Stolen November Days

I'm stealing a lot of extra scenes in a November that doesn't usually encourage riding up here in the frozen north...

The end is nigh

Last year the bike was hibernating by the end of October.  This year we're getting a run of warm weather that has me still out on two wheels more than halfway through November.  We're supposed to get snow accumulation this weekend, which means sand and salt on the roads.  When that happens I'll hang up my helmet.  I'd end up spending as much time cleaning the bike as I did riding it once the salt goes down.

First ride on a newly safetied and
roadworthy Concours last March

This season started in mid-March once the roads were dry and the salt and sand cleaned off by a couple of rains.  The snow as still thick on the shoulders though.  This late finish to the year means only about four months of down time before I can get out there again.

Today I'm down to Guelph for periodontal work.  I figured I'd be stuck in a car, but it's a dozen degrees and partially sunny out there!  One last ride then!



In the meantime, we've been commuting on two wheels every change we get...

Riding in the land of ice and snow

 Frosts in the morning.  It was -3°C when the Kawasaki first coughed to life.

There is no bad weather, only bad clothes.  With big gloves and a lined leather jacket, the five mile ride to work is still quite doable.

I might get off the bike with cold fingers, but there is still no better way to commute in the morning.

Soon enough the snows will come and salt will make the roads a caged misery.  In the meantime...

Big black S&M gloves!  That's alotta leather!

Sense of Satisfaction!

After all the Maker talk this week at a conference I attended, I was keen to spend some quality time in the garage working on the 35 year old XS1100 basket case.  It's easier to walk the walk than talk the talk when it comes to Making.  Unlike the education approach infused with collaboration for your own good, I did it the way I always do: alone in a garage.  It's wonderfully cathartic to get something broken working again, and meditative when I don't have to explain everything I'm doing.

How do you get a 35 year old motorcycle left outside for several years unattended working again?  Very carefully!

The front brakes were seized, the throttle body was seized, the rear brake is still seized, as are other things I haven't found yet.  Motorcycles aren't like cars, when they're left in the world they don't have a shell protecting the mechanicals from the weather.  Restoring a car tends to be more mechanically salvageable as a result.

Yamaha XS1100 Mikuni Carburetor by timking17 on Sketchfab

I ended up having to take the end carburetor off the rack of four Mikunis that line the back of the Yamaha engine.  It was the most carboned up and filthy one, and the grit had seized the throttle body rod.  A complete dismantle, cleaning and reinstall has the carb working again (before this you couldn't move the throttle body without great effort and a nasty creaking sound...

It took a couple of hours to break it down, find the problem and rebuild it.

It was pretty before, but the Mikunis are even prettier now that they work!

Motorcycle Photography & Art

I usually toss anything graphically motorbike related that I find onto pinterest.

Here is some motorbike bike art recently found mostly as is (but some photoshopped):

The photography in Performance Bike Magazine's recent article on the Kawasaki H2 on the Isle of Mann was fantastic.
After a bit of photoshop it became my current background wallpaper.

The new Triumph Bonneville with a Scrambler kit

The bonkers new Honda RC213R - the $140k Motogp 1%er collector bike

Riding in South East Asia with Adventure Bike Rider Magazine

H2 on the Isle of Mann

H2 wheelies in 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th...

Adventure riding in Oman with ABR

Adventure Riding into the Himalayas with ABR

Miles per Day

A couple of experiences this season have given me some idea of possible mileage numbers in a day of riding.

We did 300 hot, sticky miles, mostly on freeways, coming back from Indianapolis this summer.  This involved getting lost for about half an hour before we finally stopped for the day near Detroit.

Without the getting lost part, 300 miles would be easily doable with gas and snack breaks if you're making highway miles.  We were on the road from about 9am to 5pm.  400 wouldn't be too much of a stretch, and would be an 9am to 6pm with stops kind of day.

That run to Detroit was in hot, humid weather and had me saddle sore with a bad case of baboon butt.  Less extreme conditions would make those miles easier to manage, but bike miles tend to be fairly extreme even at the best of times.

On that same day our riding partner headed straight home, doing Indianapolis to Alma, just shy of five hundred miles in a single day in about 10 hours of riding.  Had I not been two up with my son I'd have done it with him.  A five hundred mile day is certainly doable on freeways.  It's a full day, but you'd sleep well afterwards.

