Tag: motorcycle

Canada is far from free of racism, but it plays at a much lower volume here.  Canada’s mosaic approach to multiculturalism and more open immigration policy probably have a lot to do with this.  The United States’ melting pot must feel especially hot if you’re not what the ideal American is supposed to look like.

One of the things that always strikes me when I cross the border south is the unspoken friction between black and white Americans.  Being a big, white, bald Canadian means I’m often assumed to be an off-duty cop, which doesn’t help things.  There is so much history wrapped up in this that it feels heavy, even to an outsider.  When trying to strike up a conversation with a black person in the States you are usually met with polite reticence, like they’d just rather not speak to you.  It’s more trouble than it’s worth.

I get that reticence.  On a previous trip, out of nowhere, at a gas stop a white guy told us that his parents told him never to put money in his mouth because black people had touched it.  I guess we were supposed to laugh and feel a sense of camaraderie with this man, instead my wife and I looked at each other with WTF looks on our faces.

On my first solo trip to the States in the late ’80s my buddies and I walked into a Burger King in Milwaukee and were met with forty black faces looking at us with, ‘what the hell are you boys doing here?’ expressions.  It was one of the only times I’ve been stopped in my tracks by that kind of stare (we hesitated and then went in, had lunch and all was good).

MotoGP has riders from all over the world, from Japan to South America and everywhere between.  It’s a multi-cultural global event that doesn’t cater to racism.

On our recent trip to Indianapolis a young black woman at the counter dealt energetically with the four black people ahead of my son and I, but when we finally got to the counter she gave us a sideways glance and sauntered off in a kind of dance, eventually disappearing into the back, singing to herself.  We both stood there wondering what we were supposed to do (it’s hard to pay for gas in the States when you don’t have a ZIP code).  A few moments later another girl came out and served us.  It’s not easy explaining that sort of thing to your ten year old.

Motorcycles on Meridian has riders of all kinds digging bikes.

That friction began to break down when we were at the Speedway.  Suddenly everyone there was a motorcyclist first, even before what colour of American they were.  I found it easy to strike up conversations with people regardless of colour.  That positive energy followed us to Motorcycles on Meridian, where I once again found the motorcycle community outgunning any sense of racism.

The next morning at Cycle Gear we got into conversations with several groups of black riders coming into town for the Indy weekend.  Once again the walls were down and we could just talk bikes.  Again in Ohio, Max and I were taking a break in Wendy’s when a group of tough looking black bikers on Harleys came in, on their way from Detroit to Indy. The reticence was there at first (we were far from Indy at that point) but they soon warmed up to me.  We exchanged advice on road works and left wishing each other a safe ride.  Other people watched the exchange with interest.

Up in Detroit the lovely, young black woman who got our Little Caesars order sorted out had all sorts of questions about the bike and riding.  Motorcycling works even if you’re not talking to another motorcyclist.  There is something about the vulnerability of riding that encourages people to talk to you.  They find it admirable.

The kinship you feel while riding is a very real thing, but motorcycling reaches out into the general public too.  If motorcycling can overcome that tiring American black/white friction, it might just be able to do anything.

I know hyperbole sells papers, especially in the infamously hyperbolic British press, but with Dakar winners whining about how hard it is, the whole thing looks to be on the verge of imploding.  With all of this negative noise around it, it’s only a matter of time before some enterprising probably American lawyer attempts to shut the whole race down with a liability lawsuit.  I”m hoping the cavalier French organization running the Dakar are suitably prepared to deal with that.  It would be a crying shame to see the Dakar ended by such mediocrity.


These headlines popped up on Lyndon Posskitt’s Instragram feed.  In typical Lyndon fashion he was simply thankful for the attention, you’d be hard pressed to find a nicer guy.  That the headlines are so turned up to eleven as to be practically hysterical isn’t anything new.  When unprepared playboy racer Mark Thatcher got lost in the Sahara during the 1982 Paris to Dakar rally the British press lost their minds.  Rather than wonder why a spoiled rich kid who had forgotten about the race until the week before it began and then managed to navigate his driver almost two hundred kilometres off piste before crashing was in the mess he was in, they questioned this weird, dangerous foreign event.  Even the level headed BBC can’t help but describe it as a mental illness.


