A Night In The Woods

I have been back in the saddle for some weeks now and doing my best to catch-up as much as I can of my lost summer rides as the 2017 season draws to a close. I’m in the process of writing a blog post about transitioning from mobility scooter back to KLR, but decided to do a post about my Fall ride instead, as this is probably a more entertaining story, so excuse the somewhat out of chronological sequence post.

Doing a definitive Fall ride has become a bit of a tradition for me (see http://not-so-easy-rider.blogspot.ca/2015/10/planes-trains-and-motorcycles.html and http://not-so-easy-rider.blogspot.ca/2014/10/donnellys-sunset-point-cabins-adirondack.html ), the spectacle of the Autumn leaves in this part of the world still leaves me with a sense of awe. I love this time of year despite the melancholy it fills my soul with, I ache for the freshness of spring and a summer of riding ahead, but Fall has a charm that is difficult to describe. Anyway, it’s Saturday morning on Thanksgiving Weekend and I’m packing the KLR for a long weekend ride. For the benefit of my non-Canadian readers, we Canadians do Thanksgiving at a different date to our cousins down south.  Probably, more sensibly, to have better weather for this holiday, we do it on the second Monday in October, whereas they do it on the fourth Thursday in November. Other than this, it is the same basic idea, families get together to over-eat in a celebration of giving thanks for the harvest and for allowing the Europeans to overrun this continent.  In my family we are a little untraditional, so it’s just a day off work and the chance for each of us to do what we want to do and no requirement for anyone to spend the day in the kitchen. For me, if the weather’s good, that’s to be astride my steel and plastic green steed. According to the Weather Network, it’s going to be about as good as it gets. I have accommodation for tonight booked at Temiskaming Shores, on the headwater of the Ottawa River, beyond that, I have no real plans, only the intention of seeing the Fall spectacle.

 I strap a sleeping bag and tent onto the luggage rack as I usually do when going on a longish ride, it’s not that I have the slightest intention of actually camping, it’s a precaution. Just to be clear, at the end of a hard day’s riding there are a few things I want; a hot shower, change into clean clothes, a well-prepared dinner with a few double scotches and soda followed by a soft bed with fresh linen. I once came within a teaspoon of running out of gas at sunset in a wilderness area without cell phone reception, at the height of mosquito season, since then I’ve packed the tent and sleeping bag. There are a few other emergency and maintenance items that come along, first aid kit, bottles of water, knock-off Swiss knife, KLR basic toolkit, aerosol type inflator with puncture repair gunk, litre of engine oil and aerosol can of chain oil. I feel reasonably prepared.

 It’s a little cool and still some light rain falling when I set out, but this is forecast to clear and apart from some showers in the Temiskaming area later in the day, I should see more-or-less dry conditions. It’s later than I intended, but I have been waiting out the rain and generally farting around with inessential preparations, this is a personal weakness I need to work on. Once on the road it’s all focussed, there is no time for any off-the-beaten-track deviations from the route. If I’m going to get there before nightfall I’m going to have to move. The road is busy with cottage traffic, I guess people are trying to squeeze the last bit out of the cottage season, much the same as what I’m doing with motorcycling. This seasonal influence on our lives is something I had to get used to when I moved to Canada, there really are four distinct seasons, though I dispute they are all three months in length. Spring and Fall are two months at best and Summer and Winter are four. In Southern Ontario the difference between summer and winter temperatures are huge, probably on average about 30 degrees C, but between the hottest day and the coldest day it is in the order of 70 degrees. In South Africa the differential is much smaller and where I grew up near Johannesburg, wearing a T-shirt outside on an average winter afternoon was not unusual. I have digressed, as I get closer to the City of Barrie the traffic is slowing down and getting very congested. My frightfully expensive and sometimes near useless Tom Tom Rider GPS indicates that the traffic ahead has ground to a misery of stop, start and crawl forward. I take an alternative route which surprisingly has very light traffic, you would think that with GPS systems now almost ubiquitous, the alternative routes would be much busier as alternative routes get suggested to divers.  

I rejoin the motorway just north of Barrie on Highway 11 and start to see some semblance of autumn displays in the forests. Something went wrong with Fall this year, the leaves started turning colour as usual, then we had a week of sweltering hot weather and it was as if the pause button got hit. Even though we are back to normal seasonal temperatures, the trees seem to be in protest mode and this year’s spectacle is not a patch on the usual, at least here in Southern Ontario, which is why I am heading north in the hope of finding reds, oranges and yellows. Highway 11 takes me through Muskoka at a less than leisurely pace. Anyone that has followed these chronicles will know that Muskoka is one of my favourite areas to ride, twisty roads, lakes and forest and great places to eat. It is also cottage country central, which makes it a little busy at times. Now being one of those times, and the traffic only really eases up after I pass Huntsville. It’s been awhile since I have traveled on Highway 11 north of Muskoka, last time it was just a decent two-lane road, now it is dual motorway all the way to North Bay. Somewhat less scenic, but I make good progress and find myself in North Bay soon enough. My butt has gone to sleep and I’m a little desperate for a leg stretch and a cup of coffee, a bit over 300 km in a single stretch is pushing the envelope. Tim Hortons is the option of least resistance, and their coffee is at least always drinkable.

Temiskaming Shores is about 160 km north of North Bay, still on Highway 11, but now a more interesting road. There are plenty of nice sweeping twisties, the type that you can take without having to gear down, or slow down for that matter, and here at last I find Fall colours in absolute full glory at least for some of the way, as I get further north the maples give way to ash and evergreens and it’s less of the striking reds. It has been overcast with the occasional light rain since North Bay, but now the sun, low in the sky, breaks through and illuminates the world like a picture from my childhood bible. I think of stopping to take a photo, but a camera would probably not do it justice and in any event the effect is fickle, after a few minutes it is gone, only to appear momentarily again later. There is very little traffic and I settle into the ride enjoying every single second. Tired, hungry and happy I arrive at the Edgewater Motel as the last light of the day fades away. The motel is quite basic, but fully booked, so I am glad that I booked my place yesterday evening. The town, a few kilometers north along the lake, apparently does have a few restaurants, but they don’t look too promising and I’m dog tired, so I order a pizza from Pizza Pizza to be delivered, as it turned out, not too bad.

View from the Edgewater Motel

I’m awake, it’s five in the morning and the roosters from the farm across the road are also very much awake. I don’t really mind, it’s a sound that I associate with happy memories, but it’s too early to be setting off for the day, so I do some planning. I have mapped out a route that will take me over the Ottawa river into Quebec, through a wilderness area on a decent gravel road, go through a reserve called ZEC Dumoine and finish up crossing back into Ontario close to Rolphton. From Rolphton I’ll go south on the Trans-Canadian Highway to Pembroke where I’ll spend the night, then on Thanksgiving Monday I’ll wind my way home via the fantastic (for a motorcycle) roads of the Ontario Highlands. I program the Tom Tom GPS for the route to Rolphton and leave the motel by 7.30 heading into town for gas and breakfast at the inevitable Tim Hortons, there isn’t anything else open.

