The Northern Peninsulas

December 29, 2023December 29, 2023 / 650thumper / Leave a comment

We see caribou at Port au Choix, icebergs at Twillingate, and puffins at Elliston en route to Saint John’s.

We’d reached the northern tip of Newfoundland and now it was time to start making our way back south and across the island to Saint John’s, and not a moment too soon. The bugs were bad! Like the night before, no one wanted to cook, so we headed into Raleigh again in search of food. Unfortunately, the restaurant we had in mind didn’t open until 11:00, but we were referred to an RV park that did an early greasy breakfast for a song. By this time it was late morning and we were no further south with no reservation for the night.

When things look bleak, it’s never a bad idea to go to the local Tim Horton’s. There, you can get a coffee for $2 and free WIFI to sort yourself out. I found a B & B about halfway down the coast, made an executive decision, phoned, and made a reservation for the night. I knew we were essentially losing a day from our tentative schedule, but sometimes you just have to adjust your schedule to fit your circumstances.

Jeannie’s Sunrise B & B turned out to be a real treat. The room we got actually did have a view out over the ocean to the east, so we would wake to the sunrise (and get an earlier start). Jeannie also suggested we take a ride after dinner over to the lighthouse. We said we were nervous about riding after dark but she reassured us the ride across the cape is open with excellent visibility and she was right. On our way to the lighthouse, I spotted two caribou grazing a short distance from the road.

It doesn’t get any better than this. Seriously, I think it was the highlight of the entire tour for me. Marilyn was eager to get over to the lighthouse in the hope of seeing a moose if not another ocean sunset, but I couldn’t help doubling back for a second look.

I don’t know why I was so taken by them. Maybe it’s because they are so elusive, like the singular chaste girl at college who was the object of every guy’s wet dream, or the rare motorbike or book you’ve been searching for your entire life. I know I’ll be in trouble for those comparisons but the point I’m trying to make is that rarity increases value and desire. In this case, you have to get pretty far north to have a hope of seeing caribou, and then you have to be lucky to be there at a certain time of the year and a certain time of the day. When all these factors align, you just hope their expert skills of camouflage don’t lead to you driving right past, which most people did. And it’s in the hope of capturing something of that rarity that leads us to making the mistake of reaching for our phones or cameras instead of soaking in the encounter with every drop of attention we have, so it can plant and root in memory, maybe grow into a poem, or some other art. I’m thinking here of Canadian poet Don McKay’s term poetic attention, “a sort of readiness, a species of longing which is without desire to possess” (“Baler Twine,” Vis à Vis, Gaspereau Press).

Motionless, they move just beyond the ridge-line, half hidden, as if wading knee deep in rocky scrub land. In the fading light, it’s a wonder I saw them at all, 100 meters off the road, but there’s definitely something there, two figures, one clearly larger and leading the other. I grab the monocular and see through the lens now how expert they are at camouflage. Their tawny hides are a shade darker than shadow, and the mottled white of their underbellies looks just like lichen. Even the antlers, antennas receiving the last of the light, could be sun-bleached branches scattered on the ground. Heads down, they don’t see us, tourists to their world of wilderness. I should have known this moment cannot be captured except in memory but want more—a shot, a boast, a post. I take the camera and step forward, but when I lift it to my eye I see that now we are the ones observed, strange creatures standing at the edge of their attention.

Copyright © 2023 by Kevin Bushell

The next day we went in search of icebergs. We’d heard that Twillingate was the place to see them, but since it was July, we didn’t hold out much hope. We got an early start and rode the rest of the west coast back down through Rocky Harbour to Deer Lake, picked up the Trans Canada Highway, rode that all the way to the 340 east of Grand Falls Windsor, then headed north as far as we could, which turned out to be a place called Dildo Run Provincial Park just east of Virgin Arm. The comments section below is open for your worst jokes.

After dinner, I wandered up to the gate with a pipe in search of a pannier sticker, which they gave for free to anyone who completed a survey. Today you can’t take a piss in a public washroom without being asked to complete a survey and as a rule I do not do surveys, ever. I know that they are just an underhanded way to get your contact info so someone can target market to you, all in the guise of providing “helpful advertising.” I don’t need any help with my shopping, thank you very much; if anything, I need help not shopping. But in this case, with a pannier sticker as the prize, I plugged my nose and did it. As a secondary prize, I struck up a conversation with two local staff members, and talking with locals is always interesting. I learned that one had grown up at Jane and Finch in Toronto, perhaps the most dangerous neighbourhood in Canada. When I asked how he survived the gang violence, he said, “See these shoes?” and modelled his gleaming white runners. “I learned to run fast.”

I heard how both had left Newfoundland earlier in their lives to make an income, first to Toronto to build the Gardiner Expressway and the CN Tower, then to Fort McMurray during the oil boom, splitting their time between two provinces thousands of miles apart. I’m more familiar with the diaspora of my second-generation immigrant students, so it was interesting to hear of their experiences living in two cultures created by national migration. If I remember correctly, one said he would fly back and forth every six weeks to see family. It reminded me of a movie I’d seen recently set in Belfast about a similar sacrifice made by one family whose father was forced to seek work in England. I suppose the conflict between living where you want to and where you have to is nothing new, especially here in Canada where the rural areas are beautiful and the urban ones so . . . not beautiful. I just didn’t think people split their lives in half like this, or that it was even feasible, but that they either stuck it out at an economic cost, or made the difficult move at an emotional one. I was happy that both my acquaintances, later in life, had managed to find employment with ParksNL.

The next day we rode up into Twillingate, the unofficial capital of Iceberg Alley, and beyond onto North Twillingate Island, which is picturesque and worth visiting just to see the colourful clapboard buildings and to climb up to the lighthouse and look out over the ocean. It’s here that icebergs that have broken off of glaciers in Greenland drift by, drawn by sea currents. The best time to view them is April and May so we were late but still able to see some bergy bits (that’s a real term) and growlers. If their size wasn’t super impressive, their colour certainly was.

Looking east from Long Point Lighthouse, Twillingate.

After a night at Terra Nova National Park, we were within a day’s ride from Saint John’s but decided to head up to Elliston on the Bonavista peninsula. We’d been told by a birder friend that it’s the best place to view Puffins. I have to admit that I don’t quite get the appeal of puffins, despite what I just said above about rarity. Maybe it’s because they are such crappy flyers, struggling into the air by flapping their hearts out (up to 400 times per minute), or maybe it’s their creepy faces, giving them the nickname “clowns of the sea.”

But we went, because we were in Newfoundland, and it’s the unwritten law to see puffins when here, like how you have to see a production of The Nutcracker at Christmas and the movie The Sound of Music at least once a year to maintain marital bliss. In the end, however, I’m glad we did. Bonavista literally means “beautiful view” and the ride around the peninsula was special. The puffins were pretty neat too.

Elliston has another claim to fame. It is also the root cellar capital of the world, according to NL tourism. I didn’t know there was a root cellar capital or who decides such things, but I found the little structures quaint in a Hobbit-like way and the idea interesting. These cold storage facilities keep vegetables cool in the summer and prevent freezing in the winter, so essentially the earth regulates the temperature. I can’t keep mice out of my back porch so am curious how half of the produce doesn’t get spoiled by vermin. The doors, stonework, and sky make for some picturesque photos.

Feeling like I’m in a tourism commercial.

Our treasure hunt across the northern peninsulas was coming to a close, yet ironically, although we were not searching for it, the best discovery was yet to come. Earlier in the day, during a rest stop at a coffee shop, I overheard a staff member say she liked a place called Trinity. I figured if a local likes it, it must be good, so despite Marilyn’s concerns about the time and getting into Saint John’s late, I made another executive decision and pulled off the 230 when I saw signs for Trinity. The ride in from the highway was pretty and the village even better. We stopped at the Dock Marina Restaurant and Gallery. Now Marilyn was no longer complaining about the time but wondering aloud how we might be able to retire here. We ended up buying some artwork as a souvenir and shipping it home.

The beautiful quilts had me thinking of my late mom whose passion was quilting.

It was getting late and we still had a three-hour ride to our hotel in Saint John’s. Yes, we were splurging on a hotel this night. I could say that we were enjoying ourselves so much that we decided to loosen the purse-strings, but the truth is that we misjudged accommodations in Saint John’s. We’d made reservations all up the east coast, thinking that the remoteness might make it difficult to secure campsites, and deduced that there would be no shortage of cheap accommodations in the city. In fact, Saint John’s is very busy during the tourist months of summer. We would “have to” take a night at the exquisite Alt Hotel on Water Street. I didn’t mind. It had been a lot of riding and we’d be getting in after dark. The room, with its electric blinds and view of the harbour, was a welcome treat, and the staff didn’t seem to mind us tromping through the lobby in our muddy gear.

