a lot of good will and nostalgia around the marquee in the States. On the road again we struck east across the peninsula aiming for Alpena on the Huron coast, but between the heat, increasing traffic and the strong westerly winds, we were both losing the will to get there. We turned south on 65 and wound our way through Huron National Forest, stopping for an ice cream in Glennie. The lovely young lady who served us told of her hours spent horseback riding the day before, then three local farmers came in for a cone and were curious about the Triumph. It was all very nice. When we left she came out to her car that had a big ‘Vote Trump’ bumper sticker on it. I found it hard to reconcile how nice Americans were with the insane politics they practice.
Old Detroit charm – built back in the day when the motor city was a world traveller destination, the Bay Valley Resort reminds of the golden years.
When we finally turned onto 23 heading back out to the interstate I gave a barbaric yawp in my helmet, as it felt like we’d never get there. The final blast down the interstate in 60km/hr cross winds was performed using shear will power. We staggered in to the Bay Valley Resort after nine hours and over 450kms on the road in strong winds and relentless heat. Bay Valley Resort was a real treat. Cheaper than Breakers, but better in every way. If you like modern hotels, this isn’t for you, but if you like character, Bay Valley has oodles. The doors are made out of wood (!), and the entire resort is situated in the middle of a golf course. It’s much more adult orientated, but it had all the accoutrements my son loves. The pool is an indoor/outdoor design with a river between them, and the spa was a hard hitting jet affair with strong bubbles perfect for loosening up sore muscles after a long day in the wind. The whole thing was set into patterned concrete. The on-site restaurant was swathed in dark wood and was both classy and dated, I loved it! The food was chef prepared but priced very reasonably. We fell asleep feeling well cared for in the silence of a golf course at night – no sounds of screaming children anywhere. We woke up the next morning and hit the pool one last time. Max wasn’t keen to mount up for yet another day on the road. Day one had been a high mileage sweat box, day 2 a rainy, windy ride with an interminable border wait, and day 3 was a high mileage meander across the peninsula in heat and high winds. We were both tired, and having to get my pillion in motion made it even heavier. After a late breakfast we finally got on the road just before 11am and I made a command decision to take the Interstate rather than head over to the coast on another back road ride. No wind and less heat made our interstate jaunt through poor, old Flint, Michigan a relatively painless affair. Flint feels like a ghost town at the best of times, but this year it felt abandoned. We stopped at a rest stop on the i69 on the way to the Canadian border when Max got a leg cramp, but otherwise high-tailed it home.
Distracted Stratford drivers put that look on my face.
It took all of five minutes to line up and cross the border back into Sarnia. Heading into The States was misery, coming home was a dream. We stopped in Sarnia for lunch and then hit the bricks for the final ride home. We thundered up the 402 on the long legged Tiger before angling off toward Stratford on back roads. After over sixteen hundred kilometres of riding, much of it through wilderness, it was the ride through Stratford and its dithering, well dressed theatre patrons that was the most dangerous. We were cut off and almost run over by people less worried about killing us than they were making their curtain call. It was the only moment on the trip that I was tempted to chase someone down in order to thump them.
Back in the stable after a flawless 1600+kms ride, what a champ!
We finally pulled into the driveway just before 6pm, sore but elated. The ride had its challenges, but the memories made were keepers. The road into Sault Ste. Marie is lovely and surprisingly mountainous. The Mackinac Bridge is a must-do experience, and riding down the tunnel of trees is like attending the best church ever. Java Joes makes a good food stop and Bay Valley Resort is a forgotten gem worth staying at if you’re in the area. All in all it was a great adventure, albeit a trying one. Sometimes, usually when it’s least comfortable, I wonder why I’m doing this to myself, but the memories sort out the discomfort from the awesome, and the awesome always wins.