The first stretch is a short dogleg north following the Temiskaming Lake and crossing over into Quebec at the northern tip of the lake, then following the lakeshore south where it becomes the Ottawa River. I’m now riding through the fertile Ottawa valley, it’s flat open farmland and it’s super windy, gusty as fuck. The KLR is a light motorcycle, but fortunately I bring a bit of ballast to the party and manage to keep us mostly on the straight and narrow.

When I stop for a break I can see that the wind has whipped up some sizable waves on the river. I’m looking forward to riding through the forest where I’ll be protected from the wind. It’s mid-morning when I get to Temiscaming QC (not to be confused by the place I spent the night, this is a small town on the Quebec side and spelt slightly differently). I’ve travelled about 150 km, but decide to gas up even though I did not really need to, old habits die hard, since putting on the 26-litre tank my fear of running out of gas is just paranoid. From here I head off into the wilderness, and yes, the leaves are mostly living up to expectations.

For about sixty kilometers things go well, a little on the boring side perhaps, the road is a gravel road, but it is broad, straight and very well kept.

Still on the straight and broad

Then I come to an intersection and the Tom Tom seems to want me to follow an option that does not exist on the reality on the ground. Of course, the options are not signposted in any sensible way that an anglophile person, not familiar with the area, could possibly make sense of. I make a guess and within a few hundred metres the Tom Tom seems to affirm my guess and appears to get back with the program after ‘re-calculating’. It’s at this point that things go tits-up, but I don’t know it, the Tom Tom indicates that I must take a left, it doesn’t feel entirely right, but I follow instructions. The road is still reasonable, but a lot rougher than I expected. Then a short distance further it sends me on another left, then a right, or was that straight and the road took a left, and the road has deteriorated to a track that is suitable only for ATVs or serious 4x4 vehicles. Shit.

I know that I am well and truly lost and completely in the hands of the Tom Tom, fortunately it seems supremely confident of the route and indicates that my next turn is 25 km ahead, my destination is still Rolphton and my eta is 5.30 p.m. I push on, I have no choice. On a philosophical level I have always wanted to do a bit of real adventure riding and quite often take a route that includes some gravel roads, but deep down I always knew that this was no more than adventure riding lite. Little bit of dabbling, to the extent that when I put new tires on at the beginning of the season I choose significantly pavement oriented tire. This is all suddenly changed, now it is man and machine against nature, this is the real thing, this is what the KLR was designed for. I am going up or down steep hills on a track that has been almost completely washed away, effectively bolder-hopping on a bike, crossing actual flowing rivers, ramping over fallen trees and the scariest, riding through dark muddy pools forty feet wide and knee deep, concealing sharp rocks and deep holes. There are long stretches of deep soft sand and other stretches of treacherous slippery clay, at best I’m managing to cover 15 km in an hour, it is exhausting, damn hard work.

My biggest fear is that something will happen to render the bike immobile, trivial things like a puncture, dropping the bike in one of the dark muddy pools, electrical failure, blockage in the fuel line, coolant issues, the list goes on. I would be faced with a 50 to 100 km walk through a forest that I have no good idea as to what direction to take, wearing lousy boots for walking, and an ankle that is still in recovery mode. Finally, I reach the turn after 25 km of hard riding, but the hoped for broad nice road is shattered as I turn onto a track that if anything is worse than the one I have been riding. Next turn 15 km, well I am certainly getting the adventure riding I have said that I wanted to do, this is balls-to-the-wall adventure and there is no letting up. I am getting hungry now, but I haven’t got any food, my original plan was to have lunch in Rolphton, I have got a tin of diet Coke, so make a stop and have that instead of food. I realize quite how tired I am, this is physically and mentally exhausting, but I must admit it is fun. This is a type of riding that I’d like to do more of, but not by accident like today, properly planned and not alone, this is dangerous and being alone makes me feel especially vulnerable.

I am starting to be concerned about the accuracy of Tom Tom’s maps. Every now and again the little blue arrow that represents my place in the universe is tracking through forest instead of on the road and sometimes it shows roads crossing my path that don’t materialize and once or twice I come to a cross-road that does not exist in the virtual world of the Tom Tom. My problem is that I have

Little blue arrow

blundered into a forest criss-crossed by a labyrinth of narrow tracks and I’m forced to rely on a seriously out-of-date map and guided by a Boy Scout called Tom Tom that evidently didn’t manage to win the map reading badge… stressful! Nonetheless I do seem to be getting somewhere, and when I look at the route view on the Tom Tom, I am getting closer to the point where I’ll cross over the Ottawa river and get onto the Trans-Canadian Highway. Comforting visions of dinner, hot shower and slipping between clean sheets.

Finally, I am less than a kilometre from the crossing and I can see on the GPS screen the virtual image of the route crossing a body of water that can only be the Ottawa River. It is nearly 5 p.m. and my relief is palpable. Palpable, but short lived, as I arrive at the crossing I discover it is not a bridge, but a ferry, and clearly a ferry that is no longer in operation, from the look of the rusting hulk it has not operated for a very long time. I can hear the roar of traffic on the Trans-Canadian Highway, probably 500 metres away, but there is just no way that I’ll be getting over this river to join in that happy stream of vehicles. I try to program into the Tom Tom destinations that will take me out of the forest, but no go, all destinations demand that I first cross the river at this point, Deux-Rivières ferry crossing. I check Google Maps, fortunately there is cell phone signal here, and discover that Google Maps also thinks that the ferry is operational. I decide to ride back the way I came and hope that the Tom Tom will recalculate a route that will take me out of the forest, but barely go a kilometre when my good sense and sanity prevail. I turn around and ride back to the crossing. I have no food, but would not be short on water, I have a tent, a sleeping bag, cellphone reception, a fully charged laptop, a bottle of Scotch and a knock-off Swiss Army knife, I will survive.

I decide to camp on the ferry itself, the ferry has two broad strips of timber running from front to back (stern to aft perhaps), no doubt for the cars to drive on, back in the days. These look like they will be warmer to sleep on that the cold earth. I let my wife know where I am and set-up camp in time to witness a stunning sunset with a ‘glass’ of Scotch in my hand (aka Diet Coke can with the top cut off with the pocket knife). The plan is to figure a route out of the forest using Google Maps on my

laptop in the morning, the Tom Tom will not be programmed, technology got me into this, and technology will get me out of it, but it is a task I relegate to tomorrow. Right now, as I work my way down the bottle of Scotch, I realise how fantastic it is to be where I am. The moon is not yet up, the night is cloudless and for literally the first time in years, maybe even a decade, I get to see the stars clearly. There is almost no light and smoke pollution here, I go to the far end of the ferry and lie on my back looking up at the sky. I can see that the stars have depth, they are not just points of light and clearly some are closer than others. I make out the Milky Way splashed in a band across the sky, Orion’s Belt, the Big Dipper. The feeling of wonder and nostalgia for a time when I regularly did this overcomes me, I feel tears rolling down the sides of my face… which possibly has more to do with the Scotch than anything else, nonetheless I have no regrets about my situation.

