Riding a motorcycle is episodic. You experience thermoclines of temperature... the rush of cold air in a pocket, it's exhilarating. In life that's a good thing too, surrender to conditions rather than mind managing everything and see what happens.
I tend to run hot, body temperature wise, and find that I can ride well into the single digits without too much worry. My people come from a cold, wet place and that's what I'm built for. Heat, and especially humidity, are my achilles heel. I've gone to great lengths to try and find hot weather riding gear that will allow me to ride when it's sweltering. Currently my go-to hot weather gear is a Fieldsheer mesh jacket in the lightest colours I could find. I've never understood why someone would go with a black mesh jacket. It defeats the purpose of trying to stay cool, unless you're just aiming for the other kind of cool. This jacket is brilliant. It keeps the sun off you while feeling like you're not wearing a jacket at all. I think I'm actually cooler wearing this than I am in a t-shirt; much less likely to burn anyway. The pants are where I'm having trouble. A few years ago I found the most ventilated pants I could from Twisted Throttle. These Macna vented pants do a great job of running air over my legs, but do very little where I need it most around my crotch. To supplement those pants I got some riding shorts with a crotch pad, but they strangely disappeared, leaving me to ride with regular cotton underwear which is not remotely up to the job.
One of the great things about the convertible Roof Helmet is that you can swing it open for some wind on your face. Even in that configuration the visor covers most of your face protecting you from Canadian sized summer bug impacts. I just wish Roofs were a bit better ventilated across the top (the newer models might be, but they won't give me one to test). An adventure/off road styled Roof with a roomier chin bar and more ventilation across the top and back of the helmet would be a must-buy for me. A long time ago I found the Alpine Stars vented SMX-1 boots and have never looked back. I've put tens of thousands of kilometres on them and beaten them senseless, but they still do the job so well that anything else on my feet doesn't feel right when changing gears. They also keep my feet cool and are even good for walking around in (though they are very broken in). When and if these ones give up the ghost I'll go get another pair just like them. The lightest ones now have a touch of Valentino yellow on them, which is no bad thing. They keep changing the colours, so maybe I'll get lucky and have a shot at some Lucifer Orange ones when I need them. I'm focusing on fine tuning the bike/bum interface. The best time of year to buy summer gear is the fall, and this fall is no exception. Klim gear is usually a bit too rich for me, but I was able to find some vented Klim Savanah pants for under $200CAD. I'm looking forward to seeing if the Klims really are all that. I'm also replacing the biking underwear that wandered off. It isn't cheap, but a good pair of technical underwear was the suggestion from many people when I asked. Sixs makes a wide variety of riding focused sports underwear, so I went with the butt padded, seamless boxers. The other pair I had looked a little less fancy, so I'm hoping this will be money well spent. Their range of gear covers everything from top to bottom, so this might be the first of many purchases.
In order to keep the dreaded monkey butt from rearing its ugly head during hot weather riding you need moisture wicking underwear. On my long ride last weekend my cotton boxers were soaked when I got back and I was so sore I couldn't sit down. You do not want to get sweaty and wet under there, but your butt is on a black, vinyl seat so it's going to trap heat. I've been looking into options to introduce some air under me. Adventure Bike Rider Magazine mentioned Cool Covers a few issues back, but they don't make a cover for my fifteen year old Tiger. Another option is the Bead Rider seat cover. I've heard mixed reviews on beaded seats though. They work well on shorter rides but over a long day they start to feel like torture. I'm still considering my options here but the Cool Cover's futuristic look appeals more than the cabbie look of a beaded seat cover. When I asked online, two super-stars who had just managed to complete a Bun Burner Gold very hard to do long distance ride had some hard won advice. Everyone swears by technical sports underwear that wick moisture, so that's an easy fix even if you just go for Under Armour or something like. Wolfe's suggestion of a Bill Meyers custom seat isn't cheap but isn't as expensive as I feared it might be (about the same as a new set of tires). The old padding on my seat would benefit from a refresh and would go a long way towards making the Tiger all day rideable. His other suggestion of the King of Fleece cover follows a popular bike habit of using pelts to separate your butt from unforgiving vinyl. Sheepskin is a traditional choice, but I suspect some of the engineered solutions above might produce better results. There are various new seat options, but not for my old Tiger, and spending that kind of money on a new seat for an old bike doesn't make much sense. If I'm going that route, I think I'll be giving Bill Meyers a call. A Canadian winter would be a good time to send the seat in. I'm curious to see how the new undies and pants will do on hot future rides (which are only going to become more common). The old, stiff seat may eventually get some attention, and I have a contact in mind in Bill Meyers. You've got lots of options for finding ways to ride in comfort even in hot and humid weather. Hopefully this helps you find ones that work.
