Last Grasps: A Well Timed Post Canada Day Ride

I've only got about a week left before we're off on airplanes, so I'm trying to find reasons to exercise the Tiger before five weeks of motorcycling abstinence.  After a couple of days of crowded rooms and even more crowded Canada Day festivals I needed some quality alone time.  Nothing does that like a motorcycle ride does.

It wasn't an inspired ride, and it took me to my usual haunts, but it was a lucky ride.  With thunderstorms passing through the area, they were where ever I wasn't, which was good because I was travelling light.

The idea was to get to Higher Ground at the Forks of the Credit before it got long-weekend crazy.  I managed to get a coffee, look at some Italian exotica and then get out of there before it got really full.  

With the ice cream shop owner moving bikes that were parking out of the way anyway and signs all down the rest of the building stating no motorcycle parking, I'm starting to wonder if Belfountain is getting fed up with its place as a summer time ride stop.  It's a boon to the local economy, but some people seem intent on stopping it rather than embracing it.  Every rider I saw there was considerate and cautious in entering the parking lot without revving loud pipes or blocking others, but I guess the locals have had enough.  I'm not sure how much longer Higher Ground can be the sole reason to stop there if everyone else in the town is telling us to go elsewhere.

I had Lee Park's Total Control on my mind as I navigated The Forks, and damned if I wasn't more stable and smooth through the hairpin corner by looking over my shoulder into the corner.  You'd think looking away from your direction of travel would be counter intuitive, and I don't get much opportunity to practice it on arrow straight SW Ontario roads, but with some practice it's definitely the way to go.

After a ride up and down The Forks I aimed north past the Caledon Ski Club and toward Hockley Valley.  It was a lovely, relatively empty ride up to the Terra Nova Public House.

The TNPH had a summer salad with fresh rainbow trout on it that was pretty much perfect, and it let me duck inside and watch the tarmac dry off from the downpour that had passed through ten minutes before I got there.

After a quick lunch I did the TNPH loop before heading down River Road to Horning's Mills.  Mr Lee's Total Control habits were still playing though my head and I was focused on late apex entries and clean lines while looking through the corners.  It's funny how you feel like you're going slower when you're going faster on a motorbike.

River Road was generally empty and I got a clean run all the way to Horning's Mills.  It was time to head home, so I cut south west through the wind fields of Shelburne before stopping in Grand Valley for a coffee.  A GS650 rider and his wife were sitting in the cafe and we got into a good bike chat.  As a fellow rider intent on making miles rather than a scene, we had a meeting of minds on what a motorbike should be for, it was a good talk.

The final ride home was, again, relatively empty and I pulled into the driveway mid-afternoon.  I'm still hoping to get down to the full eclipse over the Tail of the Dragon when I get back from and Iceland/UK foray.  Perhaps a motorcycling opportunity will appear while away, but if not, I'll get in some miles this week to make sure my riding battery is topped up.

Commuting on a Motorcycle

It isn't a giant commute - about a 15km round trip each day.  Our strangely summery autumn here in Ontario means I'm commuting on two wheels every day.  Over two weeks and ten commutes I've put over 150kms on the bike (I sometimes go the long way home).  What is commuting on a fourteen year old Triumph Tiger like?  Glorious.

In addition to actually looking forward to my commute each day, I (and the planet) are also enjoying the fact that I'm barely using any fossil fuel to do it.  In the past ten days I've used 6.88 litres (1.82 gallons) of gasoline to get to and from work; I've still got three quarters of a tank from my fill up two weeks ago.

The Tiger is currently getting better mileage than a Prius and didn't make anything like the hole in the world that the Prius did in manufacture.  My 0-60 in under 4 seconds Tiger is very nature friendly.

Other than a light rain on the way home one day it's been a dry time.  The bike has been fire-on-the-first-touch ready every day.  If I won't get soaked on the way in I'll take the bike (being at work with wet pants is no fun).  I could attach panniers and have rain gear with me (I've done that before on committed 2-wheeled commutes), but being only fifteen minutes from work means I and the Tiger travel light.  Riding home and getting wet means being uncomfortable for fifteen minutes, no big deal.

