IIHTM (If I Had The Money): September in Spain & Then The Long Way Home

This is why it's good to be friends with Austin Vince on Facebook, it makes you daydream.

What would I do if I were free of money and the time constraints it demands?  I'd be planning a month in Spain next year!

The week of the 19th to the 23rd (Monday to Friday) would be doing the Pyrenees with Austin and crew on my Triumph Tiger Explorer.

The Aragón round of MotoGP happens on the next weekend!

I'd aim to get in country with my bike in the first week of September and then have the  a couple of weeks toodling about before a week in the Pyranees with Austin Vince!  After the Austin week I'd be straight over to Aragon for the MotoGP weekend.  After a couple of days of getting organized, the long trek home would begin... the long way round!

A week riding the Pyranees with Austin Vince, and then a weekend at MotoGP Aragon!

Spain to Tokyo via Southern Europe, India, South East Asia and China, would be one hell of a ride.  A flight to L.A. would have me riding through the southern States before heading north and home in the spring.

Bike shipping to Europe?  about ~ $1000
http://canadamotoguide.com/2015/03/03/air-canadas-new-motorcycle-cargo-options/

http://www.thethinkbox.ca/2012/11/18/how-to-fly-and-store-your-motorcycle-overseas-for-touring-without-using-a-shipping-company-cheaply/

http://www.ridedot.com/faq/  

http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/get-ready/shipping-the-bike

I couldn't find anything off-hand, but I'd guess about $2000 to fly the bike back into North America.  I could always ask Austin how he did it.


Timing of a fall Spain to Japan trip?

Southern Europe: September/October
India/South East Asia: November/December
China/Japan: January/February
Southern US:  March/April



This route is about 29,000kms with 3 air cargo bits and one hell of a ferry ride:
Toronto to Madrid
Turkey to India
Shanghai to Osaka Ferry https://www.shanghai-ferry.co.jp/english/unkou.htm
Tokyo to Los Angeles

Sabbatical Rides: Riding the Americas

Previously I've thought about various ways I could do a four years pay over five years and then take a sabbatical year off work and still get paid.  From circumnavigating North America to tracing my grandfather's route through occupied France in 1940 during World War Two, there are a lot of interesting ways I could take a year off with an epic motorcycle ride included.

One of the first motorcycle travel ideas I had was to do the Pan-American trip from Prudhoe Bay in Alaska to Ushuaia in Argentina, from the top to the bottom of the Americas.  This ride is an even more extreme version of the North American circumnavigation as the mileage is mega; over 56,000kms!  At a 400km a day average that works out to 141 days or over 20 weeks making miles every day.  With a day off every week that adds another 3 weeks to the trip.  Fitting it into 24 weeks would mean some rest days and some extra time to cover the border crossings and rougher sections of the trip.

Another way to look at this might be from a Nick Sanders angle.  He did Prudhoe Bay to Ushuaia and back again in an astonishing 46 days.  That's 23,464kms x 2, so 46,928kms in 46 days, or an astonishing 1020kms average per day, including stops for flights over the Darien Gap between Columbia and Panama two times.  That approach (I imagine) gets pretty psychedelic and I might not really get the sense that I'm anywhere doing it that way, but there are certainly ways to tighten up the schedule and move with more purpose if needed.

The actual number of days needed if I ran it over 24 weeks would be 168.  The best time to hit Prudhoe Bay on the Arctic Ocean coast of Alaska is obviously during the long days of the northern summer.  If I left home mid-July I'd be up Prudhoe way eighteen days later at 400kms/day.  If I push on tarmac I should be able to get up there by the beginning of August and then begin the long ride south.

A good tie-up in South America would be to follow a bit of the Dakar Rally - this year running in Peru from January 6th to 17th.  After that it would be down south to the tip of South America in their late summer before heading back north.

The 2019 MotoGP season lands in Texas the weekend of April 12-14, making a nice stop before the final leg home in the spring.  Two weeks before that they are in Argentina.  Trying to connect the two races overland would be an interesting challenge.  It's just over six thousand kilometres north to Cartegena, Columbia and the boat around the Darien Gap, or just over seven thousand heading through the Amazon.  Then another forty-five hundred kilometres through Central America to Texas for the next race.  In a straight run that'd be almost eleven thousand kilometres across thirteen countries in eleven days if I managed to get to Texas for the pre-qualifying.  That'd be a Nick Sanders worthy feat. 

