Need For Speed

It’s 6 degrees C, sunny and no wind. I don’t know what the Weather Network is reporting as the ‘feels like’ temperature, and I don’t care, it feels like ‘jumping on the KLR and having a ride’ temperature to me. Naturally I spend a frantic forty-five minutes looking for my bike key, which includes tossing my bedroom in a way that would make your average FBI agent jealous. Finally, I assemble my thoughts and work out that if the key isn’t in my biking jacket pockets, desk and every other drawer that it could be, not on the floor beneath all the furniture, then it quite possibly will be in the pocket of my riding trousers…DAH! A few minutes later I’ve got the cover off the bike, unplugged the battery charger and got the motor running on the choke. No fuel injection here, just a good old-fashioned carburetor. Actually, even the brand new 2018 models are not fuel injected.

My Dinosaur

Yes Kawasaki are still producing the KLR 650, but I suspect that it may not be for that much longer. I love mine, but I must admit that it is a bit of a dinosaur, but then I suspect so am I. (I’ve been called a Typosaurus Rex because of my two-finger typing.)

Technically it’s not yet spring, only a few days away, so I feel really privileged to be getting another ride so early in 2018. Winter isn’t really about to release its grip on us, tomorrow morning is expected to be -13 degrees C. The season hasn't started yet, so I’ll just grab my chances as and when the occasional nice day happens, and hope that these happen on weekends. Nonetheless spring is in the air, if I were a younger man my mind might be turning to where younger men’s minds turn to in the spring, instead the little bit of testosterone I have left is making me twist the throttle more than I should. I have a need for speed today. I’m not in the mood to explore little side roads and amble down dirt roads, I want the pavement and I want to be moving at a decent clip. Ok, this isn’t a sports bike, so I’m not going to go roaring down the road doing 200 km/h, even if the KLR could, I don’t think I have THAT much testosterone. I head west on Davis Drive, aka Highway 9 at 100 km/h plus, the limit is 80, but I’m travelling no faster than the general traffic speed, well perhaps just little. Inside a cocoon of riding jacket with lining, thick sweater, jeans and riding trousers, double socks, lined boots and insulated gloves, I don’t feel any cold over my body and most of the extremities, however an icy zephyr sneaks in under the helmet and freezes my chin and cheeks. Jesus, it’s cold, but that’s just tough, I haven’t felt this good for ages.

I head north on County Road 27. My plan is to do one of my favourite shortish rides, it’s a nice ride for a summer evening or a breakfast run on a Sunday morning, Orangeville via Beeton and Hockley Valley, farmlands and forests. Once I turn off County Road 27 there is very little traffic, I open up a little. There is nothing quite like speeding on a well-maintained pavement, empty of traffic, with the farming smell of silage and cow shit in your nostrils. Its mostly straight with some hills, but the road does a few nice 90 degree turns before Hockley Village. Nice sweeping corners that you can take at good speed for a few nice cheap thrills. The really good twisties are between Hockley Village and Orangeville which makes this route so popular with motor bikers, at least in the summer, so far, I seem to be the lone ranger today.

Hockley General Store

I stop at the Hockley Valley General Store for coffee, and a chance to warm up. It’s nice and sunny so I stand outside and soak up the sun while sipping on a triple shot Americano. It’s been awhile since I’ve been here, so it’s like visiting an old friend you haven’t seen lately. Another biker stops, he is also riding a KLR, much newer than mine and so covered in extra crap that it takes a really good look to figure out that it’s actually a KLR. We chat a bit, or rather he tells me about his many, many other bikes and all the stuff that’s been fitted to the KLR and that next year he’s going to get winter tyres fitted, like his mate in Quebec. Alrighty then, time to move on and take the twisties. I like to talk bikes and bike stuff, but this one-upmanship shit doesn’t interest me, some bikers are full of it.  

Lots of stuff

  

All goes well until about half way when two cars enter the road a few hundred meters ahead of me and proceed at a nice, easy Sunday afternoon pace, damn, my run is ruined with no chance to overtake. At Orangeville I stop and plug in the heated grips, my hands are starting to turn into blocks of ice. I decide to go home the way I came, this time I have an empty road all the way back to the General Store, bloody marvelous. I see a few other bikers are stopped and the KLR guy is still there, chatting to them, perhaps it’s a ‘my dick is bigger than yours’ discussion. I don’t stop, just nod and ride past.  

