Lots of 8s

 

I've been on the road for work for the past couple of weeks (Newfoundland is spectacular!) The weather from there followed us back and we haven't seen the sun for many days, until this weekend! It finally broke and I've gotten some riding in.

I was hoping to get the old Tiger to 100k this year in its 20th year on the road. On the way to that I managed to hit eighty-eight thousand, eight hundred and eighty-eight kilometres! Very satisfying, and the bike looked great doing it:

I pushed my luck the next day and took Connie out for a couple of hours to Hockley Valley and back...

Weather's been good this week too, maybe we're finally into spring time! I had the C14 out again for a ride over to the Forks of the Credit after work today... time to make some miles!

Regular Riding

A bit of paint and I can now tell the
ignition key from the nearly
identical pannier key.

Regularly riding is a nice thing in mid-April up here.  It rained yesterday, so I commuted in the box, but today has dawned foggy and damp but with no rain in the forecast, so it's off I go again on two wheels, hopefully with the actioncam on video this time.

Getting to work after a ride in is invigorating.  Instead of a tedious trundle in a car you're full of oxygen.  You've smelled everything on the way in and you're switched on because you never ride a bike half aware.

The other morning I was at an all day meeting only five minutes from home, so rather than go straight there I shot past it and went for a ride along the river.  I still ended up being one of the first to arrive, and I was cold but lit up in the way that only a bike ride can do.

At the end of a day of meeting about something I get the sense has already been decided (but we had to talk about it all day anyway - yes, it was tedious), instead of going home I took the bike down the Grand River to the covered bridge and then came back on the north shore.  Even a short, twenty minute ride like that put the spring back in my step and cleared away the Kafkaesque cobwebs in my head from that day of soul sucking, meaningless blah blah.

The foggy and damp ride in this morning.  The smell of earth and new shoots filled the heavy air as the Tiger purred to work...

Riding The Tiger

When you want to start riding in April in Canada
you need to take precautions!

Today saw a 150km round trip down to Ancaster and back; the first ride of the season.  It was 2°C when I left at 7:15am this morning.  No frost, but a cold ride to start.

I stopped in Kirkwall, by the kirk, for a stretch and to remove the balaclava.  By the time I got down to Ancaster for an educational conference it was warming up nicely.

I was out of the conference about 2pm.  By that time the temperature was pretty much perfect for a ride.  I took the main road into Ancaster and then up Sulfur Springs and Mineral Springs Roads, doing a loop before heading back north.

A cold start.

The Tiger was fantastic, feeling more powerful than the Concours with a much more relaxed riding position.  At first the higher riding position felt a bit awkward, but I quickly discovered that the Metzeler tires and taut suspension, even though it's long, could handle any corners I threw at them.  Any cornering awkwardness had at least as much to do with me being rusty from a winter in boxes as it did with the bike's geometry.

There were dozens of other bikes out and about in the warm weather.  The Tiger got a lot of double takes.  I know it shouldn't matter but in a couple of days of riding I've already had more compliments than I did in a year of riding on the Concours.  Halfway home I was thinking I could leave for Ushuaia immediately on this fine machine.

Once home I checked over the fluids.  The Tiger barely used any gas, and the oil and coolant was right where I'd left them.  I've got an air filter on hand (the previous owner said, "air filter?" when I asked if it had been done recently), but I don't want to miss a ride while I'm doing it now that the weather's good.  I'm hoping a mid-week after work change will give me the time to get it done.  To do the air filter means pulling the gas tank - it's not as easy as it's been on previous bikes.

A short stop in Kirkwall got the balaclava off (t made the helmet uncomfortably tight)

The twisty road sign is in short supply in Southwestern Ontario -
Sulphur Springs Road & Mineral Springs Road are exceptions.

Riding a Tiger really is a magical experience!

We've already got a route planned out for a sunny, warm Sunday  in April:

Finishing Touches

The snow is slowly receeding.  This week I was down in the city and saw someone buzz by on a bike and got all revved up.  Over the past couple of weeks I've put the Ninja back together.  It's about where I want it now in terms of looks.  It's gone from a debranded, flat black angry young man's bike to a colourful machine that knows what it is.


After it warmed up enough to get the paint sorted I sourced some stickers from The Sportbike Sticker Shop.  They arrived the day before they were supposed to in a plain envelope with cardboard backing in perfect shape ready to apply.  Since I was going for a blue and orange colour scheme and I could colour customize the Ninja stickers, I did.
  




I went for black Kawasaki logo writing for the lower fairing and 650r stickers for the front.  I picked up a Triumph sticker for the toolbox and the Japanese kanji for shinobi (Ninja).  Instead of on the toolbox the kanji ended up on the bike on the 'interesting' side (the side with the shock).  The metallic silver sticker looks great on the flat black leading into the exhaust port on the fairing.

The stickers went on well and seem to have bonded perfectly.  The site says you can clearcoat over them, so I'll do that as a final step and it'll be done.  I recommend The Sportbike Sticker Shop - you get your order quickly, it's very competitively priced and the stickers are quality pieces that look great when you get them on, just don't be surprised if you get what looks like a letter from a relative only to find it full of awesome stickers.



With any luck we'll have some heavy rain and then a 10+°C day and I'll be off on the kingfisher coloured Ninja.

What thirty bucks gets you from The Sportsbike Sticker Shop

That Guy...

I'm that guy! I always wanted to be that guy!

It's been spring-ish in Ontario for the past couple of days (after the ice storm).  I've had the bike out a few times.  I still get a charge out of waving to another rider.

Yesterday I went out for almost an hour.  The front end felt a bit soft, but now the bike feels balanced on a knife's edge with the right pressure in the tyres (the front was at 20psi after a winter in storage).  That was the first fifteen minutes of the ride, trying to find a gas station with a working air pump and then paying a buck... for air.  Once that was sorted I was south on the small highway out of town.  I'd never gotten the bike properly warmed up before, it's an eager, responsive creature, even at low RPMs, but it seems happiest between 3500 and 4500 rpm for cruising..  I'd also never gotten it up to highway speed before, wind noise is surprising, though it shouldn't be; a 100km/hr wind wouldn't be quiet, would it?

I'm getting better at remembering the indicators.  The stuff drilled into me on the course has stayed.  I'm always in neutral and on the clutch when I start it, and I don't get on until I'm completely suited up; good habits to have.  Had the bikes we practiced on had indicators, I would have probably internalized those too.  I don't want to look like a (dangerous) n00b riding down the street with a forgotten signal flashing.

I took a left turn off the highway onto a back road and made one of my few control errors.  I thought I was in 3rd, but I was in 1st.  I dropped the clutch too hard and was thrown forward. As I reacted I accidently pulled on the throttle... my first wheelie!  On Highway 6!  Fortunately I was sitting close (as an instructor had told me during the course).  I let go of the throttle, and with my weight forward got back on 2 wheels.  As I rounded the corner the kid sitting at the stop sign was all worked up by my wheelie, so he smoked the tires on his Cavalier.  Had he known how freaked out I was, he wouldn`t have been so excited by the whole display.

You get cold on a bike, even in good gear when it`s cool out.  I got home with cold hands and a big smile on my face.  I got to know my Ninja a bit better, and have an appreciation of just how athletic she actually is.