The Iron Butt Rally is long distance motorcycling's most challenging endurance event. It runs once every two years in the continental US and Lobo Loco Rally Master, Wolfe Bonham, is a veteran of the event. Wolfe ran the 2023 IBR and has been sharing his ride on Facebook, but he said he's OK with guest posting on TMD, so here is parts 1-3! Eleven thousand miles in eleven days? Getting ready for this, let alone doing it, is an epic undertaking... enjoy!
The Iron Butt Rally is the Superbowl of long distance motorcycle endurance competitions. In the 11 days of the event riders will cover anything from 9000 to as much as 14000 miles (14-22,500kms!), depending on their routing. It is a delicate balance of miles vs. rest. Get it right and you could find glory. Get it wrong and you could find a hospital bed, or worse.
As entrants into the Iron Butt Rally we know more than a year in advance that we've been accepted into the challenge.
Most riders begin preparations at least 6 months in advance making sure their motorcycle is up to the task, entering other smaller competitions to practice routing skills, and doing a bunch of progressively longer certification rides to get your body used to what you're about to put it through.
In my case I had been so caught up in new home renovations and building a massive workshop that I wasn't able to do any of this. In fact, in all of 2022 I didn't do a single long distance certification ride. And, due to border closures, it had been more than 3 years since I had entered a scavenger hunt style rally.
With a mere 2 weeks before the IBR, I put the final touches on my shop, pulled my motorcycles out of storage, and began the process of building a Rally Bike.
I had three 2003 BMW R1150GS parts bikes, one of which had low kilometers, but clutch issues. That was to be my competition bike.
I spent the next 2 weeks twisting wrenches 18+ hours a day, scrambling to get parts ordered and delivered on such short notice.
I ran into clearance issues with my auxiliary fuel tap into my main tank which had me scratching my head for 4 hours. Turns out my other tank, being plastic, was able to flex just enough to clear the frame. Filing down the brass fitting as much as I dared got me closer but I still needed about 1/16". Desperate at 2am, out comes the big sledge hammer. I'm sure that a 16th of an inch bend in the motorcycle's frame won't matter!
Two days before I need to leave for the start line in Pittsburgh I get my first test ride on the bike. I get home after 30 minutes with a long list of things that need to still change or be fixed.
Some parts are not available in time or can't be shipped to Canada before I leave so I opt to have them shipped to the hotel in Pittsburgh. I can do a few last minute installs in the parking lot. These will include my hydration system and some needed wiring for my heated gear.
I'm packing the bike honestly worried I've bitten off more than I can chew.
The bike is untested. Other than little 250cc bikes on the teaching lot, I haven't ridden any big bikes AT ALL this year, and hardly any kilometers last year. Oh, and I'm 20 lbs heavier than I've ever done an IBR in my life, and I'm still recovering from a bad cold/cough with a ton of meds on the bike hoping it all clears up before the start....
Part Two - IBR 2023
Sitting on the Launch Pad
The ride to Pittsburgh was really my first ride of any distance this year. As I settled into the saddle I began to assess potential long term issues. Relearning how to relax my shoulders, relax my grip, sit more upright, etc. Proper body position would become the key to enduring 20+ hours per day on the bike for 11 days in a row.
Arriving at the hotel parking lot in Pittsburgh was a very emotional experience for me. Most of my life has been lived as a nomad, and as a result my base of friends is spread around the globe. With all the CoVid lockdowns of the past year not only did that mean I couldn't compete in the 2021 IBR, but it also meant that I had been cut off from so many of my friends. Seeing them all after so long meant tons of hugs and a few tears.
But I still had work to do on the bike, and the next morning would be the whirlwind of tech inspections and registrations. I went to the lobby to retrieve 2 important packages that were shipped there in advance... and they were nowhere to be found!
The lobby staff said to check back in the morning. This was unacceptable to me. I had tracking numbers that showed both packages had arrived. The morning wasn't going to make them suddenly appear!
After getting more and more insistent, and involving no less than 5 hotel staff, the packages were finally found.
I proceeded to get my hydration system installed, confirmed the new wiring functioned correctly with my heated gear, and made a few more ergonomic adjustments to the bike that had popped up on the ride down.
After some drinks and an excellent Reuben Sandwich with long missed friends it was time to sleep before the chaos of tech day.