A ride through beautiful Trinity, NL, as we headed out.

In the next post, we hit the town, meet up with friends, and ride the southern peninsulas.

The Viking Trail

December 2, 2023December 2, 2023 / 650thumper / Leave a comment

Marilyn and I begin our tour of Newfoundland by riding the west coast to L’Anse aux Meadows.

You know you’re headed to Newfoundland when the ferry staff call you “Hun.” In my profession (teaching), that’s tantamount to sexual harassment, but here it’s the term of endearment it’s clearly meant to be. We were directed to the front and side and found the tie-down straps. I hate ratcheting straps. I’ve been using them for years and still haven’t figured out how to work the damn things. There are YouTube videos and probably PhD programs as well on how the mechanism works, but using them for me usually ends up with cursing and a pinched finger. Thankfully, the tie-downs provided by the ferry were a simple single folding mechanism that even English teachers can operate.

It’s always a little unnerving leaving your bike and gear for a prolonged period of time, but only staff are allowed down in the hold once the ferry leaves port. Still, I locked the panniers and the helmets, and you can see in the photo above I’ve used a cable to secure the duffle bag as best as one can. I made this from materials purchased at Canadian Tire, the big-box hardware store here in . . . you guessed it, Canada. I bought a length of plastic-coated cable and made loops at both ends by crimping cable sleeves, then attached a simple brass waterproof lock. It’s not super secure but prevents the grab and run. My faith in a good samaritan reporting someone using cable cutters outweighs my cynicism toward thieves. I trust no one wants my smelly boots.

Once upstairs, we settled in and I promptly fell asleep. I’m an expert napper, even in public places, and use every opportunity to dig myself out of the sleep deficit I accumulate when adventure touring. Then we had dinner which, I have to say, was surprisingly good. I guess I was expecting airline food, but the fish & chips and cloth placemats and real utensils not to mention the Newfoundland friendly service was a treat. Marine Atlantic ferries gets a five star rating from me. It was nice just to sit at the window and look out over the mesmerizing water and watch a seagull follow us for miles, skimming the waves.

We took the midday ferry because all the cabins for night crossing sell out early. We made our reservation mid-March (for an early July crossing) and they were already sold out. This meant that we lost a day of riding, but I’ve learned that rest days are required at my “advanced age,” so it was all for the best. It just meant that we needed to find accommodations close to Port-aux-Basques, where the ferry shores at 7:15 p.m., because we didn’t want to ride in the dark. Everyone—and I mean everyone—had warned us about the moose in Newfoundland. I suspect this is somewhat like the bear warnings tourists to Canada receive. I have to say, in all our travels across the island, we saw only two moose, midday at the side of the highway, but it’s still a good idea to get off the road at sundown, especially if you’re on a motorcycle.

We therefore had a reservation at JT Cheeseman Provincial Park, about 13 kilometers from the docks. It was a short stay as we were eager to get up into Gros Morne National Park, a bucket list destination for both of us. Our first impressions of The Rock were lovely, with low-hanging clouds above a shallow mountain range on the horizon, and a fog horn sounding in the distance throughout the night, reminding us we were not far from the sea.

The next day we rode north on the Trans Canada Highway through Corner Brook, then split off at Deer Lake onto the 430 and then the 431. As we pulled off at the lookout at Woody Point, I went to turn sharply to park the bike, only the handlebars locked partway and we lost our balance. Thankfully we were going very slowly and I just put my foot down to prevent a tip-over. Marilyn climbed off and I started inspecting the bike. The handlebars would definitely not go full lock but were blocked by something hard. It felt like metal on metal. Eventually, I saw the culprit: a screw from my wind deflector had come out and fallen down into the triple-T and was blocking the handlebar movement. What were the odds! We got lucky on several counts there, not only that I didn’t lose the screw but also that it didn’t obstruct a turn at a higher speed. I got out the tools and replaced the errant hardware, this time using thread locker.

Readers will be pleased to know that I’ve since removed the obnoxious wind deflector. I’ll pay the price of some buffeting for video footage with an unobstructed view.

We got a site at Trout River Campground, which was chosen for its proximity to The Tablelands, a rare phenomenon and one of only a few places in the world where the earth’s mantle is exposed. The peridotite rock turns orange as it oxidizes, resulting in a geography that appears like the surface of Mars, not that I have any direct experience with that. In truth, the geology is more like the centre of the earth than a distant planet. Jules Verne modelled his book Journey to the Centre of the Earth after Iceland’s geology, but he could have equally used The Tablelands as his inspiration.

We hiked up in the afternoon heat, and I was happy to have added a hydration backpack (I’m not calling it a bladder because that’s disgusting) to my kit. It meant that we could easily carry water on and off the bike as well as a few other items, like snacks and a selfie stick.

On our way out the next morning, we met some touring cyclists at “the facilities.” They were cooking their breakfast under the shelter there before hitting the road. Just when you start feeling pretty good about managing to fit everything on the motorcycle, you run into cyclists who are doing the same but on bicycles. Hard core. I wonder if bicyclists feel a similar sense of humility when they cross paths with backpackers, who have managed not only to fit everything into one bag but also to carry it to where they are going. At some point, such minimalism must have diminishing returns on investment and become more a penance for sins done, like the story of Cheryl Strayed in the movie Wild (directed by the late Jean-Marc Vallée and played by Reese Witherspoon), who clearly had a heavy burden to bear, so to speak. This line of thought leads me to the ultimate minimalist traveller, the migrant, who is fleeing on foot with little more than the clothes he or she is wearing, and that’s where my imagination has its limit. I can’t imagine doing such a thing, not unless my life depended on it, which I guess for many migrants, it does.

I also chatted with another camper while waiting for Marilyn. He took an interest in my bike because it was a Triumph and he is English, or English-Canadian. He said he used to ride a Triumph in England and before that an AJS Matchless, which is the exact bike my dad rode before he immigrated, so we had a nostalgic chat and I gave the bike a few gratuitous revs as we parted so he could hear the sweet exhaust note of the Triumph triple. When I rode a BMW, Germans would approach me with their memories; now that I ride a Triumph, Brits chat me up. Once while doing some slow-speed exercises in a neighbourhood church parking lot, I struck up a conversation with the priest, who used to ride a Yamaha 250 in India. Everyone seems to have a story about their motorcycling days, and it occurs to me that motorcycles hold a special place in one’s identity, even if one has long since given up riding. I suspect they remind us of the freest years of our lives, which can be in youth, or in my case, at the age of 60. The motorcycle is the symbol of the best years of our lives, whenever that may be.

We headed back out to the 430 and then turned north. It was a special day because we had reservations for the Western Brook Pond boat tour just north of Rocky Harbour. The highway through Rocky Harbour is spectacular and led to one of only a few disagreements we had during the tour. I say “and” not “but” because it was the spectacular nature of the road that led to the disagreement. It’s twisty and undulating with fantastic views out over the ocean. I wanted to enjoy riding this section “at pace,” but Marilyn wanted me to slow down so she could photograph from the back. (She is by profession and vocation a photographer and carries her iPhone on a lanyard for this purpose.) We had a conflict of interests: my passion for riding versus her passion for photography.

Riding the 431 just south of Rocky Harbour.

I did what any smart husband would do: I acquiesced. Only as I write this she says “I overrided her,” so I guess we have differing memories of that part of the trip. I do remember trying to come to some sort of agreement later whereby if the views were good we would ride at her pace, but if the road were good (but nothing special about the view), we would ride at my pace. In the end, however, I never rode anywhere near the limits of the bike or my abilities. You have to ride to the comfort level of your pillion, especially if she is your wife. The answer, I’ve come to realize, is to separate the interests and have some tours 2-up and some solo. At least that’s the plan moving forward. It’s not really a compromise because it leads to double the riding.

We arrived at the parking lot in plenty of time to hike the required 3 kilometres out to the boat. Western Brook Pond is actually an inland freshwater lake inaccessible by car. It looks like a fjord with steep cliffs on both sides carved by receeding glaciers, but is technically a gorge since, we were told, fjords are saltwater and gorges are freshwater. At one time it was a fjord, connected to the sea, but over time has become closed off and is now freshwater. At any rate, there was some water and some dramatic cliffs producing some stunning views. In fact, one of the views is the iconic shot used by Newfoundland tourism.

When we docked, Marilyn and I shared some clam chowder at the cafe, then hiked back to the bike, which was thankfully untouched. That night we stayed at Shallow Bay Campground near Cow Head. There are several campgrounds in Gros Morne and they are all different. Where Trout River was inland and wooded, Shallow Bay is on the ocean with a long, sandy beach. It’s a real treat, so be sure to stop there if you are passing through.

