Empty Algonquin Park

I managed a couple of days out on the bike around my birthday this year. Thanks to being freed from the shackles of the school year, I was able to do it outside of the May long weekend when the roads would be utterly mad with with ravening hordes driving the largest SUVs they could find and hauling every possible motorized toy to their second homes in the near north.

It ended up being just over 800kms over two days. 500kms on day one from home and up through and around Algonquin Park, then 320kms home on day two.  The Map.

The ride down Highway 9 to the 400 north was packed solid with transport trucks, to the point where I missed the turn north on Highway 27 because I was literally surrounded by the bloody things.

Finally on the 400 north (which was moving well on the Thursday morning before the long weekend), I let the Kawasaki fly and we shot up the road, finally clear of the convoy. I had three things going for me when I crested a hill right into the eyes of a waiting OPP cruiser.

#1: I was making time in the middle lane rather than the fast lane and was following another car

#2: The bike is awfully difficult to get a reading from thanks to not a lot of metal to bounce radar off of

#3: You can always count on some citiot blasting up the fast lane in a mega-sized German SUV

The cruiser lit the lights and pulled out only to collect said SUV out of the fast lane. He wasn't going much faster than I was but he can enjoy that ticket.

The 400 was (incredibly) fully functional and I was around Barrie in no time and moving up Highway 11 at pace. I pulled into Webbers because they have a nice new Starbucks where I got a coffee and stretched. In under two hours I'd covered the 172kms that got me clear of the gravity of the Greater Toronto Area and into the near north.

After a warm up (it was 5°C when I left just past 9am), I was back on the Kawasaki and heading north again. Gravenhurst was (incredibly) efficient and I slipped past what is often a backup without delay. By 11:30 I was grabbing a quick lunch and filling up in Huntsville and then it was Highway 60 into Algonquin Provincial Park.

I stopped at the West Gate to have a chat with the wardens and get my pass as I intended to stop at the Visitor Centre. After a nice chat with the young ladies at the desk I got my pass, set up the 360 camera and then got in motion ASAP because it's blackfly season and boy do they come out of the woodwork when you stop!

Into the park there was very little traffic. The only one I had to make space for was the massive German SUV thundering through one of the most beautiful places in the province at well over 120kms/hr (it's an 80 zone). If you play your cards like that, you're not likely to see anything!

Once clear of the traffic by the gate things got really quiet. An occasional car would pass the other way but there was nothing on the road in front of behind me as I went deeper into nature. It was midday so I wasn't likely to see any big animals (and I didn't), but birds were plentiful with birds of prey over the road and many others in the bush.

It was a glorious ride alone through the park - a place that comes as close to a church for me as anything can be. The bike was the perfect vehicle. I was moving fast enough to stay ahead of the blood sucking insects, but slowly enough to smell the lakes and woods and feel the thermoclines as a dipped into and out of valleys.

The visitor's centre is worth a stop if you're travelling through the park. The lookout off the back is a great view (and high enough up to be relatively bug free!). I would have stayed for a coffee and a snack but the restaurant was closed. It was a good opportunity to clean the bugs off my visor though.

By now it had hit the high of 12°C for the day and though it was sunny it was cool, especially when in motion on the bike. If I stopped I got sweaty and then the flies would come, so best to keep things moving. Out the east gate and then the plan was to ride south around the bottom of the park.

The Concours had been fantastic on the highways and had handled everything I asked of it. The only place I think the Tiger could have done a better job was on Peterson Road, which is your typical poorly maintained Ontario backroad with ruts and potholes that'll knock your teeth out. The sporty suspension on the Kawasaki didn't enjoy that bit of road. The Tiger's longer suspenders would have done the trick, but otherwise the Concours was the right bike for this ride, especially on the highways.

I finally pulled into Wilberforce about 444kms into the ride for a stretch and a drink (and to clean the bugs off the visor again). 

After a quick pit stop I was on my way again. The 118 is one of my favourite roads in the province and I twisted and turned my way down it towards Canarvon and Minden where I was spending the night. Only a long delay in Haliburton for road works slowed the ride down. At least I know the fans are working on the C14. They cycled three times while we sat there wondering what the f*** was going on. It turned out a water pipe had burst across the road holding things up.

I pulled into the Red Umbrella Inn just outside of Minden at about 5pm. After getting cleaned up I rode into town for some of the best Thai I've had at Suwan's Thai Cuisine and picked up a couple of local craft brews from Boshkung Brewing Social (Minden really has everything you need) before filling up and heading back to the inn for a quiet night by the lake.

The next morning I was up early and over to the Mill Pond for breakfast. Great eggs and bacon and then it was an empty ride down the 118 to Bracebridge, Port Carling and finally Bala for a coffee before the last stretch through Wahta Mohawk Territory before popping out at the 400 and getting into the rapid flow south.

I dodged and weaved around Creemore, stopping once to change into lighter gear because the temperature had shot up with the humidity and made it home before the thunderstorms started. A nice way to spend a couple of days on the road. I only wish I'd had more time.

Box Hill On a Sunny Sunday Morning

If you're ever in the southern end of the London suburbs, Box Hill is a local meeting place for motorcyclists.  On the sunny, August, Sunday morning I was there it was already busy at 9am and had thousands pass by over the day.  If you get a chance to go see it you'll get a good sense of just how diverse and how different UK motorcycling culture is from North American cruiser biased riding culture.  It's little wonder that there are multiple British riders in MotoGP, but North Americans are thin on the ground.

From 50cc classics to 2300cc modern monster bikes, Box Hill had it all on a Sunday morning.  It's a strange thing seeing British imagery substituted for the Stars and Stripes when you're used to seeing Americana everywhere.

Inside Ryka's, the restaurant/coffee shop in the parking lot at Box Hill, there is a lot of British motorcycling memorabilia.

My cousin Jeff (who has done hundreds of thousands of miles on two wheels) looking over his dream machine.

On the back of one old timer's jacket - what you'd expect to find in the UK.

Lots of customization on hand.  UK riders seem particularly drawn to farkling their bikes.

A local dealer on hand to show of the latest Hondas.

A hand stitched webby seat on a very customized machine.

Just in case you felt your Triumph wasn't British enough.

There were more Indians than Harleys in the lot.

Well marked territory.

The lot was already over half full when we got there and just got busier and busier by the time we left just past 10am.

Lots of Triumph on display.

After weeks only glimpsing motorcycles on the road, this was a good fill up.  I only wish I'd had the Tiger there - it would have been the only 955i Tiger in the lot.

Tim's happy bike face.

They ride everything, but if there is a single type of bike that typifies the British biker, it's still the sports bike, at least on Box Hill.

A small contingent of what would be the dominant form of riding in North America proudly showing of patches with such wisdom as 'loud pipes save lives'.

An hour of wandering around was nice, but when you show up in shorts and get out of a car you're only half there.  I never missed the Tiger more than that morning at Box Hill.

What do you do after you've gone up to Box Hill, had breakfast at Ryka's and chatted with other riders?  You open it up going down the hill like this guy did.

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.

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.