And Then There Was One

When I started riding I began to voraciously consume motorcycling magazines.  It took me a while to figure out which ones were good, but for a while there I just went all in.  Being Canadian I thought it prudent to get a sense of Canada's motorcycling media, so I made a point of looking past the wall of American magazines to find a Canadian voice.

 The two I settled on were Cycle Canada and Motorcycle Mojo.  CC seemed to be edited by a writer with lots of motorcycle experience (rather than an expert motorcyclist with little writing experience).  Reading other magazines sometimes felt like reading a kid's essay that they'd been made to write.  No one seemed to revel in writing like Neil Graham did.  He was consistently acerbic, challenging and opinionated, but he clearly enjoyed writing.  I really looked forward to reading him each month.

I found Mojo a short while later.  Its modern layout (many other Canadian magazines looked like they'd been designed on a photocopier), and crowd sourced travel pieces got me hooked.  Mojo feels like it's put together by a community rather than a small group of motorcycle industry insiders who don't know how to write very well.

A few months ago CC arrived at my door.  As I got into it I discovered that the two writers who do the majority of the heavy lifting in producing the magazine were leaving.  Many readers seemed relieved to see the back of the complicated and difficult Graham, but I missed that voice.  A magazine that was once a drop-everything-and-read-it proposition (and Canadian!) was now filled with news pieces that looked like they were written by an ESL writer in single, giant paragraphs; a computer could construct better grammar.  The new writer they brought in was an old writer they'd let go.  His MO seems to be to say something controversial at the beginning of each article even if what he's saying is inconsistent from page to page.  The article on the new Harley Davidson is making fun of sport bike riders, the article on a sports bike makes fun of cruiser riders, and his recent piece on the new Honda Africa Twin allowed him to take pot-shots at adventure bike riders.  I get no sense of who he actually is or what he likes.  This approach seems disingenuous and makes me hesitate to trust him.

The newsletter modelled magazines that feel like they are driven by industry interests rather than independent editorial opinion have already been dropped.  Mojo & CC were my only Canadian subscriptions to renew, but now it's down to a single Canadian mag.  The hole left in the Canadian motorcycling publication landscape by Graham leaving Cycle Canada has made a sure thing a has-been.

 In the meantime I'm looking world-wide for my motorcycle periodicals.  The three I've settled on are Motorcycle Mojo (Canada), Cycle World (US) and BIKE (UK).  The last two are driven by professional writers who know motorcycles and not only write well, but seem to enjoy doing it.  I've never read a complaint about having to fill up space with writing or meet deadlines in either, although this seems to be a common subject for editorial discussion in many Canadian magazines.

I'm not reading any more magazines, Canadian or not, that make me feel like I'm reading an essay a kid was forced to write for school.  If the writing is that difficult, don't work for a magazine.  Writing is a skill unto itself, and it should be something you enjoy (it's what will make you work to improve it instead of just trudging up to deadlines while complaining about them in print).  Just because you're an expert in the subject area doesn't mean you're an expert at communicating it in writing.  Life's too short to read things written badly by people who aren't that good at it and couldn't care less about their writer's craft.

Smoke & Mirrors

I've been watching Tough Rides: China by Colin & Ryan Pile.  It's the long way around China and a great introduction to a little known country, but it sometimes comes off as another thinly veiled BMW ad for adventure motorcycling.

The ride itself is indeed tough with the boys working their way through deserts, traffic and mudslides all the way to the base of Everest, but their bike troubles left me thinking about BIKE's ride from the UK to Japan on a Suzuki V-Strom.  In that case the (relatively budget) Suzuki V-Strom managed to cross Europe and Asia (including the Pamir Highway and Mongolia) in fine fettle.  Bike's 13,768 mile (22,160km) ride highlights just how tough Suzuki's less famous adventure bike is.

In comparison to Bike's bullet proof V-Strom, the new BMWs making the 18,000km circuit of China quickly develop character.  I just finished the episode where one of the bikes (after not starting in a previous episode), now needs a whole new clutch.  This got me thinking about another statistic.

The Consumer Reports reliability Rankings are pretty damning.  From a purely statistical point of view you'd be crazy not to buy a Japanese bike, adventure or otherwise.  If you want something American, get a Victory!  Want something European?  For goodness sakes, get a Triumph!  Ducati is more dependable than BMW yet the propeller heads from Bavaria still seem to be the darlings of the TV adventure motorcycling set.

I get the sense that this is a triumph of marketing over engineering, which is a real shame.  If every other motorcycle manufacturer took the same risks supporting epic rides we wouldn't all be subject to this style before substance adventure-bike TV.