The next day was our trip up the remainder of the west coast to L’Anse aux Meadows, a National Historic and UNESCO World Heritage Site, where there are the remains of an 11^th-century Viking settlement. It’s a long way to go to see some sod houses, but I like history and wanted to stand at the place where early human migration spreading west (Norse) and east (Indigenous) first met. That’s a pretty significant moment in the history of human civilization. I suspect both must have crapped their respective pants, or whatever 11^th-century garment they were wearing at the time, upon seeing the other. The monument at L’Anse aux Meadows commemorating the encounter conveys the crapping quite well, I think.

Meeting of Two Worlds. Not a fan of modern representative sculpture.

According to the old Norse sagas, Newfoundland was discovered accidentally when Vikings from Greenland were blown off course in a violent storm. They saw the Labrador shoreline but didn’t dare land. However, after word spread about this mysterious land, a second group of explorers did shore and, during one excursion southward, happened upon a small band of Indigenous men. The Vikings, of course, did what Vikings do, and promptly slaughtered the lot, all except one, who either escaped or was spared in order to go spread the word about the badass Vikings. If the latter is the case, he did his job very well, for shortly afterward, a large war party returned and kicked the Vikings’ dirty butts back to Greenland. Thus is the first encounter of Europeans and Native Americans. A third Viking expedition did manage to settle for a time in L’Anse aux Meadows, but suspicion and distrust between the parties remained, and sometimes I swear we haven’t gotten any further than that.

Our camp that night was at Pistolet Bay Provincial Park at the very tip of the northern peninsula. The bugs were so bad that neither of us was willing to prepare food while being eaten, so we headed into Raleigh for dinner at the Burnt Cape Cafe. Someone there is clearly a hockey fan, and I enjoyed looking at the signed jerseys of Darryl Sittler, Bobby Hull, Sidney Crosby, and others that adorned the walls. Oh yeah, the food was pretty good too.

After dinner we went for a little ride along the shore. I wanted to get over to the lighthouse for the sunset, but the road through the ecological reserve is not maintained and the riding got quite “interesting.” Just when I felt I was finally doing some real adventure riding, the Tiger XC in its element, Marilyn got nervous so we turned around and went over to the other side of the bay. The payoff was that there we got our first glimpse of icebergs. They were in the distance but nevertheless had us giddy as schoolchildren. Little did we know what was to come.

If you want to follow us across The Rock to Saint John’s, click Follow.

Kamouraska

August 3, 2023August 3, 2023 / 650thumper / 2 Comments

Marilyn and I begin our east coast tour on Canada Day, 2023.

Have you ever noticed how, just before setting off on a major holiday, strange things start happening to obstruct you? Things start breaking or go missing, or the dog gets sick, or you get audited, or the secretary for the specialist you’ve been trying to see for months phones to offer you an appointment next week. Well, according to Swiss psychologist Carl Jung, that’s your unconscious saying “Not so fast! Where do you think you’re going? Get back here, young man!” (or woman, as the case may be).

Jung’s theory is that the unconscious likes the status quo. It doesn’t like change, negative or positive. You’ve survived life so far, it deduces, so more of the same must be good, safe. This applies to all aspects of life, including planned and unplanned positive change, like going on a major holiday or experiencing a leap of personal growth. It’s as if you have to push through the obstacles the psyche in all its guile throws up in front of you before you can reap the rewards of progress.

We’d been planning this trip for close to two years. The original plan was to go summer of 2022, but with the addition of a new dog to our family, we postponed a year to allow him to settle (Obstacle #1). I’d been thinking about the trip through the dark months of the previous winter and had been planning the route, modifying the bike, and boosting my fitness to be fully prepared. Now with less than a week before departure day, all hell was breaking loose, right on time and as expected.

For one, a family member had a major medical event that left us wondering if we could go at all (Obstacle #2). Then I received a call from the car dealership: the vehicle we were expecting to take delivery of in August arrived early. Could we come complete the paperwork and pick it up before July 1? (Obstacle #3) The day prior to our leaving, when I was supposed to be full-on packing, CTV News phoned asking for an interview about an op-ed article I’d published (Obstacle #4). In the meantime, an article for my paying gig, northernontario.travel, about a club ride I did to Prince Edward County was due. (Obstacle #5) That ride was our shakedown ride during which I discovered that we were significantly under SAG, so I had to get the rear shock off and to Stadium Suspensions in Beloeil to be re-sprung (Obstacle #6). I also changed the oil, coolant, brake fluid, and rear brake pads, and tweaked a bunch of little things. I was busy.

Finally, however, on Saturday, July 1st, we were packed and ready to roll. All adversity had been overcome. The departure date, Canada Day, was symbolic and the same as it was in 2021 when I set off to discover western Canada. This eastern tour of the Maritimes and Newfoundland would be the companion trip to that one. We said good-bye to our furry friend, climbed on the bike, noted the odometer reading, and pulled away from the house.

The first task when living in Montreal is always to get out of the city. This is not always easy, but leaving after the morning rush hour on a national holiday meant a relatively quick exit. We crossed over the Champlain Bridge to the south shore and continued on Highway 20, the Trans Canada Highway, until east of Quebec City before dropping onto Route 132, the highway that would take us right the way around the Gaspé Peninsula.

First glimpse of la mer

Highway 132 is an incredible road. It’s the longest highway in Quebec, stretching from New York State in the west to the New Brunswick border in the east, and it’s one of Quebec’s oldest highways, passing through many historic towns and villages that date back to the 17th Century or earlier, when Europeans began to arrive. It’s also arguably Quebec’s most scenic highway, hugging for long sections the shoreline of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence on one side with mountains rising sharply up on the other.

When I first came to Quebec as a student on an immersion program, I lived in La Pocatière, in the Kamouraska region. No wonder I fell in love with Quebec and decided to move here. Kamouraska is one of the province’s major tourist regions. The Gulf of Saint Lawrence has opened up enough for inns (or gites, as they’re known here) to advertise “sur la mer” (on the sea), which is a bit self-aggrandizing because it’s still the river but, okay, brackish with a small tide. But the river starts to smell like the sea and look like the sea and you can imagine it being the sea, even swim in it, if you want. We decided instead to get some lunch at one of our favourite spots. The lobster bisque is worth all 400 kilometres and the $17.

When Marilyn and I toured out west, the compromise was that we did no camping; she would ride pillion as long as there was a bed waiting for her at the end of the day. Fortunately, we had friends and family across Alberta and British Columbia that welcomed us into their homes, and we took a hotel room when needed. But the remoteness of some of the regions of this trip would require some camping. How do you experience Gros Morne National Park without camping?

With that in mind, I planned strategically. Our destination for Night 1 was close to Reford Gardens – Jardins de Métis, where we would spend the next morning before continuing along the 132. The Reford Gardens is another famous garden like Butchart Gardens we visited in Victoria. Similarly, it was a labour of love by one woman, in this case Elsie Reford. By enlisting the help of local farmers and fishing guides, she was able to turn a spruce forest into a lavish garden which included the very rare Tibetan Blue Poppies. If you have to ask your wife to do anything really unpleasant, like camp in the rain, just remember the diplomatic power of flowers.

The first night was the toughest. To ensure we would have time to see the gardens, I reserved a site at Parc Régional de la rivière Mitis [sic. that’s not a typo; I don’t know why there are two spellings], barely a stone’s throw from the gardens’ entrance. I saw when making the reservation that these are walk-in sites, but only about 230 meters from the parking lot, so how bad could it be, right? Well, the sites are on a trail network and the trail was muddy and hilly. When we arrived, it started to rain, and it kept raining, all night and through breakfast the next morning. Marilyn, who is a light sleeper, heard the neighbouring campers’ music and conversation, the Canada Day fireworks at 10, the neighbouring campers’ sex, the heavy rain and thunder and, through it all, my light snoring. She got about one hour of sleep. Oh yeah, and then there were the bugs.

As if to punctuate the state of affairs, the next morning, while I was preparing the coffee, animal excrement of some kind slid out of the tree above and landed with a splat! on the water bladder. It was going to be that kind of a day.

But after a porridge breakfast and a top-up of coffee, the rain stopped and the sun came out. Yes, the absence of pain is pleasure, and the sun that day was all the more enjoyable, especially while at the gardens.

It was all uphill from here. We had survived the worst of it with our marriage intact. After a quick snack at the cafe in the gardens, we were back on the bike and headed for Forillon National Park on the tip of the Gaspé Peninsula.

We are bound for Newfoundland. If you want to follow along, click Follow.

La Classique 2023

May 26, 2023May 26, 2023 / 650thumper / 4 Comments

If you like dual sport riding, you’ll love La Classique.

La Classique, organized by RidAventure.ca and with close to 1000 riders, is the largest dual sport rally in Canada. It’s so popular that I’d never managed to get in. Registration fills in about 2 days—you blink and you miss it—and always seems to fall when I’m busiest at work grading mid-terms. I almost missed it again this year but snuck onto a team last minute.