From  a more factual point of view, this Dakar had a 55% finishing rate.  I don’t know about the toughest Dakar in years, this year’s event had a better finishing rate than 2009, 2010, 2011, 2014 and 2015 (all years the race ran in South America).


In the almost thirty years the Dakar ran in Africa, only five times did half or more of the competitors cross the finish line.  It took until the 1990s to get over half of the starters to the finish for the first time.

Tacking on to the end of Red Bull’s graph there, in 2015 there was a 51% finishing rate.  2016 was a 62% finishing rate and 2017 came in at an all time high 72%.  Perhaps the issue is that the race has been catering to the results orientated professional rally teams more and more.  With their money and vested interests trying to control the race and maximize participation and therefore advertising revenue, there is moneyed pressure to turn the Dakar into a glorified two week world rally stage.  The quick professionals are the biggest complainers.  If you’re looking for proof, those inflationary finishing percentages tell a tale.  Or perhaps it’s because in 2018 everybody thinks they deserve a medal for showing up.

If anything this year’s Dakar looked like the desert races of old with sand, dunes and savage navigation.  What you’re seeing here is Dakar sporting director Marc Coma‘s course design getting better and better.  If anyone could take the Dakar back to its roots, it’s the guy who was worried about navigation losing its importance in the first place.  

You can take all the press hyperbole fed by professional speed-racer whining with a grain of salt.  The Dakar is in good hands and it will remain what it is: the toughest motorsport event in the world.

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I teach computer and software engineering when I’m not motorbiking.  This year I’m also doing a Ministry of Education grant on virtual reality research with some other teachers in my school board and it has left me wondering about how immersive simulation might work with motorcycles.

We have an Oculus Rift and an HTC Vive in our lab at school, so we can look into software development on two of the largest immersive virtual reality platforms.  VR has split into a couple of different camps.  You’ve got the cheap viewmaster style of VR like Google Cardboard that uses your smartphone to produce quick and easy 3d visual experiences.  At the other end of the spectrum you’ve got the fully immersive systems like our Vive, Oculus and Sony’s PlaystationVR.  These systems are still pretty expensive, but they work surprisingly well for first generation devices – I often have students come out of them as though they are waking up surprised to find themselves back at school.  VR, whether it’s a simple smartphone enabled device or the fully immersive kind, has a great deal of emotional impact.

How could VR be used in the motorcycle industry?  If you want to see a new bike in 3D to get a sense of what it looks like in the flesh, looking at it on a 2D monitor won’t do a good job.  Google cardboard and a smartphone are all you need to see in 3D.  If that isn’t a cheap and obvious tool for dealers looking to advertise motorcycles, I don’t know what is – Jaguar is already doing it.  I suspect you’re going to start seeing simple VR viewing kits included in smartphone packages in the future as the advertising power of immersive medium becomes more apparent.

The immersive simulation served up in VR has real emotional impact on customers looking to make a decision.  You wouldn’t be limited to a bike model either.  Taking a 360° video of a walk through of your showroom would allow customers to virtually see many bikes in 3d along with having a sales presence at their beck and call with no threat of pressure.  Virtually checking out a showroom before you make the trip over there is going to be a key sales hook in the future.

Virtually experiencing the factory where your favorite manufacturer produces your dream machine?  Can you imagine the brand loyalty generated?  VR is an intensely personal experience – your fans would feel like they had been on a VIP tour after that.  This kind of intimacy in marketing has a powerful effect.

Beyond the 3d imaging offered by basic VR, fully immersive systems offer a level of experiential training that is otherwise cost prohibitive.  The thousand dollar headsets might seem expensive, but last year at the Skills Canada National Competition I was talking to a company that makes tree harvesting systems for the forestry industry.  These mechanized systems cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.  Up until the past couple of years a new operator had to learn by sitting in the real deal.  When they broke blades or damaged robotic arms it cost big money in both equipment and lost harvesting time.  At last year’s Skills Competition they had one of their new VR training systems – an operator’s chair surrounded by an accurate recreation of the physical controls hooked up to a VR headset.  Suddenly you’re in a forest grabbing trees with a million dollar tool and learning how to best operate the machine.  They could simulate failures and varying conditions as well.  These $10,000 a seat systems saved millions in their first year of use.  New operators could spend many hours learning the system before ever setting foot in the real thing, and poor operators could be selected out before ever doing any damage.