Riding the Tunnel of Trees road in northern Michigan http://www.motorcycleroads.com/75/309/Michigan/Tunnel-of-Trees-Road.html#sthash.BxFBBpqw.dpbs – Spherical Image – RICOH THETA
I’m back at school this week and getting to know my new students. In our grade nine introduction to computers class they’re putting together tech-resumes so I can see what their background in tech is. One of the nines has a prezi covered in pictures of Ferraris. I asked him what that was all about and he said, “I love cars!” I was surprised by my response, “they’re appliances dude!”
Some of them even look like fridges! Guess what the most popular car colours are… just like appliances!
I’ve been a car-guy for a long time (since I got one when I was seventeen because my parents ponied up the difference between a car and the motorcycle I was going to get). On the list of things I thought I’d never say, calling cars appliances is near the top, yet out it came. Appliances are used to make domestic chores easier, things like commuting, or going shopping. They keep you dry when it’s wet, keep you cool when it’s hot, and warm when it’s cold, and they get you where you need to go. They’re so easy to operate that most people who use them have no idea how they work and don’t care. The vast majority of people on the road last focused on how to drive when they were getting their license, once they have it they simply operate their vehicles on habit for decades. Cars are a necessary appliance for modern life, and that’s how people use them. Fetishizing cars is where I found an odd resonance. As engineering and design efforts, I can still appreciate the mechanical and design elements some cars display (one of the reasons I still look forward to watching Top Gear who focus on those things), but when I see someone driving down the street in a pimped out Pontiac Sunfire I have to wonder what is wrong with them. It’s like putting a wing on an oven. What kind of license do you need to drive a car? In Ontario it’s a G-general license, good for cars and light trucks. Two-thirds of Canadians have a driver’s license. Older drivers who probably shouldn’t be on the road keep general licenses active, we hand out automotive licenses to children before we allow them to vote. Driving a car offers access to an appliance that the majority of people feel they need. When I have to take a car to work it’s for appliance like reasons (I need to pick up equipment or move stuff around), it’s never an enjoyable experience in and of itself. I want the car to work, to be efficient, and to last a long time… like any other appliance. I drive very well. I’ve spent time and money improving my ability to handle a four wheeled vehicle in advanced driving schools and on the track and I’ve driven on both sides of the road on opposite sides of the world, but the thought of hauling tons of seats and dashboard around a track seems absurd to me now. I’ll make an exception for racing vehicles stripped to the essentials, but my interest there is mainly in the engineering rather than the driving. The complex, raw interaction between rider and machine on two wheels is much more interesting to me now. I have been drifting away from driving as a ecologically irresponsible means of recreation for a while, though the years I’ve spent getting familiar with internal combustion engines has made me a fan of their engineering. The brutal minimalism and efficiency of a motorcycle allows me to keep that connection alive knowing that I’m burning as little gas as possible to carry the least amount of weight in the most entertaining fashion. I’ll leave the appliances to the masses. They can get into their refrigerator white or silver vehicles and putter about in a distracted, isolated way, using way more of a diminishing natural resource and producing more waste to support a wasteful, simplistic, accessible means of transport that the majority of people can manage (poorly). I think I’m at peace with what came out of my mouth in class, though it surprised me at the time.
appliance
[uh-plahy-uh ns]
1. an instrument, apparatus, or device for a particular purpose or use.
2. a piece of equipment, usually operated electrically, especially for use in the home or for performance of domestic chores, as a refrigerator, washing machine, or toaster.
After the success of taking Ricoh Theta 360 images on the roll a few weeks ago, I brought it along for a ride over to Erin and the Forks of the Credit on a sunny Saturday.
The embedded full 360° images above you can save on https://theta360.com show you the full range of the camera, but you can also use the desktop editing software to capture the views you like:
If you’re looking for an on bike camera, you’ll be happy with the Ricoh Theta – it’s cheaper than much of the competition and is the easiest to use and most fully 360° camera you’ll find.
The garage is looking pretty spacious this weekend. The Concours sold yesterday so the Tiger is alone in the bike-cave for the first time. I ended up selling it on if I could sell it for what I bought it for, which I did. I owned it for five years, rescued it from retirement, doubled the mileage on it, had some great adventures riding around Georgian Bay and down to the last MotoGP event at Indianapolis in 2015.