It used to be you had to organize a team, and I could never find riders willing to join me. Now RidAventure has simplified the process and you can register as a single rider and join an existing team. That’s what I did and found myself on Les Amis de la Motorcyclette, a great group of Francophone guys. RidAventure has also separated the Saturday and Sunday rides to allow wider participation in the event. That’s a great idea because even if you aren’t riding, there are vendors and test rides available for a more relaxed day of hanging about.

I registered for the Saturday Classique Plus route, which is about in the middle of the skill level of rides. You have to be comfortable riding Level 2 Trails. I felt pretty good about that but was a little concerned about my tires. Organizers are clear that you need knobbies for anything Classique Plus and up, and because of the long-distance touring I’m doing this summer, I had on Dunlop Trailmax Mission tires, a street-biased 70/30 tire. In the end, I probably should have had a more aggressive tire, but I managed.

This rally falls nicely for me right at the end of the school year. I worked hard in the weeks prior to the rally, pushing to complete all my end-of-term grading so I could ride away with a clean conscience. In fact, I did so much intensive grading toward the end that I developed a mild case of carpal tunnel syndrome in my writing hand. Thankfully, it didn’t significantly affect my use of the throttle and front brake except in the most intensive sections.

Parts arrived from Dual Sport Plus just in time, and I spent the Friday of my departure adding hand guards and folding mirrors; I was worried about breaking a lever or a mirror in a crash, which is not uncommon in dirt riding. I was also worried about breaking my bones so geared up in my Knox Adventure Shirt, neck guard, and tucked some wrist braces into my bag. (Yeah, a little tip-over can cost you the better part of the season, so I’ve started using these if there is a chance of falling.) I left unfortunately at rush hour on a Friday, so after the requisite hour to get off the island, I was on my way.

One nice thing about these rallies is that you can camp on site. The rally this year was in a new location in Saint-André-Avellin, north of Montebello, and there was a big open field for all the tents. RVs were parked in another area, and there were a lot of them!

Camping at La Classique 2023 in Saint-André-Avellin.

Now if there’s one thing I know about camping in Canada, it’s that you don’t want to do it before July. The bugs are bad! In my last minute haste, I forgot to pack bug spray (doh!), so the first order of business once I got my tent pitched was to find some. Then I checked in at registration, got my sticker and T-shirt, and spent the rest of the evening hanging with The Awesome Players at their camp. As you may remember, I did a few rides with them a while back, and they are a great bunch of welcoming guys. In fact, although I was on my own for the weekend, I never felt alone; there’s a strong sense of fellowship within the RidAventure community.

One of the things I like about these rallies is checking out all the bikes. The next morning, before forming up for my ride, I took a stroll along where the campers’ bikes were parked.

Better than the Montreal Moto Show.

Yes, that is an action camera I’m using. As I pondered in a previous post, I’ve decided to join the crowd of YouTube content creators, although I’m not a hero—as in, I didn’t get a GoPro. After much research, and heavily influenced by this video review by Dork in the Road of several action cameras, I decided to get an Insta360 One RS. I’m not interested in the 360 lens; I think that’s a gimmick that will quickly lose its appeal, and I don’t like how it makes every shot look unnatural, like through a fish-eye lens.

I got just the 4K boost lens and will be incorporating some short video footage into my posts in the future. I’m not interested in “competing” with full-on YouTube channels because that’s not my genre: I’m primarily a writer, not a videographer. I wouldn’t know my way around a massive video editing program like Final Cut Pro or Adobe Premiere, and I wouldn’t want the interruption in my rides of setting up a tripod for a ride-by shot or sending up a drone, although drones capture some amazing footage. So my footage will be minimal and serve to complement the written accounts of my rides. Anyway, we’ll start with that and see how it goes. All the videos I use will be available separately on my YouTube channel. Let me know in the comment section what you think of the new multi-media format.

Enough about that. After perusing the bikes, I had to get up to the start area and introduce myself to my adoptive team.

The rally is extremely well organized. At registration check-in, your bike is inspected, you sign a waiver, then receive a wrist band and a sticker for your bike. The sticker indicates what group you are in, and there is a corresponding marker to line up with your group. Here we all are, lined-up and waiting for the signal to pull out.

500 riders waiting to start.

I was a little nervous, being my first Classique and not knowing if I’d chosen the right level. You don’t want it boring, but then you also don’t want to slow the other boys down. In the end, it was the right choice, but I faced some challenging sections. My philosophy in riding and in life is that you want to push yourself slightly out of your comfort zone once in a while; that’s when growth occurs. My French and my off-roading skills got an injection this weekend.

Finally we got the signal to start our engines and pull out. We were on our way.

Starting out on the Classique Plus ride.

Right away you can tell that my bike is different from most other dual sports. You can hear the high-pitched induction whine of the Triumph triple instead of the growl of a parallel twin. But that’s what I love about this bike: it’s a sport bike engine shoe-horned into an adventure chassis. It’s smooth with a ton of torque and loves to be revved, and it handles through the twisties like a sport bike. Okay, it doesn’t have the tractor factor of a big thumper or a parallel twin, and that’s something I have to keep in mind when off-roading. I have to remember to keep the revs up or it will stall climbing hills or working through sand and mud.

Soon we left the asphalt and were enjoying the countryside on some easy dirt roads. No doubt the route planners considered this as warm-up for what was to come. The trees closed in and then we were snaking through the forest on a twisty dirt road, and lacking knobbies, I had to remember to weight the outside peg on each corner or risk low-siding.

Sorry about the wind noise. This was my first time using the camera and I’ve since discovered the audio setting for wind noise reduction. There’s an option in the Insta360 Studio application for post production noise reduction, but for some reason, this particular noise gets “reduced” to a sound similar to fingernails being dragged down a chalkboard.

Soon we turned off this road and entered Parc Papineau-Labelle, and that’s when things became a little more “interesting.” Our entrance was a rocky hill climb, and although it wasn’t super difficult, as anyone with a GoPro knows, the action cameras flatten out all hills and the image stabilization smoothens out the ride. In fact, my suspension was working hard, and it wasn’t long before the ABS on my bike sent an error code to the ECU.

Rocky hill climb into Réserve Faunique Papineau-Labelle.

To sit or stand? There’s an excellent podcast by Adventure Rider Radio (April 15, 2022) with an aerospace physicist and Chris Birch on this topic—well worth a listen—but one thing I remember from it is the simple maxim to sit when you can and stand when you have to. Some terrain requires that you stand so you can control the bike through the footpegs, but standing all day would be tiring, so sit when you can. You can see me stand when I enter a climb or a sharp corner. You can also see me glance down a few times to check what gear I’m in. Sometimes I’m concentrating so much on the terrain I forget and want to verify.

This was fairly easy dirt riding so I decided to keep my ABS on. I thought you really only have to turn it off if you’re doing steep descents in loose terrain where you might find yourself suddenly without brakes. But one thing I learned this weekend is that my bike is not happy with ABS on in even this degree of chatter. You can see in the following clip that I have a couple of warning lights on. They would turn out to be the check engine and ABS lights, so I put two and two together and figured it was an ABS/speed sensor error. (Later back home, I confirmed this using an OBDII scanner.) I got pretty good at navigating through the set-up menu on my dash to turn ABS off since it resets every time I turn off the bike. For short stops, however, I was able to use the kill switch but keep the ignition on and it didn’t reset.

I’m not sure which caused me more concern: the warning lights or that I was losing my sticker.

At one point, we came across a moose. I could see something running up ahead in the road and thought at first it was a horse, but soon realized it was a moose. We backed off and let it run ahead until it could get off the road. In all my years of canoe camping, I’ve actually never seen one, so this was exciting.

Also exciting were the patches of sand that sent the bike snaking. You just gotta hold your nerve and let the bike sort itself out. Nobody went down that I’m aware of, although there were some close calls. Here, I’m watching the guy in front almost lose it on a sandy corner, and then when I reach up to turn off my camera (I had it on loop mode), my front slides out and I almost lose it.

Almost overcooked.

Finally, with the ABS turned off and a few hours of this, by lunchtime I was feeling more confident in the sand.

Finally feeling confident in the sand.

Unfortunately, that would be the final clip of the day. For some reason which I would only discover at lunch, my camera would not turn on and would not record anymore. When I could finally unmount the camera and have a look, it was displaying a message that an error had occurred in my last video and would I like to fix it. (I did but the above clip is missing metadata.) It had started to rain hard and I was feeling a bit stressed about keeping up and decided that perhaps this was not the best time to test and troubleshoot the new camera so I put it away. That’s unfortunate, in retrospect, because the real fun was about to begin.

