The Ottawa Valley Overland Route

March 3, 2024March 4, 2024 / 650thumper / 4 Comments

My friend Ray and I went looking for adventure and got more than we bargained for.

When I got back from Newfoundland, it was the end of July and I was already starting to think about teaching. More accurately, I was beginning to dream about teaching. (My school begins mid-August, unlike most universities that begin after Labour Day.) I get these dreams toward the end of summer. In them it’s the first day of the semester and I’m not ready—my outlines are still at the printers, my textbooks aren’t in, I’m running late and can’t find something I need in the office, and when I arrive to class, a senior respected colleague is sitting at the back, having decided to audit my course. That kind of thing. I thought I was the only person who got them, but apparently they’re so common among teachers that they’re called Teacher Dreams. Anyway, I was already getting them so decided I’d put off that second planned trip to The States and the BDRs until the following summer and use what little time there was left in my summer vacation period to do shorter trips.

I asked my buddy Ray if he’d join me in doing a local overnight adventure ride. Ray likes the big gleaming classic bikes and rides an Indian Chief Vintage, but we won’t fault him for that. He’s also got a 2003 KLR in army green and joins me on off-road adventures when he’s feeling especially masochistic. We’ve had some adventures in the past, usually involving a hydro line, water, mud, and something semi-legal, so I think he was a bit reluctant. But I assured him I’d find something mellow this time, and like the good sport he is, he agreed, so I started researching the ride. The idea was for a relaxed dirt and gravel ride that had some nice scenery in the mix.

My first choice was The Bytown Adventure Loop and went as far as to pitch it to my editor at my paying gig, northernontario.travel. It’s always nice to ride, even better when you get paid to do it. The Bytown Loop was announced a few years ago to great fanfare, including a whole YouTube video to present it, and it looked pretty perfect for our purposes—big-bike friendly, close to home, with food and accommodations available should we want to avoid camping and cooking. Easy peezy. The only problem is that I couldn’t find the GPS files anywhere. You can see my query on the YouTube page, with no response. Same when I asked the channel owner directly. Hmm . . . seems like a lot of work went to waste at the final stages of development or there’s something I don’t know.

A little more sleuthing brought me to GravelTravel and he has lots of files available for a small fee, including the TCAT, and another that caught my eye, the Ottawa Valley Overland Route. It seemed similar to The Bytown Loop so I checked it out on YouTube. The videos I saw looked pretty mellow—apparently a large section of it is on abandoned railway line, which is usually flat, straight, and easy. Forums did not reveal anything concerning. In fact, I saw one post asking if it could be done in a non-modified AWD car, so I thought we’d give it a go. It would mean camping and cooking, but to be honest, I prefer that to venturing into town. I bought the files, reserved a campsite at Granite Lake, about halfway through the loop, and bought Lanark County trail passes for Ray and me.

The route is listed as 2-3 days. We were going to do it in 2, which was a bit ambitious since it would take us 1.5 hours to get to Merrickville, where we would pick up the route. To make matters worse, no sooner had we begun when we had a delay. We had done some service on Ray’s bike earlier in the summer and as we rode toward the Ontario border I began to doubt that we had re-oiled his K & N air filter. I remember washing it, and setting it out to dry . . . but not oiling it. You really don’t want to run those filters dry at risk of damaging your engine, so when we reached Alexandria, we pulled into a Tim Horton’s and discovered that yes, it was dry. Thankfully, the ubiquitous and life-saving Canadian Tire there had a K & N maintenance kit so we oiled the filter and let it sit while we had our coffees. It was a small delay, but on a tight schedule, every unplanned stop costs you dearly later on.

Arriving in Merrickville in time for lunch at Bob’s Fresh Cut Fries.

Merrickville is a charming historic village with more heritage buildings for its size than any other town in Ontario. I’ve written about it as a favourite destination for bikers here, but in this case we were just passing through. Soon after lunch, we picked up the OVOR track and, to my great surprise, almost immediately hit mud.

I didn’t have the tires for mud. I still had on Dunlop Trailmax Mission tires from my tour, so I stopped to assess the situation. I was also thinking of Ray, to whom I had promised an easy ride. I waded in and it wasn’t deep, just a bit slippery. I looked at the map and it appeared to be a short section. Now in this situation, Clinton Smout advises to let your buddy go first, but since I’d got us here, I figured I was the test probe. Ray got out his phone to catch any action.

On the Rideau Trail north of Merrickville.

“It’s not bad”? Soon I’d be eating my words when my tires caked up. Some of this easy trail wasn’t so easy.

The Tiger doesn’t have much low-end torque and I have to keep the revs way up whenever off-roading or it stalls. Soon after this ride I did my valves and all the exhaust valves were tight. I’m hoping that opening them up will help with the stalling. A little further on we turned left onto some two track, crossed a swamp, and popped back out onto gravel.

Once back on the road, it was smooth going again up into Carlton Place, another pretty town that was on my Top 5 Ottawa Area Destinations list.

You can see me glance at the hydro line as we crossed beneath. Premonitions of things to come?

We filled up in Almonte before heading down into the bush south of Ottawa. The highlight of the day was riding the Lanark County Trail System south of Ottawa.

