Okay, so I am seriously behind with my blog, my apologies. I
am going to try to catch-up with a posts that will unfortunately have to sweep
over many little adventures, but I must get this more current, soonest. I do
have three valid excuses. Firstly I have been having so much fun riding the KLR
that given the choice of sitting in front of a computer screen and typing or
riding until after sunset, and the sun does set pretty late here in summer,
then riding it is. Secondly although summer is supposed to be a slow time in
Canada, I have been hellishly busy at work, and as we all know, paying the piper
is what keeps the tune going. Thirdly I have spent the last few weeks in DIY
hell, hardly riding and definitely not writing. The planned simple little
updating of the small downstairs bathroom ended up in complete re-do.
I set out with the idea that I could pull out the old
shower, install one of these fiberglass walls and glass door jobs over the
existing horrid tiles in the shower area, half tile the rest of the place, pop
in a nice vanity, change some light fittings and paint the top half of the
walls, trim and doors. Bob’s your uncle, a one weekend job…tops. Ha- bloody-ha,
I’ve worked my balls off and still haven’t painted the trim. In project
management speak, it’s called scope-creep. The shower I liked and bought came with
instructions that did not go along with my idea, it demanded, unreasonably I thought,
the removal of the drywall completely and the addition of extra studs and
braces. Of course the new drain did not line up with the existing drain, so that
cost a whole lot of sweat, tears and plumbing. The dust and mess generated was
quite out of proportion to the small amount of drywall removed, which made me
the unpopular guy of the moment. Then half-tiling seemed, well half-assed, so
it’s now floor to ceiling with a row of little mosaic tiles in the middle to
break the monotony. Tiling is a way tougher job than the YouTube videos make it
out to be, and messier, much messier, much, much messier. I bought a cheap $100
wet saw courtesy of Chinese sweat-shop labor, which made the tile cutting at
least bearable. I’m also a person that does not like to work with gloves on,
but when my fingertips got down to raw flesh, I decided to overcome that silly
little prejudice. Then we thought that a corner toilet would be just the thing
to save a little space and assumed, foolishly as it turned out, that the
existing plumbing would work fine…another drain that had to be moved, really
nasty this one. Lots of plumbing and all to do with the crappier side of the
water system, kept having to remind myself of the plumbers creed, “Shit runs
downhill and never bite your fingernails.” Actually by now I was seriously into
wearing gloves. Three weekends, including a long weekend and a day’s vacation
and nearly every evening later and the job is just about done. Most of the mess
is cleared, the new light and extractor fan are still to be installed and as
mentioned a bit of painting to do, but I must confess that I am proud and
thrilled with the result, just would like a bit of my life back that it cost me.
Anyway this is not a DIY blog, so I’d better move on to the
motorcycling thing. Having now tried riding a bit on dirt roads and a brief, unpleasant,
but fortunately not disastrous attempt to ride a real trail, I realize that I
lack the skills necessary to ride on anything except the pavement (even then I
sometimes wonder, which is perhaps why I call this blog the ‘Not-so-Easy-Rider’).
I decide to remedy this or at least mitigate it a little and book a one day
course with SMART Adventures in Horseshoe Valley, just north of Barrie, http://www.smartadventures.ca/motorcycle.html
. I leave home at 7.30 am a.m. it’s a hot midsummer Saturday and even at this
early hour there is a fair amount of cottage traffic on the north bound roads,
and Horseshoe Valley is firmly in cottage country. Still I get there in time to
get the kit on before introductions and a lecture. SMART Adventures supply the
full kit, pants, kneepads, top, elbow pads, funky plastic boots, funkier chest
armour, gloves, helmet, goggles and a cloth thingy to cover the head,
supposedly for hygiene purposes. I hadn’t expected all this stuff, and really
hope that the clothing bits have seen a good solid cycle in a washing machine
since the last guy wore them, guess a few cooties won’t kill a chap.
