Labour Day Weekend Ride: Georgian Bay

 A 300km round trip up to Georgian Bay and back:

I aimed to get out of the boring straight lines of South West Ontario and over to the Niagara Escarpment as quickly as I could.  I was going to head up Highway 6 but it was packed full of GTA types escaping their pandemic ridden cities, so I angled off in Fergus and took 16 up, which was completely empty.  That would become a theme of the ride.

It took me about an hour to get up to Flesherton, where I made a stop at Highland Grounds for an Americano.  I usually enjoy sitting in there sipping my coffee while sitting on their 70's retro disco red glitter vinyl chairs, but it being the summer of COVID, I ended up drinking my fine coffee by the Tiger on Highway 10 (also packed full of citiots all doing the same thing at the same time, as they do).

While I was standing there I noted the new bicycle shop that had opened up a few doors down.  Ryan Carter, the owner of the new Ryan's Repairs, had some interesting kit out front, including a seventies banana seat bike with a single cylinder engine mounted to it.  I ended up chatting with him for a bit and had a look in his shop.  He'd only been up in Flesherton for a couple of weeks.  If you're up that way and you're interested in bicycles or even just some interesting mechanical engineering, drop in with your Higher Ground coffee and see what's what at Ryan's Repairs.

It was a longer than planned stop in Flesherton, but I eventually finished my americano and then I was off to Beaver Valley.  Highway 10 was bumper to bumper, but I dodged through town and only had a to do a few hundred yards with the sheeple before turning off onto empty country roads again.

Beaver Valley has a fantastic road (Grey County Road 30) that weaves down into it with epic views.  If you hang a right at the bottom and go on the dirt, the ride back up Graham's Hill is intense, particularly so this time as all the recent rain had washed it out leaving a stream cut down the middle of it that was tricky to navigate.  I ended up on the wrong side of it as it cut across the road, but even on my 'it's time for a change but no one has them in stock' Michelin Anakees, I was still able to 

The view out from Graham's Hill lookout was also worth a stop.  I went through there last year in the middle of autumn colours and it burned itself into my memory.  This time around everything was super green, but it's still some interesting geography to ride in our otherwise tedious flatness.

I looped back around to Grey 30 and came back down the hill without a slow mover in front this time before hanging a left and following the road out to Beaver Valley Road and the trek up to Thornbury.  I was there in the early spring but the harbour was closed in the early days of COVID.  I was hoping this time I'd be able to get myself right down to the water's edge.

I guess Beaver Valley Road isn't on everyone's GPS because it was fairly empty.  With a few big, high speed sweepers, it's a nice way up to the bay.  Ontario 26, the road that follows the shore, is evidently on everyone's radar because it was bumper to bumper.  After a brief stop to look at the bay...

... I stopped for gas in Thornbury, but the traffic on 26 was nuts.  Rather than sit in a line to get through

the light for half an hour, I zipped up the side and took a right back inland.  South out through Thornbury and Clarksburg (no traffic), I hung a left on 40 (also empty) and rode directly to Grey County Road 2, which would bring me back over Blue Mountain and into the Grey Highlands.  I'm still at a loss to explain why, when left to their own devices, most people just imitate each other.  I'm not sure what happens in their heads that makes sitting in traffic when they are surrounded by empty road make sense.

The roads south were also pretty empty, though I'm able to dispatch traffic with alacrity on the big 'ol Tiger.  Singhampton arrived in no time.  124 northbound had construction and what looked like a half an hour wait to get through it.  I was heading south then east and bypassed it.  I wouldn't have sat in it in any case.  A better way around would be to zip down Crazy River Road toward Creemore then wind through the hills of Glen Huron, which is exactly what I did.

 The big skies in the hills were getting dark as I headed south.  It was cloudy when I left, but driving north to the bay meant avoiding that rain, now I was riding back into it.  The clouds were ragged as I flew south on 124.