California Road in Lanark County.

I was loving this and could have done it all day! The Tiger is in its element here and the Tailmax Mission tires are fine for this stuff; the back end slides out but consistently. We stopped for a photo out over White Lake during the golden hour and the ride was now everything we were hoping it would be. We had a little ways to go to get to our campsite and were looking forward to the steaks I had packed in one of my panniers.

Sadly, the fun would come to an end too soon. We crossed a hydro line, then rode the line for a few hundred metres before exiting onto another gravel road. Unfortunately, what we didn’t know is that the bridge crossing the river that feeds into Duncs Lake was under construction and was out. We got off our bikes and surveyed; sometimes you can find a way through even if it’s closed (the semi-legal stuff I alluded to earlier). In this case, that wasn’t possible at all, and we happened upon a workman finishing up his day and he confirmed what we already knew: end of the road. (What was especially frustrating is that they were building a new road called, appropriately, The New Road, and it was smooth sailing on the other side. We looked at our map and figured we were about 2 kilometres from Highway 511 and the best bet was to return to the hydro line and follow it out to the road.

Hydro lines. When you’re stuck in the bush, they’re a lifeline to civilization, a man-made geometrical order imposed on the chaos of wilderness. But they can also lure you into that chaos, the fisherman’s line drawing you into dark waters. And speaking of water, what I’ve found is that they almost inevitably involve some of it at the low points as the terrain rises and falls. A ride along the primitive access trail of a hydro line is a rocky descent to a water crossing to a steep rocky hill climb to a moment of respite before another descent, and on, for hundreds, thousands of miles if you want, from dams to urban centres, traversing great swaths of Canadian boreal forest.

We got through that without incident but by now it was getting late, we were getting tired, and our off-road skills were suffering as a result. I offer these two videos for your amusement, at our expense.

Ray took his own tumble and decided, while down there in the tall grass, to take a little nap.

In the first video, you can hear concern in my voice. I was worried that we would come upon a crossing that was just too deep to cross and that would block us from the highway. At this point, I was getting some serious arm pump and had pretty much given up on making it to Granite Lake and our planned campsite. We’d figure out where we were going to spend the night once out of the bush.

But we never made it that far. At one water crossing, I got hung up on some rocks and dumped the bike. I hit the kill switch before it dunked but the bike wouldn’t start once righted. After trying for a while, I left it sitting there while deciding what to do.

Eventually, we ended up just pushing the bike out by hand and it was surprisingly easy. But it wouldn’t start, no matter how many times I cranked it. Thankfully, Ray got across without incident. I have to say, the KLR really showed its capabilities on this ride. Where I was struggling on the Tiger, Ray was getting over stuff using the tractor factor of the KLR.

I figured the Tiger was hydrolocked, but to get to the spark plugs on this machine you have to remove a lot of plastics and lift the gas tank. I didn’t want to start that work with 30 minutes of light remaining, so we made the decision to camp on the hydro line. I left my bike where it was, Ray rode his up to a clearing on the line, and we set up our tents there. I fired up my stove and cooked us the steaks. We had a little something from the liquor store in Alexandria, and I had a pipe and Ray had a cigar. It wasn’t exactly the campsite at Granite Lake I had imagined, but we made the best of a bad situation.

Still smiling, despite the bugs and our situation.

That night in my tent I had a restless sleep, worried that I might not have packed the spark plug socket. I wasn’t sure because it’s such an involved process to access the plugs that I might have concluded I’d never be lifting the tank trailside. But thankfully I had, and after morning coffee and porridge, we started tearing apart the Tiger.

In this photo, you can see a section of hose coming out of the bottom of the tank. That is a hose I carry for emergency syphoning should someone run out of gas. We found that when we lifted the tank, gas flowed out of the overflow drain. I’ve had that tank lifted before and it’s never done that. It was a clue that I should have paid more attention to.

We took out the plugs and they looked dry. We turned the engine over and no water came out of the plug holes. Next we thought that maybe the air filter was soaked and choking the engine. Unfortunately, Triumph put a weird 7mm hex screw on the airbox and I didn’t have that socket on me. I pride myself on being prepared but I came up short on this occasion.

We decided that I would ride Ray’s KLR out and up to the Canadian Tire in Renfrew. Why me? Ray said I had more experience off-roading and would have a better chance of getting out. There was some really gnarly terrain and a pretty significant water crossing, but I made it out, again, impressed by the KLR’s capabilities off road.

Shortly after I started heading up toward Calabogie, the skies opened up and it started to rain cats and dogs.

Wishing I’d zipped up my vents earlier.

It was weird weather. In Renfrew it was dry with blue skies. Little did I know it was still coming down hard back on the trail. Canadian Tire had the 7mm deep socket, and while in town I picked up lunch and water and gassed up Ray’s bike. I was planning for the worst case scenario.

As I rode south on the 511 toward the trailhead, I rode back into the torrential rain. It was bad! In fact, unbeknownst to us, this extreme weather was causing major flooding in nearby Ottawa and back home our wives were concerned. I got to the trailhead and started heading back in, but before I reached the bike, who did I see walking out but Ray. He was soaked to the skin and looked pretty miserable. Our “easy ride” had turned into 24 hours of hell, stuck in the bush in extreme weather. I was never going to live this down.

