Dipping a Toe in Georgian Bay

The plan:

The execution:

Why you going looking for the Niagara Escarpment: it's the only place where you're not riding on the crown of your tire all the time in Southern Ontario.

A bit windy, but otherwise perfect weather.  24°C in Elora down to 18°C on Georgian Bay in Thornbury; comfortable without ever being sweaty.  The 360° shots are from a Ricoh Theta 360° Camera, the rest are taken from my Samsung S5 smartphone.  Videos are at the bottom.

Getting ready for liftoff.

The wind fields of Shelburne

The look on my face when I'm about to ride up River Road out of Hornings Mills.

A thumbs up from Max, he likes the twisties.

A pheasant and baby!  But you can't see it due to poor resolution and lens distortion.  The Theta is an interesting idea,
but even with giant, unwieldy files, it still has poor image quality.

Thornbury Harbour

Thornbury

Big sky on the never ending farm field ride home.

Another Tiger double take.  There is another!

Smartphone pics:

Creemore for lunch at The Old Mill House Pub (never had a bad meal there)

The new adventurers (a Kawasaki Versys & Suzuki V-Strom), along with the Tiger
that has always been (mine's 13 years older - made back before Ewan & Charlie did that thing)

A map of the good bits:  https://goo.gl/maps/zpdGaSLMuy82

Labour Day Weekend Ride: Georgian Bay

 A 300km round trip up to Georgian Bay and back:

I aimed to get out of the boring straight lines of South West Ontario and over to the Niagara Escarpment as quickly as I could.  I was going to head up Highway 6 but it was packed full of GTA types escaping their pandemic ridden cities, so I angled off in Fergus and took 16 up, which was completely empty.  That would become a theme of the ride.

It took me about an hour to get up to Flesherton, where I made a stop at Highland Grounds for an Americano.  I usually enjoy sitting in there sipping my coffee while sitting on their 70's retro disco red glitter vinyl chairs, but it being the summer of COVID, I ended up drinking my fine coffee by the Tiger on Highway 10 (also packed full of citiots all doing the same thing at the same time, as they do).

While I was standing there I noted the new bicycle shop that had opened up a few doors down.  Ryan Carter, the owner of the new Ryan's Repairs, had some interesting kit out front, including a seventies banana seat bike with a single cylinder engine mounted to it.  I ended up chatting with him for a bit and had a look in his shop.  He'd only been up in Flesherton for a couple of weeks.  If you're up that way and you're interested in bicycles or even just some interesting mechanical engineering, drop in with your Higher Ground coffee and see what's what at Ryan's Repairs.

It was a longer than planned stop in Flesherton, but I eventually finished my americano and then I was off to Beaver Valley.  Highway 10 was bumper to bumper, but I dodged through town and only had a to do a few hundred yards with the sheeple before turning off onto empty country roads again.

Beaver Valley has a fantastic road (Grey County Road 30) that weaves down into it with epic views.  If you hang a right at the bottom and go on the dirt, the ride back up Graham's Hill is intense, particularly so this time as all the recent rain had washed it out leaving a stream cut down the middle of it that was tricky to navigate.  I ended up on the wrong side of it as it cut across the road, but even on my 'it's time for a change but no one has them in stock' Michelin Anakees, I was still able to 

The view out from Graham's Hill lookout was also worth a stop.  I went through there last year in the middle of autumn colours and it burned itself into my memory.  This time around everything was super green, but it's still some interesting geography to ride in our otherwise tedious flatness.

I looped back around to Grey 30 and came back down the hill without a slow mover in front this time before hanging a left and following the road out to Beaver Valley Road and the trek up to Thornbury.  I was there in the early spring but the harbour was closed in the early days of COVID.  I was hoping this time I'd be able to get myself right down to the water's edge.

I guess Beaver Valley Road isn't on everyone's GPS because it was fairly empty.  With a few big, high speed sweepers, it's a nice way up to the bay.  Ontario 26, the road that follows the shore, is evidently on everyone's radar because it was bumper to bumper.  After a brief stop to look at the bay...