The next morning found all the competitors proceeding through a series of lines and inspections; a mini-rally in and of itself. The lead up to the start of the competition is 2-3 days and includes things like a 30 mile ride to calibrate everyone's odometers against each others, safety and capacity inspection for the plethora of different auxiliary fuel cell set ups, confirmation of our satellite GPS tracking systems, insurance, medical evacuation confirmations, and the sobering video deposition of death, where we acknowledge the risks of this competition and wave all liabilities to the organization.
The whole process takes several hours to complete, and my only hurdle was that "Warchild" didn't like the way my fuel cell was vented. An easy, but necessary fix, as you never want to be on the bad side of Dale Wilson.
The rally poster was put on display beginning the speculation by all the riders as to what the overall theme would be. There was a prominent chicken in the poster, and I was convinced the final leg "hero run" would be from Denver to Chicken, Alaska, before returning to Pittsburgh. Running the math it was 6600 miles... just barely doable in the 5.5 days of the final leg if you managed back to back 1200 mile days.
Greg Camp surprised me showing up with Bam Baker, so we all went on an ice cream run after clearing inspection. We were now off the clock until Sunday's rider meetings.
However, on the ride to the ice cream shop I couldn't help but notice the ever present smell of burning clutch from my bike. The clutch didn't appear to be slipping at all, but something definitely wasn't right inside. Would it hold up for 11 days? Would I have to baby yet another bike to an IBR finish, or would it leave me stranded in some place like Chicken, Alaska?!
Part Three - IBR 2023
Cleared for Launch
Sunday afternoon has our standard rider's meeting, following the rookie rider's meeting. After that we just have to anxiously await the dinner banquet where we're finally given the Rally Book that will dictate our fates for the next 11 days.
And before you know it we're all opening our Rally Packs, which seem oddly thin.
The theme this year is food, and while there are not a lot of locations to choose from in the first 2.5 day leg, we are all given identical Bingo cards with 25 restaurant chains on them. To claim each we'll need a photo of our motorcycle with our Rally Flag in front of the restaurant along with a receipt for a purchase inside. This will prove to be quite a time suck. A normal photo stop can be done by an experienced rally rider in under 2 minutes, including photo and paperwork... but going inside for a receipt could take 5-10 minutes each. They aren't worth a lot of points, but if you start to score Bingo rows or columns the points start to add up quickly. Blacking out the entire card is worth an additional 2000 points. I think I'll go for it.
Back in my hotel room by 7pm I start the planning process for my route. We are now on the clock and decisions about time spent planning/routing vs sleeping the night before begin to set in.
The Rally Book is scanned into a .pdf that I can search through while riding. The points, time limitations, and notes are added to the location codes so that I don't have to look that up later... it all comes up on my Garmins. Weather is checked and locations are grouped by point values. It becomes obvious there are 3 distinct routes: Maine, Florida, and Denver. Given our required 2nd checkpoint in Denver I discount that one almost immediately. Maine looks more promising than Florida, but includes several locations in downtown NYC, which always makes me nervous not being from that area.
I opt for the Florida route, with the goal of getting to the daytime only high point Cedar Key location right at sunrise. That will mean skipping a few lower point locations on the way south, and only getting 1-2 nap on the first night. But, doing so opens up some options on the 2nd day to scoop up everything along the Gulf Coast and end up with some restaurants in Houston before pulling the first leg mandatory rest on night 2. Fingers crossed that sets me up to get to the big points group photo just north of the Leg 1 Checkpoint in Tulsa.
I'm happy with my plan, and in bed by 11pm.
The morning comes sooner than expected after a restless night of barely sleeping, laying in bed playing the "what if" game in my head.
Breakfast is shared with fellow riders, some not saying much about where they are headed, and others sharing ideas and concerns.
Bikes are loaded and we are required to be standing with our bikes from 8am until our final odometer readings are taken.
Cory Ure, parked beside me, is nowhere to be seen as rally volunteers are coming down our line. I look everywhere for him, but it's too late. They bypass his bike, and now he'll be held from leaving until all other bikes have left.
Following a brief last minute rider's meeting we all mount our bikes and nervously await the start. Next to me is Lisa Cover Rufo and her daughter Molly, who is calmly sipping on an iced latte! The luxury of being pillion!
Before we know it we're off! This is my 3rd IBR, and it still brings me to tears every time I start. It is such an honour and privilege to be amongst this elite group of riders.
Pulling onto the highway we all start to spread out on our own individual plans and routes.
Who will have the best plan? Who will find glory? Who will struggle just to make the finish, and who won't get back? Will everyone be safe, or will tragedy strike?
I take the ramp to I-79S on a beautiful sunny morning. My die is cast. Little do I know the next 2 days will be some of the toughest, most dangerous riding of my life.
