Chasing Eclipses on a Tight Schedule

Things have tightened up around the total solar eclipse that crosses The States in August.  If I can make it back for the 23rd I've got a conference I can attend to demonstrate virtual reality, and who wouldn't want to do that?  The conference would also pay for the trip, so that's nice.  Timing and weather are the key factors in making this work.  This eclipse is also a two for one deal because it happens right over the Tail of the Dragon at about 2:30pm on August 21st.

 There are a lot of very detailed maps out there showing you where the path of totality is thundering across the Earth's surface at over six hundred miles per hour.  From 1:05pm local time to about 4pm is the time it takes for the moon to go tip to tip over the sun.  Totality only lasts from 2:33:54pm to 2:36:25pm - a scant two and a half-ish minutes, then daylight returns.

Taken from the interactive Google eclipse map

I've seen partial eclipses before but I've never seen totality, so that's the goal (that and riding the Dragon).  Fortunately Deal's Gap and the road to the Fontana Dam are right in the path of this once in a life time (in North America) event.

I've got to boogie home after seeing totality.  If I'm on the road by 3pm local time, how much time can I make before stopping for the night?  Now for the iron-butt portion of the trip.

The conference kicks off late morning on Wednesday, August 23rd in Toronto.  As long as I've gotten my ass home by Tuesday night, all is good in the world.

It's a 360 mile interstate blast to Dayton, Ohio (home of Les Nessman!).  Google Maps says just over six hours.  With a couple of stops call it seven.  If I'm on the way by 3pm, I should be stopping for the night between 9 and 10pm - just after a late summer sunset.

Day two is a long distance run up to the Canadian border and back home - just over four hundred miles.  If I were under way by 9am, with a few stops and some lunch, I'd be home by 6pm-ish; totally doable.

With the back end compressed, the front end of the trip becomes my only chance to ride the Appalachians on the way down...

South through Buffalo and into the mountains, then it's three days of winding Appalachian roads and Blue Ridge Parkways south to Cherokee in the heart of the Smokey Mountains.  

If I left on the Thursday before, I could do Thursday and Friday nights on the road south, Saturday and Sunday nights in Cherokee near the Tail of the Dragon, Monday night near Cincinnati on the way back and then home again.  It's a lot more interstate than I'd normally go looking for, but it's still a once in this lifetime opportunity.

Your 2017 Motorcycle Road Rally Schedule

It's on this year and this time it's a four event season! If you're anywhere near Ontario hop on your bike and come along for a great day of riding: Sunday June 11th, Saturday July 22nd, Saturday August 19th and Friday October 13th. Pick your day(s)!

Last summer my motorcycle buddy Jeff and I did our first long distance motorcycle scavenger hunt/rally, it was a blast! We spent an exhausting, hot, August day covering more miles than anyone else. Our lousy trip planning skills aside, we had a great day seeing all sorts of hidden spots we'd never seen before.  I just found out that Lobo Loco is back for 2017, and bigger than ever! 

The idea of this kind of rally is that you begin from wherever you are at 8am with a gas receipt to set your starting place.  From there you find your way to gps points shared with you a week before.  Different places are worth different points depending on how hard they are to get to.  You can go after themed stops to try and get the highest points in a particular category or go for the rally win by planning out a route that collects you the most points quickly.  Or you can just take it easy and pootle about, enjoying the camaraderie that is infectious in an event like this.  You'll be seeing a lot of other competitors on your travels.

Last year Jeff and I decided to ride out of the cities because neither of us really like riding in the urban pall.  We rode along miles of country roads through scenic little towns all the way to the shores of Huron before working our way back to Brantford, arriving with three whole minutes to spare.

We did it on our big adventure bikes, but the parking lot at the end of the race had everything from a 200cc Yamaha to massive Harley v-twins, and everything in between.  There is no 'right' bike to do this sort of thing on.  There is no 'right' way to plan your route (though we missed top score by thousands of points, so I don't really know what I'm talking about).  We had a great time doing our high mileage country route.  Others had a blast cashing in on close together points locations in the Greater Toronto Area.

