Fury Project: final drive & body panels

With the snow finally falling I've had time to start into the naked Concours project.  The first thing that needed addressing was the final drive unit which was leaking from the inner seal.  When the Clymers manual says you can do it but it's a big pain in the ass, it's best to have a practised hand do the work.  I took the unit off (easily done as it's held on the drive shaft by four bolts) and loosened all the fasteners on the inner plate.  

Two Wheel Motorsport, my local Kawasaki dealership, said they could do the work and estimated two hours of shop time and a twelve dollar seal.  I dropped off the unit and got a call back four days later saying it was done.  It was a nice surprise to find that the work took less than an hour and my $250 estimate was suddenly a $120 bill.  You hear a lot of negative talk about dealerships but Two Wheel did this job professionally and quickly, and then didn't overcharge when they easily could have.

I cleaned out the shaft drive end and re-greased everything.  Reinstalling the unit was easy and straightforward.  With the grease holding the spring in place I was able to simply slot the drive unit onto the shaft splines and re-torque the four nuts.  Everything went together smoothly and the drive feels tight and positive.

Since this was the only mechanical issue with the Concours I was able to begin thinking about the customization side of things.  With over 100lbs of plastic and metal removed from the bike I needed to start thinking about how to minimally dress this naked machine in order to cover up the plumbing and electrics.  Having a metal shop at work means handy access to fabrication tools.  Our shop teacher is also a Concours owner and is eager to help with panel building.  He suggested I do cardboard cutouts of the pieces I need and then we can begin the process of creating metal body work.

Body work craft day in the garage.

Doing the cutouts is tricky even in cardboard.  The left side cover goes over some electronics including the fuse panel and needs to bulge outward in order to contain all of that.  The right side is more straightforward but still needs cutouts for the rear brake wiring and rear suspension adjuster.  I'm curious to see how close the metal cutouts come to the cardboard templates.

The shop at school has a plasma cutter and we should be getting a laser engraver shortly.  With such advanced tools I'm already thinking about engraving panels.  Collecting together a bunch of line drawings of iconic images and sayings in a variety of languages would be an interesting way to dress up the minimal panels on this bike.  If the laser engraver can work on compound shapes I might drop the gas tank in there and engrave Kawasaki down the spine of it where the gold stripe will go rather than looking for badges or decals.

I enjoy the mechanical work but now that the Concours is working to spec I can focus on the arts and crafts side of customization.  Next up is trying to figure out how a minimal front panel that contains the headlight and covers up the electrical and plumbing at the front will look.

Sepang Echoes And A Word To My Newly Found Countryman

My lovely wife convinced me to do the Ancestry.com DNA test.  Being very British, the results that came back were a bit surprising.  Genetically speaking I'm the result of the fact that Europeans love to get to know each other intimately.

My people are from Norfolk on the east coast of the UK, so a strong Scandinavian influence was to be expected (damned vikings!), but the rest is interesting.  I had no idea we were part Irish (evidently everyone is), and the trace bits at the bottom are also cool.  Realizing I'm made up of all these different cultures feels good.

I other news, Marc Marquez just won the MotoGP championship in Motegi, Japan.  I started watching MotoGP during Marc's first year in the championship and it was thrilling to watch this astonishing talent blossom even as I was getting acclimatized to motorcycle racing.  It was hard not to become a fan.  I remained a fan up until last year when Marc made a young man's mistake.

If he's fighting for a championship, Marc parrots words of respect. but only because he's going to win it.  When he's out of the running his arrogance comes through, and it isn't pretty.

I find it hard to support a guy who thinks he's more important than the battle itself.  Motorcycle racing is Hemingway-esque in the demands it places on participants.  If you do it wrong it will kill you.  When doing something that potentially lethal well you need more than quick reflexes and arrogance.  The world is full of fast, dead motorcycle riders.  Motogp, being the very pinnacle of motorcycle riding, should present professionals who respect the dangers of the championship they are chasing.  What Marc did last year in Sepang suggests that he thinks himself superior to others who face the same peril.  A rider who thinks he can dictate the outcome of a championship he can't win is not only arrogant, but dangerous.