I wake up at about seven, I can’t claim to have had a great night’s sleep, my bed was damn hard, the two-person tent somewhat smaller than advertised and the Trans-Canadian was extraordinarily noisy. I am also stiff and sore in places I had forgotten that I have, let no one say that adventure riding isn’t a good work out. Twenty minutes with Google maps and I think that I have a way out that looks like I should be able to manage without getting lost. The route actually has a number - Route 101 – like it’s a real highway, which I have a pretty shrewd idea it is not. As I don’t have a pen and paper I do my

best to memories, but also print to pdf just in case. The road out of the wilderness is 100 km, my best guess is a four-hour ride, and expect to come out close to the village of Kipawa, only a few kilometers from Temiscaming QC. Using a luggage bungee and my cut-off Coke can to scoop up river water I drink, wash face and brush teeth and refill my water bottle. It’s funny, knowing that there is nothing to eat, I just don’t feel hungry. By 8.30 the campsite is all packed up and the KLR is ready to roll, there is a satisfaction in this nomadic independence.

On Route 101 - one of the better stretches

Route 101 proves to be just about as challenging as yesterday and the first 20 km takes about an hour and a half. I think the heavy rains we have had over this summer have taken a toll on these roads. After awhile the road does improve and I’m able to do short stretches at up to 45 km/h punctuated by sections of rough riding, the road is substantially wrecked on any steep-ish incline. Today I am having a lot more fun than yesterday, I’m in control and not the retard GPS. I am riding faster and with greater confidence… nearly take a spill or two, but manage to keep from dropping the bike. Thumbs up to Clinton Smout and his team at SMART Adventures (see http://not-so-easy-rider.blogspot.ca/2015/09/on-and-offthe-road-that-is.html) had I not attended this one day course in off-road riding I would have been in deep trouble, the techniques I learned have been invaluable.


By one o’clock I arrive at Migizy Gas Station and Restaurant in Kipawa and text my wife ‘Out of the woods, but far from home.’

Migizy may just be a place that serves a simple breakfast, grilled cheese or hamburgers, but I will always maintain a fond memory of my Thanksgiving dinner of four eggs (over easy), extra bacon, sausage, home fries, two doorstops of buttered whole-wheat toast and two large cups of coffee and cream. I programme the Tom Tom to ‘Ride home’, double check the route for any weird excursions, and set-off on the 382-km ride, destination ‘hot shower, clean clothes, soft bed and well-prepared dinner’. 

Inside Migizy Restaurant, Gas and Convenience 

The Summer That Wasn't

Sooo I have been a bad blogger – just ended in the middle of a trip toward the end of last year. Not cool I know. I just ran out of steam, writers block, could not think of anything worthwhile to say. I’m not sure that I’ve got beyond that, but I should at least do an update. I probably won’t be blogging much this year, as you’ll see this was the summer that wasn’t.

The trip I was on last year did not go very much to plan, not the Tom Tom’s fault, but the weather. Torrential downpours kept me in Quebec City for two nights, I had initially not even planned to stay there for even one night. Now don’t get me wrong, I love Quebec City, lots of things to see and do, art, culture, history and dozens of fabulous restaurants, but it just wasn’t part of the plan. I stayed in a bland, modern, cheapish hotel on the outskirts of the city, the sort that looks the same as a hundred thousand others and the rooms conforms to the same basic design. From the door, a short passage - bathroom on left or right, closet opposite, then the bedroom with bed against one wall and desk, TV and other stuff against the other. Windows that don’t open at the end and ugly prints on the walls. Unhygienic, athlete’s foot spoor invested dark carpets on the floor.  

The rain poured down for two nights and a day. I did take a taxi to the old city, bought a little fold up umbrella and did a bit of the tourist stuff, took in a few museums, all nearly empty thanks to the rain, and had a very decent lunch. Three hours was about enough for me so I took a taxi back and watched Netflix on my laptop in the hotel room, drank Scotch and had a semi-edible room service burger for supper.

On the second morning, it was still pissing down, but the prospect of another day stranded in Hotel Le Dismal was just not tenable and according to the weather network it was dryer to the south, so I donned the green suit and headed out into the downpour. Maybe I come across as a wimp or fair-weather biker, and perhaps to an extent I am both, but riding in the rain is not exactly pleasant and it adds an extra element of danger. Roads become slippery, helmet visors do not have wipers to clear away water and the visor mists up badly in the rain. Nonetheless after a few hours of riding in the rain it did slacken off and eventually stopped shortly before I crossed into the USA, State of Maine.

I’m not going to write a blow, by blow account of the trip through the USA, being as it is last years news, but I’ll give a few high-level impressions. I rode through Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire and New York State. As I have discovered the USA is a country of such massive contrasts, soaring beautiful vistas and derelict towns, evidence of wealth and grinding poverty, freedoms and elements of a police state, wonderful friendly people and churches (everywhere) with signs proclaiming hell and damnation. This was during the Presidential race between Clinton and Trump and ultimately these states all were Clinton states, but it sure didn’t look that way when I rode through. It seemed like for every 25 Trump/Pence poster I saw, maybe there was one Hilary/the other guy poster. To that point, I had thought that the possibility that this great nation would elect a crook and buffoon to the highest office was simply unthinkable, now I started to wonder what might be. I had a conversation with a group of guys in a motel bar in New York State, they were riding from Pennsylvania to go through the Adirondack Mountains (see post, Donnelly’s Sunset Point Cabins - Adirondack). I was trying not to have political discussions with strangers, but the discourse almost inevitably drifted there, they were definitely not Trump supporters, but also did not relish the prospect of voting for Hilary Clinton, in the words of one of then, ‘fucking corrupt Clintons’. Amazingly, the democratic party had managed to put up about the only candidate that could lose against Donald J Trump. Well we all know where we are now, shitting ourselves that we can be tweeted into WWIII at any bloody moment. Unhappily Canada is joined at the hip to the USA, we are Siamese twins, Canada is the little one that doesn’t have much control over the legs.

It was an interesting, but perhaps not the greatest of rides. I did not entirely leave the rain behind in Quebec City and stopping to put on rain gear became a regular occurrence. It is way better to already have the stuff on before the rain starts, so there were a few times that I wore the outfit and only sweated in the heat. I can’t say that I didn’t enjoy the trip because I did, I always do even if it’s just a 40-km evening excursion, it’s just that it wasn’t the trip I had set my heart on. I had wanted to do a cross continental ride, but circumstances were just not in my favour. Better luck next year I thought. It wasn’t quite the end of the riding season and I managed a at least one more reasonably long trip, which turned out to be very cold ride and my heated grips were the only thing that kept me from frost bite. But, the season ended by Halloween and I winterized the bike.

During the winter, I brewed my plans. Firstly, the KLR was in dire need of some serious maintenance, it needed front and rear brakes including rotors, chain and sprockets and the tires were worn. Due to a new noise in engine, like someone had tossed in a handful of loose change, I was convinced the doohickey (aka Engine Idler Lever Counterbalance) was no longer functioning as designed. Anyone that owns a KLR knows about this issue, the otherwise bullet proof engine has this one flaw, the stock part is poorly made and likely to break just from normal wear and tear, if it does it could potentially wreck the engine. I also had realized that the 13-litre fuel tank was just not remotely adequate for a decent cross continental ride, and I really needed a centre stand to do the chain oiling and tension adjustments that I would have to do on an 8000-km trip. The internet and my credit card were active and winter was punctuated by deliveries of all the bits and pieces that I needed.

