Death and Taxes

I'm sure all of us in many languages know that phrase.  We say it jokingly but of course it's absolutely true.

We're born.
We live.
We die.

What we do as humans, how we learn, gain experience, treat others, the wildlife, the planet in general is our choice.

Those of you that read my blog, which I initially began while I was motorcycling Europe a decade ago, as a way of keeping friends and family informed and hopefully entertained as well, know I believe that if we live to fifty, a half century, the rest is bonus time.   

Recently I've had for me, some bad news cross my path.  Beginning with my Chicago cousin Mike, followed by word that my last living uncle (HU) died recently and then closer to home, long time friend and mentor John Metcalfe. 

They were born.
They lived (and paid taxes) and they've died.

If you know me from reading this blog or any one of many published motorcycling adventures, that I occasionally hop up on my milk crate (nearest thing to a soapbox I have) and harp on doing something with yourselves.  I don't care what it is. 

You don't have to do what Dave P. is doing, riding a KTM 950 half way round the world, you don't have to press your luck alone in an Arizona desert. 

In fact you don't have to do anything motorcycle related at all. 

But by George... do something with your life.  Something that you're inspired by, something others can aspire to. 

As far as I know... we only get one crack at this, and it's only too late when the curtain is coming down. There are no "mulligan's" here.

An unusual question?

I was talking the other day with a friend that I hear from a few times a year.  He used to ride bikes but for the time being, has given it up. 



He asked me what my favorite ride of the year has been?


I made a joke that claimed the year wasn't over so I was going to withhold judgement until then.  Of course considering it's nearly November and in fact I near froze my derriere off earlier in the week , it's pretty much done for 2018.

Of course that simple question has been bouncing off the four corners of my brain since.  I mean I've ridden all my bikes at least some this year.  Because the proximity to Lisa's in Saint John is within a easy putter on the back roads, I rode my 650 V  Strom most often both in mileage and also adventures. 



I've clocked about 10,000 km and two thirds were on the Suzuki.  Not the most comfortable bike I've owned, and one that could benefit from a few more mods, but certainly for what I am doing, it's the best choice. 

Fiv

I am considering what options I have to find a suitable replacement for it but as of yet, there is nothing.

Somewhere in NB

What I would like to do is drop a hundred pounds and at least a couple more inches in seat height.  There seems to be a tide of smaller lighter, capable bikes, and I'm sure I will find something if I'm patient. 

 That's a topic for another Blog.

 
Anyway, it's got me thinking.  Of all the rides I did in 2018, including New Brunswick back roads many times, then following that up with several rides in Nova Scotia and the local roads of course, I think my favorite ride was the one I took on Big Blue, my 1990 XT 600.  It was a solo trip designed to familiarize myself with the tiny back local roads that  area abounds in. I had a general plan but as often happens on my rides, it's best to be flexible.  You never know where riding with the Dr will get you!

On that trip, which I blogged about a few months ago on my August 19th trek, was unusual because I was covering uncharted territory.  I would be on dirt or gravel roads and there was the potential of riding on some out of service roads that were really just tracks.

It was not only a challenging ride but also fun and as often happens, grin bearing!

I covered some very pretty terrain yet again, got lost (several times) but of course one cannot stay lost riding the Maritimes. 



That ride was tentatively  planned to cover about 300 km but exceeded that by half!  It was hot, fun and new. 

Drop dead beautiful, quiet and serene...

Now, if we were to include riding outside the province and even country... my favorite ride of the year in Arizona had to be the Blog "On the Road to Globe" June 8th where I took a couple of days and closed a loop I didn't have time for a few years back but also gave me a chance to ride a route I have been eyeballing for 8 years.

This... is exploring.

Rains about 10" a year, and this was the night I got 5 of them!!

I'll miss my desert rides when they come to an end!

Unfortunately as sometimes happens, I wasn't in great physical terms on my spring USA visit on what turned out to get me a very expensive ($995 usd) ambulance ride to a local Phx hospital thinking I was having an appendicitis attack. My BP rocket to 190 over 145 or there about.

Morphine drip vs kidney stones... hurt like hell!

Turned out to be kidney stones, landing me in a hospital 2 days before I was catching my flight home for the summer.  Further adding $20,000 usd in hospital fees.  Fortunately I have had a long time insurer that covered my out of country emergency medical events and professionally handled all but the paperwork and I need not have worried. 

You hear such horror stories, but TD Meloche Monnex and Global Excel came to my rescue and I thank them a thousand time!

NOW... my goal is to extend this winning streak into 2019 and beyond, just keep on racking up the goals completed. Adventures wrapped and experiences gained...

Stay tuned. 