By this point I'd been on the road for about four hours and hadn't stopped since Flesherton, so I figured I'd give River Road from Horning's Mills to Terra Nova a go.  It was closed for construction when I tried it in the spring, so this would be my first ride on it in 2020.  Like everything else in Ontario these days, they've managed to fuck it up.  After construction the entire road is now a 50km/hr zone with community fines doubled signs everywhere.  I really need to move somewhere else.  I get that no one wants idiots ripping up and down the road in front of where they live, but a 50/community safety zone for the entire length of a road that has maybe ten driveways on it over 12 kms?  There must be money in the area.

Fortunately, Terra Nova Public House was open and could squeeze me in for a socially distanced soup between their lunch and dinner service.  The rain finally hit while I was sitting out back.  Big, fat drops splashing into my soup, but it was still fantastic (maple carrot homemade!).  It was a brief shower and it blew over quickly.  I was in and out of TNPH in about 20 minutes, and by the time I came out the road was dry again.  I puttered back along River Road, frustrated at the iron grip of government and then started the burn south west back home.

Blustery winds and ragged clouds north of Shelbourne, then it was down through Grand Valley, following the Grand River home to Elora...

The Tiger ran like a top.  The idle/stall issue seems to be a thing of the past.  It was a nice ride through some changeable weather.  It was also cool enough that I wasn't cooking on the seat, so I felt like I still had a lot in me when I got back.  The trip knocked the Tiger up to only 600kms away from hitting 80k.  It turns twenty years old in 2023, and I like the symmetry of it hitting 100k by then, so that's the goal.  This winter it'll get new shoes (if anyone ever gets Michelin Anakees back in stock again), and a complete service including all bearings and suspension.  It'll get an oil change too if anyone ever has Mobil 1 motorcycle oil back in stock again (finding parts during COVID is an ongoing headache).

I should get well into the 80s before the riding season's done, and then it'll be spa time.

One Tight, Not Too Tight

Now that the CBR900RR Fireblade project is sorted and on the road, I'm finding myself doing what the original intent was in getting it:  learning from a different type of motorcycle.  Unlike the heavy industry Kawasaki Concours, or the SUV of motorcycling Triumph Tiger, the 'Blade was built to a different design brief. The other bikes were over engineered heavy to last, but the the Honda is a feather.

That philosophy is at odds with the heavy handed git who owned it before me and managed to maintain it into such a state of disrepair that it kept it off the road for years.

From the rear brake cylinder that was assembled backwards and over tightened, to the over tight wheels and the slipping clutch I've just adjusted to actually be at spec rather than over-tightened, I'm finding the Honda was a victim of a heavy hand and unsympathetic mechanical inclination.

When I was a teen my dad was talking me through a head gasket repair on one of my first cars.  We weren't minted, so the only way I was driving was if I could keep an old car on the road; mechanical training was an implicit part of vehicle ownership for me growing up.  As we were tightening the head back on he made a point of talking me through the bolt pattern - always tightening opposite bolts so it would seat evenly, and then said something that I've never forgotten as we started tightening down the head:  "always one tight, not too tight."  I guess the guy who abused this lovely piece of Honda engineering into years in a garage never got such good advice.

Mechanical sympathy is an important part of maintaining any machine, but especially a motorcycle, where if you are cack-handed you can end up seriously hurting yourself when it breaks.  In that way, motorcycle mechanics are a lot like aircraft mechanics, it's a do it right or it can go very wrong kind of situation.

Part of that sympathy is taking the time to understand what the engineers who designed the machine want you to do in terms of looking after it.  In the case of the CBR900RR, Honda would like you to leave 10-20mm of play at the end of the clutch lever - this one was set so you could strum it like a guitar string.  This play is to ensure that the clutch fully disengages when you let go of it.  An over tightened clutch cable means it's always set to be slightly pulling and engaging the clutch.  Making it too tight isn't just a failure of the hands, it's a failure in thinking that wounds the machine.  In this case, the over-tightened clutch cable explains why the 'Blade was slipping RPMs when I opened it up.  A sympathetically tuned motorbike will give you a purity of interaction that allows you to more fully understand the machine.  This is one of the reasons why I value technical fluency so much, it puts your ability to operate technology into focus in a way that the technically ignorant will never realize.

