It's that time of year again. Dreams of escape surround me. If I left right now I could get in and out of Tuktoyaktuk on Canada's north shore before the snows arrive (just). I might have to bomb up there in a van just to get out in time, but then it'd be heading south across the Americas for months, chasing the summer. The west coast as autumn falls would be glorious. As the snows start to fly in Canada, I'd be into Mexico and Central America. An unrushed few weeks working my down through the many border crossings would be much less stressful if I didn't have to be somewhere somewhen. Crossing the Darien Gap from Panama to Columbia is five days on a boat and a chance to take a break from the saddle.
The boat lands in Columbia. Once in South America I'd find somewhere to bed down over the holidays in Colombia or Ecuador before rolling south into the South American summer. Spending Christmas on an empty Andean shoreline facing the never ending Pacific would be glorious. I'd push south and see Machu Picchu after the holidays and then try and catch at least one stage of the Dakar Rally as it thunders around Peru in January. A Peruvian desert stage would be awesome. As summer wore on in the southern hemisphere, I'd continue south to Ushuaia on the southern end of Argentina. After going from arctic to antarctic, I'd work my way back up to Buenos Aires and start the process of packing up the bike for a trans-Atlantic crossing to Cape Town.
The 2018 wish list... Some things to get deeper into motorcycling in the next year: Ford Transit Van: $53,472 + some more in accessories. A means of moving bikes south in the winter to ride year round as well as a way to take off road or race ready bikes to interesting locations where I can exercise them. The bonus would be to get all Guy Martin with it. Become an off-road ninja: Step 1: Get the kit: A KTM 690 Enduro, the best all round off-roader that can also get you there. $11,999 + some soft panniers for travel. Step 2: Get good at off-roading with lessons at SMART Adventures! $329 Step 3: Do some rallies like Rally Crush, Rally Connex, the Corduroy Enduro, the KTM Adventure Rally (in BC!) Set up the KTM as an all year ride:
A Mototrax snow bike kit would let me turn the KTM into a year round steamroller. Back country riding in the cold months would make for some good exercise and training so I wouldn't be back on two wheels in the spring feeling rusty. $6000US Become a road racing ninja: Step 1: Build a race bike... ...but why be boring? Instead of something new take on a race bike rebuild! There is a '93 Yamaha FZR600 for sale nearby in need of some attention. They're only asking $700 for a fairingless bike, but that means I can go looking for race fairing! It turns out 90s FZR fairings are remarkably easy to source. Since this is going to be a race bike, I can go with a lightless race ready fairing. The other fairing parts are also available and not crazy expensive. Getting them all as unfinished moulds means I can start from scratch with a custom race paint theme. I'd be spoiled for choice with classic race designs, but I think I'd do my own with a 90s style influence. With a double bubble screen and some customization of rearsets I could make a Fazer that fits me.
Step 2: (finally) take road race training:
Spend the weekend of May 11-13th next year at Racer5's introductory course at Grand Bend. Three days of track training on a rented bike. Later in the summer I could then follow up with the advanced courses on my own bike (the Yamaha would be ready by then). That'd be about two grand in race training over one summer. By the end of it all I'd have my race license and have a clear idea of how to proceed with a campaign, perhaps with the VRRA who also run a school. With the 90's FZR and the training I think I'd be ready to run in amateur classes.
Use next level tech to ride better:
I'm not even sure if Cruden's motorcycle simulator is available to the public. I do a lot with VR at work and I'm curious to see just how effective this might be at capturing the complexities of riding a motorcycle. Even if I couldn't get it privately, getting one for a month in our classroom would be a cool way of examining state of the art virtual simulation in a very complex process (riding a motorcycle). It'd also be a nice way to ride when it's -25 degrees outside, like it is today.
*** With those tools I'd be able to bike in ways I currently cannot. I'd have what I need to pursue both off road and more focused tarmac riding which would greatly enhance my on-road riding skills. If motorcycling is a life long learning experience, these things would be like going to motorbike university.