Ray had determined that the trail was now impassable and that I might be waiting for him at the highway. I guess he doesn’t know me as well as I thought. No extreme weather was going to prevent me from getting back to my bike. But he looked cold and miserable and it was teeming, so we agreed to abandon the troubleshooting and get a room in Calabogie. There was nothing more to do but turn around and splash Ray, who couldn’t get any wetter, then double him out to the highway.

“Hop on. This part is pretty tame.” Camera shuts off by itself at the worst time. Sorry about that.

Unfortunately, he had started walking without his helmet, so I doubled back, tidied our gear, grabbed his helmet and jacket, and returned to ride us up to the Calabogie Motel.

It was sunny in Calabogie but probably still raining 20 kilometres south on the trail. I didn’t feel very good about leaving my bike on the trail overnight but tried to put it out of mind. We went for dinner at The Redneck Bistro.

The next day we were up and out early, eager to get the airbox open and hopefully solve our problems. I’d been communicating with my buddy Riley from The Awesome Players, who has more experience with bikes than me. He too was confident that when we got it open, we’d find a soggy filter and after drying everything out the bike would fire right up again.

The trail was still waterlogged and I was worried about doing the deep crossing again. We didn’t need two hydrolocked bikes. But the KLR is a beast, and I told it so.

Things went a little sideways on me there but we got safely across. I left his bike at the top before the gnarly stuff, then walked down to the bike. With great anticipation and suspense, I got out the new 7mm socket and opened the airbox . . .

It was dry, bone dry. I was deflated. Ray had been walking in from the road and soon arrived. We continued our troubleshooting but were running out of ideas. We tested the plugs and there was spark. We took out the filter and the Unifilter prefilter. We checked all the fuses. The one for the auxiliary socket was blown and we thought we’d solved it then, but after replacing it, the bike still wouldn’t start. We looked down inside the throttle bodies for water. We inserted twisted paper into the throttle bodies and it came up dry. We put a drop of fuel from my stove bottle into each throttle body and still it did not fire! Not even a cough.

As a last resort, I walked up to where there was reception and called Riley to see if he could think of anything I hadn’t. He asked if I could hear the fuel pump cycle on with ignition. I did. He said he’d consulted with Player Ivan and it didn’t make sense: we had fuel, we had air, we had spark—the bike should run! We were all stumped, and with it already getting on the afternoon, I decided to throw in the towel. I didn’t want to spend another night on the hydro line and knew there were limits to what I could ask of Ray. Riley offered to trailer me back to Montreal if I got the bike out of the bush. So we took Ray’s bike again and rode back into Calabogie where I found someone who does trail rescue. It cost me a pretty penny but I was out of options.

Back in Calabogie, Riley and his brother arrived and we loaded both bikes onto their trailer and headed for home.

With Riley (right) and his brother Kelly. I owe these guys one large favour! photo credit: Ray Bourgeois

I will admit I was feeling more than a little deflated on the drive back to Montreal. It reminded me of when the water pump went on the 650GS while at Dirt Daze and, for a moment, I considered selling it for something more reliable. Perhaps Riley knew what I was thinking and told me about Super Dave’s mint 1200GS he got for a song.

And I was disappointed in myself. How could I ride into remote areas if I couldn’t be sure to get myself out? It felt like, after all my preparation over the preceding years to learn about bike mechanics in order to do that kind of riding, I’d been tested and had failed. I also felt bad for Ray, who had suffered hypothermia and water-damaged his phone. When I got back to Montreal, I stuck the bike in the shed and couldn’t bring myself to touch it for a few days.

When we are at our lowest, it’s our friends who lift us back up, people like Riley who drove out from Montreal to fetch me, and my buddy Mike who came by to shake me out of my doldrums and help troubleshoot the bike. He noticed almost right away the presence of water around the fuel line in the way the fuel was beading on parts, and we decided to drain the tank. I make home-brew beer and had an empty carboy to use. This is what we found in the tank.

Gas on top, water on bottom. Several litres of dirty water in the gas tank!

Gas and water are insoluble and water is heavier than gas. This is a 23 litre carboy so I estimate that there was at least 3 or 4 litres of water in the bottom of the tank, and since the fuel pump draws from the bottom, the bike wasn’t getting any fuel. No wonder it wouldn’t start!

How did the water get in the tank? The fill cap seal is good, so it didn’t get in there. The bike was running fine up until it wasn’t, so I didn’t get bad fuel in Almonte. No, the only theory that makes sense is this: at the river crossing, the engine and tank were hot. When I dunked the bike, the tank cooled rapidly, creating a vacuum, and water was siphoned up through either the tank overflow or breather tube that was hanging in the water. It would only take a bit of water to foul the injectors and prevent firing, but with this much water in the tank, now I think the bike was drinking water the entire time it was in the river.

