The Big Ride (also The Long Post)

The week has been hot and humid, almost tropical, oh yes Canada is a cold snowy place, but here in Southern Ontario it can get like Mombasa in the summer, humidity you can cut with a knife, it’s all those lakes. Toronto is after all more or less on the same latitude as Venice.  Then on Friday evening we had a storm that made me wonder if I really should have built a boat and put all the animals in, two by two, instead of a deck in the back yard. Saturday the weather couldn't make up its mind, but Sunday (Sept 7) played ball. Glorious blue skies, cooled down considerably and a little on the windy side, but as near to perfect biking weather as can be requisitioned. I know that the real way is to use a road atlas, but Google maps is just sooo much easier and I want to get going sooner rather than later. There are a few roads a want to ride, Highway 518, 60 and 127. I plan the ride, scribble it down on a piece of paper and rub my hands together like DR. Evil, this is going to be a BIG RIDE, 700 Km in one day…Muh hah hah!

I leave the silent house, nobody stirs, even the chubby Dachshunds slumber on. I can feel that although the sun is up there is a chill in the air and with 700 Km ahead of me, I won’t be travelling slowly. I don the suit, the naff florescent green suit, ok you know the drill. Highway 9, west to Highway 27 North to Barrie. The 27 is an old favorite even though it is as straight as a die it passes through some very pretty farmlands, rolling hills all the way. There are a few lovely little villages like Bondhead, ‘Home to Sir William Osler, Father of Modern Medicine’. Well at least so says the sign, I’m not sure that modern medicine can be said to have a single ‘father’, but I am not going to argue with the village elders. Then there is Cookstown, this is a favorite spot. There used to be a great little restaurant that my wife, Helena, and I often rode to, The LOL Café, for breakfast, fabulous eggs benedict and espresso, a few weeks back we did a breakfast run and lo, the LOL Café was gone, all boarded up. Apparently the owner and chef closed up due to ill health and then while she was looking to sell the place, someone mounted the sidewalk and drove a car through the restaurant with fatal consequences. Nothing is certain in this life.  

There is another reason why we like Cookstown, there is a little cabinet maker there called Frank that is extraordinarily talented and does not charge the Earth. His lovely South African significant other has a shop the sells his stuff and her craft jewelry, upmarket, well-made and of original design. I would tell you all about them, but I still want a few more pieces at a reasonable price… go find your own guy!

Frank restored this little book case and then made an exact replica for us 

Highway 27 takes me to Highway 400 just before I hit downtown Barrie, northbound to Parry Sound. Usually the 400 is a nightmare of assholes in dirty great pick-up trucks with steel gonads hanging from trailer hitches, and it seems to me some of the guys that dive these vehicles have an ambition to actually kill a motorcyclist. But today it is relatively empty and nary a faux testicle to be seen. Pass the Duckworth Street exit and nod to my Alma Mater, Georgian College Motorcycle Training Program. Okay it was just a weekend course, but to anyone that wants to learn to ride a motorcycle, this is a very good place to start. Granted the $450 plus tax price tag seems a lot, but it is actually worth every single cent, I learned a lot, had fun and crashed their bike, not mine, twice. Check it out if you have a Facebook account, (is there actually anyone that doesn’t?). https://www.facebook.com/GeorgianCollegeMotorcycle

I wonder if he may be compensating for something? 

I have so far not had the need to travel the 400 beyond Barrie. Several times I’ve driven up to North Bay on Lake Nipissing on Highway 11, the 400 held a few terrors for me, unfounded as it turned out. The pavement is in excellent condition for most of the way, brand new black top, smooth as eggs, still sticky, just a few miles of grooved pavement, resurfacing work in progress. I’ve said before that motorway riding is not my favorite, but this was not bad at all, of course Sunday morning going north is probably the best time to ride this particular stretch. The topography is rolling hills and the farmlands quickly give way to forest. It’s obvious why when you ride through cuttings through the hills, I am already in the Canadian Shield. Precambrian Igneous rock with barely a dusting of topsoil. The Canadian Shield forms a giant ring around Hudson Bay, about as large as half of Canada. No one could farm here, well not crops anyway, I don’t know how the trees do it, but they manage to penetrate the rock with their roots and flourish as the enormous Canadian forests, further north its barren tundra… pissing cold most of the year. The scenery is gorgeous, but zips passed at 130 Km/h and Highway 400 deposits me in Parry Sound before 11.00 am, 200 km in the wink of an eye.