A while back I was reading a Cycle World article comparing the big BMW adventure bike to KTM's Super Adventure.  The article ended with a litany of breakdowns on both machines.  It turns out taking 550+ pound, tech-heavy giant trailies off-road doesn't end well unless you're a magazine reporter riding a demo bike.  I guess they're great bikes as long as you're not pouring money into repairs yourself.

I got into Nick Sander's Incredible Ride a while back.  Nick road the length of the Americas three times, two of them in just 46 days, on a Yamaha Super Ténéré.

That's 50,000 miles (~85,000kms) through the bad gas of Central America, jungle, deserts, mountains all from north of the Arctic Circle almost to the Antarctic Circle.  The BigTen worked flawlessly and when they stripped the engine down after the fact the technicians were frankly astonished by how little wear there was.  Needless to say, it didn't need the clutch replaced during that massive trip.

Honda is bragging on their new Africa Twin, a 'true' adventure bike.  At 500lbs it's a bit lighter than the super-stylish yet very breakable BMWs & KTMs listed above, and if anyone could build a bike that wouldn't break it would be Honda.  Yet even in this case I'm left wondering just how resilient any off-road capable bike north of five hundred pounds is going to be.

You'd think it would be impossible to build a big bike capable of managing this abuse - it's a question of physics (mass vs. the violence of off-road riding), but Sanders' Yamaha suggests it is possible, though you won't see it on adventure bike TV.  Maybe bikes that work all the time make for bad TV.

There is a reason why you guys are having to figure out how to
install clutch plates in the middle of a trip....

An antidote to all of this is Austin Vince's various Mondos.  He seems to spend about the same amount of time repairing his ailing, ancient dual sport bikes but he isn't wearing designer riding gear and he didn't pay anything like the $15,000 that the two Canadian boys did for their new F800GS Adventures.  Vince probably spends less than that on a whole trip, including the cost of his bike.

Ultimately, much of the adventure bike genre is more concerned with style.  Like SUV drivers, most ADV riders seldom if ever venture off pavement so perhaps this post is suggesting something that doesn't really matter.

COST x FAILURE RATE presents a pretty obvious conclusion.

But if you can buy a better built Japanese adventure bike for less (they all cost substantially less than the nearly $22k a BMW 1200GS Adventure costs), then why on earth wouldn't you?

If you're buying that GS to feel like Ewan & Charley then I suppose it's all good if you enjoy the feeling you get from it, but if you're actually interested in going off the beaten path and don't have a sponsorship deal and a support crew, considering reliability before marketing seems like a no-brainer.

Motorcycle Photography

Some recent photos that caught my eye from the digital motorcycle magazine and book realm.

Adventure Bike Rider is pretty ace with the off the beaten path photos.  BIKE magazine does the business as well.

One of ABR's more extreme trips: Germans riding in Oman

Riding in Borneo

 

Ducati Scrambler... vroom vroom!

How rim size matters... courtesy of  Total Control: High Performance Street Riding Techniques....
so far an accessible and in depth look at all aspects of motorcycle riding and vehicle dynamics

ABR does nice photography!

Kawasaki's 600cc supercharged maybe

Riding the Alps

BIKE magazine at the Bol D'Or, 2015

The new Ninja

Riding in Nepal

Why Do You Like Bikes So Much?

Part of the pleasure is in the simplicity of the experience.
It's analogue, immediate and visceral, yet still mentally
stimulating, meditative even! Mark Webber knows.

Asked by a grade 9 this week upon seeing my wall of motorbike photos ranging from Coventry Eagles to Kawasaki H2s.  My answer:

"Bikes are faster than cars in every way that matters.  They cost a fraction as much, insurance is less, they barely use any gasoline and when you go around a corner you feel like you're flying."  The kid nodded and then said, "I'm gonna get a bike."

Beyond all of those excellent reasons there is also the involvement.  Cars have you sitting in a box, watching the world go by from behind a screen.  On a bike you're out in the world.  You see more, smell more, hear more, feel more, and you're expected to do more.  When you ride you're using both hands, both feet and your entire body to interact with the machine.

In a car you spin a wheel and it goes around a corner.  On a bike you counter-steer out of the turn to drop the bike toward the corner and then lean into it.  Once you get the hang of it, it feels like dancing.  The first time they had us weaving through cones at the introduction motorcycle course I said to the instructor, "I could do this all day!"  Bike acceleration is astonishing, but the cornering is magical.  If you want proof, find any twisty road on a sunny summer day and see how many bikes you see.

