Category Archives: Motorcycles

…I actually took 2 shorter rides last week, but this was the first of any distance. After fixing the heated grips I rode the long way to Musselman Lake, making a loop past Humber College to make sure I knew how to get to my course next weekend. There were 2 full parking lots full of motorcycles at Humber: probably the first weekend they’re teaching the M1-exit course this year.

I wore thinner “summer” riding gloves, after reading they would let the heat of the grips through to my hands better… this worked around town but at sustained highway speed my hands eventually got cold anyways (unless I messed up the hi/low settings of the grips). Still, it was only about 1-2 degrees out, and it was nice to have warm hands at city speeds. It also makes me wonder how nice a heated vest would be…

The last couple weeks of October I was in Eugene, Oregon working with a customer. 2-week engagements can be boring because you spend a weekend in a strange town and you’re not too sure what you can do to keep busy. Well, I did not have that problem on this trip!

One of the guys I worked with, Matt, was big into off-roading… and often went on quad-riding trips into the mountains and to the dunes along the coast. He invited me to come out camping with friends and family and get my first taste of riding on all that sand!

It turns out he has a different definition of “camping” than I do: we had 2 RVs, both with generators, indoor plumbing, and stove/fridge/microwave and DVD players, plus trailers to bring 5 quads! A far cry from the backpack, tent, and canoe that I normally have when camping with the guys at work, but who am I to complain! 🙂

Matt picked me up with his son and daughter, and we were at the campsite by mid-afternoon. After getting the RVs sorted we took a quick ride around… then again after dinner… then all day Sunday. Wow! I had never driven on sand in anything larger than a sandpit – it was amazing! You could go almost anywhere!

I say “almost” because the first thing I learned was that the sand is anything but flat. It’s a rolling set of drifts with steep hills down the back… and when you’re driving around you can’t see those dropoffs until you’re almost on top of them… yikes! A dropoff can be anything from a couple feet to 10-50 feet… so if you’re driving along at a good pace and you don’t see any other tracks from others in front of you, SLOW DOWN!

Not only were we driving though the smaller waves of sand, there was also much larger features to keep you interested (and to use as landmarks: because to me it all looked the same out there). Like this little lake in the bottom of a bowl, hugged up against an island of trees. And “play” areas where tufts of grass managed to hang on and grow into obstacles to drive around. And you had to keep your eyes open for other people out on their ATV too!:

Matts friend Craig was with us as well. Not only was he driving his daughter around everywhere, but he was also the resident photographer. Here I am all dressed up and ready to go: you couldn’t miss me with the big white helmet, on Matts Polaris 700 loaner (thanks again for the quad Matt!):

Here Matt shows us that you really can jump utility ATVs! (who would have guessed?). I followed a bit slower, since I didn’t want to break anything on the machine. (then I did something stupid about 15 minutes after this was taken, but I’ll leave you in suspense for now):

We stopped for several short breaks, and to regroup. Matts son Garrett was driving a small 2wd quad that couldn’t climb the same hills as the rest of the ATVs, so sometimes he took another route around obstacles. Here’s some photos of the group:

Here’s some nice shots of Matts family at the top of a hill:

Not only did we roam around the inland dunes, we also made the short drive out to the coast, to play in the surf of the Pacific

There was a sea lion on the beach, with a few people watching it a ways away. It may have been sick, since they apparently don’t just come up on the beach alone like that, especially with all the people and ATVs buzzing by. (Jeff and his daughter Emily are in the second pic)

We mostly saw other quads out there (sport and utility)… but there were quite a few bikes too. Apparently they can be hard to ride in the sand… you’d see them fly by and the riders couldn’t really make crisp turns to where they wanted to go… they more had to gently lean the bike and let it float its way in the right direction.