Holding down my Fort, patrolling the fence...

...and catching some zzzzzz.....

Look who's come for dinner!

BACK shortly after the last dregs of ice age retreated into the Okanagan/Kootenay lakes, I had a young English lad sign up for the National Motorcycle Training program I operated then in Fort Mac Murray.  He was 17 at the time, I was a very young Chief Instructor at 23.

Being from the UK, throttle twisting was in his blood.  In fact I'm told on good authority that the first two words he said wasn't Mommy or Daddy but a simple single... 'Ton Up'*

Dave and I lived just down the street from one another in Calgary some years later. We'd visit, swap biking stories, when I left town I entrusted him with stacks of Bike mags, many sports oriented and some British.

Fast forward 6 years...

Dave with Camel and Izzy... ever helpful... 

Avoiding FaceBook as it were a plague, I'm kinda out of the loop and I don't actually mind that. I figure if someone wants to talk to me, I have a

'smarterthaniphone' ,

email addresses and can text using more than a single digit! Hey... I can even write an old fashioned letter and post it!

In my 'Inbox' I begin getting text messages and FB email. 

Dave as it turns out is headed to his home in Cow Town via the The Long Way Back.  I'm intrigued, after all I met Ewan and Charley purely by accident in 2004 at a local hotel in Great Falls Montana, where I was taking in the Charley Russell Museum with my California buddy Rock. I remember them as being beat, worn down and anxious, after all, they were soon to end their epic trip.

As I said, I begin having these messages coming in as in a 'mayday' or 'sos' from sea. Turns out the young lad was indeed on his LWB!!

Dave was here in Woodstock Ontario, then later in Woodstock New Brunswick and showed up at my digs on the Island in between, I think, Friday night!  He looked a little like the "Lone Ranger" except a dark version of such.  His Trigger was not Golden Palomino but Coal Black and dubbed 'Camel.'

Ever creative, that's a map of Uzbekistan in 10-40

It's a very long story, over half a year but in a nutshell, some friends were going to ride the world Ewan and Charley style... but without the free stuff and no back up, which as it turned out was somewhat crucial.

Somewhere in Uzbekistan one of the riders lost his paperwork from an open tank-bag, that is passport, registration documents and pretty much everything you need to avoid jail. 

I'm told you don't want to be in jail there. 

He was fined, the bike was confiscated and the other two riders suffered a crash among other mishaps and complete with broken body parts one of them, and the bikes were stored in one of the Stans... I forget which one, (but in my defense I am in my sixties.)  The confiscated bike, well confiscated remained confiscated.

Dave bought the bike for a song and dance, or maybe just a song couldn't have been a dance, he's really not a dancer, I'm not sure, but the deal was he had to take possession of it there in the impound and get it home his-self!

Fast forward

... paper work in hand he shows up and suffers through the legal/shades of former communism stories, greasing palms along the way, and there were plenty of palms I suspect. 

So far so fair.

Then he lost substantial time and as such he had only a few days to ride clean through Russia.  They are not very liberal with their rules, and you don't want to be in a Russian jail! 

North to Murmansk and onto Norway, doing a huge loop in the process ending up in the UK where bike and body were deposited in the belly of an aircraft headed to Canada.. bike... not body.

More fast forwarding:

Camel coming home.

He shows up in little ole PEI, to visit the Dr. who was terribly humbled I might add, and we spend the next 20 hours talking trip, repairing 'Camel,' spilling oil on the floor of the garage and the next day with me on my Citicom and Dave on his Dromedary 950 make a mad rush to catch the Wood Island Ferry to N.S.

True to it's breed, the Black Camel holds 70 L of fuel in three tanks.

From here, he doesn't turn west, but east... and rides the Cabot Trail!  From there he's been meandering home doing long miles with the Camel skirting storms and winter warnings and as far as I know at this particular moment, he is close but no cigar lighting just yet.

Now... did I teach this kid something back in '78 or what?

Test riding the Black Camel

 * Ton Up is, well you know!

Just another day in the garage...

DO you know how much work is involved caring for a fleet of motorbikes and cars?

"Well that's enough for one day... the T Bird's front axle was seized!" 

I try and stagger my machines according to priority which may or may not be at my choice.  Apart from the usual oil changes and chain waxing, I have larger tasks at hand every year.  Could be a replacement of chains and sprockets or perhaps brake pads, maybe even the odd tear down.  This year I replaced both tires on the Thunderbird and the rear on the V Strom.  When doing such major work it's best to set them side by side and have plenty of room and light to work for those late evenings.

That center stand is a necessity and makes the work a lot easier.

