Tim’s Motorcycle Diaries – Page 4

Winter Motorcycle Diaries

I’m waiting on an above freezing day to do the coolant flush on the Tiger (it needs to run to circulate coolant and doing that in a closed garage in freezing temperatures isn’t a good idea). After that I’ll be able to put it all back together and aim it at the door for the first possible ride when the snow eventually clears.

In the meantime, Jeff’s airhead adventures continue. The old BMW is in pieces and this week we took the biggest lump over to a local metal shop to get it bead blasted down to the metal. I’m curious to see what this industrial process does for the BMW engine which looks like a piece of industrial art to begin with. DK Custom Welding is run by former graduates of the high school we work at. Their shop out in Salem is a magical place.

The air cooled lump prior to an industrial quality cleanup.

They have a full service metal shop at DK Custom Welding out in Salem.

Lots of interesting lines and asymmetrical details on the old air head.

A wide variety of classics were getting restored in the shop – they’d done a lovely welding job on a new floor pan on one 60s muscle car.

In other motorcycle news, Triumph Canada had a fantastic sale on some of their clothing, so I jumped on it. Sturgis Cycle delivered it wicked quick and it’s some really quality clothing. At the price I feel like I stole it!

It’s the depths of winter, probably about as far from a ride as I get, but MotoGP is testing in Sepang and their winter programming is always interesting. Last week I saw their video on Öhlins and how motorcycle suspensions work, which was very insightful. The amount of punishment a motorcycle shock takes in a single lap when ridden in anger is astonishing. I’d rather be punishing the new fork oil in my own shocks, but at this time of year I’ll take what I can get.

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Motorcycle Reading: Red Tape & White Knuckles by Lois Pryce

I read Lois on the Loose a couple of months back so I put Red Tape and White Knuckles on Kindle for a read over the Christmas holidays. Lois’s ride through the Americas was a great read, so Red Tape had a lot to live up to.

If you enjoy well edited, lean writing that is almost pathological in its honesty you’ll love Lois’s writing style. She holds nothing back as she describes her long and arduous route from England to Cape Town. Her vulnerability riding a motorbike colours the entire trip, making this very much a motorcycle focused read.

Now that I’ve read both books I often find myself wondering how the people she ends up travelling with find her depictions of them. She is relentless in her assessment of how people deal with the challenges of adventure travel, and it isn’t always (usually?) flattering.

Lois is equally honest with her own fears and abilities while navigating Africa’s byzantine politics and sometime apocalyptic landscape. Her doubts creep in throughout this difficult ride, but she also explains how she recovers which is a wonderful insight into resiliency.

You’d think that the physical aspects of trying to cross Africa on a motorcycle would be what slows her down, but just when you think that the Sahara Desert will be the ultimate challenge you’re scared to death of what will happen next in the Congo. People are, by far, the most dangerous thing Lois encounters, though they are also often the saving grace.

Like Lois on the Loose before it, Red Tape & White Knuckles has some can’t-put-it-down moments (especially awkward when you’re supposed to be getting off a plane). And like her previous trip this one leaves you feeling like you’ve been on an epic journey where the beginning feels like a distant memory as you finish. Like the best journeys, this one feels like it changes you.

It’s better if it’s a tiger…

Toward the end of the novel Lois has an interesting talk with her husband Austin. Lois’s atheism comes up a number of times during her trip through religion soaked Africa, and her discussion at the end about Austin (also an atheist) praying for her safety was enlightening. It got me thinking about what being an atheist means.

I’d also describe myself as an atheist, but that doesn’t mean I’m lacking in imagination or meaning in my life. If Life of Pi teaches you anything, it’s that you shouldn’t miss the better story or the resiliency offered by an empowered emotional approach to challenging circumstances.

Lois contrasts the dead eyes and mercantile nature of the Congolese with the gentle kindness she finds elsewhere. There is such a thing as being too much of a realist, of allowing the world around you to dictate your reaction to it. We’re powerful creatures able to create our own responses to the circumstances we find ourselves in.

On our recent trip south I found myself putting on my lucky socks before I loaded up my son and all our gear to go for a ride in the Superstition Mountains (I know, right?). Do I really believe these socks are lucky? No, not if I dwell on it, but I like these socks, they make me feel like I’ve got my best kit on, they put my mind at ease, make me feel like I’m ready to do a difficult thing well. That confidence has real world value. Same with that lucky hockey stick, or my lovely motorcycle. Am I superstitious? No, I wouldn’t say I am because I spent most of my young adult life learning that things like fate or luck don’t exist, but I recognize the value of empowering myself with positive thinking.