Snow is flying outside. It's supposed to be -20°C by the end of the week with more snow on the way. Working on the bike in the garage only gets me so far. Time for some quality daydreaming... Goal: Find a quick bike, ride the Dragon, bring it home to race in the spring. Looking around online I found a wounded Kawasaki ZX-6R for sale in Clinton, Tennessee for about $3400US. It happens to be off the interstate right on the way to Knoxville (the city nearest the Smokey Mountains where the Tail of the Dragon is). I'm a sucker for a wounded motorcycle. The store selling it says it needs tires and they sell 'em, so I'd arrange them to do it and a tune up and then pick the bike up ready to ride. Fixing the fairing is a little trickier, but Performance Bikes UK had an article on cheap Chinese replacement fairings which would be perfect for a bike that's going to be all about track days and quick rides. The only issue is whether or not I could get the bike road legal for a few days while I was down there in order to ride The Dragon.
A long drive to Clinton and a night in a hotel followed by a morning sorting out the bike and loading it into the van before driving down to Pigeon Forge for a few days riding the Smokey Mountains. The slog back north into the frozen darkness would be a lot easier to take if I had a few days on two wheels before I had to do it.
Of course, if I'm getting a sports bike I can loose my mind on some sports bike kit. If I'm on a quick Kawasaki I'd opt for gear that'd do me on track days as well... Nothing like a little fantasy shopping to make the snow fly by. Some colour matched gear to go with the new fairings and I'd be ready for race school in the spring.
Carbon fibre bits are also available for this ZX-6R, but if it's going to be a track bike they seem like a silly expense.
Mid November and I'm still commuting in to work! It was -2°C while riding past frost covered grass on the way in, but a comfortable 12°C and sunny on the way home. I should be able to two wheel it in and back for the rest of the week, but come the weekend things take a turn for the worse. If there's salt down and icy roads this may finally be the end. Still, riding from the end of March (it would have been sooner but for a carb-dead Concours) until Mid-November is no bad thing. In a perfect world I'll be back in the saddle in March some time, and might even steal a ride or two in between,weather permitting. That's four months of waiting... unless I can convince my lovely wife to let me get... THE VAN (it's still for sale). If that happened there's no telling where we might get to over the cold months.
We're about to undertake a cross Canada drive and I'm already missing the thought of riding for a whole month this summer. I've previously thought about Guy Martining up with a van to carry a bike, but that's a pretty industrial approach that wouldn't be very comfortable. I've also thought about carrying a bike on this trip, but again, I was pretty industrial in my thinking.
From a passenger carrying perspective, a minivan would be the logical choice. A Chrysler Pacifica is just what I'm looking for. It's very efficient for what it is (much better mileage than the industrial vans I was considering before). With a nine speed transmission it'd also be quiet and comfortable in addition to getting better than thirty miles per gallon. Unlike our small SUV, it would also be able to carry whatever we wanted to bring and the flip and hide rear seats means leg stretching room in the back.
The reason a minivan would work is because I found a hitch mounted motorcycle carrier, which means I'd be able to carry a bike on the back of it. A trailer is such a pain in the ass and is so hard on gas and transmissions that I'm not interested, but this rack fits right onto the Pacifica's frame mounted trailer hitch and distributes the weight on the back properly. The Pacifica is a strong towing vehicle with a frame mounted trailer hitch option. The rack can only carry five hundred pounds, but I wouldn't need anything like that. KTM's 690 Enduro is a Swiss Army Knife of a bike that only weighs 330lbs before fuel, so it wouldn't stress the rack much at all.
