That Moment When You Realize The Difference Between Road Tires & Multi-purpose Tires

I went out for a blast on Saturday of the long weekend.  It wasn't a long ride, just up and down the few windy roads near where I live that follow the Grand River before heading home for an oil change.

The Tiger was frisky and I was enjoying exploring its limits.  After a run up and down the north shore I crossed the river on a road I don't usually take.  Coming up the south river bank hill, I think I'm still a few hundred yards from the stop sign when I finally pick it out of the growth on the side of the road and realize it's only about forty yards ahead of me; I'm doing 80km/hr and the Tiger doesn't stop that quickly from 80km/hr.

Ahead on the right you can see the stop sign, but this spring it's in long grass and the trees have filled out around it.

Between smaller tires in general and a curved profile to
manage cornering on half as many contact patches,
motorcycle tires do an amazingly good job.

Motorcycle tires do an astonishing job of gripping the pavement with barely any contact patch.  I've had to dig deep into braking at various times and have always come away surprised at how well they grip with so little contact to the pavement.  Of course, I've only ever ridden road bikes with road biased tires until this spring (the KLX doesn't count, I barely road it and besides, those big, knobby tires slapping on the pavement were a constant reminder that it wasn't a road bike).

Finding myself astride an athletic Tiger coming in too hot to a stop sign with through traffic doing the better part of 100km/hr had me realizing I'm in a bit of bother.  You can feel remarkably naked on a motorcycle in that moment.  If I can't stop in time I'll end up in the intersection, possibly side swiped by a two ton box.

As the adrenaline begins to course through me I'm happy to note that my right foot is already deep into the rear brake and my right hand is squeezing the front brake hard.  Meanwhile my clutch hand has me in neutral already.  The rear has locked up and is snaking about back there.  I've never had a rear lock up that quickly before.  The bike is shedding heaps of momentum but I'm not going to stop in time.  I go deeper into the front brake where all the bike's weight is concentrated and it starts to skittle as it too locks up.  You can slide down the street in a car all day, but staying vertical on a bike with two locked wheels seldom happens.  All of this is flashing through my mind while my body is doing its own thing, I'm not consciously doing anything at this point.  My foot remains locked on the rear brake, but to my surprise my hand immediately eases off and reapplies brake over and over whenever the front starts to wobble; I didn't know it would do that.  Even with all that adrenaline I'm happy to learn that I didn't freeze up or lock up and drop the bike; I'm glad I have smart hands and feet.  Maybe all that reading about motorcycle dynamics has paid off.

The big Tiger is crouched down on its long front suspension, trying to shed all that forward momentum into the ground.  I would have stopped already on the Ninja with its sticky Avon road tires and hard suspension, but this isn't a purpose built road bike with pavement biased tires, it's a tall trail bike with multipurpose tires - tires that are evidently very easy to lock up, though I didn't know that until now.

These are wicked all rounders - they handle the road well
and are magical on loose stuff, but there is compromise in that

I've shed the majority of my velocity but I'm still not going to stop in time.  Things have slowed enough, and my hands and feet seem to know what they're doing without me telling them, so I glance up and down the road as I near the intersection; it's all clear in both directions.  I immediately release the brakes and roll over the painted white line marking where to stop - impending lock up on that wouldn't have gone well.  I glide through the intersection, release the clutch and continue down the country road in front of me in too high a gear.

"Get your head on straight!" I say to myself as I gear down and move off down the road.  You don't miss stop signs until it's too late on a motorcycle, especially when you're going to be entering a through way with high speed traffic.  Getting t-boned in a car there would probably have been fatal, getting t-boned on a bike would have been a certainty.

There are two take aways from this little incident.  Firstly, pay better attention and approach unfamiliar, overgrown intersections in a more circumspect manner.  The Tiger's big triple gets you going quickly so easily that it's easy to forget how fast you're moving - keep that in mind too.  Secondly, those Metzelers may feel fantastic on gravel and loose dirt (and they do, the bike is astonishingly stable), but they aren't grippy like road tires and they'll lock up early on you in an emergency.

