Once, while watching a VRRA race, I saw a guy pat his bike just after he crossed the finish line. It was a real nail-biter and he managed to squeak out the win in the last few meters of the race. I noticed the gesture—a double pat on the side of the fuel tank—because I sometimes do this to my bike, but privately, usually as we either head out on or return from a long adventure. It’s a gesture of kinship, or thanks. I guess I feel silly doing it, but at least now I know I’m not alone.
The pat is silly because, of course, machines don’t have feelings. Perhaps the gesture is only an acknowledgment of our own. If you work on your bike, and especially if it takes you on some adventures, you develop a bond, dare I say an intimacy, with the bike. You trust it with your life and return the favour of that loyalty by keeping it well maintained. And sometimes, I will publicly admit, I even talk to my bike, promising from inside my helmet some much needed maintenance as we cover the last few kilometres of a long tour. No wonder my wife sometimes feels second-best.
I mention all this because, yesterday, while browsing Facebook marketplace listings, I came across my old, first bike, the original Beemer after which this blog is named, the one that took me across Canada and up to the Arctic Circle and Marilyn and me over The Rockies. I put 100,000 kilometres on that bike and did all the maintenance myself, and now here it was, sitting in a stranger’s driveway.
The original 650 Thumper. photo credit://Alain Thibault
I always wondered what had happened to it. Last I heard, the woman I sold it to didn’t keep it for long but sold it, I was told, to trade up to a bigger GS. Her loss, I thought, since she was a learner and it’s a perfect learner bike and more. Now that new owner is selling it, and for a moment I actually considered buying it back. But I’ve got other plans.
Next spring I’ll be buying a new bike, or new to me. I’m looking at the Honda CRF 300 Rally.
The 2021-24 model.
I’ve always wanted a little trail bike. As good as the 650 was as a starter bike, there really is some truth to the adage that you should start small. It’s a lot easier to develop off-road skills on a little dirt bike than on a big adventure bike, a point on which Clinton Smout has founded his SMART riding school and which Adam Reimann argues in a recent video.
The polemical Adam Reimann.
I will also throw some rackless saddlebags on it and use it as a light adventure tourer. I’ve already bought the Enduristan Monsoon 3’s in a Black Friday sale at Dual Sport Plus; now I just need the bike.
I know what’s coming, so let’s just get this out of the way early. Why doesn’t everyone who is reading this leave the comment, “That’s the same bike Itchy Boots used,” and I will henceforth become inert to the remark. But seriously, I’d rather you weigh in on another decision I’m making.
I’ve also decided to sell the Tiger and get an even better long distance touring bike, and yes, it will be a big GS because that’s the law. If you’re over 60 and into adventure street touring, you must get a big boxer. I’ve never owned a big GS but I rode one in a demo ride at La Classique a few years ago and was immediately hooked. If you don’t understand, you clearly haven’t ridden one.
But joking aside, hear me out. I’ve been trying to do it all—trail riding and touring—with a middle-weight bike, but that inevitably involves compromise both in the dirt and on the street. With retirement approaching fast, I think I’m ready for two bikes. The Tiger is a really fun bike, but it’s still a big bike for technical riding and a little small for long-distance touring. The GS carries its weight so low you can turn it on a dime, and where the 800 triple is straining a bit 2-up at 120 km/hr (70 mph), the 1200 GS is cruising in its element. There’s good reason that the GS is the best-selling adventure bike of all time.
I’ve considered getting a dedicated touring bike like a Gold Wing but wouldn’t want to go up The Dempster on one of those. I’ve also considered a sport touring bike like the discontinued Yamaha FJR but want the option of top-loading panniers for my camping gear. No, I knew a 1200GS was somewhere in my future; I just didn’t realize it would be this soon.
The BMW R1200 GS Adventure.
Why a 1200 and not a 1250 or even 1300? Mostly due to budget, but there are benefits to going with an older bike too. I like to work on my own bikes, so the simpler the better, without a lot of electronics, and there are literally thousands of old 1200 GS’s out there, so lots of choice. Ah, there’s the rub: I have choice paralysis.
What is the best era of the 1200? The simple, reliable, and relatively lightweight 04-12 1st Gen oil/air-cooled models; 2nd Gen 13-16 water-cooled models with more power and a wet clutch, electronic suspension, quickshifter, and rider modes with cruise control; or 3rd Gen 17-18 models with TFT display, dynamic (i.e. self-levelling) electronic suspension, cornering ABS, and finally a smooth transmission? There are incremental updates in each generation too so the decision gets complicated fast. Please let me know if you have a preferred year and why. I’ve got all winter and probably most of next season to decide, but I’m researching and narrowing down my decision now. I think I’ll probably go GS Adventure for the extra range and better wind protection if I can get my old Touratech panniers to go on it. (Do all GSA’s have the bent luggage rack on the muffler side?)
As for the Tiger, it’s been a really fun, sporty, adventure bike, and I will be sad to see it go, as I was when I sold the Beemer. We’ve had some good adventures together, and I’ll give it a few pats and parting words before the new owner rides it away. The only consolation for such loss is the promise of new adventures on new bikes. As Galway Kinnell writes of separation, “the need / for the new love is faithfulness to the old” (“Wait” 14-15).
The term “adventure” is so over-used today that it’s lost almost all meaning, but this is how I define it.
In a recent episode of Adventure Rider Radio RAW, host Jim Martin and guests tried to define the word “adventure.” It was a rather abstract discussion that quickly deteriorated into subjectivity and personal perspective, yet the poet and wordsmith in me was piqued. Since I use the term in my blog’s byline and hold the expression “life is an adventure” as a personal motto, I thought I should take a crack at defining it. Yes, the term means different things to different people, but here are the elements of adventure riding as I see it.
Exploration and Discovery
photo credit://History Channel/Shutterstock
There has to be an element of exploration and discovery. Adventure riding is going where you’ve never gone before. I suppose in this sense, all travel has an element of adventure, as it gets us out of our milieus. One of my favourite things is seeing something for the first time, and like the proverbial first step into the stream, we can only see something the first time once; it’s never quite the same again.
I’m a curious person, whether in the realm of ideas or things. Adventure riding allows me to follow that curiosity, leading me into the unknown. There’s a mystery at every geolocation in the world and all we have to do to solve it is go there and look. That’s why it’s important to go slow and stop when something catches your eye, because there’s no point on going somewhere if you aren’t looking.
Sometimes what there is to see is geography, sometimes people, sometimes architecture, art, or any number of things, and sometimes it’s an unknown aspect of ourselves.
Challenge and Risk
photo credit://@LifeofSmokey
At one point in the podcast, Jim Martin tries defining the term by finding something that it is not. (This is called Definition by Exclusion, i.e. A is not B.) He uses as his example the quintessential insult of every adventure rider—a trip to the local Starbucks. Surely a ride to Starbucks and back is not an adventure, he posits. But one of the guests argues that for someone suffering from social anxiety, maybe a trip to Starbucks is an adventure.
What this line of thinking suggests is that personal challenge or risk, even perceived risk or fear, is one element of adventure. We are moving out of our comfort zones, however large or small, where personal growth occurs. We are moving, as Jordan Peterson would say, from order into chaos.
I’ve written before about the thrill-seeking aspect of adventure riding, those people who seek danger by riding extremely remote roads like the Trans-Taiga, or dangerous parts of Mexico and South America. On this topic, I like what guest Michelle Lamphere said: the experience has to be meaningful. Risk for risk’s sake is merely being foolhardy, but risk in order to have a transformative experience is another element of adventure as I define it. That’s why I’ll probably never do the Trans-Taiga but surely will go back up The Dempster and complete my ride to Tuktoyaktuk. (I was prevented entry to NWT because of Covid restrictions.) The former is a lot of mind-numbing forest leading to a dam, but the latter is some of the most astounding geography I have ever been privileged to witness.
Risk in itself is not an adventure, but risk is often part of adventure because we need to risk in order to discover.
Off Road, En Route
Odysseus consults the soul of the prophet Tiresias in Hades. Allessandro Allori, 1580
I don’t think you have to go off road to have an adventure but it sure helps. That’s because when we go off road, we get away from the conceptual order of civilization. Canadian nature poet Don McKay refers to this geographical and epistemological space as “home,” and “wilderness,” by contrast, as “not just a set of endangered spaces, but the capacity of all things to elude the mind’s appropriations” (Vis à Vis 21). When we ride off road, we move from the realm of human to other. As the road deteriorates from asphalt to gravel, then dirt, trail, and bush, we shed the trappings of our everyday lives, where deep discovery can happen.
In Classical Literature, this journey is called Katabasis, the motif in which the hero descends into the underworld in search of valuable, hidden knowledge. Aeneas in The Aeneid does it, as does Odysseus in The Odyssey and Dante in The Inferno; they each make the dark journey through Hades in the hope of finding enlightenment. For Swiss psychologist Carl Jung, the route to personal growth involved a similar descent into what he called The Shadow, the unconscious.
I don’t think it’s coincidental that the archetypal symbol of the unconscious in literature across cultures is wilderness—the forest, the jungle, the sea—untamed geography untouched by human power. When we ride off road, we are riding figuratively into the unconscious. Guided by our GPSs and with the support of our satellite trackers, we face adversity in its most primordial form, and what we hope to find, somewhere at the nadir of this adventure, is a mental and physical toughness we never knew we had.
Sibyl leads Aeneas to the Underworld in The Aeneid
Spontaneity and the Unplanned
Do you make reservations ahead of time when you’re touring, or do you wait until mid-afternoon, then start looking for accommodations? I generally like to wait so I’m not committed to being somewhere by a certain time. It allows me flexibility so I can follow my nose and explore where it leads. Similarly, I often don’t have a set route. I have a general destination, but how I get there is a matter of choice. See an interesting dirt road—why not check it out? Once while riding along the Sunrise Trail in Nova Scotia, I noticed some 2-track leading off from the road toward Northumberland Strait. My curiosity got the better of me and so I followed it to a picnic table on the edge of the cliffs looking out over the water—a perfect lunch spot.
The old Beamer near Arisaig, NS.
For this reason, I also often tour solo, although lately my feelings around that are changing. Riding solo of course provides you with complete autonomy to determine the route, the pace, the accommodations, even what attractions to see. The downside, however, is that you have to be more conservative in what risks you take. This past summer I had the opportunity to ride through a ZEC, which is a nature reserve here in Quebec. I was at the gate paying the entry fee when the staff person mumbled something about “trois cents.” What now?! Three hundred kilometres of off-roading solo with no one around? He actually advised against it. There are a lot of moose in there, he said. So I changed my planned route. As I age, I’m less inclined to take risks. The best of both worlds is to find a riding partner or partners who are compatible in riding skills, personality, and philosophy.
If your route, your accommodations, your attractions are all determined before leaving home, if your entire trip is scheduled, you aren’t really on an adventure; you’re touring. That’s fine, if that’s what you’re into, but allowing something unexpected or unplanned to happen, again, provides greater opportunity for discovery. Perhaps what is essential in this aspect of adventure is that we relinquish control and, instead of acting upon the world, we allow something to happen to us.
An ADV Bike
My 2013 Triumph Tiger 800XC
This one is probably going to be the most controversial. Do you need to have an ADV bike to have an adventure? No. Certainly not. There are people riding around the world on postie bikes, 50cc mopeds, and at the other end of the scale, Gold Wings and Harley cruisers. But I’m going to ask the question, why? My dad always said use the right tool for the job, and I question whether these machines are the best choice. While it’s not a requirement, having an ADV bike will allow you to have an adventure a lot easier than on another machine. Here are the key elements of an ADV bike, IMHO.
It has to be off-road capable. That means good ground clearance and knobby tires. Missing one or the other is seriously going to limit where you can go.
It has to be comfortable, with a large seat (not a dirt bike seat), a windscreen and faring, and good ergonomics. ADV riding is not about crunching the miles, but having a bike that can do it gives you the option if needed. You’re going to be spending the entire day on the bike, so it must be comfortable.
It has to be light enough to pick up on your own. It’s ironic that the big GS, at 600 lbs., has become the iconic ADV bike. Can you lift this bike and gear on your own should you drop it in the middle of nowhere? Okay, it carries its weight low and can be lifted with the right technique, but do you need all that power? I think the ideal ADV bike is a middle-weight at 650-900cc, maybe even smaller—big enough to crunch the miles comfortably, but small enough to lift on your own.
It has to be reliable or fixable. One of the reasons the Ténéré 700 is so popular is that it has minimal tech and one of the most reliable engines in the industry. You also have to be able to source parts from remote places when there is a problem.
It should be able to carry some luggage. The adventure rider is going into remote areas so has to be self-sufficient. That means carrying tools and tubes, some spare parts, clothing, maybe a tent and cooking equipment. Itchy Boots has travelled extensively without driving a single tent stake, but carrying camping and cooking gear frees you from the burden of having to find shelter when the sun goes down.