I was almost a perfect weekend. Almost, because the very last time I had to make a 180 to head back to camp… right at the end of the day.. I rolled Matts quad right over until it was resting upside down on its handlebars (but strangely enough it kept running: the wonders of fuel injection!). I took a bit of a tumble in the sand, but didn’t have a scratch on me… still I felt horrible, and it was entirely my fault. All day I had been making the quad slide around… but the back end would never kick too far out: just enough to make it exciting. This time when I swung it around… it caught… and a split second later instead of sliding sideways across the sand I was flying horizontally across the top of it as the outside tires dug in and catapulted me off. I did this in front of the whole group too: boy did I feel like a retard!

The others all rushed over to see if I was all right, and after brushing off some sand we rolled the (still running) quad back up onto it tires. The damage? Lots of sand where it shouldn’t be… but other than that the only casualty was the orange whip flag on the back: I sheared it clean off!

Thanks again to Matt, Craig, Jeff and their families for making me feel at home and taking me out to the dunes!

This weekend I got to take another trip to TrailTours, this time with more friends! (last time we had 3 people) This time we had 7: Bobby, Craig, Raj, Ruby, Shehzad, Mark and myself. I took fewer pictures this time because I didn’t have any pockets to carry the camera with me, and it was cold enough the camera batteries were dying.

The drive up was uneventful (thanks to my sister for loaning us her car) and we all arrived at around the same time. All the bikes were lined up and ready to go:

After filling out the paperwork we started to line up for gear (Pat is on the left: sweep from our last trip):

It took awhile for all of us to get dressed up, some people needed to switch pants/boots to get something comfortable: unfortunately I didn’t get an early picture of Ruby because she had to go through about 3 pairs of boots to find something at work.

Bobby

Craig

Mark

Shehzad

Raj

Then we got rounded up to listen to the rules-of-the-road, then divided up into groups. Craig and I ended up in a “Novice” group by ourselves with one instructor, and luckily the rest of our team got to learn together. Hopefully Raj will post some of his pictures from his ride that day.

Because Craig and I were split off I don’t have any pictures of the learning group in the morning. We next met up at lunch.

It started out a cold day and we were hoping it would warm up, but when we stopped for food we could still see our breath and many people were freezing. In the forest the temperature was OK because there was no wind: but for the people learning dirtbikes in the middle of a grass field it was a different story – the wind was cold, and many people took the chance to throw on a jacket before heading out in the afternoon. Here’s Ruby all bundled up with her bike:

And here’s some random pictures I took when everyone was getting geared up for the afternoon ride:

Raj took many more pictures when we all stopped at a natural spring for something to drink (hopefully he’ll put them online soon). My last photo was of the TrailTours team washing the bikes for the next day:

Finally, thanks to our instructor Paul for getting Craig and I out and back in one piece!

Long weekend, Hooray!

New place to drive off-road, Hooray!

Bike engine let out the magic smoke, Booooooooo!

Crap, I put 259 KM’s on it, and it’s dead. It will take a few days to find out how much repairs will cost 🙁

Today I received the final piece I need to safety my dual-sport bike: a high/low beam relay that needed to be replaced for the headlights to work.

I have a second mirror, side decal set, new front fender and exhaust guard on the shelf… but this is how it looks with enough done to be plated/registered/insured:

…and this is a shot of the “Vapor” mini-computer I installed to be the speedo/odo/tach:

I took it for my first ride farther than 50 feet.. but just around the two levels of the indoor parking garage until the final bits of paperwork are sorted. Compared to my “street” bike it feels like I’m driving a farm tractor. The SV650S is smooth, low, and you ride bent forward gripping the low handlebars. This WR450F is high, with low gearing and a real growling engine noise… and you ride upright with your arms wide and high on the raised bar.

Going to take some getting used to!

Today I went with 2 other guys from work, Craig and Greg, to TrailTours to learn how to drive a dirtbike, after seeing it highly recommended on the ODSC site. I’ve wanted to try riding off-road for a long time now, and am considering a dual-sport bike, and this seemed like an ideal way to get my feet wet.