I was remarkably calm afterwards and enjoyed the rest of the ride.  Even during the emergency braking and immediately after I didn't get the shakes or anything like that.  This turned into a good learning opportunity about a few key items.  I now know how I handle emergency braking (better than I could have hoped), and I've learned the dynamic limitations of multipurpose tires, all with no penalty.

If it happens again I might give myself a smack in the head, but it won't.

A picture perfect day for a ride along the Grand River...

Back home and all cleaned up - that engine will get you going faster than you think you are, and the bike's athleticism
will encourage you to push it, but those tires aren't up to 10/10ths road riding, so keep that in mind ya big git.

Tiger Chains & Parts

Top gear at 4000rpm has me going
about 100km/hr, so it looks like I have
stock sprockets on the Tiger.

A one tooth more relaxed front sprocket
knocks a couple of hundred RPM off
the bike at 100km/hr and takes the
edginess off low speed throttle.

Chain & Agony: The Return

Now that I'm off a shaft driven bike, I'm back into the black magic that is chain geometry!  A trip to Gearing Commander has me working out the details of an '03 Triumph Tiger 955i's chain and sprockets.  The stock set is a 18T (eighteen tooth) front sprocket and a 46T (forty-six tooth) rear sprocket.  The chain is a 530-50 114.

A number of riders suggested a 19T (nineteen tooth) front sprocket to calm the bike down a bit.  The chain and sprockets are happy right now, but when it finally comes to a change, I think I'll go the 19T way.  Motorbike sprockets run backwards from bicycle ones - the smaller sprocket is attached to the engine, so the more teeth, the bigger the gearing.

LINKS & CHAIN INFORMATION

The 530 114 chain on the Tiger has a pitch of 5/8 of an inch (the 5 is 5 x ⅛" - a 4 series chain would be 4 x ⅛" or half an inch of pitch).  Five-eighths pitch chains have a  roller diameter of 0.400".    The 30 part of the 530 refers to roller width, which in this case is 3 x  ⅛" or 3/8th of an inch.  A 520 chain would have a roller width of 2 x ⅛", or a quarter of an inch.  If you want to understand chain sizes, get a handle on that rule of 8 (all the numbers refer to eighths of an inch).

The 114 refers to the number of links in the chain (its length).

Sprocket Centre

How to change a chain on a Tiger (video)
Triumph Tiger 955i parts list

Gearing Commander

Chain Specifications

Sprockets & Chains explained

<- 520 and 530 chains & sprockets widths compared

Tiger Changes of Oil

A fifty dollar US ($300CDN) magnetic
oil drain plug.

Triumph magnetic oil drain plugs.
M14x1.5x16
(that's a metric 14mm width, 1.5mm distance between the threads, 16 mm long drain plug).

Entertaining Triumph oil drain plug banter (and the idea to put hard drive magnets on your oil filter, which is what I'm doing instead of ordering an expensive custom drain plug from The States).

The Tiger has been using a bit of oil (which is evidently within spec) but I don't know what the previous owner's mechanic put in it - putting in not Mobil 1 Synthetic (which Triumph states is the preferred oil) would be a great way to make money on an oil change.  If I swap in the good stuff, then I know what's in it.

I'm also putting on a K&N oil filter with a higher spec than the stock one and putting a couple of hard drive magnets on the bottom of it to catch any metal shavings dancing around in there.

I did the oil change yesterday. I've done thousands of oil changes (it put me through university).  If that oil was changed last fall I'm a monkey's uncle.  The Triumph filter on it had rust on it, the drain plug didn't look like it had been taken off any time recently.  Either the previous owner didn't do it, or his mechanic lied to him.  The oil was black and punky too, looking like it had been in there a long time.

With that all done I'll now look to see how much oil I'm missing every thousand kilometres (it's 3-400ml at the moment - but goodness knows what was in it or for how long).  The moral here is change the oil when you buy a used bike - you can't trust what happened before it was yours and oil is vital to keeping an engine running well.  I'm looking forward to seeing what new, correct oil does for the bike moving forward.


Other than keeping it shiny and lubricating cables and controls, there isn't much more needs doing.

