Icelandic Motorcycle Culture

I'm sitting in England thinking about our 9 days in Iceland.  We covered over two thousand kilometres in the land of fire and ice, alas, none of it on two wheels, but I was always on the lookout for motorcycle culture and there is no shortage of it on Iceland.  In a future post I'm going to hammer out all the advice I've garnered from our Icelandic reconnaissance.

You see a lot of BMW GSes on Iceland.  Viking Biking rents them out of Reykjavik and a ferry delivers them from mainland Europe on the east coast.  The adventure bike is the perfect motorcycle genre for Iceland as the roads vary from smooth tarmac to potholed hard dirt, and everything in between.



On our second day I discovered another side of Icelandic motorcycling culture.  The big-twin cruiser rider can also be found here, albeit in much reduced numbers.  The Norse Riders Iceland Chapter are a mashup of your North American patch club with viking imagery.  Like every other biker I've talked to, they look rough but are the nicest people when you chat with them.

Later that day we were making tracks back to Keflavik Airport to return the rental car when we came across some massive lava fields in the south west of the island.  We'd been driving 20 minutes at a time without seeing traffic either way, and this was during the height of tourist season when a number of people had asked me if we should be going there then.  If you like empty roads, you'll love Iceland.  Through the lava fields eventually came two GSes making time on the empty, winding roads.  I can only imagine the smiles on those riders' faces.

Even in the capital of Reykjavik you're looking at something the size of a small North American town.  Traffic moves all the time and there are seldom any backups.  Out in the country you're making tracks all the time with sporadic traffic at worst.

You're driving on the right, so you've got none of the headaches involved in riding in the UK or Australia/NZ, and the drivers themselves are polite and efficient.  If you pull up behind a slower moving vehicle they'll turn on their right indicator when it's safe for you to pass.  We made good time in a hatchback and then a mini-van with six people and luggage; on a bike it'd be heaven.

This left me wondering what I'd most enjoy riding in Iceland.  The Tiger I've got sitting in a garage back home would be the ideal weapon - able to make good use of tarmac but able to manage gravel and packed dirt/potholes.  Iceland is adventure bike nirvana.

A couple of days later we were out near Lake Myvatn and came across a couple of Germans on KTMs.  With their light weight soft panniers and nimble bikes capable of handing any rough stuff, these enduros would be another good choice for riding Iceland.

Those KTMs slice down the valley of the Krefla Geo-thermal power plant (Iceland's main source of electricity and heating is green/geo-thermal energy).  

On our first day with two families, 3 kids and a minivan, we did what all Canadians do and covered a lot of miles, all while repeatedly ignoring the satnav.

The vast majority of this drive was on tarmac, but the satnav kept telling us to turn back on the north shore of the peninsula and we soon found out why.  There were over 100kms of gravel roads that soon devolved into hard parked pot-holed earth roads.  While battling those roads you're also wrapping around fjords and experiencing blind corners at fifteen degree inclines.  It's beautiful, but it's a tough road, especially if you're still hundreds of kilometres from where you're going to lay your head that night.  We saw a number of campers just pull up in a fjiord for the night to enjoy the quiet and the view.

It'd be a challenging ride on an adventure bike, but you'd never forget the scenery.  Based on how exhausting the car ride was, I'd suggest 2 full riding days to do this on a bike, and be ready for some technically challenging roads on day two.

Snaesfellsyokel: a stratovolcano in a land of rift built shield volcanoes.  There is a road across the back of it, if you dare. Rental cars are restricted from using F roads, and considering how rough some of the 'main' roads where, F roads must be quite technical.

Your typical busy Icelandic summer road - if you like the view you'll get a new one like this every ten minutes.

Lava fields

1st day in Iceland: driving Canadian style (huge distances, various road surfaces)...

Taken five minutes past midnight - that's pretty much as dark as it gets - dusky.

Riding in Iceland isn't an oddity.  You'll meet people from all across Europe exploring the continent's last real frontier.  Whether you're a cruiser, a sport or an adventure rider, you'll find your people here on two wheels enjoying some Jurassic Park quality landscapes and empty, sinuous roads.

If you're into exploration of any kind, Iceland delivers.

A 4x4 off-road ready camper van?  Yep, saw that (parked on black lava sand at the base of a cinder volcano!)

