My local Triumph dealer and stealing a late November ride

The end of fall is happening abruptly

I keep thinking I'm at the end of the riding season but opportunities are continually arising.  After a fairly miserable trip to the doctor I found myself free on an unseasonably warm late November day.  My usual M.O. is to head into the country and find twisty roads.  Less people+twisty roads = happiness!  This time I did the opposite.  I was curious where my local Triumph dealer was now that I own one.  It turns out it's 136kms away, so not exactly local.  Getting there involved a blast down the highway, something else I don't frequent.  In fact, I don't think I've been on a major highway since the Lobo Loco Rally in August.  I live in the country and avoid population centres and the highways that connect them.  People are tedious.  People in traffic are doubly so.

The Tiger almost ended up here last March
until I made a desperate plea to the previous
owner on the eve of him trading it in.  It
finally showed up at the dealership it was
almost sold to for a quick visit.

Inglis Cycle is located in the east end of London, Ontario.  I hadn't been around there since attending the air show in the late 1980s; it's much more developed now.  After a blast down the 401 at warp speeds I worked my way through an awful lot of traffic lights before finding the dealership behind an abandoned factory.  With their parking lot cut up and the neighborhood looking like a demilitarized zone I cautiously went inside.

I was met by one of the Inglis brothers and he gave me a quick, low pressure introduction.  Walking into a dealer you sometimes get the sense that they're only interested in you if you've got money to spend that day.  Inglis Cycle was welcoming and relaxed.  I felt like I could wander around and look at the bikes on display without any tension, so I did but I was only really there for one particular brand, the one I can't find at home...

The Street Triple is a pretty thing, but I still think I'd go Z1000 if I were to get a naked bike.

I really like Triumph.  I consider them an example of what Britain is capable of when it doesn't get all bound up in socialist nonsense or historical classism.  Freed from all that cultural weight the new Triumph is a competitive global manufacturer.

After a wander around the Triumphs on display I came back to the Triumph Tiger Explorer which is a nice piece of kit.  As an all purpose machine it'll do everything from swallowing highway miles to light off road work.  I've thrown my leg over enough bikes to be aware of how silly I look on typically sized machines; the big Tiger fits.

The Street Triple is a lovely looking thing but too small.  Were I to do the naked bike thing it'd be on the more substantial Kawasaki Z1000.  The other classically styled Triumphs are also things of beauty but I don't think I'd fit on any of them.

I wrapped up the visit with a trip to the accessories department where they had your typical assortment of dealer-type motorcycle gear and a sad lack of the lovely gear Triumph sells online.  I ended up picking up an Inglis Cycle Triumph t-shirt, but it was a pretty low rent printed t-shirt compared to the bling on Triumph Canada.  It's a shame as I was ready to drop a bit of coin on a nice bit of Triumph wear.

I headed north through heavy lunch-time traffic out of London getting stopped twice by people wanting to know what kind of bike I was riding (it says Triumph Tiger on it).  Score another one for the increasingly unique old Tiger 955i with its Lucifer Orange paint and stripes.

Once clear of the flotsam I was able to burn down some country roads in June-like temperatures, though all the trees were bare.  I'd seen a comely sign for St Mary's when we were riding back from the Lake Huron navigation so that was my lunch destination.

 I'd looked up Little Red's Pub the day before (highest rated place to eat in town) and was aiming there for lunch.  As luck would have it there was a parking spot right out front and a front window table waiting for me.  I had a lovely fish and chip lunch (hand made fries, a good bit of halibut) and a good stretch before getting back on the Tiger for the long ride home.

St Mary's is as pretty as its sign.

Since that day the temperature has plunged (below freezing as a high every day) and it has snowed multiple times.  This time the end really has come.  The batteries are out of the bikes and down in the warm basement on trickle charge.  This time of year with its increasing gloom and lousy weather makes that first ride of the spring feel so very far away.

October 15th? Try a Long Distance Rally!

Many bikes of all shapes and sizes.  If you ride, a long distance
rally is a great way to meet new riders and challenge yourself.

Can you make your way to Woodstock, Ontario on October 15th?  The second ever Lobo Loco long distance motorcycle rally runs on that day.  I had a blast at the first one and want another go.

The rally is on the verge of getting enough people to run.  If you're in the North Eastern US, Quebec or Ontario or Michigan/Ohio, and can make it out to Woodstock, Ontario on October 15th, you won't be disappointed.

Give it a go, it's a blast!

http://wolfe35.wixsite.com/lobolocorallies

You will find yourself in strange places you wouldn't otherwise stop in!