I’ve posted this theory on ADVRider to see if anyone else has experienced it and no one said they had, but I did find some threads on ATV forums supporting it. There’s supposed to be a check valve that prevents water or sand entering and also serves as the tip-over sensor. It’s a simple ball bearing valve, but I haven’t been able to locate it on the Tiger. The solution, I think, is to reroute the tubes to a higher point. This is what the ATV guys have done. You don’t want to just cut the tubes because you don’t want fuel draining onto a hot engine, so I’m thinking I will run them back along the frame toward the rear of the bike and have them drain somewhere safely behind the engine.

I’d be very interested to hear what others think about this. I’m surprised more bikes don’t have this problem, which makes me wonder if it’s particular to the Tiger or my bike. I’ve seen guys completely submerge their bikes and they don’t get any water in the tank, so what goes? If you have any ideas, drop a comment below. I’ll be getting out to the shed in the coming weeks to do a bunch of work on the bike in preparation for the season, and I understand there are some water crossings on the MABDR.

Anyway, Mike and I removed the fuel pump and squeezed as much water out of the filter as we could, then let it dry and reassembled. We purged the fuel rail and I changed the spark plugs. With clean fuel, the bike reluctantly started, first on two cylinders, then three. I added some Seafoam to a tank of gas and gave it the Italian tune-up all the way to Cornwall and back. Now it’s running great again. I also put in some cheap oil for a few hundred kilometres, then drained and refilled with the good stuff, just in case some water got in the oil. The bike is running fine now, especially since doing the valves. I feel better for having an explanation for what happened and am no longer thinking of selling it.

Some people say that the essence of adventure riding is adversity. We watch Itchy Boots riding through Nigeria and Cameroon with their bad roads, bad gas (if you can find it), security check points and security risks and are impressed by her courage. On the other hand, there are lots of people in my club who just want to ride and skip the adversity. I remember Ray once said at a club event that “riding with Kevin makes you feel alive,” and I’m reminded of what D. H. Lawrence once said along the same lines, something like, “Only once you’ve accepted death can you truly live.” I’m paraphrasing, but I think I know what he’s on about: if you don’t face risk, you are only existing, not living. I don’t go seeking danger—I love life too much—but neither do I let “what ifs” stop me from living the life I want to live.

Memento mori. When I’m old and feeble and no longer able to ride a motorcycle, I’m sure I’ll be thinking wistfully of Ray’s and my Ottawa Valley Extreme Weather Misadventure.

Pin marks where my bike crapped out. You can see the trail along the hydro line. It ducks into the forest and exits onto the 511 just south of the line. The big water crossing is just left of the circular lake.

Newfoundland’s Rich Aviation History

February 4, 2024February 5, 2024 / 650thumper / Leave a comment

After dropping Marilyn off at the Saint John’s airport, I ride solo back across the island, stopping at some aviation landmarks along the way.

It had been a great 17 days together on the bike through Gaspé, PEI, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland, but Marilyn had to be back for work so off she flew. Now I was on my own again, and it took me a few hours to adjust; I’d become so accustomed to having her on the back as company.

I had to cross the island again back to Port aux Basque and, as some of you know, I’m an aviation enthusiast so decided to make some detours to historic landmarks en route. The first was the airfield in Harbour Grace where Amelia Earhart took off on her solo flight across the Atlantic in 1932. On the way there, for my mid-morning break, I stopped at the Tim’s in Bay Roberts for coffee and some minor maintenance.

Earlier in the day, I’d noticed one of the Tiger’s two headlamps burnt out. I had a spare on hand and it was a quick fix in the parking lot. One of the things I like about the Triumph is that it doesn’t have all that fairing at the front like the old Beemer. Changing a light bulb on that machine requires removal of the windscreen, the headlight guard, the front flashers, the side panels, the instrument panel, and finally, the fairing. On the Tiger, you simply twist to remove the cover. Nice!

With that done, off I flew as well, until I realized I’d left my hydration knapsack hanging on the back of a chair at Tim’s. Doh! As I rode back toward it, I pondered the chances of it still being there in small-town Newfoundland compared to if I’d left it unattended in Montreal. It took me maybe 15 minutes to get back to the coffee shop and to my relief but not surprise the knapsack was still there. Phew! It had some valuables inside and I would have been very annoyed if I’d lost it.

The first thing you see upon entering Harbour Grace is a statue of Amelia next to a Douglas airplane named The Spirit of Harbour Grace (see banner image above). The donors don’t win the Pulitzer for the most original name. The park of the same unfortunate name contains other items of interest, such as a replica of the famous flight log. There’s also a tourist info centre and the nice young student employees directed me up to the famous airstrip, which was really the only reason I was there.

When you arrive, after a few kilometres of gravel, you see one of those signposts pointing distances to destinations, only this one denotes famous flights in and out of the airstrip. You can see Earhart’s 3,132 kilometre flight to Culmore, Ireland, in 1932. Apparently WWI American ace Eddie Rickenbacker also used the airfield in 1936. The unassuming little clearing slopes slightly downward heading west, as planes naturally would take off into the oncoming easterly wind. Earhart would have had to turn 180 degrees after take-off before heading out over the Atlantic toward Ireland.

