Motorcycle Training courses

My very first motorcycle, made be Reliable.  Still rides with me.

R60/5 Headed to Vancouver

BACK in the day, when I was operating Canada Safety Council CSC National Motorcycle Training centers, I was often asked if I was a Chief Instructor because I was a safe motorcyclist... or a safe motorcyclist because I was  CI?

Difficult question to answer.

Bottom line, I was and am first and foremost, a motorcyclist, period.  The very reason I fought hard against all odds to set up and operate CSC programs was because I believed in motorcycling's future.  That past looked a lot different than today's present.

Minutes after I took this pic, I was hit nearly head on.

 Case in point, During my first XC ride to PEI, I was lucky to see another biker on the road.  I don't mean riders while passing through Winnipeg or Thunder Bay or Sudbury, but loaded with gear going from one place to another.  It just wasn't common.

SRX 600

I bought my BMW from Alberta Cycle, then a very large family run dealership on 118th Ave in Edmonton.  They sold primarily Brit bikes and had recently taken on Honda.  You have to remember that in the mid sixties, the Japanese were rare and had yet to gain a foothold on the N.A. market.  All that would change in a few short years.

RD 400E Rockies

When I picked up the Beemer from AC, the elder Mr. Green handed me the key (A strange gadget with mini fairing over a cylindrical barrel, notched to slide into the ignition on the headlight nacelle, that was guaranteed to poke you in the groin repeatedly if you carried it in your jeans.) I had to pre-order the bike and was told that in those days AC sold about a dozen Beemers in a year!  That's twelve... each year.  In my later years, I'd sell a dozen CBR 600's in a day!

Wing In it.

MX2

With MC sales in their infancy, it was darn unusual to see a long distance rider.  Bikes for those were typically 1200 (the 74) Electra Glides for the wealthy.  A few Beemers and the odd Norton Commando or maybe a Honda CB 450. 

At 18 as the youngest Chief Instructor in the country (more on that in another Blog) I was adamant to change or at least alter the stereotype of the "biker" as we were known in them days.  A day parked in front of AC with my Honda, there would be BSA's, Triumphs, perhaps a Norton or two, maybe even the occasional Royal Enfield, sometimes a chopper or several, denim jacketed riders with patches representing the Crew or Rebels or any one of the one percenter clubs.* Then there was the little tiddler Jap stuff.  I remember a guy with one of the first BSA Rocket three's the ones with the Buck Rogers mufflers, putting me on his bike, while it rested on the side-stand,  encouraging me to kick it over.  (I mean the starter of course)  I could barely budge the thing.  He and his friends laughed at my feeble attempts to start the 750 triple.

L/C's Tom and I on the Cabot Trail

You had to be big, and tough.  Today, by contrast, its s piece of cake.  Reliable bikes, great gear and hundreds of men and women to keep us company.

MC courses everywhere, and dealers stocked with gear.  Just bring your charge card...


 

Getting the holeshot.  WFO Man!

Truth was, motorcycling was a niche market at best.

I mean 12 BMW's... a year!  That was right round '68-'69.  Who, besides the Japs knew the Honda 750-4 and the Kawa Mach III were right around the corner, soon to be followed up by the Z1 and many others in between.  I was surfing the early wave of the tide that would soon be a dominant wave of the Japanese take over.  When I earned my instructors license  (MC 536) from the grand Daddies of Motorcycle training in North America (Chris Brown, Stu Monro, Peter Fasnacht) and in fact the World, at 18 years of age, my mission was to put more and more safety conscious riders on the streets.  By flooding the highways and biways I hoped to spread the gospel of the joys of riding, to not only more and more riders, but the non riding public at large.  I've devoted my life to bettering the image of riders.

Somewhere in the White Mountains.

So, to answer the question, yes... I am a safe rider and former CI...  but first and foremost, I recognize the inherent dangers of riding and... I still choose to be a motorcyclist.

T Bird glistening in the sun, Bowness Park Calgary

* I find it ironic that today's rider, like many of my customers and friends, ride on bikes resembling those same choppers (direct from a factory,) wearing leather chaps, shorty helmets, fingerless gloves and sleeveless denim jackets. Looking for all the World like those early bad ass 1 percenters. 

The Road Czar.