What’s in a word?
No doubt I’ve pissed off a lot of readers with this post, but I’m open to alternate viewpoints. Yes, words and the phenomena they refer to are somewhat subjective, but if we’re trying to define a term, we have to be somewhat exclusive or the word loses precise meaning. When words get over-used, they tend to lose that quality, so this is my attempt to rescue the term “adventure” from marketing and corporate interests.
What would you add or subtract from my definition? Leave a comment below. I’m not an ADV snob, but I am rather careful with words. I agree with Flaubert that one must strive to find le mot juste (the right word), but that begins with having the word right.
In the end, even this poet will acknowledge the limits to language. Words are crude signs we use to point to phenomena but never perfectly convey their meaning, and definitions of words are yet another semantic step away from the actual thing. However, if you get yourself an adventure bike and head out with no definite route but guided by curiosity, pushing through fear into the unknown, you will discover that the word “adventure” means much more than the sum of its parts. It’s the closest thing I’ve found to complete freedom, something even resembling joy, but then these too are only words.
Port Joli Beach at Thomas Raddall Provincial Park, Nova Scotia
The annual wistful synopsis of the summer.
Here we are, at the beginning of autumn. There’s still plenty of good riding left in the season, but the days of summer vacation and touring are already behind us. As usual, I haven’t posted much over the summer since I’ve been busy riding, reading, travelling, troubleshooting, and generally staying away from sitting at a computer, the occupational hazard of my job.
This summer I tried to balance travelling and resting, my two favourite activities. Okay, resting isn’t really an activity, but napping is. In the past, I did a little too much of the former and not enough of the latter and ended up going back to work in the fall not feeling rested. This year, I did a smattering of shorter trips, one longer trip, and a whole lot of resting. I’m a year away from retirement so consider this good practice for the future.
My eldest sister, Susan, and my dad, 96 years young!
The summer began, as it usually does, with La Classique Moto Fest, the big ADV rally here in Quebec held each year over the May long weekend. If you missed my write-up about that event, you can find it here. Then when I was free and clear of all work duties, I made a trip back to Ontario to visit family, and in particular my dad for his birthday. He’s now 96 years old, so I like to get back to see him at least a few times a year. That was followed by my annual literary pilgrimage with my writer friend, Harold. We usually visit the gravesite or home of a famous writer, and this year we planned to get to Orillia and Stephen Leacock’s house. We stopped in Kawartha Lakes, Ontario, in Lanark County at Silent Lake Provincial Park and never made it much further. The historic residence of the author of the enduring Canadian classic Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town will have to wait another year.
While I was there, I scouted the campground for a return trip with some riding buddies the following week. We stayed two nights and rode most of The Timber Trail. I did that Highlands loop solo last fall and, although a few of the boys were on street bikes this time, I knew most of the dirt and gravel roads would not pose them any problems. Yes, even an R1200RT and a Honda ST can do much of this loop, albeit slowly and when dry. It’s not only big bike but also street bike friendly.
That was the shakedown ride for my summer tour and a good time to find out that I had some intermittent starting issues. After stopping for a short break, my bike wouldn’t crank. At first I thought it was a switch (sidestand, clutch, starter?), then a relay. Once home, I changed the starter relay under the battery, then the battery. I ended up doing my tour without incident but had more starting issues once back home. After more troubleshooting, I think I’ve traced the problem to a loose wire into the fuel pump relay. Perhaps it was the relay itself, and I’m still not 100% sure I’ve solved it, but for now the bike is starting fine. You gotta love intermittent electrical issues.
Looking for a short in the wiring harness.
I’ll be writing about my tour over the winter months when I’m off the road, but suffice to say it was one week of the Trans Quebec Trail from Magog to Rimouski, and one week doing The Lighthouse Route that follows the southern and western shores of Nova Scotia. Watch for those posts soon and click Follow if you want notification when they’re posted.
Crossing the Laurentian Mountains on the TQT south of Quebec City.
The summer was capped by another short trip with the boys to the Calabogie, Ontario, area to ride The Pickaxe Loop. I don’t take many photos on these group trips because who wants to ask four guys to stop while you snap a few photos, but here’s one from our final night at Black Donald Tent and Trailer Park, cooking under a tarp in the rain.
L to R: Danny (Triumph Scrambler 1200XE), Steve (Honda ST), Mike (BMW 1250GS), and Riley (Norden 901).
Amid it all, I’ve been dealing with an oil consumption issue with the Tiger. If you read my post on the piston soak, you will know that I had a lot of carbon in the cylinders and I think the oil retention ring was stuck. I used Seafoam and a water treatment to clear a lot of it out in June and the bike seemed fixed. But as the summer progressed, it started to burn oil again—not as much as before, but still about 400 mL over 1,200K (745 miles) on the Pickaxe trip.
The moral of the story is don’t mess with OEM set-up on the engine!
Just the other day I was doing some research on what causes carbon build-up and something caught my attention: “When it comes to the mechanical operation of the engine, air to fuel ratio inconsistencies also plays [sic] a key part in the development of carbon buildup.” Just the mention of air to fuel ratios got me thinking about my Unifilter prefilter that was an early mod I did on the bike. The OEM air filter is under the fuel tank and so kind of a PITA to access. The prefilter replaces the snorkel under the seat and not only reportedly catches 95% of the dirt but is easy to remove and service.
I remember having a nagging concern when I installed this. Don’t I now have two air filters, and what might that do to the air-fuel ratio? But it’s a popular mod and so I dismissed the concern, reassuring myself that the ECU would adjust, as it does for temperature and altitude. Now I was returning to that mod and suspicious it was the cause of my carbon build-up. Isn’t running the prefilter essentially like running a dirty main filter? A quick Google search indicated that, indeed, running a dirty air filter can lead to carbon build-up!
So last weekend I removed the prefilter and reinstalled the original snorkel. The bike seems to start faster, idle smoother, run better, and have more power. I now think the bike was choked all this time! The moral of the story is don’t mess with OEM set-up on the engine! I’m now completely stock with a Triumph air filter and a Triumph oil filter. I’ll be doing another piston soak and engine clean toward the end of the season, and in the meantime I’m adding Seafoam as a fuel additive to start the cleansing. I want to start next season with a clean engine in the hope that it will stay clean.
With the bike running great, I’m looking forward all the more to the fall riding. If there’s a silver lining to the end of summer, it’s the cool, beautiful riding of the autumn, especially here in Canada when the leaves begin to turn colour. I’ll be leading a club ride down through the Eastern Townships at the end of September during the height of the fall colours, and the following week I’ll be participating in the appropriately-named Fall Colours Ride in Barry’s Bay, hosted by Rally Connex. 10 guys in the same cabin is surely going to be an adventure in itself.
How did you spend your summer? Drop a comment below, or at least tell us your favourite destination. What was your best moto moment? Unfortunately, I don’t think WordPress permits photos, but you can always try, or post a link to your own online photo host.
Silent Lake at dawn
Lots more to come in the months ahead, but for now, let’s get out there and enjoy the autumn riding while we still can.
The biggest drawback of hammock camping has nothing to do with the hammock
The first time I tried hammock camping it was with a little recreational hammock, the kind that pack up to the size of a mini-football. I’d bought it with the idea of using it around camp on off days to lounge and read and nap, but not necessarily to sleep in. When I decided to see if I could use it to replace my tent while mototouring, I bought an Aquaquest 10×10 tarp to go over it and a cheap ($17.99) zippered bug net off Amazon. I figured I’d dual purpose the ratcheting straps I now carry when I tour; they are good for bike recovery but I’d also use them to string the hammock.
It took me 1.5 hours to string that hammock first time. My camping friend made a point of noting it, thank you. Okay, the ratcheting straps didn’t work, and I never did figure out how the little bug net was supposed to work with the hammock. I got eaten that night but recognized the potential of hammock camping, so when I got home I bought a Hennessy Jungle Expedition hammock.
The nice thing about the Hennessy is that the fly, ridgeline, bug net, tree straps, and hammock are all included and integrated in a system that is easy to set up and works very well together. There’s even an optional insulated pad for cooler temperatures. I camped exclusively with the Hennessay over a tour of two weeks in July through Quebec and Nova Scotia and found it comfortable but with a few drawbacks.
Hennessy Hammocks
Tom Hennessy began sleeping in a hammock while camping with his family in the 1950s and has been making them for over 60 years. His first was bought at an army surplus store for $3 and he loved it but decided he could improve on it. He began a series of over 50 prototypes that eventually led to the patented hammock that went on the market in 1999. Since then, he’s continually tweaked the design and added some extras. I get the impression Mr. Hennessy sometimes lies awake in his hammock at night trying to figure out how to make it even better.
Features
Hennessy hammocks are asymmetrical. The hammock and tarp are not diamond shaped but are more like a parallelogram.
This allows you to sleep diagonally in the hammock. The problem with conventional hammocks is that you end up like a banana squeezed in the shoulders and hips and with no room to move. The Hennessy strings from opposite corners like a conventional hammock but has tie-outs at the other two corners that you stake to the ground (or can tie to neighbouring trees). The result is more like a floating 1-person tent than a backyard hammock.
The fly is also asymmetrical so matches the shape of the hammock and attaches to two hooks on the ridgeline. At first I removed it each time I broke camp, but eventually I decided to keep it on. That’s a personal preference. Maybe if it were wet I might remove it and store separately.
Hennessy hammocks also have a unique entrance system. Instead of entering from the side, you enter through a slit in the bottom and the hammock snaps closed beneath you under your weight. Apparently this system is better for avoiding mosquitoes. It seemed a bit too vaginal for my liking so I decided on the side zip entrance which was introduced by popular demand. It’s easier to set up your bedding and I imagine to exit for nighttime “excursions.” This is a matter of personal preference and I wasn’t able to try the classic model but was happy with the side zip.
The integrated ridgeline is made of high tension cable with a plastic coating. This ensures a consistently straight and strong ridgeline across the top of the hammock regardless of how you’ve strung it. On the ridgeline inside the tent is a sliding net bag for personal items like glasses, wallet, phone, etc. and the ridgeline can also be used to hang a lantern or water bottle.
Finally, all Hennessy hammocks have very strong mesh that is impermeable to mosquitos, black-flies, and even tiny no-see-ums. There were a few times when it accidentally got caught in the zipper and I feared it would be torn, but when I forced the zipper open again the mesh was unfazed. It’s strong!
Stringing the hammock
The cordage is permanently attached to the hammock and Hennessy provide plenty of it, but you want to find trees that are fairly close to the length of the hammock because, unlike the ridgeline, the cordage stretches. I once had to string the hammock using most of the extra cordage and found myself almost touching the ground no matter how tight I strung it.
Hennessy have a recommended lashing for stringing the hammock. You can use a knot like the Siberian Hitch but you run the risk of it getting hard to undo, especially under weight if it gets wet. The lashing is easy to do and is plenty strong enough. Apparently it will also preserve your cord better than knotting.
Instead of ratcheting straps, the Hennessy comes with tree straps, which are a similar type of wide (1″?) nylon webbing. Using them protects the trees; paracord digs into the bark and can damage a tree. Depending on how thick the trunk is, you might have to wrap the strap around twice.
You want the tree straps about eye-level and the same height so the hammock is level and your feet are slightly off the ground when you are seated upon entering. Instead of bringing gear into a tent, I stored it under the hammock and it never got wet. If you are dry, your gear underneath you is dry. This is a change from tent camping and took some getting used to but the same precautions apply: nothing smelly near the sleeping space except your boots which, if they’e anything like mine, after a week of touring act as a deterrent to any sentient being rather than an attractant.
My hammock came with free Snakeskins, an optional extra that slides over the hammock when packing up to protect the hammock in your pannier and to keep it dry. (I got them free for signing up for Hennessy’s newsletter.) They stay on the ridgeline and slide up to the ends when the hammock is in use and slide down (like a long nylon sock) for packing. At first I thought they were a bit gimmicky but ended up finding them helpful in facilitating set up and take down. I had it so I only had to pull up the stakes on the tie-downs of the hammock, pull down the snakeskins, and unlash everything from the trees. It took maybe 2 minutes. Alternatively, you can leave your sleeping bag in the hammock and stuff everything in a bag when breaking camp and use the snakeskins on the tarp to protect your gear if the tarp is wet.
You can see the snakeskins in use at the very end of this video of Tom demonstrating the classic model.
The Jungle Expedition model
I got the Jungle Expedition Model because it has the double bottom where you can slide a blanket or the optional Radiant Double Bubble Pad. I knew enough about hammocks to know that you don’t get the insulating properties of a mattress as you do in a tent and that the down of your sleeping bag compresses underneath you and loses its R-value, so there is a tendency to be cold. The Double Bubble is like those fold-out reflective screens you put in your car windshield to protect your upholstery from the effects of the sun. In fact, Tom suggests this for those who don’t want to buy their custom one. You just have to cut it to fit.