As the afternoon draws out it gets colder, but my enjoyment doesn’t diminish. Like my last ride there is still snow on the ground and the ponds are mostly frozen. If anything, the countryside is greyer and drabber, but if you look closer you’ll see that there are buds forming on the trees, and here and there something green seems to be pushing its way through the dry brown grass. Yup spring will soon be sprung.

Grey with snow patches and frozen ponds

I notice that the odometer is about to turn over to 43,000 km. Hey that means I’ve done about 25,000 Km on the KLR. I don’t think that’s too shabby, considering that I’ve had it since August 2015 and last year I lost over six weeks of prime riding time. Let’s see what’ll happen this year.

Winter 2018

It’s the middle of February, and hence just past the official middle of winter, but from where I sit winter doesn’t start with the winter solstice and end with the spring equinox. I measure it by when I winterize the motorcycle, to when I have my first ride in the spring, probably about mid April depending on the weather. With the climate in a state of flux who knows when I’ll do that first ride. Actually, it’s almost warm enough to ride today, a whole 3 degrees C, and tomorrow is forecast to hit 13, albeit with rain. I am sure there will be a few daring characters riding today, not for me, the roads are way too dangerous. Ice patches persist and the gravel that lurks on corners and bends makes for scary riding. Nonetheless it’s nice to have a bit of a thaw and get that spring feeling even though I know that all too soon the temperature will fall, and the snow will be back on the ground, at least my thoughts have turned to the coming riding season and that has cheered me up.

Winter 2018

Maybe the thaw isn’t the only thing to blame, I made the effort to attend the Toronto Motor Cycle show at the Exhibition Centre on Saturday. This is the same annual show where I lost my mind a few years back and impulse bought a Suzuki Boulevard (the one I killed barely a year and a half later http://not-so-easy-rider.blogspot.ca/2015/08/death-of-boulevard.html). No such foolishness this year, although my mouth watered for some of the machines I got to sit on. That’s the fun part, walking around and sitting on all the bikes you want to. Sure, I’d love to get a new bike, maybe a Triumph Tiger, or a Ducati Scrambler, Suzuki V-Strom, BMW GS, Kawasaki Versys or even Honda’s Africa Twin, but then do I want to be paying off a bike right now? I know the answer to that. I also know that I’m still in love with my old ugly KLR – the simplicity of the engineering and total absence of electronics somehow makes me happy. It may happen, but so far, the KLR has not let me down despite it’s venerable age of 18 years... do motorbikes age in dog years, I wonder?

Last year was not a great riding year for me, my accident put somewhat of a dent in the whole thing and too much rain marred the part of the season that I wasn’t hobbling around on crutches. Last year I had an ambitious plan to ride to Grand Canyon and Yellowstone, which did not happen thanks to the aforementioned accident, so I am now making some initial plans for the coming summer. One of the problems that such a trip involves is that you need to devote at least three weeks, because the round trip is close to 9000 km. On a trip like that 500 km a day is about the most you want to be doing, after all it’s about the journey and not just reaching a point on the map. I had made some inquiries about shipping the bike home from the west coast of the USA but came up with blanks. At the bike show I discovered that Air Canada are in the business of flying motor cycles across Canada and even to Europe. A bit of research with Google has indicated that I could probably rail or send the bike home by truck from inside Canada at a cheaper rate than flying it, which makes the trip a bit more viable. From home to Grand Canyon and to Vancouver via Yellowstone is about 6 300 km – a tough two-week ride, but doable. Some other options that are under consideration are a round trip to St. Johns coming back through the States or Trans-Canada Highway to Vancouver Island or a ride around the Great Lakes. I’ll decide in the next few months.

I hope I can pull it off this year, last year I had done my planning and even got the KLR really sorted to deal with the trip, new brake shoes and disks, front and back, new chain and sprockets, replaced the doohickey and installed a 26-litre fuel tank. All of this just gathered dust in the garage while I convalesced with a busted ankle.