KLR with 26 litre tank

I had visions of doing all this work myself, but as we decided to finish all the renovations to the house in the early spring, I just did not have the time. Instead I ponied up more cash and got the good folks at ATC Corral to do it all. Probably a better outcome as the doohickey had broken so they needed to check that there was no engine damage and root around to make sure that the pieces were not still in the sump. They also were prepared to buy the 13-litre fuel tank to offset against the costs. So, the season started with me having spent almost as much on the KLR as it cost me to buy it, but it was totally worth it, the bike was running so sweetly. The new 26 litre tank, besides making the bike look so much more like a real adventure tourer, having a range of 500 km plus before getting to reserve is just fantastic, of course my butt doesn’t last that long without needing a break.  

To say that the 2017 riding season has been great would be a serious overstatement. Sure, I’ve done a few decent day trips to Muskoka and the Ontario Highlands, but 2017 has just been the wettest summer I’ve experienced since arriving in this part of the world ten years ago. In fact, it is the wettest since records have been made. While we drown, other parts of Canada and the world are so dry that forests are catching fire, but there is no such thing as climate change.

Rivers swollen from the rain, but not a flood

Managed some decent rides - Ontario Highlands

 As I write this the ferocity of hurricane Harvey has just finally dissipated and Houston and other parts of East Texas are still partly underwater, Bangladesh is even more devastated by flooding from unprecedented monsoon rain, Mumbai is flooded and as well as Nigeria and hurricane Irma is poised to wreak more havoc. I guess that having a wet summer is no reason to complain in the light of these real floods. I have recently seen a new phrase to describe what is happening, it’s ‘climate breakdown’, that is the most accurate way to describe this phenomenon that I have heard. ‘Global warming’ sounds almost like a good thing, ‘climate change’ doesn’t quite convey the seriousness of the problem, but ‘climate breakdown’ really does strike the right note. It will be difficult to be a climate breakdown denier in the face of the climate events that are hitting us, but then again if it suits you to pretend that it isn’t happening then you’ll just carry on denying even as the world as we know it comes to an end. Here ends the lesson, I’ll write about more cheerful things.

Well I am trying, but there isn’t a great deal of cheerful things to write about on the motorcycling end either. I haven’t ridden at all for the past five weeks, even though there have been many days of decent weather. ‘What the hell,’ you might ask, ‘the no-so easy rider, not riding for five weeks in the middle of summer?’ Of course, this abstinence has not been voluntary, a minor accident resulted in a busted ankle and my plans of an 8000-km cross continental ride went out the window. I needed to go in to the office for some meetings and decided to ride rather than drive. Although it had been raining during the night, the weather forecast for Newmarket was clear and promised to become sunny. I didn’t check the forecast my destination. Needless-to-say, I rode into a substantial thunderstorm, which was no big deal in itself, but it rendered the roads nice and slippery. The traffic speed couldn’t have been more than 30 km/h on the congested city street I was travelling on, when a motorist changed lanes without shoulder checking, I was in the lane. I braked hard to avoid him and the KLR slipped thanks to the wet. Initially when I stood up I thought I was fine until I tried to take a step and discovered that putting weight on my left leg was very painful, I knew immediately that my riding season was toast.

On the bright side, the KLR came through the incident almost unscathed. Some scratches on the new tank and on the left hand guard (plastic and meaningless other than helping to keep the wind off the hands), which just give the bike a bit more attitude. That’s what is so great about the KLR, it’s not meant to look shiny, it’s a workhorse not a show horse. A fall like this would have caused several thousands of dollars of damage to many other bikes, busted panniers, windshields, scratched pipes and paint jobs, the KLR just shrugged it of.  

I wasn’t quite so lucky, but in the greater scheme of things, didn’t come off too badly.

Selfie - Kawasaki Green Cast

Six weeks in a cast, surgery to add some hardware to my ankle and screwed up plans for a great ride, it’s annoying, but I can deal with it, I’ll recover. Some lessons learnt, I wore full protective gear as always, including decent riding boots, but maybe I’ll get a pair of trail riding boots and wear those from now on, that would have saved the ankle. Be more vigilant in keeping out of drivers’ blind spot, I was wearing bright green rain gear, so cannot do much more to improve visibility short of wearing disco lights. Pack it all in, sell the KLR, motor cycling is crazy, act my age… somehow, I don’t think so.

One last take-away. The emergency services that arrived on the scene within minutes were fantastic, I was taken care of and my property was taken care of. Thanks to the Toronto Police officer Patricia Featherstonhaugh for arranging for the KLR to get home and otherwise treating me with kindness and dignity, thanks to the firemen that arrived on the scene first and got me settled and to the paramedics that looked after me until I was admitted to Etobicoke General. Thanks to the overworked hospital staff at Etobicoke General that treated me. Thanks to OHIP, sometimes maligned health system, but that ensured I was given first class, first world treatment at zero cost to me. Thanks also to the doctors and staff at Southlake Hospital in Newmarket that took over the treatment and performed the surgery and have treated me so well. 

New Ride

Riding with a new friend, Tom Tom

This can only be described as a lovely dewy morning as I set out from Bancroft on day two of my week long, much delayed and anticipated ride. The planned three-week mid-summer ride, went to a one week at the tail end of summer. I take what I can get and this will be a week to sustain me through the long winter that is surely coming. Actually the timing may not work out too badly – today is the first day of school for the new academic year so the accommodation should be more available and hopefully cheaper and the weather is holding up so far the days are still hot, but the evenings have cooled down. The rainy season, has happily (for me anyway), not yet arrived, though this may not last.

I actually left home yesterday afternoon at about 2 p.m. on Labour Day Monday, a couple of hundred kms just to ease into the adventure. The traffic coming from cottage country was just horrendous, I was very glad to be going in the opposite direction, almost devoid of traffic – people going too cottage country on Labor Day afternoon were clearly the exception. It was somewhere between 5 and 6 when I stopped in Bancroft and started looking for a place to stay. It turns out that there is not much, and the reasonably priced B & B I had considered earlier had a ‘No Vacancies’ sign hanging, damn, so much for my theory. I ended up at the Sword Inn Hotel, a motel, that calls itself a hotel and charges extra for that. The place is ok, just a bit overpriced, but a Google search didn’t get me much else at a better price, and I was tired and hungry. There is a reasonable restaurant a few hundred yards away, so all worked out fine and here I am on Tuesday morning back on the KLR, lining zipped into the mesh jacket against the cold. Temperatures are expected to get into the thirties later on, but the night time temperatures are already much cooler. It’s a bit later than I should have taken off, but a combination of doing a little work (or possibly just interfering with my colleagues) and a desire not to leave when the sun will be shining directly in my eyes, has kept me procrastinating to almost nine.

