Overlanding While Treading Lightly

 I came across Overland Journal in Indigo that other day and the combination of reasonable price ($12CAD) and very high quality (it compared favourably with magazine-book combos asking $25+) had me picking it up.  It isn't motorcycle specific but does include off road and adventure bikes along with pretty much any vehicle you might go off the beaten path with.

I usually do that kind of off-roading with completely inappropriate vehicles.  In the early noughties my wife and I beat a rented Toyota Camry to within an inch of its life on the the logging roads in the interior of Vancouver Island.  Another time we were in a rented Citroen mini-van in Iceland watching arctic foxes run across the empty landscape.  In both cases we got deep into the wilderness in rental two-wheel drive vehicles, but then we got a Jeep Wrangler as a rental car last year and it started giving me ideas.

I put myself through university working as a service manager for Quaker State's Q-Lube and whenever a Jeep came in you needed an umbrella when you walked under it for all the fluids leaking down on you.  That negative experience put me off the brand for years but last year we got a Wrangler as an insurance rental after and accident and it changed my perception.

It was a 2019 Jeep Wrangler four dour with about 20k kilometres on the clock and it was tight!  Everything worked and felt quality and it did something that no car has done for me in the past decade; it felt like an event driving it.

Since bikes set in I've fallen out of love with cars (trucks, whatever), but the Jeep made driving feel special again.  Performance cars seem kind of pointless when I have two bikes in the garage that are faster than anything but apex million-dollar plus super-cars, but the Jeep came at it from another angle.  The big tires made it a challenge to manage on pavement and the big V6 in this one was a stark contrast to the sub-two-litre mileage focused appliances I've been driving, but maybe that's what made it feel special.

There was a point where we could have taken the other car (a Mazda2) down to Toronto but took the Jeep instead and it made the whole experience less like a long, difficult winter drive and more like an adventure.  Being higher up off the road meant I wasn't looking through other people's road spray all the time and if I wasn't heavy on the gas the thing was getting mid-high-twenties miles-per-gallon.

Another time we were out in it and my brother-in-law (a former Jeep owner) and our sons went out for a ride and I shifted it into 4wd and drove right over the snow mound in the Canadian Tire parking lot, much to everyone's amazement.  This was a ten-foot plus high mound of snow and the Jeep went right over it - with road tires on!  Deeply impressed with the vehicle's capabilities and character is where I was when we handed it back.

I also used it to take a thousand plus pound of ewaste to recycling from work and the heavy duty suspension and utility of the thing made this an easy job when the little hatchback would have been blowing shocks and wallowing under the weight.  Having a vehicle that takes on larger utility tasks makes sense when you have a lot of them to do.  It also makes sense if you want to go deep into the wilderness while being self-sufficient.

I'm getting to the age now where things seem strangely expensive.  My first car cost me $400 and took me a hundred thousand kilometres.  A Honda Civic hatchback I had in the early noughties took me over a quarter of a million kilometres for less than seven grand.  The only new car I've ever purchased (that Mazda2 that has been flawless for over 120k over ten years of ownership) cost me $17k new, all in.  My wife's Buick cost an eye-watering forty-grand back in 2016 new and I'm not interested in double car payments so won't be looking until we finally pay that one off (which seems like it's taking forever  with our strange new world of 7-9 year finance schemes).  When that debt finally gets cleared I'll be looking at a Jeep Wrangler, but not just any old Wrangler, I want the one from the future.

From an 'overlander' point of view a dependable long distance vehicle capable of going off the beaten path means my wife and I can do what we've always done, but more so.  In the pre-covid times we drove from Ontario to the West Coast in 2018:

In 2019 we took the same tiny Buick to the East Coast of Canada, but the vehicle we drove limited our ability to go off the beaten path (or even off pavement).  What a Jeep would do is enable us to do the things we defer to (in rental cars) in something designed for that kind of nonsense.