I decided to get the Hennessy Double Bubble pad even though it would mean I’d have to take a tail duffle. The Hennessy ones have clips sewn into them that attach to hooks in the compartment underneath and keep it from moving out of position. If the Double Bubble pad is not enough, the SuperShelter 4-Season Insulation System has been tested in the Arctic and, as the name suggests, can turn your hammock into a 4-season hammock.
I was trying to pack small and light and so did not buy the SuperShelter. In the end, the Double Bubble was not quite enough for some of the 12C (54F) nights and I had to pick up a cheap synthetic blanket and slide that in too, plus wear merino wool and a wool sweater to bed. Maybe I wasn’t stringing the hammock correctly because I found it did not retain body heat as well as a tent.
Pros and Cons of hammock camping
Aside from the cold, the biggest challenge of hammock camping was finding the right trees. Many campgrounds clear cut their sites or leave only some coniferous trees on the perimeter. Where this was most apparent was near the water, when I was up along the coast of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. I never had to sleep on the ground with the tarp strung off my bike but I came close a few times. Overall, I think the hammock is not practical for motorcycle touring. For that, where the geography is so varied, a self-supporting tent is still the way to go.
The other disadvantage I found with a hammock is that it is more difficult to get undressed (or dressed, as needed) in it. You need to be a contortionist at Cirque du Soleil to get out of your pants or put on a sweater. I guess you have to do all this outside the hammock, but then there’s less privacy. Similarly, getting in and out of a sleeping bag is more arduous, and if you are using a bag liner, that’s even more complicated. In the end, except for the really cold nights, I opened up the bag and used it more as a blanket over me. For the same reason, a mummy bag doesn’t work very well in a hammock and negates the ability to stretch out or be active in sleep. There’s also less room in a hammock to put anything like a book, and what you do bring into the hammock and cannot be hung on the ridgeline ends up underneath you (including said book).
On the plus side, my back was happy throughout the tour and it’s getting fussier in my older age. I also didn’t have the annoyance of a loud inflatable mattress or the sliding around (and off it) that happens with my particular one. When I got home, I bought a self-inflating mattress that is quieter for tent camping and can slide into the bottom of the hammock for cold nights. I’m curious to try this combination when the conditions are right.
I never once got wet, and I had some stormy weather through a couple of nights. Most people are nervous about this, but rest assured, the tarp is impermeable and covers you and your gear sufficiently. In fact, a hammock is arguably less susceptible to wet because it’s off the ground.
The Hennessy Jungle Expedition is a good choice for motocamping when you can be sure to find appropriate trees and when it’s not going to be colder than, say, 15C (60F) at night. I imagine it would be great for travelling through the more temperate United States, but here in Canada, where even midsummer the temperatures drop at night, you aren’t saving any space because you’ll have to bring extra insulation.
But get everything right and the Hennessy will produce a very good sleep, better than sleeping on the ground, regardless of how good your mattress is. It definitely has its place amongst my camping gear and will be my preferred choice for car or canoe camping and some motocamping if it’s not going to be cold.
Before there was such a thing as an adventure bike, or the ADV industry, or a satellite tracker, or a cell phone, GPS, Google Maps, or even the internet, Ted Simon rode around the world. That was in 1973. At the time, he worked for The Sunday Times in England. They sponsored him and he wrote articles for them along the way, sending them back presumably by snail mail, before we called it snail mail. I would have been 10 years old at the time—a mere 50-odd years ago—and yet that world seems very distant now. The first thing I like about Simon’s book is that, like all classic literature, reading it takes you to another place and another time.
There are riders who can write, and there are writers who can ride. Simon is clearly of the latter. From the opening lines, he has us hooked, employing in medias res, a classical technique that dates back to Horace’s Ars Poetica (c. 13 BC) and means “into the middle of things.” We find Simon roadside and out of gas about fifteen miles outside Gaya, India, but by this point in his journey he’s discovered that he needn’t worry; things always find a way of working out. He’s already been on the road several years so has by this time learned what every experienced adventure rider knows: 1) to embrace the unexpected, and 2) to trust the goodwill of strangers. And so he waits . . . and in his waiting reflects on the years and miles behind him, and establishes for us the context. This writing may have started as an article for a newspaper, but Jupiter’s Travels is not a collection of articles. Simon knows how to structure a longer narrative.
He is rescued, of course, by two good samaritans on a Royal Enfield who accept nothing but a handshake and promptly take him to a Rajput wedding complete with dancing girls. If we weren’t already hooked, we are now. Simon’s description of one of them is so detailed, so lyrical, we know this is not going to be just about the ride.
The principal dancing girl held the floor most of the time. She was my favourite too, although her shape was far from my ideal. Her arms and shoulders were impeccable and moved with sinuous grace, and her face was full and pretty. The rest of her was wrapped tight in bodice and sari, but she proudly maintained an enormous and agile paunch, which seemed somehow to be much older than she was. I found myself watching it a great deal, amazed at the liberties it took, but distracted as I was by her belly I could not ignore her face. With true artistry she had created an expression of such supreme contempt for men that if I had been alone in a room with her I would undoubtedly have withered beneath her scorn. And just as surely, if it had softened towards me at all, I would have fallen into a state of deepest bliss. . . .
The dance itself was a strange and fragmentary thing, and at first I thought it quite ineffectual and hardly worth the ten-rupee notes that she peeled off her audience and passed to the tabla player. She would stand, tapping one hennaed foot, shaking the ankle bells, swaying to the beat, and arrange her body into one of several positions, perhaps a hip and shoulder pushing forward, legs slightly bent, head tilted to one side. Then, catching a particular phrase from the musicians, she would shuffle forward across the cloth, moving whatever there was to be moved (the belly moving itself in perfect harmony) for just six steps, before straightening up, letting her arms fall to her sides and sweeping us with a stupendous pout that said quite plainly ‘There, you bastards.’
In those six steps she said everything there was to say about men and women. (11-12)
The writing is like this throughout the 450 pages—observational, insightful, and eloquent—what travelogue ought to be. Ironically, sometimes it takes an outsider’s objective perspective to see into the heart of the matter. For instance, in The Triumph of Narrative, Canadian writer Robert Fulford makes the point that he can clearly see why the marriages of half a dozen of his friends failed but not his own; he’s too much on the inside. Similarly, as an outsider, the travelogue writer is sometimes able to see what others native to a culture cannot. Simon has this power of perception and we are its beneficiaries.
Sometimes, no insight is necessary when observational detail is so well captured. Like a moving picture without narrative or voice-over, Simon brings to life a streetscape by simply listing what he sees:
I went back to the Normandie, dumped the cameras, changed my swank jacket for a disreputable sweater and went out again determined to see something of Alexandria. Not far away, I found the sort of area I had been looking for, a poor working neighbourhood crammed with tiny lockup shops, people caning chairs, plucking chickens, bundling firewood, counting empty bottles, scooping grain out of sacks into small cones of thick grey paper, beating donkeys, dragging trolleys, recuperating scraps of everything under the sun. A small boy in rags, no, in one rag, had his capital spread on the kerbstone in aluminum coins and was counting it solemnly as though about to make an important investment. A number of delicate gilt chairs stood tiptoe on the pavement, like refugees from a revolution, having their seats stuffed. (72)
The listing of items without commentary or predication is called the cataloguing technique and can be traced back through Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl” (1956) to Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself” (1855). It’s a poetic technique that has an effect comparable to montage in film. Used selectively, as it is in Jupiter’s Travels, it can be incredibly effective in conveying realism since, come to think of it, what is our lived experience but a series of images, impressions, and snippets of dialogue which we render into a narrative in constructing meaning. Simon’s technique presents us with the raw material of life, place, and story.
Another aspect of the writing I admired was its daring honesty. For example, while riding through Sudan, he runs out of gas and, after being handed from one local to another throughout the afternoon and evening, finds himself late at night waiting with an Arab for a bus that would take them to Atbara, where he can purchase more gas. Neither speaks the other’s language so they wait mostly in silence, smoking cigarettes. The bus is due to arrive at midnight, and in the stillness and solitude of the desert at night, he is propositioned by the Arab in a way that is unmistakable despite the language barrier.
“Sudan signora queiss?”
I was still wondering about the question, when I felt a finger tap my thigh, and the voice repeated, with slight urgency:
“You Sudan Signora?”
. . . A little shudder of excitement ran through my body, because I knew, at that moment, that I could not be sure of my responses. The strange emptying effect of the desert seemed to have drained away all my conditioning. I did not know whether I was young or old, wise or foolish, strong or weak, and perhaps I did not even know whether I was male or female. But I did know that the tap on the thigh had released a current of sexual energy, and this invisible figure close to me had become mysteriously potent. . . .
This is a moment when you have absolute freedom of choice. Morality has blown away into the desert, you are not accountable to anyone. This is a privilege you have never allowed yourself before. So, do you want a sexual adventure with this man? (90-91)
Simon ends up declining, but the moment of reflection and self-awareness is revealing and could very easily have been edited from the manuscript once back in priggish England. Instead, Simon leaves it in as testament to the transformational power of travel. When exploring the world, we are not just discovering the world but previously unrevealed aspects of ourselves as well. Pushed out of our comfort zones and placed in unfamiliar and sometimes challenging situations, we broaden our inner as well as outer horizons.
Of course, his trip is not without drama. At one point, he loses his wallet containing his driving licences, vaccination certificates, credit cards, photographs, currency, and an all-important address book. In Brazil, he is arrested and incarcerated for weeks, convinced at times that he will be beaten or worse. He meets a woman named Carol at a commune in California and they live together for a blissful summer. They’re deeply in love and there’s a strong sense that Simon could have very easily abandoned the rest of his planned trip and spent the rest of his life with her. Perhaps it’s only his original commitment to the journey that pulls him away from her.
Simon’s tour is over 63,000 miles in 4 years and covers 54 countries on 5 continents. He begins in London, UK, and heads down through France, Italy, Sicily, and over to North Africa before heading east to Egypt. He then rides down the east coast of Africa to South Africa, crosses to Brazil, and rides up through South America to Los Angeles before crossing the Pacific Ocean to Australia. The final leg takes him through Thailand, Malaysia, then India, and across the Middle East back to England. Each section is headed by a simple black & white map showing his route, which seems appropriate for the book.
He rides a 1973 Triumph Tiger 100, which makes his accomplishment all the more admirable. To ride around the world on a motorbike is one thing, but to do it on a 1970’s era British motorbike is quite another; they were notorious for unreliability, and he has several breakdowns along the way. But in typical Pirsig fashion, he’s able to fix the bike and keep moving, although some parts are hard to come by and there are delays as he waits for parts to ship from England. In the end, we have to hand it to both Triumph and Simon: 60,000 miles of hard ADV riding on a bike of that era speaks for itself. The bike is now in The Coventry Transport Museum and appears in its original state as delivered by Simon upon his return to England in 1978.
The bulk of the book covers his travels in Africa and South America, with less detail in the rest of the trip. For this reason, my only criticism of the book is that it feels unbalanced and a bit truncated, as if the journey should have been covered in two books. Indeed, a sequel, titled Riding High, was published in 1998 and contains more stories that could not fit in Jupiter’s Travels. Perhaps it would have been better to plan the account over two books instead of rushing the ending of the first, but I understand the restrictions of book publishing and how the second probably grew organically out of the success of the first.
People often suggest to me that I should develop my YouTube channel and provide there full videos of my journeys, not just snippets to be embedded here in blog posts, and I’ve certainly considered it seriously. YouTube is where the money’s at these days, and I know from observing my students that reading is on the decline and video is ascending. Some of my more cynical colleagues say we are living in a post-literate society, and when I hear that youth today spend on average six hours a day on social media I can’t help thinking that there is some truth to that or there soon will be. But then I look at a book like Jupiter’s Travels and my confidence in the written word is reaffirmed. It’s the book that inspired Ewan and Charlie to do their Long Way Round tour in 2004, and the rest is history. It continues to inspire others to set out on their own adventures, whether big or small. According to Allied Market Research, the adventure motorcycle market was valued at $31.8B in 2022 and is projected to reach $64.5B by 2032.
But it’s not about the money. In Jupiter’s Travels, Ted Simon taps into something primal and lacking in our modern world, at least in western society. It would be too facile to say “freedom,” although that’s certainly part of it. He writes at one point that he would always rather be riding in heavy rain than sitting dry at home. Similarly, “risk” is attractive to those of us living rather staid, comfortable, cubicle lives, and there’s plenty of trials and tribulations for Simon during the four years. Some argue that risk is the essence of ADV riding (hence the jab about riding your BMW GS to Starbucks). But to understand the effect of a book like this we need to go deeper. What in it compelled Charlie and Ewan and countless others to break the pattern of their lives, sometimes at great personal and financial cost, and ride round the world (RTW), an act now so common it has its own acronym?