The KLR’s very simple totally mechanical instruments has been augmented with a very 21^st century device – a very fancy Tom Tom Rider 400 GPS system. I finally closed my eyes to the expense and splashed out on this. I have tried it out on a few short rides and so far it has been damned good. You can get it to produce a route that is either the standard fastest route, or three degrees of thrilling and mountainous routes. The icon is labelled ‘plan a thrill’ which I think is somewhat cringe worthy, nonetheless I have planned a few ‘thrills’ (hey, keep the mind from the gutter) and so far that is exactly what the device has delivered. The nice thing is you can do the planning on our laptop and then sync the routes to the Tom Tom. Needless-to-say the documentation and instructions available are conspicuous by their absence and a great deal of frustration and wasted time has gone into figuring how the thing works, I am getting there, but suspect that I still have a lot to learn. Anyway, I have planned a fully, most thrilling and mountainous route from Bancroft to Trois-Rivières, it’s six hundred and something kms, and ETA as calculated by the device  is 7 p.m., that can’t be right, 5 p.m. at the latest.

View from the road - Ontario Eastern Highlands 

I am cocky and confident, besides the Tom Tom, I have loaded the KLR with three additional items for the trip:

• 1.       A 5 litre can of gas to extend the range to about 430 kms of the stupidly small 13 litre tank this bike is equipped with.  I have not yet completed the blog post of where I came within a half teacup of gas to being stranded in a cellphone-signal-less zone whilst the sun setting and the mosquitos were revving up engines.
• 2.       A light-weight tent with mosquito protection – see above.
• 3.       A light-weight sleeping bag, see nights getting cooler comment.

Of course this means that I look more like a Bedouin on a camel than a cool dude on a motorbike, but so be it, cool is not me anyway, I am the not-so-easy-rider!

Fully Loaded

The thrill factor is certainly being delivered, the Tom Tom leads me besides still waters, up hills and through valleys, yeah though the shadow of death haunts, I fear no evil. It could barely do any better, this is the Eastern Ontario Highlands lovely forests and some of best motorcycle roads to ride anywhere on the planet. Highway 28 with it’s sumptuous curves and smooth blacktop, god it’s almost sexual. Eventually I end up on Centennial Lake road, now devoid of cottage traffic, marvellous, simply marvellous. I have ridden here before, but in the opposite direction. It’s forest, lakes and hills, Canadian Shield nary a human planted thing to be seen. Then suddenly without warning I enter the Ottawa Valley, fertile flat once upon a time flood plain, and the hills are history, this is farming country and John Deere rules the roost. It’s almost a relief to ride some straight roads and pick up the speed

The town of Kanata brings the straight run to an end. I assume that the town’s name, Kanata, has the same root as Canada, which I believe means 'village' in Iroquoian. I imagine French explorer Jacques Cartier asked a local where the hell he was and the answer was ‘kanata’, you are in my village, and so this huge chunk of North America became to be called ‘village’ because of a translation problem. I end up on Sir John A MacDonald Parkway which traces the southern shoreline of the Ottawa River right the way into the centre of Ottawa City. I like Ottawa, it’s a lovely city, not entirely sure I want to live there, lousy with snow in the winter and lousy with bureaucrats all year round, only kidding on the bureaucrats, I have no issue with them, actually in many things I think we need more regulation rather than less. For my South African readers Toronto is like Jo’burg and Ottawa is like Pretoria. Anyway apart from one funny incident with the Tom Tom for no rhyme or reason takes me on a brief loop through a residential subdivision, I had no special reason to tarry in Ottawa and cross the river into Quebec, the city of Gatineau. Suddenly, and I have mentioned this before, you are for all intents and purposes in another country, it’s nice, international travel without the schlep.

Ottawa River from the Gatineau side

My end destination is Trois-Rivières as mentioned, I have made really good time, but still the Tom Tom estimates my arrival at about 7 pm, by my reckoning I’ll have eaten dinner and be on my second Scotch by 7 pm. However, that’s when things go a little awry. I seem to spend an age tracking through semi-suburbia, miles and miles of twisty roads I’ll grant you, but with a speed limit of 40 km/h and the constant danger of le enfants running out after wayward balls, is hardly a thrilling ride. I start to get a bit tired of this and stop for a cup of coffee I consider re-programming the Tom Tom to take a more direct route, I look at Google maps on my smart phone and see that actually the original route will very shortly get me out of the populated area and into more wilderness. So coffee-ed up I resume the ride.

Indeed the hilly area north-east of Ottawa is as lovely as the Ontario Highlands, more rugged even. The blacktop is generally in not a great condition, the curves are quite tight and mostly the speed limit is 90 km/h. The cars on the road actually expect you to honor the speed limit at it’s maximum even though cornering here at that speed would be suicide, so yes this is turning out to be a pretty thrilling ride. One of the routes I spend quite some time on is Quebec Provincial Route 315. Not for the faint hearted, and not for a cruiser, suddenly and with almost no warning the pavement ceases and I’m on a gravel road, one with seriously loose gravel. Twists and turns and 20 degree inclines, oh boy, it’s a real adventure ride, I’m very glad I didn’t re-program the route, and start to wonder if I will actually make it to Trois-Rivières even by 8 pm. I must tip my helmet to Clinton Smout and his one day course (see http://not-so-easy-rider.blogspot.ca/2015/09/on-and-offthe-road-that-is.html) I find the tips and tricks that I learned there invaluable in the endeavour to keep vertical. One section of the road is under repair, a fairly steep incline that is now just a narrow track of soft muddy material. The KLR takes it in it’s stride, piloted somewhat expertly I must say by yours truly.

 

On Route 315

Eventually Route 315 joins up with Route 323 and I'm directed to go north. It feels that I should be going a bit more east, but who am I to contradict the Tom Tom, another nice road to ride, much better condition than the 315, and fully paved. Then I turn north again on route 327, I’m starting to get a little worried, but then it directs me to turn east, good, but on a gravel road, up into a forest, I follow. I have a little bit of a bad feeling about this route, but I follow, this is supposed to be an interesting ride. This is where things go seriously tits up.  Several turns later and I get directed down a road that is a cul-du-sac. I turn around at the end of it and the Tom Tom demands that I should go go back into the dead end. I am reminded of the story of the woman that drove into a lake – her GPS told her to go there so she did, even though she could see it was a lake.  Here the Tom Tom totally loses the plot and it sends me in route that ends back at the road the ends in a cul-du-sac.  I stop and reprogram for the most direct route to Trois-Rivières, but that makes no difference to the immediate problem, still sends me in circles. I ignore the machine and manage to find the road that brought me into the forest and finally get back to Route 327. Just great, one reason for buying the thing is to stop me getting lost, looks like that's not going to work out.