The PanAmerican Trip Tip to Toe and back again in sections:

North America to Prudhoe Bay:  https://goo.gl/maps/RWn36jct6LT2
19,571kms July-August to Prudhoe Bay, August-November to Colon:

South America South:  https://goo.gl/maps/nx4i6MwUqYz
11,106kms  Nov-Jan to Peru for Dakar, Jan to Mar to Ushuai

South America North:  https://goo.gl/maps/P5wQzEND7US2
11,057kms  Via Circuit De Rio Hondo MotoGP race in March.

North America North:  https://goo.gl/maps/4ZAC686McuC2
6,989kms

56,357kms.  @400kms/day average that's 141 days continuously on the road.

Leave July, Prudhoe Bay by end of July, Dakar in January in Peru, Ushuaia in February, Circuit de Rio Hondo for the MotoGP race at the end of March then a hard 11 days north through the Amazon to Austin Texas for the next race in mid-April.  Home by the end of April.   And I'd still have May-August to write about what happened and publish.

Motorbike media bits and pieces...

I came across some motorcycle media recently that is a nice diversion if you're suffering from PMS.

Eatsleepride.com has a series of motorcycle short documentaries that will keep you rolling on two wheels, even if it's vicariously.

The Women's Motorcycle Exhibit video led me to the site;  much better than the floozy on a bike photography you usually see.  There is nothing sexier than a strong, capable woman riding a bike (as opposed to a skinny model draping herself on one).

The other shorts were all new to me except for Long Live The Kings, which has since spawned The Greasy Hands Preachers.  The reviews for that film have suggested that it's a shallow but pretty look at current motorbike customization trends.  I was hoping for something that plumbs the depths like Matt Crawford's Shopclass As Soulcraft (a must read),  but it evidently isn't that, though I'm still looking forward to seeing it.

I also found Brittown, a documentary about Meatball, a master mechanic and Triumph motorbike connoisseur out of California.  It's a genuine look at a genuine fellow.  You'd be hard pressed to find any hipster bullshit in this video.

I also completed the set.  Having already seen Faster and Fastest, I was finally able to see The Doctor, The Tornado and The Kentucky Kid, the middle Motogp video in the trilogy.  It's a close look at a single race at Leguna Seca.  The phoned in interviews are a bit low-rent, but the drama is as engaging as ever.  If you want to get into Motogp, these videos will give you the background you need to get right into next season.

In the meantime, the mighty Austin Vince put out Mini-Mondo, another motorbike short (poem!) that (hopefully) gets you out on two wheels and seeing what's around you:

We're buried in snow in mid-November and thoughts of riding are weeks behind me now, but at least the media I'm finding keeps the two wheel dreaming alive.

Balancing Personal Responsibility with Sainthood

The in-law's cottage happens to be about 20 kms away from the bottom of the 507.  I like the 507.  It twists and turns through the Canadian Shield offering you bend after bend without the usual tedium of Southern Ontario roads.  I lost myself riding down it the other day.

Last week I was pondering how fear can creep in to your riding in extreme circumstances, like trying to ride through a GTA rush hour commute.  This week I'm struggling with how the Canada Moto-Guide and Cycle Canada are portraying deaths on the 507, which is evidently a magnet for sportbike riders who have confused public roads with private race tracks.

On the motorcyclists spectrum I tend toward the sportier end of things.  I've owned Ninjas, sports-tourers, adventure and off-road bikes.  The only thing that chased me away from sportbikes early in my riding career were the insane insurance rates and the fact that any modern motorcycle is already light years beyond most sports cars in terms of performance.  My old Tiger goes 0-60 in under four seconds, or about as fast as many current top-end muscle and sports cars.  To spend thousands more on insurance for a bike designed for a race-track just doesn't make a lot of sense, especially when you factor in the condition of Ontario roads.

If you missed the British MotoGP race at Silverstone last
weekend, do yourself a favour and look it up.  From start
to finish it was spectacular.

Having said that, I've been a diehard MotoGP fan for the past six years.  Watching riders develop and express their genius at the pinnacle of motorcycle racing is not only glorious to watch, but it has taught me a lot about riding dynamics, and I think it has improved my bike-craft.  I totally get speed.  Riding a bike always feels like a bit of a tight-rope walk, and being able to do it quickly and smoothly is a skill-set I highly value.