Here's a link to a video of the start. This is not my video, but enjoy.
That's the end of Parts 1-3. Check out Parts 4-6 so to see how Wolfe gets along on the road! And if you want to find the original story itself, you can find Wolfe on Facebook here.
If you want a taste of long distance riding to get started, Wolfe runs Lobo Loco Rallies, some of which you can run from anywhere in the world (the local ones are based in Ontario, Canada). Check it out here: https://wolfe35.wixsite.com/lobolocorallies
Mapping it old-school in Calabogie. Having to stop and do this throughout the day resulted in a much more enjoyable ride.
Ottawa isn't quite as manic as the GTA when it comes to driving culture, probably because it's a fraction of the size. I didn't see the intentional assholery that GTA drivers seem to revel in. That used to be arms-reach from us out in the country where I live, but thanks to COVID and rich people speculating on the real estate market, there has been a cidiot diaspora to my neck of the wooks and aggressive driving is the new norm on our country roads.
The 417 out of Ottawa at noon on Sunday was thrumming along at 130+kms/hr. I kept to a steady 120 on the inside lane and was passed with regularity. When we were in Alberta in July I noted that the speed limits are set reasonably without clinging to 1970s limits designed to generate revenue and justify more police. The 110kms/hr on the highway had everyone moving at about 110kms/hr. The 100 limit on country roads was the same with no one blowing beyond as has become common on our backroads. Ontario's artificially low limits (and then the intentional ignoring of them until the police and insurance industry feel like making it rain) produces a kind of cognitive dissonance in Ontario drivers. They know the limits don't mean anything and tend to drive however fast their vehicle feels good at, which in a modern vehicle with advanced tires, anti-lock brakes and computerized suspension and engines is much faster than the limits set for woody wagons in the '70s.
Once off the madness that is Ontario's 400 series highway system things settled down and I fell into a nice rhythm on the 508. I usually have to ride miles to find a corner (and corner) where I live in the tedious S.W. Ontario agricultural desert. Speaking of which, I was struggling to understand why my visor wasn't plastered in bugs while riding through Eastern Ontario woods, but it's the lack of factory-farmed livestock. Those closely packed animals generate more flies than meat. When you're not always passing by fowl (sp!) smelling chicken manufacturing facilities or cow paddy strewn fields, there aren't the kinds of flies that knock your lid off. I didn't have to stop and clean my visor once on these rides, and being able to ride roads where the corners keep finding you instead of the other way around is like water after days in the desert. Since all the OPP are on Highway 7, there wasn't a one of them on any of the roads up this way (speed traps aren't about safety, they're about income generation - there's no money in setting up speed traps on quiet roads).
No one sells pens anymore (the Canadian Tire had none even with school starting up in a couple of weeks), but I found some sharpie markers in Calabogie's McGregor's Produce, which is a general store that has pretty much everything in it (with a fraction of the footprint of the city-sized Canadian Tire).
It was another sun drenched day, though the shadows from the trees takes the sting out of it, unlike the concrete oven than urban areas turn into. I got the map folded to where I was and markered out a route that took me on the twistiest roads I could find over to Bancroft where I would spend the night.
I hadn't figured out how to hot-key the 360 camera to auto-fire shots so there are no photos from this glorious day, but perhaps this is as it should be. Google didn't know where I was and I had to engage my atrophied brain to remember the route, but the map was only a stop away. Instead of constantly aiming at the next waypoint and having the phone barking directions and corrections and other information that I didn't need (while tracking my progress to offer timely advertising), I was untethered.
I actually doubted my ability to remember turns so started with just the first three, and what a three they were! The 508 through Calabogie is ok, but the 65 to 71 east is SPECTACULAR, to the point where the road had me laughing out loud in my helmet (which I could leave in open face mode because I wasn't being battered with livestock flies). This magical strip of tarmacadam twists and turns over and around some proper hills; this may be the best riding road in Ontario, particularly for me on this day where I had my head up (nothing to constantly tug my gaze down to the next direction), no traffic whatsoever AND it had just been resurfaced and was billiard table smooth I had a realization halfway through this bit: I don't care if I'm 'lost', rollercoasting along this road was absolutely brilliant!
