In the 100th post of 650Thumper, I reflect on a summer of forced relaxation.

Yesterday, the image above popped up as a Facebook memory of exactly one year ago, just to remind me that I once did something pretty remarkable. By contrast, this summer has been pretty tame, even by my standards.

To be fair, this was supposed to be a restful summer after the Epic Adventure of last year. I had eight months to recover, of course, but teaching is a pretty intensive profession, the workload of the semesters off-set by the summers of recovery, and this past year was especially draining as we continued to deal with masks and Covid protocols and the accompanying anxiety of a global pandemic. As a teacher, I am part pedagogue, part social worker, so found myself assuaging the anxiety of some students and standing firm against others who tried to take advantage of the situation. Deciding which is which is the hardest part of teaching, to be honest, and by the end of the semester, I and many of my colleagues were limping to the finish. “Boo-hoo!” I hear those in the medical and services professions saying. It’s true that I didn’t have to wear a mask 8-12 hours a day, but my experience has only heightening my respect for those who do.

But the real reason for a stay-at-home summer is that my wife and I got a new dog, and he was a rescue from a horrible situation. He doesn’t travel in the car without getting sick, and he has some triggers and in general is still settling, so we didn’t feel we could do our planned east coast trip this year. We’ll give him another year to get comfortable enough that we can leave him for even a few weeks so Marilyn can join me for part of that trip, as she did last year. We pledged to make the best of it, doing short day rides and maybe an overnight to test his limits.

The summer started with a bang—buying a new bike and doing a series of short trips with friends in June while Marilyn did dog-sitting duty. First was a club ride to Westport, a small village on the Upper Rideau Lake, that took us along the Saint Laurence Seaway and up through the twisties of SE Ontario. I was on my new bike, purchased, registered, and insured the day before, so I was grinning the entire 700-kilometre, 2-day trip, except for when I watched in a local bar The Leafs lose Game 7, once again.

I followed that with a trip to visit my sister and friend at a cottage in Denbigh, my first solo ride with the Triumph and a chance to put it through some paces on the winding highways of the Ontario Highlands. Then I did a little road trip (in a car) with a writer friend to Vermont in search of literary landmarks, followed by a return soon after with Mike and Danny, my riding buddies who did The Puppy Dog Route with me pre-Covid, but this time we finally did Bailey-Hazen, a military road dating back to the War of Independence. We also did some of the Hamster Ride, a similar dirt-route in New Hampshire, and road out to the ocean in Maine.

I did another trip with Mike and another riding Buddy, Steve, to the VRRA races at Calabogie Motorsport Park on the July 2 weekend. And between those trips was a ride back to my hometown of Burlington, Ontario, for a reunion of The Burlington Teen Tour Band, a marching band I was in through my teens. So lots of short trips in June, when I usually rest on the couch watching a major football tournament, and by July, I was ready for that rest.

July is a bit of blur, to be honest, and the short day rides with Marilyn didn’t materialize. I did a few club rides, but to honest, I didn’t ride much in July. I think that had something to do with a good friend’s passing. I kind of fell into a funk, and didn’t feel like doing much of anything. I’m not sure where my time went, but I know I spent a lot of time on the couch. It’s true what they say about depression: it takes the incentive out of doing even the things that normally bring you joy.

Finally, with the end of summer looming, I decided to do a solo ride to Lake Placid, and that put a grin back on my face. I let Kurviger decide much of the route, and for some reason, part of it was a gnarly section of Class 4 road that had me wishing my Outback Motortek crash bars and skid plate weren’t back-ordered. At some point, I decided it was easier to keep going than turn back, and I managed to get back to asphalt without dropping the bike. I had on the front only the Pirelli Scorpion Trail II, the stock 90/10 tire, but we managed. I’ll be doing a comparative blog of the GS and Tiger, but one thing I can say now is that the front end on the Tiger is much better than the Beemer’s. That 21″ front wheel was rolling over stuff surprisingly well! I don’t think I’ll be doing trails with this bike, but it’s good to know what it’s capable of should my adventures take me through some technical riding.

Marilyn and I did finally do a day trip yesterday, down to Smuggler’s Notch in Vermont. I’m back to work in a week so I said it was now or never. Unfortunately, now was 34C and it required all of our tenacity to get through the day, especially the border crossing that had us sitting in idling traffic for about an hour. Brutal.

The silver lining to the end of summer always is that the best riding in Canada is in the fall, when the leaves have turned colour and the temperature has dropped. There will be some more club rides and day trips and maybe an overnight if my son is available to dog-sit. The Triumph Tiger is a blast to ride, and fingers crossed, so far there has been no indication that we’ll have to wear masks again in class, so my work will be relatively back to normal. I have a lot to be thankful for, and a big east coast trip to plan for next summer.