How long can I keep it up?  With the current forecast it looks like I'll be car-less until well into October.  The most recent forecast suggests a drop into the teens in the upcoming weeks, but I'll keep going until ice is a threat (I won't do that again on purpose).  Warm, never ending autumns are a lovely thing.

Unlike driving to work in the car, when I commute on the bike I arrive oxygenated and alert; it's difficult to cultivate the same level of alertness sitting in a box.  Showing up at work switched on and ready to go is a great way to start the day.  

With no morning radio I'm not as plugged in to the world, but that's no bad thing either.  Instead of pondering the latest human generated catastrophe (aka: the news), I'm gulping down morning mist and beautiful sunrises; it puts you in an expansive state of mind.

Soon enough we'll be into the long dark teatime of the soul (Canadian winter).  In the meantime I'm going to keep drinking from the commuting on a motorcycle fire hose.

2018 Thoughts from The Road: I Just Don't Get It

I'm in the middle of a cross Canada drive (alas, no bike).  It looks something like this:

Over the past couple of weeks on the road I've come across some strange choices that people make that I just don't get.

On the Trans Canada towards Sault Ste Marie early in the trip we came across a CanAM Spyder towing a trailer.  This five wheeled conveyance (which was holding up traffic) manages to combine awkwardness, discomfort and a lack of efficiency all in one baffling package.

I'm a big fan of biking, but there comes a point where, if you're unable to leave your shit behind and travel light, a bike isn't what you should be taking.  Any convertible on the market probably gets equivalent or better mileage, carries more and takes you further in more comfort.  With two front wheels it's not like you're missing leaning into any corners anyway, which is why so many of us hang it out there in the first place.

It looks like Spyders get low thirty miles per gallon on average.  Towing a trailer probably knocks that well down into the twenties, similar to a Mustang Convertible!

If you wanted to be more efficient, a Miata gets far better mileage than the Sypder, and the roof goes up, and it carries more.  Amazingly they are pretty much priced the same (not counting the trailer which you wouldn't need anyway).  You wouldn't be holding up traffic in a convertible either, or having to wear all the gear...

There comes a time when riding a motorcycle doesn't make sense.  It's when you're riding an awkward three wheeler with a trailer attached with half a mile of traffic behind you.

Cape Breton's Cabot Trail: an ultimate ride?

 I'm currently crossing the Canadian Maritime provinces with my wife.  She's recovering from cancer so a bike trip wasn't in the cards, but I'm using the trip as reconnaisance for future rides.

On our way back to our hotel after a day on the Cabot Trail in northern Nova Scotia on Cape Breton Island, a guy on a Honda Repsol race replica blitzed through a row of traffic five cars at a time and disappeared down the road.  The Cabot Trail attracts that kind of rider with its hundreds of kilometres of twists and turns over the Cape Breton Highlands in the north west corner of the province.

Coincidently, while I was out here, Canada Moto Guide did a primer on how to ride the Cabot Trail.  That and the steady stream of bikes making their way up to the remote, north-west corner of Nova Scotia cemented the trail as a Canadian riding icon in my mind.

We were up in Neil's Harbour when a bunch of guys in full leathers wandered in to the Chowder House up by the lighthouse (you can write sentences like that when you're on the Cabot Trail).  The bravest of them was on a Ducati.  I say brave because the road itself is indeed a roller coaster, but it's also pretty rough in places.  I asked them if they could put a knee down or would they knock their teeth out first.  They laughed and said they pick their moments.  The Nova Scotia government does seem to be taking more interest in fixing up the Trail though.

The Cabot Trail traces most of the coast of the north-west side of Cape Breton Island.  This 300km loop takes you up and over the Cape Breton Highlands and through a national park; it's stunnlingly beautiful and it'd be a shame to rush it.  Actually, what would be a shame would be only doing it once while focusing on the road.  The ideal way to tackle the Trail would be to get yourself into one of the many lodging opportunties on the south end of it and then do a day focusing on the road followed by a day focusing on the many stops available.  If you came all the way to the end of the world in Cape Breton and didn't bother taking side roads to things like Meat Cove and Neil's Harbour, you'd be missing some wonderful opportunities.