I did a 360km-ish kilometre ride on Saturday. All back roads and as twisty as I can find in the farm-desert we live in. I was gone shortly after 8am and had a coffee at Higher Ground before ripping up and down the Forks of the Credit. I was then up past Orangeville to Hockley Valley Road, back through Mono Hills and up to River Road into Terra Nova before coming back down to Horning's Mills and north to Noisy River Road into Creemore. All in all I crossed the escarpment half a dozen times on my way north. By now it was well past noon and into the high thirties with humidity. After a great lunch at The Old Mill House Pub in Creemore I was out to Cashtown Corners to fill up and then past Glen Huron and over the escarpment one more time before heading north to Thornbury Cidery and the cooler shores of Georgian Bay.
Nothing Cools you down like the shore of a great lake on a hot, summer day.
From Creemore on I was soaking wet and sweating freely, monkey butt (red and sore on my backside from wet, aggravated skin) was soon to follow. It wasn't so bad by the lake, but inland it was sweltering. I was standing frequently to try and get wind under me, but by this point my big ride was just uncomfortable. The Macna vented pants did ok on my legs, but where I needed it the most they were just trapping heat and leaving me dripping. I bombed south down Beaver Valley, stopping once at an overlook to finish the Gatorade I had and then on to Flesherton for a stop at Highland Grounds before dodging and weaving south on back roads towards Elora and air conditioned nirvana.
Before I left that morning I learned that Wolfe and Robyn, the founders of Lobo Loco long distance motorcycle rallies, had already started the monumentally difficult Bun Burner Gold, the seemingly impossible fifteen hundred miles (2400kms!!!) in twenty-four hours - yes, that's a 100km/hr average for a whole turn of the earth. You'd need to be making time every hour so you'd have time to get gas, eat, drink and toilet; it's madness!
By the time I'd seen what these two superheroes were going to attempt that morning they had already done more miles than I was going to do all day (monkey butt and all), and they still had the better part of two thousand kilometres to go... in a day! Part of this is making sure you've got the right gear for the job. I'm going to address that in another post, but the other side of this is do I think I can actually pull something like that off. I'm months away from turning fifty and I'm starting to get a sense of what getting older is going to feel like. Doubt is what starts you thinking that you have to act your age. The two doing that epic bun burner are fifteen plus years younger than I am and much more experienced riders. My starting to ride late grates on my nerves. Despite numerous opportunities, events beyond my control conspired to prevent me from finding my way back to a hereditary hobby. Those lost years still haunt me. No point in moping about it. I've gotta grab the opportunities as I find them and not let doubt weaken my resolve. If I want to get an Iron Butt done then I need to get it done. You don't get shit done by moaning about it. But first I've got to get my seat and kit sorted. No point in trying to do a job without the right tools.
I drove the Canadian Rockies this past summer. Riding from Ghost Lake in Alberta to Chilliwack in British Columbia would be one hell of a few days. We did it in a crazy day and a half going the most direct route we could with one missed turn having us drive the wrong way to Boston Flats to get back on the Trans Canada. Doing the Rockies like that it was pretty exhausting, even in a car. On a bike it'd be dangerous to try and pull that off, especially as none of the roads are straight and you're fighting altitude too. It would be a shame to rush through it anyway, so taking your time is the way to go. When I eventually ride the southern Canadian Rockies it'll be a multi-day trip that makes use of every road I can find.
Day One: Cochrane, AB to Radium Hot Springs, BC. 323kms via 40/742. Lunch in Banff. That's just over five hours of riding at a sixty kilometre per hour average. With multiple stops, it'd be a full day of riding twisty roads before hanging it up in Radium Hot Springs for dinner.