Bike cornering is magical.

In the hands of a genius it's ballet.

I've driven some pretty involving cars.  The best get you about 40% of the way to what a bike feels like, and I'm comparing sports cars that cost as much as a house to regular road bikes - I've never ridden a supersport or track bike.


There are lots of other reasons why you should ride a bike (the camaraderie and sense of belonging to a group that recognizes their own, the exercise it provides, the ability to go places a car couldn't, the rich history, the technological know-how), and only one reason why you shouldn't.  Yes, riding a motorcycle is dangerous (mainly because of all the people in boxes), and it demands attention and skill, but the benefits are epic.

Around The Bay: Part 2, an Informed ride

Putting on the miles and building muscle memory.

A couple of recent articles informed my circumnavigation of Georgian Bay.

Bike magazine's resident lawyer had a great piece on the dangers of the over educated novice rider.  He made the poignant observation that people who haven't had a lot of seat time but have over-thought riding to the nth degree often have much nastier crashes than less trained but more experienced riders.  Sometimes the best thing to do is instinctively grab as much brake as you can instead of overthinking an impending disaster.  Perhaps riding is more of an art than a science, informed by experience, not training.

As a teacher I found this critical assessment of instruction over experience to be both interesting and probably accurate.  There is a lot of anxiety over motorcycle riding from the general public  I was determined to get some saddle time and learn the hard way rather than in theory.  The over-focus on training and gear tries to mitigate this fear, and it helps to a degree, but if fear is what drives you, I'd suggest that motorcycling isn't what you should be doing.

The second piece was Neil Graham's editorial in this month's Cycle Canada.  Neil is getting back to form after an agonizing winter back injury.  After everyone else had moved on Neil stayed out on track until it became kind of boring and he relaxed into the ride.  In his case it was track riding on the edge, but it still spoke to the teaching of muscle memory, something that became evident in the previous Bike piece as well.

On my way out of Southern Ontario I was intentionally trying to untense muscles, especially the ones I subconsciously tense when I'm riding.  Yoga probably helps with this, but I was able to sense and untense muscles in my legs and backside while riding.  Being loose and heavy on the bike allowed me to ride further without fatigue.  It also allowed me to respond to issues quickly and lightly.  Being able to free your mind from the demands of your body and put yourself into a state of relaxation also opens up a state of heightened awareness.

Riding into my driveway on Sunday afternoon I was exhausted but elated and felt like I was coming out of some deep meditation.  My mind was full of the 900 kms I'd seen, smelled and felt, and the soreness became something that I'd worked through; the second wind was a real endorphin rush.  After the three hundred plus kilometre stretch down the backside of Georgian Bay I suddenly found myself operating beyond the soreness of the long ride.  Coming off the very demanding highway ride to quiet back roads probably helped too.

If you're able to find a state of intense focus while performing a strenuous mental and physical activity like riding a motorcycle, you tend to be able to find that state much more easily when you're not on the bike and things are easier.  Being able to focus and perform while under duress makes entering that state of intense awareness in other circumstances that much easier.

I guess I found that moment beyond the thinking and training where I relaxed into the saddle and became the ride.  If long distance riding can do that, I suspect I'm eventually going to want to do the deed and get my iron butt.

Links

People who think they are invincible, then suddenly realize they aren't and quit
Is the person who ignores danger with delusions of invincibility brave, or stupid?
The kind of intelligent insight you expect from Quora
An insightful examination of what motorcycling is.
An idiotic infographic that focuses on the people who choose to ride more than riding
See the top link - deluded thrill seekers are a part of the motorcycle community, the stupid part.
Another idiotic infographic that focuses on obvious truth (doing dangerous things is dangerous!), but so is obesity, smoking and getting older
The safest thing to do is exercise in a rubber box, never take any risks in anything and kill yourself before you get old (getting old is going to kill you!)

Voracious Reader: Canadian Motorcycle Magazines

With riding coming to an end in the Great White North I'm looking more closely at motorcycle media to sustain me through the long, dark cold.  Some magazines have already made the cut and are a sure thing when it comes to subscribing.  

The first one I found was Cycle Canada: a local, opinionated and well written magazine that has no interest in editorial-beige.  They tend toward the no-holds barred British writing approach.  I subscribe to both BIKE and Performance Bike for that approach (though PB has enough grammar problems that I sometimes find it difficult to take seriously).