If you're going to stare death in the face with only your reflexes to save you, you should approach your work with a degree of respect and humility.  I just finished the Australian GP, and watched Marc toss his Honda into the countryside while leading.  He's far from perfect, though still no doubt a once in a generation talent.  I'd like to be a fan again, but not if he's going to disrespect the brave thing these riders are attempting.

Now that I'm 2% Spanish and we're coming up on the anniversary of Sepang, I want to say something to my countryman: 

"Marc, it's not your place to dictate the outcome of a championship for anyone but yourself, and there's something to be said for apologizing.  I want to be a fan, but unless you're going to respect the battle you'll never be more than an ego with quick reflexes.  

One day, as you get older and slower, you'll be tempted to apologize for what happened in 2015, but when someone irrelevant tries to apologize in order to remain relevant it's just another expression of arrogance.  Now that you've got another championship, and as MotoGP heads to Sepang again, it's time to take on another dimension as champion and speak for the championship itself.  Perhaps you can direct other misguided young men away from disrespecting the thing you're all fighting for.  We'd all thank you for it."

Commitment to your craft means more than just making time on the track.
I wonder how a championship feels when you've just spent a year diminishing it.

Domino Effect

I find myself fighting a constant battle with non-riders over just how dangerous motorcycling is. They can't understand why I would risk life and limb (or my son's life and limb) to do something so superfluous.  Unfortunately, the press is more than willing to inflame this perception.

While I was away this weekend a news story appeared that threw more gas on the fire...

"In an attempt to avoid collision with the fifth wheel, the motorcycles came in contact with each other, creating a domino effect and one rider, the deceased, came in contact with the fifth wheel,  Eight men and one woman were sent to hospital with multiple injuries. The driver of the truck was not hurt." 

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/accident-st-basile-motorcycle-rv-1.3701744

http://atlantic.ctvnews.ca/mobile/one-dead-after-massive-motorcycle-pileup-in-northern-n-b-1.3008916

https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2016/07/30/1-dead-after-new-brunswick-crash-involving-hells-angels-other-biker-groups-police.html

Bloodbaths, and then five people ♥'ed it?

Where do I even begin with this?  The people involved in this crash made a number of bad decisions that led to a disaster.

A group mentality had them passing a vehicle en masse, something you never do.  Any sane motorcyclist knows that your pass is yours and yours alone, even (especially?) when you're in a group.  You make the move when it's safe and practical to do it, not because the people around you are.  This is yet another reason why I don't like riding in groups, there is pressure to ride as a unit instead of an individual.  That kind of thinking is the antithesis of why I ride.

A few weeks ago I met up with an eclectic group of riders up by the Bruce Peninsula.  At its biggest we were about half a dozen bikes.  There were a couple of times during the ride when people crossed double yellow lines and dived around traffic.  They've all been riding a lot longer than I have, but I found some of the moves a bit reckless, and didn't follow.  My ride is my ride, I make the decisions.

My best guess at what the point of impact looked like.
In the video below it looks like the bikes are in a pile
in the oncoming lane, so they attempted to pass to the
left of a left turning truck and trailer.  Done on
Draw Accident Sketch.

Looking at video from the accident, it looks as though the bikers were trying to pass the left turning camper in the oncoming (left hand) lane - they were trying to beat the turning vehicle, which sounds like a bad idea no matter how you phrase it.

This reads like a litany of things not to do while riding a motorcycle.  Apart from the group mentality, attempting to pass a left turning vehicle on the left suggests a real deficit in road reading, let alone basic physics.

This kind of riding is what stopped me from getting on a motorcycle just when I was going to get my license the first time twenty years ago.  In that case a kid, late for work, gunned it through a red light and went over the hood of a left turning car; instant fatality.  The cautionary tales that come from these situations always have more to do with poor road craft than they do with the perils of riding a motorbike.

Riding a motorcycle isn't easy.  10% of my class failed to get their introductory license through a combination of poor coordination and inability to manage the many things you're doing on a bike (you're using both hands, both feet and your whole body to ride it), and that was in a parking lot.  On the road there are a whole raft of other considerations on top of operating the bike.  You need to develop advanced defensive riding skills because you'll lose in any collision; it doesn't matter who is at fault when you get in an accident on a bike.