I was ready to go in 2016 when the Concours wouldn’t start. With the Canadian motorcycling season agonizingly short I lost my patience, but then a Tiger appeared as if by magic and suddenly the Concours wasn’t a necessity. It’s hard to believe I’ve had the Tiger for three years already; it isn’t going anywhere.
With the money from the Concours set aside, I’m already considering my next project. I’m aiming for a bike that is significantly different from the Tiger, which is a great all purpose machine, but it’s heavy; a lighter specialist is the goal. The guy I sold the Concours to already has one and half a dozen other bikes. Having that many bikes would be a handful, I’ve always been about a functional garage. Jeff, the motorcycle Jedi, has three very different bikes, that’s the direction I’d like to go in.
In a perfect world I’d have the Tiger, a sports bike and a light dual sport. A generalist, a tarmac specialist and an off-road specialist. Time to peruse the Ontario used bike market.
The worrying bit is this guy managed to blow a Honda engine, which are famous for being bulletproof. If it has been abused (the dent in the tank suggests it’s been dropped, though it’s a dualsport that goes off road, so I shouldn’t read too much into that) then the engine could have more major damage and require big end cranks and such, which could make this a money hole.
The fact that it runs is promising and it does sound like a top end issue – but I’m guessing it’s a head replacement or major remachining situation. It’s an air cooled single cylinder, so after the complexity of the water cooled, four cylinder Concours, this’d be lawn mower simple. I’m tempted.
I’ve always had a soft spot for VFR Interceptors, and this lovely example is up for sale at a pretty reasonable price considering how much work has gone into it. Hugo, the editor of BIKE Magazine recently got one of these and went on and on about how bullet proof they were, so even an older machine like this would be readily usable. With this RC-36-2, last gen version you get a VFR at the pinnacle of its Honda evolution. It’s technically considered a sport-touring bike, so you don’t get caned in Ontario’s ridiculous insurance system, and it weighs less than 200 kilos, which would make it the lightest road bike (ignoring the KLX250, which wasn’t really a road bike) I’ve ever owned.
If I could get it for $3500, I’d be able to ride it for years. Rather than depend singularly on the now 16 year old Tiger, I could split duties between a generalist and a road specialist. This too is tempting.
It’d be nice to have both, the XR as a project and the VFR as an immediate gratification machine; they would make for a very diverse garage. I think I could have both on the road for just over six grand CAD.
The other week I posted a discussion on the Concours Owners Group asking how to pass a large group of bikers on the road.  That discussion sparked an angry rebuttal condemning me for mocking the happy pirate look that a large portion of the (especially) North American motorcycle community identifies with.  Personally, I’d say people can dress however they want and ride whatever they want, but I get the sense that the pirate types don’t feel that way. On COG I was trying to be funny, but with an edge.  On the Georgian Bay circumnavigation I ran into some corporately attired Harley riders who wanted to point out how much unlike them I looked.  It felt like hazing with the intent of getting me to look like a proper biker.  Nothing will get my back up faster than someone telling me I have conform to their standard.  The irony wasn’t lost on me that these rebels without a clue whose look is predicated on nonconformity were uncomfortable with a motorcyclist not in proper uniform. One of the reasons I make a point of reading British biking magazines is because they are free of (and willing to make fun of) this dominant North American biking culture.  They don’t worship Harley Davidson as the one and only motor company, and they try to look at the breadth of motorbiking rather than forcing a single version of it down everyone’s throats.  Had I the boat load of money that they cost I would happily buy an HD V-Rod (not considered a ‘real’ Harley by purists because it’s liquid cooled).  It’s a fine machine and I’d get one for that reason, but I don’t think I’d ever buy a motorcycle because of the manufacturer alone, I’m not that politically driven. When I first started riding I was shiny and new about it and told one of my colleagues who rode that I was just starting out.  He asked me what I got and when I told him a Ninja he put his nose in the air and said, “hmm, isn’t that like riding tupperware?”  Just recently I told him I was thinking about getting a dual sport.  He said, “why would you want that?  It’d be like riding a toolbox!”  In the biker ethos there is only one kind of bike with a single aesthetic.  If you don’t conform, expect criticism. In talking to other motorcyclists the non-mainstream/biker crowd sometimes find biker types to be holier-than-thou, not returning a wave or giving you the gears at a stop for not conforming to the dress code. Motorcyclists tend to be iconoclasts, they have to be or they’d be doing what everyone else does riding around in the biggest cage they could afford.  Yet the act of riding isn’t enough for some, there are also social expectations that these rebellious non-conformists expect all riders to conform to. At the end of the day I’m a fan of two wheeling.  I’d call myself a motorcyclist.  I get as excited about looking at historical Harleys as I do at racing tupperware or riding toolboxes.  I only wish more bikers would be less critical of anything other than their singular view of the sport. I refuse to conform to their nonconformity.