Riders seldom get a chance to ride a bike before they buy them.  VR could change all that.  A system of wireless sensors could be attached to any motorcycle in the showroom.  With the bike wheel locked onto a simple pitch/yaw/roll mechanism, you could experience the ergonomics of your specific machine without ever turning over the engine.  Specs could then be loaded into the VR simulator and then you go for a ride, virtually.  You would get a personalized, immersive audio and visual experience while feeling how you fit on the machine without using any gas or depreciating any new model.  This kind of experience is very engaging.  I suspect the sales rate after such a VRride would be exceptional – it would also be a draw to get customers into the showroom.

Specialized simulators for racing are another obvious training tool.  Riding and racing schools, teams and other specialists could offer VR as a first, less expensive step into everything from working out the basic controls of the machine for a beginner to Jorge Lorenzo trying various lines around a track while experiencing suspension and engine setting changes before doing it in the flesh.

Even the first generation immersive VR systems we have now would be capable of offering this level of training.  They’ve only been out for a year or so (we ordered our Vive last April), but the possibilities around this emerging technology make my glad I have early adopter experience with it.  A couple of students dropped by the lab the other day wanting to try it out (it generates buzz even in students not taking computer tech).  After half an hour trying out Tiltbrush, Google Earth and our new Oculus handsets one of the girls took the headset off with stars in her eyes and said, “wow!  This is the future!”

In five years it is entirely possible that tens of thousands of people will have a much more intimate idea of what it feels like to be Valentino Rossi on a perfectly tuned Yamaha M1.  Pretty cool, eh?

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The Distinguished Gentleman’s Ride is something I’ve wanted to participate in for a while now, though I never seem to have ‘the right kind of bike’, which is frustrating.  Fortunately I can grow a bad moustache as well as anyone else, so I’ve Movembered multiple times.


The DGR started in 2012 and has become a world wide event collecting millions in donations focused on men’s health.  One of the main focuses of the Distinguished Gentleman’s Ride is suicide.  Men are much more likely to do it and the DGR is now finding ways to support men socially so that they don’t feel like this is a solution.  I’ve got family history with suicide and greatly appreciate the work this Australian charitable organization do around men’s health, and particularly their focus on suicide prevention.  You can submit an idea up until July 6th, 2020.

I’m three of those things, so being mindful of suicide is a wise approach.

As I was reading over this initiative I immediately thought of the various motorcycling cooperatives I’ve seen online where people get together and work on motorcycles, sharing tools and expertise.  The teacher in me likes the idea that this kind of mentoring could happen in a generational setting where both older men with knowledge and skills to share, could mentor new would-be riders who want to develop technical skills as they get into motorcycling.


Here’s the goal for this project:

DGR continues by saying:  We know that:

• The cultivation of healthy close relationships can increase individual resilience and act as a protective factor against suicide
• Friends and family can be a significant source of social, emotional and financial support, and can buffer against the impact of external stressors
• Traditional methods for engaging men about their health are often not effective and deter men from taking action for better health outcomes.
• Programs designed specifically by and for men and reach them where they naturally gather are more successful.

O U R   S O L U T I O N  –  A N   I N N O V A T I V E F U N D I N G   O P P O R T U N I T Y :

Movember and DGR are proud to challenge the creative and forward-thinking people of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, UK and the US to rethink the box and deliver innovative, concepts that lead to game-changing solutions targeting social connectedness, life satisfaction and mental wellbeing of motorcycle riders. For this initiative, we have prioritised middle-aged men who ride motorcycles and are dealing with key life challenges, and young riders in need of mentorship.

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The idea of a year’s sabbatical has come up a few times recently.  I’m ten years away from my retirement date.  My job has a four out of five option where my salary is stretched over five years while I’m only paid for four.  It means a slightly smaller paycheque, but then a paid year off at the end of it.