Whatever you like to ride, however you like to ride, you can customize the Lobo Loco Scavenger Hunt to how you want to do it.  We ended up being the only people to make it to the bee beard for huge points because it was in the middle of nowhere and was only happening for about half an hour (no one else was crazy or quick enough to try it!).  Our half assed approach got us the top bee keeping score and the longest ride iron butt award.

If you're looking for a single day event that is both fun and will show you new places you'd never otherwise find in your own backyard, the Lobo Loco Rally is your ticket.  The first ride this year (the WTF Rally) happens on Sunday, June 11th.  Here are the specs from the website:

WTF Rally

"Weird Things Found"

... or something like that...

​Sunday, June 11th, 2017

​

This is our first of 4 Events for 2017.  We're going to start the season off with an easier and fun Scavenger Hunt Rally.  You'll be rolling through the back roads of Southern Ontario stopping to take pictures of some of the most bizarre roadside items, signs, or places... things that will make you say, "WTF?!"

​

8 Hour Rally - Remote Start

​8:00am Start

Start ANYWHERE in Southern Ontario.

The Finish Line is in Woodstock, ON

Scoring begins at 3:00pm

Time Penalties begin to accrue at 4:00pm

DNF if not at the Finish Line by 5:00pm

​ALL YOU CAN EAT DINNER BUFFET and AWARDS BANQUET begins at 5:30pm

​$80 per Rider, or $100 for 1 Bike - 2 Up Team Riders

I'm aiming to be there.  Hope to see you at the buffet.  Sign up here.

The stop in Lucan had us wanting to return to get some garage art...

Over an hour on sand and sand covered pavement getting to a single stop on the shores of Lake Huron was our biggest navigational error (too much time for too little reward).  Even then, it helped get us the iron butt high mileage award and it was all part of the adventure.

Around The Bay: Part 2, an Informed ride

Putting on the miles and building muscle memory.

A couple of recent articles informed my circumnavigation of Georgian Bay.

Bike magazine's resident lawyer had a great piece on the dangers of the over educated novice rider.  He made the poignant observation that people who haven't had a lot of seat time but have over-thought riding to the nth degree often have much nastier crashes than less trained but more experienced riders.  Sometimes the best thing to do is instinctively grab as much brake as you can instead of overthinking an impending disaster.  Perhaps riding is more of an art than a science, informed by experience, not training.

As a teacher I found this critical assessment of instruction over experience to be both interesting and probably accurate.  There is a lot of anxiety over motorcycle riding from the general public  I was determined to get some saddle time and learn the hard way rather than in theory.  The over-focus on training and gear tries to mitigate this fear, and it helps to a degree, but if fear is what drives you, I'd suggest that motorcycling isn't what you should be doing.

The second piece was Neil Graham's editorial in this month's Cycle Canada.  Neil is getting back to form after an agonizing winter back injury.  After everyone else had moved on Neil stayed out on track until it became kind of boring and he relaxed into the ride.  In his case it was track riding on the edge, but it still spoke to the teaching of muscle memory, something that became evident in the previous Bike piece as well.

On my way out of Southern Ontario I was intentionally trying to untense muscles, especially the ones I subconsciously tense when I'm riding.  Yoga probably helps with this, but I was able to sense and untense muscles in my legs and backside while riding.  Being loose and heavy on the bike allowed me to ride further without fatigue.  It also allowed me to respond to issues quickly and lightly.  Being able to free your mind from the demands of your body and put yourself into a state of relaxation also opens up a state of heightened awareness.

Riding into my driveway on Sunday afternoon I was exhausted but elated and felt like I was coming out of some deep meditation.  My mind was full of the 900 kms I'd seen, smelled and felt, and the soreness became something that I'd worked through; the second wind was a real endorphin rush.  After the three hundred plus kilometre stretch down the backside of Georgian Bay I suddenly found myself operating beyond the soreness of the long ride.  Coming off the very demanding highway ride to quiet back roads probably helped too.