My suspicion is that these bikers thought their numbers and loud pipes would humble any other road user into waiting to let them pass.  Using intimidation as a road management tool is a slippery slope.  I'm not trusting my life to other people's perception of me - more often than not they don't see me at all.

This video was shared with us by a man who stayed at campground on the roadway where this mass accident took place pic.twitter.com/ySWNYx2FYw

— Shane Fowler (@CBCShane) July 30, 2016

Shortly after this happened I came across this great article explaining to car drivers why motorcycles act the way they do.  I'm willing to bet the people involved in this accident had no familiarity with these habits.  Riding a motorcycle is a difficult thing, but doing it well is very satisfying.  Doing it poorly is just asking for trouble.  If you're a non-rider and you want to trot this out as an example of why motorcycling is dangerous, it's a poor example.

And Then There Was One

When I started riding I began to voraciously consume motorcycling magazines.  It took me a while to figure out which ones were good, but for a while there I just went all in.  Being Canadian I thought it prudent to get a sense of Canada's motorcycling media, so I made a point of looking past the wall of American magazines to find a Canadian voice.

 The two I settled on were Cycle Canada and Motorcycle Mojo.  CC seemed to be edited by a writer with lots of motorcycle experience (rather than an expert motorcyclist with little writing experience).  Reading other magazines sometimes felt like reading a kid's essay that they'd been made to write.  No one seemed to revel in writing like Neil Graham did.  He was consistently acerbic, challenging and opinionated, but he clearly enjoyed writing.  I really looked forward to reading him each month.

I found Mojo a short while later.  Its modern layout (many other Canadian magazines looked like they'd been designed on a photocopier), and crowd sourced travel pieces got me hooked.  Mojo feels like it's put together by a community rather than a small group of motorcycle industry insiders who don't know how to write very well.

A few months ago CC arrived at my door.  As I got into it I discovered that the two writers who do the majority of the heavy lifting in producing the magazine were leaving.  Many readers seemed relieved to see the back of the complicated and difficult Graham, but I missed that voice.  A magazine that was once a drop-everything-and-read-it proposition (and Canadian!) was now filled with news pieces that looked like they were written by an ESL writer in single, giant paragraphs; a computer could construct better grammar.  The new writer they brought in was an old writer they'd let go.  His MO seems to be to say something controversial at the beginning of each article even if what he's saying is inconsistent from page to page.  The article on the new Harley Davidson is making fun of sport bike riders, the article on a sports bike makes fun of cruiser riders, and his recent piece on the new Honda Africa Twin allowed him to take pot-shots at adventure bike riders.  I get no sense of who he actually is or what he likes.  This approach seems disingenuous and makes me hesitate to trust him.

The newsletter modelled magazines that feel like they are driven by industry interests rather than independent editorial opinion have already been dropped.  Mojo & CC were my only Canadian subscriptions to renew, but now it's down to a single Canadian mag.  The hole left in the Canadian motorcycling publication landscape by Graham leaving Cycle Canada has made a sure thing a has-been.

 In the meantime I'm looking world-wide for my motorcycle periodicals.  The three I've settled on are Motorcycle Mojo (Canada), Cycle World (US) and BIKE (UK).  The last two are driven by professional writers who know motorcycles and not only write well, but seem to enjoy doing it.  I've never read a complaint about having to fill up space with writing or meet deadlines in either, although this seems to be a common subject for editorial discussion in many Canadian magazines.

I'm not reading any more magazines, Canadian or not, that make me feel like I'm reading an essay a kid was forced to write for school.  If the writing is that difficult, don't work for a magazine.  Writing is a skill unto itself, and it should be something you enjoy (it's what will make you work to improve it instead of just trudging up to deadlines while complaining about them in print).  Just because you're an expert in the subject area doesn't mean you're an expert at communicating it in writing.  Life's too short to read things written badly by people who aren't that good at it and couldn't care less about their writer's craft.

on the Verge of the Future

Sunday morning with a 3d
printer - I get a kick out of
making things work.