My wife has ideas of going back to school in that year off, but I’m disinclined to take a year off teaching in school to go to school.  What I’d really like to do is the EPIC MOTORCYCLING TRIP with the intent of writing and producing art and photography out of it.  When people do this they typically line up the RTW (’round the world) ride and then spend a lot of time in poor countries making unintentionally Western-superiority statements about how hardy they are and how backwards non-Europeans are.   I’m reluctant to follow that pattern.


We recently spent a summer driving most of the way across North America and back again.  I had a number of moments when I saw North America for what it is:  a place that has almost no human history in it.  At the Canadian Museum of Human Rights I started thinking about how native aboriginal people are to North America (there were lots of displays on how poorly Europeans integrated with the first immigrants to this place).  A few days later at the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Drumheller I discovered that most of North America’s mega-fauna disappeared right after humans first arrived; we’re an environmental scurge no matter where we go.  It got me thinking about how North America must have looked before we got here and unbalanced it all.


The Americas were blissfully free of human beings for all bit a trivially small, recent moment in time.  They separated from the massive Pangea landmass between two hundred and a hundred and seventy million years ago, long before anything remotely human walked the earth.  For millenia upon millenia North and South America were unique ecosystems with animals not found anywhere else, all of it safe from the human migration out of Africa two to three million years ago.  Earliest estimates now have humans crossing the northern ice bridge during an ice age about fifteen thousand years ago.  That means that, conservatively, humans (aboriginal and later settlers) have claimed North America as theirs for less than 0.0086% of its existence.

One of the few mega-fauna left after the humans got here. It’s hard not to see a tragic species memory in those eyes.

This framed much of that trip for me.  I kept trying to see the lands we were travelling through without the recent influx of foreign species.  Humans appeared and immediately started filling this place with invasive species from where they came from.  This became especially evident when I was looking into the eyes of a truly native species in Yellowstone Park.


This human free view of the Americas is something we tend to ignore as we’re all so busy justifying the pieces of it we divide up between ourselves.  Most of North America’s history had nothing to do with us.  There are other parts of the world that have had humans living in them for hundreds of thousands of years, but those places aren’t here.

This sabbatical ride would be to circumnavigate North America and try to see the place itself without its invasive and destructive recent history.






The trick would be to time this ride with the weather.  I’d be off work beginning in July and then have until the end of the following August.  Heading east to Cape Spear (North America’s easternmost point) would mean avoiding the early winters that hit Newfoundland.  Spending a summer at home would be a nice way to start the sabbatical, then, as my wife heads off to school, I hit the road.  We could arrange meetups when she’s off school through the fall.

I’d start in Newfoundland in September and then head down the East Coast to Key West before riding around the Gulf of Mexico to Cancun and then crossing the continent at its narrowest point before making my way up the West Coast.  I’d try to time my pause for the holiday break, servicing and then parking up the bike in storage for a few months in California.


I’d fly back out and release the bike from storage in the late spring and aim to be taking the long road to the Arctic Ocean as the days become infinite over the Tundra.  Ideally I’d be back home by mid-July.

From tropical rain forests to mountains, plains and tundra, this ride would show the staggering range of geography to be found in North America.  At well over thirty-three thousand kilometres, this would also be an epic ride in terms of distance (RTW rides are typically 20-30,000kms).


The only downside would be the cost of travel in the USA and Canada, but there are ways to manage that without breaking the bank.  With the idea of getting to know the North America under the human migration, wild camping as often as possible would be a nice way to get closer to the land and to meet the people from all over Turtle Island who now call it home.

Taking my old Tiger on a North American circumnavigation would be brilliant!  This old thing would be long distance ready with only a few upgrades.

With a dearth of freeway travel on this trip, it would be about a lot of coastal roads and staying to the edge of the continent.  With potentially rough roads in the far south and north of the trip, something that is capable both on and off road would be ideal.  It wouldn’t need to be a high speed touring cable unit, but it would have to carry the gear for at least occasional wild camping.  There are a number of mid-sized adventure bikes that would fit this need, though I’d be just at tempted to take my current Tiger.  Perhaps I could customize it as a sabre-toothed Tiger in relation to the America’s apex predator (made extinct when humans showed up).