Day Two:Radium Hot Springs to Revelstoke, BC. 252kms via 95 and TransCanada. This might seem like a short day, but it's high altitude passes over top of the world stuff. We staggered into Revelstoke around dinner time and wanted to stop, but had to push on.
Day Three: Revelstoke to Vernon along Upper Arrow Lake. 300kms via 23 and 6. We didn't go this way last time and bombed down the TransCanada behind infinite numbers of campers and eighteen wheelers who were wheezing up and down the inclines. This route is at least as twisty but should offer less heavy traffic than on the more direct route. Kamloops was a pretty rough spot, so I wouldn't miss it the second time through.
Day Four: Vernon to Hope via Boston Flats and Hell's Gate. After a couple of light days, the last day going West is a kicker. Just over 400kms of very twisty mountain roads. Google maps says it's a five hour effort, but with traffic, twists and roads that'll leave your mouth hanging open, that's an optimistic ETA. This would be an all day ride along some unforgettable roads. I ran into a new rider at Hell's Gate who had ridden up from Vancouver. He was grinning ear to ear.
From Hope you're ideally poised to hit the west coast, but this isn't about that. If you still haven't had enough of your Canadian Rocky Mountain High, a trip back skirting the US border offers you a whole new set of twists, turns and stunning scenery. I'd be hard pressed not to want to head toward Valhalla...
You could do a lot worse than giving yourself a couple of weeks (or months, or the rest of your life) wandering the Canadian Rockies. This trip doesn't even touch Jasper or Whistler. There are also a number of roads that don't go anywhere. Chasing down those dead ends would be an obsession of mine if I lived out there.
Here are some of those roads we saw this summer...
...and these are all 'main' roads!
Like most Canadian Roads, they suffer huge swings in temperature. The ideal thing to tackle them on would be a road focused adventure bike. The extra suspension travel would help soak up the inevitable imperfections while allowing you to still enjoy the twists and turns. They also happen to be the ideal ride for a big guy like me.
I just finished Elspeth Beard'sLone Rider on Kindle. In the early 1980s Elspeth rode around the world on her already well used BMW. I'm a big fan of neuro-atypical voices in writing being one myself. As a dyslexic (who I also suspect is on the ASD spectrum) who struggled in school, Elspeth isn't your typical writer's voice, and the book is all the better for it. From her struggles with family and friends when preparing for her around the world ride decades before it became a television opportunity, to her honest observations of what it was (is?) like to travel solo as a woman, you get a sometimes painfully transparent look at the emotion and effort stirred up by such a massive undertaking. The repeated machismo she runs into in the motorcycling community in 1980s London is frustrating. What's more frustrating is that it hasn't changed as much as it should have in the past thirty years. The way that Elspeth describes the eccentricities of her dad and herself, I suspect they both live somewhere on the ASD spectrum (something I empathize with). This atypical way of thinking, in addition to her dyslexia, gives her descriptions of the cultures she is riding through a degree of perspective and originality missing in other travel books. Travellers tend to throw on the rose coloured glasses when describing India, ignoring the difficulties of trying to move across a continent with well over a billion people on it. Elspeth's experiences, exacerbated by her gender, along with her brutal honesty, give you what is probably the most accurate description of riding in India you'll ever read; no rose tinted glasses on here. From the fumbling sexual advances of men stuck in the middle ages to breath taking child cruelty, Elspeth's wide open eyes see it all and she doesn't shy away from telling you about it. I would highly recommend this book if you enjoy motorcycling, travel writing and/or feminism and aren't frightened off by people who think differently. It doesn't read like your typical motorcycle travel book, but Elspeth wasn't just riding, she was also elbow deep in keeping an already old, high mileage 1970s BMW running through sandstorms, biblical rain and everything in between. If you have any mechanical sympathy at all, Elspeth scratches that itch too. As much as I enjoyed the travel writing, what I missed most at the end of the book was Elspeth's unique way of seeing the world. Her struggles understanding people and dealing with bureaucracies, especially with her wit and dry humour, are often hilarious, disheartening and hopeful all at the same time. I'd urge you to give this book a read, it's available on Amazon as an ebook for less than ten bucks Canadian. When the movie comes out in a couple of years, I hope they give it the nuance and depth it deserves. Elspeth provides a voice and insight into a lot more than just her gender.