It's supposed to be a beautiful long weekend.  I'm hoping to get out for some time on my very orange Tiger in my very orange Tiger shirt.

They're all trying to kill me, even when they're not

It's a sunny Friday afternoon in April and I'm pootling down a residential street in the town next to mine on my way home from work...

There is a kid, maybe nine or ten years old with a basketball in his hand, standing on the grass on that corner to the left.  A white, ludicrous-sized SUV (maybe a Tahoe?) is in the lane approaching me.  I'm doing about 40km/hr towards this seemingly innocuous scene when the kid (who is looking the other way and hasn't seen me at all) decides to throw the basketball out in the street right in front of the SUV just to see what it'll do.  You could see him standing there doing the math before he chucked the ball.

The Tahoe driver has that vacant I'm-in-a-giant-box-and-don't-need-to-pay-attention look you see in a lot of SUV drivers.  Generally, the larger the box they're in, the less they seem to care what happens outside it.  He suddenly keys in that a basketball is going to hit his precious status symbol, so he swerves out of his lane and right at me, except I'm not there.

A couple of things inform my ESP on the road.  Firstly, Conestoga's Motorcycle Training courses did a great job of getting me to threat assess and prioritize what's going on around me.  For less than the price of a decent helmet you get experts with decades of experience getting you started.  Motorcycle training courses should be mandatory for anyone wanting to ride on the road.  They give you the best chance to survive the often ridiculous circumstances you find yourself in.

The second piece is something that Matt Crawford mentions in one of his books.  He has a mantra he chants when things get dodgy, and I've found that it helps remind you to never, ever depend on the skills or even basic competence of the people driving around you.  When things get sticky Matt mutters in his helmet, "they're all trying to kill me, they're all trying to kill me."  It's the kind of gallows humour that most motorcyclists would find funny, but it's also sadly true.

A few weeks ago a kid made a mistake in school but it was excused as an accident by one teacher because the kid wasn't intentionally trying to hurt anyone.  Another teacher pointed out (rightly I think) that not properly preparing for a task, or doing it half-assed isn't an accident, it's incompetence, and that person's intentions are irrelevant, they are at fault.  The word accident removes blame and makes everyone feel better, it covers all manner of indifference.  No where is this more true than on a motorcycle.  Any experienced motorcyclist will tell you that it doesn't matter if you have right of way when you pull out and get clobbered, or whether the distracted driver that side swiped you while texting shouldn't have been.  You'll loose any physical altercation you have with a car (or a 3 ton Tahoe).  It's on you, the rider, to avoid these idiots.

On a quiet back street in Fergus, Ontario I could very well have ignored the abject stupidity unfolding in front of me or spent my energy assigning blame, but I didn't.  The child's profound ignorance and vicious curiosity (great job with that one parents) along with the Tahoe driver's distracted, indifferent approach to operating a six thousand pound vehicle could have very well ended me (80km/hr closing speeds between two vehicles won't end well for a motorcyclist).  As it was, I'd pulled over to the curb and was stationary as the Tahoe went by in my lane, looking surprised and freaked out that his precious truck almost got hit by a basketball.

I could have gesticulated, but I just stood there at the curb shaking my head as the freaked out driver rolled past.  You're not going to convince someone like that to be better than what they are.  The kid ran out into the street (he still hadn't looked my way), and grabbed his basketball.  I could have talked to him, or eventually his parents, but there'd be little point to that either.  Blame is a waste of time.


Even when they aren't trying, they're all still trying to kill you, keep your head up.

Overnight & Doable

Alright, some of the recent day dreaming has been pretty extreme.  With all the Ride the Highlands material I've been seeing recently, how about this...

The Longer Map
Bancroft Motor Inn
Saturday:  Elora to Bancroft:  357kms
Sunday:  Bancroft back to Elora via Algonquin:  561kms

Alternate shorter map
Saturday:  Elora to Barry's Bay:  412kms  
Sunday:  Barry's Bay to Elora:  453kms
Balmoral Hotel

The longer route:

100kms shorter:

It's also handily central in the province - the easterners could meet up with the westerners at a central location, somewhere like the Opeongo Mountain Resort (3 bedroom cottages for $150 a night!).  Ride up Friday afternoon, settle in, leave everything in the cottage and enjoy a day of riding light on Saturday, Saturday night around the camp fire and then riding home on Sunday.  That'd be one heck of a weekend.  If it worked out well we could do it again at the end of September in the fall colours.