By the time Amelia attempted to circumnavigate the world in 1937, her legacy was secure. When she disappeared under mysterious circumstances on June 2, she became a legend. Like the Titanic, she took on a mythical significance larger than her physical accomplishments, which were numerous. The fateful end became one of the great mysteries of the modern era, taking us into the realm of imagination and the great unknowns of life and death. The grainy, black and white video footage we have of her does not seem to match the iconic status of what she’s come to mean, but reminds us that she was, in the end, human just the same.

_{If you are reading this on your phone, use landscape orientation.}

DEAR GEORGE: THE LOST LETTER

I’ll admit my big break came
from my looks. You said
when I walked into your office, you knew
you’d found your woman. Lucky, 
I guess, how much I looked like Lindy, 
although I never liked the nickname.
No woman likes to be compared
to a man. They said I even
moved like him, shared the same
DNA and fear of fame. I can’t complain,

but it wasn’t easy climbing into that plane
with a drunk, putting my life in his
trembling hands. I saw the bottle
tucked behind his seat and would have
thrown it out the hatch but knew
from Daddy how that ends. Instead,
I helped carry him to the dock, managed
our “personnel problem” as best I could. 
They didn’t let me fly, just the easy
bit over land, and that’s why

when I did it myself, solo, it was 
like a single finger held up to the world
as if to say, “Women can do this too.”
Nobody thought I could, even you. 
And more. Records fell like ticker-tape, 
didn’t they—altitude, distance, time 
merely obstacles of the mind, my body 
just another obstacle, an accident of sex, 
not tomboy but woman who
only wants what’s fair and true.

Don’t patronize me! I said I wouldn’t
fly the derby if the girls and I
started east, the guys getting the harder route 
over the mountains, and meant it. When
they kicked us out of the Bendix Trophy
I’d had enough; they could find another
to fly their starlet to the race. Even in marriage
I only ever asked for freedom. The note 
I wrote on our wedding day said I’d never claim 
anything from you and asked the same. 

So, dear, if you’re reading this you know
I did not make it home. Maybe it’s for 
the best; I was only ever afraid 
of growing old, as most women will attest,
and preferred to go in my plane. 
And since we’ve always been this honest,
there is one thing more: the rumours 
that I was pregnant when I flew
round the earth’s belly are true, but 
the baby wasn’t yours. I think you knew.

Love, 

A.E.


© 2022 Kevin Bushell

There are many theories as to what happened to her, including that she and navigator Fred Noonan crash landed on Gardner Island, south of the intended Howland Island. Human bones and artifacts, including a sextant and a ladies compact, were found, but the bones, now lost, by some accounts did not match her dimensions. As I write this, there are reports that an American team has found her plane 100 miles south of Howland on the bottom of the Pacific, about 5000 meters down. All we have is sonar imagery resembling her plane, but it will be very interesting to follow these developments.

Back in Newfoundland, the famous airstrip was unused and abandoned on the day I visited. The only person around was an older gentleman named Austin, who has built a house on the property adjacent to the airstrip. Maybe it was because I was on my own for a change and knew only I would pay the price for delaying, but I indulged in a conversation with this unusual man.

He has built several airplanes which he stores in a hangar beside the airstrip but has never obtained his pilot’s licence. He said he never had the time to complete the licensing process. He also built the house, but never connected it to NL Hydro because, he says, they charge too much ($50,000, if I remember correctly). He had all the windows of his house open on the day I was there to help deal with some mold that had developed in the recent hot, humid weather. He has a large generator that he uses when needed but hasn’t installed A/C or, I guess, a dehumidifier. He also has, sitting beside his house, an ancient wheel loader which, he says, he bought for dealing with “Snowmageddon.” It had a fuel line leak and he was just about to deal with that.

I felt for this solitary, older man with the unused airplanes, the moldy house, and the leaky heavy machine, and was tempted to get out my tools and give him a hand, but all I had time for on this particular day was a brief conversation. Maybe I shouldn’t feel sorry for him; he’s clearly staying busy through his retirement. I suspect there are a lot of these brilliant eccentrics in Newfoundland, and I was happy to have been given a glimpse into his extraordinary and fiercely independent life. We parted, not before exchanging names and promising to meet again.

My next stop was Gander, which we missed coming the other way. I’d heard of the famous airport, and frankly, had become a little tired of hearing about it, if you want to know the truth. Okay, it’s remarkable that they managed to host all those unexpected guests during 9/11, but really . . . a broadway musical? To be honest, I was more interested in seeing the main lobby as a time capsule of another era. (They have managed to retain the original decor.) I was also interested in the idea of all those famous people like The Beatles, Marilyn Monroe, Elvis, and Frank Sinatra having set foot in there. Oh yeah, and the Queen. Now we can add the adventure boots of 650thumper to that list.

The coin parking meter out front was cute. What a contrast from the Montreal airport where you pay $8 for 20 minutes or get 30 seconds in the drop-off zone before security start yelling at you.

My third aviation stop of the day was The North Atlantic Aviation Museum, right across the street from the airport. By the time I got there, the museum was closed but that was okay; it was getting late and I only had time for a quick blow-through, so to speak, of the outdoor exhibits anyway.