If Austin found some peace in fraught times worrying about Lois in Africa then this isn’t a repudiation of atheism and reason, it’s an acceptance of the power of hope. These tentative forays into the psychology of adventure riding suggest an untapped opportunity. Lois’s honesty allows her unpack the complex psychology around dealing with fear, nurturing resiliency and developing an effective mental approach to the challenges of travelling off the beaten path. I get the sense that she shies away from this kind of philosophizing, but I hope she doesn’t in the future. If her purpose is to get more people out and about, this would aid in that.

Unfortunately this brings me to the end of Lois’s current works. Fortunately she’s working on another novel due out soon about her riding around Iran…

Around Georgian Bay

Everyone’s busy this weekend so, and to quote Freddie Mercury, I’m going to take a long ride on my motorbike. Time for my first circumnavigation of a Great Lake, I’ll start small with Georgian Bay. From Elora I’ll strike north to Tobermory. There is a 1:30 ferry to Manitoulin Island, that’s the only must get to (gotta get there an hour before departure, so 12:30pm in Tobermory).

I’m aiming for Little Current to overnight. We stopped there last summer and it seems a lovely spot to spend the night, and The Hawberry Motel looks the part. That’ll put me 340kms and a two hour ferry ride into an 873km circumnavigation.

Sunday morning I’m on the winding road up to Espanola and then over to Sudbury before the long ride south. It might seem like a stretch but the ride south includes some time on the 400, so I’ll get to see how the Concours manages highway riding while making some time down the other side of the bay. Once I get back south of the Bay I’ll cut over to the coast and follow it around before heading south out of Wasaga Beach for the final push home.

This ride is the longest I’ve yet done, and it also includes a ferry ride. I’m pretty revved up about it! Friday night will be the pre-flight checks then on the road Saturday morning. My buddy Jeff has said he’ll do the first leg with me up to Tobermory, so I’ll also get to do some miles in formation. Another box checked.

Here are the posts from the trip:
Part 1: To the North
Part 2: An informed ride
Part 3: Highway Miles
Part 4: The Kit
Part 5: Media from the Trip

The Concours is sorted and doing regular duty commuting me to work, time to stretch her legs…

LINKS

The Ferry

The Hawberry Motel

The Map

The Trip Itself

Turning Tedium Into Adventure

It was actually warmer this month than it was last as I headed over to Erin for a monthly meeting. I thought I’d had my last ride then, but instead I’m still at it as November begins.

The commute in to work starts
before sunrise these days, it’s
often below zero.

Since we haven’t had daylight savings time yet it was already past sunset at 6:30 as I headed out. Coming back late it was a starry sky that kept me company. While riding through an inky black countryside full of skeletal trees, a bright flash suddenly lit everything up as a fireball burned across the Milky Way. Never would have seen that in a car. Riding a bike is awesome.

I was asked why I’d keep riding as winter approaches. The answer is simple. Driving a car over to Erin and back is ninety minutes of tedious commuting. Riding the bike over and back turns it into an adventure. Just because something is easier doesn’t mean it’s better. I’m going to miss the adventure when the snow flies.

Trying out some unusual angles with the 360Fly.

It has snowed the week before on River Road.

There are large patches of sand all along the road.

Not to mention the wet leaves… exciting!

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Kawartha Highlands Circumnavigation

A July ride in the Haliburton Highlands: the plan is to take a few days in mid-July and head up to the in-law’s cottage. It’s just outside Bobcaygeon, Ontario and makes a great base for riding into the Canadian Shield in Haliburton.

The way into the lake is a fire road. all gravel and twisty like a rally stage. I’m actually looking forward to it now that I’ve done the SMART training; time to see if I can apply some of those off road skills so that the whole way in isn’t a nervous ride on a loose surface.

The next day I’ll take the Tiger out for a lap around the Kawartha Highlands Provincial Park. I did the Haliburton Highlands last spring on a birthday ride. Weaving through Canadian Shield lakes, woods and massive rock outcroppings is never a bad thing. Because of all those geographical features, Haliburton is one of the few places in Ontario where the roads have some character; you spend very little time on the crown of your tire.

If I’m finding the ride going by quickly there are a lot of alternative routes built in. The 504 looks like it would be fun to ride both ways.

10 North off the 648 up by Tory Hill also looks like it would be a good two way ride. It’d be easy to add some additional pieces on the day if time permits.