One of the best parts of my job is that I get to lay my hands on leading edge technology in order to figure it out so I can teach it.  I've always been an early adopter, if no no else has it I'm interested - more so if everyone else is afraid of it.  When most people didn't know that TVs had alternate inputs I had a home computer with a printer.  When everyone was crying about how fuel injection meant no one could customize their vehicles any more I was hacking the on-board computer and using it for diagnostics and more horsepower.

Nowadays it's all about how digital tools are making micro/bespoke manufacturing more possible.  Where once you needed an engineer, some machinists and a couple of hundred thousand dollars to build complex components, now you need twenty grand and a willingness to pick up some very easy to manage software.  The entry into machining your own, custom components has become much easier.

Not only are digital tools handing back basic production to individuals, they are also allowing companies to explore levels of precision in manufacturing that seem almost science fictional:

We've had 3d printers in the classroom now for a couple of years, and we find them invaluable for prototyping and even developing 3d thinking (not something students take to naturally).

I suspect the wedding-cake style melting-plastic-through-an-extruder 3d printer is an evolutionary dead end (there is only so much you can do to speed up a printing process that works around cooling plastic).  Fortunately, the next step has already happened:

... I'd love to get my hands on one of those.

Another building tool I'd like to try is a digital laser cutter.  Like other manufacturing tools, digital laser cutters have been tumbling in price.  Coming out this year is a desktop laser cutter called the Glowforge that'll introduce laser cutting, etching and fabrication to many more people.  At only about $4000, this undercuts previous industrial units by tens of thousands of dollars.

With this kind of technology available to many more people, I get the sense that the garage of the future will allow us to build things that only get churned out by factories at the moment.  When I'm at the point that I can custom manufacture and laser etch bespoke motorcycle hard parts and print my own fairings, I'll feel like my garage can keep up with my imagination.

A good guess might be the garage scene from Big Hero 6:

We're on the verge of escaping from the mass-production Twentieth Century.  One day you'll be telling your grand kids that we had to buy shoes that weren't custom printed specifically for your feet, and they won't believe you.

Recent advances in processing power and
optics mean VR is finally (after decades of
promise) arriving at a consumer level.

Last week I discovered that I'm going to be able to set up an HTC Vive in the lab.  We're doing it so we can better craft the 3d models we're building in Unity and Blender, but immersive simulation could offer a lot of opportunities in the classroom beyond 3d modelling.  The emotional impact on a student walking across Vimy Ridge the day after, or walking through Cambodia's killing fields, or standing on the Moon and looking back at the Earth, get me revved up about making VR work in the classroom.

From a motorcycling perspective, an immersive simulation of the MotoGP circuit on Valentino's bike would offer fans a new level of appreciation for the sport.  Preparing for an overseas ride by tasting the trip virtually first offer opportunities for safety preparation that simply don't exist right now, especially if you're trying to wrap you head around new signs and riding on the wrong side of the road.

We're on the verge of the future, and I get another taste next week, I can't wait!


3D printing

motorcycle 3d printing: http://3dprintingindustry.com/2015/08/03/motorcycle-3d-printing-picking-speed/

https://3dprint.com/65937/3d-printed-motorcycle/

http://www.stratasys.com/resources/case-studies/automotive/klock-werks

https://all3dp.com/3d-printed-motorcycles-know/

https://grabcad.com/library/128705


Virtual Reality

https://youtu.be/-Sd3wXNjLtk

http://motorbikewriter.com/victory-motorcycle-virtual-reality/

http://www.lifebuzz.com/virtual-motorcycle/

http://mashable.com/2015/03/13/oculus-victory-motorcycles-sturgis/

http://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/skully-opens-pre-orders-for-high-tech-helmet/

The Motorcycle not-so Super Show

A not-so-super Saturday morning.  After driving through thick fog for almost two hours we're told to line up to get in
the parking lot, then line up to get in the door, then line up again to get into the show - it was over an hour wait to
get to the single guy with a ticket scanner.