There’s a lot more aviation history in Newfoundland I would have liked to explore, such as where Alcock and Brown took off (somewhere in Saint John’s) for the first ever transatlantic flight, but that would have to wait for another time. Half an hour later I was in Notre Dame Provincial Park in time to go for a swim before setting up camp. It had been hot and the swimming there was a welcome relief at the end of a long day.

The next day I got an early start in an attempt to beat the heat. It was easy highway riding and I settled in to several hours and put over 300 kilometres behind me, stopping only at the Canadian Tire in Corner Brook to top up my oil. I’d ridden 6000 kilometres since my oil change, some of it high revs in heat, and the sight glass told me the oil was a little low, so I added 200 mL to get me home. While I was eating lunch, it started to rain, and it rained, and rained, sometimes hard, for the remainder of the day.

I’m not spooked about riding in rain. I have good rain gear and trust my tires. I was ahead of schedule and the prudent thing would have been to pull off somewhere warm and dry and enjoy a good book, or to get to the terminal early and wait in the warmth there. Instead, I decided to spend the remaining time exploring Cape St. George off the south-west corner of the island.

My friends and wife will attest that my motto in life, aside from Life Is An Adventure, is “Pack it in.” Maybe because I recognize that time and life are so precious, I feel that an idle moment is a wasted moment. It’s an affliction I’m working on. In this instance, I was less successful and decided, despite the rain, to try to loop the cape. It would be a good challenge, and I like a challenge.

The lady at the gas station in Stephenville said it takes about two hours, so that would leave me plenty of time with buffer to get the rest of the way to Port aux Basque for my night crossing. In the back of my mind was also the possibility that there might be some good ADV riding out there, and there was. I ventured off the pavement down to the water for a photo op.

I made it out to Boutte du Cap Park, but shortly after rounding the point and starting back on the west side, the road climbed into fog. Now I was forced to ride at 55 km/hr and was at risk of missing my ferry, not to mention hitting a moose, so I bailed. This will give you a sense of what I was seeing just before I pulled the U-turn.

And this will give you a sense of the cold, wet ride back along the coast to the ferry. I know these are boring so I’ve kept them short.

At the ferry terminal, I changed into dry clothes and couldn’t resist getting a hot coffee, a decision that would come back to haunt me later. I normally am not affected by caffeine, even late in the day, but that night, in unfamiliar surroundings, on my own, with distractions all around, I think I got about an hour of sleep. I’m a pretty solid sleeper, even in public places, but some A-hole front and centre of my section sounded like he was swallowing his tongue the entire night. I eventually got up and searched for another section, but each floor had several loud snorers. It really showed me how prevalent snoring and apnea are in our culture. I’ve recently been studying this through Andrew Huberman’s podcasts in which he talks about mouth breathers and diet and obesity and how these factors result in facial modification, sleep disturbances, and decreased quality of life. Something to consider.

It was a crappy way to end a wonderful first visit to The Rock. I was happy to dock and headed straight to Baddeck Cabot Trail Campground, set up camp, then took a power nap before hitting The Cabot Trail. But this is already pretty long, so I’ll save that iconic ride and the rest of my tour through Nova Scotia and Maine for another post.

Have you visited any of these sites? What is your connection to aviation, motorcycling, or Newfoundland. Feel free to comment below. I love hearing from readers.

Saint John’s and The Irish Loop

January 21, 2024January 24, 2024 / 650thumper / 1 Comment

We complete our tour of Newfoundland with a few days in Saint John’s and ride part of The Irish Loop.

We arrived in Saint John’s late in the day and hungry, so after cleaning up we asked the staff at The Alt where we could get a meal at that hour. They naturally directed us further down Water Street. We’d heard of the lively Water and George Streets and were looking forward to taking in some of that Irish pub nightlife, only when we got there, we were disappointed.

As we sat on a sidewalk patio awaiting our food, I took a look around. We were definitely out of place. For one, we were married, and for two, were were sober. The scene reminded me of The Simpsons episode in which Marge asks Homer not to show up drunk at Lisa’s recital. “Irish drunk or American drunk?” Homer asks, just to be clear. I hadn’t seen this level of drunkenness since high school. The average age here was more like mid-twenties but they were clearly regressing. What was it George Bernard Shaw said about youth? It’s wasted on the young.

More disturbing were the greying and balding 50-year-old single males amongst them, leaning against lampposts and slurring directions to the next pub, which is all of a 100 feet further down the road, if they can make it that far. Well, to each his or her own, I guess. We just aren’t into that scene.

On the other side of the road were a group of homeless youth, or so they seemed to me. They had all the tell-tale signs of homelessness—unkempt hair and clothing, the tattered and filthy knapsack, and a certain loitering, lounging body language that indicated they had all the time in the world and no place else to go. There was also a certain solidarity among them, as if their immediate friends were all that mattered in the world, deaf and blind to the surrounding animal show. Or maybe it was they who were trying to be invisible. When you are the most vulnerable, you learn to be invisible should some violent drunk take a dislike to your presence. The drunken revelry and the sad homelessness were a strange juxtaposition, separated by 50 feet of blacktop.

