There’s a great line in the movie The Bucket List, the 2007 film directed by Rob Reiner and starring Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman: “Three things to remember when you get older: never pass up a bathroom, never waste a hard-on, and never trust a fart.” Don’t worry, it’s the first one I’m going to discuss today.
I’ve found BPH to be kind of a taboo subject for men, and I was hesitant to write about it too. I think that’s because of a misconception that having BPH is a symptom of loss of virility, but it’s not. Let’s get that out of the way early. Maybe BPH is taboo also because it’s a sign of aging, and who likes to acknowledge that? Signs of BPH usually begin to appear in the 40’s. One easy statistic to remember is that 50% of 50-year-old men and up to 80% of 80-year-old men have it. It’s very common, so let’s start to normalize talk about it.
What is BPH?
Johns Hopkins Medicine defines BPH, or benign prostatic hyperplasia, as “a noncancerous enlargement of the prostate gland,” and says “it’s the most common benign tumour found in men.” Yikes! “Tumour” and even “noncancerous” in the same sentence sounds scary, so we’ll just describe it as an enlargement of the prostate. In fact, I’ve heard the “H” interpreted also as “hardening,” which is even less scary, especially at an age when we generally want things to be hard. I’m not a doctor and I’m not going to give medical advice, but I’ll talk a little about how this relates to motorcycling as I see it and what I’ve discovered so far that might help to minimize symptoms and not prevent you from riding.
BPH and motorcycling
I know riders, both men and women, who were wary about riding during those Covid years because of the lack of available bathrooms. Well, having BPH is kind of like having a chronic shortage of bathrooms and is something you have to manage while touring. If you are a guy and an adventure rider who spends a lot of time in rural areas and wilderness, there’s thankfully no shortage of available bathrooms, so to speak. It’s here that I will gladly recognize male privilege.
But I don’t really like urinating in public. Call me conservative, or old-fashioned, or a prude, but I find it a bit vulgar, so I always prefer to find a bathroom if I can. I don’t like urinating at the side of the road, or behind buildings, or really anywhere I might be seen. But here’s the first thing I’ve learned about BPH, or at least my experience of BPH as it relates to motorcycling: I don’t usually have the need to go while riding. I used to think this had something to do with vibration, either from the engine of the big thumper or the knobbies on the road—that it numbed a nerve or something—because I’d be fine for hours and hours as long as I was riding. The easy solution, then, seemed simply to keep riding.
But alas, eventually we have to stop for gas, and then I found I could barely get one tank full before I had to empty another. It got to a point where it was very predicable, so predictable that I came up with that theory about the vibration. I no longer think that, or I think there’s more to it than physiology, strictly speaking.
You know how you often need to go to the bathroom as soonas you get home from somewhere. You don’t even have to be motorcycling but running errands in the car, for example, or commuting home from work, or whatever. You get in the door and suddenly you are busting! That’s because your body—your bladder, to be specific—knows there is a bathroom near, so essentially sets off the alarm, telling your brain, “Okay, Joe, there’s a bathroom in the vicinity.” Or maybe it’s the brain telling the bladder; that would make more sense. I don’t know what kind of communication happens between the bladder and the brain or what language they’re speaking but I’m positing that there’s a psychological or at least a neurological component to how the system works.
Like a boss
This is important because it relates to the second thing I’ve learned about BPH, and my first suggestion on how you can minimize symptoms. You can train your bladder. Yes, like a dog. Reward good behaviour and you’ll get more of it; reward bad behaviour and you’ll get more of that. Running to the bathroom is rewarding bad behaviour and training your bladder to be the boss. Soon, it’s yanking your leash, so to speak, and leading you around. (Okay, I’ll drop that metaphor now.) Instead, my doctor reiterated what I’d heard online from Dr. Rena Malik, urologist and pelvic surgeon. You don’t want to get to the situation where everywhere you go you are urgently locating the bathrooms. Before you get to that state, he said, whenever you get the urge to go, don’t go. Wait, if you can, for the urge to go away, and it will always go away. (You need to keep this in mind during your darkest moments.) When it does, wait a few minutes longer, and then walk calmly to the bathroom. Good behaviour. Be the boss of your bladder.
By the same logic, Dr. Malik also suggests not doing “just in case” bathroom visits, or what is called “convenience voiding.” (No, that’s not a phrase to describe how Prime Minister Trudeau answers media questions; that’s called “convenience avoiding.”) I know this is counter-intuitive and counter to what your mother and grandmother and every preschool teacher says, and counter to what Edward Cole, the Jack Nicholson character, says above in his advice for the aging. Convenience voiding tells your bladder that it needs to empty before it’s full. Bad behaviour. No treats. So trust that you will be able to find one when the need arises and pass up that bathroom if you don’t need to go. You’re in it for the long game.
Kegels
Okay, so by now you’re probably thinking not only that I’m a sadist but also that you are going to have an accident. That’s a lot of waiting, or rather . . . holding. To help with this, you can do some Kegel exercises. Yes, there’s another muscle that needs to be exercised to avoid atrophying with age. I’d never heard of Kegel exercises until a few years ago, so if you haven’t either, you’re perfectly normal. A YouTube search will turn up lots to try, but here’s one that presents two good exercises to start with. You can easily find more.
They can be tricky to do properly at first, so if you’re really struggling with retention, you might want to invest in a professional pelvic physiotherapist for a few sessions to make sure you’re doing them right. You don’t want to waste your time exercising your butt muscles. 😳 It’s a bit like what I tell my students about oral presentations, since they often get up in front of the class and either read or recite instead of speak: if you’re in a singing contest, it doesn’t matter how well you dance. So spend a bit of time and possibly money to ensure you are strengthening the right muscles.
Water in, water out
Another piece of advice my doctor gave me was to try to moderate my fluid intake. I know, I know . . . we’re supposed to drink the equivalent of a small pond each day, according to The Kidney Foundation. Keep in mind that includes all liquids, like those in fruits, vegetables, coffee, tea, beer, hard liquor . . . not that anyone’s eating vegetables while riding. I definitely notice a difference in the frequency of my “rest stops” when I’m wearing my hydration knapsack as compared to when I carry a water bottle. I like to carry water on me so I don’t have to stop to drink, but the trick is to sip. Same for distance running. If you run long distances in the heat and use a hydration belt, you probably sip a bit every few kilometres rather than chug infrequently. Give your body only what it can process and you will cut down on your bathroom breaks.
Yes, it’s water in, water out, like calories. You have to regulate your water intake according to conditions, so if it’s hot and dry, you will be losing a lot of water in sweat and evaporation as air rushes through your mesh jacket, and if it’s cool or humid, less so. The last time I changed my roof, I worked beside the roofer. I was stripping old shingles; he was laying new ones. At one point, he needed the washroom but it was occupied. I was apologetic and suggested he could use our half bathroom upstairs but he said, “It’s okay, I’ll just sweat it out.” He had 30 years of experience managing his fluids.
Avoid Irritants
You know that line in the famous poem Desiderata about what to avoid?
“Avoid loud and aggressive persons; they are vexatious to the spirit.”
Well there are other irritants that should be avoided. Coffee, tea, alcohol. Yeah, this is one where the cure is worse than the disease, and I’ll be damned before I give up any of those. But again, perhaps moderation is the key, or at least knowingly drink these things with the price in mind. They are vexatious to your bladder and it won’t be long before nature is calling. It reminds me of that old joke, “What’s the difference between a beer and a piss?”
“About 15 minutes.”
Final Thoughts
I recognize that I haven’t spoken at all about the other way symptoms of BPH manifest, which is restriction of flow. I’ve only discussed the opposite problem: frequency and urgency. That’s because I think the other issue is a little more complicated and one which you should discuss with your doctor. There is medication and surgery as options, and I will just add that a friend of mine had the surgery and is a big advocate of it now. It’s really helped him out, so don’t suffer unnecessarily. Of course, if you live in Quebec, you have to find a doctor first, but that’s another issue particular to La Belle Province.
I’ve just scratched the surface on this topic. There’s a ton of information available online if you are interested in exploring it further. The bottom line on this, however, as far I’m concerned, is that BPH is a completely normal aspect of aging for many men and nothing to be embarrassed about. With a little attention to it in the form of training, fluid management, and avoiding irritants, it will not stop you from enjoying your bike well into the golden years. Just think of Ted Simon riding around the world at the age of 72 and still riding at 90! (I am making no claims about Ted Simon’s health, only his accomplishments.)
Ted Simon rode around the world in 1972 and again at the age of 72. His book, Jupiter’s Travels, documenting the first trip, was the inspiration for Ewan and Charlie’s Long Way Round and, arguably, the entire adventure motorcycling industry.
And while we’re on this topic, don’t forget to get tested regularly. We aren’t talking about cancer here, but it’s never a bad time to remind ourselves and others to get checked, since early detection, as with all cancers, is crucial. I’ll be doing the Ride for Dad September 14th. Follow the link to join in your area or to help fund research.
Getting ready for the new season this year meant a little more than adding a few farkles.
When I bought my 2013 Triumph Tiger 800XC in May 2022, it had only 14,500 kilometres on it, despite being nine years old. In the following two years, I’ve put another 34,000 on it. I’ve done basic service during that time, like changing the oil, coolant, brake fluid, and cleaning the air filter. I’ve also changed the plugs. But it was time for some major service.
Last fall I did the dreaded valves, swingarm and rear suspension bearings, and cleaned the starter motor. This spring I’ve fixed a problem with the shifting mechanism, cleaned and lubed the steering head bearings, overhauled the front forks, and made a few mods to get it ready for the BDRs. It’s been a long process, but it’s finally ready for the new season.
Valves
It’s the job everyone loves to avoid, and I did too. In fact, when I bought the bike, the dealer said they no longer recommend checking the valves at the manufacturer’s recommended 20,000K because, more often than not, when they get in there at that mileage, the valves are fine. I guess if you’re paying the dealer $1000+ to check them, it’s bittersweet when they don’t find anything out of spec. I was happy to wait. My buddy who rides a Triumph Scramber 1200 XE has never checked his and he’s got I think now over 78,000K on it. “If they’re slappy, they’re happy,” he said, although I always thought you don’t want to hear the valves. At any rate, with now over 48,000 kilometres on the Tiger, it was time to get in there and see how happy they are.
All the intakes were fine, but all the exhausts were tight, some significantly. Here are my calculations. Sorry about the grease.
Highlighted is the amount out of spec. I’m using metric.
As you can see, all the intakes were spot on at 0.15 (specs are 0.10 – 0.20). The exhaust specs are 0.325 – 0.375, so ideally you want them at 0.35. Some of mine were 0.20, so .15mm out of spec. I’m glad I didn’t wait any longer or I might have started causing damage to the valve seat. Live and learn: sometimes there’s reason behind the manufacturer’s recommendations.
An egg carton works well for keeping all the buckets and shims organized.
You want the same bucket to go back on the original valve, so keep any happy dogs with long tails out of your workspace. Nobody likes removing the cams, but just make sure you’ve got it locked at top dead centre and turn the engine over several times by hand once you get it back together to make sure you didn’t slip a tooth on the timing gear. I almost did because I didn’t put enough tension on the timing chain while torquing down the holder. (You have to remove the tensioner.) So you have to find a suitable wedge of some kind to manually tension the chain while tightening. The first two (2!) times I torqued down the holder the chain climbed a tooth.
Timing marks should line up parallel to the crankcase on the inside.
Thanks to MuddySump for his excellent videos. I was following my Haynes manual, but it’s always good to watch someone else do it first, especially when that person has the same bike as you and is a licensed Triumph mechanic! Once I got everything buttoned back up, I checked the valves again and they are now all spot on.
It’s always a little unnerving starting the bike back up again afterward, but it fired right up. I’m hoping the bike will run a little easier now with less tendency to stall.
Starter Motor
A known issue with the Tiger 800, at least the first gens, is a weak starter motor. There is a tendency when the engine is hot for the starter to fail. I’ve had it happen to me a few times. You stall the bike and the starter is reluctant. I’ve managed to fix it by keying off and on, but it was getting worse. Many guys swap out the starter with Rick’s and I considered it, but since I was already down to the throttle bodies, I figured I’d lift them to access the starter and give it a good clean.
I took it apart and there was a lot of carbon dust in there, and some discolouration on the armature. Some 1000 grit emery paper cleaned everything up, including the shoes. The bearing was fine, and I’m hoping I’ve breathed another few years at least of life back into the OEM starter. We’ll see. [Update: on the test ride, the starter still acted up once the engine was hot, so I guess I’m buying a new one. Oh well, it was worth a try.]
Swingarm and Suspension Linkage
The swingarm bearings take a lot of abuse down there right in front of the rear wheel. Even if you aren’t doing water crossings, they’re going to get water and grit and grime thrown up at them. And when there’s crud or corrosion, you won’t feel it as you will with steering head bearings. I remember when I finally did this job on the 650GS, one of the bearings was in very bad shape and I had a bugger of a time getting the pivot bolt out due to the corrosion. This is one you want to do on the recommended interval, and it’s one of the easier ones so why not? You aren’t opening up the engine, just taking the rear wheel off, unclipping all the wiring from the swingarm, then removing the pivot bolt.
Thankfully, it wasn’t that bad this time, but I still left it a little too long. There was some discolouration on the bushings, but the bearings looked fine, albeit missing some grease. I cleaned everything up as best I could using 1000 grit emery paper and repacked the bearings with waterproof grease.
It’s always a good feeling when you restore these crucial components.
Shifting Mechanism
Problematic selector arm is top left. Centralizing spring is blue, indicating it’s been upgraded.
On the last ride of the season last year, the Tiger started being reluctant to downshift. I noticed it as I pulled away from the house and came to the first stop sign. I was heading to Vermont and would have turned around, except I was leading a club ride and there were people counting on me, so I continued.
My first thought was that the clutch cable needed adjustment. It’s normal for those to stretch over time and need to be tightened. But adjustment didn’t help, and as the day continued, the problem got worse. I somehow managed to finish the day, but coming up through Smuggler’s Notch wasn’t much fun and I was happy to get home. That was the final ride of the season. I decided I’d use the remaining nice weather to do maintenance but before I could get to this job the snow arrived, so it had to wait.