This has me encouraging my lovely wife to join us at SMART Adventures this year to learn some off road driving in a side-by-side while we dirt bike.  Which brings the overlanding vehicle back to bikes again.  You can go deep in a Jeep but you can get places on a dirt bike that you can't in any other way.  Jeep's new 4xe hybrid Wrangler would be a fantastic platform for all manner of biking shenanigans from a tread lightly/minimal emissions angle.  Overland Journal had an editorial about not abusing the remote places they feature.  A good place to start with that would be to minimize the amount of emissions you're putting out while enjoying nature.

If a Wrangler'll carry a full on dirt bike, it'll
handle a Freeride (or 2 without batteries in 'em).

Whether it's taking a dirt bike to a trail or a trials bike to an event, the Jeep 4xe would be capable of doing it efficiently and effectively.  With some canny rear mounted racks it wouldn't even require a trailer.

The next-level green expedition option would be to pick up a KTM Freeride and put it on the Wrangler 4xe and then work out how to charge the bike from the hybrid Jeep's electrical system.

Overland Journal has a lot of advertisers who specialize in making vehicles long distance ready, including many that specialize in prepping Jeeps for the long haul.  A Wrangler 4xe would make an efficient, green platform from which to launch wilderness riding on KTM's Freeride that barely leaves a trace.

KTM's Freeride electric off roader gives you 90 minutes of charge, weighs less than 250lbs and (with the battery pack removed) would be barely noticeable on the back of the Jeep.  With some canny wiring the bike could charge while on the hybrid Jeep.

The Jeep Wrangler 4xe is the most powerful Wrangler yet, has astonishing mileage and would also offer some interesting electrical generation options when off the beaten track.

The electric bike and the hybrid Wrangler would cost less than a base model BMW mid-sized SUV, so it isn't even crazy expensive (well it is, but that's just because I'm old - everything's expensive!).  This zero emissions expeditions thing is something KTM and Jeep should join forces on.  Two legendary off-road brands working together to produce an environmentally responsible off-roading experience?  Betcha it wouldn't take too much to have the Jeep's hybrid system juice up the Freeride while off piste either.

I'm glad I stumbled across Overland Journal.  I'm enjoying it so much I think I'm going to pick up a subscription.  Then it's time to start thinking about the Jeep/KTM green/dream team combination.

To The End of the Road North in Ontario & Quebec

Ontario has hundreds of miles of ocean coast line but being Ontario there is no way to ride there.  Quebec hasn't been so lackadaisical in connecting its northern communities by road.  If I cut out of Ontario just east of New Liskeard I could then make use of Quebec's better northern infrastructure and actually ride to the coast of James Bay almost to the point where it opens out into Hudson's Bay:

I'm not the first one on an adventure bike to want to ride to the end of the road north in Eastern Canada:

...though apparently only (new) BMW riders make the trek.  Bet my old Tiger could do it.

It's remote but the vast majority of the 1600+ kms north are on paved roads.  North of Hotel Matagami (just over half way up) services get thin.  It looks like there are road side truck-stop type accommodations on the James Bay Road but most of what's on offer is camp grounds and sparsely spaced gas stations.  Sounds like a perfect adventure bike thing to do!

Lots of good advice for riding motorbikes in the remote north around James Bay can be found on the James Bay Road website.  The challenge here isn't twisty roads and nights in the bar, it's the extreme isolation of the far north.  You need to be able to keep your machine moving or it will end expensively, or worse.  Getting a tow out would cost thousands.  Worst case would be getting stuck without any means of getting out, then it could quickly get dangerous.

For people who have only ever travelled between other people this'll be hard to wrap their heads around.  On a ride like this you'd find yourself hundreds of kilometres away from the nearest people and even further away from infrastructure that could help you.  Self-sufficiency would be central to a successful run up to James Bay.

An extended version would make use of Quebec's northern roads and would include traversing the road to Labrador, a trip to the big island of Newfoundland and then down the east coast and through New England before coming back home home under Lake Ontario...

About 10k kms, a huge portion of it on gravel roads in very remote regions of Northern Quebec!