I think the answer to that question can be found in a word—adventure—the word that coined the industry. Stemming from the Middle English and Old French aventure, advent -ure, “adventure” has at its root “advent”—yes, that advent, the coming of Christ in the weeks leading up to his birth as Saviour of the World, but also ecclesiastically “his Second Coming as judge, and the Coming of the Holy Spirit” (Oxford English Dictionary). It’s the third of these that I think is the most relevant. What else would compel someone to endure the hardships and insecurity of long-distance travel on a motorcycle but to be in search of some sort of religious experience, to be fulfilled not by the creature comforts of consumerism but something else—a feeling, a spirit. I’m going to suggest that Jupiter’s Travels speaks to a hunger in the adventure rider, a desire to be connected to all things and everyone, even if we have to travel around the globe to find it. We may not be Sir Galahad in search of The Holy Grail, but our horses are made of metal and we are on a quest.
Jupiter loadedIn EgyptRoadside repairsTed and Jupiter today
Click on any image for full size. Photo credits// top: Secrettrips.com; bottom L to R: ADVPulse & Overland Magazine
“April is the cruelest month,” T. S. Eliot wrote as the opening line of his iconic poem “The Wasteland” (1922). Clearly, he had never experienced a Canadian March. As I write this on March 25th, we are 10 days into the new riding season, yet no one is riding. It’s 2C (36F) and the sky is a slab of grey slate pissing cold rain that turns to ice in patches on the treacherous sidewalks. Brown, dirty snow still sits at the sides of the roads and in patches on lawns, slowly melting over weeks to expose winter garbage and dog shit lying underneath, and the grass, when it finally pokes through, isn’t really grass but mud and last year’s soggy, decaying leaves. Eliot’s poem captures postwar disillusionment and his nervous disorder, but it might equally describe the mood of Canadian bikers in late March.
Nevertheless, we continue to plan and prepare for the season to come in a kind of blind faith. Yesterday I did a practice pack of my gear. I’m trying a new gear set-up and have the ambitious plan of eliminating my tank bag, tail duffle bag, and hydration knapsack. I want to ride this year without the extra weight either on the bike or my back. To do that, I had to be as ruthless as Ezra Pound was to Eliot’s manuscript.
Gear
I replaced my tent and mattress with a hammock and bug net. I’ll be touring midsummer so I’m going without a hammock underquilt. I also swapped my MSR Dragonfly stove and 2L Billy pot for an Odoland isobutane stove and pot, but I’ve added to my kit a Bushbox twig stove. I’m not sure which will become my primary stove, but the idea is to use the twig stove when dry wood is readily available and the isobutane when it’s not. And as a back-up to the back-up, just for its simplicity and ease, I’ve also picked up a Trangia alcohol burner. This fits nicely inside the Bushbox and can burn isopropyl alcohol, available at any pharmacy. Can you tell I’m nervous about giving up my Dragonfly?
My camping mates will be happy to know that I finally retired my toy hardware store hatchet and bought a Gränsfors Bruk Wildlife Hatchet. I don’t know why I suffered as long as I did. I’ll be using this around camp to prepare firewood and split firewood into twigs for the Bushbox. I’ll be travelling solo so edited out of my kit the second plate, cup, and cutlery, resulting in my cookware now being considerably smaller and lighter.
When I did The Timber Trail at the very end of last season, I found my Wolfman Expedition tank bag too big and heavy, making the Tiger more top-heavy at slow speed than it already is. It also worked better on the 650GS with the fuel cap on the side of the bike and not under the bag. It would have been possible to move the essentials to my hydration knapsack, but I want to eliminate it too. Water is heavy and the knapsack restricts airflow through a jacket. Mine also interferes with my neck brace. (If it goes under the brace, the brace sits too high; if it goes over the brace, the brace digs into my shoulders from the extra weight.) Instead, I’m going to try a fanny bag with only a few essentials from the tank bag: aux port to USB adapter, some electrical cords, a Leatherman Wave, tire pressure gauge, 8mm socket and micro-ratchet for my pre-load adjuster, and my monocular. I think fanny bags are nerdy, especially if worn in the front (i.e. the scrotum bag), and I wouldn’t be caught dead in one anywhere but on the trail, but one might be the answer to staying cool and unencumbered on the bike. If they find me dead somewhere on a trail this summer, at least my reasons for wearing one are now known.
As for water, since I won’t be needing to bring a fuel bottle for the Dragonfly stove, my bottle holster is free. I’ve moved it from the back of a pannier to the front left side and will try the Simple Modern Insulated Tumbler with Straw and Lid for sips when I can. It’s only 28 mL so I’ll also be carrying an MSR 4L Dromedary to refill it as needed. Marilyn and I took the latter through Newfoundland but never used it much, so I was ready to retire it from my kit, but I’ll be doing some pretty remote riding midsummer so will strap the Dromedary onto the bike along with a 1G Giant Loop Armdillo bag to extend my range to around 400 km (~250 miles).
Giant Loop Armadillo Bag
After the practice pack last night, I can confidently say that almost everything fits into my Enduristan Monsoon Evo bags. I’ve added two Enduristan Fender Bags onto my panniers, into each fits perfectly a 10×10 Aquafest Safari Tarp. (I’ll be taking two—one for over the hammock, one for shelter.) My tools and tubes, as always, will go in two Giant Loop Possible Pouches that I strap to the crash bars at the front of the bike. I say “almost” because I will still have to have a small Enduristan tail bag on the rack at the back for my rain jacket, windbreaker, and down vest—my layering system to deal with temperature changes. I can live with that.
Finally, I’ve added to my gear to prepare for the risks of off-roading. I have a Knox compression suit and recently purchased the chest protector upgrade that doesn’t come standard with the shirt.
Knox Venture ShirtChest protector upgrade
I swapped out Level 1 armour for Level 2. I also recently replaced my ageing Arai Signet-Q helmet with a Contour-X. I know, I know: why didn’t I get an XD-5 or similar adventure helmet? Well, I already have an adventure helmet, the LS2 Pioneer, and this will be my touring helmet. The peak causes wind noise and I was looking for the most comfortable, quietest, safest helmet on the market, and the Contour-X fits me like a glove.
Route
I’m sorry, my American friends, but I’ve decided that I can’t do this summer my planned ride of The Blue Ridge Parkway south and the BDR’s coming back. This will be the 3rd time I’ve postponed this ride, and I don’t do it lightly. I was looking forward to exploring the Appalachian Mountains and challenging myself on the MABDR and especially NEBDR, but after much deliberation, I’ve decided to join my fellow Canadians and stay north of the border this summer, that is, the “artificially drawn border.”
What makes this decision especially difficult is that I have always found Americans extremely friendly and helpful, and I recognize the difference between Americans and their government. But lately we Canadians have been hearing of visitors having their phones confiscated at the border and searched, and some Canadians detained, and even some anti-Canadian sentiment from certain states that shall remain unnamed, so I don’t feel entirely safe to visit while tensions are this high. I’ll be travelling solo in remote regions so am especially vulnerable. It’s really unfortunate that it’s come to this and I hope our good relationship can be restored quickly so I can complete that bucket list ride.
Instead, I’ve decided to do some of the Trans Quebec Trail. This is a system of trails throughout Quebec. Initially I was going to do a section of the TCAT (Trans Canada Adventure Trail) called The Forest that runs from Baie Comeau, Quebec, to Kenora, Ontario, but that gps track isn’t always kept up to date. My Calabogie Misadventure ride a few years ago was largely a result of the track not being kept current; my riding buddy and I didn’t know that a bridge was out and were forced back out onto a gnarly hydro line. The big benefit of the TQT is that there is an accompanying app that is user-submitted; if there’s a problem on the track, one can immediately report it with the press of a button. The app also shows campgrounds, gas, groceries, attractions and more, so I feel I can ride with a lot less stress and simply explore, as I like to do, finding the essentials when needed. Thanks to Marc Chartrand and his team for putting this route and app together.
I plan to pick up the track south of Montreal and follow it east to Rimouski and beyond, perhaps into the Gaspé interior. Then I’ll cross the St. Lawrence River (uh, by ferry) from Matane to Baie Comeau and come back by the north shore, up through northern Quebec with some of the most remote riding I’ve ever done. It loops over Lac Saint Jean, where Marilyn and I visited last fall, but on dirt roads this time. Apparently about 90% of the route is dirt and gravel. You can see the entire trail and photos at the STQT Facebook page. I don’t know how long this will take me and I don’t have a definite schedule, but that’s the kind of adventure riding I like. With the app and riding solo, I can play it by ear and simply explore at my own pace. Teachers’ benefits.
Training
To prepare for the off-road element of this tour, I’ve decided to do some more instruction this summer. When I got my licence in 2016, I did some classes to get a Level 1 foundation, but it’s been several years since and I’m ready to improve on those skills. I’m going to look into the Level 2 class with Académie Ridaventure. Their Level 2 class covers such things as water crossings, clearing obstacles (logs, large rocks), and brake slides. I think it’s always good to develop your skills, and I feel I’ve plateaued recently.
I hope to do a semi-private Level 2 class.
“Ah spring!”
There’s another poem I know about spring. Unlike Eliot’s 434-line masterpiece, this one contains two words: “Ah spring!” I know it by heart. It’s been a brutal winter with record snowfall in Montreal and frigid temperatures for months. No January thaw this year. But we’ve finally arrived at the cusp of spring and the riding season.
If there’s one positive of the off-season, it’s the opportunity to “reculer pour mieux sauter,” as D.H. Lawrence said, step back to jump forward. It’s a time to dream and plan for adventures to come. I’m ready; the bike is ready. It may not be the cross-country tour I did in 2021, but in many ways it feels like this tour will be my most ambitious and the one I’ve been working towards since I began riding in 2015. It’s the kind of ADV remote touring I wanted to do on the cross-Canada tour but didn’t have the time. I discovered then that this country is so large that you have to explore it one province at a time, and I guess I’ll start with the one I’ve called home now for 35 years.
What are your plans for the season? What changes have you made to your bike and kit to prepare? Drop a comment below. Whether you are an armchair adventurer or a seasoned traveller, despite what Nature presents us today, it really is a special time of year. Keep the faith, my motorcycle friends: we’re almost there.
Maybe second only to Gaspé, the Saguenay fjord is the ride to do in Quebec. It’s therefore surprising that I’d never gotten around to riding it until this past fall. From Montreal, you need about four days for this tour. Marilyn and I went over our anniversary weekend in late September when the leaves were beginning to turn colour and it was the best time to visit.
It was getting a bit cold for camping, so we decided to leave the tent at home and get rooms at B&B’s, which in these parts are called gites. This trip would take us not only up the Saguenay fjord but also across the top of Lac Saint-Jean and through the beautiful Charlevoix region, known for its popularity with Quebec’s most famous painters. What Algonquin Park is to The Group of Seven, Charlevoix is to Clarence Gagnon, René Richard, Jean-Paul Lemieux, Marc-Aurèle Fortin, Bruno Côté and Claude Le Sauteur, among others. In fact, Charlevoix is so beautiful it was also visited by A. Y. Jackson and Arthur Lismer of The Group of Seven. When Marilyn first visited Quebec from Alberta in 2007, I knew where to take her. (I’m still wondering if she fell in love with me or La Belle Province first.)
The only issue with Saguenay as a destination from Montreal is that you have about 3 1/2 hours of gross highway riding to do before it starts to get interesting around Beaupré, just east of Quebec City. And to make matters worse, within the first 10 minutes of hitting the highway, I knew I had the wrong windscreen on. I have a touring screen and a standard screen, and I’d been experimenting with different set-ups (they are both adjustable) prior to leaving, looking for a solution to the wind noise on the bike. I’ll be writing something about that elusive search for The Holy Grail in an upcoming post, but suffice to say here that the standard screen doesn’t work for touring. Marilyn and I couldn’t even hear each other in our comms because the wind noise at highway speed was so bad. Damn! I’d prepared the bike by changing the tires from a 50/50 (Anakee Wild) to a 70/30 (Shinko 705) but should have swapped the windscreen too.
There are several options for touring the Saguenay fjord. Many people head north on the 155 at Trois Rivière up through La Tuque all the way to Lac Saint-Jean and then down the Saguenay River on either the 170 (east side) or the 172 (west side). Others go all the way to Tadoussac, and either cross on the ferry and ride up the river on the 172 or don’t cross and ride up the 170. If you do that, you have a few options for how to come down: the 169 from Alma, the 175 from the town of Saguenay, or the 381 that cuts through the interior. Basically, all roads in this region lead to Lac Saint-Jean, and you have your option of no less than five to choose from on how to get there and back.