I stopped for a drink and to review next steps at the end of 71 at Calvyn's Takeout. I wish I wasn't so soon from a big breakfast or I would have stopped, it smelled fantastic. The next bit had some arterial highways then onto smaller back roads. 41/28/514/515/512 was another great mix of twists and turns on pretty much empty pavement (I don't think I passed or was passed by anyone over the next hour and this was on an August Sunday with lovely weather). I stopped in Quadeville to update the mental map and pressed on when the mosquitos prompted me back into motion. A thin film of mozzies was the only thing on the visor, unlike the plump livestock flies that'll take an eye out down south.
By now I was hours deep into the woods. I can appreciate the diversity and cultural richness that population offers, but the manic nature of time in these places exhausts me. Out here you tick along at the speed of the breeze, and when you see someone else you make a point of giving them a wave because you're not tripping over piles of people all day.
Never underestimate the citiot's ability to trivialize anything that doesn't exist to support their all-encompassing urban lifestyle.
I ended up missing the turn south to the 68 and stayed on the 66 all the way up to Wilno on Highway 60 (the road that goes through Algonquin Park). It was all the advertising for Opeongo camping that made me realize I'd missed a turn and had come too far north to Hwy 60, but it didn't matter. The roads were clear and I was enjoying the ride. The alternate route added some kilometers to the day, but even in August the sun is up for a long, long time. I stopped in Barry's Bay and charted a new route down 62 to Bancroft where I had a hotel room waiting.
62 was another beautiful Eastern Ontario road with views through the hills in the lengthening shadows on winding, though higher-speed roads. I made good time and after about 350 kilometers, most of which were on twisty country backroads, I was ready to hang up my boots for the night.
The Bancroft Inn & Suites is just the sort of place that would wind up someone from the city. It's basic, but clean and doesn't offer fancy coffees or fancy anything else; it was the perfect stop for the end of this analog day. It was about as far as I could get from the neon-disco GLO hotel I'd stayed in the night before, but that jived with the thematic point.
By now I'm 3 days into a ride and far away from where I'd been starting to have PTSD anxiety dreams about work. There is nothing like breaking out of a routine to clear your head and offer you some perspective. My only regret is that I kept wanting to share moments with my partner but she was booked solid back home. I've never done more than a 4 day trip on the bike, and I think that's a goal now. Getting into the rhythm or riding along unfamiliar roads to a new destination is incredibly energizing. I need to do this for more than 4 days at a time in order to get lost in the ride more completely.
The next morning I'd figured out how to hotkey the 360 camera to shoot on auto. I was up early (the joys of being in your 50s) and after a cup of in-room coffee I stepped out into a cool single digit morning. Steam was rising from the lakes as I filled up in Bancroft and found my way directly onto backroads. aiming for Haliburton an hour down the road where breakfast beckoned.
The roads were once again startlingly empty and I rolled unimpeded north east of Bancroft and around the 648 ring road through Highland Grove and Pusey before finally connecting to my favourite Ontario highway: 118. Even with some traffic and construction I was still well in my Zen pocket.
The Kosy Korner in Haliburton is what you'd expect from a $10 country breakfast: 2 eggs, bacon, toast and tatters and bottomless coffee. The service was incredibly quick (less than 5 minutes from ordering to eating), but it was getting full of locals so I decamped to the Upper River Trading Co. where I got a nice Balzac coffee and people watched while going over the map for the day.
Feeling full and caffeinated, I hit the road out of Haliburton by 10am and subsequently enjoyed one of the most meditative rides down an empty 118 yet. Mysterious black lakes and rivers appear on the side of the road and wind into the never ending forest, hinting at what may be beyond. The road weaves through ancient rock and living nature like the best kind of Canadian poetry.
Cathedrals of stone...
The animals here be prehistoric!
A ride down a near empty Hwy 118 is something to look forward to.
Not as busy as the road into Algonquin, the 118 offers similar views without the maddening crowds. As I approached Bracebridge the mania returned. Like many places within reach of the GTA, Bracebridge has turned into a pale imitation of it over the past decade as its population has exploded. As a general rule, the larger and more austentatious the vehicle, the more likely they are to drive like a tool. The first one was a Cadillac Escalade, the rolling definition of fuck-the-world-and-get-yours consumerism, which blew past me at 120+kms/hr (I was doing 95 in an 80 zone). With the Zen bubble popped I switched on my rampant biker paranoia and eased back into the super-heated and pressurized world of Southern Ontario driving culture.
I still eked moments out of the ride through Port Carling to Bala and out through the Mohawk territories to the 400 Highway, but once on the 400 Southern Ontario's driving mania was in full force as I pulled out onto the highway to discover the trucks all doing 120+kms/hr and the rest doing better than 140. Accelerate or be a moving chicane that's likely to get rear ended by some doofus in an SUV doing 150kms/hr while looking at his phone.