Music emanated from the open window of the pub out onto the terrace where we sat and across the street. It was an Irish jig, and from the sounds of the cheering and clapping inside, the folks were really enjoying it. I might have been too but, alas, as a former side drummer of The Black Watch (RHR) Pipes & Drums, I know what a good jig sounds like, and this wasn’t it. I’m going to sound like a music snob, but it was sloppy. In “Two Ways of Seeing a River,” Mark Twain suggests that the steamboat pilot can no longer appreciate the beauty of the river after knowing of its dangers, and I guess I will say that knowing what good Irish music sounds like has made me unable to appreciate the beauty when it’s bad. We missed the genuine Newfoundland music on this tour, to our great disappointment, but that’s an extra reason to return.

Finally our food arrived and we soon retreated back to our hotel. Water Street was a huge disappointment. We have since heard it referred to as the New Orleans of the North. I’ve never been to New Orleans, and now I’m not sure I want to.

The next day I was hoping to meet up with a former professor from my undergrad days. We had lost touch over the years but recently reconnected when I asked him to write an endorsement for my new book. He was as gracious as ever in both agreeing to do it and for what he wrote. I gave him a call and suggested we meet for breakfast, but in true Newfoundland style, he invited us over for a homemade one.

The term “famous Canadian poet” is almost an oxymoron, but if one exists, it would be Don McKay. He has written over a dozen books of poetry, poetics, and philosophical musings, and edited countless others. He has twice won Canada’s highest literary award, the Governor General’s Award, and once the most lucrative prize, the Griffin Poetry Prize. In 2008, he was made a Member of The Order of Canada. I was lucky enough to have studied under him at The University of Western Ontario (renamed Western University) back in the 1980’s and his poetry has been a major influence on my own.

It was delightful to see him again, as modest and affable as ever, to introduce Marilyn, talk writing and, of course, get his advice as a local on where to visit. He suggested we hike up Signal Hill for a good view of the harbour, and later, to stop in at Running the Goat Press when passing through Tors Cove on The Irish Loop. Suddenly there was a knock at the door. It was another former student of his and, coincidentally, someone who spends part of the year in Guelph, Ontario, and is a friend of my brother-in-law! So now there were the four of us in Don’s kitchen and it was almost a party. All we needed was a fiddle and bodhrán to make it a complete Newfoundland moment.

Marilyn and I decided to do that hike so headed off, promising to stop in again in a few days and say good-bye before leaving Saint John’s. By this time I’d found an AirBNB, which enabled us to stay a few more days in town without taking out a second mortgage. I’m really glad we did. It would have been a shame to leave only with the impression of the night before. We were able to check in early, park the bike in the back, then head off on foot to explore the city.

The trail took us past The Battery as it snaked its way up the side of the mountain, the view of the harbour getting better with each laborious midsummer metre of elevation. It’s called Signal Hill because Guglielmo Marconi used it to receive the first trans Atlantic telegram and my legs were saying he chose wisely. Eventually we reached the top and had an excellent view not only of the harbour but over to the Cape Spear Lighthouse and east out to the open ocean. The surrounding cliffs and narrow passage provide excellent military defence for the harbour. No wonder Saint John’s developed where it is.

We had more friends to meet later in the day once we came back down. We had met Serge and Ang in 2021 on a ferry in British Columbia as we rode the Sunshine Coast and had kept in touch through the intervening years. By coincidence, now they were touring Newfoundland at the same time so we had to meet up and do some riding together. We met at The Battery Cafe to catch up and decide on a plan.

We decided to ride part of The Irish Loop, as far as possible in a day excursion. The next day we met at Cape Spear Lighthouse, the eastern-most point of Canada. Marilyn and I had waded into the Pacific Ocean in Tofino in 2021 and now wanted to do the same here, but there were a lot of warnings about going near the shoreline so, unfortunately, we had to remain up at the cafe enjoying the exquisite coffee and pastries.

We eventually headed off and our first stop was in Tors Cove and its bookstore Running the Goat Press, only about 50 kilometres south of the lighthouse. The press specializes in children’s literature and, according its website, “many of Running the Goat’s publications are letterpress printed at the print shop, using moveable lead type, and sewn by hand.” These books are labours of love, and if you are a bibliophile or just have some children in your life who like to read, be sure to stop by or check out their website. The owner, Marnie Parsons, is another old friend from undergrad days, and it was lovely to see her again and get a tour of the press. We bought some books for our great-nieces and Marnie was happy to ship them home for us.

Surveying Tors Cove. No whales on this day.

After a packed lunch overlooking the bay, we continued further down to Ferryland, a region that dates back to the 17th Century as one of Canada’s first settlements. The name is an anglicized version of Forillion, the same name as the national park we stayed at in Gaspé. In my head I had been spelling it Fairyland and in many ways that would be a more appropriate spelling. There is something magical about its geography. We rode across a bridge and climbed a ridge-line on our adventure bikes (Serge and Ang have KTM 790s) up to a lookout. A fog drifted in and hung over the tiny islands strung across the bay and the view seemed like something out of Lord of the Rings.