I store my bike in an unheated shed, so working on it over the winter wasn’t an option. As you can imagine, my curiosity nagged at me all winter. Was it the clutch, the shifting mechanism, the gearbox? Some research online revealed that there are some known issues with the shifting mechanism on this bike. There’s a pin on the shifter spindle that holds the centralizing spring and it’s known to break. When that happens, the shift lever doesn’t return to centre, ready for the next downshift, but flops down. You can still shift the bike, but you have to lift the lever first with your foot.
That didn’t appear to be my problem because, while there was a little play in the lever, it wasn’t flopping down. But I wondered if it was starting to break. Also, there was a recall to upgrade the centralizing spring, which is known to fail, and I didn’t know if my bike had the old or new spring. I also wondered if the problem was as simple as a worn clutch.
At the first warm day, I finally got in there to see what is happening. To get to the shifting mechanism, you need to remove the clutch. That was fairly straightforward, and the plates looked good. In fact, the stack measures 42.25mm and the tolerances are 41.54 to 42.54, so I’ve only burned .29mm of my clutch over 48,000 kilometres. I’m happy about that.
I had some trouble removing the bushing and bearing but with a friend’s help, we got them and the basket out. What we noticed is that on a downshift, the shifter arm slips off the pins of the detent wheel. A close inspection of the arm revealed wear on the respective pawl.
Wear in the corner of the pawl where it engages with the detent wheel pins. This arm is under tension from a spring (behind, out of view) and it’s also possible that the spring was fatigued.
There has been a redesign on this part as well as the detent wheel that engages with it. I decided to change the whole spindle because Triumph has also redesigned the problematic pin for the centralizing spring. Here are comparisons of the crucial parts, old (on top) versus new.
Old and new selector arms. Triumph has squared the pawls.Old and new detent wheels. Strengthening webs have been added. Original pin was riveted. New pin is machined.
Dear reader, do you care? If you are a mechanical engineer or just a mechanical nerd like me, maybe you do. If you have a 1st gen Tiger 800, you should. These are the wrinkles that were ironed out sometime during production. I’m glad to have the stronger parts in my bike, and it’s shifting great again. Here in Canada, the spindle unit is under $200 and the detent wheel and selector arm come as a kit for under $100, so the hit wasn’t too bad.
Forks Overhaul
I don’t think the fork oil or seals have ever been changed on this bike. I’d never done inverted forks before. They are a little more difficult and require a seal driver. (You can’t use plumbing ABS pipe to drive the seals because the outer tube is in the way.) Figuring this would not be my last bike, I went with the adjustable kind that will work on a variety of bikes but are a little more trouble to use.
Everything came apart easily enough, once I bought a set of thin spanners. (Every job requires at least one trip to Canadian Tire.) There isn’t much room between the spacer tube and the top cap, and you have to get a wrench in there to hold the lock nut while you remove the cap. That was the only snag on the disassembly.
Laying everything out in the order it came off.
The bushings were discoloured with wear, but I didn’t want to wait for new parts so cleaned them up as best I could with fine grit emery paper. For the new seals, I decided to go with SKF because I’d read good things about them. Thanks to Triple Clamp in Toronto for stocking these. A neat trick I learnt from Tusk is, when using those tricky adjustable fork seal drivers, use safety wire to avoid driving your fingers instead of the seal. Nice!
Driving the new sealsRefilling the fork in The World’s Smallest Workshop
The only weirdness of this job was that the amount of oil listed in my manual was way off. It said 619mL for the XC and 107mm from the top of the tube, but I had to pour out about 100mL to get the correct height. Yes, I drained all the old oil, and yes, I pumped the damper rod several times to dispel all the air when adding the new. I asked my dealer about this and he said they only use the height measurement. When I tipped the old oil into a measuring beaker, it was about 1L for the two forks, so with loss, 519mL sounds about right. Anyway, fresh oil, seals, and socks will help the front end this summer.
Steering Head Bearings
This one too had never been done. You can see in the image above that there isn’t much of the factory grease left in there. For this one, I didn’t use the waterproof general lithium grease but bearing grease. The only difficult aspect of this job was avoiding paying for the Triumph tool for accessing the head-stock. Instead, I used a C-spanner and Ryan F9’s tip on using a luggage scale to get the correct torque. The initial preload once you get everything back together is 40Nm, then you back it off and tighten the bearings to 10Nm, which is a little over 7ft/lbs. My C-spanner is about a foot long with a hole at the end of the handle, so all I had to do is convert Nm to ft/lbs.
After having the forks and triple-T out, I needed to align everything again. Thankfully, Delboy’s Garage just put out a video on how to do that.
Fuel Tank Breather Tube Fix
In my last post, I talked about how I ended up with about 3 litres of water in my fuel tank after a failed water crossing. In the post, I presented the theory that the water was sucked up from the tank breather hose when the tank had negative pressure. I considered rerouting the breather tube to keep it out of potential water, but my friend Mike came up with a better solution. While servicing his Africa Twin, he noticed that the tank breather on that bike has a Y-fitting with a length of hose staying high on the bike and the other draining down.
My buddy Mike’s Africa Twin. He’s pointing to the Y-joint with the piece of red wire. The short tube fits into that little cup, presumably to keep it clean. That’s the battery area.
So I picked up a set of assorted vacuum T-connectors and a length of rubber tubing at Canadian Tire and did the same on the Tiger. I cut the tank breather tube and inserted the T-connector, then added the extra tubing. I haven’t decided yet where it will terminate but for now it comes up the siderail and loops across under the fuel tank and is tucked in the other siderail. I think I will shorten it and add a loose end cap like on the AT.
Back right corner of the airbox
If you have a Tiger and want to do this mod, just be sure to cut the right hose. There are two leading out of the tank. One is the drain tube and one is the breather. The drain tube has a check valve on it so doesn’t allow water to come up. The breather tube is the larger of the two where they attach to the tank.
A Few Mods for Dirt
Fender Extender
I saw MotoBob add a front fender extender to his Triumph Tiger and thought it would be a good modification, given the dirt I plan to ride this summer. It keeps a lot of mud off the front header pipes and radiator, not to mention rain water off your pants. He used the Pyramid Plastics version, but my dealer, Montreal Moto, actually had a Triumph one in stock so I snapped it up.
Some extenders come with sticky pads, but I was advised to use silicone. I decided to make things easy for myself and remove the fender. Sounds reasonable, right? I could have done this mod just by removing the front wheel, but I decided to give myself some extra room and removed the fender. It was three bolts on each fork, so how hard can it be, right?
Little did I know that someone had used red threadlocker on the bolts, and one snapped off in the fork. Perhaps someone at Triumph can explain to me how a front fender is a permanent install?
Bolt broken in the fork foot.Yes, that’s definitely red threadlocker.
So I lost a day there. I drilled it out and was retapping it when I got distracted and broke the tap inside the old bolt. Ugh! What a mess, going from bad to worse. I bought some carboy drill bits (after some research on what the hardest, sharpest drill type is), but even a carboy bit wouldn’t touch the tap. Fortunately, my friend Mike, whom I’ve already mentioned a few times, came to my rescue. (He was the guy who refinished the bodywork of my old GS.) He has a proper workbench on a cement floor and drove the tap out with a punch, and then we could re-tap. The thread was a little loose from the abuse it had taken, but he showed me a trick to strengthen it with some 5 minute epoxy. Apply the epoxy like threadlocker but coat the bolt in WD40 so it doesn’t glue inside. Thread it in and after a few minutes remove the bolt and let the epoxy harden to the old threads. Neat! When I reinstalled the fender, I used blue threadlocker.
Lowering Footpegs
My Fastway Adventure footpegs give you the option to mount them standard or lowered. I mounted them standard so I wouldn’t have to adjust my foot levers, but with the dirt coming up, I thought I’d swap to the lowered position. Fortunately, Fastway provide a tool to use to press the pin out. Then you simply press it back in from the other side—from the top of the peg.
Out with the oldand in with the new.
Unlike the fender extender and most other jobs, this one went smoothly and I had the pegs back in again in no time. It was easy to adjust the height of my brake lever; just undo the lock nut and screw the adjuster into the master cylinder. Because I was screwing in, I didn’t even need to bleed the brake. And when I put the shift lever back on, I rotated it slightly from its previous position. This set-up lowers my pegs 8-10mm, which may not sound like much, but I suspect will be significant for knee comfort on long days and lowering centre of gravity when off-roading. The downside is that the pegs are a little closer to the road, but I don’t think I’ll be dragging them anytime soon. Or so we’ll see.
Before I reattached the brake lever.
Sidestand Extender
Another mod for the dirt. I’ve always gotten by without one of these, although it’s sometimes a pain to find a stone or stick to use instead when you are forced to stop in mud or soft grass. I went as far as to install a Touratech one on the GS once, but it lasted all of one ride. I got hung up on some rocks and when I got home I noticed I had an extender no more . . .
Needless to say, I was skeptical about buying another from Touratech, but different bike, different design. Besides, I got this one half price. One of the benefits of riding a discontinued bike is that if you keep your eye out you can sometimes snag accessories at discontinued prices. We’ll see how long this one lasts.
Now I remember what I don’t like about sidestand extenders: they interfere with the centre stand. Oh well, I’ll just have to put the sidestand down first before using the centre stand. No big deal, and maybe it will help stop my centre stand from rattling so much. Or maybe now there will be two stands rattling together. Anyway, I’m not wedded to this accessory and we’ll see how long it lasts.
Oil Filter Guard
The Outback Motortek skidplate for the Tiger 800 does not protect the oil filter. Some would say that’s a design flaw, but I suspect OM did it that way so you can change the oil without removing the guard. (They put a cutout in the guard for the sump plug.) But it does leave the oil filter a little vulnerable at the front of your engine. Triumph make a push on metal guard. It’s a simple design with indents that engage with the filter for an interference fit. Easy to remove when it’s time to change the filter, which I will do after running the bike a bit this spring. The engine’s been open for some time as I worked on everything, but with oil being so damn expensive (it costs me now over $80 for an oil change), I will just change the filter. Anything that might have strayed in will be captured in the filter.
It’s been a long haul but I think I’m ready now for another season and another 50,000K. I took the Tiger for a test ride yesterday and it’s shifting smooth again and the clutch feels great. The engine is running well, and while I still have to change the starter, it’s not crucial. I’m happy to be back on the road.
Here in Montreal, it’s Easter Monday and I think I can safely say we’ve had our last snowfall. Crocuses are pushing up and there are buds on the trees. Geese are returning and everywhere the signs of spring are upon us, including the sound of motorcycles back on the roads. For Canadian riders, it’s the best time of year. I wish everyone, wherever you are, a safe and enjoyable 2024 season.
Please leave below any comments you have and consider following. What mods and maintenance did you do in the off season? What are your plans for the coming season? I love hearing from readers, so drop me a line.
My friend Ray and I went looking for adventure and got more than we bargained for.
When I got back from Newfoundland, it was the end of July and I was already starting to think about teaching. More accurately, I was beginning to dream about teaching. (My school begins mid-August, unlike most universities that begin after Labour Day.) I get these dreams toward the end of summer. In them it’s the first day of the semester and I’m not ready—my outlines are still at the printers, my textbooks aren’t in, I’m running late and can’t find something I need in the office, and when I arrive to class, a senior respected colleague is sitting at the back, having decided to audit my course. That kind of thing. I thought I was the only person who got them, but apparently they’re so common among teachers that they’re called Teacher Dreams. Anyway, I was already getting them so decided I’d put off that second planned trip to The States and the BDRs until the following summer and use what little time there was left in my summer vacation period to do shorter trips.
I asked my buddy Ray if he’d join me in doing a local overnight adventure ride. Ray likes the big gleaming classic bikes and rides an Indian Chief Vintage, but we won’t fault him for that. He’s also got a 2003 KLR in army green and joins me on off-road adventures when he’s feeling especially masochistic. We’ve had some adventures in the past, usually involving a hydro line, water, mud, and something semi-legal, so I think he was a bit reluctant. But I assured him I’d find something mellow this time, and like the good sport he is, he agreed, so I started researching the ride. The idea was for a relaxed dirt and gravel ride that had some nice scenery in the mix.
My first choice was The Bytown Adventure Loop and went as far as to pitch it to my editor at my paying gig, northernontario.travel. It’s always nice to ride, even better when you get paid to do it. The Bytown Loop was announced a few years ago to great fanfare, including a whole YouTube video to present it, and it looked pretty perfect for our purposes—big-bike friendly, close to home, with food and accommodations available should we want to avoid camping and cooking. Easy peezy. The only problem is that I couldn’t find the GPS files anywhere. You can see my query on the YouTube page, with no response. Same when I asked the channel owner directly. Hmm . . . seems like a lot of work went to waste at the final stages of development or there’s something I don’t know.
A little more sleuthing brought me to GravelTravel and he has lots of files available for a small fee, including the TCAT, and another that caught my eye, the Ottawa Valley Overland Route. It seemed similar to The Bytown Loop so I checked it out on YouTube. The videos I saw looked pretty mellow—apparently a large section of it is on abandoned railway line, which is usually flat, straight, and easy. Forums did not reveal anything concerning. In fact, I saw one post asking if it could be done in a non-modified AWD car, so I thought we’d give it a go. It would mean camping and cooking, but to be honest, I prefer that to venturing into town. I bought the files, reserved a campsite at Granite Lake, about halfway through the loop, and bought Lanark County trail passes for Ray and me.
The route is listed as 2-3 days. We were going to do it in 2, which was a bit ambitious since it would take us 1.5 hours to get to Merrickville, where we would pick up the route. To make matters worse, no sooner had we begun when we had a delay. We had done some service on Ray’s bike earlier in the summer and as we rode toward the Ontario border I began to doubt that we had re-oiled his K & N air filter. I remember washing it, and setting it out to dry . . . but not oiling it. You really don’t want to run those filters dry at risk of damaging your engine, so when we reached Alexandria, we pulled into a Tim Horton’s and discovered that yes, it was dry. Thankfully, the ubiquitous and life-saving Canadian Tire there had a K & N maintenance kit so we oiled the filter and let it sit while we had our coffees. It was a small delay, but on a tight schedule, every unplanned stop costs you dearly later on.
Arriving in Merrickville in time for lunch at Bob’s Fresh Cut Fries.