My escape is usually to find some motorcycle media to get lost in but a theme this week in it was ‘getting old’, which is a tricky one to navigate. I’ve started watching Long Way Up and seeing two of my favourite adventure motorcyclists getting old is difficult. I got into Long Way Round and Long Way Down early on in my motorcycling career and they’ve saved me from many a long Canadian winter. I’m up to episode four now and they’ve hit their stride and are coming close to their earlier trips, but watching everyone looking for their reading glasses and groaning as they saddle up has been difficult to watch.
Long Way Up happened because Charlie almost killed himself and it prompted Ewan to reconnect with him again after they’d drifted apart when Ewan moved to the US. Maintaining friendships among men as they age seems to be exceptionally difficult these days. I recently worked on a charity program for The Distinguished Gentleman’s Ride that considered ways to keep men socially connected as they age. Speaking from personal experience, getting older is a lonely experience. Men seem uniquely suited to doing it poorly in the modern world. As I watch the boys figure out their new fangled electric bikes and work their way out of deepest, darkest Patagonia it’s nice to see the power of travel and challenge bring back some sense of their former selves, we should all be so lucky.
Harley Davidson’s involvement in the program has been fascinating. I can hand on heart say that I’ve never once had the remotest interest in owning one of their tractors. I don’t like the brand or the image, but what they did with Long Way Up was daring in a way that KTM was incapable of being way back when they did the first one in the early naughties. I admire that kind of bravery, especially when it’s with such untested technology. Harley’s involvement in Long Way Up is even braver than BMW’s has been in previous trips where they provided the measure of long distance adventure travel that had been evolved and refined over decades. Even with all that it sure did seem to break down a lot though. That the bikes appear to be doing so well doing long distance adventure travel when our battery technology is so medieval makes me wonder why the brand clings so tightly to its conservative cruiser image, they could be so much more than big wheels for red necks. If I had the means I’d drop thirty large on a Livewire tomorrow (I’m a school teacher, there ain’t no thirty grand bikes in my future).
While I was acclimatizing myself to the reading glasses and stiff joints of the Long Way Up I also watched the Barcelona MotoGP race. Valentino Rossi is an astonishing 41 years old and still a regular top ten finisher in this young man’s sport. He managed his 199th podium finish earlier this year and looked like he was on track to hit 200 podiums in the top class this weekend when his bike fell out from under him while in a safe second place. It was tough to watch that opportunity fall away from him after he lined everything up so well, but old muscles don’t react as quickly, though Vale was hardly the only one to crash out of the race. I’m hoping he can make that 200th podium happen, but it’s just a number and if he doesn’t, who really cares? He’s still the GOAT and will be until someone else wins championships on multiple manufactures across multiple decades through radical evolutions in technology. He managed wins on everything from insane 500cc two strokes through massive evolutionary changes to the latest digital four stroke machines. Winning year after year on the top manufacturer on a similar bike just ain’t gonna cut it if you want to be GOAT.