One thing’s for sure, that night around the campfire at the cottage is going to feel good…

The short route – 261kms. The longer route (318kms below) also covers the twisty 10 north of Highland Grove…

https://goo.gl/maps/unDLhiue4oT2

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Fireblade Petcock

I think I’ve finally gotten the fuel system on the scuppered Fireblade sorted. The last problem (and probably what caused all the other carb and engine issues) was a leaking petcock. I tried to take apart the existing one, but I should have listened to the Chilton manual and just replaced it in the first place. The new one (40 bucks on Amazon) seems a quality thing.

The petcock in the tank was pretty mucky, and was leaking even when turned off. If it was pouring gas into the carbs all the time, even when parked for long periods, it must have filled up the carb bowls and spilled over into the intake manifold and eventually found its way into the engine oil, which would explain the seven litres of what looked like muddy water that came out of the oil drain plug.

The new petcock looks like a more finished thing than what was on it. Based on the questionable mechanics on the rest of the bike, I’m guessing this was just something that fit rather than the right spec part. The one on the top is the new one and the bottom one was what was on the bike. It seems odd that Honda wouldn’t actually tell you what the petcock is doing by writing the position on the thing.

The old one also was also lacking the fuel filter, and the new one with the filter on it wouldn’t fit throught a tube stuck up in the tank hole. I removed the old o-ring and managed to free up the tube with some WD40 and slide it out. Like everything else I’ve found in the fuel system, it was a pretty mucky thing. With those weird bits now out and the tank cleaned, that’s the whole fuel system sorted, so hopefully it’ll run like it should when I finally get the tank back on.

The goal now is to wait for a break in the weather (we’ve been in the double digital negative temperatures with a fair bit of snow), and see if I can put the tank back on and fire it all up. It’s supposed to be 6°C and raining on Monday, so that’ll clear it up and maybe give me a chance to test the tank/petcock on the bike.

As it is, the new petcock is leak free on the tank (I just held it up and tipped it over a basin, but no fuel leaked), so that’s a result! The problems with this non-runner when I got it had me focusing on the fuel system to the exclusion of all else. I’m hoping that after a carb rebuild and the various other fuel system nick nacks I’ve sorted, that’s all that’s needed, but you never know.

With any luck I’ll actually get to ride the thing up and down the driveway later this week and find out what else it might need. If it’s sorted, I can focus on winter maintenance on the Tiger and do the LED turn signals I’ve got for both bikes next. Come spring time I’ll ride it over to my local motorbike shop, Mostly Ironheads, and have them do a safety on it and then get it sorted for the road.

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Photos from the Winter Road

These are some video screen grabs from the long way home commute from work last week. Windy and cool, but still up near ten degrees Celsius with bright, winter sunshine. The roads were relatively sand and salt free thanks to days of rain and floods. The Ricoh Theta 360 camera is wrapped around the mirror with a Gorilla Pod. A 360 video clip to start off followed by some photoshop post production…

February Ride – Spherical Image – RICOH THETA

All the screen grabs with various modifications can be found in this album.

If you’re looking for a motorcycle friendly camera, the Theta 360 has push button controls that are easy to use (most others have finicky wireless connections through a smartphone). You don’t have to aim it or focus it, it just grabs everything in an instant. The screen grabs on here are from the 1080 video the Theta made while attached to the rear view mirror.

My last ride was November 28th, so this was a soul destroying thirteen weeks between rides. I really need to find somewhere twelve months a year motorcycle friendly. There’s another bucket list goal: live somewhere where I can ride for an entire year without having to take three miserable months off.

On the upside, it won’t be 13 weeks until I’m riding again…

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The Week After New Years: Take 2

If it’s a seven grand proposition to get over to California and rent a bike to ride the Pacific Coast Highway, how cheaply could I do something else?

As if by magic, this popped up across the road from work this week. If they’re asking between five and six grand, it would be a straight trade for the commuter car I drive to work in the winter. This type of motorcycle transportation system has a cargo carrying capacity of over 3000lbs, so it would comfortably carry a bike or two.

Tiger to scale
in that van.

The Tiger, a fairly substantial adventure bike, is about 89 inches long, 34 inches wide at the handlebars and 55 inches tall. The cargo area in this kind of van is 124 inches long, 53 inches wide at the narrowest point of the rear wheel arches and about 53 inches tall. With the windshield removed, even two tall adventure bikes would fit in the back of this thing with only a bit of handlebar overlap. Two six hundred pound bikes would barely dent half the load capacity of the van. It would barely feel a single bike at all.