Merrickville is a charming historic village with more heritage buildings for its size than any other town in Ontario. I’ve written about it as a favourite destination for bikers here, but in this case we were just passing through. Soon after lunch, we picked up the OVOR track and, to my great surprise, almost immediately hit mud.
I didn’t have the tires for mud. I still had on Dunlop Trailmax Mission tires from my tour, so I stopped to assess the situation. I was also thinking of Ray, to whom I had promised an easy ride. I waded in and it wasn’t deep, just a bit slippery. I looked at the map and it appeared to be a short section. Now in this situation, Clinton Smout advises to let your buddy go first, but since I’d got us here, I figured I was the test probe. Ray got out his phone to catch any action.
On the Rideau Trail north of Merrickville.
“It’s not bad”? Soon I’d be eating my words when my tires caked up. Some of this easy trail wasn’t so easy.
The Tiger doesn’t have much low-end torque and I have to keep the revs way up whenever off-roading or it stalls. Soon after this ride I did my valves and all the exhaust valves were tight. I’m hoping that opening them up will help with the stalling. A little further on we turned left onto some two track, crossed a swamp, and popped back out onto gravel.
Once back on the road, it was smooth going again up into Carlton Place, another pretty town that was on my Top 5 Ottawa Area Destinations list.
You can see me glance at the hydro line as we crossed beneath. Premonitions of things to come?
We filled up in Almonte before heading down into the bush south of Ottawa. The highlight of the day was riding the Lanark County Trail System south of Ottawa.
California Road in Lanark County.
I was loving this and could have done it all day! The Tiger is in its element here and the Tailmax Mission tires are fine for this stuff; the back end slides out but consistently. We stopped for a photo out over White Lake during the golden hour and the ride was now everything we were hoping it would be. We had a little ways to go to get to our campsite and were looking forward to the steaks I had packed in one of my panniers.
Sadly, the fun would come to an end too soon. We crossed a hydro line, then rode the line for a few hundred metres before exiting onto another gravel road. Unfortunately, what we didn’t know is that the bridge crossing the river that feeds into Duncs Lake was under construction and was out. We got off our bikes and surveyed; sometimes you can find a way through even if it’s closed (the semi-legal stuff I alluded to earlier). In this case, that wasn’t possible at all, and we happened upon a workman finishing up his day and he confirmed what we already knew: end of the road. (What was especially frustrating is that they were building a new road called, appropriately, The New Road, and it was smooth sailing on the other side. We looked at our map and figured we were about 2 kilometres from Highway 511 and the best bet was to return to the hydro line and follow it out to the road.
Hydro lines. When you’re stuck in the bush, they’re a lifeline to civilization, a man-made geometrical order imposed on the chaos of wilderness. But they can also lure you into that chaos, the fisherman’s line drawing you into dark waters. And speaking of water, what I’ve found is that they almost inevitably involve some of it at the low points as the terrain rises and falls. A ride along the primitive access trail of a hydro line is a rocky descent to a water crossing to a steep rocky hill climb to a moment of respite before another descent, and on, for hundreds, thousands of miles if you want, from dams to urban centres, traversing great swaths of Canadian boreal forest.
We got through that without incident but by now it was getting late, we were getting tired, and our off-road skills were suffering as a result. I offer these two videos for your amusement, at our expense.
Ray took his own tumble and decided, while down there in the tall grass, to take a little nap.
In the first video, you can hear concern in my voice. I was worried that we would come upon a crossing that was just too deep to cross and that would block us from the highway. At this point, I was getting some serious arm pump and had pretty much given up on making it to Granite Lake and our planned campsite. We’d figure out where we were going to spend the night once out of the bush.
But we never made it that far. At one water crossing, I got hung up on some rocks and dumped the bike. I hit the kill switch before it dunked but the bike wouldn’t start once righted. After trying for a while, I left it sitting there while deciding what to do.
Eventually, we ended up just pushing the bike out by hand and it was surprisingly easy. But it wouldn’t start, no matter how many times I cranked it. Thankfully, Ray got across without incident. I have to say, the KLR really showed its capabilities on this ride. Where I was struggling on the Tiger, Ray was getting over stuff using the tractor factor of the KLR.
I figured the Tiger was hydrolocked, but to get to the spark plugs on this machine you have to remove a lot of plastics and lift the gas tank. I didn’t want to start that work with 30 minutes of light remaining, so we made the decision to camp on the hydro line. I left my bike where it was, Ray rode his up to a clearing on the line, and we set up our tents there. I fired up my stove and cooked us the steaks. We had a little something from the liquor store in Alexandria, and I had a pipe and Ray had a cigar. It wasn’t exactly the campsite at Granite Lake I had imagined, but we made the best of a bad situation.
Still smiling, despite the bugs and our situation. Not smiling.
That night in my tent I had a restless sleep, worried that I might not have packed the spark plug socket. I wasn’t sure because it’s such an involved process to access the plugs that I might have concluded I’d never be lifting the tank trailside. But thankfully I had, and after morning coffee and porridge, we started tearing apart the Tiger.
In this photo, you can see a section of hose coming out of the bottom of the tank. That is a hose I carry for emergency syphoning should someone run out of gas. We found that when we lifted the tank, gas flowed out of the overflow drain. I’ve had that tank lifted before and it’s never done that. It was a clue that I should have paid more attention to.
We took out the plugs and they looked dry. We turned the engine over and no water came out of the plug holes. Next we thought that maybe the air filter was soaked and choking the engine. Unfortunately, Triumph put a weird 7mm hex screw on the airbox and I didn’t have that socket on me. I pride myself on being prepared but I came up short on this occasion.
We decided that I would ride Ray’s KLR out and up to the Canadian Tire in Renfrew. Why me? Ray said I had more experience off-roading and would have a better chance of getting out. There was some really gnarly terrain and a pretty significant water crossing, but I made it out, again, impressed by the KLR’s capabilities off road.
Shortly after I started heading up toward Calabogie, the skies opened up and it started to rain cats and dogs.
Wishing I’d zipped up my vents earlier.
It was weird weather. In Renfrew it was dry with blue skies. Little did I know it was still coming down hard back on the trail. Canadian Tire had the 7mm deep socket, and while in town I picked up lunch and water and gassed up Ray’s bike. I was planning for the worst case scenario.
As I rode south on the 511 toward the trailhead, I rode back into the torrential rain. It was bad! In fact, unbeknownst to us, this extreme weather was causing major flooding in nearby Ottawa and back home our wives were concerned. I got to the trailhead and started heading back in, but before I reached the bike, who did I see walking out but Ray. He was soaked to the skin and looked pretty miserable. Our “easy ride” had turned into 24 hours of hell, stuck in the bush in extreme weather. I was never going to live this down.
Ray had determined that the trail was now impassable and that I might be waiting for him at the highway. I guess he doesn’t know me as well as I thought. No extreme weather was going to prevent me from getting back to my bike. But he looked cold and miserable and it was teeming, so we agreed to abandon the troubleshooting and get a room in Calabogie. There was nothing more to do but turn around and splash Ray, who couldn’t get any wetter, then double him out to the highway.
“Hop on. This part is pretty tame.” Camera shuts off by itself at the worst time. Sorry about that.
Unfortunately, he had started walking without his helmet, so I doubled back, tidied our gear, grabbed his helmet and jacket, and returned to ride us up to the Calabogie Motel.
It was sunny in Calabogie but probably still raining 20 kilometres south on the trail. I didn’t feel very good about leaving my bike on the trail overnight but tried to put it out of mind. We went for dinner at The Redneck Bistro.
The next day we were up and out early, eager to get the airbox open and hopefully solve our problems. I’d been communicating with my buddy Riley from The Awesome Players, who has more experience with bikes than me. He too was confident that when we got it open, we’d find a soggy filter and after drying everything out the bike would fire right up again.
The trail was still waterlogged and I was worried about doing the deep crossing again. We didn’t need two hydrolocked bikes. But the KLR is a beast, and I told it so.
Things went a little sideways on me there but we got safely across. I left his bike at the top before the gnarly stuff, then walked down to the bike. With great anticipation and suspense, I got out the new 7mm socket and opened the airbox . . .
It was dry, bone dry. I was deflated. Ray had been walking in from the road and soon arrived. We continued our troubleshooting but were running out of ideas. We tested the plugs and there was spark. We took out the filter and the Unifilter prefilter. We checked all the fuses. The one for the auxiliary socket was blown and we thought we’d solved it then, but after replacing it, the bike still wouldn’t start. We looked down inside the throttle bodies for water. We inserted twisted paper into the throttle bodies and it came up dry. We put a drop of fuel from my stove bottle into each throttle body and still it did not fire! Not even a cough.
As a last resort, I walked up to where there was reception and called Riley to see if he could think of anything I hadn’t. He asked if I could hear the fuel pump cycle on with ignition. I did. He said he’d consulted with Player Ivan and it didn’t make sense: we had fuel, we had air, we had spark—the bike should run! We were all stumped, and with it already getting on the afternoon, I decided to throw in the towel. I didn’t want to spend another night on the hydro line and knew there were limits to what I could ask of Ray. Riley offered to trailer me back to Montreal if I got the bike out of the bush. So we took Ray’s bike again and rode back into Calabogie where I found someone who does trail rescue. It cost me a pretty penny but I was out of options.
Throwing in the towel.
Back in Calabogie, Riley and his brother arrived and we loaded both bikes onto their trailer and headed for home.
With Riley (right) and his brother Kelly. I owe these guys one large favour! photo credit: Ray Bourgeois
I will admit I was feeling more than a little deflated on the drive back to Montreal. It reminded me of when the water pump went on the 650GS while at Dirt Daze and, for a moment, I considered selling it for something more reliable. Perhaps Riley knew what I was thinking and told me about Super Dave’s mint 1200GS he got for a song.
And I was disappointed in myself. How could I ride into remote areas if I couldn’t be sure to get myself out? It felt like, after all my preparation over the preceding years to learn about bike mechanics in order to do that kind of riding, I’d been tested and had failed. I also felt bad for Ray, who had suffered hypothermia and water-damaged his phone. When I got back to Montreal, I stuck the bike in the shed and couldn’t bring myself to touch it for a few days.
When we are at our lowest, it’s our friends who lift us back up, people like Riley who drove out from Montreal to fetch me, and my buddy Mike who came by to shake me out of my doldrums and help troubleshoot the bike. He noticed almost right away the presence of water around the fuel line in the way the fuel was beading on parts, and we decided to drain the tank. I make home-brew beer and had an empty carboy to use. This is what we found in the tank.
Gas on top, water on bottom. Several litres of dirty water in the gas tank!
Gas and water are insoluble and water is heavier than gas. This is a 23 litre carboy so I estimate that there was at least 3 or 4 litres of water in the bottom of the tank, and since the fuel pump draws from the bottom, the bike wasn’t getting any fuel. No wonder it wouldn’t start!
How did the water get in the tank? The fill cap seal is good, so it didn’t get in there. The bike was running fine up until it wasn’t, so I didn’t get bad fuel in Almonte. No, the only theory that makes sense is this: at the river crossing, the engine and tank were hot. When I dunked the bike, the tank cooled rapidly, creating a vacuum, and water was siphoned up through either the tank overflow or breather tube that was hanging in the water. It would only take a bit of water to foul the injectors and prevent firing, but with this much water in the tank, now I think the bike was drinking water the entire time it was in the river.
I’ve posted this theory on ADVRider to see if anyone else has experienced it and no one said they had, but I did find some threads on ATV forums supporting it. There’s supposed to be a check valve that prevents water or sand entering and also serves as the tip-over sensor. It’s a simple ball bearing valve, but I haven’t been able to locate it on the Tiger. The solution, I think, is to reroute the tubes to a higher point. This is what the ATV guys have done. You don’t want to just cut the tubes because you don’t want fuel draining onto a hot engine, so I’m thinking I will run them back along the frame toward the rear of the bike and have them drain somewhere safely behind the engine.
I’d be very interested to hear what others think about this. I’m surprised more bikes don’t have this problem, which makes me wonder if it’s particular to the Tiger or my bike. I’ve seen guys completely submerge their bikes and they don’t get any water in the tank, so what goes? If you have any ideas, drop a comment below. I’ll be getting out to the shed in the coming weeks to do a bunch of work on the bike in preparation for the season, and I understand there are some water crossings on the MABDR.
Anyway, Mike and I removed the fuel pump and squeezed as much water out of the filter as we could, then let it dry and reassembled. We purged the fuel rail and I changed the spark plugs. With clean fuel, the bike reluctantly started, first on two cylinders, then three. I added some Seafoam to a tank of gas and gave it the Italian tune-up all the way to Cornwall and back. Now it’s running great again. I also put in some cheap oil for a few hundred kilometres, then drained and refilled with the good stuff, just in case some water got in the oil. The bike is running fine now, especially since doing the valves. I feel better for having an explanation for what happened and am no longer thinking of selling it.
Some people say that the essence of adventure riding is adversity. We watch Itchy Boots riding through Nigeria and Cameroon with their bad roads, bad gas (if you can find it), security check points and security risks and are impressed by her courage. On the other hand, there are lots of people in my club who just want to ride and skip the adversity. I remember Ray once said at a club event that “riding with Kevin makes you feel alive,” and I’m reminded of what D. H. Lawrence once said along the same lines, something like, “Only once you’ve accepted death can you truly live.” I’m paraphrasing, but I think I know what he’s on about: if you don’t face risk, you are only existing, not living. I don’t go seeking danger—I love life too much—but neither do I let “what ifs” stop me from living the life I want to live.
Memento mori. When I’m old and feeble and no longer able to ride a motorcycle, I’m sure I’ll be thinking wistfully of Ray’s and my Ottawa Valley Extreme Weather Misadventure.
Pin marks where my bike crapped out. You can see the trail along the hydro line. It ducks into the forest and exits onto the 511 just south of the line. The big water crossing is just left of the circular lake.
Marilyn and I got a kick out these signs. The NL potholes don’t compare to Montreal’s.
After a night crossing on the ferry from Newfoundland, I decide to ride The Cabot Trail, then stop at friends in Nova Scotia and Maine before the final push home.