It wasn’t all bad as I got to discover my home town from a very different angle, admittedly Newmarket isn’t Grand Canyon, its sidewalks aren’t the Interstate and the mobility scooter isn’t the KLR, but it had its moments. I am certain that if a mobility scooter becomes a permanent feature in my life the fun aspect would disappear fast, but it was just going to be a few weeks. Initially I rented the thing so that I could still ‘walk’ the dogs, but that didn’t work as well as hoped, one of the dogs was freaked out by it and spent all the walks that we did whining and barking. In the early stages I was not supposed to put any pressure on my left foot so getting in and out of our van was a little challenging, as was doing any shopping on crutches. For a short time, the mobility scooter became my principle mode of transport.

Riding the Scooter, wounded ankle, wounded knee

The thing had a speed dial that went from tortoise to hare, hare was surprisingly fast, faster than a brisk walk even on a fairly steep incline, which is why these things can terrorize pedestrians, another fun aspect of the adventure.

I had not realized it until then how important it is to make things mobility scooter friendly. It was great that the sidewalks are paved nearly everywhere so I could get just about everywhere I wanted to go and soon figured out the best routes to take. The scooter did not have suspension so although the sidewalks are paved they are very uneven, a lot of jarring went on, especially when I was going at ‘hare’ speed down an incline. Most shops and some restaurants were geared for these vehicles with ramps and enough space to maneuver, but not all and the absence of a ramp to get inside a shop, especially in the old downtown main street cost a few establishments my custom. No biggy I am sure, but $30 worth of concrete may get them some customers they are now missing out on. Note to motorists: - at traffic lights look out for mobility scooters especially when doing a left turn, I had a few close calls. Funny that until you are sitting on a mobility scooter you don’t notice quite how many people are using these things, I’m sure some are just fat and don’t like to walk, but there are plenty of folks that can’t otherwise get about.

The other thing I discovered is the power of the disabled. People are nicer than you think, strangers helped me to get items from shelves, insisted on allowing me to be served ahead of them and made no complaints when I blocked an aisle. I could even be rude and use the horn to clear a path and nobody said a damn word. I certainly would not choose to be disabled, and when I finally could walk without crutches it was a massive relief, but there are some compensations.

Of course, getting back on the KLR was the best feeling ever, and still having a little left of the riding season was a small mercy for which I gave thanks and made the most of. Here’s hoping for better luck this year.

Pre-posting Update

Time has moved on since I penned the first draft for this post. It’s now the first Sunday in March. It’s a gorgeous sunny day, but 4 degrees C below zero, feels like -10. (I wonder how they measure ‘feels like’, maybe someone pops outside, naked, and reports how cold it feels like). Last Sunday it warmed up to a balmy 9 degrees above and was also sunny, so I pulled the cover off the bike, togged up warmly and got my first 2018 ride in. Despite a 35 km/h wind with gusts up to 40, it was a good ride, albeit a mere 120 km. The KLR does struggle a bit when the wind blows strong, being light and tall. On a stretch going north on Highway 27 it felt like the wind was going to blow me right off the road. So, I ended up sticking to side roads and dirt roads where the traffic was light to non-existent and I could ride slower without pissing off too many motorists.

The roads were not really in a condition that riding at a reasonable speed was safe anyway, thankfully there was no ice as the temperature had been north of zero for a few days, but plenty of gravel and lots of wet patches from melting snow. Dirt roads were wet and slippery, but that’s OK, made for some extra fun with not much real danger. The scenery was interesting, very drab, all dark olive green, grey and brown. Not enough snow on the ground to give it that winter wonderland look, but still beautiful in a somewhat stark and harsh way. All the pools and ponds in the forests were frozen solid, even the small lakes were still frozen with just a few patches of water here and there. It’s not spring yet, but spring is definitely in the air, even the Canada geese are back. Nice to see them arrogantly waddling around, I guess they got tired of the gun toting rednecks down south taking pot-shots at them.

I don’t know when I’ll get another chance of a ride, but so far it looks like spring may well be arriving early this year, unless I’ve just gone and jinxed it. Can’t wait to fritter away all my free time riding the KLR.