A British Appreciation for Industrial History & Hands-On Restoration

There is an element of British television that revels in the industrial history that many generations of us lot lived through, and I'm hooked on it.  My favourite is Henry Cole & Sam Lovegrove's Shed & Buried which follows the two as they dig up hidden treasures found in some of the more eccentric sheds in the U.K., including a lot of older motorbikes:

They find all sorts of old machines in people's sheds which often leads to impromtu history lessons on brands I've never heard of or hidden bits of industrial history I hadn't heard of before.  From seed fiddles to motor memorabilia to the esoteric history of British motorbike production, it's never dull and usually enlightening.

They don't just rummage around in other people's sheds.  The show also casts a light on the 'car boot sale' and the used sales trade in the UK.  This culture of reverance for past technology is completely foreign in Canada.

It's tough to find anything motorbikey in Ontario to begin with let alone anything old and interesting, yet Henry & Sam seem to be able to find any number of interesting old bikes for around £1000 ($1700CAD).  In a country like Canada that prefers to hide its history under a modern marketing blanket, throwing stuff away is a cultural imperative.  This (very colonial) approach means there simply isn't an ecosystem of old machinery to explore.  This is exacerbated by Canada's history as a resource extractor rather than an industrially focused manufacturer; we don't make much here so there is no home-grown pride in any vehicle.

These cultural differences in background prompt media and awareness that is distinctly different in both countries.  The British produce a plethora of programs that explore industrial history and mechanics.  Shows like this would never fly in consumerist focused Canada.

Here's a case in point:  Shed & Buried started out with a '69 Triumph Daytona project, sorta like the one below described as 'an excellent buy' in Ottawa right now for $4650 Canadian .  Henry paid £600 ($1000CAD) for his old Daytona in similar condition.

If they exist at all, older bikes in Canada are prohibitively expensive.

What got me thinking about this was someone else on FB Marketplace offering disorganized boxes of old Triumph parts for $3600 without even a clear idea of what's in there.  Henry and Sam picked up a 1950s BSA for £400 they found in pieces in a caravan.  Canada's disinterest in and lack of history around industrial manufacturing make it a very difficult place to find old project bikes - unless you want to go into massive debt for an incomplete box of shit.

If, like me, you find living in this vacuous, consumerist wasteland frustrating, there are a lot of British TV programs that will remind you that finding old things and getting your hands dirty restoring them is a viable thing to do.  Here's a list of what to watch if you're looking for some proof that you're not crazy:

Find It, Fix It, Drive It: if you're crafty with VPNs you can stream this on Channel4.

Guy Martin's How Britain Worked:  Guy's background as a mechanic comes up in most of his shows

Car SOS: one of my favourites - restoration leading to catharsis

Wheeler Dealers: started in the UK, went to the US and lost its way, now back to UK

Even Top Gear makes a point of mechanics, though often in jest:

Kawasaki Concours 14 GTR1400 ZG1400 Tires & Suspension Setup

I finally got around to adjusting the Concours' suspension.  It was pretty unsettled on uneven pavement so I went with the list shared online and aimed everything at 'right on the money' which works out to front spring preload of 14mm and rebound dampening of 3 clicks out from all the way in.  The rear got set to 20 clicks in on spring preload and 1 and 1/4 turns out on rebound dampening. 

It's a significant improvement over what the bike was set at before.  On uneven pavement it feels much less likely to bounce and wander.  On smooth pavement it now tracks much better and isn't such a struggle to hold a line with, though it still feels heavy.  That might be my own fault coming off a Honda Fireblade to the Kawasaki though.

The existing tires on the bike are Michelin Pilot Road 4s which people in the know swear transforms the bike's handling.  I had a look around and the rear tire's 2715 stamp means it was built in the 27th month of 2015.  My best guess on the front is that it was 1918 or 2019 in the 18th month.  If that was the case then Declan, the guy I purchased the bike from, put these tires on it in or around 2019 so they're not only lightly used but also recent!