The night crossing was terrible! I think it ranks up there as one of the most miserable nights of my life, such as once on a day trip in Germany when I missed the last train back to Munich with no cash in my pocket and too young to have a credit card so had to sleep on the street, or when I once slept in a trailer with a door that didn’t properly close, in June, in Canada, and got eaten alive all night by mosquitoes. The snoring was like a thousand mosquitoes entering my sleep to feast all night, or an over-sized dentist’s drill boring through my ear-plugs. I tried slumping in my chair, both sides, slouching, curling into a fetal position across two chairs (and an armrest), lying on the floor, trying a different floor . . . nothing worked. Eventually I gave up and went for breakfast in the dining hall.
This was the only enjoyable part of the entire crossing, during which I struck up a conversation with a young man at an adjacent table. He was from Cape Breton and had recently started working on an offshore oil rig. It was interesting to hear about that experience and life in Cape Breton. The story I kept hearing during my travels from him and other locals is that the Maritime winters are not what they used to be. Very little snow and many have sold their snowmobiles. Fishermen report of increased fog. Great White sharks have been spotted in the waters off Ingonish, etc. etc. Yeah, we know, you must be thinking—the planet is getting warmer. Duh! I only mention it because Marilyn has always said she wouldn’t retire to the Maritimes because she couldn’t take a Maritime winter. Thanks to global warming, the east might be back in the cards! (However, as I write this, it’s just received a record snowfall).
When I said I was headed to Baddeck on a bike, he suggested I take the 223, the Grand Narrows Highway that goes up through Iona. Nice tip! Here’s a taste.
It’s like that the whole way—twisty right along the shore of Bras D’Or Lake where it juts up into the Narrows. The pavement is a little broken but not bad. Keep in mind that I’m operating on one hour of sleep and that brush on the right that comes up close to the road is always a red flag for me, so I’m holding back. I would have my fun later in the day on the Cabot Trail.
After arriving at Baddeck Cabot Trail Campground, one of my favourite campgrounds and my second stay there this trip, I set up camp before hitting The Cabot Trail. Yes, the definite article deserves to be capitalized because The Cabot Trail is an iconic ride. I’ve done it before on my 650GS but wanted to do it again on the Tiger. So after a quick nap, I headed off.
I told myself, given my sleep debt, I’d just cruise it, but it wasn’t long before I was lured up into the adrenaline zone—until the bike twitched on a tar snake mid-corner. Never a pleasant feeling and I decided to cool it down.
The real fun was riding out to Meat Cove. The road is twisty and undulating and broken in spots, and then it turns to dirt. It started to rain, which made it more interesting. The dirt section had recently been graded so there weren’t any potholes or washboard to worry about.
This is exactly the kind of riding the Tiger is made for—twisty asphalt and light off-roading. I was having fun, once I got the damn ABS off. (I wish it were easier on the Tiger than having to navigate down through menus.) Unfortunately, I didn’t get footage of the best riding into the campground because the camera turned off for some unknown reason, but trust me, I was power-sliding the rear wheel out over the cliff-edge on those left-handers. 😉 Maybe it’s best that the wife doesn’t see that footage anyway.
I was pretty annoyed when I discovered the camera had stopped. To be honest, I’m not happy with much of the footage from the tour, so I’m definitely going to change how I work with the camera. Maybe I’ll use the phone app so I can see when and what I’m filming (or when I’m not filming), and maybe I’ll use the loop setting in which the camera constantly records over the same bit of memory card until I stop recording. The only issue with loop mode is it drains the battery fast. Voice commands don’t work with wind noise at speed, and I don’t want to be fumbling either with the camera or the phone, but I’ll experiment in the spring and come up with a better process. If you use an action camera, I’d be interested in hearing about your experience and set-up.
Anyway, back at Meat Cove, I arrived amid a torrential downpour, much to the amusement of hikers who were laughing at me while waiting it out in their SUVs. I didn’t care. A hormone concoction of endorphins, dopamine, adrenaline, and testosterone were coursing through my veins. It was time for a fresh lobster roll at the Clam Chowder Hut and the bragging rights photo.
Some bikes can’t make it in to Meat Cove but the Tiger sure can.
There’s a lot more of The Cabot Trail I could show but this is already going to be a long post, and there’s no shortage of footage available online. It’s always a great ride, and I’m glad I made the effort to do it again while I was near. I ended up doing the complete loop and was back at camp in time to enjoy a campfire and some of the bourbon I’d picked up earlier in the day.
My destination the following day was Urbania, Nova Scotia, just south of Truro, where some friends of mine live. I met Sharon in 1986 when I was an undergrad, so our friendship is long! I’ve admired her dedication to her writing career and teaching work and watched her fall in love and marry the man of her dreams, move out of the GTA (Greater Toronto Area) and into their dream home built largely by her equally talented husband, Kevin. If any of my older readers remember the Canadian 80’s band New Regime, well Kevin was the lead singer, among other accomplishments. This would be my first visit to their new place and I was looking forward to it. They have several acres of property that back out onto the Shubenacadie River.
The current was especially powerful after the rains the previous night.
The riding in Nova Scotia is excellent and probably worthy of a separate post, but I’ll just say here that Old Highway 4 from New Glasgow down to Bible Hill is about as good as it gets for a secondary highway through non-mountainous boreal forest. It was the original primary east-west highway until the Trans Canada was put in, and you can take it all the way to or from Sydney, Cape Breton. I followed it for much of the day and only jumped onto the Trans Can toward the end as I was racing against a system of precipitation that was moving into the area.
As I rode up the driveway to Sharon and Kevin’s, it started to rain. And it rained! There was a massive thunderstorm during the night and, in fact, major flooding in Halifax. We actually received an evacuation notice during the night because we were near a dam that was at risk of breaching. (Whatever . . .) My timing was lucky: I was happy to shelter in place under a solid roof with good friends. The extreme weather also got me thinking that you can’t escape climate change. Forest fires out west, ice storms in Montreal, flooding in the Maritimes—wherever Marilyn and I end up for our retirement, we’ll have to deal with some form of extreme weather.
The next day Sharon and I walked her property down to the river. One of the gems of their property is a tree they call Grandfather Ash. Unfortunately, since I visited, this magnificent tree was severely damaged in Hurricane Lee last September.
Despite the extreme weather, the visit was restful and restorative. The energy on their property is quiet and calm, and I hope my retirement home is as lovely. I keep talking about retirement because it’s very much on Marilyn’s and my minds these days. I’ll be teaching for another two years, until June 2026, and then we’ll be moving out of Quebec. I could write a lot about my frustrations with Quebec politics, economics, and sociology, but let’s stick to adventure touring. The short of it is we have to decide whether to move out west to where Marilyn has friends and family (good riding in The Rockies!) or out east to where we’d be closer to my friends and family. Either way, it’s going to be difficult leaving the friends we’ve made here, but I’m not going to think about that now. Thankfully, we have a few years to decide and emotionally to prepare.
After a few days visiting, I had to tear myself away and get back on the road. I had two more nights planned and wanted to get over the border into Maine the first night. I headed back to the Trans Canada on the beautiful, winding 236.
I had to get around the Bay of Fundy and took the highway as far as Sackville, then split off onto the 106 because I prefer secondary highways. Soon after crossing into New Brunswick, as I came through Dorchester, I saw a giant sandpiper at the side of the road.
“Shep” the sandpiper
I’ve seen the giant goose in Wawa and Husky the Muskie in Kenora, so I thought I’d stop and take a closer look. Even more impressive was the Bricklin parked in the lot.
Bricklin was a Canadian car manufacturer located in Saint John, New Brunswick, in 1974-75. With the help of provincial funding, they built about 3,000 cars, but problems with reliability of the acrylic body panels and other issues drove the price up and the car company soon went bankrupt. The car has a Chrysler slant 6 engine, a Datsun tail, and other parts from Chevrolet and Opel. It’s crowning feature are the winged doors that open upwards. I got talking to a young lady out front and accidentally mistook it for a DeLorean, which must happen a lot. The DeLorean is another long-nosed, snub-tailed, winged car of yesteryear, made famous by the Back to the Future movies. This Bricklin’s in great shape, obviously without a spot of rust on it, and no blistering that plagued the early models.
I’ve said it before, this is what I love about solo touring. I can stop whenever something catches my eye, meet people, and explore. It turns out that I’d stumbled upon the Dorchester Jail, the second oldest jail in Canada and the only privately owned provincial jail and Canada. It’s also the only privately owned Death Row in Canada and was the location of the last double-hanging in New Brunswick—the Bannister Brothers. That reminds me of a skull I once saw at Eldon House in London, Ontario, that was from the first hanging in Canada. Actually, it was the first two hangings because the rope broke on the first try, which leads me to wonder if the executioner apologized to the murderer for having to put him through his execution twice. Hmm . . .
Dorchester Jail
I’ve never spent a night in the clink but if I ever want to, I know where to go. The jail has been converted to an AirBNB and you can enjoy a night in a cell for a moderate price. I don’t know if that includes use of the courtyard during the day because there was at the time of my visit another interesting vehicle there beneath a cover.
This bad girl (the truck, not the woman, who graciously lifted the cover to show me) had a bit more rust on her than the Bricklin. Love the tractor tire front bumper, almost as good as the Bricklin’s featured “energy-absorbing” bumpers.
Also of interest was this metal arch that was constructed from horseshoes, locks, car parts, tools, chains, and prisoner shackles. And amid it all—I don’t know if built or placed—was a bird’s nest.
This place was a feast for eyes, but I had miles to go before I sleep so had to push on. I soon was passing through Saint John, NB (not to be confused with Saint John’s, NL), stopping only to fuel up and caffeinate up because it looked like it was going to be a late arrival at my destination, Cobscook Bay State Park in Maine. By the time I arrived at the border, it was already dusk.
Are you nervous when crossing borders? I’ve crossed the US-Canada one so many times I don’t get nervous anymore, but I’m always cautious about what I say because I know the power these officers have. I knew they were going to ask me the usual questions and was prepared. Our conversation went something like this:
Customs Officer: “Where do you live?”
Me: “Montreal.”
CBP Officer: “What is your purpose entering the US?
Me: “I’m on my way back from Newfoundland and just passing through.”
Officer: “Are you travelling with anyone?”
This is where things started to go sideways. I had pulled up alone so wasn’t expecting this.
Me: “Well, I was travelling with my wife, but she flew back early from Newfoundland for work and I’m riding back alone.”
Officer: “Are you meeting anyone in The United States?”
Another unexpected question. Now I should know better than to say more than is necessary, but I’m honest to a fault. I did, in fact, have plans to meet up with a reader of this blog who lives and rides in Portland, and we thought it would be fun to get in some riding together while I was passing through. So I answered honestly. I thought, better safe than sorry.
Me: “Actually, I’m meeting a fellow rider in Portland, and we’re going to go for a ride together. She’s a reader of my blog.”
This answer did not seem to help, and now I was beginning to feel more sorry than safe.
Officer: “What is your relationship with this person?”
He clearly wasn’t familiar with motorcycle culture. Or blogging.
Me: “I write a blog about my motorcycling. I’m meeting someone who is a reader of my blog. She lives in Portland and, since I will be passing through, we thought we’d meet up for a ride together.”
Officer: “So, it’s . . . like a date?”
I felt like I was digging myself in deeper. He clearly had missed the reference to my wife. Some jokes came to mind that might have lightened the moment, but I know enough never to joke with these guys. Sometimes I think that a lack of humour is a job requirement. I felt like I was at the door of a speakeasy and chose my words carefully.
Me: “No, I’m married. I’m meeting a fellow motorcyclist in Portland to go for a ride together. That’s all.”
I was tempted to enlighten him about the communal aspect of motorcycle culture, about blogging and the writer-reader relationship, or to provide a short romantic history of my marriage, but like I tell my composition students, sometimes less is more. The ball was in his court. By now the notorious Maine mosquitoes were out and finding their way up my nose. I looked him straight in the eye.
Officer: “Have a nice night,” he said, and handed me back my passport.
I felt like I’d just hit another tar snake and was happy I still had some of that bourbon in my pannier.
An hour later I had my tent set up, food on, bourbon poured, and a fire lit. That night I wandered down to the water to get out from under the trees of my campsite. The sky was huge and clear, and it was a perfect night for stargazing. I lay on my back and used a great little app called SkyView (Android and Apple) to pick out the constellations.
Highway 1 Maine is a secondary highway that follows the shoreline almost all the way into Portland, passing through quaint towns along the way. I took it west-east in 2017 when I did my first tour out to Cape Breton and The Cabot Trail and my plan was to do it again the other way this time, dropping down into Bar Harbour en route, which I’d heard a lot about. The cost of secondary highways is always time. It was very hot and the going was slow, slower than I remembered. Still, Google Maps was telling me that Bar Harbour is only about a 2-hour ride from Cobscook Bay, so I thought it would be perfect for a mid-morning coffee stop.
I took a short detour out to charming Lubec, ME.
I wouldn’t know because I never made it. As I was coming down Highway 3 south, I got stuck behind no less than four trucks—a hydro truck, a cement truck, a transport truck, and a dump truck—with no chance to pass. Volume got heavier and slower and it got hotter as morning developed into midday. At the same time, what I was seeing wasn’t particularly appealing—clam huts, lobster shacks, pirate-themed mini-putt, hotels, tour busses, hunting and fishing stores—and I began to wonder why I was there, crawling along in a wake of diesel fumes. There’s a national park there and I’m sure the coastline is impressive, if you can get to it, but whatever natural beauty might be drawing all these people to this region is so buried beneath layers of tourist development that I didn’t want to spend any more time trying to find it. As the traffic slowed to a crawl I said “Fuck it!,” pulled a U-turn, and got the hell out of there.
Now I was running late (am I never?) so had to abandon my plan to continue along Highway 1. Google Maps was saying the fastest way to Portland was the interstate, so that’s what I did. After the frustrations of the secondary highway, and given the heat, I was happy to ride at speed. I decided to get my coffee from a Dunkin’ Donuts at one of the exits and met there, by chance, Eric Foster, whom I had written about in a previous post. He’s the guy who crashed on the Trans-Taiga and was rescued by local trappers. On this day he was riding the newer Tiger 900 and had seen my 800 XC, the same as the one he crashed, so jumped off the highway when I did to have a chat. Small world. I’d never met him in person but it now made sense; I remember he lives in Maine. He told me Bar Harbour sucks during the tourist season. Good to know.