There is no cell phone reception here so I can’t check with Google maps, but my instinct tells me to ignore the Tom Tom and go south, back down the way I came until it recalculates a route that makes sense, which it finally does. Memo to me, dial down the adventure level, too much thrill and you can get lost and if you want to get to an end point in a reasonably amount of time. I realize that I’m actually not even going to make it to Trois-Rivières at all today. It’s after 5 pm and I’m tired, I’ve been riding nearly all day, and still about 200 kms from where I intended to be. The ride was great, but I am disappointed that I’m not where I wanted to be. I know all that stuff that it’s about the journey not the destination, nonetheless when I set out to from Point A to get to point B, I actually don’t want to only arrive at point A and a half.  Which today means my sainted Aunt Agatha, or in French, Sainte-Agathe-des-Monts. This may well be a lovely town, but I only get as far as a few blocks in from the motorway, slap in the middle of the ugly zone that seems to surround all North American towns, empty lots, car dealerships, semi-derelict garden centers, car tire places and cheap motels. It is the latter I am looking for, I just want clean, safe and with decent internet connection. I have a question for the proprietors of motels – what is with the couple of plastic chairs next to each door, really, like a table would be too much?

 I spend the evening trying to work out a nice route to follow, for tomorrow. 31

M2 Exit!

So I find myself doing the M2 Exit course at the Georgian College in Barrie. I have paid the $400 odd for the one-day course and test. It’s a fair amount of cash, I could have simply booked the test with a MOT approved test center for much less, but I suspect that I would not stand a chance in hell of passing. There is a plethora of little unwritten rules that I don’t know, which would in all likelihood prevent my success. In any event I am sure that the course will be fun. The first part of the course is a Friday evening classroom session starting at 6 p.m. but thanks to horrendous traffic, every bloke and his dog are heading up highway 400 to the cottage, I arrive half an hour late. I mean how was I to anticipate that the 60 kilometers from Newmarket to the campus would take me 2 hours? Anyway by the time I get there the evening had just got underway, and I only missed the introductions. The first half hour is in any event consumed with filling in a bunch of forms, mostly waivers and such like. I assume the college legal advisors have insisted these forms must be read out aloud as if we can’t read them for ourselves. I get it, but it is a real pain in the proverbial, probably more so for the instructor doing the reading. 

Our instructors are Sheri and Carolyn, hope that I have at least spelt their names correctly, at this point Carolyn has not yet made an appearance so Sheri is doing all the talking. She has a whole Kelly McGillis in Top Gun thing going, which is sexy and nice, but I am neither Tom Cruise nor Val Kilmer, so I reign in my imagination and concentrate on the lesson. I begin to realize that I am a really crap rider and start to harbor some doubts as to passing this test first time, there is just so much stuff that I know I don’t do properly and I seem to have developed as many bad habits as your average nunnery. Still Sheri is fairly confident that between her and Carolyn they will get us into shape and ready for the testing on the Saturday afternoon. I am less than sure, but more than willing to give it a go. For the benefit of my non-Canadian readers, divers’ licenses here have three levels (I am only talking about a normal car or motorcycle licenses, any other class I actually have no idea). So an M1 is just a written test about rules of the road and road signs and has a very limited life span, also limits the rider to certain classes of roads, daytime riding, no passengers etc. M2 is what I have, I can travel on any road, at any time of day, can have a passenger, but may only ride with 0% of alcohol in my blood. I am not here because I want to quaff a beer and ride, I am here because my M2 license expires after 5 years, so I have only two more years to get the full M. I could have, and indeed had planned to do this last year, but killing the Suzuki Boulevard in mid-season threw a spanner in the works. I have not entirely let on in these chronicles quite how that incident freaked me out.

M1 Exit course - ready to roll

  

On Saturday, morning after a night of disturbed dreams, I leave home at quarter to seven, which should get me there in time, even with a stop for gas. It is thankfully cool today and apparently forecast to remain cool for the whole day. I am not complaining; the M1 Exit course I did at Georgian College a few years back, took place in the middle of a heat wave.  I totally enjoyed the course and I think that’s when I became smitten with this particular activity, but it certainly was a sweaty two days. I decide to attempt to put everything I was taught last night into practice, maybe by the afternoon when I test, I’ll have drilled this stuff into my thick head. I find that singing the actions out helps me, ‘mirror check, look for hazards, check my speed, mirror check, flash the brake lights, mirror check, look for hazards, curbside lane, left track’. My head bobs up and down, side to side, maybe I’ll live longer, but I’ll surely get repetitive strain injury in my shoulders. I’m not as successful with this as I would like to be, and to my surprise keeping within the speed limits is a harder trick to get right than I imagined it would be – well maybe I shouldn’t be too surprised, I’ve never been exactly great at keeping to speed limits.

Traffic is as expected way lighter than last night, folks are either at the cottage or not going at all, still I manage to keep within the speed limit and to the right hand lane, left tire track just as the book says. A few lane changes for practice, ‘check the mirrors, indicate, check the mirrors, shoulder check, change lanes – keep in the right tire track, cancel indicator, check the mirrors’. Actually that’s exactly how I do this anyway, come to think about it. I fill up gas just before reaching Barrie, my C type KLR has the silliest little tank with a maximum range of 300 kilometers, assuming reasonably favorable conditions. I have discovered to my embarrassment that heavy winds can cut this by as much as 60, but today I’m sure that I’ll have plenty of gas to get through.

The Candidates

 I arrive well in time, most of the other riders are already there so we get to inspect each other’s’ bikes and chew the fat a little. Three of the group are there for trike licenses, all three ride CanAm Spiders, damn nice machines, different sort of ride for sure. There are a few cruisers and a couple of sport bikes, I’m the only enduro. The morning starts off with a quick turn through the M1 exist nemesis. It comprises a short course painted out with white lines in the parking lot. It starts off with a sharp right turning S bend, then into a curve that you are supposed to accelerate through to a stop. You turn around, come back through the curve and stop. Today with 40,000 kilometers experience it seems as easy as pie, yet this is where all the M1 exist course candidates lose points, this is effectively where on my first attempt I failed the test. Even the two big Harleys go through with ease. This is not part of the test, but apparently some sort of screening to check that you can actually handle your bike, I fully understand, this is about safety, they don’t need to be out on the road with a total greenhorn.    

We spend the morning riding on a route through the campus doing the various maneuvers over and over that we will be tested on - roadside stops, left-hand turns on red, on green, right-hand turns on red and green, through intersections, lane changes and so on. I’m liking doing this on the KLR a lot more than I would on any other bike, it’s light and maneuverable and designed to be able to move at 1 km/h without falling over. Soon it’s lunch time and I’m parched as well as hungry, everyone else rides off, I assume to some or other Tim Horton’s, but I am very virtuous, so have a packed lunch of boiled eggs, meatballs, homemade mayonnaise and some cheese…and water, lots of water. It’s not really that hot, yet still one dehydrates when dressed in jeans, motorcycle jacket, helmet gloves and boots.

Now I always dress like this when riding, I’m big into protective gear, especially since my little mishap on the Suzuki Boulevard. Normally the wind factor cools you down, but here doing these circuits and bumps you don’t get enough speed up to keep cool.  Speaking to the other riders on the course, my attitude to protective gear is the exception rather than the norm. Well whatever blows your skirt up, if riding with a piss-pot helmet, shorts, T-shirt and sandals does it for you, that’s fine, but I tell you when the moment comes, and it probably will, when your bacon meets the blacktop it’s way better to be dressed for the fall than for the beach. I actually think that riding a motorcycle at high speeds without proper protective gear is a bit of a Darwin Award thing.

And this year's award goes to....