We had already driven up the 155 as far as La Tuque a few years ago when we camped at La Mauricie National Park so didn’t want to repeat that, even if it would be on the bike this time. We had a recommendation of an excellent B&B in L’Anse Saint-Jean on the 170 so decided to make that our destination for the first day. And I had a recommendation from someone at the Overland North gathering I attended in Calabogie to not miss the 381, which is smaller and twistier than the other roads. We also wanted to see Tadoussac, so connecting these dots meant riding part-way up the 170 on our first day, then doubling back the next morning to Tadoussac, riding the 172 up to Lac Saint-Jean, and taking the fun 381 back down. It wasn’t the most efficient route, but when does efficiency matter when you’re on a bike?
We blasted past Quebec City and didn’t stop until Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré, where there is a famous cathedral. When the Pope recently visited Canada, he did a mass there, so if it’s suitable for the Pope, we figured it’s worthy of our presence as well. But we were on a tight schedule and it would have required a significant time commitment to go inside, so we opted instead just to make it a quick rest stop. (We’ve gone inside before and, trust me, it’s beautiful.) We still had a ways to go and had a dinner reservation at our inn in L’Anse Saint-Jean.
Our true sanctuary is nature and we were eager to get up into the hills of Charlevoix. Shortly after leaving Beaupré, Highway 138 begins to climb, and the geography suddenly takes on a completely different vibe. It’s hilly, pastoral, and there’s open road overlooking the St. Lawrence River with historic houses dotting the roadside.
The recommendation from our club captain was a good one! While I didn’t do those rides, my club has stayed a few times at La Fjordeliase and it’s become a favourite. After an exquisite dinner (the scallops are not to be missed), we went for a walk along the shoreline. L’Anse Saint-Jean is magical, and there was a full moon that night!
The next morning we hiked the trail behind our inn up to a lookout. It’s about a 2 km hike but all uphill with some steep sections. We were definitely feeling our age but happy we’re still able to do such a hike as the view at the top was worth the effort. (See banner photo above.)
Back at the inn, we took in the shoreline and the view of the fjord one last time, packed up the bike, and headed off, down the 170 toward the 138 again. We didn’t get far before we saw a sign for Petit-Saguenay and a small road heading toward the river. One of the disappointments, I must say, with the tour is the lack of access to the Saguenay River. The major roads are inland and you don’t actually see the river very much. (By contrast, the 155 mentioned above hugs the shore of the Shawinigan River all the way to La Tuque and is more scenic.) But rue du Quai, splitting off from the 170 at the town of Petit-Saguenay, provides a rare opportunity to get down to the river so we took it. I’d heard it’s a special spot, where the Saguenay and Petit-Sageunay rivers meet. Indeed, this inlet provides the longest unobstructed view upriver of the fjord, according to a placard on the wharf.
Looking upriver at Petit-Saguenay
Back on the 170, we were cruising and taking in the views, and I guess I wasn’t checking my mirrors very often because I was suddenly startled out of my saddle by a sport bike passing me at twice my speed. And another, and another, and on it went, a stream of maybe a dozen sport bikes out for their Saturday morning rip. I guess the police presence in these parts is pretty thin and there’s no track that I’m aware of so if you have a sport bike, these are the roads you use as a track. They were passing other vehicles on the two-lane road like there was no tomorrow, which there wouldn’t be for any who make a mistake. No wonder they have to pay $2000 a year to register their bikes here in Quebec compared to the “paltry” $800 I pay to register my adventure bike. Later we saw them gathered beside the road down at the 138 in Saint-Siméon, clearly taking a breather before turning around and doing it all over again.
We took the free short ferry and arrived in Tadoussac. I’d passed through Tadoussac a few times before but didn’t remember it being so touristy, which is not my cup of tea. You know you’re in a tourist town when you have to pay for parking, and we rode around quite a while looking for where to leave the bike while streams of tourists blindly criss-crossed the road in front of us. Finally, we found a spot in front of a microbrewery pub that was a little off the main street and had a terrace with a view of the gulf. Nice!
Our next stop after lunch was The Dunes. You will find them just east of Tadoussac. It’s an unexpected area of sandy hills overlooking the river. I wanted to play in the sand but the bike was fully loaded and undersprung, and I was feeling the weight the entire trip as the bike had a tendency to wallow at slow speed. (I changed the spring and serviced the shock once back in Montreal.) Marilyn was digging the place because you can see the different depths of the water from this vantage point, and she took a bunch of photos while I stayed with the bike. I would get my fun on the dirt road shortcut that lead us back to the 138 while Marilyn grumbled into the comms that we should have doubled back on the asphalt.
The Dunes, overlooking the St. Lawrence River just east of Tadoussac.
Soon we were heading north on the 172. It’s a fun road, and yeah, the cops are few and far between in this region, but I had speed control riding pillion so had to be good. Since we couldn’t hear each other very well in the comms due to the wind noise, Marilyn and I had developed a system whereby if she wanted me to slow down, she’d tap my left shoulder, and if she wanted me to stop, she’d tap my right. This form of backseat driving worked reasonably well, but unfortunately sometimes the D3O shoulder armour in my jacket worked a little better.
Marilyn had done a little research prior to leaving (somebody has to) and said there was a good rest stop at Sainte-Rose-du-Nord, a pretty little town that has a quay and offers a good view of the river. What L’Anse Saint-Jean provides on the west side of the Saguenay, Sainte-Rose-du-Nord does on the east—access to the river and a view of the fjord. We pulled in mid-afternoon in search of coffee.
Ste-Rose shorelineSte-Rose shops and diner
As many of you know, I’m not big on planning a tour before I go. I like the element of spontaneity and the ability to change plans on the fly. However, for this trip, since we were staying at B&B’s, I did take some time before leaving to find some sweet ones. We really, really, enjoyed all three of our gites on this tour. I love staying in an old historic house rather than a modern motel, and I love meeting the owner, finding out about the history of the building and the area, meeting other guests, practising my French, and enjoying the simple but tasteful breakfasts the hosts provide.
Our house in Alma, the Gite Almatoit, is home to a family and there were black and white photos of the house in winter and the kids playing in the garden. We were told that although the children must take a bus to school, snow days are (unfortunately for the kids) quite rare. After breakfast, I took a stroll around the property and learned from a sign on the lawn that the house was built in 1927 and is named La Maison Naud, after its original owner. Children of the Naud family lived in it until the early 2000s. It was the fall equinox, and our host had prepared this nice display on the front porch to celebrate the season. I’m too anti-social to be a B&B host, but I appreciate people who have decided to go into the hospitality business in order to make it work where they want to live. Maybe for them—I suspect for most—they enjoy the work so it’s a win-win.
The next day took us over the top of Lac Saint-Jean. We headed north on the 169 and pulled off at Pointe-Taillon “National” Park to see the beach and lake. I’m putting national in quotation marks because I’m not a Quebec nationalist and I disagree with Quebec’s nomenclature for its parks, which in any other province would be called provincial parks. You can’t have it both ways: receive billions of dollars in equalization payments from the rest of Canada and then call yourself an independent nation. Or maybe you can, if you are Quebec. As a Quebecer, I feel uncomfortable with this hypocrisy, especially when that nationalism is based on ethnicity, not language, which anyone who has lived here for any length of time will attest.
I’m thinking of Quebec politics now as I write this, and I was thinking of them then as we sat in a Tim Horton’s coffee shop in the heart of separatist Quebec, north of Lac Saint-Jean. It’s pretty much unilingual in these parts, so if you don’t know French, you’ll have to use the point and grunt method to order your donut. My French isn’t great but I can get by, but for all the talk of language in this province you’d think it was the most important issue facing Quebecers. It’s not. Just today I read that one of the major health service providers in the Montreal area has entered creditor protection. Marilyn and I are currently without a doctor, and I’ve been waiting for an MRI for months to diagnose a lump that I discovered last June on my collar bone. This is the state of healthcare in Quebec, and don’t even get me started on the state of education. (I’ve been a teacher since graduating in 1994.) It’s time that the Quebec government stop stoking the fires of nationalism and get its house in order by prioritizing issues like healthcare, education, infrastructure, and social services that have a direct impact on the quality of life for most Quebecers.
I’ve railed against Quebec politics elsewhere in this blog so won’t repeat myself, except to say that Marilyn and I will be leaving the province when I retire in a few years. We have mixed feelings about this because we’ve developed some very close friends here, but speaking for myself, I no longer want to pay another tax dollar to a government that sees me as a second class citizen because I’m not French (note that I didn’t say “speak French,” because I do, however poorly), that doesn’t hold and promote values I can be proud of, and that has its priorities mixed up. It’s time that Quebec as a nation either sh*ts or gets off the pot, to put it crudely. If it’s going to pass legislation that goes against the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and can only be enacted by using the Notwithstanding Clause, it’s time to leave Canada and stop taking handouts. In 2025-26, Quebec will receive $29.3B in equalization payments, more than all the other provinces and territories combined. Vivre le Québec libre!
Parc national de la Pointe-Taillon on the shore of Lac Saint-Jean
Back at the Tim’s, I had that feeling I got once before, when my son and I stopped in a small town in northern Quebec for dinner after canoe camping. As I listened to the French conversations around me, I wondered what it would be like to be unilingual French, how narrow your window onto the world would be, and how your views and opinions would be shaped exclusively by French media. I understand the fear of losing your language and culture; as a Canadian, I face this everyday living beside The United States which threatens to devour the subtleties of Canadian English and our unique culture. But I’m convinced that forced monolingualism is not the answer for French Quebecers. And besides, as stated by famous Canadian lawyer Julius Grey in a recent talk at my college, no language that is taught in mandatory public education has ever disappeared. If freedom really is in the interest of the Quebec government, it should begin with linguistic freedom. Languages open doors to other cultures, other ideas, and broaden one’s horizons. I wouldn’t be living in Quebec for the past 34 years if I hadn’t done a summer immersion program in Quebec back in 1989 to develop my French. But as I write this, the Legault government is working to restrict access to education in English, leaving the vast majority of Quebecers linguistically and culturally isolated, not to mention vulnerable to media manipulation.
Blueberry fields north of Lac Saint-JeanRest stop at Chutes des Pères off the 169 in Dolbeau-Mistassini
We looped the lake and came back into the town of Saguenay, then picked up the 381 south, the preferred route for motorcyclists. It cuts through dense bush between mountain ranges, separating on the west the Laurentides Wildlife Reserve and on the east Parc national des Hautes-Gorges-de-la-Rivière-Malbaie. There was a lot of tapping on my left shoulder on that ride, all the way into Baie-Saint-Paul.
Baie-Saint-Paul at the foot of the 381
For our third and final night, we had a reservation at Auberge Les Sources in Pointe-au-Pic, just west of La Malbaie. I would say it was my favourite of the three, but they were all my favourite. The room itself was special with a lovely sunroom off of the main room where we could sit and listen to our little bluetooth speaker and journal and drink port. Yes port. Only we enjoyed it a little too much and somebody had to go fetch dinner. Thankfully, we were a stone’s throw from the Fairmont Le Manoir Richelieu which had take out St. Hubert chicken. It wasn’t the swankiest dinner of our trip, but it hit the spot under the circumstances.
After dinner, we decided to walk off the chicken by taking a stroll down to the hotel that overlooks the river. It really is a spectacular building, furnished exquisitely inside with original artwork (including a piece from one of Marilyn’s favourite painters, Michael Smith) and historical photographs and artifacts. The Fairmont hotels are a sort of relic from another era, and this one clearly is kept alive by the adjoining casino, accessible from the hotel by a tunnel. I’m rather morally ambivalent about gambling, but I guess in this instance I’m okay with other people spending their money this way if it’s going to prevent an historic building from being turned into condos. We peered through the glass doors into the carnival lights, bells, and glitter of gambling while a couple of bruisers stood guard outside, ensuring only hotel guests could lose their money.
Outside, fog had rolled in. We strolled along the boardwalk overlooking the river, and in the mysterious lighting of the outdoor lamps, with a foghorn sounding in the distance, you could easily imagine being another person 100 years ago.
Our final day would be more of the gross highway riding to get home, but before leaving our beloved Charlevoix, we indulged ourselves by stopping in at Saint-Joseph-de-la-Rive, a quaint village at the base of Les Éboulements, right on the river. The view as you descend is pretty good, and there’s an interesting little artisanal paper store there called Papeterie Saint Gilles, which still makes paper by hand, pressing petals of local wildflowers into the sheets.
The infamous descent from Les Éboulements.
This hill is so steep that several years ago a tour bus lost its brakes and crashed off the embankment. I spared Marilyn that story.