... I stopped for gas in Thornbury, but the traffic on 26 was nuts.  Rather than sit in a line to get through

the light for half an hour, I zipped up the side and took a right back inland.  South out through Thornbury and Clarksburg (no traffic), I hung a left on 40 (also empty) and rode directly to Grey County Road 2, which would bring me back over Blue Mountain and into the Grey Highlands.  I'm still at a loss to explain why, when left to their own devices, most people just imitate each other.  I'm not sure what happens in their heads that makes sitting in traffic when they are surrounded by empty road make sense.

The roads south were also pretty empty, though I'm able to dispatch traffic with alacrity on the big 'ol Tiger.  Singhampton arrived in no time.  124 northbound had construction and what looked like a half an hour wait to get through it.  I was heading south then east and bypassed it.  I wouldn't have sat in it in any case.  A better way around would be to zip down Crazy River Road toward Creemore then wind through the hills of Glen Huron, which is exactly what I did.

 The big skies in the hills were getting dark as I headed south.  It was cloudy when I left, but driving north to the bay meant avoiding that rain, now I was riding back into it.  The clouds were ragged as I flew south on 124.

By this point I'd been on the road for about four hours and hadn't stopped since Flesherton, so I figured I'd give River Road from Horning's Mills to Terra Nova a go.  It was closed for construction when I tried it in the spring, so this would be my first ride on it in 2020.  Like everything else in Ontario these days, they've managed to fuck it up.  After construction the entire road is now a 50km/hr zone with community fines doubled signs everywhere.  I really need to move somewhere else.  I get that no one wants idiots ripping up and down the road in front of where they live, but a 50/community safety zone for the entire length of a road that has maybe ten driveways on it over 12 kms?  There must be money in the area.

Fortunately, Terra Nova Public House was open and could squeeze me in for a socially distanced soup between their lunch and dinner service.  The rain finally hit while I was sitting out back.  Big, fat drops splashing into my soup, but it was still fantastic (maple carrot homemade!).  It was a brief shower and it blew over quickly.  I was in and out of TNPH in about 20 minutes, and by the time I came out the road was dry again.  I puttered back along River Road, frustrated at the iron grip of government and then started the burn south west back home.

Blustery winds and ragged clouds north of Shelbourne, then it was down through Grand Valley, following the Grand River home to Elora...

The Tiger ran like a top.  The idle/stall issue seems to be a thing of the past.  It was a nice ride through some changeable weather.  It was also cool enough that I wasn't cooking on the seat, so I felt like I still had a lot in me when I got back.  The trip knocked the Tiger up to only 600kms away from hitting 80k.  It turns twenty years old in 2023, and I like the symmetry of it hitting 100k by then, so that's the goal.  This winter it'll get new shoes (if anyone ever gets Michelin Anakees back in stock again), and a complete service including all bearings and suspension.  It'll get an oil change too if anyone ever has Mobil 1 motorcycle oil back in stock again (finding parts during COVID is an ongoing headache).

I should get well into the 80s before the riding season's done, and then it'll be spa time.

Finding My Way Back From The Dead (red)

What I miss most about STAY AT HOME pandemics:  Getting lost on unfamiliar roads...

I'm lost in the Grey Highlands on my way to Coffin Ridge Winery for a COVID-shutdown social-distancing/prohibition vibe pickup of some of their Back From The Dead Red.

I lost my internal compass on the unfamiliar, winding roads of Walter's Falls (though it could have been the meteorite buried under the town) and ended up in Bognor! It doesn't just sound like it's out of Lord of the Rings, it looks it too.  I guessed west when I should have turned east and found myself in the Bognor Marsh battling fetid, shambling swamp creatures like a later day knight aboard my trusty Tiger.

I eventually fought my way out to the shores of Georgian Bay, looking north across the never ending grey water to the end of the world (or its equivalent in French River).  Coffin Ridge Winery, perched on the north facing edge of the Niagara Escarpment, was pandemic deserted but for a lone fellow looking over the vines in the bitter, overcast April wind blowing in off the bay.

Ironically, adventure is hard to come by in a stay-home pandemic shut down, but this gave me a much needed shot of it.

Kiri at Coffin Ridge was a delight to communicate with on email and had our order sitting on the red chair ready to go (I was only 20 minutes late, battling Bognorian Shambling Mounds not withstanding).