Shortly after lunch we had a sandy hill to climb, and even the best riders in the group were having a hard time with it. This is where I really needed some knobbies. I was looking at the hill and thinking this isn’t going to go well, but what choice did I have? Go back to camp or go for it. So I went for it and surprised myself. It wasn’t pretty—I had to dab several times—but I got most of the way up. Having done the hard bit, the last part I did less well. Like I said, I have to keep the revs up on this bike or it will stall. But with some pushing from others, we all made it to the top and lived to ride the rest of the route.

Not me but someone else getting a push. You can see how deep the sand is. Photo credit: Jean-Charles Paquin

There were some easy water crossings but no other major obstacles and we were back at camp by 5, in time to clean up before dinner.

The next day I was going to head home early but decided to do some test rides. First up, just out of curiosity, was the new Harley Davidson Pan America. It was, shall I say, a little underwhelming. If you imagine what a Harley adventure bike might be, that’s pretty much it: a little loud and rough and brash. There was a lot of vibration up through the handlebars, which was surprising because they had street shoes on. The best part of the test ride was that the sun finally came out! It had rained hard through the afternoon and night and everything was soaked, so it was nice to see the sun and to know my tent would dry out before I had to pack it up.

Test riding the new Harley Davidson Pan America.

There’s definitely some interesting technology built into this bike. The suspension lowering feature when you stop is innovative and will open up the adventure market to those who struggle with the seat height of most adventure bikes. And hydraulic valves sound neat. I don’t know exactly how they work but the bottom line is apparently you never have to adjust the valves. There were some Pan America bikes at the rally so they are selling, but I don’t think this bike is going to cause a major splash like the Teneré 700 did or the BMW GS.

Speaking of the GS, I’ve always wanted to try the iconic bike. As followers of this blog will know, I had the single 650GS for years and loved it and always wondered what the big boxer would be like. Many said that the big cross-Canada trip I did would normally be done on the big bike, and I have to admit considering it when I decided to change my bike, but I’m nervous about taking a big bike like that off road into remote areas. It’s close to 600 lbs. and, with gear, that’s a lot to lift on your own if you dump it.

Anyway, this was my chance and so I did a test ride on a 1250GS. I have to admit, what everyone says about how it carries its weight is true. You can turn this bike easily at slow speed. But what I found most impressive—not exclusive to the GS—were the rider modes. I’ve never ridden a bike with rider modes before, and after 20 minutes in Enduro Pro mode, I was sliding this baby around corners. You can hear me making exclamations into my helmet.

Test riding a BMW 1250GS.

It’s very confidence-inspiring, but I couldn’t help thinking that I was cheating; it wasn’t me doing the powerslides but a computer. Call me a purist, call me a technophobe, call me a Luddite, or just call me poor, but I’m glad my 2013 bike doesn’t have rider modes. I know they’re the way of the future, but for now, I’m happy to have to learn throttle and clutch control and braking using manual inputs. Speaking of which, my throttle/clutch control sucks (!) and I’ll be targeting it with some practice in the coming weeks.

Upon reflecting on my ride of the day before, perhaps what I am most proud of is not that I kept up on the tires I had, but that I did it without any rider aids, including ABS. It was all me. I’m not a great rider, not yet anyway, but if I had a bike with that level of computer input, I wonder if I’d ever be. What are your feelings about rider modes? Greatest safety advancement in motorcycle technology in the recent past, or making us all lazy, unskilled riders?

Finally it was time to start heading home. I packed up and headed down the 321 to the lovely 418 East that took me into Grenville.

Heading along the beautiful 418 that hugs the north shore of the Ottawa River.

It had been a great weekend at my first Classique. The sun was out and I had the whole summer vacation ahead of me. I was feeling pretty bouyant, and since I was in an indulgent mood, there was only one more thing to do to make the moment perfect.

2023 East Coast Tour: Preliminary Plans

February 17, 2023 / 650thumper / 7 Comments

Sketching out the next big adventure

As I write this, we’re having yet another major snowfall in Montreal. It’s been a particularly snowy winter and after a few mild days, some of us got lured into thinking spring is just around the corner. But as I sit looking out the window of my 2nd-storey study, it’s hard to imagine that the Montreal Motorcycle Show is next weekend and we can legally be back on the road in less than a month.

My favourite way to avoid shoveling: write a blog post!

Still, I must continue making travel plans in a kind of blind faith in the power of nature. If I put on my cheap Dollar Store shades, all that white outside becomes a shade of green, and I can almost imagine it being June and setting off. With this trip, there are some reservations that have to be made, like booking the ferry on and off Newfoundland, so I have started to map out a rough outline of our planned exploration of the Canadian east coast. This will be the book-end tour of the west coast trip of 2021.

Learn from your mistakes

I’m trying to keep in mind what I learnt from that last one, specifically, sometimes less is more. That’s what I keep telling my students, anyway, who think they are clarifying their thesis statements by adding clause after clause. The last trip was spent too much on the Superslab in my need to cover distance in the time I had. I don’t want to make the same mistake so am trying to be realistic in what we can see in the time we have away from the dog and our jobs. Marilyn, the domestic accountant, likes to remind me about our budget too.

My first route planned included The Cabot Trail. It seems sacrilegious not to “do” The Cabot Trail if you are anywhere within 150 kilometres of it on a motorbike, and we will be passing through Cape Breton en route to Sydney, NS, where one catches the ferry to get to Newfoundland. But my practical wife reminded me that we have been to Nova Scotia several times and both ridden (at least, I did) and driven The Cabot Trail and maybe we should devote that time to Newfoundland and perhaps Prince Edward Island, which we haven’t visited. This is a classic case of idealism (i.e. “we can do it all”) versus realism (“we are only human”) so we’ll see in the coming months which ideology wins.

Gaspésie, PEI, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland

What we do agree on is that we’d like to ride the coast of the Gaspé Peninsula, or as they like to call it here in Québec, La Gaspésie. I’ve driven that before and it’s spectacular. Marilyn hasn’t seen the Roche Percé, and like the Butchart Gardens we visited on Vancouver Island, we will make a stop at the Reford Gardens in Matane, QC. Forillon National Park at the tip of the peninsula is pretty special too.

Another decision we have is whether or not to visit Prince Edward Island. Our Insight Guides book suggests a three-day 250-kilometre road trip that includes Charlottetown, Argyle Shore Provincial Park, Brackley Beach, and the West Point Lighthouse near Cedar Dunes Provincial Park. Hopefully, those provincial parks offer camping. Technically, I’ve been to PEI, but I was too young to remember much. If we can’t work it in this summer, we will definitely get out there next. Aside from NWT and Nunavut, PEI and Newfoundland are the only provinces or territories I haven’t visited, so I’m hoping we can devote a few days to get a taste of the island.

Should we take the day or night ferry to Newfoundland? There are pros and cons of each, as I see it. A day crossing might be time wasted, just looking out for 7+ hours over endless water. I know there might be the opportunity to do some whale watching, but I’m sure we’ll be doing some of that once on the island. A night crossing is more expensive if you buy a cabin and try to get some sleep. On the other hand, the cabin isn’t any more expensive than a motel room, which we’d have to get soon after landing from a day passage. I’m leaning toward a night crossing. I’ve never experienced sleeping on a boat like my parents did when they immigrated on the Queen Elizabeth II and I think it would be novel. If we cross during the day, we will camp at a favourite campground in Baddeck in order to get to the ferry in the morning; if we cross at night, there might be time to ride The Cabot Trail or stay at Meat Cove, which is an amazing campground off The Cabot Trail right at the eastern tip of Cape Breton Island.

If you’ve visited Newfoundland, what did you do and why? I’m open to advice. There is a growing sense of urgency to decide, especially if we want a cabin as they sell out early, so decisions have to be made soon.

Neither Marilyn nor I has visited Newfoundland before, so this is going to be a treat. Again, we can’t do it all, and we’ve decided to focus on the west coast. Gros Morne National Park is a bucket list item. Then we will continue up the coast on what’s called The Viking Trail because I like history and am interested in seeing the Viking settlement at L’Anse aux Meadows. Then we will cross the island to Saint John’s because, well, you can’t visit Newfoundland without strolling around Saint John’s, including “hydrating” at a pub on Water Street before climbing Signal Hill. I’ve heard and read about these places and look forward to exploring them in person.

Finally, we have to decide whether we have time to ride The Irish Loop, a 325 kilometre loop along the coastline south of Saint John’s. The name is intriguing since we both have some Irish blood. And anything along a shoreline is bound to please me on the bike. Our guidebook suggests 2-3 days for this, so it really depends on if we can fit it all in.

Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont

Currently, the plan is for Marilyn to fly out of Saint John’s back to Montreal like she did from Vancouver when we were out west, and I’ll continue on solo. And I’m pretty sure I’ll come back via The United States instead of my initial plan to return via Labrador and the north shore. Like the caribou during their migration, I’m detouring to avoid bugs. Besides, the riding through Maine and New Hampshire will be more interesting than through Labrador. I recently purchased a subscription to Rever, which classifies roads on a colour coding system, and there’s a cluster of G1 (Best) roads in the White Mountains of NH that is calling my name.