Cycle Canada is a joy to read, it's just hard to get a hold of.  I tried to renew my subscription in the summer and the publishing company couldn't get their website to work, which happens.  I tried again weeks later and it still wasn't working.  Being told to phone it in doesn't cut it in 2014 (I don't like giving credit card info over the phone).  You have to wonder what's going to happen to a media company that can't make basic internet functionality work in the 21st Century.

I ended up going through Roger's Magazine subscription service in July in an attempt to get my mits on CC, it's the end of October and I haven't seen a magazine yet.  Cycle Canada?  Great magazine, but pretty hard to get your hands on.

The other Canadian magazine I've got a lock on is Motorcyle Mojo.  I think of it as the Canadian version of Rider Magazine (the only US magazine I'm subscribed to).  Excellent layouts and photography (which feel like an afterthought in CC), original travel pieces and knowledgeable editorials.  The writing isn't as edgy as CC, but Motorcycle Mojo knows what it's talking about and presents it well.  They also know how to run a website and communicate really well with their subscribers.



Two on the cusp are Inside Motorcycles and Canadian Biker Magazine.  I got both as a present, but I'm not sure if I'll keep them going.  IM did an article this month on the Polaris Slingshot.  Apart from sounding like an advertisement, it also kept calling the three wheeler "unique".  One of the first cars I ever rode in in England in the early 1970s was my grandmother's three wheeler.  I suspect Morgan would dispute the gee-wiz uniqueness of the Slingshot as well.  You can't be expected to know everything, but if you're going to write on a vehicle, doing a little research would prevent you from calling the rehash of an idea that's been around since the birth of motor vehicles, "a whole new class of vehicle."  Lazy writing like that is what'll stop me renewing that subscription.



At the same time Canadian Biker Magazine had an editorial by Robert Smith that not only demonstrated a deep and nuanced understanding of the history of three wheelers, but also accurately and incisively deconstructed why this type of vehicle can never let you experience flying in two dimensions like a motorcycle does.  This kind of knowledgeable and opinionated writing is what would keep me re-upping that subscription.

Motorcycle Social Media

The online motorcycle community is a beautiful thing.  I've been following a number of people on Google+ who are into the two wheel craft, as well as Tumblr and Pinterest, and the more established social media platforms.  I'm a visual thinker, and being able to find images of bikes on these platforms really feeds my motorcycle aesthetic.  If you're into motorcycle design and aesthetics, these are good places to find ideas:

Pinterest:  a online graphic pin-up tool designed to share images.  Nice because it focuses on the visual, also nice because it is predominantly female, so you get a different vibe out of it when it comes to motorbikes (less pin-up, more motorcycle as art).

Tumblr: a bit more rough and tumble but offers an immersive graphics format and a staggeringly wide range of images including some very specific sub cultures of biking.  If you're into cafe racers, Tumblr doesn't disappoint.

Want something really specific, like motorcycle anime?  Ok!  Tumblr is also heavy on the animated GIF, so you get a lot of motion in your visual soup.

Google+: is more of an open social media platform, but in it you can find all sorts of motorcycle communities.  Motorcycles and technology, yep, there's a community for that.  Like Royal Enfields?  So do these people.  Want a motorcycle group with a worldwide focus?  Right here.  There you can hear Australians rail against their stupid government advertising.

Facebook:  Of course, you can find lots of motorcycle related material on Facebook too, I like it specifically for following motorcycle celebrities:

Think Nick Sanders is cool?  You can follow him across Asia live on Facebook (he's doing it right now).  


Are you a fan of Austin Vince?  He's well connected on Facebook where you can keep up with his latest work.

Think Guy Martin is the man?  His racing management team keeps you up with what he's doing on big blue.

You can find all sorts of local companies on there too.  If I'm going to get advertised to on Facebook I'd rather it be by local companies that I'm actually likely to shop at.

Facebook is also a good place to find motorcycle media updates.  Why We Ride is a lovely film, but they didn't stop there.  The Facebook site is a great place to find the latest in riding inspiration.


It might sound odd, but traditional media

still plays a big role in connecting me to online media.  Bike Magazine connected me to Greasy Hands Preachers and Rider connected me to my favorite motorcycle author.  Between traditional and new media, we're living in a motorcycle media renaissance, I hope you're partaking.  It feeds all interests from the most general to the most mind-bogglingly specific.

Motorcycle Media: a documentary to look forward to

I came across a description of The Greasy Hands Preachers in BIKE Magazine this month.  The two guys responsible for this upcoming documentary about motorcycle culture previously did a short film called Long Live The Kings:


LONG LIVE THE KINGS - Short film documentary - from SAGS on Vimeo.