We're about to undertake a cross Canada drive and I'm already missing the thought of riding for a whole month this summer. I've previously thought about Guy Martining up with a van to carry a bike, but that's a pretty industrial approach that wouldn't be very comfortable. I've also thought about carrying a bike on this trip, but again, I was pretty industrial in my thinking.
From a passenger carrying perspective, a minivan would be the logical choice. A Chrysler Pacifica is just what I'm looking for. It's very efficient for what it is (much better mileage than the industrial vans I was considering before). With a nine speed transmission it'd also be quiet and comfortable in addition to getting better than thirty miles per gallon. Unlike our small SUV, it would also be able to carry whatever we wanted to bring and the flip and hide rear seats means leg stretching room in the back.
The reason a minivan would work is because I found a hitch mounted motorcycle carrier, which means I'd be able to carry a bike on the back of it. A trailer is such a pain in the ass and is so hard on gas and transmissions that I'm not interested, but this rack fits right onto the Pacifica's frame mounted trailer hitch and distributes the weight on the back properly. The Pacifica is a strong towing vehicle with a frame mounted trailer hitch option. The rack can only carry five hundred pounds, but I wouldn't need anything like that. KTM's 690 Enduro is a Swiss Army Knife of a bike that only weighs 330lbs before fuel, so it wouldn't stress the rack much at all.
Being so light weight the Enduro makes a capable off road machine, but that light weight also means you can load it on a rack designed for dirt bikes. The Enduro is also a big bike that'd fit me and is more than capable of making time on paved roads. It's a multi-talented choice that fits. The question is, can the Pacifica actually handle a bike rack with a sub-four hundred pound bike on it? The issue doesn't seem to be the rack itself. I've found single racks and even double racks that can hold up to six hundred pounds along with road bike specific racks, so finding a rack capable of holding the Enduro isn't an issue. The problem comes from tongue weight and how a vehicle can handle that vertical weight (as opposed to the horizontal weight of towing a trailer that rests on its own wheels). The Pacifica's stock Class III frame mounted hitch is also the kind suggested for a bike rack, and while the Pacifica has a massive 3600lb towing capacity, the tongue weight (the only thing really matters with the bike rack) is rated at 360lbs, which is mighty close to what I need here. Tongue weight is usually calculated as being ok if it's between 9 and 15% of the towing weight, which should put the Pacifica well over 500lbs at the top end, but evidently it isn't.
I might contact a Chrysler dealer and see if this is possible...
Lightweight, multi-talented KTM Enduro on the back of a fuel efficient Chrysler Pacifica? Yes please!
Another lightweight (and less expensive) option would be the Suzuki DRZ400. At only 300lbs before gas and still less than 320lbs with a full tank, the DRZ400 would fit nicely on the back within the existing tongue weight limits.
Chrysler stock hitch: 360lb tongue weight, Class III, 2 inch receiver.
AMC-400 aluminum bike rack: 400lb weight limit (rack weighs 33.5lbs)
On Friday, July 13th, while thousands of people lined up to get into Port Dover, I left the cottage early (just before 7am) and headed out on my planned circumnavigation of the Kawartha Highlands Park. It was already well into the twenties Celsius and humid when I left. The fire roads into the cottage are a roller coaster rally stage of gravel over muskeg and Canadian Shield with tough, weedy firs and birch trees growing in the cracks. It's fun in a car but a bit nerve wracking on a bike. It's tourist season in the Haliburton Highlands and on the weekends the roads actually have some traffic (like, a few vehicles: Canadian country traffic), but on this Friday morning it was quiet. I was lucky to see another vehicle pass me in any five minute span when I set out and the cottage road was just me and the bears.