G1 Best roads to ride are in yellow. That cluster in the White Mountains looks interesting.

I might saunter my way back along the coast, checking out Bar Harbour and a few other places before cutting diagonally north-west through the White Mountains. Without the deadline of ferry crossings, this will be the unplanned, unscheduled segment of the trip, which is generally how I like to tour. Maybe I’ll stay an extra night in New Hampshire so I can ride those primo roads unladen with gear.

This trip is going to take me about three weeks—two weeks with Marilyn, and about a week solo to get back. After a short rest in which I’ll service the bike and change my tires to something more dirt-oriented, I’ll head off again, this time to ride some BDRs. It’s going to be a full and exciting summer on a new bike, and I’ll have lots to write about so click Follow if you want to follow along.

To Vlog or Not to Vlog

January 29, 2023January 30, 2023 / 650thumper / 2 Comments

Do we need another hero? I ponder the question.

Even before I had my 6A licence I was watching motorcycle vlogs. A weekly series called Weekly Rides with Reuben was my introduction to the world of motorcycling. That was in 2015 and Reuben was ahead of the curve. Today, it seems everyone has a helmet cam.

Recently, a video came up in my YouTube feed—you know the ones that seem to be generated by AI (or at least the narrative voice is) made by an unknown source just for clicks and YouTube revenue? Okay maybe you don’t but that’s the kind of stuff I end up watching in the off season. It was comparing the popularity of Itchy Boots and another female vlogger, and they estimated Noraly’s net worth at over $7M. I don’t know how they estimate these things or if it’s at all accurate but I thought to myself, “I’m in the wrong genre.”

My day job is as an English teacher at a college, and one of my colleagues has been saying recently that we are in a post-literary culture. By that he means that no one reads anymore. And while it’s always dangerous to generalize, we English teachers do see everyday the effects of a general decline in leisure reading. In fact, I don’t even have to look at my students; I can look at my own behaviour. It’s after dinner at the end of a long day of work and I have a choice: read or watch TV? I almost always choose the latter. And the more I watch, the more tiring reading becomes in a vicious cycle that I struggle to prevent.

Source: Association of American Universities

This blog has been a joy over the past eight years and it’s not dying anytime soon. Believe it or not, even after over 100 posts, I’ve still got lots to say. But I have been wondering if I should expand the blog to include video footage of some of the trips I do. They say a photo is worth a thousand words, and while I’d counter that the right word is worth a thousand images, sometimes a few minutes of video footage is irreplaceable in words. Perhaps it’s like the old adage about the book versus the movie: it’s not which is better but what the movie offers that the book can’t and vice versa.

Of course this is not the first time I’ve considered starting a vlog, or at least getting a helmet cam and recording some footage. My hesitancy so far has been out of concern that the filming would interrupt and detract from the enjoyment of riding. I find already that when I’m riding, I’m in the moment and even stopping to take a photo is an annoyance I force myself to do for posterity. I can’t imagine interrupting the ride for 15 minutes while I set up a tripod for a ride-by shot.

I’m reminded of what someone once said to me years ago when I was back-packing through Europe: “Some people go on vacation to take photos, and some people take photos while on vacation.” I’d hate to have the filming eclipse the ride.

And then there’s the investment in equipment. Hands up if you’re tired of the 30-minute helmet cam footage. It seems that like all art forms, it’s all or nothing; you’re either all in with multiple camera perspectives (front-facing, rider-facing, maybe a side mount and, of course, the drone footage). There’s music to buy, and the pretty steep learning curve of editing software. Oh yeah, and then I’d probably need a new computer, a laptop, I guess, and some way to carry it safely on tour in all types of conditions. Sigh! That’s why I’ve been avoiding jumping in.

Motovlogger wildLensByAbrar’s vlogging gear. Hmm . . . that’s a lot of weight.

Wouldn’t the best of both worlds be ideal, at least for me? I don’t think I can jump into the full YouTube channel thing, but perhaps adding some helmet cam footage to my ride reports would be nice. I know that when I rode up the Stewart-Cassiar Highway, for example, I stopped at the side of the road to take a photo of what I was seeing, but as good as the photo is, it doesn’t capture the ride.

This was the best I could do to capture the amazing Stewart-Cassiar Highway in Northern BC.

So part of my off season has been spent researching action cameras, and it looks like the DJI Action 3 has surpassed GoPro in a number of ways. Apparently a lot of people are jumping the GoPro ship because GoPros have had an ongoing problem of reliability. They freeze and you lose footage, and the only way to fix them is to remove the battery and replace it again. The DJI Action 3 has a longer battery life, handles heat better, has a touchscreen on the front and back of the camera, a more convenient magnetic mounting system, and is $150 cheaper, although as I write this I see GoPro currently have a sale on their Hero 11 to match DJI’s pricing. GoPro has the better image quality because it films in 5K and DJI currently only goes to 4K, but they will be coming out with a 5K camera in the fall, albeit too late for my planned trip this summer. Decisions, decisions. Feel free to drop some advice below in the comment section.

Anyway, this post is a bit incoherent but that’s the nature of pondering. These are just some thoughts I’ve been having. I’ve reactivated my Instagram account and renamed it to match this blog, and the same for my YouTube channel, which currently has a whopping 50 subscribers. I’m enlisting the help of my talented wife to create a logo and will get some stickers and patches made and generally aim toward maybe, maybe, turning my rides into a small retirement income in a few years if I can find a way to do it which adds to rather than detracts from both the ride and this blog. I can’t see myself rocking a selfie stick anytime soon, but you never know, and stranger things have happened. If you don’t dream it, it’s not going to happen.

Any thoughts or advice for me as I ponder these developments? Drop a comment below.

ADV Riding as Thrill-Seeking

January 14, 2023January 14, 2023 / 650thumper / 5 Comments

Is extreme remote riding simply gratuitous risk-taking?

Video credit: Troy R. Bennett

Recently a story was circulating about Eric Foster, a guy who crashed on the Trans-Taiga Highway. Perhaps you’ve seen it. He was riding solo and woke up eight hours later in a hospital in Montreal. It’s actually an old story from 2017 but was republished end of November and that’s when I saw it. It’s a pretty gripping story, as far as crash stories go. He was riding in perhaps the remotest area of North America when he crashed, breaking his back and a leg. Some trappers saw the smoke from his motorcycle on fire and came to his aid, but it took hours for first responders to get to him, and then hours to get him to a hospital. The story has a happy ending; he returns to the spot where he had the accident and finishes his trip, stopping to thank the trappers along the way who helped him.

I’d never heard of the Trans-Taiga, so the article got me looking. It’s a dirt road built by Hydro Quebec to service their dams, and it is indeed about as remote as you can get in Quebec. According to Wikipedia, it’s the “northernmost continuous road in Eastern North America,” snaking 582 kilometres (362 mi) through forest from James Bay Road to the Caniapiscau Reservoir. That’s right—that’s all there is at the end of a dangerous journey: a reservoir. Then you turn around and ride the same road back.

Why would someone want to do such a ride? Well, the answer is in the article. Eric Foster describes himself as “a challenge guy.” When asked why he wanted to ride the Trans-Taiga, he replied, “Just to say I did it,” then added, “I love a good challenge.” I’ve found myself saying the exact same words of that last sentence, and I’ve written about risk-taking in an earlier post when discussing my decision to try The Dempster, another dangerous highway. Quoting Jordan Peterson, I wrote at the time:

“When untrammeled—and encouraged—we prefer to live on the edge. There, we can still be both confident in our experience and confronting the chaos that helps us develop. We’re hard-wired, for that reason, to enjoy risk (some of us more than others). We feel invigorated and excited when we work to optimize our future performance, while playing in the present. Otherwise we lumber around, sloth-like, unconscious, unformed and careless. Overprotected, we will fail when something dangerous, unexpected and full of opportunity suddenly makes its appearance, as it inevitably will.”
12 Rules for Life

Research on the Trans-Taiga led me to looking at James Bay Road, a highway so remote that you have to sign in at a check point before riding it so officials can keep track of who’s up there. I watched a YouTube video of a group of guys who rode it to James Bay, including a few kilometres of the Trans-Taiga, “just to say they did.” And then the YouTube algorithm did its thing and showed me another series of videos of a father and son riding the Trans-Labrador Highway, which was right up my alley because I was considering riding it back from Newfoundland this summer after crossing to Blanc-Sablon.

Coincidentally, this series is also by Troy Bennett.