Already in the Canadian Shield 

Parry Sound is quite a decent town with a nice little waterfront, and as a bonus I get to see Lake Huron again. The exit from Highway 400 to Parry Sound bore a sign for a Starbucks and my desire for a good double shot Americano is high. Sadly either I am blind or it has closed down, so I settle for the inevitable Tim Horton’s and console myself with a bagel and cream cheese, the 90% okay espresso and a pee in a nice clean washroom. The charms of Parry Sound can’t keep me for long, Highway 518 awaits. Fill up gas and backtrack a few Km on the 400 to get the 518, one of Ontario’s legendary bike rides and one of the main reason why I am here.

Waterfront Parry Sound 

They did not lie, it really is a terrific road to ride, also much of it newly resurfaced, smooth black and sticky, with a hard shoulder and curvy as Marilyn Monroe. Very little traffic and I can get up a decent speed, that is until I can’t, the curves become way too tight to tackle in a grand careless way. They require some serious concentration and many can’t be taken faster than 50 Km/h, unless you have a desire to collect on your personal accident policy. No doubt my childhood friend, Martin, would do much better on his Honda Fireblade, but the Boulevard is built more for comfort than speed and agility. I pass a bunch of lakes, Haines Lake, McNutt Lake (sounds like the dish that McDonalds serves in Madrid after a bull fight), Martin Lake, Sugar Lake, Diamond Lake, Bear Lake and Doe Lake. Miles of rolling hills, forest and lakes, I’ve said it before, this is beautiful country and there is just so much of it. AND guess what? No billboards, this road is devoid of the damn things. The forest is showing a lot more red than last week, when fall comes, it comes fast… sigh L. Maybe I’ll have to invest in a Ski-Doo.  

Scene from 518

I know why I ride, and as I lean into the corners, pushing the limits of my courage, it’s reinforced. When you ride a motorcycle you find yourself living in the best place there is to live, the present. Yesterday does not matter because it contributes nothing to the moment, except for your experience and that is buried deep in your being and needs no thought at all. Tomorrow means even less because it may not even come, actually if my next corner is as ropey as the last, it stands a damn good chance of not arriving, for me at any rate. I wonder why I struggle so much to live like this always, I think of the 13 billion odd years that the cosmos existed before I came along and the many billions of years it will continue to exist after I have gone… I have no belief whatsoever in an afterlife. Are all the regrets that wake me up at night worth a moment’s lost sleep? Are all the fears I harbor for the future equally as futile? I will pass from this world and so will all the people I know, as will our species and eventually all life on this planet. All the stuff that I worry myself sick about, striving to do the best job I can do, worrying about professional reputation, mortgages, bathroom renovations, educating children, are really not that bloody vital. I’m not a nihilist by any means, there is meaning to life, but that meaning is rather personal, and requires personal effort to discover it, riding is part of my journey to discover that meaning. I know for sure, without asking him, that the reason why Martin rides his Fireblade at 250 Km/h is connected to living in the present … Chautauqua for the day. The 518 ends at Highway 11, I head south to Huntsville.

Highway 60, just before Huntsville proper is the road to Ottawa and maintained in a manner appropriate to a road that leads to Rome. You wouldn’t want our fearless leaders to encounter any potholes on the way, now would we? I do, however, encounter the Muskoka Ironman. Not a comic book dude, but real life athletes that shame me and Bob (Bob is the guy that lives under my shirt and ruins my figure). I have tremendous admiration for the people that can do this. In a way I was once, reluctantly, a sort of Ironman, way back as an army conscript, perhaps an Aluminum Foil Man. I like to be reasonably fit and I can still run 4 Km in 30 minutes, not great I know, but it is something. However this extreme stuff doesn't quite grab me, I admire from a distance. Helena, did the Tough Mudder last year, and for a fleeting crazy moment I thought of joining her – but then sanity reasserted itself.  Actually if I look at the folks doing the Ironman, there are at least as many women as men. Perhaps it should be the Ironperson completion, not as snappy, but more accurate and possibly more pc. I guess if you are a woman doing the Ironman you don’t need or give a damn about pc, you are it, period.     