Being so light weight the Enduro makes a capable off road machine, but that light weight also means you can load it on a rack designed for dirt bikes. The Enduro is also a big bike that'd fit me and is more than capable of making time on paved roads. It's a multi-talented choice that fits. The question is, can the Pacifica actually handle a bike rack with a sub-four hundred pound bike on it? The issue doesn't seem to be the rack itself. I've found single racks and even double racks that can hold up to six hundred pounds along with road bike specific racks, so finding a rack capable of holding the Enduro isn't an issue. The problem comes from tongue weight and how a vehicle can handle that vertical weight (as opposed to the horizontal weight of towing a trailer that rests on its own wheels). The Pacifica's stock Class III frame mounted hitch is also the kind suggested for a bike rack, and while the Pacifica has a massive 3600lb towing capacity, the tongue weight (the only thing really matters with the bike rack) is rated at 360lbs, which is mighty close to what I need here. Tongue weight is usually calculated as being ok if it's between 9 and 15% of the towing weight, which should put the Pacifica well over 500lbs at the top end, but evidently it isn't.
I might contact a Chrysler dealer and see if this is possible...
Lightweight, multi-talented KTM Enduro on the back of a fuel efficient Chrysler Pacifica? Yes please!
Another lightweight (and less expensive) option would be the Suzuki DRZ400. At only 300lbs before gas and still less than 320lbs with a full tank, the DRZ400 would fit nicely on the back within the existing tongue weight limits.
Chrysler stock hitch: 360lb tongue weight, Class III, 2 inch receiver.
AMC-400 aluminum bike rack: 400lb weight limit (rack weighs 33.5lbs)
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.
This popped up on my Facebook feed. I actually contacted the local dealer about this one last year and asked if he'd consider $6500 - he couldn't be bothered to email me back even to barter; love that arrogance.
This is a first gen Concours C14 with almost 60,000 kms on it. I ended up picking up a second gen C14 that was two years newer with half the kilometers on it for $5500. I had to put a bit of time in on it sorting out the electric windscreen, a clutch gasket and picking it up and safetying it. $5500 for the bike, $120 for the rental van to get it, $20 in parts (from Two Wheel!) and $90 to get it safetied with a $715 tax bill still had it all costing me less than $6500 on the road. Thanks to that price they'll be looking at over $300 more just in taxes for the lucky new owner.
My son is a pretty shy guy, but he's an instant celebrity on the bike. When we ride home kids who might not otherwise acknowledge him want a wave. The bike seems to produce fame on demand! On my way in this morning on the Concours a little girl went running down the sidewalk next to me waving and giggling insanely. That kind of thing doesn't happen when I'm driving the mini-van. Kids' eyes are drawn to motorbikes like they are to anything awesome. Two hundred metres further down the road another kid riding his BMX bike gave me a serious nod and his gaze lingered. Perhaps that's the magic of motorcycles, they are the adult evolution of what we loved to do as children. Kids can see themselves on a motorcycle because it's the technological enhancement of a device they are already familiar and in love with. Adults in cages have no analog for children, but motorcycles are immediately familiar. Unlike the desperately-seeking-cool types on cruisers, I'm always happy to grin back and wave. You have to wonder how hard we work on kids to scare them out of getting around on two wheels as adults when it's such an intrinsic love for us when we're children. For the lucky few who find themselves back on two wheels as adults the magic can keep happening for the rest of your life.