Riding tens of thousands of kilometres in a relatively short period of time means some challenging logistics, especially if I want to spend breaks with my significant other.  The ride out to Cape Spear on the easternmost coast is a thirty-two hundred kilometre all-Canadian opening to the trip.  All told, the ride out to Newfoundland and then back to the US border to head south down the Eastern Seaboard is nearly five thousand kilometres.  Breaking the trip into pieces is how I’ve blocked out the timing of it.


Canada East:  Elora to Cape Spear, Newfoundland and back to St. John, New Brunswick.  Mid-September.  About five thousand kilometres.  With potentially interesting weather (this year the east coast of Canada has been hammered by the remains of hurricanes) even this opening section might be challenging.  With ferries involved, doing an average of 400kms a day seems like an eminently doable thing that would also give me reasonable stopping time so I’m not always rushing past moments of insight.  Five thousand kilometres at four hundred a day works out to twelve days on the road.  Giving myself a fortnight to do that would mean being able to spend a bit of extra time where necessary (hopefully on Newfoundland).

The East Coast:  New Brunswick to Key West.  End of September/early October.  This four thousand kilometre jaunt down the East Coast would be happening in the fall, while dodging hurricanes.  Sticking to the coast would be occasionally tricky in a road system designed to put you onto an interstate, but I’d stubbornly cling to it.  Four thousand kilometres at four hundred a day average is ten days riding south.  I could easily compress that by doing it on freeways, but that’s not the point.  Being on back roads gives me a better chance of seeing the place for what it is instead of just seeing the travel industry.  I’d be aiming to get to Key West still fairly early in October and then start my circumnavigation of the Gulf of Mexico.




The Gulf of Mexico:  Key West, Florida to Cancun, Mexico.  From early October for the month.  The Gulf coast means I’m travelling through some culturally unique places.  New Orleans has long been a desired destination, and Texas is often described as a country in and of itself.  Crossing into Mexico puts this trip well into an adventure mind-set as I’d have to find my way through a unique culture in a language I’m not familiar with.  The fifty-three hundred kilometres of this leg of the trip should take roughly two weeks, but with borders and other hold ups it would probably be better to settle on an end of October arrival in Cancun (giving me 5-6 days of padding in there to let things run at Mexican speed).

Pacific Mexico:  Cancun through Baja to San Diego, California.  This six thousand kilometre leg up the west coast of Mexico and the Baja Peninsula will eventually lead me back to the USA.  If I’m beginning this leg in early November, it should take me fifteen days at my 400/day average to make my way north.  Giving myself the month means extra days, hopefully with a reading week meetup with Alanna somewhere in Mexico for a few days off together in the warm.  Even with that relaxed schedule I should be able to make my way to San Diego, service the bike and put it into storage for a few months before making my way home for the holidays.  A handy winter break means I could collate my photos and notes from part one of the trip.  


West Coast to the Arctic Ocean:  San Diego to Tuktoyaktuk.  This seven thousand kilometre ride to the northern edge of North America would take 18 days, but with multiple ferries, borders and coastal barriers I’d pad some extra time in there.  I’d be aiming for a late June/early July (midsummer, midnight sun) arrival in Tuktoyaktuk on Canada’s Arctic coast.  A month back from that would mean flying back into San Diego around the beginning of June and then riding north for many weeks.


From Vancouver Island on north this would be a rough and tumble ride with hundreds of kilometres of gravel roads.  The bike would need to be sorted and ready to take on that kind of abuse.

The Long Way Home:  Tuktoyaktuk, Northwest Territories to Elora, Ontario.  It’s nearly seven thousand kilometres diagonally across Canada back home again to finish this trip.  That’s another 18 days at 400kms/day.


I’d try to be home by mid-July and enjoy some downtime before getting ready to go back into the classroom.  The first nine hundred kilometres of this trip would be long days on permafrost and gravel, but from the Dawson Highway south it would be back on tarmac and I would be able to make better time.  There is no over land passage that traces the northern coast of Canada through the tundra, so a diagonal slash south and east would be the final leg of this trip.