They passed the safety easily and aren't flat spottted or low on tread so a couple of very low mileage years is likely, which means I'm not in any rush to replace them.  That didn't stop me from having a look at what new tires for it would cost anyway just so I'm ready (end of 2022 riding season?) to replace them.

Going to a 190/55/R17 rear tire (stock is 190/50 ZR17) raises the back end a bit with a marginally thicker sidewall and stops the bike from feeling so vague.  Bike Magazine describes the handling of the GTR1400 as 'not good' and I think this dropin vagueness is what they're referring to.

Another nice surprise on this used bike purchase is that the former owner put new tires on only a couple of years ago and then barely used them, but now I've got some ideas about where to go next.

Road 5s are a newer,
top-of-the-line tire that are
$70 more expensive than
Road Pilots but don't
come in 55 rears.

Concours 14 Tire Opinions:

https://www.sport-touring.net/forums/index.php/topic,67614.0.htmls

http://www.zggtr.org/index.php?topic=9338.0

Michelin Road 5 GT 

https://www.zxforums.com/threads/bt21-tyres.9145/

https://forum.concours.org/index.php?threads/re-so-whats-the-best-brand-model-tires-for-the-c14.51460/

Sail Away: First Long Ride on The Kawasaki Concours 14

First long ride with Big Blue/Nami-Chan (not sure what its name is yet) today up to Georgian Bay to listen to the water.  For a kid who grew up by the sea living in landlocked Southern Ontario wears on me so sitting by the shore listening to the water lapping on the rocks calms my permanent sense of dislocation.

Thornbury Harbour, Geogian Bay, Ontario - Spherical Image - RICOH THETA

What's the Concours 14 like to ride over distance?  It's a very comfortable long distance machine. Compared to the Tiger it's smoother, significantly less vibey and quieter.  This isn't necessarily a good think because riding a motorbike isn't always about comfort - sometimes you want it to beat the shit out of you.  What is good is that the 1400GTR is a significantly different bike to ride than the old Triumph Tiger, so both fill a different need in the bike stable.

The Tiger (when it works perfectly which isn't often recently) is a capable off roader on trails and fire roads and lets the wind pass through you since it's practically naked, which is both exhausting and exhilarating.  After the long ride today the abilities of the Kawasaki are much more clear.  The only nagging issue is that my backside has gotten used to Corbin seat engineering and the Kawasaki stock saddle just isn't up to the job, but otherwise the bike is a revelation.  Effortlessly quick, smooth and surprisingly agile in the corners, though you can still feel the weight carries but it carries it low.

Windshield down, lots of airflow, a great view
and the bike feels more likes sports-bike.

For the first time I adjusted the X-screen modular MCA Windshield to its maximum length and it did an astonishing job of protecting me at highway speeds.  So much so that I barely closed the Roof helmet on the ride.  The pocket of air it creates is stable and the wind noise so much less that it's just another aspect of this bike that'll let you do long miles without exhausting yourself.

Ergonomically, the windscreen also does something smart for airflow.  If it gets hot you can lower it to the point where it almost vanishes.  This pushes a lot of air through your upper body and supports your chest from leaning on your wrists.  I hadn't put much stock in an adjustable windshield but it not only changes the look of the bike, it also changes its functionality too.  On long rides changes in airflow keep you comfortable and focused.

Windshield up while you're making tracks
on less demanding roads and you're in a
quiet bubble of air that lets you go for miles.

The bike itself seems to manage heat well which the old ZG1000 previous generation Concours 10 I had did not (it used to get stupid hot!).  If stuck in traffic, even over 30°C pavement, the temperature gauge never went above half way and the fans haven't needed to come on yet.  The lack of wind-flow over my legs on hot summer rides may yet be an issue though, the fairings are too good.

The other complexity piece of the C14 that I wasn't sure I was interested in was the digital dash but that too is proving valuable.  I'm no longer guessing what gear I'm in based on revs and road speed so I'm no longer trying to shift into a non-existent 7th gear, which happens often on the Tiger.  Though the 1400GTR revs so low while in 6th/overdrive (3200rpm @ 110kms/hr) that you wouldn't be looking for another gear anyway.