If you're able to find a state of intense focus while performing a strenuous mental and physical activity like riding a motorcycle, you tend to be able to find that state much more easily when you're not on the bike and things are easier.  Being able to focus and perform while under duress makes entering that state of intense awareness in other circumstances that much easier.

I guess I found that moment beyond the thinking and training where I relaxed into the saddle and became the ride.  If long distance riding can do that, I suspect I'm eventually going to want to do the deed and get my iron butt.

Links

People who think they are invincible, then suddenly realize they aren't and quit
Is the person who ignores danger with delusions of invincibility brave, or stupid?
The kind of intelligent insight you expect from Quora
An insightful examination of what motorcycling is.
An idiotic infographic that focuses on the people who choose to ride more than riding
See the top link - deluded thrill seekers are a part of the motorcycle community, the stupid part.
Another idiotic infographic that focuses on obvious truth (doing dangerous things is dangerous!), but so is obesity, smoking and getting older
The safest thing to do is exercise in a rubber box, never take any risks in anything and kill yourself before you get old (getting old is going to kill you!)

Bike Bucket List

Tim's bike-hole, once a storage place for unused furniture,
now an insulated work space with two Kawis in it.

Season 1 ended with me getting my license, my first bike and getting over 5000kms of riding in, including a full month of long commutes.  The original bike bucket list included getting the license and first bike.

As season two began I was looking to expand.  Bike bucket list 2.0:

• build a garage worthy of the name (almost done!)
• have a bike holiday on some less-Ontario-ish roads (done!)
• ride more different bikes, done and done! (and that second one even got my wife scooter curious)
• work on my bike-craft (done & ongoing!)
• buy a fixer-upper (done!)
• do an overnight bike trip (didn't manage it... but the season isn't over yet!)

Here's the bucket-list 3.0.  Some of these might take a bit longer to complete:

• build a bike from scratch
• do the double ton on a bike:  200mph (I just read BIKE's Hayabusa story)
• do a track day
• get a race license
• compete in a season (with a van!)
• do a Viking Biking tour
• do one lap of Japan
• around the world with Max
• coast to coast to coast in Canada
• publish an article in a moto-magazine
• publish photography in a moto-magazine
• do the 1000 mile Iron Butt
• attend a MotoGP race weekend
• expand the stable:
• a bike to dance with one on one (light, single seater, lower displacement)
• a distance bike (get the Concours up to snuff)
• live the 3-wheel dream, get an all-purpose outfit for Max & I
• take Max to an off road school
• then do an off road riding school with him
• get off-road bikes for the cottage
• attend the Intermot Bike show in Cologne, Germany in October.

Some of these are well beyond what I can pull off at the moment, but you never know when circumstances might change.  Besides, if you're gonna dream, might as well dream big!  If I'm going to do that, retiring into my own little shop would be awesome!  Custom mechanical, digital parts fabrication and finishing!

Timing

Good book so far!

After enjoying The Perfect Vehicle so much I started on The Man Who Would Stop at Nothing.  I sent the author a quick email saying how much I enjoyed The Perfect Vehicle and hoped she'd keep at writing so well about the craft of biking.

After ripping through the first couple of chapters I did what anyone in the information age would do and looked up what John Ryan is doing at the moment.  The assumption was that he was making time somewhere and putting miles behind him.


I have a unique talent for lousy timing, and my starry eyed thanks to Melissa Holbrook Pierson for writing The Perfect Vehicle contained no idea of what was happening with her and motorbikes right now. She was very kind to right back so positively.  More people should drop a line to the writers they enjoy and say thanks (says the English teacher).

John Ryan, the main focus of my current read, is a record breaking Iron Butt rider.  He covered huge distances in record breaking time.  I stumbled across the Iron Butt Association when I was planning my Lake Superior circumnavigation earlier this year, so Melissa's latest book on this hidden subculture wasn't completely new to me.  As I was researching circling Superior I saw a blog post where the rider casually mentioned that he did it in less than 24 hours.  I was astonished!  And intrigued!