With the Tiger (and maybe a Super Tenere) loaded in the back, we could make the great escape south on the week after New Years.

It’s an all day trip to Knoxville.

If we left on New Year’s day we could be in Pigeon Forge on the edge of the Smokey mountains that night.

Monday morning we could hit one of a number of local motorcycle friendly routes. There are so many choices that other than a freak snow storm, we’d be on excellent riding roads, making miles in January.

Best Western Toni has a sale!

Pigeon Forge is nestled right in the middle of it all and their winter temperatures feel downright spring-like compared to what we have up here – hovering around 9°C on average. It’s cool, but no cooler than riding in the mountains around Phoenix was last New Years. On warm days we might get right up into the high teens Celsius. It’s a bit of a chance, but the reward would be getting some beautiful winter rides in while the north is under a blanket of snow.

Compared to the Californian coast, you can get fantastic hotel deals down Knoxville way. The Best Western in Pigeon Forge has a $74 Canadian a night deal on, and it’s a 4+ star reviewed place with indoor pools and hot tubs and included breakfast; the perfect launching point for a series of rides.

Lots of pretty roads around Pigeon Forge

Being a regular winter work week for most people, the roads would be empty. The Tail of the Dragon is only 54 twisty miles down the 321 from Pigeon Forge, and at that time of the year it’ll be anything but packed. The Dragon is just one of many excellent motorcycling roads in the Great Smokey Mountains area.

After exploring the Smokey Mountains from Monday to Thursday, we’d get a good night’s sleep and make the drive back back north into the frozen darkness on Friday (giving us a spare day or two in case of weather). The costs aren’t anything like trying to get out to California. With no airfare or motorcycle rental, the most expensive bits aren’t there. On top of that I’d get to ride a bike I love instead of getting on a rental I’m ambivalent about.

Compared to the seven grand California week, this one comes out to about sixteen hundred bucks depending on how getting my hands on a cargo van goes. There is more of a chance of weather getting in the way but if it holds out it’s a dramatically cheaper way to ride some fantastic roads in the middle of winter.

Maybe I could get Enterprise Rent-a-van to sponsor the trip…

Cost breakdown:
– swapping out the Mazda2 for a van, I think I can about break even there. I only use the Mazda for the 10 minute commute to work in the winter – the van could easily do the same thing for not much more in gas because the commute is so short.
– gas down and back (assuming 15mpg) ~1500 miles = 100 gallons of gas ~380 litres @ $1 a litre = ~$400Cdn in gas for the van (gas is cheaper in the States).
– Food & toll costs on the commute, say $100 each way: $200US ($250Cdn)
– Hotel for the week (Sunday night to Friday morning) in Pigeon Forge: $411Cdn
– Daily bike gas & food costs: say $100US ($150Cdn) per day, so for Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu it’d be about $600Cdn

All totalled up, that’s 2 days of travel and four days on two wheels in Tennessee for about $1600 Canadian dollars. That’s $5400 cheaper than the same amount of time away in California, and with six less airports.

British Driving Culture

We’ve been in the UK for almost a week and yesterday spent the day skulking about London. Like the rest of England, London makes demands on a vehicle operator’s attention that many North Americans would find onerous. The small lanes, lack of shoulder and volume of traffic conspire to create a very intense and focused driving environment. Efficiency of motion isn’t an option, it’s an expectation.

A few years ago they set up a roundabout in our small town in Southern Ontario. The locals used to bring out lawn chairs and sit and watch the circus as Canadian drivers tried to negotiate an intersection that didn’t have lights telling them what to do. At a roundabout in the UK you tend to accelerate into an opening. If you slow down (or stop as many Canadian drivers do) before entering it, you’re going to create a chorus of honks behind you. You can expect others to see you coming and make space, but you need to be attentive and collegial in your approach. Ignoring others by cutting them off doesn’t fly here. Being a waffling idiot and not taking an opening won’t make you any friends either. A demanding kind of efficiency and cooperation that is foreign to many North American drivers is the expectation.