I was down to my final night of the tour and thankfully my friend, Berry, had something special planned for me. Berry and I started corresponding a few years ago. At the time, she also rode a 650GS, so found my blog that way. Soon our online conversations turned to other things like diet, politics, and literature, but motorcycles are the thing we usually talk about. When she decided to upgrade her bike, I was honoured that she sought my opinion on the Suzuki V-Strom 650, which of course I endorsed. So when I knew I’d be cutting back through Maine and passing close to Portland, we decided to try to meet and get in a ride. She went one step further and graciously offered to put me up the night in her beautiful house. This meant not only that I was spared setting up camp one last time but also that I could see a little of Portland. She took me on a tour of the old town out to a seaside restaurant where we could sit out and eat seafood while hearing the crashing surf from where it came. It was a fitting end to my Atlantic tour.
We did get in that ride. The next day, Berry followed me part of the way up toward the Canadian border, or rather, I followed her. I figured, let the local lead and choose the route. Here we are riding Highway 153 which, as you can see, is pretty nice.
Eventually, Berry split off at Conway and started heading back toward Portland. It was nice meeting her and putting a face to words, and I’m sure it won’t be the last time we meet. In fact, the NEBDR ends in Maine, so it may be sooner rather than later.
Berry and her new Suzuki V-Strom 650
There was one more good section of road remaining on this tour and it was The Kancamagus Highway (NH Rte 112) from Conway to Lincoln. Rever lists it as a G1 road, which is one of America’s Best Roads (Epic Incredible Roads)—their wording—and I would agree. After a rip over the mountain range, you get to decompress as the 112 winds its way parallel to the Pemigewasset River through the village of Loon Mountain, where I visited for the New Hampshire Highland Games for my very first overnight adventure tour, back in September 2016.
At a certain point of every tour, you ride back into familiar territory. It’s always a very noticeable sensation for me. After exploring for weeks and seeing everything for the first time, eventually, usually in that final day, you ride a road you’ve ridden before and remember the first time you rode it. You might even recollect your excitement or heightened attention at seeing it for the first time, and I guess that is why I like to travel. It’s that curiosity about the world that comes alive when you are experiencing the unfamiliar. Time slows, days are long and full, your senses fully alert, your mind constantly thinking, processing information, acquiring knowledge, keeping you safe. I can’t see myself spending vacation time at a resort; I think I’d get bored in two days.
The motorcycle is the perfect mode of travel for people like me who like to experience something new. And Newfoundland was certainly new (pun intended). I don’t think I could get bored with it, and I’m sure I’ll be back sometime in the future, God willing. In the meantime, it’s going to be very interesting to try a different type of touring altogether next summer when I do the BDRs (MA and NE, back to back). I’ve never done two weeks+ of constant off-roading, so there will be new technical and athletic challenges for me. At the same time, I’ll be exploring the Appalachian Mountain Range from West Virginia to the Canadian border. If you want to follow along, you know what to do.
What are your plans for the coming season? I always like to hear from readers so drop a comment below.
Lunch at The Blue Donkey and up through Smuggler’s Notch to the border. In total, I was on the road 25 days over just about 10,000 kilometres (6,000 miles) for an average of 400 kilometres per day.
After dropping Marilyn off at the Saint John’s airport, I ride solo back across the island, stopping at some aviation landmarks along the way.
It had been a great 17 days together on the bike through Gaspé, PEI, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland, but Marilyn had to be back for work so off she flew. Now I was on my own again, and it took me a few hours to adjust; I’d become so accustomed to having her on the back as company.
I had to cross the island again back to Port aux Basque and, as some of you know, I’m an aviation enthusiast so decided to make some detours to historic landmarks en route. The first was the airfield in Harbour Grace where Amelia Earhart took off on her solo flight across the Atlantic in 1932. On the way there, for my mid-morning break, I stopped at the Tim’s in Bay Roberts for coffee and some minor maintenance.
Earlier in the day, I’d noticed one of the Tiger’s two headlamps burnt out. I had a spare on hand and it was a quick fix in the parking lot. One of the things I like about the Triumph is that it doesn’t have all that fairing at the front like the old Beemer. Changing a light bulb on that machine requires removal of the windscreen, the headlight guard, the front flashers, the side panels, the instrument panel, and finally, the fairing. On the Tiger, you simply twist to remove the cover. Nice!
Changing a headlamp on the TigerChanging the headlamp on the GS
With that done, off I flew as well, until I realized I’d left my hydration knapsack hanging on the back of a chair at Tim’s. Doh! As I rode back toward it, I pondered the chances of it still being there in small-town Newfoundland compared to if I’d left it unattended in Montreal. It took me maybe 15 minutes to get back to the coffee shop and to my relief but not surprise the knapsack was still there. Phew! It had some valuables inside and I would have been very annoyed if I’d lost it.
The first thing you see upon entering Harbour Grace is a statue of Amelia next to a Douglas airplane named The Spirit of Harbour Grace (see banner image above). The donors don’t win the Pulitzer for the most original name. The park of the same unfortunate name contains other items of interest, such as a replica of the famous flight log. There’s also a tourist info centre and the nice young student employees directed me up to the famous airstrip, which was really the only reason I was there.
When you arrive, after a few kilometres of gravel, you see one of those signposts pointing distances to destinations, only this one denotes famous flights in and out of the airstrip. You can see Earhart’s 3,132 kilometre flight to Culmore, Ireland, in 1932. Apparently WWI American ace Eddie Rickenbacker also used the airfield in 1936. The unassuming little clearing slopes slightly downward heading west, as planes naturally would take off into the oncoming easterly wind. Earhart would have had to turn 180 degrees after take-off before heading out over the Atlantic toward Ireland.
By the time Amelia attempted to circumnavigate the world in 1937, her legacy was secure. When she disappeared under mysterious circumstances on June 2, she became a legend. Like the Titanic, she took on a mythical significance larger than her physical accomplishments, which were numerous. The fateful end became one of the great mysteries of the modern era, taking us into the realm of imagination and the great unknowns of life and death. The grainy, black and white video footage we have of her does not seem to match the iconic status of what she’s come to mean, but reminds us that she was, in the end, human just the same.
If you are reading this on your phone, use landscape orientation.
DEAR GEORGE: THE LOST LETTER
I’ll admit my big break came from my looks. You said when I walked into your office, you knew you’d found your woman. Lucky, I guess, how much I looked like Lindy, although I never liked the nickname. No woman likes to be compared to a man. They said I even moved like him, shared the same DNA and fear of fame. I can’t complain,
but it wasn’t easy climbing into that plane with a drunk, putting my life in his trembling hands. I saw the bottle tucked behind his seat and would have thrown it out the hatch but knew from Daddy how that ends. Instead, I helped carry him to the dock, managed our “personnel problem” as best I could. They didn’t let me fly, just the easy bit over land, and that’s why
when I did it myself, solo, it was like a single finger held up to the world as if to say, “Women can do this too.” Nobody thought I could, even you. And more. Records fell like ticker-tape, didn’t they—altitude, distance, time merely obstacles of the mind, my body just another obstacle, an accident of sex, not tomboy but woman who only wants what’s fair and true.
Don’t patronize me! I said I wouldn’t fly the derby if the girls and I started east, the guys getting the harder route over the mountains, and meant it. When they kicked us out of the Bendix Trophy I’d had enough; they could find another to fly their starlet to the race. Even in marriage I only ever asked for freedom. The note I wrote on our wedding day said I’d never claim anything from you and asked the same.
So, dear, if you’re reading this you know I did not make it home. Maybe it’s for the best; I was only ever afraid of growing old, as most women will attest, and preferred to go in my plane. And since we’ve always been this honest, there is one thing more: the rumours that I was pregnant when I flew round the earth’s belly are true, but the baby wasn’t yours. I think you knew.
There are many theories as to what happened to her, including that she and navigator Fred Noonan crash landed on Gardner Island, south of the intended Howland Island. Human bones and artifacts, including a sextant and a ladies compact, were found, but the bones, now lost, by some accounts did not match her dimensions. As I write this, there are reports that an American team has found her plane 100 miles south of Howland on the bottom of the Pacific, about 5000 meters down. All we have is sonar imagery resembling her plane, but it will be very interesting to follow these developments.
Back in Newfoundland, the famous airstrip was unused and abandoned on the day I visited. The only person around was an older gentleman named Austin, who has built a house on the property adjacent to the airstrip. Maybe it was because I was on my own for a change and knew only I would pay the price for delaying, but I indulged in a conversation with this unusual man.
He has built several airplanes which he stores in a hangar beside the airstrip but has never obtained his pilot’s licence. He said he never had the time to complete the licensing process. He also built the house, but never connected it to NL Hydro because, he says, they charge too much ($50,000, if I remember correctly). He had all the windows of his house open on the day I was there to help deal with some mold that had developed in the recent hot, humid weather. He has a large generator that he uses when needed but hasn’t installed A/C or, I guess, a dehumidifier. He also has, sitting beside his house, an ancient wheel loader which, he says, he bought for dealing with “Snowmageddon.” It had a fuel line leak and he was just about to deal with that.
I felt for this solitary, older man with the unused airplanes, the moldy house, and the leaky heavy machine, and was tempted to get out my tools and give him a hand, but all I had time for on this particular day was a brief conversation. Maybe I shouldn’t feel sorry for him; he’s clearly staying busy through his retirement. I suspect there are a lot of these brilliant eccentrics in Newfoundland, and I was happy to have been given a glimpse into his extraordinary and fiercely independent life. We parted, not before exchanging names and promising to meet again.
My next stop was Gander, which we missed coming the other way. I’d heard of the famous airport, and frankly, had become a little tired of hearing about it, if you want to know the truth. Okay, it’s remarkable that they managed to host all those unexpected guests during 9/11, but really . . . a broadway musical? To be honest, I was more interested in seeing the main lobby as a time capsule of another era. (They have managed to retain the original decor.) I was also interested in the idea of all those famous people like The Beatles, Marilyn Monroe, Elvis, and Frank Sinatra having set foot in there. Oh yeah, and the Queen. Now we can add the adventure boots of 650thumper to that list.
The coin parking meter out front was cute. What a contrast from the Montreal airport where you pay $8 for 20 minutes or get 30 seconds in the drop-off zone before security start yelling at you.
My third aviation stop of the day was The North Atlantic Aviation Museum, right across the street from the airport. By the time I got there, the museum was closed but that was okay; it was getting late and I only had time for a quick blow-through, so to speak, of the outdoor exhibits anyway.
There’s a lot more aviation history in Newfoundland I would have liked to explore, such as where Alcock and Brown took off (somewhere in Saint John’s) for the first ever transatlantic flight, but that would have to wait for another time. Half an hour later I was in Notre Dame Provincial Park in time to go for a swim before setting up camp. It had been hot and the swimming there was a welcome relief at the end of a long day.
The next day I got an early start in an attempt to beat the heat. It was easy highway riding and I settled in to several hours and put over 300 kilometres behind me, stopping only at the Canadian Tire in Corner Brook to top up my oil. I’d ridden 6000 kilometres since my oil change, some of it high revs in heat, and the sight glass told me the oil was a little low, so I added 200 mL to get me home. While I was eating lunch, it started to rain, and it rained, and rained, sometimes hard, for the remainder of the day.
I’m not spooked about riding in rain. I have good rain gear and trust my tires. I was ahead of schedule and the prudent thing would have been to pull off somewhere warm and dry and enjoy a good book, or to get to the terminal early and wait in the warmth there. Instead, I decided to spend the remaining time exploring Cape St. George off the south-west corner of the island.
My friends and wife will attest that my motto in life, aside from Life Is An Adventure, is “Pack it in.” Maybe because I recognize that time and life are so precious, I feel that an idle moment is a wasted moment. It’s an affliction I’m working on. In this instance, I was less successful and decided, despite the rain, to try to loop the cape. It would be a good challenge, and I like a challenge.
The lady at the gas station in Stephenville said it takes about two hours, so that would leave me plenty of time with buffer to get the rest of the way to Port aux Basque for my night crossing. In the back of my mind was also the possibility that there might be some good ADV riding out there, and there was. I ventured off the pavement down to the water for a photo op.
I made it out to Boutte du Cap Park, but shortly after rounding the point and starting back on the west side, the road climbed into fog. Now I was forced to ride at 55 km/hr and was at risk of missing my ferry, not to mention hitting a moose, so I bailed. This will give you a sense of what I was seeing just before I pulled the U-turn.
And this will give you a sense of the cold, wet ride back along the coast to the ferry. I know these are boring so I’ve kept them short.
At the ferry terminal, I changed into dry clothes and couldn’t resist getting a hot coffee, a decision that would come back to haunt me later. I normally am not affected by caffeine, even late in the day, but that night, in unfamiliar surroundings, on my own, with distractions all around, I think I got about an hour of sleep. I’m a pretty solid sleeper, even in public places, but some A-hole front and centre of my section sounded like he was swallowing his tongue the entire night. I eventually got up and searched for another section, but each floor had several loud snorers. It really showed me how prevalent snoring and apnea are in our culture. I’ve recently been studying this through Andrew Huberman’s podcasts in which he talks about mouth breathers and diet and obesity and how these factors result in facial modification, sleep disturbances, and decreased quality of life. Something to consider.
It was a crappy way to end a wonderful first visit to The Rock. I was happy to dock and headed straight to Baddeck Cabot Trail Campground, set up camp, then took a power nap before hitting The Cabot Trail. But this is already pretty long, so I’ll save that iconic ride and the rest of my tour through Nova Scotia and Maine for another post.
Have you visited any of these sites? What is your connection to aviation, motorcycling, or Newfoundland. Feel free to comment below. I love hearing from readers.
We complete our tour of Newfoundland with a few days in Saint John’s and ride part of The Irish Loop.
We arrived in Saint John’s late in the day and hungry, so after cleaning up we asked the staff at The Alt where we could get a meal at that hour. They naturally directed us further down Water Street. We’d heard of the lively Water and George Streets and were looking forward to taking in some of that Irish pub nightlife, only when we got there, we were disappointed.
As we sat on a sidewalk patio awaiting our food, I took a look around. We were definitely out of place. For one, we were married, and for two, were were sober. The scene reminded me of The Simpsons episode in which Marge asks Homer not to show up drunk at Lisa’s recital. “Irish drunk or American drunk?” Homer asks, just to be clear. I hadn’t seen this level of drunkenness since high school. The average age here was more like mid-twenties but they were clearly regressing. What was it George Bernard Shaw said about youth? It’s wasted on the young.