The Not-So-Easy Rider in Storm Trooper Disguise
The morning session is spent on their bikes, in my case a
250 cc Yamaha dirt bike. It’s very high, even more so than the KLR, so it’s a
struggle a with my short legs, but once on all is good, well almost, the boots are
very hard and I can’t actually feel the gear lever, that’s going to take some
getting used to. We are also shown that
dirt bike riding you do seated as close to the gas tank as possible, it feels
weird and makes gear changes even more difficult, but as soon as you hit the
trail the wisdom of this is apparent, the weight is in the right place and the
control improvement is apparent. In my group there is about six of us and the
instructor. The initial few hours is spent teaching us some techniques, braking
on slippery ground , cornering through soft sand, going over obstacles,
controlled slow speed traversing of rough terrain (like ploughed up fields)
using clutch and throttle control and going up and down hills. It’s tough and
tiring, but a huge amount of fun. After a short water and pee break we spend a
few hours on a relatively easy (so I am told) trail through a forest, we also
get to do a few circuits on a motocross course, fun, but I do manage to come
off. Too much acceleration to get out of a slide around a corner, then when the
wheels grip I shoot up the bank as if I’m riding a rocket and the reason for
the funky chest armor becomes clear, my ribs hurt, but not nearly as much as
they might have. What would such a day be unless I fell at least once?
By 12.30 we are back at the ‘base’ and lunch, which is not
included in the $299 I paid for the day. I’d ordered a baby spinach salad with
grilled salmon for about $14, not sure where it came from, perhaps from the
Horseshoe Valley Golf Club, but it is pretty decent with goat cheese, pecans, dried
cranberries and a nice creamy vinaigrette. My companions from the morning do not
stay for lunch, apparently they had only booked for the morning session, from
my group I am the sole candidate for the afternoon ride. They give me a choice
of more of the same on their bikes or milder trails and dirt roads on mine, a
difficult choice, it was really fun, although a bit scary doing the real dirt
bike stuff, but I want to get a feel for what I can do on the KLR. I chose to
ride my bike and also decided to give up the Star Wars Storm Troopers outfit in
favor of my own jeans, mesh jacket and beloved softer boots. A youngish couple with
two small children arrive and start speaking Afrikaans as soon as they hear my
accent – that seems to be the common response here when finding a fellow South
African, it’s nice, like showing a membership cards of a small exclusive club,
only it’s not terribly exclusive. Their son that is getting lessons on a dirt
bike. I shit you not, but kids are learning to ride little 80 cc bikes as young
as five.
Clinton Smout of SMART Adventures
My mentor for the afternoon is Clinton Smout, an old timer,
born in the same good year of 1959 as me. Clinton is a small wiry guy who has
spent most of his life riding dirt bikes in the summer and skidoos in the
winter, a life well spent I’ll say, damn side more fun that sailing the wide
accountancy as I have done, he is also the proprietor of SMART Adventures. As
promised we do some light trails in the forest and I get to appreciate that my
KLR is not entirely designed for the really rough stuff. It is a load more
versatile then a cruiser and can take me places that your average Harley couldn’t
dream of going, but I’m not going to ride through mud holes and sandpits, phew
that’s a relief, didn’t want to! Clinton teaches me some pretty good tricks to
take on steep inclines, up and down, on gravel. We end the afternoon at a café
in Craighurst for coffee and a slice of strawberry and rhubarb pie, we chew the
fat for about an hour. Clinton is shortly to embark on a motorcycle tour of The
Cape Province in SA and Namibia, so naturally I point him at the numerous posts
on this blog from that part of the world. I hope he has a wonderful trip… and
hope he tries the apple crumble in Solitaire. The day was definitely worth it,
but I am still a rank beginner, at least I know a little bit of what I don’t
know.
Nice easy trail, perfect for KLR and me
I have joined the ONTARIO FEDERATION OF TRAIL RIDERS, or
OFTR, which gives me the privilege of riding trails in designated forest areas,
not too many as it turns out and finding the allowed areas seems to be somewhat
of a challenge. There are a bunch of clubs that I can join and indeed have
joined two, but there seems to be not that much going on for someone that does
not want to get into the serious trails, enduro/dual sports riders are
definitely the wimps in this game. I have found that I like going down the back
roads, just as I like taking the nicely paved twisty roads, it’s about a bit of
variety. I know that I can take this bike across a continent, or down one, and
deal with the sort of roads I came across in Namibia, at the same time I can
ride the motorways and hold my own, albeit with a bit of a sweat if I want to
get up to 140 km/h. Which brings me to another little advantage that the KLR
has, I find that I am a much more law abiding citizen than I used to be. The
Boulevard needed to go 140 before you managed to get much of a thrill, the KLR
gives you that at 100, wonderful, my chances of 5 demerit points for speeding
are so much diminished!