Our original plan was to cross on the ferry from here to Île-aux-Coudres and do a quick loop of the island I’d heard so much about. I’ll go to great lengths to find a good boulangerie. But it was off season and we figured a lot would be closed and we still had the return leg to Montreal to do, so we stayed on the mainland and strolled along another boardwalk, taking a last look at the rolling hills and tide flats of Charlevoix.
Saint-Joseph-de-la-Rive
Finally, it was time to climb reluctantly onto the bike and start heading home. The tour had been everything we’d hoped it would be. We weren’t able to do a holiday over the past summer, but this little excursion made up for it and cured our travel bug before the bike went into storage for the winter.
The Saguenay fjord has dramatic geography and the roads are windy and fun. Prices are reasonable and everyone we met was friendly and welcoming. Wherever I travel, whether in The United States, across Canada, or into the heart of pure laine Quebec, the people I meet rarely match assumptions based on what I’ve heard in the media. Perhaps that’s the best thing about travel: learning first-hand that people everywhere are essentially the same. I’m glad that I finally did this tour, if only to discover, with my own weak French, that the only thing separating English and French Canadians is language.
This Christmas I ask for only one thing: that my students stop cheating using AI. It gobbles up my time preparing for the meetings and zaps my morale when they deny it all the way through the appeal process.
Accordingly, I’ve begun this post with an AI-generated image. Whatever generator WordPress uses apparently doesn’t know what an adventure motorcycle is, just as ChatGPT doesn’t really know how to write an insightful analysis of a short story. In both cases—looking at the photo and the essay—it’s pretty obvious they’re fake. What is that square thing on Santa’s lap? Is it supposed to be a present, and if so, why is it on his lap when he’s got all that room on the . . . hay bale? And somebody needs to tell Santa that Sorels don’t provide much foot protection when he lowsides in the snow.
We live in a world where the real and the natural occupy an increasingly small part of our lives. That’s one of the things I love about adventure riding—its ability to help us get away from civilization and screens and the news (and students) and take in, as the saying goes, The Great Outdoors. This year my wish list does not contain mods and accessories for the bike but mostly camping gear. I want to downsize my gear and be more comfortable around camp.
Cookware
If you read my post on motocamping gear, you’ll know that I use an MSR Dragonfly stove and a Zebra 3L stainless steel Billy pot as my motocamping kitchen. This is the same gear I use canoe-camping, but now I’m ready to go even smaller. When I’m canoe-camping, it’s usually with my son and, uh, we’re in a canoe, where there’s lots of space, and weight is only an issue on the portages, but when I’m adventure touring, I’m usually on my own and less is more, so to speak. Space in the panniers is at a premium, and I feel every extra pound on the bike.
I came upon this little unit via Adam Riemann’s video on his gear. I’ll probably leave the cup and fold-out base at home, and I’ll probably substitute the folding cutlery for real stuff. I’m not that minimalist. (While I’m trying to reduce weight, I won’t be cutting my toothbrush in half anytime soon.) This kit will cut down my cooking gear considerably.
It means switching from liquid fuel to butane, which I never thought I’d do. Liquid fuel has a lot going for it: no canisters to buy or dispose of, the ability to refill at any gas station, and as an emergency supply for the bike. But the Dragonfly is loud and slow. You can get a Dragon Tamer by BernieDawg, but at 82€, that’s almost the price of the stove, and it doesn’t seem to speed it up, just silence it. An 8 oz cylinder fits nicely inside the Odoland pot with room for the burner on top, so it’s very compact. I like Adam’s suggestion of wrapping the canister in a goggle bag to provide some padding. The entire kit is, incredibly, only $38 Canadian, so I hope at that price it isn’t, in the immortal words of my late mom, “cheap and nasty.” ADV touring is hard on gear, so it has to be tough.
Whether I take a separate frypan and plate remains to be decided. Maybe I’ll go hardcore and try to get by just with this.
Ditch the Tent and Mattress
Speaking of hardcore, I’m seriously thinking of switching to a hammock system for sleeping. I was talking to my brother-in-law about a canoe camp he did north of Lake Superior—5 nights using a hammock—and he swears by it now. He strung up a tarp overhead, just in case of rain.
This would allow me to leave behind my tent and mattress, which together weigh 7 lbs. More importantly, my tent doesn’t fit in a side bag, so I have to strap it on top lengthwise or across my tail rack in a duffle bag. I’d love, I say love, to be able to do without a duffle bag up high on the back. (BTW, I’m ditching the tank bag too.) With weight down low in the panniers and only a few small bags with tools and tubes up front, the bike would be a lean mean machine, helping me to do the kind of riding I want to do, especially now that the Tiger’s suspension’s been upgraded. It’s not quite a rackless system, but something resembling it.
I’ve slept in a hammock before and froze my butt off. Okay, it was at Yukon River Campground, so not the best place to try. One of the issues with hammock camping is that the down in your sleeping back gets compressed underneath you, and you don’t have the insulation of a mattress to keep you warm. You can get a hammock quilt and string that up underneath, but they are heavy and bulky, so you lose any savings gained in weight and space.
Yukon River Campground
My other concern is that there may not always be two trees to string the hammock. I’ve been at sites before where this was the case, and I’m imagining, say, being out at a campground on the Outer Banks— basically a sand bar on the eastern seaboard of North Carolina—where they’re aren’t any trees. Would I be able to sleep on the ground and string a tarp off the bike in case it rains? What about bugs? Night visits? Privacy? You don’t see any RTW riders using a hammock.
Well, there’s only one way to find out. After some initial research, the SunYear hammock is on my wish list.
The SunYear is made of parachute nylon, and if someone is trusting it from ten thousand feet, I’ll trust it from 2 or 3. As you can see, it comes complete with a bug net and a tarp. A nice feature is the triangular shape of the tarp for some privacy, not that I care.
But before I go investing in a new set-up that costs about the same as a new tent, I’ll try a shorter trip using my existing hammock and see how it works. Alternatively, I could just buy a separate bug net and tarp if that works out. And for stringing it, I’m thinking I’ll carry a couple of ratcheting straps for bike recovery (a lesson learned from my last trip to Vermont) and they will work just fine to anchor the hammock without damaging the trees.
What do you think? Am I crazy? Have you tried hammock camping? How did you find it? Great recent development in camping gear or latest fad? Leave a comment below.
Shelter
Without a tent, a reliable tarp is all the more essential for rainy days around camp. When Riley and I had rain in Vermont last August, we strung his tarp up over the picnic table and were happy.
I was so impressed with his tarp that I took a picture of the logo. I later looked it up online and nearly shit my pants. I didn’t know that a tarp can cost $260. I usually get mine from the dollar store. Okay, they smell of plastic off-gassing and are as loud as my Dragonfly stove, so I’m ready to upgrade. When it’s your home away from home, a reliable tarp is worth its weight in gold. A good one will also pack up small.
I haven’t decided on the size yet, but I’ll want something big enough to shelter from driving rain. The only question is: Aquaquest or cheap Chinese rip-off?
Two items that never made it off my wish list last year are a new helmet and shorty levers. I’ve had the same Arai Signet-Q since I started riding in 2015. Don’t tell the cops. You’re supposed to change it every 5 years by law. That means I really should either get a new one or move to New Hampshire.
Last year, I was looking at the Arai Tour-X5. Arai make arguably the safest helmets on the market, but as every Harley rider in a skid lid will tell you, safety is over-rated. More importantly, there’s fashion. But seriously, other factors include comfort, weight, ventilation, and a big one for me, wind noise.
The Arai Tour-X5. Sadly, still on The Wish List.
Recently I was intrigued by what Chris (Chap in a Cap) at MotoLegends was saying about flip helmets. He argues that modular helmets should be considered the true adventure helmet, and the only reason most ADV riders have a helmet with a peak is for fashion. “Get over yourself,” he says elsewhere.
One thing I didn’t know is that, according to Chris, a flip helmet is the quietest type of helmet, even quieter than a full face. I thought that the hinge system created some wind noise, but perhaps that was just the case with the early modular helmets. It’s not just the absence of the peak that makes it quiet but also because the neck opening is smaller. With a flip helmet, you naturally lift the chin bar to put it on, so the neck opening can be smaller and less wind enters the helmet from underneath.
I’m sold. I have to admit, I’m interested in the idea of having the quietest helmet possible. As some of my readers know, I’m completely deaf in one ear so have to protect what’s left of the other one, and even with earplugs, which I always wear, the wind noise can be loud on the highway with a bad helmet like my LS2 Pioneer.
Champion Helmets, who do the most comprehensive and reliable testing in the industry, in my opinion, put the HJC RPHA-91 not only as the quietest helmet on the market but also the best overall modular helmet of 2025. The Shoei Neotec 3 was a close second. Schuberth helmets don’t fit my intermediate oval noggin, and Arai, well, Michio Arai doesn’t believe in flip helmets. So I think either the HJC RPHA-91 or the Shoei Neotec 3 is in my future.
The HJC is about half the price of the Shoei, but honestly, for something as important as the helmet, it will probably come down to which has the best graphics.
Back to Levers
The other item that never made it off my 2023 Wish List are shorty levers. What I did instead was move the levers perch inward on the handlebar as per another of Reimann’s suggestions, so I was pulling with two fingers but on the end of the OEM levers. This seemed to be the best of both worlds: I could use two fingers but still had the leverage of a full-length lever.
The downside to this set-up, I discovered, is that the front brake master cylinder is part of the lever assembly, and now it’s so far in it’s slightly tipped because the bracket is on the slope of the handlebar. The mirrors are also part of the same unit, so their position is affected. I can see okay, but all things considered, maybe it’s just easier to get shorty levers.
Last year I had the Vortex levers on the wish list. This year, it’s ASV, but don’t be surprised if they, at over $400 a set, are on next year’s list too.
VortexASV
So if you didn’t think I’m crazy for giving up my tent, you probably do now. What can make someone pay that kind of money for levers, especially when you can get cheap Chinese ones on Amazon or eBay for $35? Probably the same thing that would compel someone to pay $260 for a tarp. It’s the quality of the product, and in this world, you usually get what you pay for, despite proclamations of cheapos to the contrary.
Aside from being unbreakable with an unconditional 5-year crash damage guarantee, the ASV levers apparently have excellent feel, if you believe comments on forums. That’s a result of the pivot that has precision-sealed bearings, the only lever on the market for my bike with a bearing pivot. ASV also have a micro-indexing adjuster with 180 increments, so you can literally dial in each lever to your exact preference. The C-series have a matte finish and cost a little more than the polished finish of the F-series.
I really don’t know if I’ll get these, but it’s nice to dream. Isn’t that the purpose of a wish list?
One More Thing
“Oh yeah, one more thing.” That’s what Steve Jobs used to say to introduce the most exciting new Apple product at the very end of his keynotes. I’d love to get a new jacket, one made for cold weather. I’d love to get a Rukka jacket, any Rukka jacket, but preferably one with a down-filled liner. I’m tired of freezing on early- and late-season rides.
My warmest jacket is the one I bought off eBay for $55 US when I started riding. It’s a Joe Rocket with textile front and back and leather arms and shoulders. It’s my warmest jacket because it has a quilted liner. My other two jackets are hot weather: the Klim Marrakesh, which is mesh, and the Traverse, which is a Gore-Tex liner.
Again, the option here is premium or budget-friendly. I’ve been hearing a lot about the MSR Xplorer jacket from Rocky Mountain ADV and it might work with some good heated gear inside.
Rukka Rimo-R for $1000or MSR Xplorer for half the price?
One of the most viewed posts on this blog is the one on how to make your own heated jacket for under $50, and it’s a good option for commuting. However, the cheap Chinese controller is fragile and doesn’t hold up to the demands of adventure riding. I’ve already broken and fixed it a few times. The other thing I don’t like about the jacket is that it’s a rather thick, puffy jacket, that doesn’t pack well, so it’s either the homemade heated jacket or a wool sweater, but not both, and for around the fire, I’ll take wool any day.
My friend Riley of The Awesome Players posted a video of a late-season ride he did on which he was wearing a Warm and Safe Heated Jacket. He later texted me that he also has the baselayer, and so I looked into it.
Warm and Safe Heat Layer Shirt
I like the idea of a base layer. It just makes sense to have the heat next to your skin instead of having to penetrate layers of thermal clothing first. Other people like the flexibility of having a light heated layer that you can easily remove if it warms up.
The company has over 25 years of experience and R&D. Each product connects to a heat troller that controls the heat. Instead of just three settings like with the controller on the Chinese-made pads, the W&S troller has a dial, so there’s a lot more variability. Okay, Warm and Safe don’t win the award for the most imaginative naming, but some of their gear also make it onto The List.