Like so many things in motorcycling, balance seems to be key.  Last week, among the idiotic commuters of the GTA, a frustrating number of whom were texting in their laps and half paying attention, I was unable to manage that danger and it led to a great deal of anxiety.  Rather than give in to that fear or throw a blanket of bravado over it, I looked right at it and found a way to overcome it.  Honesty with yourself is vital if you're actually interested in mastering your bikecraft.  I came to the conclusion that you need to approach two wheels with a touch of swagger and arrogance when that fear rises up.  This is done to moderate fear and give you back some rational control, especially when circumstances conspire against you.

The problem with swagger and arrogance... and fear for that matter, is that it's easy to go too far, and so many people seem to.  Emotionality seems to dictate so many aspects of motorcycling culture.  From the arrogance of the ding-dongs in shorts and flip flops who tend to the extremes of the motorcycling spectrum (cruisers and sportbikes), to the ex-motorcyclists and haters who can only speak from fear, it's these extremes who seem to speak for the sport.  I struggle with those emotionally driven extremes, but recently CMG seems intent on writing odes to them.

The CMG editorial news-letter this week makes much of not knowing why this rider died:

“He knew the dangers, and he admitted to going fast,” says his partner, Lisa Downer. “He knew when, where, how – it was just one of those things. A lot of people think the way the curve was, there was a car (approaching him) that was just a little too far over the line and David had to compensate. By the time that car went around the bend, they wouldn’t even have known that David went off, because the sightline’s gone. Or it could have been an animal, or a bit of gravel. You just don’t know.”


There were no skid marks on the road. Like so many of our lost, no one will ever know why.

Our lost?  Here's a video by that same rider from the year before:

"...the helmet cam shows his speedometer. “A decent pace on the 507 in central Ontario, Canada,” he wrote in the description. “Typical Ontario roads, bumpy, keeping me in check.” His average speed on the near-deserted road was above 160 km/h, more than double the speed limit, and at one point it shows an indicated 199, where the digital display tops out. At such speeds on a public road, there’s little room for error." - little room for error?

With that on the internet, one wonders how he had his license the following year.  You can come at this from 'it might have been an animal, or a car, or gravel', but I think I'm going to come at it from here:

"David was an experienced rider who’d got back into motorcycling just three years ago; he was 52, but had put bikes on hold since his 30s when he went out west..."

That'll be over 170 kms/hr on rough pavement around
blind corners next to a massive provincial park full of
large mammals...

An 'experienced rider' who had been riding for three years, after a twenty year gap?  And his first bike in twenty years was a World Super-bike winning Honda super sport?  Whatever he was riding in the mid-eighties and early nineties certainly wasn't anything like that RC51.  What his actual riding experience was is in question here, but rather than assign any responsibility to an inexperienced rider, we are speculating about animals, cars and gravel?

I generally disagree with the speed kills angle that law enforcement likes to push.  If that were the case all our astronauts would be dead.  So would everyone who has ever ridden the Isle of Man TT.  Speed doesn't kill, but how you manage it is vital.  There is a time and a place.  If you're intent on riding so beyond the realm of common sense on a public road, then I think you should take the next step and sort yourself out for track days, and then find an opportunity to race.  In Ontario you have all sorts of options from Racer5's track day training to the Vintage Road Racing  Association, where you can ride it hard and put it away wet in a place where you're not putting people's children playing in their front yard in mortal peril.  If you've actually got some talent, you could find yourself considering CSBK.  Surely there is a moral imperative involved in how and where you choose to ride?  Surely we are ultimately responsible for our riding?

Strangely, Mark's article, The Quick and the Dead, from 2017 has a much clearer idea of time and place when it comes to riding at these kinds of speeds.  In this most recent news-letter we're at "it would be easy to dismiss David Rusk as just another speed freak, killed by his own excess".  In 2017 he was quite reasonably stating: "If you’re going to speed, don’t ride faster than you can see and dress properly. And if you’re going to speed, do it on a track".  I guess the new blameless recklessness sells better?

There is a romantic fatalism implicit in how both CMG and Cycle Canada have framed these deaths that willfully ignores much of what caused this misery in the first place.  Motorcycling is a dangerous activity.  Doing it recklessly is neither brave, nor noble.  Trying to dress it up in sainthood, or imaging blame when the cause if repeatedly slapping you in the face is neither productive nor beneficial to our sport.  Up both ends of the motorcycling spectrum are riders who are all about the swagger.  For those dick swingers this kind of it's-never-your-fault writing is like going to church.  I get it.  Writing for your audience is the key to enlarging it.