More disturbing were the greying and balding 50-year-old single males amongst them, leaning against lampposts and slurring directions to the next pub, which is all of a 100 feet further down the road, if they can make it that far. Well, to each his or her own, I guess. We just aren’t into that scene.
On the other side of the road were a group of homeless youth, or so they seemed to me. They had all the tell-tale signs of homelessness—unkempt hair and clothing, the tattered and filthy knapsack, and a certain loitering, lounging body language that indicated they had all the time in the world and no place else to go. There was also a certain solidarity among them, as if their immediate friends were all that mattered in the world, deaf and blind to the surrounding animal show. Or maybe it was they who were trying to be invisible. When you are the most vulnerable, you learn to be invisible should some violent drunk take a dislike to your presence. The drunken revelry and the sad homelessness were a strange juxtaposition, separated by 50 feet of blacktop.
Music emanated from the open window of the pub out onto the terrace where we sat and across the street. It was an Irish jig, and from the sounds of the cheering and clapping inside, the folks were really enjoying it. I might have been too but, alas, as a former side drummer of The Black Watch (RHR) Pipes & Drums, I know what a good jig sounds like, and this wasn’t it. I’m going to sound like a music snob, but it was sloppy. In “Two Ways of Seeing a River,” Mark Twain suggests that the steamboat pilot can no longer appreciate the beauty of the river after knowing of its dangers, and I guess I will say that knowing what good Irish music sounds like has made me unable to appreciate the beauty when it’s bad. We missed the genuine Newfoundland music on this tour, to our great disappointment, but that’s an extra reason to return.
Finally our food arrived and we soon retreated back to our hotel. Water Street was a huge disappointment. We have since heard it referred to as the New Orleans of the North. I’ve never been to New Orleans, and now I’m not sure I want to.
The next day I was hoping to meet up with a former professor from my undergrad days. We had lost touch over the years but recently reconnected when I asked him to write an endorsement for my new book. He was as gracious as ever in both agreeing to do it and for what he wrote. I gave him a call and suggested we meet for breakfast, but in true Newfoundland style, he invited us over for a homemade one.
The term “famous Canadian poet” is almost an oxymoron, but if one exists, it would be Don McKay. He has written over a dozen books of poetry, poetics, and philosophical musings, and edited countless others. He has twice won Canada’s highest literary award, the Governor General’s Award, and once the most lucrative prize, the Griffin Poetry Prize. In 2008, he was made a Member of The Order of Canada. I was lucky enough to have studied under him at The University of Western Ontario (renamed Western University) back in the 1980’s and his poetry has been a major influence on my own.
It was delightful to see him again, as modest and affable as ever, to introduce Marilyn, talk writing and, of course, get his advice as a local on where to visit. He suggested we hike up Signal Hill for a good view of the harbour, and later, to stop in at Running the Goat Press when passing through Tors Cove on The Irish Loop. Suddenly there was a knock at the door. It was another former student of his and, coincidentally, someone who spends part of the year in Guelph, Ontario, and is a friend of my brother-in-law! So now there were the four of us in Don’s kitchen and it was almost a party. All we needed was a fiddle and bodhrán to make it a complete Newfoundland moment.
Marilyn and I decided to do that hike so headed off, promising to stop in again in a few days and say good-bye before leaving Saint John’s. By this time I’d found an AirBNB, which enabled us to stay a few more days in town without taking out a second mortgage. I’m really glad we did. It would have been a shame to leave only with the impression of the night before. We were able to check in early, park the bike in the back, then head off on foot to explore the city.
Saint John’s Harbour
The trail took us past The Battery as it snaked its way up the side of the mountain, the view of the harbour getting better with each laborious midsummer metre of elevation. It’s called Signal Hill because Guglielmo Marconi used it to receive the first trans Atlantic telegram and my legs were saying he chose wisely. Eventually we reached the top and had an excellent view not only of the harbour but over to the Cape Spear Lighthouse and east out to the open ocean. The surrounding cliffs and narrow passage provide excellent military defence for the harbour. No wonder Saint John’s developed where it is.
Signal Hill Battlement
We had more friends to meet later in the day once we came back down. We had met Serge and Ang in 2021 on a ferry in British Columbia as we rode the Sunshine Coast and had kept in touch through the intervening years. By coincidence, now they were touring Newfoundland at the same time so we had to meet up and do some riding together. We met at The Battery Cafe to catch up and decide on a plan.
We decided to ride part of The Irish Loop, as far as possible in a day excursion. The next day we met at Cape Spear Lighthouse, the eastern-most point of Canada. Marilyn and I had waded into the Pacific Ocean in Tofino in 2021 and now wanted to do the same here, but there were a lot of warnings about going near the shoreline so, unfortunately, we had to remain up at the cafe enjoying the exquisite coffee and pastries.
We eventually headed off and our first stop was in Tors Cove and its bookstore Running the Goat Press, only about 50 kilometres south of the lighthouse. The press specializes in children’s literature and, according its website, “many of Running the Goat’s publications are letterpress printed at the print shop, using moveable lead type, and sewn by hand.” These books are labours of love, and if you are a bibliophile or just have some children in your life who like to read, be sure to stop by or check out their website. The owner, Marnie Parsons, is another old friend from undergrad days, and it was lovely to see her again and get a tour of the press. We bought some books for our great-nieces and Marnie was happy to ship them home for us.
Surveying Tors Cove. No whales on this day.
After a packed lunch overlooking the bay, we continued further down to Ferryland, a region that dates back to the 17th Century as one of Canada’s first settlements. The name is an anglicized version of Forillion, the same name as the national park we stayed at in Gaspé. In my head I had been spelling it Fairyland and in many ways that would be a more appropriate spelling. There is something magical about its geography. We rode across a bridge and climbed a ridge-line on our adventure bikes (Serge and Ang have KTM 790s) up to a lookout. A fog drifted in and hung over the tiny islands strung across the bay and the view seemed like something out of Lord of the Rings.
That was as far as we got on our slow-paced day. I didn’t mind. Truth is, I was in need of a few easy days. I’ve come to realize that adventure touring requires some recovery days off the bike. When I did the west coast tour, I stopped in Calgary for several days to visit family, and later, spent another few days in North Vancouver before touring the island. I love riding and can ride all day every day, but what my heart wants my body can’t always deliver. When I got home after this tour, I was tired and decided not to cram in that second tour in The States I had planned to do before going back to work. I needed some time on the couch in and around Montreal to recover and recharge.
For future tours, I’m going to build into my schedule local sightseeing and days lounging around camp, reading and writing. I’m pretty fit for my age, but I don’t even think it’s a matter of age. In a recent video, Runa of Off She Goes was candid about being tired after 40 straight days on the road and looking forward to being home. I think vloggers like Itchy Boots spend days off the bike doing video editing, but we never see those days and it seems like they are constantly travelling. Anyway, that was one of my discoveries this trip: schedule days off the bike to rest, recover, and recharge.
We said good-bye to our BC friends and wished them well on the rest of their tour of Newfoundland and in re-crossing the country to get home.
Heading down into Branch on the 92.
The next day we were on our own again and decided to visit Cape Saint Mary’s Ecological Reserve on the south-west tip of the Avalon Peninsula. The aptly-named Bird Rock is home to thousands of seabirds, particularly gulls and gannets. Newfoundland really is a bird-watchers paradise. As we rode onto the cape, fog drifted in as well, and we wondered if we’d chosen the wrong day to visit.
Thankfully, like most weather on the Atlantic, it was temporary. The hike along the cliffs is something in itself, but Bird Rock is special. As you approach, there’s a distinct smell in the air that I couldn’t quite place until we arrived at the tip: it’s bird excrement. But don’t let that put you off; you get used to it. The sight of thousands of birds in one place is memorable, but what struck me more immediately was the sense of being perched ourselves on the edge of a towering rock formation. It’s dizzying, and in fact, Marilyn wouldn’t approach the edge because she was experiencing some vertigo. I was able to sit near the edge and watch the birds soaring in the expanse just beyond.
It was calming in a meditative sort of way, and I could hear the waves crashing in the cove hundreds, or was it thousands, of feet below. My perspective was distorted by the absence of anything familiar with which to judge distances.
The gannets are in trouble due to the Avian Bird Flu. Just a few years ago the rock was noticeably less populated, but it appears they have recovered to some degree, based on what we saw. The current Wikipedia page puts their numbers there at 24,000. The cape is a protected area and we’ll just have to hope that the bird flu, like our Covid, has passed through the community and numbers have stabilized.
Back in Saint John’s, it was our final evening together so we decided to treat ourselves to dinner out at Bannerman Brewing Co.. Later, we took another run at the pub night-life and met up with some new friends at The Ship for a drink. We’d met Mark and Mandy in Terra Nova National Park. They were two-up on an Africa Twin and we learnt they live in Bruce County, Ontario, where we had visited when we looped Georgian Bay. Mark is also a teacher so with two shared interests we immediately hit it off. Neither Mark nor I particularly wanted to talk about work, but I heard enough to know that the teachers in Ontario are facing similar budget cuts as teachers in Quebec. It’s sad to know that in a country as rich as ours, education is chronically under-valued and under-funded.
But it was summer and the start of semester was still a month away. The evening was warm and the ale assuaged any anxiety over the approach of autumn. It was a fitting way to end the tour. The Newfoundland geography had been everything we’d hoped it would be, and maybe some of that Newfoundland culture had rubbed off on us too—the connection with others, old friends and new. It’s a bit of a stereotype but Newfoundlanders are generally very down-to-earth and friendly. Maybe that has something to do with being so close to the elemental nature of the earth—rocks, cliffs, ocean, glaciers, grasslands, wildflowers, wildlife, and the ever-present, ever-changing climate.
People often ask me when I return from a tour like this for my favourite memory. In this case, it’s hard to isolate a single moment, although if I had to, it would be seeing the caribou at Point au Choix. But what I take away from the trip overall is a feeling, a mood, a style of living and life that is unlike any other with perhaps the exception of Dawson City, a similarly isolated community that pulls together against a harsh yet beautiful geography. I know Newfoundland is probably very different through the winter months than how we saw it, but I equally know that the people are just the same regardless of the season. We went looking for natural beauty and were not disappointed, but the discovery of the trip, at least for me, were the people. I can see how a place like this could get under your skin. We will definitely be back. As always, these trips are just a taste and leave one with an appetite for so much more.
Quidi Vidi
The next morning, after saying our good-byes to Don, I dropped Marilyn off at the airport. I was now on my own and had given myself two days to cross the island again and get to the Port aux Basques ferry terminal. I still had a few things to see en route, like the airstrip where Amelia Earhart took off on her cross-Atlantic flight, the Gander airport, and the North Atlantic Aviation Museum. I was looking forward to riding The Cabot Trail, seeing good friends in Nova Scotia, and meeting a reader of 650thumper as I cut through Maine.
I’ll write about all this in my next and final post on this tour.
We see caribou at Port au Choix, icebergs at Twillingate, and puffins at Elliston en route to Saint John’s.
We’d reached the northern tip of Newfoundland and now it was time to start making our way back south and across the island to Saint John’s, and not a moment too soon. The bugs were bad! Like the night before, no one wanted to cook, so we headed into Raleigh again in search of food. Unfortunately, the restaurant we had in mind didn’t open until 11:00, but we were referred to an RV park that did an early greasy breakfast for a song. By this time it was late morning and we were no further south with no reservation for the night.
When things look bleak, it’s never a bad idea to go to the local Tim Horton’s. There, you can get a coffee for $2 and free WIFI to sort yourself out. I found a B & B about halfway down the coast, made an executive decision, phoned, and made a reservation for the night. I knew we were essentially losing a day from our tentative schedule, but sometimes you just have to adjust your schedule to fit your circumstances.
Jeannie’s Sunrise B & B turned out to be a real treat. The room we got actually did have a view out over the ocean to the east, so we would wake to the sunrise (and get an earlier start). Jeannie also suggested we take a ride after dinner over to the lighthouse. We said we were nervous about riding after dark but she reassured us the ride across the cape is open with excellent visibility and she was right. On our way to the lighthouse, I spotted two caribou grazing a short distance from the road.
It doesn’t get any better than this. Seriously, I think it was the highlight of the entire tour for me. Marilyn was eager to get over to the lighthouse in the hope of seeing a moose if not another ocean sunset, but I couldn’t help doubling back for a second look.
Click for fullscreenTrust me, it’s worth it
I don’t know why I was so taken by them. Maybe it’s because they are so elusive, like the singular chaste girl at college who was the object of every guy’s wet dream, or the rare motorbike or book you’ve been searching for your entire life. I know I’ll be in trouble for those comparisons but the point I’m trying to make is that rarity increases value and desire. In this case, you have to get pretty far north to have a hope of seeing caribou, and then you have to be lucky to be there at a certain time of the year and a certain time of the day. When all these factors align, you just hope their expert skills of camouflage don’t lead to you driving right past, which most people did. And it’s in the hope of capturing something of that rarity that leads us to making the mistake of reaching for our phones or cameras instead of soaking in the encounter with every drop of attention we have, so it can plant and root in memory, maybe grow into a poem, or some other art. I’m thinking here of Canadian poet Don McKay’s term poetic attention, “a sort of readiness, a species of longing which is without desire to possess” (“Baler Twine,” Vis à Vis, Gaspereau Press).
Motionless, they move just beyond the ridge-line, half hidden, as if wading knee deep in rocky scrub land. In the fading light, it’s a wonder I saw them at all, 100 meters off the road, but there’s definitely something there, two figures, one clearly larger and leading the other. I grab the monocular and see through the lens now how expert they are at camouflage. Their tawny hides are a shade darker than shadow, and the mottled white of their underbellies looks just like lichen. Even the antlers, antennas receiving the last of the light, could be sun-bleached branches scattered on the ground. Heads down, they don’t see us, tourists to their world of wilderness. I should have known this moment cannot be captured except in memory but want more—a shot, a boast, a post. I take the camera and step forward, but when I lift it to my eye I see that now we are the ones observed, strange creatures standing at the edge of their attention.