There are many sections with good pavement and astonishing curves, but there are others where the road hasn't had any attention in some time and Canadian weather has had its way with it.  I was told there were some switchbacks where riders had a hand down on the ground as they came around, but trying to do that in other places would have had you bouncing out of your seat and kissing a guard rail.  Rough or not, if you're used to living on a tiny island with sixty million people on it, you'll find the Cabot Trail frighteningly empty, even in mid-summer.

Having done a lot of miles on Canadian roads now I'd approach it as I do them all: enjoy them while you can but expect them to go to shit at any second.  Something with supension travel and some athletic intention would be a good place to start, it made me miss my Tiger sitting in the garage over two thousand kilometres away in Ontario.  A psychotic mix of power and suspension flexibility like the BMW S 1000 XR adventure sport would be good.  Another angle would be to take one of the newest intelligently suspended sports bikes and see what their CPUs make of it.

This ain't no butter smooth Spanish road, but it's a fearsome thing.  A couple of years ago Performance Bikes put their man John McAvoy on a sportsbike and pointed him at Spain, in the winter.  It was a riot to read him navigating snow storms through France before finding the sweet never-ending summer of Spanish roads at a time when everyone else is huddled in their houses waiting for the snow to end.  Reading Johnny in questionable riding circumstances is never dull.  PB (now a part of Practical Sportsbikes) should send him out to Cape Breton for a tour of the Cabot Trial in the fall.  It'd deliver demanding and stunning riding and photo opportunities that no one in mainstream motorcycle media seems to be aware of.  It'd also give Johnny a chance to practice his Gaelic.

Instead of riding the same old Spanish roads over and over, motorcycle manufacturers should be bringing journalists out to Cape Breton.  A 300km loop on varying road surfaces through stunning, Jurrasic Park quality scenery and some incredibly acrobatic roads would let them assess a bike's real-world prowess without cheating on roads that have never felt the terrifying touch of a Canadian winter!

Coast to Coast to Coast

It can be done!  Coast to Coast to Coast in Canada.  It's a monster ride though, over twenty thousand kilometres, all in the second biggest country in the world.  

Leg 1:  Go West Young Man

Starting from home in Southern Ontario I'd strike west up the Bruce Peninsula and over Manitoulin Island and up around Lake Superior.  From there it's a straight shot across the Prairies and then through Calgary into the Rockies.  Through the Southern Rockies and Vancouver and then a ferry over to Vancouver Island and on to Tofino on the Pacific Ocean.

Leg 2:  True North, all the way

Dempster Highway, North West Territories

From Tofino it's back across Vancouver Island and then north up the coast before taking the ferry from Port Hardy to Prince Rupert.  The ride from Prince Rupert is where things start to get tricky.  You're on paved if very remote roads all the way up to the Dempster Highway and then it's hundreds of kilometres up to the arctic circle and the mid-night sun.  By 2016 they hope to have an extension of the highway all the way to Tuktoyaktuk on the edge of the Arctic Ocean, then it'll really be coast to coast to coast.

Leg 3: Eastern Promises

After dipping a toe in the Arctic Ocean it's back down the Dempster before striking east through Grande Prarie and Edmonton.  The trip east retraces a bit of the Trans-Canada past Winnipeg before crossing Northern Ontario to Montreal.  It's then up the North Shore to Quebec City before crossing the St. Laurence and making the turn at Rivière du Loup and heading into New Brunswick.  Crossing New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, it's then a ferry ride to Newfoundland for the final leg to Cape Spear, the eastern-most point in Canada.

I think I'd have to make a point of crossing Confederation Bridge on the way past just to have set foot in every province and every Territory you can ride to in Canada.

The round trip is over twenty thousand kilometres, all in Canada, crazy!  Between higher kilometre days on highways and the lower mileage moments in the north, I'd hope to average 800kms a day.  If I could keep that up it could be done in just under a month (27 days).  Aiming at July of 2015, leaving on Canada Day (July 1st), I'd aim to be back home by July 31st, giving me four extra days in the mix to get the job done.  Leaving at that time will also mean seeing the mid-night sun above the Arctic Circle.