The Trans-Labrador Highway is one of those classic ADV rides you’ve apparently got to do to call yourself an ADV rider. It also snakes through some pretty remote territory, and until recently, was mostly gravel. (The final remaining section of dirt has recently been paved.) I watched the six-part series and the riders did have some adventure. They had a break-down and had to be saved by some locals, and they encountered some unseasonable weather and were held up for a few days by a late snow fall. There was some good bonding time, for sure, but in terms of the ride itself, it seemed like hours and hours of mind-numbing coniferous forest. No lakes, no mountains, no cliffs, no hill climbs, and as of last summer, no dirt.

Why would the Trans-Labrador be such a popular ADV ride? It has to be its remoteness, and if you live in the northeast of North America, the Trans-Lab is one of the few remaining truly remote roads.

If you’re looking for a challenge, remoteness will provide it. For one, there is the not-so-little issue of fuel; you have to be able to cover upwards of 400 kms between fuel stops, which can be done by carrying extra fuel in a Rotopax or another fuel container. With remoteness usually comes some challenging riding too since no one wants to pave a road that has limited use. And if it rains, that challenge increases significantly, especially on roads like The Dempster or The Dalton that are sprayed with calcium chloride as it makes the mud greasy. Then there’s the danger of wildlife, whether it be an aggressive grizzly bear or, worse, the black flies.

Stuck in otherwise pretty safe lives, we seek danger in answer to an ancient call somewhere in the reptilian brain that harkens back to another era when we lived close to death.

But the real challenge of riding remote is simply the lack of assistance should you have a mechanical or medical problem. I won’t say you are on your own because even on these remote highways there are still trucks passing periodically, but parts and medical assistance become scarce. This is where you have to be prepared: know how to fix your bike, carry spare parts, bring a first-aid kit, and have on you a satellite tracker like the Garmin inReach units that are connected to emergency services.

Is it worth it? Well, to each his or her own, but for me, the risk itself is not enough. In fact, I’ve been wondering if riding remote for its own sake is really just a way for some people to feel alive again. Stuck in otherwise pretty safe lives, we seek danger in answer to an ancient call somewhere in the reptilian brain that harkens back to another era when we lived close to death. Some people skydive. Others bungee jump. Some climb mountains. And some race The Isle of Man TT in search of what Guy Martin calls “The Buzz,” that adrenaline hit you get when you are on the edge of life and death.

But watching these videos has led me to rethink my upcoming tour. I don’t think I’ll be coming back from Newfoundland via The Trans-Lab. It’s not because I’m scared of remote riding, but in my world, there has to be some pay-off for the risk, and bragging rights just isn’t enough. When I rode up The Dempster, every kilometre was worth the risk for the magnificent views the highway provided. I’d never seen geography like that before and likely won’t until I get up there again.

Golden Sides Lookout just north of Tombstone Territorial Park, Yukon.

But the Trans-Lab, the James Bay Road, and the Trans-Taiga don’t offer much beyond hours and hours of forest. From what I can determine, there aren’t even places to pull off safely for a rest or to camp. These are roads built exclusively for trucks to get from Point A to Point B, cutting a single line through otherwise impenetrable bush. I’ll leave it to the black flies.

For a challenge, I’ve decided instead to ride this summer the NEBDR and MABDR (North East and Mid Atlantic Backcountry Discovery Routes respectively) down to The Blue Ridge Parkway, and while there, I’ll probably do Tail of the Dragon, although riding a curvy section of road at the limit of my skill and the bike is not my preferred mode of challenge these days. Rather, I’m looking forward to testing my metal on those Class 4 roads of the NEBDR. I’ll take a rocky hill climb over speed or gratuitous remoteness any day; it’s what drew me to ADV riding in the first place. Off-roading provides a challenge that is relatively safe. That might sound like an oxymoron, but you don’t have to risk your life to get “The Buzz.” Successfully completing a technical section of road or trail will give you a hit too, and if you don’t make it and drop the bike, well, you live to try another day. And along the way, there are some pretty great views, villages, and campgrounds.

What do you think? If you ride a motorcycle, you’re familiar with managing risk. Is remote riding your thing, and if so, why do you do it? If not, what kind of riding gives you The Buzz? And if you don’t ride, what do you do to step outside your comfort zone and feel alive? Drop a comment below; I’m always interested in hearing from readers.

The BMW f650GS. It’s not just a starter bike.

April 9, 2018December 26, 2024 / 650thumper / 46 Comments

P1000195

2006 BMW f650 GS twin spark.

The BMW thumper is an iconic bike with a huge following for good reason.

I’ve been reluctant to do a bike review of Bigby. For one, I still consider myself a novice. In fact, aside from a few bikes at my training school, Bigby is the only bike I’ve ever ridden, so I don’t have much to compare it to. Doing a review, I thought, would inevitably lead to the faulty comparison, a logical fallacy I warn my students to avoid. (i.e. “Gets your clothes cleaner!” Ugh, cleaner than what?) Second, I’m still learning about the bike. Although I’ve owned it for almost three years, I’m still finding my way around the engine and mechanics and still discovering its potential. Passing judgment now would be like bailing out of a relationship after the second date. It would be, in the literal sense of the word, prejudice.

So why have I decided to do it? Well, after watching a lot of reviews online, I’ve come to realize that most are not very good, so the bar is set pretty low. They are usually more product descriptions than reviews, and Ryan at Fort Nine has blown the whistle on the nepotism of corporate reviews, how they are always positive because the big bike companies offer a lot of treats to the reviewers, like paid vacations in exotic locations. And those reviewers ride the bike for, what, a day, a couple of days, max, so at least I can say that after three years with Bigby, I know more about this bike than they ever will. So with my concerns made explicit, let’s jump in.

* * *

The three things I like the most about the f650GS are three things I noticed within the first five minutes of riding it: ergonomics, suspension, and balance. Okay maybe you don’t need to have ridden a bike for long before you discover its essence. Let’s look at each in turn and then move on to other stuff.

Ergonomics: At the school, we’d learnt on cruisers—Suzuki Boulevards and Honda Shadows. The ergonomics of the GS are very different. Being a dual-sport bike, it’s capable of going off road, and you need the pegs beneath you in order to stand. This placement also results in your weight being distributed evenly between the seat and pegs, with knees bent at roughly 90 degrees. It’s the ideal sitting position and how every office chair should be set up, thus making the GS also a very capable touring bike. The dual-sport, according to its name, involves compromise, but there’s no compromise when it comes to ergonomics: the GS provides the perfect sitting position, and the capability to stand when you leave the asphalt.

The other thing I like about the ergonomics is that you can flat foot this bike. The standard seat height is 30.9 inches, so super low. This is confidence inspiring once you take it off road; I know I can easily dab a foot if needed. In fact, since I am rather long-legged, the seat was a bit too low; my knees were bent more than 90 degrees and I felt a bit cramped after several hours in the saddle. So when I upgraded my seat (more on this later), I went for the high version to allow a bit more room, and that has made all the difference. If you are long-limbed, you might want to look at the Dakar version, which has a 34.3 inch seat height, or swap the saddle for a taller one. Despite these issues in my lower half, I haven’t had to add bar risers, and when I stand, the grips fall perfectly to where I need them, maintaining my standing posture.

Suspension: As I rode off on my first ride, the second thing I noticed was the suspension. This bike is smoooth, at least compared to those cruisers. And what better place to test a bike’s suspension than Montreal roads! Of course it makes sense that a dual-sport bike would have very capable suspension; it’s designed to be able to handle some pretty bumpy terrain. But just before I went for my riding test, I hired a private instructor for a class. He rode behind me and commented on things he saw. Now here is someone who has a lot of experience with bikes and has seen a wide variety from behind. Ironically, the first thing he remarked when we first stopped had nothing to do with my riding but how impressed he was with the rear suspension of my bike. “I wish you could see what I see from behind,” he said. “It’s amazing!”

In fact, I’ve wondered if the suspension is a little mushy. I’ve only bottomed out a few times while off-roading, and the front end dives a bit under hard braking. I’ve considered upgrading the suspension, but frankly, at only 140 lbs, I’m actually underweight for this bike. Front suspension travel is 170 mm and rear is 165 mm. Since ideal SAG is roughly 30% of total travel, SAG for the 650GS is 49.5 mm.. Even with the pre-load completely backed off, all of my 140 lbs is putting a little more than 45 mm on the suspension. Which brings me to another plus of this bike: the pre-load adjuster. Okay, it’s not electronically controlled like the new Beemer’s, but the ability to adjust with the turn of a knob when you are two-up or have gear on the back is a nice feature.

Balance: The thing I like most about the 650GS is its balance. This is accomplished mainly due to the gas tank being under the seat instead of high on the bike where it normally is. Where this is most noticeable is in how the bike corners. At the school, we were taught to countersteer to initiate a turn and to accelerate at the end to straighten up, and this was necessary with those cruisers. But I quickly discovered that on the GS you can manage an entire sweeping curve simply by leaning in and out. It’s hard to describe, but the bike feels like it straightens up itself with the subtlest weight shift.