London traffic is that kind of urgent efficiency turned up to eleven. Oddly, British drivers are still very polite, waving thanks and making eye contact when they are facing a problem, like cars parked on an otherwise busy road blocking an entire lane of traffic, which seems to happen constantly. If the obstruction is on your side of the road you’re supposed to wait for traffic in the clear lane to pass, but people often pull over to let through cars that are stuck if it improves the flow of traffic and doesn’t slow them inordinately. This kind of consideration is another aspect of North American driving that is vanishingly rare, especially in the Greater Toronto Area where drivers tend to take on more of a ‘get yours and screw everyone else’ mindset.

Based on what I’ve seen, even a hesitant, relatively slow British driver would be considered near the pinnacle of driving talent in Canada, which is one of the reasons I find driving a car there tedious. Given a choice, Canadian drivers are content to give over about half of their attention to driving effectively, mainly because the massive roads with constant shoulders, signalling that tells you what to do rather than take initiative and minimal traffic volume encourage it. When things do get busy, as in Toronto, asshole is the default rather than let’s all work together to make this go more smoothly.

Even with steep congestion taxes London is a constant flow of traffic, but it’s all moving, and usually quickly. Into this maelstrom, thanks to demands of space and emissions requirements, motorcycles thrive. My first view when we got above ground and out of The Tube was a blood delivery bike effortlessly cutting through traffic on a busy Thursday morning. An older guy on a Suzuki Vstrom, he handled his machine with the kind of effortless grace you see of people who have a lot of miles under them. He seemed to see everything at once and disappeared through the delivery vans and cars in a flash of effortless speed.

Two wheeled delivery vehicles thrive in London, with couriers of all shapes and sizes on everything from 50cc scooters to big BMWs making the rounds. As we were walking toward Camden Market a rideere pulled into one of the few unused pieces of tarmac in London (the small triangle a car wouldn’t fit in before a curb) and carried out an animated conversation over bluetooth head piece with his dispatcher.

The efficiency of small vehicles like motorbikes isn’t ignored in England like it is in Canada. Bikes can squeeze through gaps that would cause a queue otherwise and split lanes. Parking is more efficient for bikes, so half a dozen commuters can and do park in the space taken up by one SUV.

Being a dispatch rider in London is considered a badge of distinction by motorcyclists here. If you can survive that you’re a good rider with exceptional awareness and control. If you weren’t, you wouldn’t last.

We’re now on a train to Norwich (my dad’s hometown) where we’re picking up a cousin’s car and driving in the UK for the first time. I always look forward to it because it’s engaging and challenging. You can’t eat or drink and drive here like you can in Canada, but you wouldn’t want to. You seldom stop due to a lack of traffic lights and a plethora of roundabouts and the roads are tight, twisty and require your attention. To top it all off everything is backwards. For the first couple of days I chant that like a mantra inside my head when I’m driving here. It keeps me on the right side of the road and gets me used to indicators and wipers being on opposite sides more quickly. Within a day or two I’m acclimatized and accidentally cleaning my windows way less.

I might try and find a motorbike rental while I’m home and see if I can find out where my Granddad Bill took that picture on his Coventry Eagle and get a photo of myself on something similarly English and iconoclastic, perhaps an Ariel Ace?

The other night I was in the car back to my cousin’s house and we were intent on making time. With the twisty, tight roads it felt like navigating a rally stage As we thrashed down the highway a Porsche 911 blew past us like we were going backwards. I love UK driving culture.

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Affidavits & Broken Ownerships

The XS1100 is finally mine. After buying it off a clueless millennial who had managed to lose all useful paperwork associated with the bike, I’ve been able to re-establish ownership. Here’s how you do it:

In order to reconnect continuity of ownership you need to get a signed affidavit from a legal notary. Your local town government will have a notary on hand that can sign, stamp and date your declaration of ownership (they’ll offer this as a service). I stopped in at the Centre Wellington Town Offices in Elora and explained the situation (clueless kid was previous owner, etc). I showed them the ownership history the MTO had printed out for me (all six pages of it!), and the letter of sale from the previous owner. I also said I’d made repeated attempts to find the last legal owner (I suspect he’s deceased).

The county clerk (who is a notary) signed, dated and stamped the affidavit I provided (that’s it above), and I took it back to the MTO office the next day. In just a couple of minutes I paid the taxes on the sale price and the bike was attached to my name and a new ownership was printed out. They keep all the relevant paperwork, including the affidavit.

It’s a bit of a pain in the neck to reestablish ownership, but it’s not particularly expensive (twenty bucks to get it signed) and just takes a bit of leg work by the new owner. I’d argue a hundred bucks off the price for your time and costs to get the bike sorted – more if the previous owner is a tool (which they probably are if they lost all their paperwork).