***

Meanwhile, in the land of Tim where he's trying to keep a 17 year old European and a 23 year old Japanese bike rolling during the perilously short Canadian riding season, the Tiger's stalling when hot continues.  I've ordered a replacement air idle control valve from Inglis Cycles, who have once again exceeded expectations during a pandemic by sourcing the part from Triumph in the UK and getting it to me in about a week.

One of the nice things about the Tiger is that it's fuel injected, so all that carburetor management is taken care of, but the evil end of computerized fuel injection is that after seventy six thousand kilometres it's finally gone wrong, and an electronic system like that can go wrong in a lot of different ways. 

I'd never gotten into the Tuneboy Software that came with the Tiger (the original owner installed it along with a Power Commander), because if it ain't broke, don't fix it.  But now that it's broke, I got going on it the other evening.  Getting into the bike via a computer was pretty cool.  The software is Y2K retro-hip and the connection was straightforward.  The 20+ pages of instructions weren't really needed (I'm handy with computers).  Windows 10 automatically recognizes what you're plugging in (back in the day, WinXP would have needed drivers installed), and the software is responsive and quick to connect.  It occasionally drops connection, but unplugging it and plugging it in again resolved that each time.


The compact disk (told ya, Y2K hip!) had all of the stock maps for my year of Triumph Tiger 955i engine on it, so I saved what was on there in case it was some kind of cool specialty map the previous owner had worked out (dude worked at a nuclear power plant, so don't underestimate his tech skillz), and then I flashed it with the stock numbers, which took about 20 seconds and returned a confirmed result.  There is a slight lag, but otherwise this is easy to use stuff.

I then played with the diagnostics tool for a bit, hoping for some data that will help me isolate the hot idle stalling fault.  The software says there are no errors (promising that this is that mechanical failure then), and the only thing that looks out of place is a strange return on the engine temperature.  It seems to read accurately and then show -40, even when the fan is coming on, but if the fan is coming on and the temperature gauge on the dash is reading normally, I suspect this is something to do with how the software syncs with the on board computer rather than an actual fault, but I'm going to keep it in mind.

The problem with an idle fault on a fuel injected bike is that the engine management system is taking in data from a number of sensors and using it to balance engine activity, like idling, based on that information.  I've got the mechanical component that regulates idle on the bike incoming, and I hope that resolves the issue, but what I fear is that it's something else, and with these complex electronics systems could mean that anything from a dozen different sensors or relays to a loose or broken wire.  With any luck, it's that idle air control valve and I'm back on the Tiger... and the Honda, just not at the same time.

Triumph Tiger 955i Graphic Ideas

The old 955i Tiger is now a long ago thing in Triumph's lineup, but mine is still going strong.  I dug up an old print I made of a tiger face and digitized it before playing with skins on the 955i logo...

I might monkey around with producing a custom sticker set for the bike.  The new Tigers all look like special forces bikes, but the old one had some whimsy to it and asked the obvious question, "why so serious?"  Some whimsical stickers for a whimsical machine that just keeps going.

Installing LED indicators on a 2003 Triumph Tiger 955i

I've done a few LED light upgrades on motorcycles to date, so updating the indicators on my trusty 2003 Triumph Tiger 955i isn't producing many surprises.  Unlike the Kawasaki Heavy Industries ZG1K project bike last time, the Triumph doesn't use standard automotive blinker relays, so the cheap and cheerful option I went with last time from Amazon doesn't have the same pinouts.  Fortunately, the blinker relay is easy to get to on the Tiger (pic right).

The stock, German made Hella blinkgeber 4db 003 750-36 indicator relay swaps the positive and negative terminals from the Japanese standard ones, so it isn't a plug and play swap for a cheap, Chinese relay from Amazon.