Wrapping my head around this continent on which I live would not only give me great material for writing, but it would also let me tick off a bucket list item:  complete a truly epic motorcycle journey before I’m too old to manage it.

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It doesn’t happen often, I’m usually the one taking the photos. A student of mine saw me riding in to school from her school bus.

I’ve been riding the Concours for over a month now.  It came to me with a broken speedo reading 25073 miles.  Today it’s 25784 on it – 711 miles so far.  With some commuting and longer trips in the mix I’m starting to get a good sense of what the bike is capable of.

My most recent refill took me 175 miles and took just over 20 litres to refill (pardon my half imperial/half metric measurements).  It looks like I’m getting about 41mpg out of it, which is quite a surprise considering how often I push the RPMs up (it just sounds so good doing it).  I’ve been told you can get up near 50mpg if you don’t wring its neck, which should be doable if I’m on a longer road trip, especially if I’m covering miles at speed on the highway, which I never normally do.

The only time I pushed too hard was winding on the throttle when entering a main road a couple of weeks ago.  Being so torquey, the Connie broke loose on the back wheel when I rolled on the thottle.  I caught it in time but it was exciting!  Hooking up the bike and keeping it upright was surprisingly easy, this Kawasaki is remarkably responsive for how big it is.  Easing off the throttle and letting the tire reconnect was enough to get me straightened out and launched up the road right quick.  Other than that one bit of excitement the Concours has been an easy bike to live with.  It handles two up duty well, swallows the horrible roads around here with much better suspension than the Ninja had, and the engine has only gotten sweeter as I’ve started using it regularly.

With the Connie sorted I’ve been working on the rider too.  I started working on my weight in February when I was shocked to learn I was over two hundred and sixty pounds.  Most recently I was down to 248lbs, which is a 14lb drop, which isn’t bad considering I’m exercising regularly and have put on some muscle as well.  I’m aiming for under 240, but I’m going to keep up the exercise and eating choices and just see where it lands me.  The goal is still to eventually head off to racing school and not look like a tool in one piece leathers.

The cornering bible…

I’m currently reading Keith Code‘s Twist of the Wrist.  I’ve been looking for an intelligent description of motorcycle operation that accurately explains the dynamics of two wheeled riding (which differs significantly from three and four wheeled operation).

I listened to an interview with a senior Honda engineer (I can’t remember where) and he said that after World War 2 the engineers that couldn’t go into aviation (because of the U.S. embargo that prevented a Japanese aviation industry from re-inventing Zeroes) went into motorcycle engineering because the dynamics are similar (motorcycles work in 3 dimensions like airplanes).  Victory in World War 2 meant the end of allied motorcycling manufacturing as they knew it… an irony of victory, but I digress.

The Ninja takes a breather at Higher Ground, the lovely coffee shop at the top of the Forks of the Credit in Belfountain.

Professor Code’s book explains the dynamics of motorcycle riding in better detail than anything else I’ve found.  The video explains the psychology and physics of riding and dismisses many of the misconceptions.  

I spent this afternoon riding over to one of the few curvy roads in the farming desert I live in to practice my throttle control and make a conscious assessment of my fear reactions to riding.  I’m determined to get rid of the ‘chicken strips‘ on my tyres.  I got down to my peg feelers on a couple of the long corners, finally.

The distance between driving a multi-wheeled vehicle (which I’ve got a lot of experience on) and two wheeled vehicles is massive.  You have to fight a lot of habit and psychology to give the bike what it needs to corner well; the dynamics are completely different and counter-intuitive if you’re overly four wheel focused.  Even the process of approaching and exiting a corner is much more complex on the multi-axis two wheeled conveyance.  Driving and riding are two very different processes, and I’m frankly enjoying the complexity of the simplicity of two wheels by comparison.

Reading/watching Twist of the Wrist should be a requirement for anyone wanting to take on motorbiking, it’ll make you aware of the mechanics of riding.  

I really need a track day, not for the speed but for the ability to focus on process without worrying if the person coming the other way is texting.