Last Sunday I did a few hundred kilometres picking up bodies of water for the Water is Life GT rally, with the 507 being the final run south to the cottage.  The roads weren't exceptionally busy and I was able to fall into a rhythm on the 507 that reminded me of what a great road it is.  As it unfolds in front of you, you can't guess where it's going to go next.  Surrounded by the trees, rocks and lakes of the Shield, it's a gloriously Canadian landscape.

I'm not dawdling when I ride.  I prefer to not have traffic creeping up on me, I'm usually the one doing the passing (easy on a bike).  The big Tiger fits me and the long suspension can handle the rough pavement, but I'm never over riding the limits of the bike where gravel on the road, an animal or other drivers dictate how my ride is going to end.  The agility and size of a bike offer me opportunities that driving a car doesn't, but it doesn't mean I open the taps just because I can.  Balance is key.

There are times when a rider (or any road user) can be in the wrong place at the wrong time and no amount of skill will save you.  For the riders (and anyone) who perishes like that, I have nothing but sympathy.  They are the ones we should be reserving sainthood for.  Not doing the things that you love, like being out in the wind on a bike, because of that possibility of being in the wrong place at the wrong time will neuter your quality of life, there are some things you can't control.  

I'm well aware of the dangers of riding, but I'm not going to throw a blanket of arrogance over them, and I'm certainly not going to describe recklessness as a virtue while hiding in delusions of blame.  Doing a dangerous thing well has been a repeated theme on TMD, as has media's portrayal of riding.  Having our own media trying to dress up poor decision making as victimization isn't flattering to motorcycling.  If you can't be honest about your responsibilities when riding perhaps it's time to hang up your boots.  If you don't, reality might do it for you.

As Vale says, "it's dangerous, not only for you, but for all the facking idiots in cars."

Related Thoughts:

Training Ignorance & Fear Out of Your Bikecraft:
https://tkmotorcyclediaries.blogspot.com/2014/02/training-ignorance-fear-out-of-your.html

Parent, Child or Zen Master:
https://tkmotorcyclediaries.blogspot.com/2014/05/child-parent-or-zen-master.html

Do Bikers Ignore Reality?
https://tkmotorcyclediaries.blogspot.com/2013/10/do-bikers-ignore-reality.html

What else are you going to do at a cabin in the woods but pen and ink?

Texas Meandering & a Better Idea

While the ice-storm of certain doom forms outside, I'm watching Qatar qualifying and daydreaming about making a MotoGP race this year.  The only one on my continent runs in a few weeks in Texas.  This has me reviewing my Texas Ironbutt dreams.

I'd originally gone for an Ironbutt on the way down and a shorter finish up the next day.  If I could push the limits I could condensify it even further (making it more excitingly possible!).

It's just short of a twenty-four hour ride to Texas from here.  An early wake-up Friday and I could do the Ironbutt to late Friday night (60mph avg for 17 hours 4am-9pm would do it).  The last five hundred miles after an early wake up should get me to Austin on Saturday by about 2pm... just in time for qualifying.  A good sleep Saturday night and then I'm at the race Sunday.  It wraps up about 4pm.  A good push to 10pm should put me a third of the way back, I could finish up the rest on Monday.  In theory, only two days off work!






I could fly down and back if I was loaded, but a quick look around found a flight out of Detroit (4 hour drive away) leaving Friday at 10:30am and getting in to Austin just before 3pm.  Flying out of the local airport meant layovers and a long time waiting.

I found a KTM 390 Duke to rent for the four days from Lone Star Moto Rentals.  I think i could fit riding gear in carry on luggage, so there'd be no waiting for luggage and I could be in and out of the airports quickly enough.  With the bike rental, hotels and flights I'd be looking at about $3000.


By comparison the ride down would be $1000 in hotels, $200 in gas and I wouldn't be herded onto a plane at any point.  Call me perverse but were I to go, I'd ride down.

Having said all that, I'd rather spend a thousand bucks on Racer5's introductory track riding program. I could buy some quality race kit that'd do for years and still come in at less than this abbreviated weekend. It'd be nice to see the MotoGP boys doing their thing again, but short of an unlimited budget it doesn't make much sense.

Chasing Storms

The other day riding home from a periodontal appointment in a foul mood I rode into a wave of ozone and turbulent clouds.  Spots of rain began to hit the visor while waves of rain approached over the horizon.  I pulled over to take some shower pictures and ponder the state of the world; it's been a tough month in motorcycle culture.