Dash to Ushuaia

The hardest financial part about a long trip is being out of work.  It's not just costing you for the trip, it's probably costing you even more for not being at work, but I got lucky in that department.  From the beginning of July until the end of August I'm off, and with the semester winding down all I can think about is how I'd best use that time.  With the paycheque covered, could I get to Ushuaia in the time I have off?

600km days in North America seem reasonable, and I wouldn't want to lollygag around where I live anyway.  The point of this trip would be to go far in a relatively short time.  Moving through The States quickly also means not coughing up for first world accommodation any more than I have to.  600km days would wrap up the North American bit in five days.

Mexico is where it starts to get interesting, and it's also fairly straightforward, though it gets dodgier the further south you go.  Travelling the length of Mexico means just over two thousand kilometres of riding.  At a reduced 400kms/day (more in the north, less in the south), I'd be at the border to Guatemala in another five days.   The urge to photograph would increase exponentially as I got into cultures and geographies I've never experienced before, so more time wouldn't be wasted.

Central America is, by many accounts, the slowest part of riding down the Americas.  From the southern border of Mexico to the Colon ferry terminal in Panama is only 2300kms, but in that time you cross six international borders that aren't exactly state of the art.  At a further reduced average of 200kms per day, it would be a twelve day ride crossing those borders, mountains and rain forests to Panama.  Thanks to the one certain way of getting around the Gap closing down, those twelve days through Central America needn't be rushed.

Crossing the Darien Gap looked like it was solved with a brilliant ferry service to Cartagena, Columbia, but the service appears to have stopped.  There are other options, but run much less regularly and are more expensive.  The best seems to be the Stahlratte, which will take motorbike and rider to and from Panama to Cartagena in quite nice circumstances for about the price of your typical Canadian airline ticket.  The scheduled trips for 2016 pose problems though.

The Pan-American Highway portion of the ride is 10.300kms, and involves four international border crossings (five if you count the second Chilean crossing in Tierra del Fuego).  At 500km average days I'd be looking at 21 days of travel to get down the spine of South America to the end of the world.

It's another three thousand kilometers back up Argentina to Bueno Aires in order to drop off the bikes for shipping back to Canada.  That'd be another six days at 600kms/day back to the big city and the flight home.

The Darien Gap poses problems because it throws the schedule off.  With the ferry not running it's either a chartered boat (expensive, timing not great) or air freight (expensive but timely).  The schedule below is using the Stahlratte's 2016 schedule:

... but even with those slack days before the trip over the Darien Gap, it still just fits into a summer off.  Air freight over the gap is also an option that could shift those six days in waiting in Panama to the push down South America.

Shipping back from Buenos Aires looks possible but unclear.  The most likely connection would be overseas from B.A. to NYC, probably getting the bikes back towards the end of October.  A weekend flight to NYC, picking up the bikes and riding home would be the final bit of this epic journey.

That guy already looks like he's on his
way to Ushuaia !

He builds entire luggage systems,
knows his way around a firing range,
and brews beer, and that bike is up
for it!

To make it even more plausible I'd tap a couple of buddies who happen to have bikes totally capable of making this trip.

Jeff's Super Ténéré and Graeme's V-Strom would both be more than ready to join the Tiger on a trip south, and both riders have the kind of skills and experience that would allow them to carry me so that I barely had to do anything!  Jeff has been riding bikes since biblical times and Graeme has years of riding experience plus a long stint in the military, so he can read maps and everything!  I could wander around taking photos of butterflies and videoing bikes winding through the Atacama while these two made sure we were moving in the right direction.  Having a couple of capable, experienced riders on this burn south would help keep it on schedule.

Adventure motorcycling
bits are wicked expensive!