He just signed a contract for another year with one of the top teams (Petronas) in the top class of MotoGP. He has battled against generations of riders who have come up, peaked and been beaten to a pulp by this relentless sport, and he still seems able to summon the drive and discipline to compete at the highest level. If that isn’t Greatest Of All Time inspirational I don’t know what is. I suspect Charlie Boorman might empathize with him. Charlie’s another one who doesn’t know when to stop, even when he probably should. Watching him bend his broken body onto his bike in Long Way Up is also inspirational in a way.
It all reminds me of a poem…
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Rims:Front: 36 spoke alloy rim 19 x 2.5″ Rear: 40 spoke alloy rim 17 x 4.25″ 2005 Tiger: 14 spoke cast alloy: same size (is this findable? Yes it is! Not rears though)
Tires: Front: 110/80-19 Rear: 150/70-17
Coolant flush. 2.8l of coolant (50% distilled water 50% corrosion inhibited ethylene glycol) – cool engine – remove fuel tank – remove pressure cap- – unscrew bleed hole bolt (thermostat housing) – remove reservoir cap – container under engine – unscrew drain plug (left side of engine) & drain (keep the old washer for flushing) – remove lower coolant hose and drain – flush with tap water – reinstall old washer & plug & lower coolant hose and fill with water & aluminum friendly rad flush – reinstall drain plug (25Nm) rad cap and bleed hole bolt (7Nm) – put fuel tank back on – run engine to warm (10 mins) then let cool – re-drain – refill with plain water, repeat running, cool and redrain – use a new drain plug washer and torque to 25Nm – with everything but the bleed bolt installed slowly fill with coolant – fill reservoir to MAX and cap everything and install bleed bolt (7Nm) – run 3-4 mins, rev to 4-6k a few times to open it up, check rad and reservoir levels
Spark Plugs:NGK DPR8EA-9 0.8 to 0.9 gap 20Nm (under gas tank, like everything else)
Fork oil change:Kayaba G10 or equivalent 107 mm from top of tube with fork spring removed and leg fully compressed. Larger riders (like me!) might want 15 weight oil. Tiger oil change intervals. Tiger fork oil. Fork oil viscosity – More Tiger fork oil info. Capacity: 720cc/ml oil level: 107mm (from top of tube with spring removed and compressed leg) Removal of forks (with body work & front wheel removed) – one at a time and with all gubbins removed from fork – loosen fork clamp bolts – loosen top fork bolt while it’s still on the bike (hard to do when it’s off) – note alignment of fork before removing it – loosen lower clamp bolts, it should slide loose out the bottom top fork bolt: 30Nm clamp bolts top yoke: 20Nm Handlebar holder clamp bolts: 26Nm
Brake fluid flush DOT 4
Chassis lubricant (swing arm, stearing head, levers & pedals): Mobile Grease HP 222 or lithium based multi purpose grease.
It had been one hell of a morning. I got to work only to get a frantic phone call telling me to turn around and come back home because a snow plow had backed up into my wife’s car. An hour later we’d dropped off the car at the repair centre (while finding out it might get written off and/or take weeks to fix) and were on our way to work. As we approached the last traffic light before work I must have seen something out of the corner of my eye and my foot was hard on the brakes.
I don’t consciously remember hitting the brakes. In retrospect I must have seen something out of the corner of my eye and instead of ignoring that peripheral warning I instinctively acted on it. At 50km/hr we were moving at over 3 metres a second. Had I hesitated or waited for clarity, we would have driven right into a t-bone with the big, V6 American sedan that was running the light at twice the posted limit.
We were just outside of two school zones in a residential area with low speed limits, but that big sedan was easily doing 80km/hr when it blew threw a very red light. I sat there stunned for a moment, as you do when something happens and you don’t know why. There were a lot of questions popping into my head: had I just run a red light because I wasn’t paying attention? Why were the people in the other car were trying to kill us? Did we really just come that close to getting clobbered after the morning we’d just had?