Back into my usually riding range, I stopped in Creemore for a quick bite having not had anything to eat since breakfast at Kosy Korner that morning. From here in it's lots of flies and straight lines. The next morning we sat on the porch with a cup of coffee at 7am while enjoying the symphony of backup beepers (5 or 6 of them at once?) along with the bullet crack of nail guns building more houses in the once empty field behind our subdivision. The tintinnabulation of construction was eventually drowned out by our neighbour's lawn service showing up with their helicopter-loud professional lawn mower (to cut about 200 square feet of grass). We gave up at that point and went inside. Maybe we spend so much time on connected devices in our urban hell holes because we've made them so uninhabitable IRL.
There are some beautiful places to live out of the madness that are only an hour out of Ottawa. If we could escape the grip of Southwestern Ontario, perhaps we could find something more livable (and rideable) in the east. I've always wanted to live somewhere where you could enjoy the ride at your backdoor, Calabogie delivers it!
Looking back over my longer rides, I think four days is the longest I've ever been able to arrange for a motorcycle trip. Max and I did a four day loop around Ontario and Michigan many years ago, but busy work/life responsibilities makes it difficult to pry more time free, though that's maybe what I need to find balance in this chaos. A colleague just spent 60 days this summer riding out to the west coast to do the PCH. My mind feels rebooted after four days away, I can't imagine how he's feeling, but I'd like to.
Due to financial constraints and various responsibilities I'd almost talked myself out of going to visit an old friend (we've known each other since he was 13) at his 50th birthday party last weekend, but I'm so glad I didn't. Seeing the old faces and catching up was brilliant, but so was the chance to be out in the wind for days on my bike. Sometimes it takes stepping away from your place in the world to gain the perspective you need to better understand it.
I left on a Friday morning as the sun beat down and temperatures started to rise. I'd intended to take the Kawasaki but it picked up a flat last week and replacement tire isn't in yet so I turned to the trusty nearly 20 year old/84k Triumph Tiger to take me away. Following standard GTA avoidance protocols I headed east instead of south to the crowded and manic highways of Toronto, which Google Maps always prompts me towards (getting there five minutes sooner is much more important than your mental health!). Other than a traffic light in Centre Wellington not seeing me waiting (they're quick to road-tax me but slow to recognize motorcycles as a vehicle - I ended up putting the kickstand down and running over to the pedestrian button to change the light), it was clear sailing out of my increasingly crowded and poorly infrastructured home county.
Riding into the rising sun I made good time until I hit Newmarket, which was all poorly timed traffic lights and frantic citiots rushing to get one car ahead. I was going to stop for a coffee but nothing presented itself in the strip-mall cookie-cutter desert of GTA expansion and rather than grate on about wearing masks all the time I preferred to just avoid the masses, so I pressed on out the other side and back into the country, except the country is now plastered with gravel trucks grumbling in and out of construction sites to build more housing for the ever expanding Greater Toronto Area.
I'd been on the road about two hours when I rounded the end of Lake Scugog on the Port Perry causeway and pressed on towards Peterborough. At a four way intersection someone in a trophy truck (top of the line full-sized pickup with bling wheels and chrome that will never do a day of work in its life) ran the red light making a right hand turn in front of me. I edged over in my lane ready to do something more drastic but he stopped. The lead rider in a gaggle of Harleys coming the other way started making angry monkey gestures because he felt that I was encroaching on his lane (which he was cutting the corner on). It's one of those things about riding in the insanity of Southern Ontario: everyone is very keen to tell you what you should be doing rather than making better decisions themselves.
I pushed on, hoping to get beyond the gravitational suck of Toronto driving culture. Construction on the highway into Peterborough slowed things up again as people in massive SUVs rushed up the soon to be closed left hand lane to get a few cars ahead (and cause miles of backup), but if you're not driving a massive SUV and butting in line you're not doing it right.
Finally on Highway 7, I continued east toward Ottawa aiming for the Iron Rooster about halfway along the day one map. Traffic thinned out and everyone settled into a less manic rush as the (sh)city fell behind. After a stop in Marmora for gas I didn't really need but a stretch I did, I rolled on to the Iron Rooster for lunch. I haven't seen any Ontario Provincial Police presence in my community for weeks, but on Hwy 7 there were multi-car speed traps set up every 300 feet or so. By the time I stopped for lunch I'd seen over 20 police vehicles. By the time I got to Osgoode (south of Ottawa) the number was over 50. It's nice to know that the OPP is focused on bonus tax collection and making sure the insurance industry is getting its pound of flesh rather than looking after the communities it claims to police.