That was as far as we got on our slow-paced day. I didn’t mind. Truth is, I was in need of a few easy days. I’ve come to realize that adventure touring requires some recovery days off the bike. When I did the west coast tour, I stopped in Calgary for several days to visit family, and later, spent another few days in North Vancouver before touring the island. I love riding and can ride all day every day, but what my heart wants my body can’t always deliver. When I got home after this tour, I was tired and decided not to cram in that second tour in The States I had planned to do before going back to work. I needed some time on the couch in and around Montreal to recover and recharge.

For future tours, I’m going to build into my schedule local sightseeing and days lounging around camp, reading and writing. I’m pretty fit for my age, but I don’t even think it’s a matter of age. In a recent video, Runa of Off She Goes was candid about being tired after 40 straight days on the road and looking forward to being home. I think vloggers like Itchy Boots spend days off the bike doing video editing, but we never see those days and it seems like they are constantly travelling. Anyway, that was one of my discoveries this trip: schedule days off the bike to rest, recover, and recharge.

We said good-bye to our BC friends and wished them well on the rest of their tour of Newfoundland and in re-crossing the country to get home.

Heading down into Branch on the 92.

The next day we were on our own again and decided to visit Cape Saint Mary’s Ecological Reserve on the south-west tip of the Avalon Peninsula. The aptly-named Bird Rock is home to thousands of seabirds, particularly gulls and gannets. Newfoundland really is a bird-watchers paradise. As we rode onto the cape, fog drifted in as well, and we wondered if we’d chosen the wrong day to visit.

Thankfully, like most weather on the Atlantic, it was temporary. The hike along the cliffs is something in itself, but Bird Rock is special. As you approach, there’s a distinct smell in the air that I couldn’t quite place until we arrived at the tip: it’s bird excrement. But don’t let that put you off; you get used to it. The sight of thousands of birds in one place is memorable, but what struck me more immediately was the sense of being perched ourselves on the edge of a towering rock formation. It’s dizzying, and in fact, Marilyn wouldn’t approach the edge because she was experiencing some vertigo. I was able to sit near the edge and watch the birds soaring in the expanse just beyond.

It was calming in a meditative sort of way, and I could hear the waves crashing in the cove hundreds, or was it thousands, of feet below. My perspective was distorted by the absence of anything familiar with which to judge distances.

The gannets are in trouble due to the Avian Bird Flu. Just a few years ago the rock was noticeably less populated, but it appears they have recovered to some degree, based on what we saw. The current Wikipedia page puts their numbers there at 24,000. The cape is a protected area and we’ll just have to hope that the bird flu, like our Covid, has passed through the community and numbers have stabilized.

Back in Saint John’s, it was our final evening together so we decided to treat ourselves to dinner out at Bannerman Brewing Co.. Later, we took another run at the pub night-life and met up with some new friends at The Ship for a drink. We’d met Mark and Mandy in Terra Nova National Park. They were two-up on an Africa Twin and we learnt they live in Bruce County, Ontario, where we had visited when we looped Georgian Bay. Mark is also a teacher so with two shared interests we immediately hit it off. Neither Mark nor I particularly wanted to talk about work, but I heard enough to know that the teachers in Ontario are facing similar budget cuts as teachers in Quebec. It’s sad to know that in a country as rich as ours, education is chronically under-valued and under-funded.

But it was summer and the start of semester was still a month away. The evening was warm and the ale assuaged any anxiety over the approach of autumn. It was a fitting way to end the tour. The Newfoundland geography had been everything we’d hoped it would be, and maybe some of that Newfoundland culture had rubbed off on us too—the connection with others, old friends and new. It’s a bit of a stereotype but Newfoundlanders are generally very down-to-earth and friendly. Maybe that has something to do with being so close to the elemental nature of the earth—rocks, cliffs, ocean, glaciers, grasslands, wildflowers, wildlife, and the ever-present, ever-changing climate.

People often ask me when I return from a tour like this for my favourite memory. In this case, it’s hard to isolate a single moment, although if I had to, it would be seeing the caribou at Point au Choix. But what I take away from the trip overall is a feeling, a mood, a style of living and life that is unlike any other with perhaps the exception of Dawson City, a similarly isolated community that pulls together against a harsh yet beautiful geography. I know Newfoundland is probably very different through the winter months than how we saw it, but I equally know that the people are just the same regardless of the season. We went looking for natural beauty and were not disappointed, but the discovery of the trip, at least for me, were the people. I can see how a place like this could get under your skin. We will definitely be back. As always, these trips are just a taste and leave one with an appetite for so much more.

The next morning, after saying our good-byes to Don, I dropped Marilyn off at the airport. I was now on my own and had given myself two days to cross the island again and get to the Port aux Basques ferry terminal. I still had a few things to see en route, like the airstrip where Amelia Earhart took off on her cross-Atlantic flight, the Gander airport, and the North Atlantic Aviation Museum. I was looking forward to riding The Cabot Trail, seeing good friends in Nova Scotia, and meeting a reader of 650thumper as I cut through Maine.

I’ll write about all this in my next and final post on this tour.

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.

650Thumper

Exploring the World on Two Wheels

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