If you're riding in Southern Ontario and looking for a bit of adventure in your antiseptic COVID bubble, a ride into the Grey Highlands might just bring you back from the dead (red).  You can reach Kiri here.

A deserted Coffin Ridge Winery, just before the COVID zombie attack, but I can't talk about that, the government is involved.

Thornbury Harbour closed - no standing on the rocks communing with Georgian Bay for me this time. The GB Kraken must be getting lonely, and hungry...

The bizarrely Victorian and completely deserted hydro generation building in Beaver Valley, where I had a lonely stretch before being beset by a pack of OHM-wolves infected by the now feral electricity leaking out of the abandoned generator and into the surrounding wilderness.  Jerry Bruckheimer couldn't have done this spectacular battle justice, that beautiful brick building is now a smouldering ruin.  The Tiger and I barely escaped with our lives!

From the #covid19 closed Thornbury Harbour inland through Beaver Valley, with a brief comfort stop at the hydro generator before heading south west through Flesherton - I eventually had to turn the camera off due to rain.
#Theta360 on a flexible tripod attached to the wing mirror of my Triumph Tiger 955i. One timed photo every five seconds. #360Photos modified in Adobe #Photoshop into #LittlePlanet format and then formatted in Premiere Pro into a stop motion video. AIVA AI generated background music.

Doubt

I did a 360km-ish kilometre ride on Saturday.  All back roads and as twisty as I can find in the farm-desert we live in.  I was gone shortly after 8am and had a coffee at Higher Ground before ripping up and down the Forks of the Credit.  I was then up past Orangeville to Hockley Valley Road, back through Mono Hills and up to River Road into Terra Nova before coming back down to Horning's Mills and north to Noisy River Road into Creemore.  All in all I crossed the escarpment half a dozen times on my way north.

By now it was well past noon and into the high thirties with humidity.  After a great lunch at The Old Mill House Pub in Creemore I was out to Cashtown Corners to fill up and then past Glen Huron and over the escarpment one more time before heading north to Thornbury Cidery and the cooler shores of Georgian Bay.

Nothing Cools you down like the shore of a great lake on a hot, summer day.

From Creemore on I was soaking wet and sweating freely, monkey butt (red and sore on my backside from wet, aggravated skin) was soon to follow.  It wasn't so bad by the lake, but inland it was sweltering.  I was standing frequently to try and get wind under me, but by this point my big ride was just uncomfortable.  The Macna vented pants did ok on my legs, but where I needed it the most they were just trapping heat and leaving me dripping.

I bombed south down Beaver Valley, stopping once at an overlook to finish the Gatorade I had and then on to Flesherton for a stop at Highland Grounds before dodging and weaving south on back roads towards Elora and air conditioned nirvana.

Before I left that morning I learned that Wolfe and Robyn, the founders of Lobo Loco long distance motorcycle rallies, had already started the monumentally difficult Bun Burner Gold, the seemingly impossible fifteen hundred miles (2400kms!!!) in twenty-four hours - yes, that's a 100km/hr average for a whole turn of the earth.  You'd need to be making time every hour so you'd have time to get gas, eat, drink and toilet; it's madness!

By the time I'd seen what these two superheroes were going to attempt that morning they had already done more miles than I was going to do all day (monkey butt and all), and they still had the better part of two thousand kilometres to go... in a day!

Part of this is making sure you've got the right gear for the job.  I'm going to address that in another post, but the other side of this is do I think I can actually pull something like that off.  I'm months away from turning fifty and I'm starting to get a sense of what getting older is going to feel like.  Doubt is what starts you thinking that you have to act your age.

The two doing that epic bun burner are fifteen plus years younger than I am and much more experienced riders.  My starting to ride late grates on my nerves.  Despite numerous opportunities, events beyond my control conspired to prevent me from finding my way back to a hereditary hobby.  Those lost years still haunt me.

No point in moping about it.  I've gotta grab the opportunities as I find them and not let doubt weaken my resolve.  If I want to get an Iron Butt done then I need to get it done.  You don't get shit done by moaning about it.  But first I've got to get my seat and kit sorted.  No point in trying to do a job without the right tools.