It packs a surprising amount into a short film.  It's nicely shot and carefully crafted, though it does seem to fall into a genre trap that I saw pointed out the other week; the dreaded bullshit hipster bike video.  There is something genuine about Long Live The Kings that (I hope) excludes it from being a BS hipster bike video. 

Looking at BHBV's bingo card (left), they seem hit a lot of the hipster bullshit, yet I still want to believe that they are genuine.

With luck The Greasy Hands Preachers will offer some real insight into motorcycling.  I'm hoping against hope that they have interviewed Matt Crawford and are able to present a film that doesn't just paint motorbiking and working on your own machine crudely in a fad that will quickly look out of date.  

Long Live The Kings has moments of philosophical insight that might develop into a deeply reflective documentary in Greasy Hands Preachers.  Crawford's brilliant Shopclass as Soulcraft would be a perfect fit for that approach but I'm afraid the film is going to devolve into another 'ain't bikin fun?' video, this time with a veneer of hipster bullshit on top.


Sneak preview straight from the edit - The Greasy Hands Preachers from SAGS on Vimeo.



THE GREASY HANDS PREACHERS DOCUMENTARY Pre-trailer Kickstarter from SAGS on Vimeo.

Digital Motorcycle Reading

I just finished Nick Sander's Incredible Ride on an ipad mini and really enjoyed the experience.  The integrated digital media in the ebook drew a different picture of that trip compared to just a written narrative.  It wasn't always better (as deep and developed) as a well thought out narrative piece of prose but it offered an interesting reading experience in a different way.

I've tried reading digitally before with older ipads and other tablets but have been unsatisfied with the quality.  The Retina display on this Mini is a revelation though, it has better screen resolution than my 15" laptop; it's so sharp and clear that it's shocking!  I also find my eyes don't get tired reading off it (perhaps as a result of that clarity).  With all that in mind I started thinking about alternative ways to read my motorcycle media.


My Cycle Canada subscription is coming to an end and I want to renew, but I think I might go digital.  I'm also keen to get into Bike magazine and Adventure Bike Rider magazine, both UK titles that cost me $13+taxes a pop when I find them in a local store.  Rather than get stuck into another year of dead trees I tried reading digital samples on the ipad Mini.
  

Bike Magazine showed the multi-media possibilities of a digital magazine.  The embedded video and layers of information available in the digital copy were fantastic.  The high resolution images on that Retina display were jaw dropping.  There is no doubt the digital copy is the way to go, and at £48 for a year (£4/$7.40CAN per issue) it's a much better deal than the $15 with taxes I'm paying at Chapters for a paper copy.

ABR is an even better deal.  Instead of $15 an issue in Chapters I'm looking at £20 ($37CAN) for a year with access to all back issues.  I'm going to check out its digital content, but if it comes anywhere close to what Bike is doing then it too will be a no-brainer.

Cycle Canada was a bit more basic.  The online sample said it wasn't at full resolution, so it expects me to commit to digital without knowing what it will look like, which seems a bit weak. 

The only downside to the digital copy is that I can't settle into a hot bath with an ipad.  Maybe I'll re-up Cycle Canada on dead trees for a while longer so I have an amphibious option.

If you've tried digital and not liked it give it a go with Apple's Retina display, it might surprise you.  The additional depth and media you get from the digital copy only seals the deal.

Motorbike Magazine Mania

Since I'm in riding withdrawal I've been continuing my overdose on motorcycle media.

In one of the many magazines I've been picking up I came across the Overland Adventure Rally, which happens to be only about half an hour away from where I live.  I won't be participating on a Ninja, but I'm working on that.

The magazine picks have been many and varied.  On the Canadian side I have picked up Inside Motorcycles and Canadian Biker.

 IM is very race focused so I've been trying to use it to get a grip on what racing is offered/popular in Canada.  I stumbled across the last MotoGP race of the year on SPEED and gave it a watch.  Utter madness!  But more entertaining than any F1 race I watched this season.

I'm still partial to British bike magazines and pick them up when I come across them.  Motorcycle Sport & Leisure is written from older perspective but the mag holds up the quality end of British magazines.  Few ads, lots of articles on a wide range of subjects, well written too. 

BIKE magazine is a big one in the UK and I can see why.  The writing is top notch, I was laughing out loud as I read one piece on all the ways an author has fallen off a motorcycle.  

I'd pick up Adventure Bike Rider again, but it was hard to find even when I was in the UK this summer.

These hard to find British magazines may drive me to reading on a tablet just so I can get at them.


Cycle Canada is the only bike magazine I've gotten a subscription to so far, no regrets there.