We had a tough week at work. A colleague, the kind of guy who you assume will outlast you because he does everything right, was killed last weekend in a motor vehicle 'accident'. I put accident in quotes because it's not really an accident when the other driver blows through a stop sign while speeding and kills you and your wife (and himself). You'd be right to say I'm a bit angry about this, but I'm also rather desperately looking for a reason for it. That things can happen for no reason bothers me, but they do. They did nothing wrong. They were driving home after dropping their son off at university. They were driving in an SUV with a five star safety rating. I want there to be a reason (the guy who hit them was drunk, distracted, somehow incompetent), but I fear there is none; there is no reason why they are dead other than the most basic one: motor vehicles are inherently dangerous and a number of people who operate them aren't able to do so well enough to ensure your safety. If we are going to let pretty much anyone strap themselves into a metal box powered by exploding gases and shoot themselves down roads at high speed, we have to accept that there is an inherent risk, no matter how capable they may be, of death. Whenever you get into any kind of motor vehicle you accept this risk, or you don't get into the vehicle. It's generally understood that getting on a motorbike makes this calculus so obvious that people can't help but tell you (over and over) how dangerous it is. Those same people will go out and buy five star rated SUVs thinking they've beaten the odds. Those big vehicles mean you'll always come out of a minor incident, and if you find yourself in a lot of minor incidents then I suppose they make sense. Better to spend the money on a bigger vehicle rather than making efforts to reduce your inability. Driver training courses are significantly cheaper than operating a large vehicle, but pride prevents most people from considering them. We end up in an arms race with the most distracted, incapable drivers operating larger and larger vehicles for their own safety. I've been trying to suss out government safety statistics. I have a feeling that people who have taken motorcycle safety training have fewer accidents than the general public. The kind of defensive driving presented to new motorcycle riders is foreign to most drivers in cages who don't respect the dangerous position they are placing themselves in. I suspect that there would be way fewer accidents if everyone had to ride a motorbike for the first year of their license. Exposure gives you a healthy respect for the dangerous mechanics of operating a motor vehicle at high speed. Were I in my mini-van with my wife and son, I would have probably driven into this disaster just as that colleague of mine did. Were I on my motorbike, I'd approach that intersection with the same everyone-is-trying-to-kill-me attitude that I've adopted since my initial motorbike training course. On a bike I'd have sworn at the idiot who ran the stop sign after braking hard to avoid him. In an insulated motor vehicle, remote from the world around me, I'd have assumed I was safely following the laws of the road until it didn't matter any more. Followup: just to make things weirder, this past week I died in a car accident (same name, similar age, lived about 100kms west of me) and a guy who started teaching at the same time I did and is a year younger than me also passed. Maybe this is just what getting older feels like, you see others around you dropping out of life and can't help but wonder why you're still here.
Every once in a while events conspire to drop you out of the world's daily routine. As everyone else is scurrying to work with worry lines on their faces I was disappearing into the countryside on two wheels, unfortunately the Weathernetwork had gotten the forecast wrong and my day of George was going to be more like Scott to the antarctic.
I knew it was going to be cold in the morning, but it was supposed to warm up to double digits later in the day. Anything over 5°C and I can go all day, but under that core temperature eventually gets to me. I got over to the Forks of the Credit before 9:30am and it was still only just above freezing. Higher Ground on a weekday morning is a magical place full of millionaire retirees and trophy wives; I like to soak up the vibe.
"I'm sorry, we're running out of change. Everyone keeps paying with hundreds," the girl at the counter apologized as an elven woman with a lovely Mandarin accent who had just gotten out of her Range Rover tried to pay for a coffee.
As I warmed my hands on a coffee (the heated gloves were warding off frostbite but not keeping them warm), a group of conservative retirees sitting on fat piles of cash (they all arrived in German SUVs or touring sedans) were lamenting the lack of gumption in their millennial children, all of whom were described as directionless and unwilling to make the kind of money their parents did. "By the time I was that age I already had kids and owned my own house!" one outspoken gentleman declared, "and we worked hard for every penny!" Of course, back then the pennies weren't all being held by a generation that proceeded them. The other favourite topic was 'those damned liberals'. Man, do those people ever hate Justin Trudeau. If you ever have a chance to spend an hour on a weekday morning in Belfountain, you'll enjoy the 1% watching, just try not to gag on their sense of entitlement.
Warmed up on excellent coffee and with sensation in my extremities again, I headed back out into a one degree warmer day. At this point we'd already missed the forecast by a couple of degrees, and it wasn't going to get better. I rode up and down a completely empty Forks of the Credit, enjoying the curves without worrying about any four wheeled chicanes. On my way back I pulled off on the side road to Brimstone. The Credit River was spring runoff swollen and looked spectacular. A kingfisher was working the river further up but never came close enough to catch on the camera.