Like most relays built for standard bulbs, it speeds up when it senses a lack of resistance (ie: a blown bulb) so you know when you've got a bulb out because it ticks fast.  LEDs are so much more efficient than standard bulbs that they act like a blown bulb, so you end up with hyper-flashing where your indicators are blinking silly fast.

While looking around for a plug and play alternative that wouldn't have me making a rat's nest out of a neat wiring loom, I came across superbrightLEDs.com and their primer on hyperflashing...

Looking through their site, I found an indicator relay that would be a straight swap on my Euro-awkward bike.  The price is pretty much the same as the Chinese part on Amazon, but then you get stung with shipping that is more than the cost of the part (Amazon shipping was covered).  They promise that this will work with LEDs, which I'm a bit cautious about because the other ones I've purchased have a potentiometer (dial control) on them that lets you adjust to the speed you want, and this one doesn't.

It's suggested in places that you can swap the power and ground, but a number of people seem to have had problems with that on various bikes, so I bit the bullet and ended up with a $24USD bill where it would have been $12CAD (shipping included) on Amazon.  I'm hoping I'm getting a higher quality piece for all that extra outlay (the superbrightLED one has a 2 year warranty on it whereas the Amazon one didn't).  The part is on its way, so I should be able to finish the indicator upgrade in early January.

The rest of the wiring has been pretty straightforward.  The LED set I purchased from AliExpress (my first time using them - shipping wasn't quick but everything got here eventually and the prices are amazing), worked fine when the system was doing 4 way flashers, but went into hyperblinking when I indicated.  It's an easy wiring in, but again the Euro-awkward nature of the bike means it didn't have standard sized spade clips and I had to cut the old ones off and use replacements which were way harder to find than they should have been.

Your 21st Century Hardware store sells you things, just none
of them are tools or, you know, hardware...

As an aside, have you noticed that hardware stores don't carry hardware any more?  A trip to my local hardware shops was more like going to home decorating shops with lots of pretty things but no actual hardware.  I ended up at an automotive specialty retailer to find electrical connectors.  Hardware stores are now just glorified department stores.  You can't survive as a hardware retailer in a world where no one fixes anything.

Anyway, onwards and upwards.  After the Tiger, the Honda CBR900RR Fireblade project is getting the same treatment, so I'm going to have to figure out what indicator relay Honda went with.  Hopefully it isn't as Euro-awkward as the Triumph.  I've always wondered why they don't include an LED friendly relay in the LED lighting kits for motorcycles, but with everyone using different variations on the indicator relay, you'd be selling people parts that might not fit their situation.

The middle block is the indicator relay on a 955i Triumph Tiger.  It's easy to get to
with only a black, plastic cover to remove.  With any luck, my expensive LED indicator
relay will do the trick and plug right in there.

Last Light of the Sun

Tuesday, November 26:  I got outside after work and noted that the weather didn't hurt.  Could this be a chance for a final ride before the icy grip of old man winter chokes the life out of my riding season?

On our way home I saw a determined rider on a Harley with scarves tied around his face and that tipped it.  It took me about 10 minutes to thermal up (this opportunity was still only a 5°C one) and wheel the Tiger out from under its blanket.

The 16 year old Triumph started at the touch of the button, though the battery didn't sound happy after sitting in freezing temperatures for a month.  As the bike warmed up I made sure no skin was showing and off I went.

I just did a 30km run down to the Westmontrose Covered Bridge and then back to Elora, but the chance to fly again before the winter closes in was priceless.  There is nothing better than an unexpected ride when you think you're months away from being out in the wind again.

A brief stop at the church in Westmontrose for some thematically relevent early November sunset shots in the graveyard before riding back upstream.  I pulled into the gas station in Elora and was surprised to see four other bikers filling up before the long cold resumes.

The Tiger is now parked up with a full tank of gas, ready to slumber once again under its blanket until the distant spring approaches...