Escarpment Murals

A hot and sunny Sunday ride up and around the Niagara Escarpment looking for murals, though the twisty roads were the main focus...

Part 1: https://goo.gl/maps/QseRL6TWNhq
Part 2:  https://goo.gl/maps/BgC2rUvH2qQ2
293kms

The PTTR Grand Tour is going on all summer through Lobo Loco Rallies:  Paint the town red 2018 Grand Tour   That one is closed now, but there are many other weekend rallies going on if you're interested in exploring long distance motorcycle rallying.  

Murals Discovered:
Grand Valley 43.898875, -80.315307

Creemore 44.326060, -80.106099

Ravenna Country Market 44.469285, -80.417343

Clarksburg  44.546531, -80.461742

Some other 360 imaging from the ride.  Made using the Ricoh Theta camera on a flexible tripod attached to the bike:

The twisty bits on River Road

In Thornbury on the shore of Georgian Bay - the temperature was easily ten degrees cooler.

Beaver Valley

A busy Sunday in Creemore.

Through the wind fields outside of Shelburne

You can learn how to get shots like this HERE.

Lobo Loco WTF Bonus

Click on this and like it in Facebook!

While you're at it like my rally buddy Jeff's as well!

Help me out and click on those images and like it in Facebook!


It'll get us a bonus in the Loboloco WTF Rally we're running in this Sunday.  


I''ve got my rally flag - lucky number 7!

Thanks!

#shamelessselfpromotion

Ride Planning Tools: Furkot

Another benefit of doing a trip as a class project was pushing me to find alternatives to Google Maps, which I generally use for trip planning.  It makes pretty maps and I like that I can get a sense of what I'm looking at through street view and satellite imagery.  It's relatively easy to use and lets you quickly put together distances, though not easily in segments.

Google Maps lets you switch to Google Earth view and show the geography of the area (in this case The Twisted Sisters -
the top motorcycling road destination in the US).  It makes for pretty maps, but I had to add in extra
waypoints to keep it off the boring highways and on the interesting tarmac.

Where Google Maps really falls short is on longer trip planning as it tends to be car focused and can't understand why anyone wouldn't want to sit on an interstate all day in a box.  Trying to coerce Google Maps onto twisty roads is a tricky business, especially with limited way point options.  You quickly run out of pins to stick in the map when you're constantly fighting the software's predilection for making your trip as short and boring as possible.

Google Maps' real talent is ease of sharing - it's easy to get links or embedding code.

Being back in the classroom has me looking for escapism, so I've been reading ADVrider's Epic Ride Reports.  There is nothing like reading a ride report from someone's RTW trip to set you free from a regimented schedule.  While on there I came across a couple's ride from Toronto and around the US.  Chelsey was planning their trip on Furkot, which I'd never heard of before.  This piqued my interest because some of my students would benefit from an easier/more fully featured digital trip planner.

Getting into Furkot was pretty straightforward, you can login using a social media account.  It took me about five minutes to transfer my pieces of Google Map from my road trip project into it, and there were no stingy limits on way points.
It was when I got into the details that Furkot really lit up.  Not only does it auto-set your stops for each day based on what you think your mileage is going to be, but it'll also find you hotels and preset you gas stops based on the range of your vehicle.

When you make a map you can keep it private or share it, and if you share it you immediately get a link to it.  Furkot also gives you a share page which has more social media connections (left) than I thought existed, so it shares well.

I only monkeyed around with it for twenty minutes, but I feel like I haven't even scratched the surface.  You can set your trip to your vehicle and I get the sense that a motorcycle selected trip gives you motorcycle specific results.  I look forward to sharing it with my class tomorrow as well as playing with it more myself.

Where the journey's the thing...

In the meantime I've been thinking about Google Maps.  The API for Maps is open and used by lots of people to create custom mapping applications.  Had I more free time on my hands I'd get into it and build out a motorcycling focused mapping app using Google Maps.  The idea came up at the Lobo Loco rally as well.  A rally specific app that allows for many GPS way points and more motorcycling focused roads would be a real treat.  As would a simplified interface that would work from the busy and limited input environment of a motorcycle saddle.

A simplified G-Maps that focuses on the ride would be a cool project.

Bun Burning MotoGP

A few years ago we rode down to the last Indianapolis MotoGP.  It was a great few days in Indiana and it was pretty close to us.  At a push the ride there could be done in a day (we took two because I had my ten year old son with me).

This year's only North American MotoGP is in Texas and happens the weekend before Easter.  How few days could I do it in?  It just happens that Austin is a Bun Burner Gold away, just over 1500 miles south west of here.  I watched a couple of fellow motorcyclists from the Lobo Loco long distance rallies pull a Bun Burner Gold off in the fall.  If I could get to COTA in 24 hours I'd be a rockstar!