The DL had Shinko's mounted when I bought it and the front being still in very good shape, I decided to buy a replacement Shinko 705.  Because the Suzuki has an optional center stand this was a fairly easy process. The tire popped off in short order and I set it aside to pull down the Triumph. This would prove much trickier as I was doing both tires to replace and this bike does not have a center stand.  I was able to prop it up using a combination of my twin armed hydraulic lift and some modified wooden chocks made from 2x4's on the spot.

To make things even trickier the front axle on the T Bird  is of an internal hex design and given the age of the bike (2002 and under 20k) it was horrendously stuck.  Fortunately I had the proper tool having purchased one for another bike task about 10 years ago.  Ultimate, I had to use some heavy hitting with my number 3 mallet, and lots of penetrating oil to budge it.  I have since lubed everything prior to torquing all the nuts and bolts to factory specs.

This was a little tricky, no center stand nor frame tubes.

I'd bought the tires at a local dealer and saved some money dropping the rims in and having them install the new tires.  During disassembly I keep the parts on their side of the bike and anything that is stacked like for example spacers are placed on the floor in order.  This way I don't have to do 90% of the job only to find that some washer or spacer has turned up in the pocket of my coveralls!  Don't laugh, it's happened!

I don't mind replacing tires on my smaller bikes but to be honest, being retired and often just tired... I figured it was worth it to utilize their tire machine.

I don't often tear down my bikes to this extent on an annual basis but this was a good time to check and lube other parts and for good measure check the brake pads. The Suzuki also needed rear pads while the front discs had little wear.  I'm not as a rule hard on brakes using another tool from my tool box, common sense #7.

One thing I quickly learned as a machinist... "Keep things tidy."

That is, use the engine braking and sensible pressure while in traffic. Anticipate your slow down and stop and often you don't need the brakes at all or very little.  It's surprising how much life you can get from your brakes when you don't use them!

Three large tires, a rather large job.

With everything buttoned up the 650 went together in a jiffy and the work took less than an hour.

Everything snugged to spec, cleaned and re-lubed, ready for another season of riding and exploring.

The Triumph required not only lubing but also cleaning.  The spokes and chrome rims certainly needed some attention and when better to do this than when you have everything apart.

New skins at both ends... Yaay.

As luck would have it, I was able to finish the two bikes in a single full day, excluding the two trips into town for the installed rims and tires.


Having recently replaced the dual purpose tires on the XT 225 and 600, the only bike on my target list was the Citicom 300 scooter, which having recently rolled on over 10K km, will need a tire sometime next year.

A few break in miles scrubbing in the rubber.

The far east!

Beyond those islands, is Portugal

Yeah yeah... I know it's not Asia, but it's about as far east in Canada and in fact North America as one can go without flippers!

Standing on the dock in Canso reminded me of a similar experience almost 10 years ago...

Having ridden well over two dozen countries in Europe on the trusty Diversion 600, I had my hand and feet in the Atlantic ocean, looking out over a vast sea of dark green.  I thought that day that waaaay out there was my home of Canada. I was in Portugal at the time and then too... I couldn't get any farther without, yup... flippers!

Old post office in Sherbrooke

I've had some difficult times in my life, we were refuges from Hungary where before my 2nd birthday, old rifles crackled, Molotov cocktails took on T 54's and highly sprung spirits were rebelling against the Communist rule Hungary found itself in, in the aftermath of WW II.

So serene... 

From there to Canada, my adopted home, school where I learned to talk English, being picked on for being different, that is until the grade 5 and 6 kids found out that this puny small little D.P. boy could outrun the wind. 

Coastal highway passes through many lovely villages and hamlets.

I was a sprinter right through my school years.  I went from being the kid nobody wanted on their team, to money changing hands (joking) because of my speed.  I was so fast eventually holding several city provincial records at the track meet.  40/60 yards/ 100... 220 and eventually anchoring the 4 x 110 relay.  My fastest time in the hundred was 10.98 seconds set in grade 11.

Small town yet elaborate church

I may have had a career in track and field.  Who knows?

Then we moved to a little burg up north in the bush named Fort Mac Murray, where the only athletics were hockey in the wintertime on an outdoor rink, or swimming in the summertime when the ice melted. (I'm joking, we did have an indoor pool across the street of Peter Pond school. Having terrible vision, I could do neither, and my T&F dreams vanished into the night like a thief!

This building served Canso well over the decades

Everyone has stress and strife in their lives, I have been no different, but as I get older I'm increasingly more grateful with mine.  First of all, the folks had no problem with my having a motorbike at 13. 

Metro Canso

There was not a single other bike at Wellington Jr High.  In fact Mr. (J.D.) Marles made it clear to me in the 8th grade that I was to "take that thing home and never bring it back to school again."  The reason given to me was, and I kid you not... he didn't want "that kind of influence at his school." 