An Ironperson 

Highway 60 takes me through Algonquin Park. It’s odd that I have lived only a couple of hundred Km’s south of this world famous park (I actually knew about Algonquin Park years ago when I had no intention of moving to Canada), yet so far have not managed to visit. I excuse this on the grounds of fear of mosquitos and black fly in the summer and the fall always seems too wet and cool. Lousy excuse I know. I used to hike a fair amount many years ago, South Africa has some good trails and Algonquin has a few very interesting looking options that I really should try, of course that would mean leaving the Boulevard in the garage for a few days… mmm I’ll have to think on that one. Talking of hiking in North America, Bill Bryson’s A Walk in the Woods, where he hikes a fair stretch of the Appalachian Trail (he managed about 1300 km), is a really fascinating read. One of my favorite books.  

There is a reasonable distance on Highway 60 before you reach the park, nice stretch, albeit a little too billboarded, but one in particular made me giggle. It’s advertising a ‘Couples Resort’, so far so good… but the logo is picture of a statue of a couple in flagrante delicto or as close to it as you could legally have on a billboard. We humans certainly are an odd bunch.

Okay so we know why you are booked in here... 

Crossing into the park itself the billboards thankfully disappear. I was a little surprised to see that the speed limit did not change and neither did the lack of observance to it. I’m disappointed, I’d hoped to be able to toodle through the park at about sixty, but as I have said before you need to keep up with the traffic speed when on a motorcycle unless you want to get ridden over. Seeing the park zip past at 90 to 110 km/h is not exactly visiting, but what I see is tantalizingly wonderful, black fly or no black fly, I just must come back here and do some hiking, maybe rekindle my lost interest in birding. I get to see a little bit at normal speed when I stop for lunch at the Lake of Two Rivers Grocery and Camp Store, hamburger (what else) and chips, It’s not bad, reminds me of the fare served at the Kruger National Park rest camps from my youth, only there the hamburgers were buffalo or elephant, I strongly hope this one isn't bear.

More red now

Highway 60 exists the Park through a set of impressive, but apparently functionless portals, and the road signs revert back to normal, in the park they are yellow on a brown background. I take the 127 south bound, homeward bound, but still a long way to go and I have to admit that I am not as fresh as I would like to be. I start to realize that 700 Km might be just be a little bit of a stretch. A thousand km is known as a ‘blister butt’ ride, and this is somewhat short of that, but still quite tough. There is a vast difference between driving 1000 km in an air-conditioned car on a motorway, and doing that same distance on a bike through twists and turns. Of course it’s a lot more fun on the bike, but it is more taxing. Anyway highway 127 ends at Maynooth, and a very fine ride it was, made me think of the U2 song, ‘All I Want is You’ and the line ‘You say you'll give me a highway with no one on it’. Long stretches with no traffic except for me… marvelous.

From Maynooth its highway 62 and now I pick up the cottage traffic, lots of boats being towed home, another sign of the end of summer. Looking at the map as I write this I see that the route I should have taken is Peterson Road (County Road 10), it looks like a good road to ride, at least on the map. But perhaps I was too tired anyway, but I make a mental note to include this for a future adventure. Short break at Bancroft to stretch the legs and consume a Red Bull, then turn onto Highway 28 heading for Burleigh Falls. Initially highway 28 heads in a westerly direction, it is almost 5 o’clock, and the big flaw in my ride planning suddenly becomes apparent. The sun is already low in the sky and I have still got more than 200 Km to go and most of it is going to be travelling west, damn, not good. Riding with the sun shining directly in your eyes is very uncomfortable and dangerous. If you come out of a stretch where the sun has been behind a hill, say, and it’s a bit dark, and then have the sun in your eyes again suddenly, you can lose visibility completely for several seconds. It’s very nasty and unless you plan your rides properly to avoid this it’s a feature of riding in the autumn. Of course no one wants to plan every ride, sometimes it’s more fun just to choose a direction and ride to see where the road takes you.

Highway 28 does take me south for a reasonable distance with The Kawartha Highlands Park on my right. I’m riding parallel to the 507 that I wrote about previously, just on the other side of the park. It’s a good ride, but not in the same league. From Burleigh Falls, it’s nearly all west on County road 36 and eventually County road 8. Beaverton then home through Durham County

I make it home by 7.30 watery of eye and sore of ass. The two chubby eunuchs greet me as if I have been away for months, with a fanfare of barks and tails wagging so fiercely they can barely keep their back paws on the ground. It was an excellent day, but good to be home.