If I left on Thursday evening I'd be down there Friday evening or a bit later if I missed it (BBGs depend a lot on construction and delays to pull off).  Either way I'd be up Saturday morning with some kind of Iron Butt ride (if I missed the BBG there are half a dozen other, easier ones that I could still aim for) under my belt to catch qualifying.  Early to bed Saturday night and then another day at the Circuit of the Americas on Sunday for the races.  After a good dinner I'd be back on the road again making tracks north to home.

If I missed the Bun Burner Gold on the way down, I could attempt it again on the way back!  Either doing a Sunday night to Monday night blitz to get the gold, or breaking it into two long days and going for a plain old Bun Burner 1500 (1500 miles over 36 hours).

In a perfect world I'd do the BBG on the way down, enjoy the weekend and rest up again before getting a Bun Burner 1500 on the way back, riding Sunday night after the race as far as I can, having a sleep and then getting up and finishing the ride within 36 hours.  If I'm back Monday night I would have only missed two days of work while getting to watch a MotoGP live and picking up multiple iron butts!  That'd shake the rust off after a long, cold, Canadian winter.

Does two Iron Butt rides around a weekend of MotoGP sound extreme?  From the dark depths of February after weeks and weeks out of the saddle, it sounds like a brilliant idea!  When you're trapped under a polar vortex and some truly grim, neverending Canadian winter, the thought of trying to cross much of North America twice in five days on two wheels scratches an itch.

Slow motion through the esses at Indianapolis...

COTA has all sorts of pretty views for video and photography...

The long way down... and back.

Bailing Out: A WTF Rally Story

We knew it was going to be a hot one before we started.  We'd done the last Lobo Loco rally (with great success!) on an equally hot and dry day, so we didn't give it much thought.

Our cunning plan was to head up to Jeff's cottage and then drive from the shores of Huron up to Southampton and then down through Southwestern Ontario before finishing up in Brampton. We'd been pouring over the rally map for days working out the best route. Stops were thin on the ground this time around, so the 16 stop plan I concocted seemed eminently doable and quite competitive.

Last time we'd won the longest (worst?) route award. This time we were cutting over a hundred clicks off last year's marathon that had us burning through the atmosphere to get to the finish in the nick of time.

A wrench was thrown into the works a week before this rally when Wolfe Bonham, our improbably named rally master, threw a bonus in that had us radically rethinking our route.  If we could connect together towns that started with a 'W' a 'T' and then an 'F', we could pick up a cumulative bonus for each set of three.  We were out in the country with tiny towns everywhere.  This was a distinct advantage as those in the Greater Toronto Area had paved over all their small towns and called them one thing.  With points so thin on the map, this seemed like the way to go.

Jeff had headed up to his internet-less cottage the night before.  I followed him up the next day, about 12 hours before the rally would start with all sorts of WTF towns lined up and a Google Map saved on my phone so I could access it off-line.  It was cooking hot on the way up, well into the 90s Fahrenheit and with a relentless wind that had me riding with a permanent 10° lean.  Winds were gusting even higher by the lake.

After a good dinner we went for a walk and watched the sun fall into Huron before we got down to the business of mangling our carefully built route.

Each WTF town combo built on itself, and the only stipulation was that you had to do them in order.  You could do other bonuses in between, so in theory you could do multiple WTFs within and around each other.

Our initial route had us riding north out of Point Clark and up to Southampton before looping back through Chesney and Walkerton, down past where we live, over to the escarpment and then down the 401 to Brampton.  We threw out Georgetown, Milton and riding along the 401 to the finish line to begin with because neither of us like riding in population - that prejudice would end up derailing us later.

I was loath to throw out our loop north around Southampton and tried to fit in some early, multiple WTF town combos.  Our original score would have been in the seven to eight thousand range, but with a couple of cuts we'd have 7000 in regular stops and four WTF combos worth 1500, 2000, 2500 and 3000 points.  That would have had us finishing with upwards of sixteen thousand points; it felt like a sure victory!  Even with the extra stops we were still lower mileage than our marathon from last year, though with almost no highway riding at speed.

As the wind continued to howl around the cottage we finally put the map down and went for a short sleep.  The next morning we woke up to tree limbs down and many branches blown off.  Unlike most mornings, it was still wild and windy on the shores of Huron and the temperature was already climbing.

We got out early and filled up right at 8am at a little two pump gas station in Amberley.  Instead of heading north up the coast we cut inland, searching for our first WTF town bonus.