At about $60 in gas a day (3 fillups), a conservative $100 for lodging and $40 a day in food, I'd have an operating budget of $6200.  BC Ferries look like they'll be about $260.  To get on and off Newfoundland it looks to be about $180 in ferry costs.  I'd land at Port Aux Basques and cross NFLD on the way to Cape Spear, but take the Agentia Ferry back directly to Sydney for the ride home.  All in I think I'd be looking at about seven grand to cover the trip.

Bike-wise I think I'd be considering sport touring options.  The vast majority of mileage would be on pavement, with only the push north on gravel.  Tire-wise I'd start on street tires and then switch over to something more multi-purpose in Whitehorse for the ride to the Arctic.  If John Ryan can go from Prudhoe Bay on an FJR, I don't think I need to go full-SUV motorcycle with an adventure bike to get up to and back from the arctic.  The rest is a high mileage ride on first world roads.  I'd want to do it on a bike that makes corners fun.

My current choice would be a bike that handles long distance duties well.  The Kawasaki Concours is just such a machine.  Two-Wheel Motorsport happens to have just what I'm looking for, a low mileage 2006 that would do the deed.  With a shaft drive and a bullet proof reputation, it would cover the miles enthusiastically.  My other bike choice would be the new Honda VFR800F.  It's another sports tourer that could swallow these huge distances with confidence.

The final piece would be the media.  A Gopro clipped onto the bike would be running whenever the bike was in motion.  I'd also have a mobile video camera and my trusty Olympus SLR for other footage.  The trick would be not to get hung up with the photography, I tend to lollygag when I have a camera in my hand.

If the production was stepped up a notch, I'd meet up with my production crew at various spots along the way to off load footage and do some stock footage of me on the bike (which wouldn't happen so much when I was alone).  Ideally I'd have a wingman for the trip and we'd both take turns at filming (and half the cost of lodging).  The trip itself would offer a live webfeed of mileage covered and where we are, including uploads of recent images and footage.

In the more fully-decked out version I'd go to OLN or Discovery Channel or the Travel Channel for some media support.  Then Telus, Rogers or Bell for some communications support, and finally to Kawasaki Canada or Honda Canada for some bike support.  It wouldn't hurt to hit up local, provincial and federal governments to help as well, this is a uniquely Canadian focused trip, and with the final leg of the Dempster Highway finally happening coast-to-coast-to-coast is at last a possibility, it'd be nice to get the word out.

For more check out Coast to Coast to Coast 2.0.

Motorcycling Book Review: Peter Egan's Leanings

 I'm reading Peter Egan's Leanings at the moment.  Great book, and especially as a Christmas present for a motorcyclist since it has you riding along with one of the best motorcycle writers in a generation at a time when you can't do it for reals.

The book starts with longer stories ranging from Egan's first travel piece that got him a job at Cycle World to increasingly exotic trips to Japan for new Yamaha introductions or rides down the Baja Peninsula.  What makes it work is Egan is always Egan and he brings his small town Wisconsin thrift, good humour and love of bikes with him where ever he goes.

As a writer about motorcycles, reading Egan's book offers some useful insights.  One of my takeaways is: don't dumb down your writing.  Say what you mean as well as you can possibly say it.  Egan's not the only writer like this.  Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is more a philosophical post-graduate treatise than it is a book about bikes, yet many people who ride get into it.  When I finally read it I was stunned that so many others think it such a fine thing - it took my entire degree just to make sense of it!

There's a folksiness to Egan's writing that reminds me of Neil Graham, the former editor of Cycle Canada.  They both have a kind of relentless honesty to their writing and are willing to embrace their eccentricities.  That's all good writing advice whether you're doing bikes or something else.

The long writing pieces are great but so are the shorter articles at the back where Egan takes on everything from mortality and aging to family tradition and engineering, though he tends to shy away from anything technical, which is odd because he was a mechanic for many years.