I was out to Lovesick Lake Restaurant just before 8am for breakfast, only to discover it doesn't open until 9am... for breakfast... in the middle of the summer. Having not eaten and already on the road for an hour, I was disinclined to hang around for seventy odd minutes. Fortunately, a couple of years ago we did a family Thanksgiving at the Viamede Resort just across Upper Stony Lake so I figured I'd give them a try. I pulled in just as the breakfast buffet was underway. It was twenty bucks for breakfast all in, but it was all you can drink quality coffee and real juices along with a buffet all you can eat hot breakfast with fruit and all the other odds and ends you'd expect from a high end resort. If you've got the time and you're up that way, Viamede is a nice way to start a day of riding, and you're looked after by a fantastic staff while eating a great breakfast in a beautiful environment. It's probably cheaper than a lousy hot dog at Port Dover and no line up.
When I came back outside it was heating up but I was full of beans (literally and figuratively) and percolating on that freshly pressed coffee. Northeys Bay Road east out of Viamede was a roller coaster, weaving through outcroppings of rocky Shield as it worked its way around the end of Upper Stoney Lake. At one point I came down into a valley only to discover a rafter of wild turkeys the size of sheep standing on a rock outcropping eying me as I went by; it was like riding through a herd of dinosaurs. Northeys Bay turned onto County Road Six, which took a less sinuous and more severe route through the woods. From Six I was onto Forty-Four and the twists were back on again until I got to 46, but even the bigger roads were still constantly weaving, just with fewer gear changes.
With the slower, technical roads around Stoney Lake behind me, I struck north, deeper into the Shield. 46 and the 504 were both full of fast sweepers that seldom had me on the crown of my tires. I pulled into Coe Hill Cafe about 10:30am. After three hours on the bike my knees needed a rest, so it was coffee time. It was me and four tables of retirees all talking politics and telling 'in my day' stories (they'd all owned bikes at some point).
A couple of cups of coffee and I was ready to tackle Lower Faraday Road. This little road out of Coe Hill is twisty, turny thing. Last time on it two years ago I was disappointed at just how rough it was, but sections of it have been resurfaced since my last attempt and this time I could exercise the sides of the tires a bit. The top end of it was still rough, but that's one of the many benefits of riding a 'big trailee' adventure bike: they can handle Ontario's terrible pavement when it gets rough.
Out the top of Faraday I pushed on up to the 648 'Loop" road through Highland Grove, Pusey and Wilberforce. I was initially thinking about extending the loop through Bird's Creek and Maynooth, but it was touching forty degrees with the humidity and a swim in the lake that afternoon held more appeal.
I wasn't on the 118 for long, but once again I was reminded what a lovely thing it is. If you like fast, sweeping corners through beautiful scenery on well finished roads, the 118 won't disappoint. I think I prefer that kind of road to the super tight, technical, twisty roads that get all the attention and usually have lousy surfaces.
From Tory Hill I was dropping south along the western side of The Kawartha Highlands Provincial Park, once again on near empty roads. The Tiger had burned off most of a tank of gas and was light and eager, and after six hot hours in the saddle, I was looking forward to a swim in the lake. Like that post breakfast section around the end of Upper Stoney Lake, this road felt weightless and easy. I get to the end of sections of road like that and realize I'd forgotten where I end and the bike begins.
I was back at Nogie's Creek before I knew it and riding the seventeen odd kilometres down increasingly small and twisty gravel fire roads into the lake...
I did the SMART off road training course a couple of weeks ago and was looking forward to seeing how my usually white knuckle approach to riding on gravel had changed. I was in and out of the cottage a total of six times over the four days there and never once got a hand cramp. In most cases I was resting my open hands on the bars and letting the throttle sort out any wobbles. If you're anxious about riding on loose surfaces something like the SMART program is a great way to acclimate yourself to it and lose your fear of it. I was back at the cottage by 2pm and in the lake shortly thereafter. Once again the Haliburton Highlands had impressed, offering an assortment of interesting roads that are vanishingly rare in the table-top flat South West where I live. The Tiger was once again a rock star, prompting discussions wherever we went and starting at the touch of a button. It carried me and two panniers full of tools and rain gear around the Kawartha Highlands while soaking up bumps on some truly awful pavement and feeling like an eager sports bike when the going got smooth and twisty. Best of all, we managed it on near empty roads with no delays and some spectacular scenery. Best Friday the thirteenth ride yet! About three hundred kilometres on near empty roads through picture postcard scenery and not a crowd or line up in sight. That's my idea of what a motorcycling celebration should look like. I'll leave the dressing up like a pirate and lining up to look at other pirates to the people think that is motorcycling. I prefer to actually go for a technically challenging and picturesque ride, and boy do the Haliburton Highlands deliver.