The next day we went in search of icebergs. We’d heard that Twillingate was the place to see them, but since it was July, we didn’t hold out much hope. We got an early start and rode the rest of the west coast back down through Rocky Harbour to Deer Lake, picked up the Trans Canada Highway, rode that all the way to the 340 east of Grand Falls Windsor, then headed north as far as we could, which turned out to be a place called Dildo Run Provincial Park just east of Virgin Arm. The comments section below is open for your worst jokes.
After dinner, I wandered up to the gate with a pipe in search of a pannier sticker, which they gave for free to anyone who completed a survey. Today you can’t take a piss in a public washroom without being asked to complete a survey and as a rule I do not do surveys, ever. I know that they are just an underhanded way to get your contact info so someone can target market to you, all in the guise of providing “helpful advertising.” I don’t need any help with my shopping, thank you very much; if anything, I need help not shopping. But in this case, with a pannier sticker as the prize, I plugged my nose and did it. As a secondary prize, I struck up a conversation with two local staff members, and talking with locals is always interesting. I learned that one had grown up at Jane and Finch in Toronto, perhaps the most dangerous neighbourhood in Canada. When I asked how he survived the gang violence, he said, “See these shoes?” and modelled his gleaming white runners. “I learned to run fast.”
I heard how both had left Newfoundland earlier in their lives to make an income, first to Toronto to build the Gardiner Expressway and the CN Tower, then to Fort McMurray during the oil boom, splitting their time between two provinces thousands of miles apart. I’m more familiar with the diaspora of my second-generation immigrant students, so it was interesting to hear of their experiences living in two cultures created by national migration. If I remember correctly, one said he would fly back and forth every six weeks to see family. It reminded me of a movie I’d seen recently set in Belfast about a similar sacrifice made by one family whose father was forced to seek work in England. I suppose the conflict between living where you want to and where you have to is nothing new, especially here in Canada where the rural areas are beautiful and the urban ones so . . . not beautiful. I just didn’t think people split their lives in half like this, or that it was even feasible, but that they either stuck it out at an economic cost, or made the difficult move at an emotional one. I was happy that both my acquaintances, later in life, had managed to find employment with ParksNL.
The next day we rode up into Twillingate, the unofficial capital of Iceberg Alley, and beyond onto North Twillingate Island, which is picturesque and worth visiting just to see the colourful clapboard buildings and to climb up to the lighthouse and look out over the ocean. It’s here that icebergs that have broken off of glaciers in Greenland drift by, drawn by sea currents. The best time to view them is April and May so we were late but still able to see some bergy bits (that’s a real term) and growlers. If their size wasn’t super impressive, their colour certainly was.
Looking east from Long Point Lighthouse, Twillingate.
After a night at Terra Nova National Park, we were within a day’s ride from Saint John’s but decided to head up to Elliston on the Bonavista peninsula. We’d been told by a birder friend that it’s the best place to view Puffins. I have to admit that I don’t quite get the appeal of puffins, despite what I just said above about rarity. Maybe it’s because they are such crappy flyers, struggling into the air by flapping their hearts out (up to 400 times per minute), or maybe it’s their creepy faces, giving them the nickname “clowns of the sea.”
But we went, because we were in Newfoundland, and it’s the unwritten law to see puffins when here, like how you have to see a production of The Nutcracker at Christmas and the movie The Sound of Music at least once a year to maintain marital bliss. In the end, however, I’m glad we did. Bonavista literally means “beautiful view” and the ride around the peninsula was special. The puffins were pretty neat too.
Elliston has another claim to fame. It is also the root cellar capital of the world, according to NL tourism. I didn’t know there was a root cellar capital or who decides such things, but I found the little structures quaint in a Hobbit-like way and the idea interesting. These cold storage facilities keep vegetables cool in the summer and prevent freezing in the winter, so essentially the earth regulates the temperature. I can’t keep mice out of my back porch so am curious how half of the produce doesn’t get spoiled by vermin. The doors, stonework, and sky make for some picturesque photos.
Feeling like I’m in a tourism commercial.
Our treasure hunt across the northern peninsulas was coming to a close, yet ironically, although we were not searching for it, the best discovery was yet to come. Earlier in the day, during a rest stop at a coffee shop, I overheard a staff member say she liked a place called Trinity. I figured if a local likes it, it must be good, so despite Marilyn’s concerns about the time and getting into Saint John’s late, I made another executive decision and pulled off the 230 when I saw signs for Trinity. The ride in from the highway was pretty and the village even better. We stopped at the Dock Marina Restaurant and Gallery. Now Marilyn was no longer complaining about the time but wondering aloud how we might be able to retire here. We ended up buying some artwork as a souvenir and shipping it home.
The beautiful quilts had me thinking of my late mom whose passion was quilting.
It was getting late and we still had a three-hour ride to our hotel in Saint John’s. Yes, we were splurging on a hotel this night. I could say that we were enjoying ourselves so much that we decided to loosen the purse-strings, but the truth is that we misjudged accommodations in Saint John’s. We’d made reservations all up the east coast, thinking that the remoteness might make it difficult to secure campsites, and deduced that there would be no shortage of cheap accommodations in the city. In fact, Saint John’s is very busy during the tourist months of summer. We would “have to” take a night at the exquisite Alt Hotel on Water Street. I didn’t mind. It had been a lot of riding and we’d be getting in after dark. The room, with its electric blinds and view of the harbour, was a welcome treat, and the staff didn’t seem to mind us tromping through the lobby in our muddy gear.
A ride through beautiful Trinity, NL, as we headed out.
In the next post, we hit the town, meet up with friends, and ride the southern peninsulas.
I interrupt the journey across Newfoundland for the annual holiday wish list.
It’s become a tradition on this blog—the annual Christmas wish list. It’s probably one of the least favourite posts of the year for readers, but it sure is fun to write. The season has recently come to an end, the long winter months still lay ahead, and all we have to propel us out of bed in the mornings are thoughts of spring and planned journeys. And part of that planning is dreaming of the mods we will do and the gear we will buy to help prepare for the adventures to come.
This year’s list is pretty short. Yes, inflation is hurting everyone, and we find ourselves buying the cheap tomatoes instead of the fancy vine ones (and regretting it later). Marilyn is paying tribute to her late father by scanning the grocery store flyers and clipping coupons. Even the dog has sacrificed his Greenies (and his breath is the price we all have to pay).
But honestly, the bike is pretty much done. It’s got the auxiliary lights on it now, the crash protection, skid plate, pannier racks, hand guards, off-road pegs, and tail rack. I got soft panniers last year and they have been great. So it’s pretty modded out. What the bike needed most was some maintenance, so I spent a chunk of time before I put it into storage doing the valves and servicing the starter motor, which was acting up. By the way, I’m now advocating checking your valves on the recommended service interval. I waited until the bike had 45,000K and all my exhaust valves were tight, some significantly.
Shorty Levers
The only thing it could use are some new levers. The stock levers are okay, but they are long and I’ve already bent the brake lever once. Actually twice, since I bent it back. I think I’m the only one in my club who rides two-fingered and I asked myself the other day why on earth haven’t I ever had shorty levers?
I looked at all the options and am undecided between Vortex and Pazzo. Both are top-quality levers that fit well without any slop, which is often the case with cheap Chinese aftermarket levers. At about $200, they are comparable in price.
Vortex V3 levers
The Pazzo levers have quite a swooped design to them, which brings the lever down close to the grip. I know there’s some adjustment but this still makes me nervous because I like to have a short clutch that completely disengages before the lever hits my knuckles of the remaining fingers wrapped around the hand grip. For this reason, I’m leaning towards the Vortex design. Is it just perception, or do they look straighter? My ideal lever would be a Pro Taper, but I don’t think they make one for the Tiger.
Pazzo
Pazzo also gives the option of a folding lever, but I don’t think I need that since I have the Barkbuster guards. It would have to be a very unfortunate fall for a rock to come up inside the guard and break a shorty lever. But I guess it could happen. My sense, however, is that folding levers are for true dirt bikes that have wimpy, folding hand guards. If you have any experience or thoughts on this, drop a comment below. I won’t be getting anything until the spring so I have some time to decide.
A new helmet
Honestly, that’s about it for the bike (my wife will be happy to know). But wait! My current lid is at least five years old, so I probably should get a new one soon, despite what Bret Tkacs has recently said about that 5-year limit being bogus. If I were forced to, I’d probably go with the Arai Tour-X5 or maybe find a deal on the now discontinued X4.
No, I’m not trying to emulate Itchy Boots. This would go well with my touring jacket that is grey with matching hi-viz accents.
I’ve been very happy with my Arai Signet-Q helmet. The brand speaks for itself and the shape fits my intermediate- to long-oval noggin well. This time, however, I’d go with the Tour X because I want a peak. There have been many times while riding into the sun when I wanted a peak. Sometimes I have to shade my eyes with my clutch hand, it can get that bad, even with the Pro Shade system.
Knee braces
To be honest, I’ll probably forego the helmet for another big-ticket item. I plan to do some pretty serious dirt riding next year, and the only thing that scares me about that is the potential to damage a knee if the bike falls on one. I’ve somehow managed to play 15 years of beer league soccer without any major damage to a knee, and I’d like to keep it that way so I can enjoy my retirement with full mobility. I therefore am adding to my wish list a pair of Pod knee braces.
Anyone who is serious about dirt riding should be wearing knee braces. I know, they are uncomfortable, but so is tearing tendons and surgery. I’ve heard The Awesome Players advocate the use of braces, and recently a video by Riemann convinced me I should just bite the bullet on a pair.
At $750 a set, these babies aren’t cheap, but money well spent if it prevents a serious knee injury, especially if you are riding solo as I do.
Dirt Gloves
There’s one more piece of off-road gear I’d like before attempting the BDRs next summer. That’s a pair of light MX or rally gloves. I have a pair but Marilyn has appropriated them, so I’m in the market for another pair. When riding dirt, it’s important to have maximum feel on the levers so you can modulate both clutch and brake. It’s similar to how football (i.e. soccer) players are always looking for a boot that provides the most feel on the ball, for example one with kangaroo leather instead of cow hide.
The DOUBLETrak multitool by engduro here in Canada consists of several hex, torx, Phillips, and flat head drivers, and 6, 8, and 10mm socket drives that fit into the handle itself and stay there by magnetic force until needed. There’s also a 1/4″ hex to 1/4″ square drive adapter. If you want a comprehensive review of this tool, check out this video in which Dude does an oil change using only the DOUBLETrak. Okay, I’m not going to be doing trailside oil changes, and this will not replace tools that are in my tool roll, as he suggests, but it’s a convenient tool to keep at hand for small adjustments or tightening something on your or someone else’s bike. Best of all, for a few dollars more, you can get a vanity engraving on it and tell yourself it’s to prevent theft.
That’s it. Like I said, a small list this year. That’s okay because we’re still paying off expenses from the Newfoundland trip last summer and I’ve got more ambitious plans for next summer. This time it will involve dirt and I’m both a little nervous and excited about taking the Tiger off road . . . like, really off road, not just gravel and dirt roads but trails and Class 4 roads, water crossings, mud, sand, rocky hill climbs . . . the works. It’s known as primarily a street bike that is capable of doing “light off-roading,” so I’ll be pushing it beyond its intended limits as I do the MABDR and NEBDR back to back. I’ll either die or bond with this bike in ways I haven’t yet.
What are your plans for next season? I’d love to hear them because the best wishing is not the accessories or gear we want to buy but the places we’d like to visit on our bikes, or even the roads we want to ride. We can’t all be Itchy Boots, but we can explore a little piece of paradise close to home, whatever your paradise might be. I wish you happy holidays, and happy dreaming of another season doing what makes our souls sing.
Marilyn and I begin our tour of Newfoundland by riding the west coast to L’Anse aux Meadows.
Newfoundland bound.
You know you’re headed to Newfoundland when the ferry staff call you “Hun.” In my profession (teaching), that’s tantamount to sexual harassment, but here it’s the term of endearment it’s clearly meant to be. We were directed to the front and side and found the tie-down straps. I hate ratcheting straps. I’ve been using them for years and still haven’t figured out how to work the damn things. There are YouTube videos and probably PhD programs as well on how the mechanism works, but using them for me usually ends up with cursing and a pinched finger. Thankfully, the tie-downs provided by the ferry were a simple single folding mechanism that even English teachers can operate.
It’s always a little unnerving leaving your bike and gear for a prolonged period of time, but only staff are allowed down in the hold once the ferry leaves port. Still, I locked the panniers and the helmets, and you can see in the photo above I’ve used a cable to secure the duffle bag as best as one can. I made this from materials purchased at Canadian Tire, the big-box hardware store here in . . . you guessed it, Canada. I bought a length of plastic-coated cable and made loops at both ends by crimping cable sleeves, then attached a simple brass waterproof lock. It’s not super secure but prevents the grab and run. My faith in a good samaritan reporting someone using cable cutters outweighs my cynicism toward thieves. I trust no one wants my smelly boots.
Catching up on sleep.
Once upstairs, we settled in and I promptly fell asleep. I’m an expert napper, even in public places, and use every opportunity to dig myself out of the sleep deficit I accumulate when adventure touring. Then we had dinner which, I have to say, was surprisingly good. I guess I was expecting airline food, but the fish & chips and cloth placemats and real utensils not to mention the Newfoundland friendly service was a treat. Marine Atlantic ferries gets a five star rating from me. It was nice just to sit at the window and look out over the mesmerizing water and watch a seagull follow us for miles, skimming the waves.
Marilyn in her naval attire.
We took the midday ferry because all the cabins for night crossing sell out early. We made our reservation mid-March (for an early July crossing) and they were already sold out. This meant that we lost a day of riding, but I’ve learned that rest days are required at my “advanced age,” so it was all for the best. It just meant that we needed to find accommodations close to Port-aux-Basques, where the ferry shores at 7:15 p.m., because we didn’t want to ride in the dark. Everyone—and I mean everyone—had warned us about the moose in Newfoundland. I suspect this is somewhat like the bear warnings tourists to Canada receive. I have to say, in all our travels across the island, we saw only two moose, midday at the side of the highway, but it’s still a good idea to get off the road at sundown, especially if you’re on a motorcycle.
