KEEP CALM AND DRINK COLD BEER HERE

I’m waiting for the ferry at Tobermory, Bruce Peninsula, with a few hours to kill... fish and chips on the way and an only slightly illicit glass of Sleeman’s honey brown at my side. Only slightly illicit as the alcohol will hopefully have been processed by 5.30 when I’ll ride again. I only have a M1 licence so noo alcohol allowed, it’s the law, and definitely not a bad one.. Beer makes me sleepy and falling asleep on a motorbike is not yet on my bucket list. If this is on yours, make sure that it’s the last item.

So how does it happen that a life-long aversion for the noisy dangerous things, turns around into a crazy love affair between this old man and two wheels and a V-twin? The answer is easy – I don’t know. The sequence of events is simple, my wife, Helena bought a Harley and took lessons, it sounded fun, so I took a weekend course with Georgian College. By the end of day one, even though I’d stood the bike up on the front wheel and had to suffer the indignity of filling in an incident report, aversion had become infatuation. Since then it’s grown into love. I know that $15000 and 150 km does not a biker make, and I consider myself little more than a novice, but I am getting there. Less than a year since that fateful Saturday morning at the Barrie Campus, of which my beloved was in winter storage for 5 months, I have clocked close to 10 000 km.  Anyway, that’s enough history for now, no doubt I’ll delve into the past at a future date.

I left home this morning, on my own, Helena couldn’t squeeze the time off work, on what is intended to be a ride around Lake Huron. Now I know that the Mother Superior of the lake rides is Lake Superior of course, but Huron presented itself as more doable right now. I decided to give Muskoka a miss this time so slipped up the inside of Georgian Bay by way of the Tobermory Ferry to Manitoulin Island. The Eastern shore of Georgian Bay, Muskoka, Lake Nipissings and Algonquin are there for another ride.

I left at 8.30, a little later than intended, but as it turned out well in time, overslept thanks to not sleeping well last night – I never do the night before any trip, it’s a curse.  First stop, 3 minutes from home, decided to gas up, and had already realised that I was going to get cold. Luminous green rain gear made me look naff, but it would keep me warm. A few minutes later looking like a phosphorescent Michelin man I took off on the ride. Now here’s a good tip my brother-in-law gave me, rain gear keeps you warm. It is indeed marvelous stuff, designed to keep water from getting through to your legs and body when rain strikes you (or perhaps more accurately, when you strike the rain drops) at 100 KPH, it is almost as effective against air molecules doing the same thing… and way quicker than putting the lining back into your mesh jacket.

Cookie cutter sub-divisions and strip-malls soon gave way to farmlands and forest. Southern Ontario really can be gorgeous in summer (fucking awful in winter, I grant you). I headed North up county road 27 then headed west through Beeton, to Lorretto. Beeton is typical of a thousand small towns in Canada, established 150 to 200 years ago, I guess to serve the farming community, lovely and quaint old houses and shops lining the route through, then destroying the illusion a bunch of ugly ‘centers’ with the usual suspects Canadian Tire, Pizza Pizza, Walmart, Home Depot and without fail Tim Hortons. Lorretto is just an Hotel and a few houses, but the hotel has a truly great sign “KEEP CALM AND DRINK COLD BEER HERE” as good a philosophy as you are likely to find anywhere. Up through Shelburne (Beeton, just a wee bit bigger).

I stop just after Shelburne, one of the toggles of the rain jacket has got loose and has been beating a staccato on my helmet since before Beeton… can just drive a guy mad. It’s warmed up a bit so I shed the naff stuff, look manlier now in jeans and biker jacket. Lots of farmland now, only a few patches of forest here and there, but that’s fine, for a townie like me that’s pretty close to nature. At any rate it’s plenty green, and the cows look happy, lots of red, and blue and lilac flowers line the road, and the occasional oil seed rape field carpets the place in yellow…nice.

 Changing out of naff rain stuff - notice veteran car in background

Now riding on your own or for that matter with others, because you’re really on your own anyway, does something to the mind. I talk to myself, nonsense sometimes, but not always. Robert M Persig called these Chautauquas. Sometimes I just sing, and though I sing very, very badly it sounds ok inside my helmet, but I’d rather write about Chautauquas, might be more interesting.

I pass many wind turbines along the way, slowly turning in the light wind, churning out some amount of energy, how much I don’t know. I see some signs protesting these gentle giants. Now I am sure that I don’t know all the arguments, but I suspect that the only people that could possibly be against harnessing wind energy must be people with interests in coal, oil and gas. I don’t see theses in pristine forests, or near any other places of particular beauty, they seem to be mostly in farmers’ fields, so I don’t get the eyesore argument. Strange that these things are thought of as eyesores, but nobody blinks at the wart of a development right on the doorstep of the magnificent Niagara Falls. All I see is something that puts some extra cash in farmers’ hands which may lead to cheaper food. Well that’s not much of a Chautauqua, but it is late and I did ride over 400 km.

The ride through Manitoulin Island and up to Espanola a fabulous ride with great twists and turns, more on that tomorrow. Right now it’s time to KEEP CALM AND DRINK COLD BEER.