 

This couple were pros.  Their packing was exceptionally organized and the next morning they were up in a light rain in full waterproofs and gone before 8am.

Three Wheeled Dreams

Once again I'm thinking about a Morgan3.  I found out that Ontario is offering a ten year pilot program for three wheeled vehicles, meaning you can drive one here now.  The federal requirements for three wheeled vehicles are just borrowed from other jurisdictions where they are already allowed, so the Morgan should be good to go.

It's probably the Polaris Slingshot and the like that have forced this to finally happen, but what I really want is that Morgan3.  With a big air cooled twin out front and a super wide stance, the Morgan3 is a silly amount of fun to drive and looks like an instant classic rather than the offspring of the USS Enterprise and a TIE fighter.  If you want to go fast, get an even number of wheels, but if you want something with character, go odd, and the Morgan3 is nothing if not full of character.



Of course Ontario can't do anything without making it pointlessly political and difficult, so anyone driving a three wheeled vehicle has to act like it's a motorcycle and is required to wear a helmet.  Like I said, pointlessly officious, it's the Ontario way.  

At least there are some stylish (though probably illegal) options for piloting the Morgan3.  A couple of World War 2 inspired fighter helmets along with aviator jackets and we'd be ready to roll.

As it happens, the Morgan factory is but one hundred miles north of us when we're on holiday in the UK and offers rentals.  That might warrant a day trip!  There is another option even closer to where we're staying.  Berrybrook is in Exeter, just down the road from the cottage we're at.

Trying to understand UK PCP deals on motorcycles from a Canadian perspective

I've been trying to understand this since reading the
advertising, um, I mean buyer's guide in BIKE last year.

I'm trying to get a handle on PCP financing that seems to be popular in the UK right now. If you're going to buy a Kawasaki Z1000 with ABS in the UK, you're looking at a price of £10,389 ($17,453CAN). The on the road price in Canada is about $16,000, so you're already almost $1500 ahead, but cost of borrowing is where I get really confused.

If you PCP (personal contract purchase) you're paying a £2500 ($4200CAN) downpayment and then £147 ($247CAN) per month for 36 months. At the end of that time you've got nothing, all while paying 5.9% interest and having to ride the bike under mileage and keep it pristine to keep your investment intact.  You're also hit up for financing paperwork fees.  If you go over mileage or the bike is in any way less than mint when you return it you suffer additional costs. I imagine the same goes with any farkling you might want to do - don't. When you hand it back you've paid $13,092 Canadian dollars in interest and what basically resolves itself as rental costs; you own nothing. That's when they ask you if you want to do it again with another bike or now pay a balloon payment equal to the current value of the bike (assuming it's in perfect shape).

If you buy the same bike in Canada and put the same amount down, you're looking at a monthly payment of $348 Canadian (£207), and at the end of the 36 months you own the thing. There are no mileage restrictions, no worries about keeping it stock and perfect and if it is in good shape you'll have spent about $550 in interest and have a vehicle that UK Kawasaki says is worth £3628 ($6095CAN).

The pure costs of borrowing in the UK would be the down payment plus the monthly interest costs. That'll be £2500 down payment + £465 in monthly interest, all for the favour of giving you this great deal. The pure costs of interest on the PCP deal is £2965 ($4981CAN). The amount of interest you're paying to own (rather than borrow) the same bike in Canada is $460.

The context of borrowing in the two countries is quite different. The UK happily followed the US down the rabbit hole that caused the 2008 financial crisis by deregulating banks. That never happened in Canada where interest rates and the cost of borrowing has always been held to reasonable standards. Canadian banks still make huge profits (they now own a number of US banks that crashed in 2008), but they don't break the financial system in the process and people who live here aren't subject to the ridiculous costs of borrowing that British people seem to think reasonable.  I frequently see ads on UK TV for credit cards with interest rates that would be illegal in Canada.

With that in mind, maybe throwing away nearly five grand Canadian to borrow a bike for three years (that's $139 a month just in borrowing and rental costs!) makes sense, but it sure doesn't from this side of the Atlantic.