I do, however, suspect that my membership of the Old Farts
Brigade (OFB) has been terminated. To be clear I still am an old fart, there is
no choice concerning this, you either are or you are not, and the ‘old fart’
tag you get, like it or not, when you turn 50. Now I know that there are many
old farts out there that will protest that this label is not valid and they
feel as young as they did when they were 25, but catch your kids in an honest
moment and you’ll discover the nasty truth, the day you turned 50 you became
one. But being an old fart does not necessarily qualify you as a member of the
OFB, you need a grey beard (I’m good with that, have worn a goatee for more
than a decade, and it is more salt then pepper), and you must ride a cruiser
preferably a Harley, or at the very least a 1000cc enduro. My green and purple
KLR definitely does not qualify, it is a young mans’ bike, training wheels
maybe. I know that this is the bike I should have bought when I started out,
it’s fun, easy to ride and versatile, but not permitted in the OFB.
Deer in Algonquin
When I bought the KLR it had 18,000 km on the clock, as I
put it away this afternoon it has very nearly 24,000. I must admit that it is
difficult to account for these kilometers. I have done a few decent trips, but
none that involved staying overnight. There was Algonquin, that was 700 km in
one day which included a few rides down gravel roads which were great and I did
get to see a deer which was exciting. Okay admittedly deer are not exactly an
endangered species, for my SA readers, it’s a bit like getting excited at seeing
impala in the Kruger Park. Then I have ridden to Wiarton on the
Some of the places I've been:
Kinmount, Kawatha Highlands - Saturday morning fair
Hockley Valley Road
Bruce Peninsula
Musicians on Sidewalk Washago
Historic Main Street Schomberg
Dorset, Muskoka
Algonquin
Although I have ridden the route the Boulevard died on (a
really lovely route with fabulous twisty bits, follow Sideroad 10 west from Mansfield,
careful through the 180 degree corner I crashed on, then turn right on to Prince
of Wales Road and then take River Road through Terra Nova) I can’t quite say
that I have climbed back on as I haven’t done a group ride again. I decide to sign
up for a Wednesday evening ride with the group, The Rolling Thunder Riders, http://www.meetup.com/RollingThunderRiders/.
They are a nice group of guys and gals and I get greeted like a long lost pal,
instead of the a-hole that crashed the first time he rode with them, I am sure
that they are just being polite. The meeting point is outside of Thornton,
which is also the ending point where the group have a late supper at a pizza
place. Tonight all the riders are on sport bikes or cruisers, except yours
truly on the green and purple machine, oh well I should be able to keep up. The
leader tonight is Crystal, who founded the group with her husband Josh. Crystal
leads the way, a winding route north that eventually goes past Craighurst and Horseshoe
Valley, where I did the one day off-road course, and we end up in Orillia where
we stop for a break before heading back to Thornton. It is a really fabulous route,
but I find that I am not enjoying the ride entirely as much as I should. Somehow
the group riding dynamic is making me nervous, as I said once before, riding in
a group requires a skill set that I don’t have. It’s to do with concerning
yourself with the other riders, where are they and you must ride to accommodate
the group, ride at a speed that matches the group, and then there is the slinky
effect. It’s not that I ride slowly when I ride alone or get overly anxious on
corners, I managed to get over my cornering fears post-accident relatively
quickly, but I find that riding in the group it has returned, it really is weird.
It is getting dark when we reach Orillia, and a little later
than expected, I make some sums and realize that it will be quite late when
supper is over and the weather forecast predicts mist. Several of the riders
indicate that they will split from the group on route back. The group is
following Old Barrie Road, but I make the signal that I’m leaving as we cross Highway
400, and take the 400, I’m home in just under an hour. I’m not sure about
whether or not I’ll carry on with group rides, maybe leave it for the rest of
the season and try again next year. It’s nice to ride in a group, the social
aspect is good and getting to ride new routes is really great, but then there
are aspects that I prefer riding on my own. I like to ride at my own pace, to
choose the speed I am comfortable with and when I want to stop and smell the hummus,
then a stop. Somehow I have more confidence when I’m riding alone and make
fewer mistakes, maybe I’m just a bit of a lone ranger… I tend to be a loner
with everything else, so perhaps it’s the same with motorcycling.
Well the riding season is not over yet and officially it is
still summer, but the leaves are turning, the days are shorter and the last
ride I did I had to stop to zip in the lining of my mesh jacket. Maybe I can still
do a decent trip with a stay over, maybe squeeze a long weekend this year
still, but I’m not going to do the cross continent ride I had hoped to this
summer, oh well c'est la vie, with some luck there is next year.
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