I'd take Austin's advice in Mondo Sahara and change all the wearable bits (tires, chains, fluids, etc) prior to leaving, but otherwise the bikes would be as they are.  A Triumph, Yamaha & Suzuki tumbling down the Americas over a brief summer.  If we're not getting manufacturer support (unless all three band together in an alliance against the unholy absolutism of celebrity BMW adventure motorcycling!), maybe we can chase down some support gear.

We could do a lot worse than an assisted walk through the Twisted Throttle adventure catalogue.  They'd do popular Japanese bikes like the V-Strom and Super10, but they also offer a lot of kit for my older Triumph.


The last weeks of school get pretty manic.  Daydreaming of massive rides that last all summer is a survival mechanism.



Links & Maps

Info on the Bueno Aires to North
America transport is thin on the
ground- we might have to ride
home from NYC!

Elora, Ontario to Colon Ferry Terminal Panama.  7040kms

Crossing the Darien Gap:  Drive the Americas.  Ferry service stopped.

Cartagena to Ushuai back to Buenos Aires.  13,363kms  (20,403kms total)

Colon Ferry terminal to Cartagena; $360US with a cabin - 18 hour crossing

A summer tumbling down the Americas (timeline)

Air Canada's bike shipping: a bit dodgy.  But freight options exist.

HU: shipping your bike

Boxing a bike

The 1, 2, 3s of why Tigers are Awesome

I've been putting miles on the Tiger and have a developed some ideas about why it's awesome in comparison to what I've come from.  Here they are in no particular order:

1... The tiger growls.  The Ninja had a nice snarl to it with its 270° twin, and the Concours' massive inline four thundered like a Norse god, but the tearing silk growl of the Tiger can be virtually silent (less noisy than the wind) when I'm cruising, or growl like its namesake when you twist the throttle.  It has enough presence to make people jump when you give it some revs - maybe because it's so quiet otherwise.

The 955i Triple (an epic engine) has that same lopsided warble that the Ninja had, but amplified by a third cylinder.  I've had a twin and a four, but now that I've gone triple I don't think I'll ever go back, it feels like the best of both worlds.

2... Lithe tigers are fun tigers.  At 50 kilos (almost 110lbs!) less than my last bike, the Tiger does everything better even though it's taller.  From backing it out of the garage to winding it through corners, I don't miss an ounce of that chubby Concours.  While the Connie hid its weight well in motion, it was always lurking in the background.  There is no substitute for a lighter bike.

3... Hot tigers aren't so hot.  The cowling was nice on the Concours, but the volcanic heat that came off that engine cooked my man parts.  I might be hanging more out in the wind on the Tiger, but that's kind of the point of motorcycling.

The engine barely seems to produce any heat at all and what there is is so well managed that I only occasionally feel a breath of warm air.  Time spent in the saddle is cool and comfortable, and much less like meatballs in hot sauce.  

The one place I'm warmer are my hands.  Between the hand guards and heated grips I've been able to ride the Tiger in near zero temperatures with no issues and without winter gloves.  My legs went from getting cooked to being one of the coolest parts of me when I'm out on the bike.

4... It's not wise to upset a tiger.  Between that radical weight loss and an engine that puts out 7 more ft/lbs of torque 2000rpm lower than the Concours, the first time I wound out the Tiger it almost wookie-ed my arms off.  It's amazing what a small bump in engine grunt and massive weight loss can do to a bike's forward velocity.  The Tiger will comfortably lift a wheel in the first three gears, and it isn't a little bike.

5...  Suspension that soaks up lousy Ontario roads.  Kawasakis have a rep for budget suspensions.  Between that and the barely paved roads of Ontario, I'd often hit bumps that would lift me out of the seat and rattle my bones.  This led to constantly worrying about knocking something loose on the bike.  The long, pliant suspension of the Tiger makes Ontario's wonderful roads ride-able without any such worries.  Another benefit is that I'm able to corner and brake more effectively because the bike is never juddering over potholes, it just soaks them up.