After a long slog through pea-soup fog we arrived at the International Centre in Mississauga on Saturday morning.  This was my third go at the North American International Supershow, and it's probably my last.  My first go was a bit of culture shock with the girls girls girls and men dressed like pirates thing knocking me for a bit of a loop.  Our second go impressed upon me the real focus of this show:  limited choice but cheap gear if you're lucky.  Our third go was long lineups, dodgy websites, and crowds, though the odd deal was found.

Once again, the only thing we bought was from my local motorcycle shop, Two Wheel Motorsport.  Once again I bumped into Steve who ran the course at Conestoga that got me going on two wheels and got a fantastic discount, this time on a Shark Raw helmet.  $150 for the lid, taxes in (less than half what it's retailing for).

The website the show put out (when it loaded at all)
was insecure.  Management & organization is an issue.

What would be nice would be having access to show specials at my local.  I'd happily spend the hundred odd dollars I spend getting to and into this show and apply it to purchases at Two Wheel.  If that's a possibility I'll save a Saturday next January and avoid the lines, crowds and other nonsense.  I'm going to contact Two Wheel and see if show specials might be available for customers on that weekend at their shop.  Their new digs are twice as nice as the International Centre and it doesn't take you an hour of lining up to get in the door.

The other reason to attend a show is to touch base with your favourite motorcycle media.  I did have a nice chat with Glenn from Motorcycle Mojo but couldn't find Graeme at Inside Motorcycles, though I can see my favourite motorbike magazines at the Toronto Motorcycle Show in February which feels like a much more professionally organized, industry driven event.  I can also take my wife to that one without her rolling her eyes at all the strippers on display.

As far as other people I'd want to chat with, the CoG guys were too busy but I had a good talk with the Widow's Sons.  Even in the cases of these obvious connections I'm a bad joiner.  It doesn't occur to me to contact CoG or the Widow's Sons to go for a ride, I'd rather just go out on my own.  Riding in a group feels like a needless restriction to me.

I'll stick to complaining about the poor organization both online and at the venue, but the show itself is what it is. I'm an odd-duck in motorcycling.  I prefer to ride alone.  I go riding to find solitude and in that solitude delve more deeply into the craft of motorcycling.  Riding to feel a part of a crowd, 'show my colours' or just show off isn't my bag.  I don't ride to be seen or make a statement, I ride because I love riding.

To the dress-alike leather pirates and many other social riders this show must feel like coming home.  Next year I think that's where I'll be.

Coulda skipped that...

Woulda happily have skipped that (this is the passageway you get funnelled into
after getting out of the big passageway)...

Coulda done this at Two Wheel...

Coulda done that at Two Wheel...

Shop Class as Soulcraft Deep Thoughts

I'm a big fan of Matt Crawford's fantastic book on the value of skilled labour, Shop Class as Soul Craft.  If you get a chance, it'll change your mind about the value of working with your hands.

I just finished his latest book, The World Beyond Your Head, where he makes a compelling argument for our's being a situated intelligence (we aren't brains in boxes) that is evident because of our manual connection to the world around us, not in spite of it.  It's a deep, rich read that does a lot of dismantle the idea of the empty expertise of the digital economy/liberal arts student.

I recently came across a video where Crawford is talking about the book, and other things.  This bit struck me as funny after my recent thoughts on biker culture:

"You might say the B.S. quotient it low... unless you're dealing with Harley owners.  Then it can actually be quite high."

You'd think most people would buy the dependable ones, right?

That idea of a B.S. quotient led me look up motorcycle reliability indices for the first time.  Consumer Reports gets into it by explaining how customer satisfaction is different from reliability.  You'd think the two things are closely linked, but they aren't so much.

"If you want to know how satisfied riders are with their motorcycle, ask them about comfort. We found that comfort ratings track most closely with overall satisfaction scores. "

You know those leather clad tough guys in their Motor Company regalia?  They like comfort the most.  Potato, potato, potato...

The Ride To Indy

DAY 1

We are bouncing over some astonishingly bad interstate in Northern Michigan on our way to Flint.  Retread carcasses litter the side of the road, the only thing missing are clouds of flies above the rubber corpses.

The Super10, Concours and three riders ready for an adventure.