TrailTours is a short ride from Toronto: about 90 minutes including a stop at Tim Hortons. After meeting up at 9am and signing the paperwork we were let loose to gear up. Everything is provided: you literally only need underwear and socks (and maybe a change of clothes for the end of the day): all the other safety gear (jersey, pants, helmet, gloves, boots, shin/elbow pads etc) is provided for you. They had lots to choose from in every size:

“Do these pants make my butt look big?”

Once you got everything on everyone got a name attached to their chest protector, so the instructors knew who we were. The woman making the tags was quite creative: what your name actually was and what she thought you should be called were often entirely different things 🙂

“Hello big guy: I think I shall call you ‘Susan’ “

If you’ve never been dressed up in full off-road safety gear before, it takes some time to get used to how your friends look:

“You look like a Power Ranger!” “Don’t make me hurt you”

The owner, Steve Weycamp (left) explains the rules of the road. Don’t do anything stupid! Have fun! Pull over for horses! (seriously – mixed-use trails and all that):

“Play nice with others!”

Finally we got split into groups (dirtbike beginner, advanced, and quads) and the learning starts. It was a hot day and we were glad we could park the bikes in some shade. The instructors did a fantastic job of explaining things for people that have never been riding before. Right from what all the levers do, to starting it up and moving in little 10-foot increments to get used to the clutch and brakes. Every time we learned something new the instructors helped each student individually to make sure they understood what to do.

“Try not to wheelie!”

Finally we were released to terrorize the local flora and fauna of Ganaraska forest! (actually we were free to do laps around the entry-level track as they helped us learn critical skills: like how to get into second gear! 🙂 )

Mike Craig Greg

“Errr… is the engine supposed to make that noise?”

After roaming some of the local trails were went back to camp for some food (sorry no action shots: can’t learn to drive and use a camera at the same time). Lunch was great: lots of sandwiches, veggies+dip, cookies+watermelon, and all the water and iced tea you could drink. And yes, an outhouse for those who perhaps drank too much 🙂

“Whoever took my cookies is going to be in a world of pain”

They had lots of different bikes to ride for every sized person: 150s, 230s and 250s were the most common bikes since most of us were just learning…

…and quads as well:

Here I am on a 250 trying to appear like I have things under control. The trails were anything from dirt roads near the camp, to narrow single-track… with most being hard-packed and sandy trails through the forest. This is part of a little practice loop you can drive around to learn to corner on sand better, and to learn how to get through whoops as well

This is the flat half:

“This is easy: ESPN Extreme Sports, here I come!”

Then here I am in the whoops: notice my not-so-delicate 260 pounds is bottoming the suspension in the dips. The instructors were clear not to go too fast, and don’t try to jump the bike. But my speed limiter wasn’t the fear of getting some air: it was the the forks crying “Uncle!” 🙂

“Bike, I’m so sorry to do this to you. Please forgive me and get me home safely!”

In the afternoon we got to stop at a spring for a drink, cool down, and hook up with the other groups. This was perfectly timed for me because I was hot and very thirsty. The main mini-waterfall of the spring is behind the tree in this pic…

…and here’s the quad group that arrived just before we did:

…and finally a better look at the spring itself where you could scoop up ice-cold water to drink and cool off:

We hit a few more trails after the spring, notably a large sandy hill-climb that I didn’t make up (botched a downshift and stalled half way up, grrrr!). Only a couple minor spills in some of the groups and everyone went home safe with big smiles on their faces! (I’m the guy with no hair)

“I’m so glad we’re taking a break…”

Once we got back to the camp it was actually a quick end to the day: get out of your gear and turn it in (I was _so_ glad to get out of those motorcross boots), say thanks for the terrific work of all the staff, and head back to the cars. The instructors were still hard at work washing down all the bikes for the next group of people they’ll take through the forest.

“You like that don’t you? You dirty, dirty bikes…”

We had a great time: I’ll be going back for sure, and will hopefully get more friends to come next time after telling them about all the fun they missed this trip.