I eventually wound my way up the single track road to where it ends. As I sat there with the engine off a dozen wild turkeys crossed the path a couple of hundred yards ahead of me up the closed trail; I dropped the kick stand and grabbed the camera.
These things were enormous! They picked their way through the forest looking very prehistoric. After ten minutes of turkey watching I walked back to the Tiger and packed up the camera. Before I got on the road again I needed let that coffee go, so I stepped off the trail into the woods. Have you ever had that feeling that you're being watched? Standing there rather exposed, I felt that prickle and looked around to see the massive lead turkey not five feet away watching me intently - I almost jumped out of my skin. He looked at me. I looked at him. I finished up and he just stood there watching me climb out of the ditch. He then turned around majestically and walked back up the path where his crew where waiting for him before leading them away up the hill. My advice is do not mess with that turkey.
After my close encounter of the turkey kind I headed north, following the escarpment's winding roads. Spring runoff was a theme of this trip with all of the streams and rivers swollen with melted snow. Up in Hockley Valley I fought the urge to keep riding the roller coaster and stopped to grab some images of the exposed red clay.
When I got back on the road it was behind a pile of traffic backed up behind a pensioner on their daily Tim Horton's coffee run. Rather than fight the demographic I took a right hand turn up Hurontario Street. Down where I grew up Hurontario is the main drag through a city of half a million people. Up in Hockley it's a single lane, twisty dirt road that winds its way up the escarpment. The three older guys following the line of traffic on the paved road on massive Harleys got to keep enjoying the parade, but I was able to turn onto that dirt trail on my Swiss Army knife-like multi-purpose bike and enjoy some solitude.
I rounded a corner to find a Dufferin road works van on the side of the road. He waved me through as he was just removing the road closed sign from the winter. The gravel track coming out of the river crossing is very steep and untended. Getting up it in the winter would be a challenge for anything on wheels. He told me I was the first one on the road this year, which felt a lot more special than the tarmac parade I'd left behind.
I'd originally intended to bomb up Highway 10 for a stop and then ride back down through Mono Centre where I still wish we'd bought a house; this back route up Hurontario was better in every way. The Tiger is such a capable road bike that I keep thinking about going with purely road biased tires next time around, but unexpected turnoffs like this are why you keep a multipurpose tire on the thing; the Metzelers handled the soft gravel and mud with ease, even on the unpassable hill. Lightness is the goal off road, but these big adventure bikes are surprisingly capable if you're conscious of their size and don't try and ride them like a mountain bike.
It's only about a hundred and twenty miles, but in freezing temperatures it's an adventure!
Winding my way north through the Hockley Highlands put further lie to the weather forecast. Rather than warming up to ten degrees it instead dropped back down to three degrees above zero, and the wind was picking up. Up and down the rollercoaster that is Airport Road across the Niagara Escarpment, I eventually found my way to Side Road 20 and the backdoor to River Road.
With blue, icicle fingers I unbuckled my helmet and cracked my frozen knees as I ungracefully dismounted in the Terra Nova Public House parking lot. The sky had gotten darker and what had been sporadic, light rain on my visor earlier now looked distinctly flurry like. I staggered inside with my nose running and a wild look in my eye. They quickly got me sorted out with soup and what may be the best roast beef sandwich I've ever had. The TNPH is one of those places that are common where I'm from (Norfolk, England) but rare in Ontario - a pub with character that looks like it grew out of the ground and has always been there. As the heat worked its way back into me and my blood started pumping again, I could feel the zombification recede.
My vague plan was to work my way up the escarpment, perhaps all the way to the southern shore of Georgian Bay, but my photo/warm-up stops and the general misery of the weather made me aware of the fact that I'd reached the apex of my journey in Terra Nova. As I was looking over Google Maps the day before I'd worked out twenty one of the least boring kilometres you could ride in Southern Ontario, so the new plan after lunch was to do the loop both ways and then head back home.