We crossed the border (my first border crossing on a bike!) in Sarnia at lunch time on a Wednesday.  It amounted to less than five minutes of waiting in line and thirty seconds with the US border guard, who looked like he was working out when he got off shift so he could join us.
"So, where are you guys headed?"
"To Indianapolis for the MotoGP!"
After running our passports he asks, "you guys excited?"
"It's Indy!"
"Have a great time guys."
... and then we were off onto the broken interstates of Michigan.  I'll never complain about Ontario roads again.

To and from Indianapolis

Just when we think the roads can't get worse, the interstate drops down to one lane each way because they are beginning to pull it apart and resurface.  It doesn't matter though, we were in America, heading to Indy!

My ten year old son, Max, is on the back of our loaded '94 Kawasaki Concours which is chewing up the miles with ease.  That bike is the best eight hundred bucks I've ever spent.  We're making the trip with my friend and colleague Jeff, who is a motorcycle-Jedi.  He's been riding for decades, has owned dozens of bikes, and has ridden all over North America.  If you're going on your first long trip, he's the guy you want with you.

We pull in for our first gas stop just outside of Flint and fill up for fourteen bucks (93¢ Canadian for 93 octane super unleaded).  The Connie is getting 48 miles per gallon.  Back on the road we turn south on 23 to miss Detroit and head toward Ann Arbor.  Twenty-three looked like a county road on the map, but in real life it's a multi-lane, limited access highway.  We are making epic time as we ride past a mountain of garbage covered in sea gulls and military convoys of Humvees.  We get to Ann Arbor, where we'd originally planned to stop for the day, at 2pm.

Concordia U's
beautiful trees

Sitting on the beautiful lawn at Concordia University we look further down the map, reconsidering where we might stop.  It only takes a us a few minutes to get around Ann Arbor and onto 12, which will take as all the way across southern Michigan to Interstate 69.

Best Philly steak ever!

We stop for a late lunch and stumble across Smoke BBQ and the best Philly steak sandwich I've ever had.  Topped up and ready to roll, we head out on 12 and are treated to a crop duster doing hammerhead turns and giving us a wave as he flies past us next to the road.  We're in the mid-west now!

Out of population we find ourselves on winding roads through the Irish Hills.  We thought the ride to Indy would be flat and straight but these are some nice riding roads.  We emerge from the woods to an astonishing sight, the Michigan International Speedway is right on the side of the road!  A security guard tells us you can sign in at the main office and they'll let you have a look around.  This place is enormous, a real cathedral of speed deep in the Irish Hills.  We spend half an hour wandering around a tiny corner of the massive complex.  That we stumbled across it and were happily invited in to have a look around has us all grinning like fools.  It's a good sign of things to come.

It's like that dream you have of being at
work and suddenly realizing you're naked

Back on the road time is ticking past 6pm and Max is getting tired on the back.  We've been on the road since 8am, but we've pushed way further down the map than we intended to.  We finally reach Coldwater on I69 and stop at a Comfort Inn with a warm pool and soft beds.

Every biker we see is riding around in shorts, flip flops and no helmet, and it's giving us culture shock.  We go to the end of the street to get take out and try naked biking, but it gives us both the willies.  Riding around without a helmet just seems crazy.

DAY 2

After a good breakfast at the hotel we're bombing south on Interstate 69 and quickly find the Indiana border.  Before Fort Wayne we strike off west into the country on Six and quickly discover that unless a town is on a truck route it has dried up and blown away.  The scale of the fields of corn beggar belief and stretch to the horizon, but there are no people.  Roads are closed and we find ourselves on gravel stretches looking for ways south.  The Concours has no trouble with this, but Jeff's Super Ténéré looks the part as he takes off down narrow dirt roads.

We try stopping in several towns but they are all derelict; beautiful nineteenth century buildings with boards on the windows and no-one in sight.  Corporate farms run remotely from headquarters thousands of miles away don't need local people.

Main View restaurant in North Manchester, IN: great
service, great food!

We finally stagger into North Manchester mid-afternoon.  This is a university town and it's still vibrant.  A local directs us to Main View restaurant and we sit down for another excellent, non-conglomerate lunch.