Along the way we stopped in Lucknow for a terrifying statue that suited the rally theme (WTF?).  After piling on those points I realized we didn't have to go all the way to Wingham for our 'W' as Whitechurch was on the way.  We were tripping over 'W' towns!

The combos had begun, except it was so windy that my rally flag blew onto the highway in Whitechurch and I had to stuff it into the fairing to stop it going walkabout again.

A quick Google maps detour had us in the scenic town of Teeswater only a few minutes later.  This time the rally flag flew into a farmer's field.  Since we were emailing the stops in as we went (an annoyingly time consuming task), we got a warning that rally flags needed to be in every shot.  Short of some crazy glue or a photo crew following us along, I wasn't sure how we were going to do that.

We pressed on to the even prettier town of Formosa which had suddenly gotten hilly as we neared the edge of the Niagara escarpment.  Once again I was comedically chasing the rally flag into ditches and missed it in the photo.  We were off again, this time headed for a village that didn't actually show up on most maps: the mythical berg of Westford (not to be confused with Westworld).

After the road turned to gravel, then dirt, then went into a full on bayou as we entered the Greenock Swamp Wetland Complex (I couldn't make this up), we found Westford!  As we took the picture to start our second WTF town combo we got a message saying our rally flags weren't showing.  Whether this was a warning or a three thousand point penalty (we wouldn't be losing our first WTF bonus, we'd be losing our last), it took the wind out of our sails.  We'd been having a great time on our big adventure bikes slashing through the wetland complex to find the nearly fictional village of Westford only to wonder if our first 90 minutes of hard going had been for nothing.

We tried to shake it off as we saddled up and headed over to Tiverton for our next target.  The sun was starting to bake everything and the wind was relentless, but for the next little while we had it at our backs, so life was good.

The roads got gravelly, then dirty, then muddy!  Circumnavigating the Greenock Wetland Complex was a good time!

Tiverton arrived, but now we wondered what it was worth.  At that point we re-prioritized getting the rally flag clearly in every picture.  Since we were partnered up this was a relatively straightforward prospect, Jeff would take a photo of me with my phone then I'd take one of him with his.  I still wonder how other competitors working solo managed to take photos of themselves, their bike and a clear rally flag in sixty kilometer per hour gusts.

We were now working our way north up the coast Lake Huron and past the Bruce Nuclear power plant.  By mid-morning the temperatures were soaring.  Fortunately the great lake next to us did something to take the edge off.  At no point were we lolligagging, with quick stops and efficient speed between them.  We pulled into Southampton well before noon and collected two more regular stops.  From there we angled eastward and then south, into that fearsome wind, for the main leg of the rally.  We felt on top of the time and ahead of schedule.

Passing under the main output from the Bruce Nuclear Power Plant.  An operator there was the former owner of my radioactive orange Tiger!

Southampton was busy on a sunny June weekend with lots of traffic and lights.  Up until then we'd been safely ensconced deep in the country, but now we were trying to make time with people all around.

A big dog and a house covered in lawn ornaments (I know, WTF, right?) and we were back out on country lanes making (hot) wind as we headed east toward Owen Sound.

I'd never been to Tara, Ontario before, though my parents once entertained ideas about moving there.  It's a pretty little town with lots of old, brick buildings.  That became a theme of this ride.  Small Southern Ontario towns have these beautiful old brick buildings in the empty hearts of most of them.  In Southampton an enterprising group had turned one into The Outlaw Brew Company.  Passing it I was struck with the idea of just stopping and going in.  Why am I tear assing around like this?  Jeff and I both put a pin in that one though, we'll be back.

Visions of reclaiming an old brick building in rural Ontario and turning it into a motorcycle themed digital foundry, coffee shop and nano-brewery (only for local consumption) floated around in my heat soaked brain.  The stop in Chesley included a giant cow (WTF?) and then we were on to Walkerton for a sadder WTF.

Walkerton was where my son Max and I drove to pick up the Tiger on a cold spring day over a year ago.  I've got a soft spot for the place.  

The memorial gardens to the people who died in 2000 when local water treatment failed to protect its own citizens was a difficult WTF stop to see.  That it's not downtown but hidden away by the municipal buildings in the south end bothered me.  We finally found it and got our photo by the memorial waterfall.  We left Walkerton (our third 'W' town) in a reflective state of mind.

We were pushing into the afternoon now and I started to fear for time.  Even with 'aggressive navigation' between these towns, riding through them meant not being a tool and staying on the speed limits.