Early morning map check after my first breakfast destination proved unserviceable...
The on-bike 360 footage was captured by a Ricoh Theta set to auto shoot every 30 seconds, so you can set and forget it. The images are screen grabs from out of the 360 panoramas. You can lean how to do this yourself (it's easy!) here.
Currently my go-to hot weather gear is a Fieldsheer mesh jacket in the lightest colours I could find. I've never understood why someone would go with a black mesh jacket. It defeats the purpose of trying to stay cool, unless you're just aiming for the other kind of cool.
A long time ago I found the Alpine Stars vented SMX-1 boots and have never looked back. I've put tens of thousands of kilometres on them and beaten them senseless, but they still do the job so well that anything else on my feet doesn't feel right when changing gears. They also keep my feet cool and are even good for walking around in (though they are very broken in). When and if these ones give up the ghost I'll go get another pair just like them. The lightest ones now have a touch of Valentino yellow on them, which is no bad thing. They keep changing the colours, so maybe I'll get lucky and have a shot at some Lucifer Orange ones when I need them.
I'm focusing on fine tuning the bike/bum interface. The best time of year to buy summer gear is the fall, and this fall is no exception. Klim gear is usually a bit too rich for me, but I was able to find some vented Klim Savanah pants for under $200CAD. I'm looking forward to seeing if the Klims really are all that.
I'm also replacing the biking underwear that wandered off. It isn't cheap, but a good pair of technical underwear was the suggestion from many people when I asked. Sixs makes a wide variety of riding focused sports underwear, so I went with the butt padded, seamless boxers. The other pair I had looked a little less fancy, so I'm hoping this will be money well spent. Their range of gear covers everything from top to bottom, so this might be the first of many purchases.
Another option is the Bead Rider seat cover. I've heard mixed reviews on beaded seats though. They work well on shorter rides but over a long day they start to feel like torture. I'm still considering my options here but the Cool Cover's futuristic look appeals more than the cabbie look of a beaded seat cover.
When I asked online, two super-stars who had just managed to complete a Bun Burner Gold very hard to do long distance ride had some hard won advice. Everyone swears by technical sports underwear that wick moisture, so that's an easy fix even if you just go for Under Armour or something like. Wolfe's suggestion of a Bill Meyers custom seat isn't cheap but isn't as expensive as I feared it might be (about the same as a new set of tires). The old padding on my seat would benefit from a refresh and would go a long way towards making the Tiger all day rideable.
I did a 360km-ish kilometre ride on Saturday. All back roads and as twisty as I can find in the farm-desert we live in. I was gone shortly after 8am and had a coffee at Higher Ground before ripping up and down the Forks of the Credit. I was then up past Orangeville to Hockley Valley Road, back through Mono Hills and up to River Road into Terra Nova before coming back down to Horning's Mills and north to Noisy River Road into Creemore. All in all I crossed the escarpment half a dozen times on my way north.
From Creemore on I was soaking wet and sweating freely, monkey butt (red and sore on my backside from wet, aggravated skin) was soon to follow. It wasn't so bad by the lake, but inland it was sweltering. I was standing frequently to try and get wind under me, but by this point my big ride was just uncomfortable. The Macna vented pants did ok on my legs, but where I needed it the most they were just trapping heat and leaving me dripping.
Before I left that morning I learned that Wolfe and Robyn, the founders of Lobo Loco long distance motorcycle rallies, had already started the monumentally difficult Bun Burner Gold, the seemingly impossible fifteen hundred miles (2400kms!!!) in twenty-four hours - yes, that's a 100km/hr average for a whole turn of the earth. You'd need to be making time every hour so you'd have time to get gas, eat, drink and toilet; it's madness!
By the time I'd seen what these two superheroes were going to attempt that morning they had already done more miles than I was going to do all day (monkey butt and all), and they still had the better part of two thousand kilometres to go... in a day!