On the way down to Indy we did two stints, from Elora to Coldwater and Coldwater to Indianapolis.  In both cases we minimized highway riding and spent most of our time on back roads (and sometimes dirt roads and trailer parks when we got turned around).  Coldwater to Indy was just over two hundred miles and took us a good day of riding.  We left about 9am and were feet up in the hotel in Indianapolis by 4pm.  Elora to Coldwater was a long day of riding, leaving about 8:30am and finally stopping just before 6pm.  Even that long day had us up and ready to go the next morning, so it was a sustainable distance.


Based on those experiences I'd say a three hundred mile day if you're minimizing freeway use is a reasonable number to aim for, knowing that you could push a bit beyond that and still not be riding into dusk.

All of those experiences were on a fully loaded bike with my ten year old son as pillion, so we weren't exactly ascetic in our riding, looking to pound down the miles relentlessly.  I stopped more frequently than I otherwise might and for longer.

What got me thinking about this was the 178 mile ride the other day that got me over the 30k mark.  In cold weather and over twisty, slow roads with no highway at all, I left about 9:30am and was home again just past 3pm, stopping for a coffee and lunch.  The cold weather made this feel longer than it was, which reminded me just how much being comfortable in the saddle makes the miles go by.

Around the world, it's a long slog!

Your typical around the world trip is about 15,000 miles, so is north to south in the Americas.  If you're managing 300 miles a day, that'd be 50 days on the road.  If you're doing 300 mile days that means you're averaging 50 miles per hour for at least six hours a day.  Not as easy as it sounds when you factor in borders, extreme weather, navigation, bad roads and other potential slow downs.  All things to consider when trying to schedule a long trip.

Rossi & Marquez: A MotoGP editorial

WTF are you doing?  Falling over is what...

I've been watching replays and reading reviews over the MotoGP incident that rocked the world last weekend.  I think I've resolved it in my mind.

Here is what I saw:  Marquez was making a point of staying close to Rossi.  They stayed within inches of each other lap after lap on two completely different machines, one of which was a quarter second quicker per lap and 7km/hr faster in qualifying.  Marc says he was managing tires, but Dani Pedrosa, on an identical bike with identical tires was half a mile up the road riding away to the race win.  Marc's demonic Bridgestones that suddenly go off when he's in front of Rossi and come back to him when he's behind seem like what they are: an excuse.  Pedrosa's identical tires on an identical bike weren't so cursed.

Data is where the answer to this would be found.  These bikes are wired to the nines with sensors and record everything.  A detailed analysis of Marquez's laps will show whether he was delaying inputs to stay with Rossi, but I don't imagine Honda will be forthcoming with that information.

When Rossi ran wide after sitting up and coming off the gas (he was 4 seconds slower on the lap the incident happened), Marquez stayed right next to him, coming off the gas at the same time.  On the slow motion video below you can see him angle in to be right next to Rossi even though he'd obviously missed the corner.  Provoking an incident is what Marquez was trying to do.  At any point when Rossi sat up and slowed down Marquez could have ridden around the outside of him or slowed down and cut under him, but passing wasn't what he was looking for.

I'm in a difficult situation with this.  I haven't been watching MotoGP for very long.  My first full season was Marc's near perfect one, and I'm a fan, but this kind of riding isn't worthy of him.  I'm not paying to see him playing mind games with people.  If I wanted to see that I'd watch politicians.  I'm paying to see him ride the fucking motorbike like no one else can.

At 0.25 seconds a lap, Marquez should have been seconds ahead of Rossi by lap 7.
His 7 km/hr straight line speed should have had them no where near each other in the last part of the track.

Marquez is playing a game that goes well beyond Rossi.  There is no one in MotoGP who would be angrier with the idea that Marquez handed him the title than Jorge Lorenzo.  Rossi only has a season or two left in him, but Lorenzo could be racing well into Marquez' career, Lorenzo is an ongoing threat to Marquez.  Conspiracy theory makes this look like Rossi is the target, but he's a bit player in a longer game.  Marquez is playing on nationalism (both he and Lorenzo are Spanish) while diminishing Jorge's championship.  Jorge Lorenzo, 2015 world champion (thanks to Marquez) is going to piss off Jorge to no end.  Lorenzo doesn't just not know of any 'Spanish plan' to derail the legendary Italian's chance at a tenth world title, he'd be actively against it.