The Iron Rooster is a cool spot right off the highway with a big parking lot and indoor/outdoor seating that helps ease any covid anxieties (they roll up multiple doors to make the inside outside). The entire place is motorcycle themed and specializes in rotisserie chicken in various sandwiches. That focus makes for good food and I enjoyed "The Rossi" which was a"Rotisserie chicken tossed in pesto mayo with tomato, avocado and havarti cheese"on a toasted brioche bun, locally cut fries too, nice!
Moto-inspired philosophy on the wall...
A wee museum with some interesting old bikes in it and the walls covered in posters including everything from The Great Escape to On Any Sunday and Easy Rider - it was a great stop!
A 1918 BSA!
Coming out of the restaurant I ran into three native women who were out for a ride on their Indian motorcycles. One of the nice things about riding is that it tends to remove the social barriers that prevent us from talking to each other. We struck up a conversation about our bikes and I asked them if the name bothered them and they shrugged, saying it was a historical brand and they liked how the company represented their culture, and they loved the bikes (all three were on variations of Indian Scouts). We then had a good talk about why we enjoyed riding so much. Being out in the world on a bike puts you in touch with the thermoclines you're passing through and we all dug that you can feel the air and smell the smells when out in the wind; it puts you in touch with Turtle Island.
A distance was starting to form in my mind from where I've been feeling stuck in the village we moved into that is rapidly being converted into an urban subdivision. As I rode away from the Rooster with a full stomach and some perspective, the old bones of the earth started to appear in the form of the Canadian Shield, poking up between pines and lakes (if you could see past all the police parked on the side of the road).
I had the smartphone clamped on the handlebars and when it wasn't barking instructions at me it was flashing speed trap warnings. I used to drive Highway 7 quite often when I lived in Ottawa and the lakes, woods and stony Shield were always my favourite parts of the drive. Fast food restaurants now litter the route and the prettiness is being chased away by an influx of people. Those chain restaurants have done a good job of chasing small town diners out of business as well. One of the magical things about urban expansion is that everywhere starts to look the same after a while.
Traffic was light and I made the occasional pass, but between the police blitz and volume of traffic, Highway 7 isn't the picturesque alternative to the 401 that it once was. I wasn't in a rush to get to Osgoode but I found the smartphone's manic attention getting behaviour exhausting and when I did occasionally see a place I might stop it I found myself pushing on to keep to with the schedule Google had decided for me. I finally turned it off and found I could enjoy the scenery and the ride more without all that noise.
Six and a half hours in I stopped in Perth to hang the phone back up and guide me in to Osgoode. I rode past a the only non-franchise local coffee shop I'd seen on the entire ride because it was neck deep in construction and the phone was barking alternatives at me all through town. As the sun started to stretch out the shadows I made my way into Osgoode on back roads and finally to a friend's place I could stop at for the night.
The ride east was enlightening and it started a process that has me rethinking many of the habits I've fallen into because of where I live. There is a manic oneupmanship that is a central tenet of Southern Ontario driving culture, and it's something that makes everyone who buys into it supremely unhappy and stressed. Getting one car ahead, even if it's wasteful and potentially dangerous is everyone's goal.
From many miles away I was thinking back to where I live as I rode the final miles of this Friday across Ontario. Construction noises start before 7am every day. Sitting outside for a morning coffee has you surrounded by the stucato gun shots of nail guns in the new housing division next to us harmonizing with layers of beeping from various heavy equipment backing up again and again. This morning that was eventually drowned out by our neighbour's professional lawn service getting their industrial grade (helicopter-loud) lawn mower out (at 7:30 in the morning) to trim their golf-course perfect lawn. With that never ending noise, dust and with thousands of new people moving into the area, my quiet village is no longer either of those things. Looking back on it from that great distance across the province I wondered if I'm holding on too tight to something that simply isn't there any more.
I came across Overland Journal in Indigo that other day and the combination of reasonable price ($12CAD) and very high quality (it compared favourably with magazine-book combos asking $25+) had me picking it up. It isn't motorcycle specific but does include off road and adventure bikes along with pretty much any vehicle you might go off the beaten path with.
