The Ride To Indy: A Day At The Track

I'm in an entirely dodgy hotel by the Detroit airport after a long day in the saddle.  Indy was fantastic.  The weather has been epic and the Concours has been faultless.  I've only got the phone pics at the moment.  The camera pics will have to wait until I'm home and can get them off the camera, they look pretty sharp.

I wish we has more time to spend at the track, but it was a great reconnaissance trip.  I'll be spending more time down there next year (please don't cancel IndyGP Dorna!).

In the meantime, with some phone-made media maybe I can convince you to take your bike down to Indy for the MotoGP, it's a special motorbiking experience.

We got there early and were directed to the back gate and onto the back straight of the oval- all bikes who showed up
were parked on the straight!  - I gave her the beans going down the straight, there is nothing like hearing your own bike's
engine howling off the concrete retaining walls of the Indianapolis oval!

Sitting on the main straight watching Moto3 doing their first practice. The little 250cc thumpers are astonishingly loud!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xnviublqw4blo_HSH65SbAWfHLSGhmI9aA/view?usp=sharing

When we came back at about 3:30pm there were hundreds and hundreds of bikes!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/15_S0OcCrxJnMYzVS4yw7XHZzGlHUSd8RXw/view?usp=sharing

Yep, still Indy - there is a golf course in the middle of the oval!  Those people on the berm are watching MotoGP
racers dicing with the s-bends on the road circuit.

The Ride to Indy: Cathedrals of Speed

We were enjoying a lovely ride through the Irish Hills in southern Michigan yesterday on our way to Indianapolis for MotoGP when we stumbled across another cathedral of speed, the Michigan International Speedway.  If you swing by when no events are happening you can still sign in and have a look, we did!

We Live in the Future! Motorcycle Gadgetry

This nice bit of graphic design caught my eye.  The Tomtom GPS system is uniquely suited to motorcycling.  It's waterproof, bar mounted and offers some smart software that is motorbiking specific - like find the windiest route between here and there.

A weatherproof GPS that could be easily accessed with a gloved hand while on the bike is a prudent safety decision.  Instead of trying to look at maps on the tankbag I could be using the corner of my eye to follow a route.  I'm a fan! 

As if the Tomtom wasn't enough, I then came across the 360Fly.  I've been GoPro fixated since they first came out, and tried other action cameras, but this is something else.

The 360Fly isn't just an action camera, it's an immersive video recorder, making 360° video that you can pan through as you watch it.  There is no cropping with this camera, it's like you can turn your head within the recording!  The video becomes a complete record of what happens instead of just what the camera is pointed at.

I can't wait to try this on a motorcycle!

Drivetest: Everything That's Wrong with Ontario

When I think back to the late '80s (the last time I had to involve myself in driver testing), I recall reasonable wait times, full time employees invested in what they were doing and a general sense of competence.  I left with my driver's license feeling like my time wasn't wasted and the people there knew what they were doing.

The lost souls trapped in the beige, fluorescent lit hell that
is Ontario's Drivetest Centre.  I got in trouble for taking
this picture, I hope you like it.

Since going back for my motorcycle license in 2013 I've had to attend Drivetest Centres several times and each one has been worse than the last.  The stone eyed 'funployees' of Drivetest struggle to handle massive wait times and angry citizens whose time doesn't seem to matter at all.

While waiting for more than ninety minutes yesterday in an overcrowded holding area I looked up Drivetest and discovered a poster child for why Ontario is failing like it is.

Up until 2003 Driver training was handled by MoT employees.  These would have been unionized, government workers who make enough money to pay a mortgage and tended to stick around, meaning they have a vested interest in what they're doing.  In 2003 Mike Harris (aka: ass-clown of the century) decided to privatize driver training in Ontario (because the mess they made giving away the 407 wasn't enough).

In a matter of months hundreds of full time employees were laid off in the name of efficiency.  At the time, the six week waiting list to get a license was considered proof of government incompetence and the private sector would come to our rescue!  The current backlog is over sixteen weeks.  Feeling that private efficiency yet?