As we proceeded through the intersection I double checked the light just to make sure I hadn’t made a mess of this whole thing, but I was still facing a green light. The guy next to us who was turning left had also stamped on the brakes to avoid the flying Dutchman. He looked over and rolled his eyes at the situation. I grinned back uncertainly. I asked Alanna, “did that just happen?” After the morning we’d already had this seemed beyond the pale. As I pulled in to work the implications of what happened were starting to sink in. In an alternate reality where I didn’t listen to that feeling my son was an orphan and the mouth breathers in that car, if they weren’t scattered down the road, were probably trying to explain to the police how it wasn’t their fault. No one is responsible for anything any more.
This all got me thinking about what saved us.  Peak performance requires your rational mind to apply itself to practice in order to develop basic skills, but there comes a point where you have the basics in hand and spontaneous, complex action can arise seemingly without intent. If you’ve ever become competent at a sport you know what this feels like; you don’t think about it when you backhand the puck into the net or make that diving catch. I don’t think about vehicular control, I inhabit the vehicle.
Driving is one of those things I’ve worked on for years, taking advanced classes, racing carts in Japan and expanding my vehicular operation into new areas like riding a motorcycle, which is itself also an intensive exercise in situational awareness. I have to wonder if the Tim who never took up bikes had the same developed peripheral attention and reacted on it as quickly; riding a bike makes you open your third eye or you tend to keep finding yourself in situations that make you want to quit doing it.
It’s important to cultivate an awareness of your intuition and trust in it. Your subconscious mind is a much less cluttered and restricted part of your thinking process and can see things with a clarity that your reasoning mind is oblivious to because it keeps getting in the way. If you have a bad feeling about something, listen to it.
Here is some philosophy to connect the link between intuition and performance:
https://www.scholarsage.com/author/jason-gregory/
“Intelligent spontaneity, then, is a fully embodied state of mind where one is perfectly calibrated to the environment. The environment essentially becomes an extension of your skill.”
Things have tightened up around the total solar eclipse that crosses The States in August. If I can make it back for the 23rd I’ve got a conference I can attend to demonstrate virtual reality, and who wouldn’t want to do that? The conference would also pay for the trip, so that’s nice. Timing and weather are the key factors in making this work. This eclipse is also a two for one deal because it happens right over the Tail of the Dragon at about 2:30pm on August 21st.
There are a lot of very detailed maps out there showing you where the path of totality is thundering across the Earth’s surface at over six hundred miles per hour. From 1:05pm local time to about 4pm is the time it takes for the moon to go tip to tip over the sun. Totality only lasts from 2:33:54pm to 2:36:25pm – a scant two and a half-ish minutes, then daylight returns.
I’ve seen partial eclipses before but I’ve never seen totality, so that’s the goal (that and riding the Dragon). Fortunately Deal’s Gap and the road to the Fontana Dam are right in the path of this once in a life time (in North America) event. I’ve got to boogie home after seeing totality. If I’m on the road by 3pm local time, how much time can I make before stopping for the night? Now for the iron-butt portion of the trip. The conference kicks off late morning on Wednesday, August 23rd in Toronto. As long as I’ve gotten my ass home by Tuesday night, all is good in the world. It’s a 360 mile interstate blast to Dayton, Ohio (home of Les Nessman!). Google Maps says just over six hours. With a couple of stops call it seven. If I’m on the way by 3pm, I should be stopping for the night between 9 and 10pm – just after a late summer sunset. Day two is a long distance run up to the Canadian border and back home – just over four hundred miles. If I were under way by 9am, with a few stops and some lunch, I’d be home by 6pm-ish; totally doable.
With the back end compressed, the front end of the trip becomes my only chance to ride the Appalachians on the way down…
South through Buffalo and into the mountains, then it’s three days of winding Appalachian roads and Blue Ridge Parkways south to Cherokee in the heart of the Smokey Mountains.
If I left on the Thursday before, I could do Thursday and Friday nights on the road south, Saturday and Sunday nights in Cherokee near the Tail of the Dragon, Monday night near Cincinnati on the way back and then home again. It’s a lot more interstate than I’d normally go looking for, but it’s still a once in this lifetime opportunity.