Zigzagging south and west we soon find ourselves on bigger roads feeding in to Indianapolis.  We get into town at the beginning of rush hour, but this isn't Toronto.  Everything is moving even though the road is still patchy from recent rain (it missed us), and there is construction everywhere.  Other than having to cut into a line to get on the ring road (made easy by Jeff dicing traffic like a pro), we have an easy time navigating and we're feet up at the Hampton Inn by 4:30pm.

A short walk away is Chef Mike's Charcoal Grill which has the best grilled fish and steak imaginable, and a healthy list of craft beers; America isn't all Bud Light and hamburgers.  It was so good we went back again the next night.

DAY 3

It's been pretty good so far, but it's about to get spectacular.  We're off to the Indy Speedway (15 minutes away) early the next morning.  We pull into line and are told to ride around to the back and park in lot 10.  After working our way around the city-sized Indy complex we start looking for parking and keep getting waved through gates by security.  We go down a ramp under ground and surface only to be directed onto the back straight of the Indy oval.

Ever ridden on the Indy oval on your bike?  I have!

Jeff and I are both thinking we've been accidentally put in with the VIPs and are expecting to be caught at any second and kicked out, but I make the most of it and give it the beans.

Nothing sounds better than the sound of your own engine howling off the retaining wall of a straight at Indianapolis!  We're directed to park and stand there in awe.  A guy gives us a kick stand puck saying he doesn't want us punching holes in his race track.  Damn skippy.  We walk over to another guy scanning tickets, expecting to get kicked out.  He scans our general admission tickets (twenty bucks each - kids under 12 are free) and tells us to have a great time.

Did that just happen?  Yes, yes it did!

We walk through the infield, which is a golf course, and discover a circus of motorcycle going on inside.  The Moto3 bikes haven't even started practice yet but all the manufacturers have set up pavilions and there is an Indy kids play area that has Max hopping up and down.  Our general admission, twenty buck tickets give us access to the entire complex, from the front straight stands to hundreds of viewing areas around the infield.  The only place we couldn't go was the paddock area.

We wander around in a daze.  One moment we're watching Moto3s buzz down the straight, amazed that their little 250cc single cylinders can take them over 160 mph before they hit the big corner at the end.  The big, 1000cc MotoGP bikes come out next.  Where the Moto3 bikes sound like (big) angry bees, the MotoGP bikes sound like 140 decibel tearing silk (the Hondas) or the most frantic, staccato v-twin imaginable (the Ducatis).   Lastly the Moto2 bikes come out, their 650cc twins sound fantastic to my ringing ears with a turbine like howl.

Lunch is an Indy dog and some fries, sitting in the near-empty stands in the shade.  The place isn't empty, there are people everywhere, but Indy is so huge that it swallows the crowds with ease.  We spend the afternoon watching the bikes bend through the esses, standing on the grassy knoll on the edge of the golf course.

You can get within fifty feet of the bikes pretty much anywhere on the track and unobstructed views are easy to come by; photography is easy at Indy.  We head back out to the bikes at about 3:30pm as the practice sessions are winding down.  We've been here since 8:30am and we're sun-baked, overwhelmed and ready for a rest.  On the back straight are hundreds and hundreds of bikes, as far as the eye can see.  We slowly motor past row after row of every imaginable motorcycle before ducking out through the underpass.  We're back at the hotel in minutes.  Jeff and I end up passing out for an hour before having another great meal at Chef Mike's.  We're not done yet with Indy motorcycle culture though.

Motorcycles on Meridian shows the breadth of motorcycle
culture in America - it isn't all Harleys and leather.

Motorcycles on Meridian is a satellite event to MotoGP that brings in thousands of riders.  We saddled up and rode into town about 8pm and were stunned to see so many bikes.  From guys who look like pilots riding on Goldwings to lost souls who look like they are just back from rehab, to lean sportsbike riders and everything in between, I was once again reminded that American motorcycling isn't mono-cultural.  Sure, the Motor Company pirate was well represented, but so was every other kind of motorcyclist.