I'm also left wondering what a flood of lightly used bikes will do to the marketplace in the next few years.  In classic short term financial thinking it looks like PCP will flood the market place with short term ownership and then flood the market again with bikes people couldn't afford in the first place.  Won't this eventually hurt new bike sales as dealers become swamped in returned PCP bikes?  Maybe the idea is to return the bike and the go looking to get a massive discount on it when you show up a week later and they don't have enough room on their lot to hold all the PCP returns.

I'm starting to see why the UK found keeping up with the EU too difficult to continue.  They seem to have a very loose grasp on how marketplaces work and seem determined to ignore anything like sustainability.  I'm heading over there in a couple of weeks and enjoying a great Canada/UK exchange rate thanks to their wobbly economic choices.  I'm curious to see if I can get a first hand look at what this approach to bike selling is doing.

UK Kawasaki's PCP calculator

Canadian Kawasaki's offer on the same bike...

Cost of borrowing on Canada Kawasaki's 36 month financing offer...

Last Grasps: A Well Timed Post Canada Day Ride

I've only got about a week left before we're off on airplanes, so I'm trying to find reasons to exercise the Tiger before five weeks of motorcycling abstinence.  After a couple of days of crowded rooms and even more crowded Canada Day festivals I needed some quality alone time.  Nothing does that like a motorcycle ride does.

It wasn't an inspired ride, and it took me to my usual haunts, but it was a lucky ride.  With thunderstorms passing through the area, they were where ever I wasn't, which was good because I was travelling light.

The idea was to get to Higher Ground at the Forks of the Credit before it got long-weekend crazy.  I managed to get a coffee, look at some Italian exotica and then get out of there before it got really full.  

With the ice cream shop owner moving bikes that were parking out of the way anyway and signs all down the rest of the building stating no motorcycle parking, I'm starting to wonder if Belfountain is getting fed up with its place as a summer time ride stop.  It's a boon to the local economy, but some people seem intent on stopping it rather than embracing it.  Every rider I saw there was considerate and cautious in entering the parking lot without revving loud pipes or blocking others, but I guess the locals have had enough.  I'm not sure how much longer Higher Ground can be the sole reason to stop there if everyone else in the town is telling us to go elsewhere.

I had Lee Park's Total Control on my mind as I navigated The Forks, and damned if I wasn't more stable and smooth through the hairpin corner by looking over my shoulder into the corner.  You'd think looking away from your direction of travel would be counter intuitive, and I don't get much opportunity to practice it on arrow straight SW Ontario roads, but with some practice it's definitely the way to go.

After a ride up and down The Forks I aimed north past the Caledon Ski Club and toward Hockley Valley.  It was a lovely, relatively empty ride up to the Terra Nova Public House.

The TNPH had a summer salad with fresh rainbow trout on it that was pretty much perfect, and it let me duck inside and watch the tarmac dry off from the downpour that had passed through ten minutes before I got there.

After a quick lunch I did the TNPH loop before heading down River Road to Horning's Mills.  Mr Lee's Total Control habits were still playing though my head and I was focused on late apex entries and clean lines while looking through the corners.  It's funny how you feel like you're going slower when you're going faster on a motorbike.

River Road was generally empty and I got a clean run all the way to Horning's Mills.  It was time to head home, so I cut south west through the wind fields of Shelburne before stopping in Grand Valley for a coffee.  A GS650 rider and his wife were sitting in the cafe and we got into a good bike chat.  As a fellow rider intent on making miles rather than a scene, we had a meeting of minds on what a motorbike should be for, it was a good talk.

The final ride home was, again, relatively empty and I pulled into the driveway mid-afternoon.  I'm still hoping to get down to the full eclipse over the Tail of the Dragon when I get back from and Iceland/UK foray.  Perhaps a motorcycling opportunity will appear while away, but if not, I'll get in some miles this week to make sure my riding battery is topped up.

The Utterly Baffling Biker

We're minutes away from collapsing from heat exhaustion on our rally ride the other week when I start to hear voices.  We're riding through Elora on our way to Fergus and a flock of cruisers have just pulled out in front of us.  The large man on a Harley ahead of me creates concussive sound waves that knock birds out of the sky whenever he cracks the throttle, which he has to keep doing because his Milwaukee iron doesn't idle very well.

Between hundred and forty decibel POTATO POTATO, a voice, as clear as a bell was talking directly into my ear. It was telling me about carpets, I should buy them, but they're all out of off white Persian.