RIP John Ryan

I've been greatly enjoying The Man Who Would Stop At Nothing so far, so much so that I wanted to link John's blog to this one.  That was when I discovered that he'd recently died in a seemingly benign road accident.  I'm frustrated that he was rear ended by a cager in a Mustang, and that no other details of the accident are forthcoming.


So here I am, a week later, mulling over John's fate (yes, I'm a muller).  There is no doubt that motorbiking is a dangerous pass-time, one that demands the utmost attention, and I now suspect a degree of fatalism.  If John Ryan can be taken out by some idiot texting in his Mustang, so can we all.

I've been osculating between despair and bravado in responding to this. A small part of me wants to question what the point of it all is, and the other (larger) part is thinking, 'fuckin' ay! He died doing what he loved."  We should all be so lucky.  I've lately had the fear that I'll go shovelling the driveway, or be at work... how horrible!

In the book Melissa has a great quote: "Give your best years, your now, so that at some distant point, which may never in fact arrive, you can get all the pills you'll need to extend your shuffle to the grave."  The fearful response to two wheeling is, I think, based on this truth that so many people live by.

Melissa also talks in great detail about the calculus of risk in riding.  Knowing John as well as she did, I suspect she'd appreciate the fact that he left the world on two wheels, even while wishing he were still here.

I crossed the line a year ago when I decided to go take the course and get on two wheels.  It's approaching mid-winter here in Canada and that feeling of immersive freedom is as far away from me as it can get.  I'm sorry that John is gone, and reading the rest of Melissa's book is going to be tinged with that regret.

Does any of this stop me from getting back on two wheels as soon as I can?  Not remotely.  

Gitchigoomee Iron Butt

I'd originally read about touring around Lake Superior and called it the Gitchigoomee Goaround.  I figured it'd be a week of riding.  I came across another motorbike blog where the guy was talking about doing it in 24 hours.  It turns out that focused, long distance, intense rides have a club!  The IBA.

It turns out that circumnavigating Lake Superior is 1673kms, which happens to be just over 1000 miles.  Leaving and returning to The Sault and going south through Michigan and around Superior to Ontario again, it would be a two border crossing trip with an awful lot of winding lake-side roads in between.  That would be an ironbutt you'd earn the hard way.

What better time to do it than Thanksgiving Day weekend (October 12-14) in Canada?  If we met up at Sault Ste. Marie on Friday and prepped, we could leave early Saturday morning before sunrise when there is minimal traffic at the border.  As the sun rises we're already making tracks through Northern Michigan.

The route:  Sault Ste. Marie and back to The Sault, 1039 miles in 24 hours!

44 miles per hour (70 km/hr) average speed is needed, so packing in fifty miles per hour (80km/hr) gives you the wiggle room to stop for things like gas, or peeing, or eating, or a cat nap.

In a world of perfect efficiency with no road works, border crossings, traffic lights, mechanical considerations, weather, or traffic, keeping a steady 44 mph would be pretty easy.  Doing it with all those things and the onset of a Canadian winter (along with early sunsets and late sunrises) raises the stakes.

I think I'd want to get in shape for this one.  I was going to dare a buddy of mine to do it this year, but maybe this would be a better next year dare.

Update:

With next year in mind I'm adding in the weather this Thanksgiving weekend for Thunder Bay and Sault Ste Marie, which should give us an idea of what to expect.  With showers on Saturday a Sunday to Monday run looks like it might have been the best bet.  Cold at night, cool during the day, the right kit would be imperative.  Leaving The Sault about 4pm so that the last hours are done in daylight on the afternoon of the next day.  By the time we're pushing east again the sun should be getting high in the sky so we're not riding into it.

Sault weather days

Sault weather nights

Thunder Bay days

Thunder Bay nights

Warming up into the teens during the day, flirting with freezing over night.