Robert Pirsig died in April after a long and difficult life.  Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is a deep and nuanced read written by a man of tremendous intelligence who battled with mental illness.  If you can hang on to it and the philosophy it pitches at you, you'll find a an ending worth waiting for.  Pirsig's little book is one of the best examples of deep thinking intertwined with motorcycling I've found.  He leaves behind an important legacy.

Nicky Hayden, by contrast, was living the dream.  A man who found his passion early and then excelled at it, Nicky raced motorcycles in pretty much every level of road racing there is, and he did it with an infectious grin plastered across his face.

He was in the paddock of MotoGP a few years ago when I started watching, but by then he was on a satellite bike and struggling near the back of the field.  It wasn't until I saw The Doctor, The Tornado and the Kentucky Kid that I realized the trajectory of Nicky Hayden's career and came to respect both his talent and his tenacity.

Nicky was training on a bicycle on a road in Italy after his last round of World Superbike racing on my birthday when he was hit by a car.  After some days in a coma he passed away.  It's the kind of news you don't expect to hear.  Nicky wanted to work on reintroducing a new generation of American road racers to the sport when he retired (there are currently no Americans contesting MotoGP when it used to be dominated by them), but instead he's gone.  Because of a driver in Italy not seeing a cyclist none of that will happen now.

I stood there feeling the temperature dip, the wind kick up and the darkness fall while ruminating on these two very different deaths - an old man and a young man, an academic and an athlete, both linked over decades only by their love of two wheels.

I jumped on the bike and got home just as everything went pear shaped outside.  Rain lashed the windows and the day went dark.  

Of course, as is the way of things, when the storm passed the sun came back and reminded me how beautiful the world can be.

WOMBO.ART: How AI generated art offers insight into motorcycle marketing

Wombo's a rocket ship!

I teach computer technology in my day job and I've watched the coming of artificial intelligence over the past decade with interest.  AI and machine learning is getting better at managing real world data like visual information.  Recently, a Canadian company named Wombo have created an abstract art creation tool that builds original images from some key words and a selected art style.  This AI art generator offers some interesting insights, especially in a world where branding is everything (such as in motorcycling).

Wombo (https://www.wombo.art/) is easy to play with - just throw some key words in and pick a style and you get an original piece of abstract art.  If you run the same information it comes out different each time too.

So, what to throw in first?  Valentino Rossi, of course - he's front and centre in many motorcyclist's minds this fall.  

The machine intelligence putting this together has scanned every image it could find of The Doctor.  It creates its own contextual understanding from that massive dataset.  It doesn't understand who Valentino is (though it might have scanned articles about him for keywords and have used that too).  These randomized but thematic pieces makes some interesting inferences.  Firstly, Valentino means high-vis yellow... and Yamaha blue.  This begs the question: "what were Yamaha thinking sending Valentino off to retire in teal and black?

Perhaps my favourite part of this piece is the obvious Doctor's Dangle happening.  The dangle was started by Valentino around 2005.  It's still a bit of a mystery how it makes you go faster, but I suspect it offers a bit of fine tuning on your balance under heavy breaking while also offering a bit more wind resistance to slow you down.  Wombo's algorithm won't know any of that, but it knows to associate the dangle with the man who invented it.  At least it did this time, every other time I tried a Rossi image it wasn't there.

The Rossi implications got me thinking about how a machine intelligence sees a brand... and what interesting conclusions you might draw from it.  Ducati got the first swing at it since they're such an iconic brand:

The colours certainly shout Ducati, and while the motorcycle isn't obvious, there is something about the lean that suggests two wheels.  If someone who'd never heard of Ducati were shown this, I suspect they'd consider it a sporting brand rather than something else like a heritage focused company.  I think they'd be happy with that.

I then threw Triumph into the mix:

Not sure what to make of that one!  Triumph's long history before its resurrection must make for interesting texture in the data.  This looks very art deco and feels like 50s and 60s advertising might have inspired it.  Once again, the idea that Triumph is tied to motorcycles is evident in the edges, especially the one middle right.

Just now I did two more "Triumph Motorcycle" renditions:

I still see bikes (but then I tend to see bikes).  There is a sense of speed in how the designs depict the abstract objects.  I can't help but wonder if the colour choices aren't from actual bikes.