6...  Lucifer Orange is magical.  I've yet to own a bike that a coat of spray paint didn't radically improve, but there is only so far you can go with a can of spray paint.  The clear coated, metallic, red-orange on the Triumph is mind-bendingly brilliant.  Sure, the tiger stripes are a bit over the top, but that paint can manage it. When my eleven year old first saw it he said, 'oh yeah!'.  Pulling up behind a school bus creates an avalanche of kids in the back window giving me thumbs up.  It's the opposite of the too-cool-to-care leather clad biker pirate, but I'd rather give an enthusiastic thumbs up back than sit there trying to look indifferent about everything.

I picked up my first ROOF helmet last summer, and it has quickly become my go to lid.  The combination of an open face or fully safetied close faced lid (most flip up helmets only pass open face standards, the chin guard is ornamental) makes this a brilliant all-rounder.  I got it in orange because I liked the design, but it happens to look splendid and intentional with Triumph's Lucifer orange.  It's a happy accident, but I'll take it.

7... It fits.  Less bend in the knees, my feet just go flat on the floor, less bent forward riding position with no weight on the wrists with a comfortable, upright stance, the Tiger fits like nothing I've ridden before.

Those wide bars mean I let me leverage corners easily and with precision.  Other than keeping you tight to the bike aerodynamically, I'm not really sure why sportier bars are considered better, the wider geometry encourages finer control.

I also look like I fit on the Tiger.  I looked like a circus bear on a tricycle on the Ninja.  On the Concours I still looked like I was too tall for the bike, but the Tiger fits my 6'3" frame like it was made for me.

Ready for my first night ride -
those lights work great.

8... the bad things aren't.  The first owner seems to have addressed every shortcoming on this Tiger.  Last night was my first time out with it after dark and the supposedly anemic headlights were as good as the Concours' lights ever were, and when I hit the highbeams it was like having a football stadium light up in front of me.

The fueling is smooth and perfect, and I haven't even fine tuned the Power Commander on it yet.  The front fork does dive a bit under heavy breaking, but some adjustment seems to have resolved that and made the bike respond to my weight perfectly.  I have no trouble getting the Tiger to chase its own tail around corners.

With the second wing on the windshield adjusted I have at least as much upper body wind protection as I did from the fully faired Connie, so I'm not missing all the plastic of my last bike either.

9... a made in the U.K. success story.  Riding a British bike fills me with pride.  Riding such a good British bike makes it even better.  Triumph's rise from bankruptcy in the 1980s to a multi-million dollar, international success story suggests that British manufacturing is anything but history, and that British habits around manufacturing can change and become competitive in a global economy.  It's nice to ride such a fine machine made in the same place I was.

10... brilliant panniers.  I've enjoyed built in luggage since the Concours, but the Tiger panniers are totally next level.  Unlike the finicky attachments on the Connie, the Triumph panniers slip on and off effortlessly and lock into place as well as locking closed.  They are a good size and look right on the bike.  That they're colour matched is just another bonus.

As you might have gathered, I'm enjoying Triumph ownership so far.

Riders & Tigers & Rivers (oh my)

a 2003 Triumph Tiger 955i... sketch!

A somewhat-warm and sunny Saturday meant a short ride up and down the river banks.




With a dirth of twisting roads around here, the Grand River is one of the few geological obsticles that forces local roads to do anything other than travel arrow straight.

It was a nice ride with a lot of bikes out and about.  At one point, waiting to turn onto the highway, I came across half a dozen BMWs and a lone Suzuki Vstrom - the local BMW club and a friend?

Were I lucky enough to live near some mountainous terrain, I'd be bending the bike around some real corners.

Saturday morning had me cleaning up my gear (check out those shiny boots in the video!) and fixing my Roof helmet.  I love that thing, best helmet I've ever owned.  I'd be heartbroken if I couldn't fix it.  The plastic cams had gone out of alignment on the visor.  The last time I closed it they snapped, leaving me with an always open helmet.  Fortunately I had a spare set that came with the original clear visor.  It took a bit of aligning, but everything went back together flawlessly.

That Roof is one of the only ones in Canada.  I'd need to take a trip to Europe just to get another!  I'm starting to regret only buying one when I had a chance to pick up the last ones in Canada.