We did a slow pass through the middle of the chaos and then went for a walk.  It was hot, humid and all the hotter for all the revving and showboating.  I've never cottoned on to the look-at-me loud pipes and chrome thing that many bikers get excited about, and some of the stretched drag-strip like bikes looked virtually unrideable, but it takes all kinds.  After a brief tour through the circus of LED lit v-twins and custom madness we had a cold drink and slipped out south to the highway.  Tomorrow was the beginning of the long ride home.

DAY 4

The ride down had highlighted the agony that is the Concours' stock seat.  We stopped at Cycle Gear on the way out of town the next morning for a solution.  They had gel seat pads on sale for forty bucks so I gave one a whirl.  Max got himself a nice helmet with a tinted screen for sunny, highway riding.  The service was great (as it generally was throughout our trip) and we practically tripped over the location on our way out of Indianapolis.  The prices were also astonishing, especially when you aren't paying 13% tax on everything, basically half what we would have paid for the same thing in Canada with less tax.  Helmets seem to be especially cheap in a place where they aren't a requirement.

We made quick work of I69 north to Fort Wayne and were on the 24 heading toward Ohio before mid-day.  Jeff wanted to try and make it home that day so we parted ways in Toledo.  He took the I75 north to Detroit and was home by 7pm.  Max and I headed north on 23 to Ann Arbor thinking to spend the night there before finishing on Sunday, but Ann Arbor was booked solid with a pipe-fitters convention (?) and the rooms left were over three hundred bucks a night.  We pushed on and then got lost in the suburbs of Detroit (which are still surprisingly well kept) before finally stumbling into the Wyndham Garden hotel by the airport.


Like so much else in Detroit, the Wyndam Garden has the look of something that must have been super chic in sixties (it has an indoor forest!).  It's the kind of place James Bond might have stayed when he was Sean Connery, but now it's run down and tired.  People who went to Rome after the Empire fell must have seen something similar.  I left Max in the room and ducked out for take out.  Every store I went to had bullet proof glass and turnstiles between the customer and the clerk.

Day 5

The next morning we hit the road early.  Max wanted to try the tunnel but we got there only to be told motorcycles weren't allowed in.  A sign would have been nice, but at least we got to see downtown Detroit on a quiet Sunday morning.  My magic power kicked in at the Canadian border.  Everyone else crossed in about ten minutes, but we waited twice that because we got the guard who wanted to chat with everyone.  Soon enough we were bombing down the 401 toward home making excellent time.  A couple of stops at ONroutes (which felt like time travel after a night in Detroit) later we were in Kitchener and winding our way down familiar country roads.  We were home by 2pm.

The Concours was faultless, returning mid-fifties miles per gallon on the highway and high forties everywhere else.  It started at the touch of a button every time and showed me it could do the ton with two people in gear and all their luggage.  The gel seat eased the pain but got incredibly hot, leaving me with heat rash and a scowl.  A seat solution will happen before the next long ride, but there is little else I could do to make this wonderful machine any better.

The Concours has ridden on hallowed
ground.  She wears it with pride.

If you don't like crowds, the Indy GP is the one to go to.  Indianapolis is enormous and easily swallows crowds of even one hundred and thirty two thousand.  There is talk of cancelling the Indy round next year, but if it's on I'm going to attend all three days.  I think we can get within striking distance in one day, ride straight to the track on Friday, hotel in Indy Friday and Saturday and begin heading back after the race on Sunday, finishing the trip on Monday.  After doing it once I know I can do it even better next time.

After bombing down the Indy back straight once, I want to do it again!  It only costs forty bucks to do a lap of the MotoGP circuit!  That'll be on the short list for next year along with a paddock pass so I can get Sam Lowes autograph.

If you love bikes and live anywhere north-east in North America, you should give the IndyGP weekend in August a go, I promise you won't be disappointed.  The long ride through the mid-west is anything but boring and the hospitality is second to none.  And when you get there you get to ride on the iconic Indianapolis Motor Speedway and experience the MotoGP circus in full swing, it really is unforgettable.


NOTE:  The Indy MotoGP is no more - glad we went when we did!  I'm going to have to get more committed to riding to a MotoGP race if I want to do it again!