We therefore had a reservation at JT Cheeseman Provincial Park, about 13 kilometers from the docks. It was a short stay as we were eager to get up into Gros Morne National Park, a bucket list destination for both of us. Our first impressions of The Rock were lovely, with low-hanging clouds above a shallow mountain range on the horizon, and a fog horn sounding in the distance throughout the night, reminding us we were not far from the sea.
My best Pee-Wee Herman hairdo.
The next day we rode north on the Trans Canada Highway through Corner Brook, then split off at Deer Lake onto the 430 and then the 431. As we pulled off at the lookout at Woody Point, I went to turn sharply to park the bike, only the handlebars locked partway and we lost our balance. Thankfully we were going very slowly and I just put my foot down to prevent a tip-over. Marilyn climbed off and I started inspecting the bike. The handlebars would definitely not go full lock but were blocked by something hard. It felt like metal on metal. Eventually, I saw the culprit: a screw from my wind deflector had come out and fallen down into the triple-T and was blocking the handlebar movement. What were the odds! We got lucky on several counts there, not only that I didn’t lose the screw but also that it didn’t obstruct a turn at a higher speed. I got out the tools and replaced the errant hardware, this time using thread locker.
Looking down into the forks.I always tour with thread locker.
Readers will be pleased to know that I’ve since removed the obnoxious wind deflector. I’ll pay the price of some buffeting for video footage with an unobstructed view.
We got a site at Trout River Campground, which was chosen for its proximity to The Tablelands, a rare phenomenon and one of only a few places in the world where the earth’s mantle is exposed. The peridotite rock turns orange as it oxidizes, resulting in a geography that appears like the surface of Mars, not that I have any direct experience with that. In truth, the geology is more like the centre of the earth than a distant planet. Jules Verne modelled his book Journey to the Centre of the Earth after Iceland’s geology, but he could have equally used The Tablelands as his inspiration.
Hiking The Tablelands.
We hiked up in the afternoon heat, and I was happy to have added a hydration backpack (I’m not calling it a bladder because that’s disgusting) to my kit. It meant that we could easily carry water on and off the bike as well as a few other items, like snacks and a selfie stick.
On our way out the next morning, we met some touring cyclists at “the facilities.” They were cooking their breakfast under the shelter there before hitting the road. Just when you start feeling pretty good about managing to fit everything on the motorcycle, you run into cyclists who are doing the same but on bicycles. Hard core. I wonder if bicyclists feel a similar sense of humility when they cross paths with backpackers, who have managed not only to fit everything into one bag but also tocarry it to where they are going. At some point, such minimalism must have diminishing returns on investment and become more a penance for sins done, like the story of Cheryl Strayed in the movie Wild (directed by the late Jean-Marc Vallée and played by Reese Witherspoon), who clearly had a heavy burden to bear, so to speak. This line of thought leads me to the ultimate minimalist traveller, the migrant, who is fleeing on foot with little more than the clothes he or she is wearing, and that’s where my imagination has its limit. I can’t imagine doing such a thing, not unless my life depended on it, which I guess for many migrants, it does.
Travelling light.
I also chatted with another camper while waiting for Marilyn. He took an interest in my bike because it was a Triumph and he is English, or English-Canadian. He said he used to ride a Triumph in England and before that an AJS Matchless, which is the exact bike my dad rode before he immigrated, so we had a nostalgic chat and I gave the bike a few gratuitous revs as we parted so he could hear the sweet exhaust note of the Triumph triple. When I rode a BMW, Germans would approach me with their memories; now that I ride a Triumph, Brits chat me up. Once while doing some slow-speed exercises in a neighbourhood church parking lot, I struck up a conversation with the priest, who used to ride a Yamaha 250 in India. Everyone seems to have a story about their motorcycling days, and it occurs to me that motorcycles hold a special place in one’s identity, even if one has long since given up riding. I suspect they remind us of the freest years of our lives, which can be in youth, or in my case, at the age of 60. The motorcycle is the symbol of the best years of our lives, whenever that may be.
We headed back out to the 430 and then turned north. It was a special day because we had reservations for the Western Brook Pond boat tour just north of Rocky Harbour. The highway through Rocky Harbour is spectacular and led to one of only a few disagreements we had during the tour. I say “and” not “but” because it was the spectacular nature of the road that led to the disagreement. It’s twisty and undulating with fantastic views out over the ocean. I wanted to enjoy riding this section “at pace,” but Marilyn wanted me to slow down so she could photograph from the back. (She is by profession and vocation a photographer and carries her iPhone on a lanyard for this purpose.) We had a conflict of interests: my passion for riding versus her passion for photography.
Riding the 431 just south of Rocky Harbour.
I did what any smart husband would do: I acquiesced. Only as I write this she says “I overrided her,” so I guess we have differing memories of that part of the trip. I do remember trying to come to some sort of agreement later whereby if the views were good we would ride at her pace, but if the road were good (but nothing special about the view), we would ride at my pace. In the end, however, I never rode anywhere near the limits of the bike or my abilities. You have to ride to the comfort level of your pillion, especially if she is your wife. The answer, I’ve come to realize, is to separate the interests and have some tours 2-up and some solo. At least that’s the plan moving forward. It’s not really a compromise because it leads to double the riding.
We arrived at the parking lot in plenty of time to hike the required 3 kilometres out to the boat. Western Brook Pond is actually an inland freshwater lake inaccessible by car. It looks like a fjord with steep cliffs on both sides carved by receeding glaciers, but is technically a gorge since, we were told, fjords are saltwater and gorges are freshwater. At one time it was a fjord, connected to the sea, but over time has become closed off and is now freshwater. At any rate, there was some water and some dramatic cliffs producing some stunning views. In fact, one of the views is the iconic shot used by Newfoundland tourism.
Click to enlarge fullscreen
When we docked, Marilyn and I shared some clam chowder at the cafe, then hiked back to the bike, which was thankfully untouched. That night we stayed at Shallow Bay Campground near Cow Head. There are several campgrounds in Gros Morne and they are all different. Where Trout River was inland and wooded, Shallow Bay is on the ocean with a long, sandy beach. It’s a real treat, so be sure to stop there if you are passing through.
The next day was our trip up the remainder of the west coast to L’Anse aux Meadows, a National Historic and UNESCO World Heritage Site, where there are the remains of an 11th-century Viking settlement. It’s a long way to go to see some sod houses, but I like history and wanted to stand at the place where early human migration spreading west (Norse) and east (Indigenous) first met. That’s a pretty significant moment in the history of human civilization. I suspect both must have crapped their respective pants, or whatever 11th-century garment they were wearing at the time, upon seeing the other. The monument at L’Anse aux Meadows commemorating the encounter conveys the crapping quite well, I think.
Meeting of Two Worlds. Not a fan of modern representative sculpture.
According to the old Norse sagas, Newfoundland was discovered accidentally when Vikings from Greenland were blown off course in a violent storm. They saw the Labrador shoreline but didn’t dare land. However, after word spread about this mysterious land, a second group of explorers did shore and, during one excursion southward, happened upon a small band of Indigenous men. The Vikings, of course, did what Vikings do, and promptly slaughtered the lot, all except one, who either escaped or was spared in order to go spread the word about the badass Vikings. If the latter is the case, he did his job very well, for shortly afterward, a large war party returned and kicked the Vikings’ dirty butts back to Greenland. Thus is the first encounter of Europeans and Native Americans. A third Viking expedition did manage to settle for a time in L’Anse aux Meadows, but suspicion and distrust between the parties remained, and sometimes I swear we haven’t gotten any further than that.
Our camp that night was at Pistolet Bay Provincial Park at the very tip of the northern peninsula. The bugs were so bad that neither of us was willing to prepare food while being eaten, so we headed into Raleigh for dinner at the Burnt Cape Cafe. Someone there is clearly a hockey fan, and I enjoyed looking at the signed jerseys of Darryl Sittler, Bobby Hull, Sidney Crosby, and others that adorned the walls. Oh yeah, the food was pretty good too.
After dinner we went for a little ride along the shore. I wanted to get over to the lighthouse for the sunset, but the road through the ecological reserve is not maintained and the riding got quite “interesting.” Just when I felt I was finally doing some real adventure riding, the Tiger XC in its element, Marilyn got nervous so we turned around and went over to the other side of the bay. The payoff was that there we got our first glimpse of icebergs. They were in the distance but nevertheless had us giddy as schoolchildren. Little did we know what was to come.
If you want to follow us across The Rock to Saint John’s, click Follow.
Marilyn and I do a quick loop of PEI en route to Newfoundland
On the ferry to PEI, circa 1968.
The last time I visited Prince Edward Island, my hair was cut straight (or almost straight) across my forehead and I had patches on my knees. Oh yeah, and there wasn’t a bridge; the only way to get there was by ferry. I don’t remember much about that childhood vacation, so this visit would essentially be my first. Marilyn had visited PEI as a teen in grade 11 on an exchange organized by her favourite English teacher, but it was based out of Moncton so her experience of the island was limited. This time we went in search of the iconic red cliffs and pastoral views.
Marilyn and I left Miramichi, NB, and took the 11 south to Shediac, then the 15 east and soon we were seeing signs for the Confederation Bridge. The clever islanders don’t charge anything to get on the island, so tourists become like lobsters wandering into the trap. Once you discover what you’ve done, it’s too late, and you feel like you’re in John Carpenter’s Escape From New York: anyone who goes on the island never comes off. In fact, the fee for motorcycles was only $20.
Marilyn wasn’t too impressed with the bridge. She asked me to write that. She thought the barriers at the sides were not very high, or not high enough. I don’t know what she was expecting for her 20 bucks, and I showed her some videos of shaky rope bridges in Nepal and Itchy Boots going over that abandoned railway bridge in Columbia but she still didn’t feel it was safe. Then I reminded her of the île-aux-Tourtes bridge we take every time we leave the Island of Montreal to the northwest and how Transport Quebec closes the outside lane to trucks because, well, I guess it can’t handle their weight, and then she felt reassured. Everything is relative.
Crossing the Confederation Bridge
It’s unfortunate that the first thing you see upon entering the island is a commercial complex at the base of the bridge, but it had a Tourist Info Centre and, more importantly, a liquor store. While I was stocking up on campsite refreshments, Marilyn was talking to the nice young lady at the Info Centre and discovering that my plan to ride the perimeter of the island in one day was a bit . . . ambitious. I’d read in our travel guide that it’s a 350 km. loop, but apparently that is just the central region. We abandoned our plan to get over to Cedar Dunes Provincial Park on the western tip of the island for sunset and, instead, camp at Cavendish Campground in Prince Edward Island National Park on the northern shore. That seemed more doable and left us time to explore some of the shoreline in search of those red clay cliffs.
I looked at a map and discovered Highway 10 running fairly close to the shore, so we started our tour there. We noticed we were on the Coast Trail and its road-sign icon was of red cliffs, so we knew we were on the right track, or trail, that is. I wanted to venture off the asphalt, but with the rain of the night before, the road got a little too slick for our liking. Even male bravado sometimes takes a back seat to better judgment, so we decided to play it safe, pull a U-turn, and head back to the asphalt.
No problem with knobby tires, but Dunlop Trailmax Mission tires cake up fast in this clay.
Soon we entered the picturesque village of Victoria. It had a lighthouse, a wharf, and gourmet fish & chips, so our search for the red cliffs would have to wait.
After lunch, we continued along Highway 1 then turned right onto Highway 19 that went along the shore. We saw a sign for Argyle Provincial Park and pulled off to explore. Success!
Click on any image for full size. I remember digging for clams as a kid.
A little more exploring as we headed north brought us to Skmaqn–Port-la-Joye–Fort Amherst National Historic Site, which tries to recognize in its name every group that has once laid claim to it: the Indigenous Peoples, the French, and the English. Today it’s occupied by Canadians, and specifically, me. I walked the trail while Marilyn took a break up at the welcome centre. You can see the ruins of two forts, the older being the French; the newer, the English, and a monument describing The Grand Dérangement.
What remains of the British fort. Commemorating The Grand Dérangement (Great Upheaval) of the Acadians
As the monument states, in 1755, after the English took possession of L’Acadie, nearly 10,000 Acadians were deported to Anglo-American colonies, to England, and to France. (The Cajun culture of Louisiana derives from its Acadian history.) Over the next ten years, about half died to disease and famine. A mere 1,600 remained by avoiding deportation, but their lands were now occupied by other settlers. Yes, Canadian history, like all history, is a story of war and conquest, with winners and losers in a primordial dynamic that continues today.
I think much of the thought surrounding “privilege,” “victim status,” “inter-generational trauma,” and “reparations” on university campuses and political discourse today stems from a sense of guilt or shame about these histories in an attempt to somehow right the wrongs of the past. My personal belief is that you can’t change the past, as much as we’d all like to, either in our personal lives or in the history of a country. Trying to do so is impossibly messy, hundreds of years after the events, and results in things like white children being told in school to apologize formally to black and indigenous children for things they never did (I’m not making this up). Rather, I think the time would be better spent learning history so we don’t repeat those mistakes, but I’ve found my students to be quite historically ignorant. It’s not their fault. Many educators are more interested in teaching values than history, and here in Quebec, the government dictates a rather selective view of its history. Meanwhile, wars and ethnic cleansing continue throughout the world, and the language wars continue here in Quebec.
Back at the building, I met up with Marilyn and we continued our journey northward, avoiding Charlottetown and zig-zagging toward our destination for the night. There are no direct roads across the island, but we were happy to take our time as we rode through those pastoral rolling hills that were the second goal of our visit. We’d been warned that Prince Edward Island National Park had been devastated by Hurricane Fiona in September 2022 and that the campground had been stripped bare of much of its old growth trees, but it’s one thing to hear this and another to see it.
Blowdown at the parkWhat’s left of Cavendish Campground
We set up camp and then decided to take a little ride along the shoreline.
We returned to camp in time for Marilyn’s favourite activity, sunset viewing, and there’s no better place to view a sunset than on a beach.
We only had one day on the island, but I’m glad we went. Like all islands, it definitely has a different energy and a slower pace to mainland life. The ferry that could take us across to the north shore of Nova Scotia was out of service, so we traversed the island again, this time taking a more direct, central route down Highway 13. You can’t speed much on these roads, but I did my best.
Soon we were crossing the bridge again and saying good-bye to Prince Edward Island. We loved it and were sad to leave, but we were now less than a day away from boarding our ferry to another island and the true destination of our summer tour.
650thumper 