Because the pieces are chronological, you end up follow Peter through his life from poor, struggling student to established writer.  The original pieces weren't designed with that narrative in mind but the layout of the book causes this trajectory to emerge, which is a nice thing to see as you're finishing the book, though it also reminds you that Peter's riding years may soon be behind him as he's in his seventies now.

I'm just finishing up the book now and I'm going to miss diving into it and listening to such a natural storyteller bringing bikes alive, though I can always get Leanings 2 (or 3!) and keep going.  Unfortunately, 2 doesn't seem very available and is quite expensive on Amazon.

Were I Home

March Break in the UK is a very different proposition to March Break in Ontario, Canada.  Here we're looking at freezing temperatures, snow storms and general misery.  Everyone who was able has left.  A few minutes outside today in -20° wind chill left me broken.  Back home it's mid to high teens with sunny spring days and flowers blooming.

Were I home I'd be rolling the Triumph Speed Triple out of the shed and going for a ride along the North Norfolk coast.  It'd be cool but clear.  Norfolk roads are medieval narrow, especially out in the country.  With tall hedge rows and few shoulders you don't travel at break neck speed, but that's kind of the point.

Enroute I'd be passing by small fishing villages, medieval priories and castle ruins.  Lunch stops could be any one of a dozen centuries old pubs.  When not doing that, pulling up a a seaside layby to watch the waves roll in would beat frostbite any day.

Do I ever miss being home sometimes.

Speaking of which, a nice little house on Beeston Hill is going for about £200k.  With a shed in the backyard to park up the motorbikes in, I'd have the ideal place to ride out into Norfolk from, and it's less than a mile from each of the two houses I grew up in.

What would I do on these beautiful spring days?  Familiarize myself with the back roads of the country I grew up in for eight years before being emigrated to the land of ice and snow.  A Triumph Scrambler might be a better choice for going off piste in deepest, darkest Norfolk where mud is the norm rather than the exception.

I'd be sharing roads that generations of my people have ridden on two wheels.  Maybe while out on those roads I'll meet up with some family ghosts and be able to go riding with them for a while...

My great Aunt died on a motorbike before I was born.  I imagine she's still
out there in spirit enjoying those scenic county lanes.

That old Coventry Eagle disappearing around the hedgerow ahead of me could be Grandad Morris out for a spirited ride.

A modern roadster to tackle twisting Norfolk lanes single handed?

... or the more tractor like Scrambler to occasionally get dirty on the tractor splattered lanes of rural Norfolk?

Motorcycle Media: short films, documentaries & time travel on a Friday night

Friday night had me home alone in the first time in forever.  After a rough week at work I was wiped and on the verge of a cold, so it was a low impact night.  I went looking for some escapist media and stumbled upon EXIF's Top 6 Best Motorcycle Films.  I'd seen Shinya Kimura in The Greasy Hands Preachers, but I'd never seen the film that set him out as a motorcycle media icon, it's just shy of three minutes of perfection:

Shinya Kimura: Chabott Engineering


Another one I hadn't seen before that does a great job of capturing a northern motorcyclist's winter dilemma is Waiting out the Winter.  It's a short video, but it sets the mood of tinkering while we wait for the snow to recede in the frozen north wonderfully:

Waiting Out The Winter

WAITING OUT WINTER from Andrew David Watson on Vimeo.

Those short films made a great appetizer, but I was looking for something a bit more long form.  If you're ever looking to pass a lazy hour or two in another time and place, Cycles South will take you to the early 1970s.  Like the '70s themselves, Cycles South looses the plot half way through, but discovers itself again before the end.  If you're delicate and can't handle the very non-politically correct sensibilities of the early 1970s, don't watch this, but if you can let it all go and are willing to exist in another time, Cycles South makes for a psychedelic road trip (man).  The whole thing is on Youtube in 15 minute segments, they connected together automatically with a few seconds of delay between, mercifully commercial free.