Enough of that, getting back to the present.  After a breakfast of coffee and sweet things from our store visit the day before and loading up the V Strom once again for the road, trying to load Canso into the Tom Tom... which of course I have found pretty much useless riding the east coast, there are gazillions of roads that in general will get you there where'as the GPS unit, and my sweetheart girl Brandi, is always telling me to "turn around when possible" !  



Our route was going to hug the wee little coastline highway 316, through whichever little hamlet came next. There was some obvious poverty and certainly little in the way of funds at many of these communities but people were downright friendly and far from being hostile to, and genuinely intrigued as to us helmet clad rider and passenger traveling by this big orange bike.  Long gone were the days when I arrived in Penticton in the summer of 1974 with my Bavarian Motor Works model 600/5 and being refused accommodation or meals because I was riding on two wheels.  Sure there were plenty of bike gangs/clubs back then, choppers based on Harley's were almost as loud as the the fights that often accompanied them to whatever town or city was invaded for the weekend.

Gravel carrier docked across the Canso strait in Port Hawkesbury

*note

A far cry from the warmth of people and their acceptance of us and our mode of travel. 

I know at some point in my life, I would eventually have to give up my riding, but just as I am aware of that, I am also going to sit in the saddle, twisting the throttle for as long as I can.

The first day was on roads in poor conditions but this day proved the opposite.  Upon reaching major route 16 (A long way from that other oft traveled highway 16, the Yellowhead) I took a right and headed to the lovely and famous little town of Canso.  Brenda and I parked the bike and went 'walk-about' for a couple of hours taking in a guided tour and a spot of lunch, a nice break from the 30 plus C heat of the afternoon. Retracing our 15 km to the junction we headed north looking once again for the tiny lines on the map, in this case highway number 344.  This would take us leisurely to Auld's Cove with a view of Port Hawkesbury on the Island of Cape Breton just across the strait from us.  I absolutely LOVE these tiny roads where only locals tread or the odd motorcyclists.

Seemingly abandoned home

Why is it that of the hundreds of ADV or otherwise large displacement motorcycles, so many stick so much to the major routes?

I don't understand this??

You ain't gonna' find no history or color or experiences riding the Trans Canada highway for hundreds of miles bypassing the color of the land and communities you only see from an exit ramp to get fuel!

That's Cape Breton Island a short swim away

Using my usual stop at the local Petro Can with the causeway in sight, I fueled up the big tank while Brenda sat in the Tim Hortons and ordered us the usual. Here again other riders are asking me for details of the highway and upon suggesting that they may wish to stay the F away from them and explore the slower pace of the back woods, they may actually like what they see or learn.  The opaque in their eyes and horror when I mention the G** word is obvious to me.

The refurbed Holidy Island at Pictou heading to PEI

The V will easily do 500 km on a fill.  My days of traveling 600 miles in a day through rain or hail or wind, were thankfully long gone.  As it was, this was what I call, a "long ass day" !

We bypassed lovely Antigonish, New Glasgow and headed to Pictou to ride the NFL ferry back to our Island.  By the end of the day/trip, we had traveled 906.6 km plus the strait crossing and arrived home in the gathering dusk with raindrops as big as bumble bee's flattening themselves against the small DL windscreen.



It was a fabulous trip.  I didn't fall over but became convinced to look further into a way to lower the bile (more on that later) The sights, places and people we met were a joy, the history an added bonus. 

The Confederation doing her thing

The little discomfort I feel now while riding, especially longer distances, pale when compared to the life experience it provides.  As far as we know, we still only live once.

Get out there and make some memories of your own and don't be afraid of the G* word, it's all part of the game.  Embrace it and what it offers if you are willing to take a chance and get off the merry go round of work, work and work and slow down to smell the roses, or in our case this trip, the salt ocean!

We are so fortunate to have the Maritime's as both our front and back yards, I can't tell you how lucky you and I are.

* Three of us, two on new 1984 Venture Royale models and a third on an new Aspencade stopped in New England at a little cafe/diner.  I was by far the youngest of the group the other two were both life insurance salesmen and older than I. We waited and waited and eventually sat down having gotten tired of waiting.  Catching the waitress who was obviously ignoring us, she said, and I quote;

"We don't serve those in black leather."  

Say what?!  It was 1984 for heavens sake. We had a little confab, went out and peeled off our leather gear and reentered. She sat us immediately and asked what we would like to order.  We three stood up as one and as loudly as possible we said as a unit;

"WE Don't eat at places that don't accept leather as our choice of protective clothing."

** Gravel