Mileage has been a concern on this smaller-tank/worse mileage than the Tiger bike.  The Kawasaki's 22 litre tank is 2 litres smaller than the Tiger's which also gets 10+ more miles to the gallon.  I'm going to fill up a spare 2 litre gas canister and run the Kawasaki for maximum range a few times to see what this C14 can actually do.  When I fill it up it cheerfully states it'll do 360km to a 22 litre tank which works out to 38.5mpg or 6.1 litres per 100 kms.  The display shows when you're maximizing mileage so a long ride without wringing its neck to see what mileage it can achieve is in order.  If I can get 400kms out of a tank that'll put me up into the mid-40s miles per gallon, which would be a good return on such a heavy, powerful machine.  The range indicator jumps around to the point of being meaningless and then cuts out when the bike gets low and you need it most - not the best user interface there, Kawasaki, but I've heard there may be a wiring hack to stop that from happening.

So, after a 290ish km run up to Georgian Bay and back I'm very happy with the bike's power, which is otherworldly, it's comfort is good but I'm looking at seat improvements.  I've heard other larger riders put peg extenders on so there is a bit less flex in the legs, which might eventually happen.  Many people also put bar risers on them so the bars come towards you a bit more, but I'm finding that I'm able to move myself on the seat to get a more vertical or more sporty riding position depending on what I'm doing, so bar risers aren't on the radar.

I did pick up a spare fuel bottle that fits nicely in the panniers (which take a bit of getting used to for all the keying in and out but are huge and don't affect the bike at speed at all).  Next time I'm on a long ride I'll top the spare bottle up when I top up the bike and then see how far I can push the range.

It was an uneventful ride except for one incident.  Leaving Thornbury harbour the 360 camera fell out of my pocket onto the road.  I pulled over quickly and safely and then ran back to scoop it up off the road.  There was traffic back at the lights in town just starting to move and 3 cyclists riding on the side of the road coming towards me but still some way away.  I ran out to the camera, scooped it up and ran back to the curb and almost took out one of the cyclists who had elected to accelerate towards me rather than giving me space to get off the road.

She yelled, "bike!" and I made a dexterity check that had me dodging around her rather than taking her off the bike.  They kept going but I was left standing there wondering what the thinking was.  You see a guy duck out into the road to pick something up so surely you would ease up a bit and let him do what he needs to do to get out of the way - but not in this case.  From what I've seen of cyclist's approach to sharing the road, I imagine that I'm entirely at fault for that.  It left me shaking my head at their thought processes.

What's a Kawasaki GTR1400/Concours14 like to ride? NUCLEAR SHINKANSEN!

I picked up this Concours14 (or 1400GTR or ZG1400 depending on what market you're in) back in April for $5500CAD.  It had been sitting for some time and was full of spider nests.  I got the safety sorted yesterday and got the bike licensed and on the road today so we're ready to finally make some tracks with this thing.

What's it like to ride?  I've owned more Kawasakis than any other kind of bike and their engines have always been what makes them special, and this bike is no different.  The 1352cc inline four at the heart of the Connie was identical to the ZR1400 hyperbike's motor back in the day, and it shows.

On my first ride I pulled out to pass a truck and it was behind me almost too quickly to process.  I'm coming off owning a late 90s Fireblade so it's not like I'm inexperienced with quick bikes, but the 1400GTR not only has the horsepower but also has the torque to back it up.  Where the 'Blade was staggeringly quick (and light), you had to wind it up to make it go.  It felt like a light but not overpowered machine at sub 6000rpm engine speeds.  At 6k it became seriously quick and if you were brave enough to chase the 13,000rpm redline the bike turned into a total head case.

You don't need to wring the Kawasaki's neck to make astonishingly rapid progress.  It weighs over 100 kilos more than the Fireblade but makes over 30 more horsepowers and pound-feets of torque; it doesn't feel heavy, which is an amazing accomplishment for a bike that can carry over 500lbs, has shaft drive and feels like it's ready for five hundred mile days.