After lunch we gather around the instructors and are divided into two groups, the Sheri group and Carolyn group, I am in the latter, we are all bikes, whereas the other group has the spiders as well as a few bikes. We are going for a group ride to get us used to what we will be doing during the test, part of which is to wear a wire. Well sort of, in reverse, we can hear the instructor through an earpiece attached to a radio, but our microphones are disabled. Our group sets off through the streets of Barrie with Carolyn’s voice in our heads, ‘When it is safe to do so, perform a roadside stop’ or ‘At the intersection, turn right’, and so on. She is being driven in a car following us. After a while she directs us to a parking lot where we get scolded for not shoulder checking the blind spot enough and insufficient head bobbing and weaving. This it seems is the key to passing or failing on points – of course you will fail instantly on a few other knockout things like; dropping your bike, causing an accident, going through a red light, riding over a pedestrian and exceeding the speed limit by a generous margin.

Final Lecture - Sheri

Doing this group ride makes me a little worried about my left-right/east-west dyslexia. This is a very weird problem that I have always had, goodness knows why. If you say to me ‘turn left’ I have to think first as to which side is left, and I don’t always get it right, or do I mean left? Same with east and west, I have no problems with north and south, up and down positive or negative. Here’s another funny thing, I’m an accountant, and a pretty decent one at that (no false modesty here), yet I also have to think if debits are written on the left or right of a T-account. I am eternally grateful for the computerized format; debits are positive credits are negative, my brain gets that, no problem, it’s a north-south way of looking at things. I am also not into group rides, as anyone that follows this blog may have noticed, the not-so-easy-rider is mostly a lone rider.  I’m fine with two, maybe even three or four, but beyond that I am not keen. Anyway, all goes well, I guess everyone is on their best behavior and Carolyn herds us like a border collie, she knows what to do and after a nice little ride we arrive back at the campus.

I’m lucky, I get to test first – after just a short bio break I’m riding and Carolyn is in the car behind me instructing me to do this, or that, turn left right or go straight, change lanes, take the highway. It’s almost like a GPS. I try not to get flustered by all the FU’s I’m making, wrong lane, dropped the brake light while waiting for the signal to change, missed the shoulder check, forgot to bob the head to show I’m looking for hazards. The right/left dyslexia only manifests once and I hear Carolyn yell, ‘your other left’ when I indicate a right turn.  Finally, we make it back to the campus and I make a last FU, just for good measure, as we get to the entrance, failed to get into the curbside lane quickly enough. I stop in the parking lot and after a few nail biting moments Carolyn presents my result, I did better than I expected, but worse than I hoped. I did crap, but I passed, 20 demit points, just 5 short of failing. I graduate, not with honors, but I graduate. I hope that I may just hang onto some of the good habits I have learnt and leave behind some of the bad ones I have discovered are part of my riding repertoire.

The Graduate 

It’s just after three and I’m done so I head home, but haven’t gone far when the thought strikes me that a little celebratory ride is in order, I go home the long, scenic way, via Terra Nova and a salad and a half pint of beer on the patio of the Terra Nova Public House.  I linger over a couple of coffees to let the beer out of the system before riding home. Technically I have still got an M2 license which, as mentioned, means zero alcohol in the blood. I take a leisurely ride home; life can sometimes be sweet.

Dynamite Alley

So I have ridden some of these roads before, some of them a few times, yet I expect that will do nothing to diminish the fun factor. The Ontario Highlands are not soaring mountains, they are but ragged hills, still they are beautiful and home to some of the finest roads to ride a motorcycle on. Today the southern end of Highway 507 is the starting point of a loop I plan to ride, just over 510 kilometers, which, with the distance from home and back, going via Beaverton, Fenelon Falls and Bobcaygeon, should bring the full trip to a tidy 800 kilometers, or the magical 500 miles, a real Iron butt ride.

I have a subscription to the magazine Inside Motorcycles, ‘Canada’s Source for Motorcycling News’, the May edition came with a map, a nice big folded map called ‘Ride The Highlands’. Now anyone that has finally mastered the art of map folding, not as skillful as origami I will grant you, will confirm just how fascinating maps are. The map is of the Ontario Highlands with a bunch of routes worked out. The idea is that the Ontario Highlands have ‘handmade’ roads, roads cut from the forests of the Canadian Shield by human labor in the mid nineteenth to early twentieth centuries. They did not have the equipment that modern road builders have, as a result these roads tend to go around obstacles instead of through them, hence the fabulous twisties and why it is so awesome to ride a bike in this area. Which is not to say that they did no cutting at all, the route I have chosen to ride today is called Dynamite Alley, it is called that because there are enough examples of where the road builders simply could not go around all the obstacles and employed judicious amounts of dynamite to cut through the hillsides. The result are roads that have grand sweeping, truly sexy curves that are exactly what I’m after. Unhappily I have only one day available this weekend to ride, really need to organize my life better, so although the ride is billed as a two-day ride, I plan on doing it in one. http://ridethehighlands.ca/en/index

It’s Saturday on the Canada Day weekend, its already 10.45 and I’m just at the starting point of the loop, so I am feeling a little bit of pressure if indeed I’m going to make it all the way. 

It's Canada Day Weekend, Eh

I left home at about 8 a.m., not entirely at the proverbial fart-o-sparrow, but in my defense it was cold. Yes, in mid-summer it was cold, so I waited for it to warm up a wee bit, call me a ninny if you will, but I don’t enjoy being cold. I was attired in jeans, boots and mesh jacket when I pulled away, but stopped barely 5 kilometers from home and donned the full Frogg Toggs outfit, rain gear, as noted many times in this blog, keeps the wind out and the rider nice and toasty. I am stopped at a small gas station that is insanely busy with people filling containers with gasoline for motorboats, also a lot of motorcycle. They have a funny system here, I guess it is called the honor system, you pump your gas, take a note of the charge, then go inside and tell the cashier how much and pay. There are not many places in the world where something like this would work, there is something to be said for that. On a less happy note, after filling up gas I take a pee in the most disgustingly filthy washroom I have yet encountered in Canada.

Highway 507 is a 38 kilometer stretch of one of the best roads to ride on that I know, I remember the first time I rode down Highway 507 from Gooderham, it was so much fun that I promptly turned around and rode back up again. I am of course not alone in this conviction, while I was stopped at the gas station I saw at least 40 bikes set off on Highway 507. It may be a little cold and windy, but the biking fraternity are indeed out an about today. I ride at a fair clip, carving my way through the curves at a little over the speed limit and well over the recommended speed for the corners, nonetheless I get overtaken by a group of about six sport bikes, big fast BMWs, that make me look like I’m stopped at the side of the road. It looks like awfully good fun, but I really don’t have the balls for that sort of riding. Perhaps had I learnt to ride in my reckless youth it would be different. The more I ride the KLR the happier I become with it, it fits the type of riding I want to do. It’s not the greatest bike on the pavement nor is it off-road, but it’s a decent compromise. I have discovered that to enjoy my ride I don’t actually need all that much power, all that much speed and I definitely don’t want all that weight. It’s also cheap and cheerful, as am I, so we get along just fine.