The two doing that epic bun burner are fifteen plus years younger than I am and much more experienced riders. My starting to ride late grates on my nerves. Despite numerous opportunities, events beyond my control conspired to prevent me from finding my way back to a hereditary hobby. Those lost years still haunt me.
I drove the Canadian Rockies this past summer. Riding from Ghost Lake in Alberta to Chilliwack in British Columbia would be one hell of a few days. We did it in a crazy day and a half going the most direct route we could with one missed turn having us drive the wrong way to Boston Flats to get back on the Trans Canada. Doing the Rockies like that it was pretty exhausting, even in a car.
Day Four: Vernon to Hope via Boston Flats and Hell's Gate. After a couple of light days, the last day going West is a kicker. Just over 400kms of very twisty mountain roads. Google maps says it's a five hour effort, but with traffic, twists and roads that'll leave your mouth hanging open, that's an optimistic ETA. This would be an all day ride along some unforgettable roads. I ran into a new rider at Hell's Gate who had ridden up from Vancouver. He was grinning ear to ear.
...and these are all 'main' roads!
The way that Elspeth describes the eccentricities of her dad and herself, I suspect they both live somewhere on the ASD spectrum (something I empathize with). This atypical way of thinking, in addition to her dyslexia, gives her descriptions of the cultures she is riding through a degree of perspective and originality missing in other travel books.
I would highly recommend this book if you enjoy motorcycling, travel writing and/or feminism and aren't frightened off by people who think differently. It doesn't read like your typical motorcycle travel book, but Elspeth wasn't just riding, she was also elbow deep in keeping an already old, high mileage 1970s BMW running through sandstorms, biblical rain and everything in between. If you have any mechanical sympathy at all, Elspeth scratches that itch too.
From a passenger carrying perspective, a minivan would be the logical choice. A Chrysler Pacifica is just what I'm looking for. It's very efficient for what it is (much better mileage than the industrial vans I was considering before). With a nine speed transmission it'd also be quiet and comfortable in addition to getting better than thirty miles per gallon. Unlike our small SUV, it would also be able to carry whatever we wanted to bring and the flip and hide rear seats means leg stretching room in the back.
Being so light weight the Enduro makes a capable off road machine, but that light weight also means you can load it on a rack designed for dirt bikes. The Enduro is also a big bike that'd fit me and is more than capable of making time on paved roads. It's a multi-talented choice that fits.
On Friday, July 13th, while thousands of people lined up to get into Port Dover, I left the cottage early (just before 7am) and headed out on my planned circumnavigation of the Kawartha Highlands Park. It was already well into the twenties Celsius and humid when I left. The fire roads into the cottage are a roller coaster rally stage of gravel over muskeg and Canadian Shield with tough, weedy firs and birch trees growing in the cracks. It's fun in a car but a bit nerve wracking on a bike.
With the slower, technical roads around Stoney Lake behind me, I struck north, deeper into the Shield. 46 and the 504 were both full of fast sweepers that seldom had me on the crown of my tires. I pulled into Coe Hill Cafe about 10:30am. After three hours on the bike my knees needed a rest, so it was coffee time. It was me and four tables of retirees all talking politics and telling 'in my day' stories (they'd all owned bikes at some point).
From Tory Hill I was dropping south along the western side of The Kawartha Highlands Provincial Park, once again on near empty roads. The Tiger had burned off most of a tank of gas and was light and eager, and after six hot hours in the saddle, I was looking forward to a swim in the lake. Like that post breakfast section around the end of Upper Stoney Lake, this road felt weightless and easy. I get to the end of sections of road like that and realize I'd forgotten where I end and the bike begins.
I was back at the cottage by 2pm and in the lake shortly thereafter. Once again the Haliburton Highlands had impressed, offering an assortment of interesting roads that are vanishingly rare in the table-top flat South West where I live. The Tiger was once again a rock star, prompting discussions wherever we went and starting at the touch of a button. It carried me and two panniers full of tools and rain gear around the Kawartha Highlands while soaking up bumps on some truly awful pavement and feeling like an eager sports bike when the going got smooth and twisty. Best of all, we managed it on near empty roads with no delays and some spectacular scenery.