It's not telepathic in corners like the 'Blade was, but that bike's focus was so singular that it made everything else difficult.  The 1400GTR does a good job of cutting up corners, hiding its 300 kilo weight well, but then it can also ride all day, still hit 40mpg and carry two up with luggage.

Ontario makes you buy a vehicle history when you buy a new bike but I don't mind because it offers you insight into the machine's history.  This bike is a 2010 model but it wasn't first licensed for the road until 2014 (!) meaning it's only been rolling for seven years rather than eleven.  The first owner had it two years and then sold it on to the guy I got it from.  He rode it for a couple of years and then parked it after it tipped over on him in a parking lot (hence all the spider nests).

The prolonged park is what shrank the seal in the clutch that I've since replaced.  The drop also stopped the windshield from moving but both things have been solved now and this Concours, with only 32k on the odometer, is finally ready to do what these bikes do best:  make big miles.  One of the guys at our local dealership is a Concours fan and got his over 400,000kms, so these things have staying power as well as horsepower.

I'm looking forward to getting to know this nuclear shinkansen (Kawasaki Heavy Industries makes bullet trains too!) better this summer.

Triumph Tiger 955i: checking your motorcycle alternator and replacing a regulator rectifier

I tested the Tiger's alternator today. This is found under the round cover on the bottom left side of the bike.  I've lined up a MOFSET regulator/rectifier for the Tiger after some concise and clear advice from PSPB's FB forum where you always get clear advice instead of a bunch of internet mouth-breathers jumping in with what they don't know.

The Triumph OEM reg-rectifier isn't available and costs nearly $400 while also being an inefficient silicon controlled rectifier (SCR) shunt type reg-rectifier.  The one coming is a metal oxide semiconductor field effect transistor (MOSFET) based unit that is both faster and more efficient both thermally and in terms of providing steady voltage to the battery.  

With a new reg-rectifier coming, I took the advice on PSPB's FB forum and tested the alternator.  To make sure you're getting clean AC power you test the three wires going into the alternator for resistance (they should all show similar resistance between them).  The result was a steady 0.5ohms across all the connectors, which bodes well.

The final test is to make sure nothing is showing infinite resistance to ground on the bike.  Once again the alternator in the bike showed good wiring with no infinite resistance to ground on any of the wires:

The next step will be to wire up the new reg-rectifier when it gets here (should be early next week) and then see how things go.  The one I was able to find is wired for my specific Triumph (though Triumphs and Ducatis from the era both seemed to share the same unit).  With the new reg-rectifier wired up I should be good to go with the Tiger again and hopefully the (new over the winter) battery isn't having to carry the bike like it was and I won't have the stalling issues that have been plaguing me.

UPDATE

The reg-rectifier came in from Amazon right quick and I just installed it.  Having just brimmed the tank I didn't want to get the 24 litre monster off again to install it, and installing it with the tank in is tricky, but I managed it.

The kit came with replacement connectors, which is good because the ones on the bike disintegrated when I took them apart.  I was liberal with the dielectric grease and it all went together well.

I fired up the bike and it's now producing a very steady 13.9v and when I rev the engine nothing changes (before it would drop to barely 12.1v suggesting that while the motor was spinning above idle the battery wasn't being charged.  I didn't run the bike hot as I was in the garage with an impending thunderstorm going on outside but the readings I got suggest the strange electrics are resolved.

If you're experiencing regulator rectifier issues usually shown through an overcharging or undercharging (as was my case) battery, look up MOSFET type reg/rectifiers for your model of bike and save yourself a lot of time and money trying to chase down OEM replacements that simply don't exist.

The plan is still on to get the Tiger to 100,000kms by the time it turns 20 years old in 2023.

I wish Blogger weren't so stingy with headers or I'd alternate between the Tiger TMD logo and the new Concours TMD logo as I now have two functional and quite different bikes on the road.