The balance also shows when riding at slow speed, like in parking lots or technical sections off road. I’ll challenge anyone to a slow race any day! The bike is easy to move around by hand and to turn in tight spaces. With a little practice, I was riding figure-eights full lock. You can add all the accessories you like to a bike, but getting the balance right is something that happens at the design stage. BMW got it right on this one, which is why I was surprised to hear that they’ve moved the tank to the traditional location in the hump on the 2018 750s and 850s.

* * *

The engine is a Rotax, 652 cc single-cylinder, water-cooled, DOHC with twin spark plugs and four valves. It provides 50 HP @ 6,500 rpm and 44 lb/ft torque @ 5000 rpm. What these numbers mean is that it’s not the gutsiest engine. I’m up for a slow race but I won’t be challenging anyone to a drag soon. When I did my research, I kept hearing how this bike is a good beginner bike. There’s not a lot of power to manage, and you don’t have to worry about losing the back end by getting on the throttle too hard. On the other hand, it’s got lots of torque down low in the first two gears for hill climbs off road, and still some roll on in 5th gear at 120 km/hr. I’ve never maxed it out, but I’ve had it up to 140 km/hr and that’s fast enough for my purposes. And since we’re talking about gearing, 3rd and 4th are wide enough to enable me to navigate a twisty piece of road pretty much in one gear, depending on the type of road: roll off going into a corner, roll on coming out.

Single-cylinder engines have their advantages and disadvantages. One advantage is this wide gearing. My dad often talks about how he loved this aspect of his 350 Matchless. In heavy traffic, you can stay in 2nd and just ease the clutch back out when traffic picks up again. He once road his brother’s parallel twin and said it was horrible in stop-and-go traffic; you had to work twice as hard to prevent the engine from bogging. I suspect it’s this same quality that allows you to maintain your gear through a twisty section of road with slight variations in speed.

Another advantage of singles, I’ve recently discovered in this article in Cycle World, is that they offer a kind of traction control. As Kevin Cameron argues, “no other design produces such forgiving power delivery under conditions of compromised traction without elaborate software.” This is due to the millisecond duration of the exhaust stroke with big-bore engines, when there is relatively little power delivered to the tire, allowing it to regain traction if it begins to break loose. It’s like anti-lock brakes, the theory goes, but in reverse. Compare that to the constant power delivery of multi-cylinder engines, which makes managing power and traction more challenging.

A disadvantage of single-cylinders is the vibration. The Rotax engine is about a smooth as a single comes, I’ve heard, but it can still make your throttle hand go numb, especially if it’s cold, so you might want to invest in a throttle assist or throttle lock. I have the Kaoko and it works great. Unfortunately, the Rox Anti-Vibration Risers don’t fit my particular bike due to the configuration of the triple-clamp, but then I’ve heard those can make the steering mushy, which can be unnerving when riding off road. And it might be my imagination, but it seems that there are less vibrations when using the BMW oil. It certainly seems that the engine runs quieter and smoother, perhaps not surprising given that BMW design and test the oil specifically for their engines. Speaking of oil, the Rotax engines do not burn oil. Ever. Don’t believe me, go ask the inmates at The Chain Gang, a user forum devoted to the BMW 650s.

On the other hand, it’s a major pain in the ass to do an oil change on this bike. Because the engine uses a dry sump system, there’s an oil tank on the left side of the hump where a gas tank normally would be (an airbox is on the right side), so draining the oil involves removing the left body panel and draining that holding tank, plus draining the pan by removing the sump plug at the very bottom of the engine. If you have a bash plate, as I do, you have to remove that too, which, if it’s attached to the crash cage . . . and so on, until you’ve stripped the bike halfway down. Or you can drill a hole in your bash plate as I did, which makes that job a lot easier. You’re still going to get some oil on the plate, and you’re going to get some on the engine when you remove the oil filter due to its recessed placement, so just have plenty of shop towels on hand.

My 2006 650GS does not have rider modes and sophisticated electronics. It doesn’t even have anti-lock brakes. At first I was concerned about this and it was almost a deal-breaker for this newbie. But I spoke to a few experienced riders and they all agreed: better to learn how to control traction and perform emergency braking using proper technique than rely on electronics. Since I’m rather a purist in most things, I understand that. If you learn to emergency brake by grabbing a handful of brake lever and letting ABS do its thing, you aren’t going to develop the feel needed to control sliding in off-road situations. And not having all that sophisticated electronics makes the bike easier to maintain.

The 650GS is fuel-injected so there is an ECU. A 911 diagnostic code reader is available to help you troubleshoot the electronics, but it’s expensive. One advantage of fuel injected bikes is that there is no choke to deal with, and the ECU adjusts the fuel-air mixture according to altitude, meaning you can literally scale any mountain without having to change the jets of a carburetor or risk running your engine hot. The downside is that the throttle can be a little choppy so easy on the roll-off.

Two areas where the 650GS is lacking are the saddle and the windscreen. The saddle is hard and slopes downward, so you always feel like the boys are jammed up against the airbox. If you plan on using your GS for long day trips, you’ll want to upgrade the saddle. There are many aftermarket models available, including BMW’s own Comfort Seat, but I decided to go with Seat Concepts which, for about $250 CAF, they will send you the foam and cover and you reupholster it yourself using your original seat pan. I’ve done a blog on this job so won’t repeat myself here.

One issue with this era GS is the windscreen. The OEM screen is so small it barely covers the instrument dash. There are many aftermarket screens available, but finding the right one is a difficult matter of trial and error. The windscreen issues on this bike are well documented, and if you have sadistic leanings, just search at f650.com for aftermarket windscreens, sit back, and enjoy. The reading is almost as entertaining as a good oil thread. In my own experience, the bike came with a 19″ National Cycle touring windscreen, which was a bit high for off roading and was directing loud air buffeting directly onto my helmet. I swapped it for a 15″ but that too was loud, so I added a wind deflector and that solved the buffeting but I thought ruined the bike’s aesthetic, so I ultimately landed on a 12″ sport screen by National Cycle that protects my torso but keeps my helmet in clean air. The problem is the shape of the front cowling that the screen screws into. It angles the screen too much directly toward the rider’s helmet, instead of the recent bikes that have the screen more upright. The quietest screen on the aftermarket is the Madstad screen. It has an adjustable bracket that attaches to the cowling, allowing you to adjust the angle of the screen. It also has that crucial gap at the bottom of the screen, preventing a low pressure area that causes the buffeting developing behind the screen. Unfortunately, it’s a little pricey, but the real deal-breaker for me is that Madstad use acrylic, and acrylic screens don’t stand up to the abuse of off-road riding. National Cycle screens are polycarbonate.

Aesthetics: I love the aesthetics of this bike! Even ugly babies are adored by their parents, but sometimes I’ll look at a more modern luxury touring bike with the engine completely covered in plastic and I’m glad my bike has its guts hanging out like a proper bike. And I like that it has spoked wheels, which are stronger for off roading and have a more traditional look. Someone once said to me, “I love your old-fashioned bike.” Hmm . . . I hadn’t thought of it as old-fashioned but didn’t mind the comment. There definitely is a raw, real motorcycle quality to the bike, yet has refinements like heated grips and the quality control and reliability you’d expect from BMW. It is the ultimate hybrid dual-sport: part dirt bike, part luxury tourer.

In conclusion: The f650GS is a confidence-inspiring little bike that is perfect for not only beginners but also anyone who prefers a smaller, lighter bike. There’s a movement these days toward smaller bikes, with many people looking at the big adventure bikes with derision for their impracticality off road. I say it really depends on the type of riding you want to do and where you plan to take the bike. Due to its size and weight, the 650GS can go some places that the larger bikes can’t, but the cost is in vibration and rpms at speed on a highway. If you’ve got large areas to traverse but want the capacity to go on dirt roads when needed, then yeah, go for the big 1200GS that is so popular. But if you’ve got time and want to explore deeper into those remote areas, then the 650GS is an excellent choice. I plan on keeping mine as long as possible.

* * *

Pros:

Ergonomics for dirt and touring; smooth suspension; very well balanced; reliable Rotax engine; sufficient hp and torque for light off-roading; fuel injected intake has automatic temperature and altitude adjustment; classic aesthetics

Cons:

Cost (upfront and maintenance; even parts are expensive for DIYs); saddle is hard and uncomfortable; windscreen is useless, hard to find a good aftermarket replacement; engine can be vibey; only 5 gears

* * *

Modifications:

With the help of my son, I’ve created two walkaround videos describing the modifications I’ve done to the bike for dirt riding and street riding.

Walkaround Mods for Dirt

Walkaround Mods for Street

How’d I do with my first review? Please comment and click the Follow button if you liked this post.