Views from Highway 507

From Gooderham the route carries on north on Highway 3 or Glamorgan road, marginally less twisty and as scenic as the 507, it’s 17 kilometers span is over far too quickly, but now I’m onto highway 118 going north-west and through Haliburton. This is one of my favorite towns in East Muskoka and home to the Baked and Battered Cottage Bakery and Fish Fry. It’s on Highland Street overlooking Head Lake, they do this thing call coconut shrimp, oh my. They use a large peeled shrimp, still with the tail, flayed open so that it is shaped like an oval disk, battered then coated in shredded coconut and deep fired. A few weeks back I stopped there for lunch and had battered haddock with four of these instead of chips – I’m still doing the low carb/Banting way of eating, though I guess there are carbs in the batter. Anyway, it was bordering on an orgasmic experience - sitting on the verandah, taking in the view and enjoying the meal.http://bakedandbattered.com . Though I am hungry by now I decide that it is too soon since the last stop to have a rest break, Dorset is about an hour away via the suggested route, which is on Highway 118 to Carnarvon then North on Highway 35, but first a little loop up to Eagle Lake on Haliburton Road, and back to the 118 on Eagle Lake Road. 

If you are ever in that area at a mealtime (or even if not at an official mealtime) stop by there

I like riding Highway 118 and 35. These are the main roads around here so they are wider, less twisty, and I suspect not handmade, but nonetheless have wonderful sweeping curves.  The blacktop is in great condition and traffic is relatively light so I manage to get up to a fairly exhilarating speed - well relative to the KLR - carving my way through absolutely stunning scenery of lakes, craggy hills and verdant forest. This may not be the Rocky Mountains, and I do tease a little that this hills are called ‘the Highlands’, but that does not detract from the fact that this is a truly gorgeous area. I’ve said it before and I’ll no doubt say it again; I am privileged to live in such a beautiful part of the world. I turn off Highway 35 to go into Dorset, a lovely little village, in search of a ‘spot of lunch’, as an Englishman might say. Alas that is not to be, there is something on in the town and it is heaving with people. I have serious doubts that I’d find a table anywhere, damn should have lunched in Haliburton, I am by now very hungry, but I have a pathological hatred for crowds, to be honest I am not all that keen on the company of my fellow man other than in moderate doses, crowds really scare the shit out of me.

I flee and head back to Highway 35 – maybe I’ll have more luck in Dwight, which as it turns out is exactly what happens. Shortly before the turnoff onto Highway 60 I stumble on the Bush Company Bar and Grill. Another of those great country restaurants I keep on discovering on my travels. I seem to be at the risk of turning this blog into a guide to eating your way around, still I’ll mention that the Southern fried chicken sandwich (I didn’t eat the bread) and baked brie and caramelized onion dip was way more than merely decent. http://www.thebushcompany.com. They had tables to spare and the service was excellent.

There is one thing I have realized about low carb eating – it is nearly impossible to find a quick meal anywhere that does not include bread. I ate on the patio which was inside a garden, fortunately far from the maddening crowd.

Highway 60 took me through Algonquin Park. A nice enough ride, scenic, but not really anything to write home about from a biking point of view. You do stand a chance of encountering a moose or deer or even a black bear, any of which could do some serious damage to a motorcycle and/or rider and visa-versa I presume, but that doesn’t stop me riding at a bit above the speed limit of 80 km/h. I am certainly not alone in doing this, the traffic speed is at least 100 km/h, this is one of the main drags to Ottawa, the fact that it goes right through a provincial park does not detract in any way from its primary purpose of conveying cars quickly and efficiently. It doesn’t take me long to get to the east gate, a mere 60 kilometers from the west gate. By now my lunch has started to settle nicely and I’m feeling decidedly sleepy. This may come as a surprise, but it is entirely possible to fall asleep while riding a motorbike, even doing a decent speed. This is not something I want to do as I’m sure taking a nap at 85 km/h can be fatal or at the very least painful and inconvenient, so I stop at the Opeongo Outfitting Store, there is a sign that they sell coffee.

Now if you need to be outfitted for camping, canoeing, hiking, fishing and so on, then this is the place to come to. I think this is weird, if I were coming to Algonquin to do any of these things I would have all this shit sorted out long before reaching the very edge of the park. It’s a bit like those luggage shops you see in airports; WTF do people arrive at the airport destined for exotic places and they have their stuff in shopping bags pending the purchase of a suitcase? I assume these places must actually sell things because they are still in business. Anyway here at Opeongo Outfitting Store, 3 Generations of Experienced Outfitters Since 1936 you may also acquire T-shirts, baseball caps, key rings, moccasins, RCMP teddy bears, wee bottles of maple syrup and other typical Canadian crap that gets sold to tourists. They do sell coffee which is almost undrinkable, but I force it down anyway. I also buy a few cans of sugar free Red Bull and after downing two of these I think I’m armored against the midafternoon drowsies, not to mention that the pending pressure on the bladder will almost certainly keep me awake.

I notice that the sky above me has assumed an ominous dark aspect, it has been switching between clear and threatening rain for most of the ride so far, but this looks a little more serious. To the south things look better so I decide to moderate the route a little and take Highway 127 south instead of carrying on to Madawaska and the 523 south. Almost immediately I regret the decision, Highway 523 was one of the attractions of the route, not that the 127 is bad, but it’s definitely not a hand-cut road and almost bereft of twisties. Heading south does actually get me away from the storm clouds and it’s not long before I’m riding through the proverbial sunlight uplands on a road that is almost innocent of traffic. The blacktop is in excellent condition so I must confess to taking the old KLR up to a speed it was not really designed to do. The Suzuki Boulevard C90T, that I used to ride, could get to 140 without breaking into a sweat, but I assure you that it’s a heap more fun on the KLR maxed out at that speed, not to mention scary as all hell. At Maynooth I leave the main roads and turn west onto Peterson Road, which on paper looks like one heck of a road to ride – and so it turns out to be.

Peterson road, and eventually Elephant Lake road, as it morphs into, is definitely one of those hand-made roads. This is very hilly country and I am treated to many stunning views as I crest hills and get a brief glimpse of forest canopy and a multitude of lakes. There is not much traffic and I only see one motorcycle coming from the opposite direction, I find this a little odd as it is a fabulous road to ride, but I guess this is a little off the beaten path. Eventually, by way of a few other gorgeous little winding roads, I reach Highway 118, my old favorite and go east for a few miles until I meet up with Highway 28, south bound.

Elephant Lake Road

Elephant Lake 

I am now tired, sore-of-ass and heading home. Highway 28 takes me parallel to highway 507, just on the east side of the Kawatha Highlands Provincial Park, where I started the loop this morning. It’s nice enough, but no match for the 507 in terms of a great motorbike road. Burleigh Falls to Buckhorn and soon I pass the gas station with the honor system and disgusting washrooms, the loop is done and I’m going home. Twelve hours and three minutes after setting out this morning, I pull the KLR into the garage and ease ass from the saddle. I have covered 765 Kilometers, 35 short of the planned Ironbut. I am slightly disappointed in myself, but then this isn’t a challenge, I do this for fun and entirely for myself.