Here's one for MotoGP:

I can almost see Marc Marquez and Valentino Rossi in that.  It certainly contains a feeling of competition and speed.  Does the machine intelligence know who Marc and Valentino are?  Is this an echo from Sepang in 2015?  I wonder if that'd make anyone wince in MotoGP's marketing office.

Wombo's AI art generator is easy to get lost in.  The images seem to speak in surprising ways.  If you've got a minute, go play with it.

The Ride To Indy: A Day At The Track

I'm in an entirely dodgy hotel by the Detroit airport after a long day in the saddle.  Indy was fantastic.  The weather has been epic and the Concours has been faultless.  I've only got the phone pics at the moment.  The camera pics will have to wait until I'm home and can get them off the camera, they look pretty sharp.

I wish we has more time to spend at the track, but it was a great reconnaissance trip.  I'll be spending more time down there next year (please don't cancel IndyGP Dorna!).

In the meantime, with some phone-made media maybe I can convince you to take your bike down to Indy for the MotoGP, it's a special motorbiking experience.

We got there early and were directed to the back gate and onto the back straight of the oval- all bikes who showed up
were parked on the straight!  - I gave her the beans going down the straight, there is nothing like hearing your own bike's
engine howling off the concrete retaining walls of the Indianapolis oval!

Sitting on the main straight watching Moto3 doing their first practice. The little 250cc thumpers are astonishingly loud!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xnviublqw4blo_HSH65SbAWfHLSGhmI9aA/view?usp=sharing

When we came back at about 3:30pm there were hundreds and hundreds of bikes!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/15_S0OcCrxJnMYzVS4yw7XHZzGlHUSd8RXw/view?usp=sharing

Yep, still Indy - there is a golf course in the middle of the oval!  Those people on the berm are watching MotoGP
racers dicing with the s-bends on the road circuit.

A North American distributed motorcycling network

It's the time of year again.  My next chance to go for a ride is months away.  As the dark descends I need to get my head out of the idea that I'm stuck in a box for the next four months.  I wonder what it would cost to set up a series of self-storage nodes across the southern US to enable year round riding.  With some clever placement I'd be able to fly in and access a wide variety of riding opportunities all year 'round.

Looking at companies that provide self storage I like the look of Cubesmart.  They get great reviews, offer good sized storage units with electricity and lighting and look to be well maintained.  They also offer parking and other services that would make picking up and dropping off a bike easy.  Storage with the same company means I'll also get looked after better.  Setting up all three nodes in the south near airports means I could fly in and be on two wheels in no time.

WEST COAST NODE: a storage unit in San Francisco

The Cubesmart I'd aim for is in Freemont, about 40 minutes from the Airport.  $140US a month gets you a 90 square foot storage area that could easily swallow a bike or two and some gear.  

There are dozens of best rides around the city, so this makes for a target rich centre for motorbiking. A winter ride doing the PCH north of SanFran and through the mountains back to the city would be a lovely idea...

If San Francisco were my West Coast base I'd have access too all of California and could still reach out to the South West even in the winter months.  That'd be the nicest time to ride the deserts anyway.

EAST COAST NODE: a storage unit near Knoxville, TN

Cubesmart has a 10x10 foot storage unit just north of Knoxville for under ninety bucks US a month (about half what San Francisco is?).   It's about an eleven hour drive from where I am now out of the snow and into the Smokey Mountains, or a couple of hours by plane.

I could proceed south to the Tail of the Dragon and further on into Georgia, the Atlantic coast and Florida or west towards New Orleans.

The run south into the Smokey Mountains is a quick one:


Austin, Texas and the lone MotoGP appearance left in North America is only a couple of long days west.  Then again, Austin would make another good network node...

Central/South West Node: a storage unit near Austin, TX

There'a another Cubesmart less than 20 minutes away from the Austin airport.  Like the Knoxville one it's less than a hundred bucks a month for secure, lit and electrified storage (which will be handy for getting the bikes ready to go).  

Circuit of the Americas where North America's last MotoGP race is held is only twenty minutes away.  The Twisted Sisters, one of the best roads to ride in North America, are only an hour away...



Outfitting Each Node

I'd build up a package to keep with the bikes in each storage depot.  A duffel bag with basic tools, fluids, an extension cord and a battery jumper just in case I have to give things a spark to get them going.  I'd make a point of putting the bikes away well, but you never know how long it might be until someone is back to exercise them, so having the kit on hand would be helpful, especially if I'm getting there at 4am after a red-eye for some much-needed two wheeled therapy. 