If you've got a kid antagonizing another kid in the playground, and the kid being antagonized suddenly lashes out, you don't just penalize the retaliator.  The kid doing the antagonizing is playing silly buggers and getting a smack in the face is what he can expect.  The antagonized kid should have just walked away, but sometimes that isn't possible, especially when emotions are heightened.  Running to race direction the moment he went down after dogging Rossi for lap after lap makes Marquez look like whiner.  I'd have had much more respect if he'd taken it on the chin and then laughed instead of seeking legal advice.

Actually, I'd have liked to have seen Rossi wave Marquez by and let him get a couple of seconds ahead.  I imagine Marquez would suddenly have had brake/tire problems again and they would have been side by side once more a few laps later, only making the whole thing look even more obvious; Marquez was committed to an entanglement with Rossi.  That Rossi got played is bothersome.  That Marquez, after playing silly buggers, then rushes into the pit to lodge a formal complaint is worthy of a thick ear.  If you're going to antagonize someone, expect some beats... or, you know, just ride the damn bikes!

30k

When I first got the Concours last year, I wanted to get it on track for the kind of mileage that these long distance bashers are capable of.  I picked it up with 25072 miles on the odometer, though it had a seized speedo cable so that might not have been accurate.

This summer has seen me do trips well beyond the scale of anything previously.  As soon as the snow lifted (almost), Max and I made a run up to Collingwood.  I then did a circumnavigation of Georgian Bay, and then outdid both with the ride to Indianapolis.  With all of that I was closing in on my goal of breaking the thirty thousand mile mark on the $800 Connie's odometer.

With the weather turning I was still a couple of hundred miles away from finishing my season on target, but a sunny, cold October day lay before me offering the chance at putting the Connie to bed with a milestone on it.

I'd originally wanted to crush 30k with a ride around Lake Huron, but time constraints meant it couldn't happen.  Fortunately I was close enough to hit my goal locally.  To do it I cobbled together my favourite local rides, going from the Forks of the Credit to Hockley Valley to Horning's Mills and then up to Creemore before coming back via Noisy River and Grand Valley.

178 miles and 30k is reached!

Icy Swiss chard...

With the temperature dropping and frost glinting in the early morning sun, the roads are much quieter than they were during the summer.

It was a cold haul over to hot coffee at Higher Ground in Belfountain, where I warmed my hands on the mug while surrounded by Caledon's fashionable trophy wives, drinking coffee at their leisure on a weekday morning.  My bike was the only non-Mercedes SUV in the parking lot.

Once warmed up I went back out and did the Forks without another car in sight:

It was so much fun that I thought I'd come back the other way, but quickly found myself behind a Lexus who had trouble keeping it moving let alone staying on their side of the road:

After getting out from behind this mobile-Lexus-chicane, I cut north on Mississauga Road and enjoyed a long, empty loop up Hockley Valley Road and back through Mono Cliffs.

North on Highway 10 to Shelburne I stopped in to the same Home Hardware we got chemical hand warmers in our April cold-ride and got some chemical hand warmers for my October cold-ride.

With warm hands I then tackled River Road out of Horning's Mills, once again without another vehicle in sight.  A magic moment happened when I rounded a corner to find myself riding next to two deer running across the meadow next to me.  The lead deer looked across at me, then back at its running partner and then bounded off into the tree line.  I couldn't have imagined a more perfect moment - just the kind of thing you'd want to catch on your action camera, except I hadn't turned it on.

...a 179 mile day and 30k is put to bed for the season.

A short rip up Airport Road had me in Creemore for lunch at the Old Millhouse.  After some hot beef poutine I was back out into the ever-warming day for a twisty ride up Noisy River's County Rd 9 before heading back through Grand River and home again.

Over the winter the Concours is getting new brake pads, the lines on the rear brakes and clutch are finally getting braided lines and both wheels are getting new bearings.  New tires are also in the plan.   The Bridgestone on the front has been fantastic while the Dunlop on the back has sometimes been squirelly, so a full round of Bridgestones are the goal.

While the rims are off and naked I'm going to look into doing a professional clean up and powder coat with them (not too expensive, maybe a hundred bucks a rim?).  I'll also look over all the rubbers and plastics to make sure it's ready for another busy summer next year.  I think 40k is a good target.  Time is the issue, I think the bike will have no trouble managing the miles.