At the Drivecentre yesterday I heard one of the employees say that they have a lot of people away on vacation so they are short handed at the busiest time of the year.  Another came back after taking only 10 minutes for lunch.  While revelling in this Kafkaesque corporate efficiency I thought I'd look up who we pay millions to now for driver testing.

Privatization seems to feed into globalization.  Just as he sold off the 407 for a fraction of what it's worth to a Spanish company, so Harris sold off driver training to another overseas firm, in this case Serco, a billion dollar a year multi-national out of the UK.  Their spiel on the Drivetest website is exactly the sort of MBA drivel that makes me sick in my mouth:   

Ah, the countless possibilities.  Fortunately, thanks to Serco's crap-tastic personnel management I had a lot of time to consider countless possibilities.  The Ontario Government is supposed to oversee the efficiency of this subcontract, but like most privatization they simply turn away from what IS the role of government, taking no responsibility for what has been and continues to be an out and out disaster.

You'd think it would be fairly easy to make licensing a zero-sum game.  You charge for licenses whatever it takes to cover the cost of licensing and you keep that money in Ontario instead of shipping off millions of dollars overseas.  You then offer bonuses based on accident rates of new drivers and the wait times in Drivetest Centres.  The lower the rates and better the wait times, the better the bonus.  Or... you could just give it all away to an off-shore concern that couldn't give a damn about Ontario citizens, their safety or their time, but sure knows a lot about business.

Meanwhile, we're all sitting here wondering why Ontario is in the biggest financial mess in its history.  Efficiency doesn't mean off-loading responsibility and doing things cheaply, unless you're in the private sector, then that can be your reason for being.  Efficiency and cheapness are not the same thing, though the private sector and conservatives often confuse the two.

Get your finger out Ontario, stop off-loading important government services to incompetent multi-nationals and keep our money in-province!  Fix this!

LINKS

The Dark Side of Privatization
Who we're paying to administer Ontario Driver Training
Serco quality
We should farm everything out to these guys!
Actually, just do a google-news search of Serco and revel in the excellence

The real costs of privatizing hydro
Privatization: generally a really bad idea
The 407, The 407 again, The 407, it never ends, The 407, WTF?

Green Laning

Public by-ways: It's a thing in the
UK, not so much here.

Green laning is a big thing where I'm from, but in Canada in 2015 most of the crown land around here has been sold off to pay off the debts of investment bankers.  With all the land hereabouts private it's not easy to take an off-road bike on a trail.

"As a military training area, Salisbury Plain is a unique
environment that has to be shared by both military and
civilians alike" - ha! Can you imagine that in Canada?

I got the KLX to trail ride.  I'm not interested in 'catching air' or riding like an MX loonie.  If I'm getting to places most people don't and practising my bike balance, I'm happy.  The point of the exercise is learning better bike control, being off road lets me do that.  If I have any interest beyond trail riding it's in trials, which is also hyper-focused on bike control and balance.

Today I took the KLX out for an hour or so, looking for trails.  Dirt roads start less than a kilometre from our sub-division, so I went there first.  I went south on Sideroad 6 North for about 5kms before hanging a right, crossing back over the regional road and then cutting off onto Sideroad 14.  From there I found a nice cut along a hydro line.  Another five minute stint on pavement found me at another off road trail which took me back north of Elora.  I ended the trip following the Grand River looking for off-road opportunities (there weren't any), though Pilkington Overlook was pretty.

Riding off road is an interesting process.  The massive suspension travel and knobbies on the KLX makes it amazingly sure-footed.  On the gravel roads I made a point of crossing back and forth over the centre line through the deep stuff, letting the bike wobble and find a track.  Even when I got onto the rougher stuff I still found the bike remarkably composed and had no trouble navigating ruts, mud puddles and deep grass.

I'm looking forward to getting deeper into the brush!

Just outside of Ponsonby

North off Side Road 14, a lovely little trail.

North of Sideroad 10 it's blocked off due to an electrical transfer station

2 Line East leads to the Elora Gorge Park entrance - it's a nice little bit of gravel

Pilkington Lookout
 

If anyone else lives north of Guelph and knows of any good spots to trail ride, please let me know!