The Motorcycle not-so Super Show

A not-so-super Saturday morning.  After driving through thick fog for almost two hours we're told to line up to get in
the parking lot, then line up to get in the door, then line up again to get into the show - it was over an hour wait to
get to the single guy with a ticket scanner.

After a long slog through pea-soup fog we arrived at the International Centre in Mississauga on Saturday morning.  This was my third go at the North American International Supershow, and it's probably my last.  My first go was a bit of culture shock with the girls girls girls and men dressed like pirates thing knocking me for a bit of a loop.  Our second go impressed upon me the real focus of this show:  limited choice but cheap gear if you're lucky.  Our third go was long lineups, dodgy websites, and crowds, though the odd deal was found.

Once again, the only thing we bought was from my local motorcycle shop, Two Wheel Motorsport.  Once again I bumped into Steve who ran the course at Conestoga that got me going on two wheels and got a fantastic discount, this time on a Shark Raw helmet.  $150 for the lid, taxes in (less than half what it's retailing for).

The website the show put out (when it loaded at all)
was insecure.  Management & organization is an issue.

What would be nice would be having access to show specials at my local.  I'd happily spend the hundred odd dollars I spend getting to and into this show and apply it to purchases at Two Wheel.  If that's a possibility I'll save a Saturday next January and avoid the lines, crowds and other nonsense.  I'm going to contact Two Wheel and see if show specials might be available for customers on that weekend at their shop.  Their new digs are twice as nice as the International Centre and it doesn't take you an hour of lining up to get in the door.

The other reason to attend a show is to touch base with your favourite motorcycle media.  I did have a nice chat with Glenn from Motorcycle Mojo but couldn't find Graeme at Inside Motorcycles, though I can see my favourite motorbike magazines at the Toronto Motorcycle Show in February which feels like a much more professionally organized, industry driven event.  I can also take my wife to that one without her rolling her eyes at all the strippers on display.

As far as other people I'd want to chat with, the CoG guys were too busy but I had a good talk with the Widow's Sons.  Even in the cases of these obvious connections I'm a bad joiner.  It doesn't occur to me to contact CoG or the Widow's Sons to go for a ride, I'd rather just go out on my own.  Riding in a group feels like a needless restriction to me.

I'll stick to complaining about the poor organization both online and at the venue, but the show itself is what it is. I'm an odd-duck in motorcycling.  I prefer to ride alone.  I go riding to find solitude and in that solitude delve more deeply into the craft of motorcycling.  Riding to feel a part of a crowd, 'show my colours' or just show off isn't my bag.  I don't ride to be seen or make a statement, I ride because I love riding.

To the dress-alike leather pirates and many other social riders this show must feel like coming home.  Next year I think that's where I'll be.

Coulda skipped that...

Woulda happily have skipped that (this is the passageway you get funnelled into
after getting out of the big passageway)...

Coulda done this at Two Wheel...

Coulda done that at Two Wheel...

The Desperate American Cruiser

I've been reading Inside Motorcycles, Canada's Source for Motorcycle News.  Their February/March 2015 issue has an article that underlines the desperation of the American cruiser.

In it they describe the Victory Gunner as over-priced, unable to corner and smooth.  They then go on to say, "...the Gunner is a bruiser, built to lurk about town striking fear into all those fancy Euro and Japanese machines."

If 'fancy' is code for motorcycles that can go around corners and out handle this 'bruiser' in every way, then I'll go with fancy.  My tiny Ninja 650r with only 37% of the Gunner's displacement, and not even a full on sport bike will trash this 'bruiser' in any straight line competition, and it corners nicely too.  It costs less on gas, less on insurance and looks fantastic.  I'll bet it'll have less maintenance headaches too.  So far, 'fancy' is looking pretty sensible.  

I'm not sure what the Victory Gunner is bruising (other than its rider's tailbone), but Inside Motorcycles has managed to clearly highlight the desperate, reaching nature of the American Cruiser in one short piece.  This 'bruiser' is a pretty boy who is designed to make its rider feel like a dude, but not ride like one.

I welcome this 'brusier' appearing out of the shadows and attempting to strike fear into my 'fancy' (and significantly cheaper) Japanese bike.  I will be sure to reserve a little pity for the mediocre guy on the 'cool' bike who desperately hopes it's working for him.

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.

Unscripted Moments

Steve Hoffarth has a good editorial piece in the August/September 2014 edition of Inside Motorcycles that got me thinking about scripted experience.  Steve was lamenting his inability to go racing this year.  He compared going on rides at a theme park and found them lacking.  A scripted experience like being a passive rider on a roller coaster has nothing on the complex, non-linear and entirely participatory experience of racing.

I was sitting in the garage last night working on the Concours when my wife stuck her head in the door and asked how I was doing.  "I'm in my happy place," I replied.

What made it happy was that I was fixing a problem that had no instruction manual.  Success wasn't guaranteed and I had to approach it from several different angles before I could finally come up with a solution.  Real satisfaction followed a resolution to a situation that could easily have ended in failure.  It was an entirely unscripted situation, the kind I long for after your typically scripted day in the life of a 21st Century human.

So much of our lives are scripted nowadays, from phones telling us when to be where to GPS units telling us how to get there.  Brakes script themselves for us because we can't be bothered to learn how to use them effectively, traction control leaps in at a moment's notice to script your acceleration, vehicles will park themselves, warn you when something is behind you because you couldn't be bothered to turn your head, and even avoid obstacles you couldn't be bothered to pay attention to.  I used to enjoy driving, now, at its best, it feels more like sitting on a roller coaster.

All this scripting is a result of software.  It may sound funny coming from a computer technology teacher, but that software kills it for me.  If I wanted to watch machines race I wouldn't put people in the cars at all, it's safer that way.  It's been a long time since a driver could take a car by the scruff of its neck and drag it around a circuit.  We do all this in the name of safety, but ultimately I think it's lowest common denominator thinking; software engineers design life for the least capable people, they can sell more of it that way.

There are places in mechanics where it just makes sense to incorporate computer control, especially when it amplifies an operator's nuanced control of a vehicle rather than overwriting it.  Thank goodness for fuel injection.  It allows us to create responsive, linear fuelling and use less of a diminishing resource, it's all good, as are disc brakes and other technological advances that improve rider feel.  I'm certainly not anti-technology, I make my living teaching it, but I am anti-technology when it takes over human inputs instead of improving them.  That kind of thinking breeds sheeple.

Traction control (many settings!), antilock brakes (many
settings!), hill start control and more electronics than a
moon shot - perhaps bikes aren't the last bastion after all.

Unscripted moments are increasingly hard to come by.  Perhaps that freedom we feel on a motorcycle is one of the last bastions of unscripted moments when a software engineer isn't deciding how you'll spend your time, or worse, spending it for you.

Except they increasingly are.  After I started riding last year I was astonished that this is legal.  In a granny state-world where safety is all that matters, where SUVs are considered better because they're bigger and collision avoidance systems are desirable because you shouldn't have to pay attention while operating a vehicle, motorcycles too are succumbing to our vapid, software scripted lives.

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.