We got lost going south out of Walkerton on our way to Wroxeter to start another WTF town loop, but only lost about five minutes.  Trowsbridge was a shot in the dark, barely a dot on the map, but we found it, and then wrapped up this loop within a loop within a loop in Fordwich.  Checking the time we chucked Mount Forest out the window and started to run south.

We needed to close the Walkerton and Westford-Tiverton loops.  Teviotdale got Walkerton hooked up and Fergus would close one of the two.  We were originally going to head a bit west and hit Floradale, but we were running out of time fast.  I then remembered that Forks of the Credit actually has a village sign, so that would close our last WTF town loop.

South out of Teviotdale we ran into a steady stream of Sunday traffic heading for Elora (it's very pretty, I know, I live there).  The next few stops were in our own backyard, but time was slipping away, and more problematically, we'd both gotten to the point where we obviously weren't thinking clearly, which is bad when it's almost a hundred windy degrees out and you're on a motorcycle trying to make time.

We bombed south toward Elora, passing on the broken line when we could, but short of some back to the future motorcycling we weren't going to do this thing.  We had to stop for gas and I ran in and grabbed energy bars since neither of us had eaten anything in over seven hours.  Chugging Gatorade and watching the heat waves come off the pavement, Jeff asked a good question: "do we want to go all the way to Brampton?"

For the first time I got off the must-finish train and thought about it.  If we made it it'd be mighty close assuming a clean run into the GTA, which never happens (it turns out it wouldn't have, there were miles and miles of construction on the main highway leading into Brampton that we learned about afterwards).

We were both spent.  It was oven hot, we'd been fighting the wind all day and it looked like that same wind had thrown thousands of points in stops into question.  The thought of fighting our way into the shity um, city, especially when we were standing in our own backyard was too much to take.  We both had to go to work the next day and another three hours in the saddle (conservatively 1.5 hours each way plus surprise construction) put the final nail in the coffin.

That last picture of me passed out on the side of the road happened to be right outside of the Breadalbane.  Ten minutes later we were sitting in the shade re-hydrating and ordering some locally sourced chicken wings; our day was done.  The ride home from there was 7 minutes long with no traffic.

We texted our tap out but there were no regrets.  We had a great day seeing all sorts of things we hadn't seen before and finding several places that don't officially exist.  The missed flags at the beginning knocked us off our game, the heat and wind beat us down and ultimately the thought of fighting our way into any part of the GTA at the end was too much to bear.

A few days later we discovered the winner had over twenty-one thousand points and had made thirty-five stops while covering over 450kms.  I'm still trying to work out how that was possible.  We would have hit 25 stops on our way through a 435km ride had we done the whole thing.  

Google Maps says that should take 6 hours and 2 minutes, but that assumes no stops.  If you've got to find each place, a place to safely stop the bike where you can take a picture that meets the requirements, take the photo, send it via email, saddle up and go again, that sucks up time.  This assumes that you immediately find each stop with no problems and don't need to stop for gas, or eating, or drinking, or anything else.

35 stops at 3 minutes apiece (an astonishingly quick stop time) would mean you'd have six and a quarter hours to cover 457kms.  That works out to an over 73km/hr average speed.  That is quick if you take into account having to slow down and get back up to pace after each of 30+ stops, stop signs, traffic lights and traffic, not to mention speed limits on anything other than a highway.

We spent most of our time on empty country roads and we weren't lollygagging.  At one point Jeff told me to ease up because I was likely to attract the popo.  If we came upon traffic we generally passed it.  We covered 358kms and pulled the plug in Fergus at 2:48pm - 6hrs and 48 minutes in.  Google tells me it was another hour and twenty-four minutes of riding to the finish line on our route, not counting the time needed to stop four more times.  Our not lollygagging average speed before we pulled the plug with nineteen stops done was 52.65 km/hr.  To make up for traffic lights, riding in towns, stop signs and traffic, we were doing a bit more than that most of the time.  We didn't waste time with silly things like eating.  Until I've figured out how to bend the laws of physics it looks like a rally win is beyond my capabilities, or my willingness to take risks.

A doable map - that we didn't do.

I'm away during the next two rallies, but I'll be out there again in the fall.  I've never done Port Dover on Friday the 13th, so that'll give me an excuse to overcome my cruiser phobia and go.

I think the idea of pushing for a big points day is no more.  I'll enjoy the ride, see things I don't normally see and make sure I'm not pushing so hard that I can't enjoy the camaraderie at the end.  That was the most disappointing aspect of the day, not hearing about all the other adventures that happened to everyone else.

In case you feel cheated by the lack of photography in this post, there is even more here:
https://goo.gl/photos/eNxvnX.LW6Lbd2AyP8