Google/Youtube lost its mind after I watched the series in order and started shooting motorcycle themed video at me from all directions.  Next up was Fifty Years of Kicks, a twenty minute documentary about two off road motorcyclists well into their seventies.  I wasn't initially hooked, but the quality of filming and the narrative they were building had me after a few minutes.  There is something about watching old guys fight the clock that is heroic.  It makes me want to celebrate any small victories they have before the inevitable happens.

Looking for something on the history of motorcycles I came across The History Channel's documentary on Youtube.  It's a bit wiz-bang flashy and over edited, but you get some Jay Leno, and the jet powered Y2K.  When they went from that to some Dodge Viper powered thing I began to think this was less about motorcycles and more about bored rich people.  I didn't get to the end of this one.

Have you ever wished you had an old, British uncle with an encyclopedic knowledge of motorbikes who would natter on about them indefinitely?  I was afraid Classic British Motorbikes: 100 Years of Motorcycling was going to be an advertisement for a dealership in England, but the big green Triumph Tiger in the opening moments kept me playing it.  This video takes place sometime in the early two thousands (hence my model of Tiger sitting in front of the dealership).  The idea was to invite in classic bikes and celebrate 100 years of motorbiking in Britain.  The camera work is amateur, as is the interviewing, but you'll still pick up a lot of history from the owners and the knowledgeable interviewer.

I watched until he interviewed the owner of the dealership who seemed entirely disinterested in the whole thing and was apparently running the family business because of his dad's love of bikes.  He made a stark contrast to the enthusiasm of every previous interview.  If you're interested in British bikes and especially their history, you'll enjoy this one (with a bit of fast forwarding).

It's amazing what motorcycle media you can dig up on the internet with a bit of luck.

Get S.M.A.R.T.

My birthday and Father's Day are within a month of each other, so I made a combined ask and got a day at S.M.A.R.T. Adventures in Horseshoe Valley.  My previous off road experience was limited to a couple of hours on a dirt bike at a farm many years ago and a short and frustrating go with a KLX250.  My goal in taking the S.M.A.R.T. (Snowmobile, Motorcycle, ATV, Rider Training) course was to explore those aspects of motorcycle dynamics that are beyond the range of typical road riding - unless you're in the middle of a crash.

There are a lot of people who try motorcycling then retire early.  They often have a lot of advice.  Many of these short-term motorcyclists liked to warn me earnestly and repeatedly about how dangerous it was to ride to early or late in the season when there was a chance of sand being on the road.  Anything that wasn't table top smooth, grit free tarmacadam meant zero traction and an imminent crash for these earnest scare mongers.

I've always ridden on loose material with caution, but after watching a riding buddy with many years of experience step his heavy Super Ténéré out sideways on gravel roads, I've thought that there is more to gravel and sand than just being cautious.  Between that and my Dakar fixation, it was time to learn something new.  That same guy was the one who suggested the SMART program (he'd been on it previously).  Here was an opportunity to treat loose material as something other than an imminent crash.

That anxiety about traction on a motorbike runs deep in the limited experience motorcycle crowd, and that crowd contains a lot of people who have only ever done a single type of riding on a single type of bike.  If you're going to call yourself a motorcyclist you owe it to your craft to experience as many different types of riding as you can.  The SMART program is an accessible opportunity to do that in the trail riding/off road community in a controlled environment on someone else's equipment (they even provide all the gear).

You owe it to yourself to experience motorcycling in unfamiliar ways...

We started an already nuclear hot day before Canada Day with the affable Clinton Smout going over basic control and balance with a GasGas trials bike.  In no time he had everyone from old guys like me to nine year olds balancing on two wheels while stationary.  I wouldn't have thought that was possible prior - but I was able to stand on the pegs on the stationary bike until my legs got tired.

Getting my Ross Noble on!  Can the
Scottish Six Day Trial be far off?

Clinton also gave the dry stick demonstration, showing how an old, brittle stick snaps easily compared to a young, supple one.  He then went on to say that SMART is about to have its hundred-thousandth customer in the next few weeks and in the decades it has been running they've only had twenty-two ambulances, all of them for old, dry sticks over thirty-five years old.  This forty-nine year old stick paid close attention to this talk.