Using TNPH as the start/end point, the idea was to hit the windiest parts of River Road and then come back around on the most interesting roads available. It takes about fifteen leisurely minutes to make the loop, but when you're not in a corner you're enjoying elevation changes and some beautiful escarpment scenery.
Reinvigorated from my roast beef sandwich I did the loop backwards to scope it out and then forwards before following River Road one last time back out of the valley and onto a long and windy ride home.
You seldom spend much time on the crown of your tire. Riding a motorcycle feels like flying most of the time, but bending one into a corner has a multiplying effect on that goodness. When you aren't leaning into corners you're enjoying some whoopdeedoo elevation changes and the scenery is about as good as it gets, even on a winter-like early spring day. You'd do a lot worse than making the ride up to Terra Nova for this bit of pavement. After a couple of loops all the warmth from lunch was long blown away and I was dreading coming back out of the sheltered valley I'd been enjoying. A last ride down River Road to Horning's Mills (another place I wish we'd bought a house) had me ignoring the swollen streams because I didn't want to stop the roller coaster ride. What did finally bring me to a stop was the overflowing waterfall out of the mill pond in Horning's Mills. After this last stop I made my way through the quiet village and up onto the Shelburne Highlands where fields of wind turbines do their business. Up on the heights sixty kilometre per hour gusts were knocking me around in addition to the plunging temperature wind chill. The partially sunny high of ten had turned into a cloudy and windy high of three. The windmills were spinning fiercely as I passed through them, and that's when the snow started. A few flakes suddenly turned into reduced viability as snow snakes eddied across the pavement. I clung to the heated grips but the blasting northern winds hitting me in the side meant double the wind chill. I couldn't go much further like this. I ducked behind the windshield when I could, grimly soldering on as the sky turned metallic and the wind gusts increased to over seventy kilometres per hour. I usually make the sixty-six kilometre push back home from Horning's Mills to Elora in about an hour, but not this time. Riding into Grand Valley I knew there was a coffee shop on the main street and for the second time that day I staggered into a warm shop with a running nose and a wild look in my eye, this time with snow on me. Half an hour later, and while snow swirled around the trusty Tiger outside, I'd restored feeling to my fingers and caffeinated myself for the final leg of what had turned into a much shorter and more difficult ride than I'd planned. As I walked outside an old guy coming in looked me up and down and said, "nice day to be out on a bike..." "All I can say is that The Weather Network lied to me!" I replied. He laughed. South of Grand Valley I was in the Grand River valley and off the Shelburne Highlands, which meant a break from the chronic wind and snow. Heading south also meant the wind was at my back instead of trying to dismount me. I finally got my frozen carcass home and stood in front of the fireplace forever, trying to get heat back in me.
After feeling returned I discovered my wedding ring had fallen off my senseless fingers at some point when I pulled my gloves off. We're nineteen years married this summer and I've never lost the ring before. I couldn't find it in the obvious places so emailed my various stops hoping it had showed up. It took a second search the next morning when my brain had warmed up to find the ring in the bottom of my bag where it had obviously fallen out of my gloves at some point; good save there. As painful as it was, I still feel like this trip cleared away the cobwebs of a long Canadian, caged winter and let me look upon the world in a way that any car trip wouldn't. I didn't just go for a drive, I did something genuine and difficult and have a tale of trophy wives, dinosaurs and snow snakes to tell from it. If it was easy everyone would do it. Some other pictures from the trip:
Over the Credit River watching kingfishers
Hockley Valley Road.
At The Terra Nova Public House ready for another lap.
Harleys are great on the road, but that's the only place you'll ever use one. Right after this I turned onto gravel and avoided the pensioners parade.
Winter runoff in Hockley River.
Horning's Mills Run Off.
If you like the twisties, the loop out of Terra Nova is a keeper.
It's that time of year again. Dreams of escape surround me. If I left right now I could get in and out of Tuktoyaktuk on Canada's north shore before the snows arrive (just). I might have to bomb up there in a van just to get out in time, but then it'd be heading south across the Americas for months, chasing the summer.