I usually do that kind of off-roading with completely inappropriate vehicles. In the early noughties my wife and I beat a rented Toyota Camry to within an inch of its life on the the logging roads in the interior of Vancouver Island. Another time we were in a rented Citroen mini-van in Iceland watching arctic foxes run across the empty landscape. In both cases we got deep into the wilderness in rental two-wheel drive vehicles, but then we got a Jeep Wrangler as a rental car last year and it started giving me ideas.
I put myself through university working as a service manager for Quaker State's Q-Lube and whenever a Jeep came in you needed an umbrella when you walked under it for all the fluids leaking down on you. That negative experience put me off the brand for years but last year we got a Wrangler as an insurance rental after and accident and it changed my perception.
It was a 2019 Jeep Wrangler four dour with about 20k kilometres on the clock and it was tight! Everything worked and felt quality and it did something that no car has done for me in the past decade; it felt like an event driving it.
Since bikes set in I've fallen out of love with cars (trucks, whatever), but the Jeep made driving feel special again. Performance cars seem kind of pointless when I have two bikes in the garage that are faster than anything but apex million-dollar plus super-cars, but the Jeep came at it from another angle. The big tires made it a challenge to manage on pavement and the big V6 in this one was a stark contrast to the sub-two-litre mileage focused appliances I've been driving, but maybe that's what made it feel special.
There was a point where we could have taken the other car (a Mazda2) down to Toronto but took the Jeep instead and it made the whole experience less like a long, difficult winter drive and more like an adventure. Being higher up off the road meant I wasn't looking through other people's road spray all the time and if I wasn't heavy on the gas the thing was getting mid-high-twenties miles-per-gallon.
Another time we were out in it and my brother-in-law (a former Jeep owner) and our sons went out for a ride and I shifted it into 4wd and drove right over the snow mound in the Canadian Tire parking lot, much to everyone's amazement. This was a ten-foot plus high mound of snow and the Jeep went right over it - with road tires on! Deeply impressed with the vehicle's capabilities and character is where I was when we handed it back.
I also used it to take a thousand plus pound of ewaste to recycling from work and the heavy duty suspension and utility of the thing made this an easy job when the little hatchback would have been blowing shocks and wallowing under the weight. Having a vehicle that takes on larger utility tasks makes sense when you have a lot of them to do. It also makes sense if you want to go deep into the wilderness while being self-sufficient.
I'm getting to the age now where things seem strangely expensive. My first car cost me $400 and took me a hundred thousand kilometres. A Honda Civic hatchback I had in the early noughties took me over a quarter of a million kilometres for less than seven grand. The only new car I've ever purchased (that Mazda2 that has been flawless for over 120k over ten years of ownership) cost me $17k new, all in. My wife's Buick cost an eye-watering forty-grand back in 2016 new and I'm not interested in double car payments so won't be looking until we finally pay that one off (which seems like it's taking forever with our strange new world of 7-9 year finance schemes). When that debt finally gets cleared I'll be looking at a Jeep Wrangler, but not just any old Wrangler, I want the one from the future.
From an 'overlander' point of view a dependable long distance vehicle capable of going off the beaten path means my wife and I can do what we've always done, but more so. In the pre-covid times we drove from Ontario to the West Coast in 2018:
In 2019 we took the same tiny Buick to the East Coast of Canada, but the vehicle we drove limited our ability to go off the beaten path (or even off pavement). What a Jeep would do is enable us to do the things we defer to (in rental cars) in something designed for that kind of nonsense.
This has me encouraging my lovely wife to join us at SMART Adventures this year to learn some off road driving in a side-by-side while we dirt bike. Which brings the overlanding vehicle back to bikes again. You can go deep in a Jeep but you can get places on a dirt bike that you can't in any other way. Jeep's new 4xe hybrid Wrangler would be a fantastic platform for all manner of biking shenanigans from a tread lightly/minimal emissions angle. Overland Journal had an editorial about not abusing the remote places they feature. A good place to start with that would be to minimize the amount of emissions you're putting out while enjoying nature.
If a Wrangler'll carry a full on dirt bike, it'll handle a Freeride (or 2 without batteries in 'em).
Whether it's taking a dirt bike to a trail or a trials bike to an event, the Jeep 4xe would be capable of doing it efficiently and effectively. With some canny rear mounted racks it wouldn't even require a trailer.
The next-level green expedition option would be to pick up a KTM Freeride and put it on the Wrangler 4xe and then work out how to charge the bike from the hybrid Jeep's electrical system.
Overland Journal has a lot of advertisers who specialize in making vehicles long distance ready, including many that specialize in prepping Jeeps for the long haul. A Wrangler 4xe would make an efficient, green platform from which to launch wilderness riding on KTM's Freeride that barely leaves a trace.