Within minutes we'd been set up with Joe, the advanced instructor who has over thirty years of experience off road.  I was worried about being put in the advanced group with so little off road experience but they're more worried about whether or not you know how to ride a bike; if you know the controls, you're advanced.  There were larger groups of beginners and intermediate riders learning the basics, but we were just three: Joe, me and a German fellow with motocross experience who has ridden every pass in the Alps.  I was still feeling a bit out of my depth and didn't want to slow anyone down.

We spent some time by the main centre going up and down the hills under the watchful eye of Joe.  I suspect this had more to do with assessing our riding skills than it did anything else.  We did some hill climbs, but on a dirt-specific bike with knobbly tires this was an easy thing to do.  We were on Yamaha TT-R230cc bikes, which might seem a bit on the small side, but the characteristics of this bike were very forgiving; it would pull hard out of any gear.  Joe described them as tractors, and they were.  If it stalled, the electric start fired it right up again, and the massive suspension travel and tires made easy work of every obstacle.

Soon enough we were off into the woods.  We'd stop under the trees out of the blinding sun and 40+°C humidity and practice skills such as clutch control on walking speed turns, rear wheel lockups and eventually crossing large logs.  As my confidence improved so did my speed on the trails, which we'd go and ride to make some wind and cool down between slow speed work.  I was able to keep up with Joe on all but a steep, washed out hill covered in big rocks where I ended up pulling off to the side for a moment to collect myself.  That had more to do with sewing machine legs than it did with bad technique.  If you think off road motorcycling isn't physically demanding, you've never done it before.  In forty plus degree temperatures, we were necking a bottle of water every time we went back to base.

On our next run we focused on standing on the pegs and working the bike with body position and weighting the side we wanted to move to.  This involved going over improbably deep ruts while soaking up the vertical movements with the suspension and our legs while also making micro-adjustments to clutch, throttle and brakes to keep things moving smoothly.  If you think riding a motorcycle is dexterous, trying to operate controls with all four appendages while dropping into foot deep ruts ups the ante again.

At one point we were purring through the forest (the little Yamahas are remarkably quiet for one cylinder thumpers) when Joe held a hand up and made the kill the engine sign.  We all rolled to a stop and not fifteen feet away was a fully grown doe (a deer, a female deer).  She stood there munching her grass while watching us from a sunny glade, looking like a scene out of Bambi.  After a minute or so she ambled off into the brush.  My son took the ATV course in the afternoon and they came across wild turkeys - you're likely to see some wildlife when out in the woods.

As lunch approached our experienced German went and rode with his son and Joe and I went deeper into the woods, now on trails that would barely qualify as a walking path.  The SMART program is based in Beaver Valley, which is part of the Niagara Escarpment.  The Beaver River has cut the valley through the escarpment, which is also scattered with post glacial erratics (big rocks).  You're working big elevation changes through thick forest including stumps and downed logs along with some very rocky sections; it's a challenging mix.  Now that I was getting the hang of it, I was spending half my attention watching Joe's thirty plus years of trail riding experience as he picked out lines through this spaghetti.  We'd stop every once in a while and have a quick chat about what was going on, with Joe giving gems like, "you'll see me going for the hard pack on the side of the trail, especially when you see all that loose stuff in the middle.  The loose stuff falls into the gulley in the middle and can get pretty deep."

We had a quick lunch, but it was so hot I forced myself to eat something even though I had no appetite.  More importantly was getting water into me.  By now we were well into the forties Celsius with the humidity, and everyone was drooping.  My son had arrived for the ATV training and soon enough he was off and doing loops in the compound, getting a handle on the thing.

As the dust got kicked up in the in-field we disappeared into the woods onto even tighter trails.  I stalled going up a hill so steep that I had to roll it backwards down it to get the carb to feed again and restart it.  Joe then showed me how to roll it backwards on the clutch while powered off and in gear in a controlled manner to get out of a tight spot on a hill.  By this point I was keeping up with Joe as he was making tracks.  It was then that he asked if I'd be interested in going out on a BMW F800GS for the last part of the day.  We'd wrung the necks of the Yamaha dirt bikes doing over fifty kilometres, so I said, 'absolutely!'.  It'd be a chance to try a different bike, which I never say no to.