Special thanks to the 2 instructors that were extremely patient with my group all day. Pat (on the left) made sure no one was left behind, picked us up and dusted us off when we tipped over, and patiently waited when we stalled the bikes for the hundredth time on a hill 🙂 . Jessie (right) kept us pointed in the right direction and entertained with an extremely outgoing attitude and an I-can-barely-restrain-myself-I-wanna-jump-off-every-root-and-rock riding style (showing incredible self-control by keeping both wheels on the ground the entire ride). They made a perfect mix of personalities to help us learn the sport.

One last trip before returning to work, this time to Island Lake Park in Orangeville. There was a couple light splashes of rain, but now I’m pretty much waterproof and insulated from head-to-toe, so it wasn’t bad at all.

Last year I found a nice stretch of road to practice emergency braking, and I made sure my path to Orangeville went over it this trip. The pavement was cold but dry, so all my stops were uneventful.. though I’m sure I can still get much better with practice. A couple of the stops got the rear wheel off the ground an inch or so, but that was only in the last foot of braking… so I know I can slow down even faster if I squeeze a bit harder a bit sooner. I don’t want to endo… but unless I can _almost_ lift the rear sooner after I begin braking (and without locking the front tire) it means I still have grip I’m not using to slow down.

I should also start practicing slowing down rapidly then swerving to avoid an imaginary object…. but until I get better at the straight-line braking parts I don’t want to think about swerving too much lest I end up in the ditch 🙂

After reading a lot about the hearing damage that can come from riding a motorcycle (especially from the wind noise that you get from highway driving), I started to wear ear plugs last year for my longer trips.

The make a huge difference! I can still hear traffic fine, although people talking at a gas station are hard to make out. I actually get home and feel less “mentally tired”. And once I got used to them if I forget to put them back in after a pitstop at Timmies the bike sounds really loud… irritating enough I’d usually pull over and put the plugs back in rather than put up with the racket the rest of the way home.

The downside is… …I think they make me ride faster. My little SV has a rather loud growl when it gets spun up (mostly due to the Hindle pipe) and to some extent I think my brain associates the engine and wind noise with speed… so I keep a good eye on the speedo. But with the plugs in I can find myself doing a seemingly “moderate” pace down a straight stretch only to realize the throttle is twisted almost as far as it can go. Or on onramps being 500 RPM shy of the rev limiter just getting up to speed with traffic instead of shifting much earlier (but it feels so _good_).

Thankfully my SV650S is considered a “beginners” bike, so it doesn’t go that fast to begin with, and my rear sprocket is up one tooth from stock which slows me down more. Still… something to be aware of as I try to work up to some longer rides this summer…

The spring motorcycle show was today. It wasn’t as large as what I remember from the January show, but I did pick up some warmer gloves, and get to oogle some of the bikes at the Suzuki of Newmarket booth:

Since I wanted to try my new gloves, and since it was another great day for a ride: (well, +4 and no rain)… I threw another dart at Google Maps and decided to visit Belwood and it’s nearby lake.

Things went OK the first 99% of the way… but as I got closer to where I though I should be going the paved roads started to run out, and the dirt parts were potholed, muddy, and rutted (not the terrain for a road bike). I had to stop and eyeball the maps I had printed to find another way around…

After crossing a bridge over Lake Belwood I circled around a bit of highway looking for “downtown”. I stopped and took some pictures… I had arrived, hooray! (only about 100KM from home)

But now that I’m home and have looked at a map, I can see that I had wandered too far and was in the nearby town of Fergus instead. I blinked and missed downtown Belwood. I had driven through it but all I remember were a few houses and a convenience store.. I assumed I was still on the outskirts 🙂

Today was the first day of my holidays where it was above 5 degrees, and didn’t rain all day. So I took a look at Google Maps for a place I had never been before and that wasn’t terribly far away. I found Scugog

Although the temperature was OK in Toronto… by the time I made it to Scugog (about 80km NE of Toronto) it was quite a bit cooler… to the point where the odd snowflake was falling and I needed to stop in a coffee shop to warm my hands before the return trip.

I wish it would warm up. We had an unusually warm winter… but now are paying for it with an unusually cold spring. If this keeps up I’m buying hand warmers for the bike.