Licensing bikes in Ontario for riding elsewhere would be a stupid idea as Ontario is one of the worst places to own a motorcycle.  If I could find a reasonable place to make a residence (like BC or Alberta), I could license a number of bikes and leave them scattered around North America.  If I hadn't been there in a while all I'd need to bring along is maybe a new plate sticker if needed.

Off hand, my 3 remote stables would look like this:

West Coast
Kawasaki Z1000R:  my favourite super naked motorbike.  With a look like something out of Pacific Rim it would keep up with the image conscious West Coast.  As a canyon carver little comes close.   It's a bit extreme, but isn't that what riding the West Coast calls for?

I'd have an SW-Mototech EVO cargo bag that would let me turn the big Zed (and the Suzuki below) into a tourer for those longer trips.

East Coast

With the Tail of the Dragon right around the corner, Knoxville calls for a bike that can handle the corners but can also cover distances if I wanted to ride to the Florida Keys or New Orleans.  Most sports bikes look small under me, but not the mighty Hayabusa.  It isn't as skinny and dynamic as a sports bike, but it's still more than able to handle twisties while also being a surprisingly capable distance muncher.  BIKE Magazine just took one across the USA.

Central
For long distance reach and also the chance to ride into the desert when needed, I'd go for the new Triumph Tiger for the Austin depot.  A good two up machine that'll do everything well, it also has good cool weather capabilities for riding in mountains in the winter.

That's three very different machines for each storage point down south.  Swapping machines between depots would also be a cool idea, so riding the Triumph to San Francisco and then riding the big Zed back to Austin if I felt like changing up the options.  Setting up each bike drop would also make for a good end of season ride down south.

***

California Dreaming

The snow is blowing sideways in the dark, only visible as it passes through the dull orange of the sodium parking lot lights.  The car crunches to a stop in knee deep drifts.  I shut it off and the cold immediately begins to creep in through the cracks.  Grabbing the duffel bag on the seat next to me I make a mad dash for the monorail entrance at the end of the long term parking lot, the car is already being buried in snow.  A big Boeing thunders overhead, lights invisible in the swirling darkness.

The monorail slips silently through the night into the terminal.  The airport is dead, barely a soul in sight.  With a printed e-ticket I walk straight to security and US customs and pass through quickly.  Two hours later the Airbus is thundering down the runway and I'm watching snow vortex off the wings as we slip into the night.  Its a five hour and forty minute red-eye flight ahead of the coming dawn; we land in San Francisco at 4am local time.

With no luggage to wait on I'm out of the airport in minutes and in one of many waiting cabs heading to Freemont.  It's a foggy nine degree night as the cab quickly makes its way down empty streets to the storage lockup.  Sunrise is beginning to hint in the east as I unlock the roll up door to reveal a covered motorbike in the shadows.  The bike underneath gleams black and green in the predawn light as I pull the blanket off.  If I was tired before, I'm less so now.

I transfer a few clothes from the duffel to the hangover soft panniers and belt them to the bike.  I give it the once over and make sure everything is ready to fly.  With the key in the ignition I turn it and watch LEDs play across the dash.  The breeze outside smells of sea salt and the fog is beginning to lift; I feel like I've landed on another planet.

The big Zed fires up on the touch of the starter so I roll it forward out of the container and let it settle down into an idle.  I check everything again and make sure the panniers are secure on the back.

While the bike warms up I change out of travel clothes and leave them in the duffel hanging on the wall.  A few minutes later I'm in boots, riding pants and leather jacket and feeling warm in the cool morning air.  It's mid-winter here too, but a Northern Californian mid-winter is a very different thing from Ontario.  The forecast is calling for fifteen degree days, no nights under five and mostly crisp, sunny weather.  This would be ideal fall riding weather back home and this Canadian riding gear is built for cool days like these.

 The PCH is calling so I throw on my helmet and saddle up as the sky brightens.  The 880 is still quiet as Oakland is just beginning to wake up around me.  I'm through Oakland and over the Bay Bridge before rush hour builds.  Traffic is just beginning to build in town as I roll through San Francisco and out through The Presidio and onto the Golden Gate Bridge.

I pull into the Shoreline Coffee Shop in Mill Valley just north of the bridge for a big plate of eggs and bacon and some good coffee; it's just past 7am.  I've got six days ahead of me to explore the coast and mountain roads around here before I've got to go back to the land of ice and snow.