I'd ridden a BMW once before while riding the south end of Vancouver Island a few years ago.  It was an F800ST - the sports touring version of the adventure bike I was going to ride now.  The F800GS is a nice, tall bike which fits me well.  The controls feel quality, as do the suspension and tires, which cornered so well I forgot they were knobblies.

Joe took us out onto the road and we disappeared into the Copeland Forest for a couple of hours, skipping our water break and riding everything from pavement to fire roads, to dual tracks and, finally, single track trails.  The BMW was obviously much bigger than the Yamaha we'd been on earlier (114kgs for the Yamaha, 229kgs for the BMW), but it's amazing how off-road capable it is considering that weight difference.  It feels balanced and nimble.  The only thing stopping you from trying the really gnarly trails would be if you got stuck (and what it would cost to fix it).  Getting this out of a hedge wouldn't be anything like as easy or cheap as the simple, little dirt bike.

Riding the BMW reminded me of the limitations I experienced with the KLX250 I purchased a couple of years ago.  It was off road capable (I forded rivers with it), but as a dual purpose bike it couldn't carry me at what I considered a safe speed on the road (it would barely touch 100km/hr, which is what most traffic is doing on Canadian back roads).  The BMW was quick and capable on the road, and when we went off road (though on nothing as gnarly as we did on the Yamaha), it did the job without any surprises.  Like the F800ST I rode a few years ago, the twin engine felt agricultural and uninspiring, though it was certainly quiet and efficient.  Compared to the exhaust popping and snarling, induction howling Tiger, the engine felt rather characterless which is a shame considering what a lovely thing the rest of the bike is.  The suspension was so good it made me wonder if the wooden shocks on my Tiger are in need of some attention.

We rolled back in at the end of the day just a few minutes before the other classes returned, and drank a lot of water.  I'd covered well over 100 off and on road kilometres over the day on two very different bikes.  Joe was approachable and willing to answer any questions, but better than that he used decades of experience to quickly assess where I was at and then lay down a series of increasingly challenging lessons that kept me on the edge of my learning curve all day.

I'd been sweating for hours and was ready to get out of the armour and go and wash the caked on dirt away.  My wonderfully wise wife who did all the photography you see here had also arranged a room at the Horseshoe Resort next door, so within twenty minutes I was flat out in a pool thinking about the day.  I'd managed not to dry-stick my way into anything I couldn't handle and was in good, but muscle sore shape.

My son has always been a cautious fellow and reluctant to ride or drive, but he spent a very intensive two hours with Adam on the ATVs and rolled back in looking like he was ten feet tall.  It's amazing what an accessible, patient instructor can do for your confidence.  By the end of the day he was talking about driving the ATVs up at the cottage, which had never been a consideration before.

I can't recommend S.M.A.R.T. highly enough.  If you're an experienced road rider you own it to your craft to spend some time learning these skills, they might save your bacon one day.  If you've never tried offroad powersports before and are looking for an accessible and relatively inexpensive (it's about $200 for a half day and $300 for a full day - all in including all gear and equipment) way to get into it, this'll do that too.  We'll be back again.

With amusement park tickets north of a hundred bucks, you're close to the cost of a day at SMART to park, eat, stand in lines and sit on roller coasters at Wonderland.  Why on earth would you line up to passively experience fake thrills when you could get learn real world skills and experience real world thrills at SMART?  The same could be said for increasingly expensive professional sports spectating.  No line ups, no crowds, (though deer and turkey on occasion) and a great day becoming genuinely accomplished in the great Canadian outdoors.  How could you say no to that?

The 230cc Yamaha I rode typically lasts 6-8 years.  They do a lot of on-site maintenance.  One of the instructors said that they don't wear out engine wise as they aren't ridden that hard, but the transmissions suffer from a hard life with many people new to bikes learning how to clutch and gear on them.

LINKS:

S.M.A.R.T. Adventures:  http://www.smartadventures.ca/

How to book: https://bookeo.com/smartadventures