From this far back you can't hear yourself think.
I wonder if he's in his happy place.  I'm not.

Am I losing my mind? It took me several moments to realize that the three hundred pounder in beanie helmet, t-shirt and shorts on his baaiiiike in front of me had the radio so loud it was like I was in the front row of a concert, if it was a concert about carpet advertising.  That we were at the end of a marathon ride and I was exhausted didn't put me in the greatest of moods, but genuinely, other than making me think I'd lost my mind, what was the point of this man?

Mushin: literally means no mind,
but he's doing it wrong.

I've had Lee Park's Total Control on Kindle for a while.  I got lost in Park's OCD maze of suspension minutia, but the latest chapters are much more accessible and are about your mindset when riding.  Lee describes the perfect motorcyclist in Zen terms: completely in the moment, aware of everything with no specific focus drawing attention away from that whole.  You should be using all of your senses to do this.  He's quite serious about how you should approach the zone of peak performance while riding (and make no mistake, you should treat riding like a competitive sport - one you don't want to lose).  None of it involves pipes so loud they cause small children to cry, a radio turned up so loud someone a hundred yards back can hear it clearly or wearing a beanie helmet and next to no clothes.

There is much I really dig about motorcycle culture, but it all has to do with excellence.  Watching a thirty-eight year old, six foot tall Valentino Rossi win a race again at the pinnacle of motorcycle racing last weekend was an example.  Watching Dakar riders survive the marathon they run (if marathons were run over two weeks) is another.  Watching a skilled road rider showing how it's done on a high mileage bike with a kind of effortless ease, that's impressive.  I've got a lot of words for what I saw last Sunday, but impressive isn't one of them.

At one point I'd closed up on him while he was adjusting his radio.  I revved the bike to let him know I was there and he practically jumped out of his skin.  As far as awareness and respect for the act of riding goes, I'm just not seeing it.

They puttered down the road ahead of us when we pulled over in Fergus.  A steady stream of traffic followed them down the road at their leisurely but loud pace.

Riding the Dufferin Highlands & Beating Up a 360 Camera

A colleague's retirement party at the far end of our school board meant an excuse to ride over an hour each way to the Dufferin County Museum, scenically perched atop the highest point in Southern Ontario.  It also happens to be within ten minutes of two of my favourite semi-local rides (there is nothing closer with any twisties).

I rode over to Orangeville and then down Hockley Valley Road.  We're getting over a flood, and the Hockley River was eating its own banks where ever I saw it.  The ride up Airport Road into the highlands was very green and equally floody.  The retirement party was unique in that more than 50% of the speeches weren't tedious and so filled with inside jokes that only the speaker thinks them funny - with a few exceptions I wasn't bored with the speeches, which never happens.

I didn't take any photos on the way out, but I met my wife at the party and then we thought we might go over to the Terra Nova Public House for dinner, but they had nearly an hour wait on a Friday Night, so we aimed elsewhere.  The Mono Cliff's Inn was both immediately welcoming and only ten minutes away over the glacial moraines of the Niagara Escarpment.

This time I kept the Ricoh Theta handy and took photos as we went into the setting sun:

After a great appetizer smorgasbord in the unique atmosphere of the bar downstairs at the MCI we headed home in the twilight.  I wasn't expecting much out of the Theta camera in the dying light, but as it has before, it exceeded my expectations:

By this point the light is all but gone and I'm beating up on the Theta.  A fixed lens fully automatic camera, 360° or not, struggles to manage low light, so this isn't where the Theta was designed to work, but it still does a credible job.  It's all but dark out when I take the last photo while travelling under the power lines.  I had to beat it up in photoshop a bit to restore some sharpness, but sometimes going with the blur gives you a painted feel to a photo which can give it an abstract vibe.  Photography doesn't have to be all about focus.

You can do quite a lot with the desktop software that comes with the Theta,but there are some special formatting options in the online version that are cool.  The Tiny Planet view in the online viewer is probably my favourite.  The embedded image at the bottom lets you see the whole photo in the raw.

The original

Some Photoshop on the original

Alternative photoshop a bit closer to the natural light

This is the original image in the online software.  If you click on the mirror ball icon and then tiny planet you'll see where I got the still images above.

Post from RICOH THETA. - Spherical Image - RICOH THETA