Conclusion
Well that list ended up being longer than I anticipated. As the instructor of my motorcycle course said first night, “This sport is harder on your wallet than an ex-wife.” Thankfully, my marriage is still strong, although would be considerably weaker if Santa fulfilled all my wishes.
And as I usually do at the end of these fun Christmas-themed blogs, I have mixed feelings about being so materialistic when wars are continuing in other parts of the world and some people lack heat, food, shelter—the basic materials of life. I don’t feel I can do much or anything about that, but I can help those closer at home in need. This year, Marilyn and I have decided to give a significant donation to a food bank. It will be a drop in the bucket, but it will be our drop, and I hope it provides a little relief to someone in greater need than me. With inflation and current food prices, the need is greater than ever.
The Wish List posts come at the perfect time of year, just after the bike is pulled off the road for four months by law here in Quebec. They help me though the transition to no riding by thinking of the rides being planned for next season and the gear that will make them all the more enjoyable. I’m still planning to do the tour that has been postponed now for two seasons—down the Blue Ridge Parkway into West Virginia, maybe over to the The Outer Banks, and back up via the MABDR and NEBDR.
What are your plans for next season? Drop a comment below and don’t feel they have to be anything as ambitious as mine. I’m always interested in hearing from my readers.
Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah to all my readers, and safe riding in 2025.
Spirited on road, capable off road, the Tiger 800XC is a great all-round middle-weight bike.
My review of the 650GS has been the most viewed page on this blog for years, so I thought I’d write one on the Tiger, which I’ve had now for three full seasons and over 45,000K. These are both old bikes, so I know most people reading the reviews already own the bike and want to see if they’ve made a mistake. You have not. Well, as always, it depends on the type of riding you do. But if you’re looking for a long-distance ADV touring bike, the Triumph Tiger 800XC is a good choice.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. As I did before, I’ll break down the review into components.
Engine
The heart of any bike is the engine and the Tiger’s is a gem. When I pulled into my driveway on the GS at the end of my 2021 cross-country trip, I knew I wanted a smoother bike. The big thumper got me to the Pacific Ocean and the Arctic Circle and back, but it wasn’t very comfortable, especially on those highway miles. When I test rode the Tiger, I knew I would buy it even before I was around the block; I couldn’t believe what I was feeling. This engine is SMOOOTH! I’d go as far as to say it’s the bike’s defining characteristic. This is the 800, so before Triumph moved to the T-plane crank and off-set firing order, so it’s about as smooth as a triple can be. If you’re coming from the nuts-numbing world of a big thumper, the inline triple with a 120 degree crank is a world apart and exactly what I was looking for.
Aside from being smooth, this engine has a ton of character. It has comparable torque to its rival, the BMW F800 GS (58 ft.lb @ 7850 rpm vs. 59 ft.lb @ 5750 respectively), but gets that torque much higher in the rev range. And it likes to rev! It spins up fast, so even pulling away from a stop light you find yourself pulled involuntarily into The Giggle Zone. Yet despite that high peak rpm, the torque on the Tiger is incredibly linear.
photo credit:// ADVMoto. 1st Gen Tiger 800 dyno results. Note the linear (flat) torque “curve” above 3000 rpm.
The gearbox is also smooth, both upshifting and downshifting. It’s so smooth, someone I swapped bikes with once asked if it has a slipper clutch. The high-revs, the smoothness of both engine and gearbox, combined with a wonderfully guttural exhaust note make the Tiger 800 a really fun bike to ride. It feels like Triumph has shoe-horned a sport bike engine into an adventure chassis, which I guess they have since the engine comes from the 660 Sport. I’m not afraid of the dirt but, to be honest, most of my adventure touring is on asphalt, and the Tiger makes crunching those miles enjoyable.
Where the engine does come up short is in slow-speed technical riding, a downside the T-plane crank of its successor, the Tiger 900, attempts to address. The 800 is happy when revved, but is prone to stalling at slow speed, especially in sticky mud or over obstacles—anything that requires careful clutch work in 1st gear. It has no tractor-factor, so if you like ATV and snowmobile trails, single-track and getting out into the woods, the Tiger is probably not for you. It can do it, but you have to keep the revs up and feather the clutch a lot, which can be tiring on your hand and the clutch.
Handling
The XC model I have has a 21″ front and a 17″ rear wheel—an unusual combination in the ADV world where an 18″ rear is the norm. Perhaps Triumph did that to compensate for the nose-heavy geometry of the big triple compared to a parallel twin. (It still has a stink bug stance.) They’ve also increased the rake on the front forks beyond the competitors’ to 23.9˚ (compare with 26˚ for the BMW 800). What this weird-ass geometry does is make the 21″ front wheel surprisingly easy to turn in yet planted through corners. For an ADV bike, the Tiger is surprisingly agile and confidence-inspiring through the twisties. That’s when it’s in its element, whether on asphalt, gravel, or dirt.
Lanark County Trail System on 70/30 tires.
The cost is a tendency for the front end to tuck in mud or sand, especially if you forget to steer with the pegs. My crash this past August was a direct result of that happening on a muddy downhill corner, although I think balance of the bike front to back was also a factor. (I was under sag.)
Front-end tuck on the Bailey-Hazen hero section.
The Tiger is also a little top heavy, despite its flat horseshoe-shaped gas tank. That’s probably a result of the tall and wide engine. (To get the 660cc Sport engine to 800, Triumph lengthened rather than widened the bore.) You don’t feel it once the bike is rolling, but again, it’s another characteristic that makes the Tiger a challenge off-roading at slow speed. What all this means is that if you want to ride hero sections on the Tiger, you’d better have skills.
Triumph says that the Tiger is for “light off-roading” and they don’t lie. The engine and balance of this bike are designed for 2nd gear and up. But the biggest indicator that this bike is not for serious off-roading is the placement of the spark plugs and air filter, both of which are under the tank. If you’re doing water crossings—and what serious off-roader isn’t—you’d better not swamp the bike or you’re going to be removing bodywork and lifting the tank trailside. Been there, done that. It’s not much fun. To lift the tank, you need first to remove the beak, radiator side panels, indicator panels, and trim. I’ve done this perhaps a dozen times now and have the whole process down to about 20 minutes. Needless to say, for an ADV bike, this is a major design flaw, or at least a serious limitation.
Suspension
The Showa suspension on the XC is a step up from the XR version. Rear travel is 215mm and front is 240mm. That’s more than what I’ll need because I’m not blasting down rocky trails as much as trying to thread my way through them. (The 650GS, for comparison, has 165mm rear and 170 front.) With the Outback Motortek skidplate, ground clearance on mine is about 9 1/4″ or 235mm. The shock has hydraulic preload and rebound adjustment. The forks are a beefy 45mm but with no adjustment. That’s a fairly basic system, but again, sufficient for ADV touring.
Like most ADV bikes off the production line, the Tiger 800 is set up for road use. The suspension is soft and cushy, making a plush ride around town (and during test rides, I should add). But if you want to use this bike for how it’s intended—ADV touring (the XC stands for cross country)—you’re going to have to stiffen the suspension.
The OEM shock has a spring rate of 9.7 kg/mm which, surprisingly, gives me a static sag of 18% (40mm). This means that under its own weight on the OEM spring, the bike is under sag. Rider sag for me is 35%, even with preload fully wound. (Note to newbies: static sag is unloaded with no rider and should be 10%; rider sag is loaded with rider and should be 30%.) At 150 lbs (177 in all my gear), I’m not a big guy, and with about 66 lbs of luggage (56 on the back, 10 on the front), I don’t think I’m overloaded, although I’ll be working over the off season to reduce that weight. Nevertheless, it’s clear to me that the OEM spring on the shock is too soft for anything but solo street riding.
I recently upgraded the suspension and will publish a separate post on that topic, so click Follow if you’re interested in what I’ve done.
Ergonomics and Comfort
The ergonomics on the Tiger are generally comfortable whether you are seated or standing. The wide handlebars are what you’d expect and want on a bike designed for the dirt, yet they don’t feel like ape-hangers when seated either. I haven’t added any bar risers because the bar mounts are already high, and when I stand the bars fall to the right place when I’m in the correct body position with hips slightly bent. (Most people who add risers are seeking comfort while standing erect.)
One unusual feature of the bike’s ergos is the distinct sensation of the fuel tank between your, uh, thighs. It was something I immediately noticed on that brief test ride and something others have commented on when we’ve swapped bikes. The tank is wide, and it forces your knees apart. (No bad jokes here). I find it actually reminds me to squeeze the bike, which is good practice whether riding on and especially off road.
The seat is generally comfortable for long days, although when touring I add a sheepskin pad to improve comfort and airflow. Triumph sell a comfort seat for this bike but I haven’t needed it. Similarly, Marilyn hasn’t complained about the seat on the back. The 1st generation Tigers do not have a heated seat option but subsequent ones do.
My knees sometimes complain over long days but I’m pretty long-legged, so they are bent slightly more than 90˚. I put my Fastway pegs in the low position and the adjustable seat in the high position and this set-up has been pretty good. With the bike now sitting even higher, I’m anticipating improved comfort for my ageing knees. In the raised position, seat height is 34.5″ or 885mm, which is comparable to its BMW competitor.
My biggest complaint about comfort is in the area of wind management. I’ll be doing a separate post on my search for a solution, but let me say here that the OEM windscreens for the Tiger suck! The stock screen is notorious, and the touring screen is little better. Maybe it’s too much to ask of a screen to allow airflow at slow speed when off-roading and a quiet ride at speed on the highway. The best solution I’ve found is the touring screen with a cheap clip-on wind deflector, which helps with the wind but ruins both the lines of the bike and video footage from my chin-mounted camera. Oh well.
Aesthetics
Canadian poet Robert Bringhurst has a collection titled The Beauty of the Weapons and I think the Tiger is a beautiful weapon, especially the all black model. I get a lot of compliments on the bike, even from other riders. You can see in the neoclassic bikes like the new Bonnevilles that Triumph pays a lot of attention to how a bike looks, and they’ve done a great job with the Tiger. Okay, you may say they’ve copied their competitor with the beak, but I think a bike without one looks weird. There are a lot of complimentary parallel angular lines on the bike that thankfully Outback Motortek has followed. Aesthetics is something not everyone is into, but I want a bike that makes me turn around and look at it as I walk away in the parking lot, and the Tiger does that.
Reliability
There are a few known issues with this bike, not surprising given that it’s a first generation model. The shifting mechanism is known to fail, and mine did, but not in the expected way of the return spring or the pin for the return spring breaking. No, it was the selector arm that failed at about 45,000K, so while I was in there behind the clutch, I decided to replace not only the selector arm but also the problematic spindle, the return spring, and the detent wheel, all of which have been redesigned. You can read about that work here. The bike also let me down once in the bush during a water crossing when somehow about 3-4L of water got in the tank. I still think the only viable theory is that water got sucked up through the tank breather tube and I’ve since redesigned the tube to avoid this happening again.
I cut the breather tube behind the airboxand added a T-joint and short length of hose
The other known issue with this bike is the starter motor. There are many accounts of it failing to restart the bike when the engine is hot. It was fine for me the first two years but then started to act up and got progressively worse. I’ll be doing a separate blog post on that too, but I’ll let the cat out of the bag here and say the problem was, at least in part, a dirty main ground on top of the engine block that was causing a voltage drop. If you have the dreaded starter motor issue on your Tiger, clean the main ground and contacts on the starter relay before changing the starter or battery.
That’s it. Clutch, stator, voltage rectifier, water pump, oil pump—all good—and no issues with any of the electronics. That’s not bad, in my opinion, for a bike with over 60,000K on it.
I adjusted the exhaust valves at 45,000K; the intakes were perfect but all the exhausts were tight. There are some reports of the engines, particularly on the 2nd gen Tigers, to start burning significant oil at about that mileage, but thankfully that has not been the case with mine. It burns a little oil now, particularly at high-revs on the highway, but nothing significant. I’ll come back from a tour of a few thousand kilometers and top up maybe 200mL. I’ve been using Castrol Power 1 4T and, more recently, Motul 7100, but when I mentioned my oil consumption to my dealer, he said they put Motul 300V in all the “high-revving bikes.” I thought it was only for racing bikes, but henceforth that’s what will be going in this bike.
I like that the 2011-14 Tigers are still relatively simple and easy to service on my own. There’s no ride-by-wire and rider modes or complicated electronics that require a computer to diagnose and repair, although I wish turning off ABS were easier than navigating menus. The 1st Gen Tigers that ran 2011-14 are at the tail end of an era before things got pretty complicated electronically. Build quality and fit-and-finish are excellent, and the bike is looking as good as new with no rust or corrosion on it anywhere, despite its age.