The Jeep Wrangler 4xe is the most powerful Wrangler yet, has astonishing mileage and would also offer some interesting electrical generation options when off the beaten track.
The electric bike and the hybrid Wrangler would cost less than a base model BMW mid-sized SUV, so it isn't even crazy expensive (well it is, but that's just because I'm old - everything's expensive!). This zero emissions expeditions thing is something KTM and Jeep should join forces on. Two legendary off-road brands working together to produce an environmentally responsible off-roading experience? Betcha it wouldn't take too much to have the Jeep's hybrid system juice up the Freeride while off piste either.
I'm glad I stumbled across Overland Journal. I'm enjoying it so much I think I'm going to pick up a subscription. Then it's time to start thinking about the Jeep/KTM green/dream team combination.
I've been calling around trying to find a rental van to arrange a pick up of a Kawasaki Concours C14 in Toronto. Every rental place in my county tells me they have no vans because they are being rented out by delivery companies during the pandemic.
The Speedvale U-Haul centre is a full service depot with many vehicles on site as well as storage. The staff was spectacularly helpful in making sure I had the right vehicle (the website said I'd be getting a Ford Transit van but they GMCs on site so the guy at the counter went out and measured the openings to make sure it would still fit the bike. They were also excellent with mask, social distancing and ensuring we had a cleaned and ready to use rental during COVID.
If you default mileage on an 'in-town' van rental the extra mileage'll get you in the end, but if you pre-state your mileage they give you a discount. All in at the end of the day including insurance and mileage, the bill came out to $138CAD, which is impressive. I had to put $30 in gas back into it, so the rental piece ended up being just under $170 all in. Check out was quick and efficient with minimal contact and the return was completely contact free and effortless.
I've been thinking about getting the gear to do pickups myself, but the initial cost is heavy and then the operating costs (poor mileage, heavy vehicle, etc) pile on the costs even more. If I purchased a tow-capable vehicle and a trailer I'm looking at $40-50k - that would be over 200 bike pickups in the rental van. I seem to find I need a bike pickup every 1-2 years at the moment. If I keep doing that until I'm 80 years old, I'll ring up a rental van bill of about $3800, so the I-gotta-get-a-bike-tow-ready-vehicle thing isn't really on my radar any more after this positive U-Haul experience.
I do need a couple of things for next time though. If you want a U-Haul with the built in ramp you're looking at doubling rental costs and you don't need that space or the headache of navigating traffic with a much bigger vehicle (the van was very easy to thread through Toronto traffic). I brought the two plastic car ramps I had along with some wood planks to load the bike, but that's not ideal as the van's deck height is pretty up there. So, here's the list of things-to-get so that a rental van does the trick without any headaches:
Parts For Making Rental Van Motorcycle Moves Easier:
A pair of fold-up ramps would make loading the bike much easier. These fold up and would hang on the wall in the garage, not taking up any valuable space and are capable of holding even a big bike like the Concours without any issues.
I got lucky this time as the guy I purchased the Concours off had a ramp that did the trick, but next time I'll have my own ready to go.
Cost: $140
Ratchet Tie Downs: I tied down the Concours once we got it into the van with nylon rope but there are relatively inexpensive options that would make the tie-down process both more secure and less time consuming. The Connie was rock solid the way we tied it down (there are ground hoops and wood bolted to the side of the van that you can tie off too, and didn't move a muscle in transport, but for relatively little outlay I could have a set of ratcheting tie-down straps that are both more secure and very easy to set up and break down.
The web of rope got cut when we got home (and we used the bike lift to get the bike out), but with ramps and ratcheting tie-downs the transport would be been a lot easier and secure.
Cost: $29
A mobile wheel chock: This is a bit of a luxury. The bike stand in the garage has a home-made wooden one but it's heavy and awkward. A lightweight, ride in wheel chock would make tying the bike down secure and easy, and it's easy to transport.
With this one you ride into the chock and it see-saws into position, holding the bike steady while you tie it down.
Cost: $70
For about $250 I can get the bits and pieces that would make a bike pickup in a rental van a quick, easy and secure process. This was a good beta-test and I now know what I need to make the next one even smoother.
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In the meantime, I'm once again a Kawasaki owner, pushing my Team-Green ownership count even higher:
I've been a fan of Suzuki for years yet never seem to find one that suits what I'm looking for. Kawasakis always seem to pop out just when I need one that meets my needs, and I enjoy their engineering and working on them. Their engines especially are something very special.
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