Your Typical Sunday Ride Isn't My Typical Sunday Ride

a 260km amble around
theNiagara Escarpment.

I cranked out some miles on the Tiger this weekend.  On Saturday it was a 160km round trip down to Ancaster for a conference, on Sunday I left with a buddy from work along with his wife and son on a big 260km loop out to the Niagara Escarpment and back.

Jeff was two up on his new-to-him Goldwing and he son was on his dad's Super Ténéré.  We left Fergus following the Grand River and immediately came upon two cruisers burbling down the road next to each other.  Any questions I had about passing etiquette on other bikers were quickly put aside when Jeff dropped a gear and blew by the two of them without a second glance.   They (politely) went into single file so that we could catch the fleeing Goldwing without crossing a solid line.

Chasing the Noisy River into
Creemore is always a nice ride.

Elora to Creemore happened in a snap and the Tiger was becoming more and more familiar with each mile traveled.  Chasing the Noisy River into Creemore was well timed on empty roads and the Tiger and I had no trouble keeping up with the more experienced riders around me.

We stopped for lunch in Creemore and then helped a Harley rider try and jump start his dead, brand new bike (his typical Sunday ride, but I like my dependable, thirteen year old Triumph).  He eventually found a local who offered to jump start the bike from a truck.  After working up a sweat pushing a Harley up and down Main Street for a several minutes in our modern, textile body armor (while being watched by groups of leather clad bikers who I'm sure felt great kinship with the old fella whose bike wouldn't start, but not so much that they wanted to help), we headed south toward River Road.

In addition to being a windy road in a
place that doesn't have many, River
Road also has the benefit of taking
longer than five minutes to complete.

The River Road was a twisty delight.  Riding a bike is a fine thing, but the moment I'm off the crown of the tire I feel like I'm earning bonus points.  At my first training course towards the end of day two they set up cones and we were allowed to weave through them at speed and then ride a decreasing radius circle.  I stopped at one point and said to the instructor, "I could do this all day!"  The lean of a bike is nothing short of fighter-pilot magical (even Top Gear digs it).

River Road was a rollercoaster ride until we once again arrived on the tailpipe of a cruiser.  On any straight this guy would gun it, making a pass impractical (200km/hr passes, while possible, aren't wise on twisty country roads).  We spent the last bit taking the corners at floor board friendly speeds.

The action cam was clipped to a front
fairing for the twisty bits.

In Shelbourne there was a big, new sign advertising the Veteran's Highway pointing south, so rather than go over to the overcrowded Highway 10 I thought we should try it.  The moment we were past the last factory two hundred yards down the road the "Veteran's Highway" turned to dirt.  The Tiger seemed frisky and excited to be on the loose stuff, feeling very sure footed for such a big bike.  Behind me the Super10 was also rolicking in the gravel, but the two-up Goldwing?  When we stopped Jeff referred to it as an adventure two-up mobility scooter.  We turned left toward the highway at the first paved intersection.

The wave on River Road

Back at Highway 10 I once again suggested we push onto unknown roads in northern Mono Hills.  This road also quickly turned to gravel, but this time loose, twitchy gravel.  I'm bad at picking roads.  We ended up turning around and heading back to 10 before burning south and enjoying some time in Mono Hills and Hockley Valley.

We wrapped up the ride with a quick blast down the Forks of the Credit, which had the road closed into Belfountain, before heading back to Elora in lengthening shadows.

I got home sun and wind burned and wonderfully exhausted.  Can't wait to do it again!

Dropping into Hockley Valley.

That 'Lucifer Orange' paint just pops!

Working the corners of the Forks

Jeff making a three point turn on a Goldwing 2-up look easy.

Forks of the Credit: the road into Belfountain was closed, so a bevy of sports bikes were parked on the road.

The artful exhaust pipes on the Tiger.

Stopping for a break in Hockley Valley before heading down to the Forks of the Credit