Summary
Pros
Fun, spirited engine
Smooth gearbox
Agile and planted through corners
Comfortable seat and ergonomics
Good looks
Aside from a few early-model issues, generally reliable
Relatively easy to service
Cons
No tractor-factor; stalls easily in 1st gear
A little top heavy
A tendency for the front end to tuck in low-traction terrain
Poor wind management
Shifting mechanism weak
Some reports of starter issues with OEM starter
Plugs and airbox under the tank
Vulnerability in water if the tank is rapidly cooled
Looking at the length of those two lists, you’d think I’m not happy with the bike, but I am. That’s because the main elements of the bike are good—the engine, the handling, the reliability. The bike has a few issues, like any bike, but they are overshadowed but just how much fun it is to ride, and isn’t that the main thing we want in a bike?
Conclusion
When I participated in La Classique Moto Fest here in Quebec a few years ago, I saw my bike in a long line of other bikes there for the rally. Maybe it was my subjective perspective, but it seemed slightly out of place. It occurred to me that most of the bikes there were set up for off-road riding whereas the Tiger, at least my Tiger, is more an adventure bike, and I was reminded of a comment made years ago on the ARR Raw podcast about this distinction. (I’ll link to the podcast but can’t remember the specific episode.) They were talking about tire choice, if I remember correctly, and one of the guests made the distinction between what they do as RTW riders and what weekend warriors do. He said he’d never attempt half the stuff some guys do off road because, when you’re touring halfway around the world, you can’t afford to break something on your bike and wait weeks, perhaps longer, for parts to arrive. In other words, they ride more conservatively, and that was reflected in his tire choice. I’ll add that it’s also reflected in your bike choice.
Off-road versus adventure bikes. An arbitrary distinction?
As we all know, the adventure bike is the ultimate compromise. It has to be good on road and off road, capable of crunching out miles on the highway as well as getting you down a logging road. It has to be quiet and comfortable for long days in the saddle, powerful enough to climb mountains and carry camping gear, maybe a pillion, yet small and light enough to pick up on your own in the middle of so-called nowhere. It has to be reliable, and simple enough to fix yourself, trailside if necessary, if something does break. With these considerations in mind, the middleweight Triumph Tiger 800XC is a great all-rounder and an excellent choice as a long-distance ADV touring bike. It has its drawbacks, for sure, and may be master of none, but it’s the best Jack of all trades I’ve been able to find.
It wasn’t the tour I planned for the summer, but it was eventful.
photo credit: Riley Harlton
The initial plan for my big tour of 2024 was to ride The Blueridge Parkway down to West Virginia and then come back on the MABDR and NEBDR. It would have taken me probably close to a month. But then those plans got kiboshed by unforeseen circumstances and for a while there it seemed I wouldn’t get away at all. In the end, I managed to spend four days in August touring Vermont with Riley and Marc from The Awesome Players Off-Road MC doing Sections 4 & 5 of the NEBDR.
We decided to do a spoke-and-hub type trip, using Silver Lake State Park in Barnard, VT, as our home base. This meant not only that we didn’t have to move camp each day but also that we could ride for a few days without luggage. I’ve stayed at that campground several times and it never disappoints. The general store in Barnard has gas and makes a great breakfast sandwich.
We decided to ride Bailey-Hazen down. B-H is an old military road dating back to the war of independence (1776). It’s primarily dirt and gravel and runs from Montgomery Centre down through Lowell, Albany, Craftsbury, Greensboro, Walden, Peacham, and into East Ryegate. I’ve ridden it a few times but never the hero section. In fact, the last time I rode B-H, I attempted the hero section and had to turn around. It’s basically an ATV trail filled with babyheads, and I was alone and on street tires. It’s definitely a challenge.
So I was thinking of that section as we rode down toward the border and thinking of it some more as we approached Montgomery Centre. (The hero section is early in the track.) This time I had Michelin Anakee Wild tires on and there were three of us, but I was fully loaded with all the camping gear. Riley and Marc have a lot more off-road experience than me and the last time I rode with them it didn’t go well. You never want to be the guy holding everybody up.
We headed up the nasty little hill climb and I got loose a few times but kept it upright. Riley said later that he was thinking I must be happy not to be on the Beemer and I was. The Tiger is definitely more capable with the 21″ front wheel. There was a crew working on the trail and soon we hit some deep gravel they were spreading and that was interesting. But somehow I made it to the top without dropping the bike and felt pretty good about that. Unfortunately, things were about to take a turn for the worse.
For those unfamiliar with Awesome Players lingo, a douche rope is a fabricated rope with a steel karabiner on one end and loops along its length for handles. It’s used to pull out the douche who is stuck in mud or, in my case, whose bike is down a ravine. I don’t know why I was going so fast, except I guess because adrenaline was pumping through me and maybe I was over-confident, having just done the tough part. I think I also relaxed my concentration. You can see my front tire slip out on the muddy downhill corner which threw my balance, and then I was struggling to keep the bike on the trail. Riley thinks I hit a false neutral because you can hear the bike rev a few times but I think I just panicked. Fortunately, what I lack in riding skills I make up for in tree avoidance technique. When I saw it coming up fast, the bike went one way and I the other.
I’m breathing hard into my helmet because I was in some pain and thought at first I might have pulled an Itchy Boots and broken my collar bone. But in the end, it was just a separated shoulder and, a month later, I’m almost fully recovered. The tendons have healed and I’m just working on strengthening and stretching the scar tissue. It could have been much worse. If the bike had hit the tree, I imagine there would have been structural damage and it would have been a write off. In the end, it just made for a few uncomfortable days around camp and especially trying to sleep in my tiny tent.
I was pretty mad at myself, as you can hear. It was an auspicious start to the tour and I was living up to my reputation. But here’s the thing I’ve come to realize after reflecting on the crash over the past month: crashing is not only an inevitable part of off-roading but part of learning. In fact, Brett Tkacs lists dropping your bike as an indicator that you’re improving your riding skills, which at first seems counter-intuitive, but when you think about it, if you aren’t dropping your bike once in a while, you aren’t pushing beyond your limits where both sh*t and learning happens. I’m pretty familiar with riding on dirt and gravel roads but haven’t done much trail riding. By contrast, Riley and Marc have been doing trails for years, so I knew that riding with them would be a learning experience.
Their experience was essential to getting my bike back on the trail. They had the gear and know-how. Here’s Marc explaining the procedure.
video credit: Riley Harlton
Once the bike was taken care of, we had lunch and I took a bunch of meds for the pain. I wasn’t sure how it would go on the bike but it was surprisingly okay; the shoulder is relatively immobile while riding, and it was actually off the bike around camp that I felt the injury most.
When we headed off again, I decided to let Marc go first and went slower on the downhill.
That’s my windscreen rattling; I lost some hardware in the crash that I replaced at the next rest stop. Later, Riley lead and I followed his line.
Bailey-Hazen actually isn’t a technical road, aside from a few bits. This clip is more indicative of what most of it is like—hard-packed dirt lined by trees and periodically opening up to nice views of the surrounding hills. It’s a fun ride and appropriate for big bikes.
The next day we headed south on Section 4 of the NEBDR but not before the amazing breakfast sandwiches of the Barnard General Store. There we met Bethel, who was visiting from California and had rented a Ténéré 700 from MotoVermont. She was enamoured by the general stores and bucolic countryside of Vermont, and who wouldn’t be, especially if you live in Superslab City. (I might have this wrong, but I think she said she lives in Los Angeles.) We shared stories over breakfast of falling in mud puddles and down ravines. It’s always nice to meet fellow bikers; there’s definitely a bond between like-minded people enjoying the freedom and thrill of motorcycling. Unfortunately, she was heading north to return the bike in Burlington and we were heading south.
If you know anything about the NEBDR, you know that it’s one of the harder BDRs and that Sections 4 and 5 are the toughest sections, so we were expecting some challenging terrain. I was trying to figure out where the by-passes were because I’d already decided I would take them with my gimpy shoulder; I just couldn’t risk another fall. But to our surprise, the section was relatively tame, more of the same winding dirt and gravel roads. When we finally stopped for coffee and a pastry at Sweet Birch Coffee Roasters and Bakery in Wallingford and Marc got out his map—yes, his paperButler NEBDR map—we realized we had done all the bypasses. It seems that the most recent gpx tracks (March 2024) had the bypasses as the default and you had to load the harder sections separately if you wanted them. When I downloaded the tracks, there was much description of flood damage, so I suspect the organizers decided to steer riders away from those Class 4 roads for now. It worked out for me, but I think Marc was disappointed.
Despite that, Section 4 has some very nice riding. One of my favourite roads was the Forest Service Rd. 30.
Lower Podunk Road is also sweet, as is Hale Hollow.
Sorry about the bad angle of the action cam. If it’s not the wind deflector that obstructs the view, as was the case with my Newfoundland footage, it’s the bad angle unbeknownst to me. I’ll eventually get it right.
We ended up in Readsboro before high-tailing it back up to Barnard on asphalt, stopping en route for groceries and beer.
The next day we headed north on Section 5 and decided to split up so Riley and Marc could get their Class 4 fix. Unfortunately, while doing the harder section north of Stockbridge that follows the White River, Marc suffered the same fate as me. He said it was an easy section but he got target fixated on a rut and was thrown violently off the bike, separating his shoulder too! Now there were two of us gimpy. Even before his accident, he had decided that he was going to head home a day early because camping was not agreeing with him. That’s a polite way of saying he’s a wimp. No, seriously, some people are campers and some are not, and to his credit, he at least gave it a try. He said he enjoyed the campfire and time around camp, but I think he wasn’t sleeping well.
Even experienced riders periodically take a tumble. We’ll blame this one on sleep deprivation. photo credit: Riley Harlton
So after riding the exhilarating Lincoln Gap Road, we said our good-byes and Marc headed north on the 100 back to the border. It was already mid-afternoon and rain was in the forecast, so Riley and I decided to call it a day too. We picked up steaks and potatoes and, being the final night, some port. As we rode back to Barnard the rain started and never really stopped the entire evening, but we strung a tarp over the picnic table so all was well.
A tarp, woollen hat, Rugged Brown Ale, and bluetooth speaker. What more do you need? photo credit: Riley Harlton
For the ride home, we figured we’d ride the Puppy Dog Route, which passes through Barnard and goes right up to the border. I’ve ridden it a few times and it’s an easy dirt route, but I’d only ever done it when dry. After the heavy rain of the night before, it was greeasy! We were crawling along in 1st gear when I stopped and asked, “Do we really want to do this?” Riley agreed that it would take us forever, so after a few miles of that we hit asphalt and stayed on it, but the drama was not over yet.
As we rode toward the border, the rain got heavier and heavier. When we crossed the border, it became torrential, and as we came over the Mercier Bridge it was apparent that there was major flooding, including on the main highway. Traffic had come to a standstill, so we had to find another way home and that included some deep water.
154 mm of rain fell on Montreal on Aug. 9, shattering all records.
When I got in, Marilyn was none too pleased. She’d texted early in the day that we should just come straight home, but I didn’t know why since the rain wasn’t that bad in Vermont. Little did we know that Montreal was in the midst of more extreme weather and that many people were either stranded or had basement flooding. Apparently 80% of the basements in Dorval, the city next to where I live, were flooded.
A pretty hard crash, two, in fact, some challenging riding, extreme weather—this ride had it all and was the true adventure I needed before heading back to the doldrums of work. It also gave me a taste of the NEBDR and how difficult, maybe foolish, my original plan would have been to ride the entire thing alone, fully loaded, including the Class 4 roads “as a challenge.” The riding on the NEBDR is enjoyable and as challenging as you want it to be. We’ll see how I feel next summer but at the moment I’m feeling like I can skip the Class 4s if I’m alone.
The best part of this ride actually wasn’t part of the route at all but reconnecting with The Awesome Players. When I tried riding with them before, I just couldn’t keep up on the big GS when they were on smaller bikes. Now that I have the Tiger, I’m willing to try again. It’s the kind of riding I’ve wanted to do for some time but most of the riders I know don’t do dirt. I know I’ll be a little out of my comfort zone but in a good way, and there isn’t a better bunch of supportive, fun guys to ride with than them. You only have to watch a few of their videos to see what I mean.
But that will be probably next season, to be honest. Next week is the Ride for Dad to raise funds for prostate cancer research. It’s a great cause, and you can contribute to my team’s campaign here. Anything helps and is greatly appreciated.
After that, Marilyn and I are riding the Saguenay Fjord, which neither of us has seen, and I’ll be changing tires and windscreen for that tour so I don’t know if I’ll be back on the dirt until spring. Look for an upcoming post on Saguenay/Lac Saint-Jean, and a few more rides through the glorious fall season here in Canada when the leaves turn colour. Who knows: maybe I’ll even make it down to Vermont again before the snow flies.
At Silver Lake State Park. Norden 901 Expedition, Tiger 800XC, and Yamaha T7.
650thumper 