A Snap Shot from "Down Under"

LONG time friend and riding buddy Ron Moropito, got the dream of a lifetime opportunity this year.  With the help of his extremely generous sweetheart of a daughter, Unca Ronnie as I like to call him, set out to prove the world was indeed round. This past summer, he packed his helmet, riding gear and penchant to explore and headed south.  Waaaay South.



Since I have never been myself, it's hard to imagine how far away this is from his hometown of Kamloops. The banana belt as he likes to refer... I wondered if there are banana's growing down under, apparently not, but what is growing is mountains, fiords and weather 180 degrees from ours.

Summer there, is winter in Canada.

Ronnie and I are old fashioned dudes, we like to explore, ride our motorcycles, appreciate a good joke and pretty ladies and are so dang polite, you'd think we were dealing with royalty!

Anyway... here's some pics and background on what his upside down trip was like... enjoy!

New Zealand Epic - Episode ONE

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Back in December, for my 75 th birthday my daughter arranged a nice birthday dinner with all my favour foods.  After dinner she presented me with a Child's small sand bucket for the beach.  At the bottom of the bucket were a number of Scrabble letters. I was told to arrange the letters.  What they eventually spelled out was NEW ZEALAND.  She then told me to contact a travel agent as I was going to NZ.  Damn near had heart failure (was that her sinister plan all along?  HMMM?).  

   One of the last things on my bucket list was to visit NZ to do some exploring, hopefully by motorcycle.  Other bucket list items had been accomplished which included visits to England twice, in 1997 and again in 2014.  Both times I rented motorcycles.  I also managed a trip back to PEI to visit Frank, in 2013. But that's another story.

   I never thought I would actually make it to NZ unless I won the lottery.  In a way I guess I did win the lottery when my daughter was born.

   It took several months to make all the arrangements, but I left Kamloops on Thursday March 21, flew to Vancouver, then after a lengthy lay-over, flew AIR New Zealand direct to Auckland.  A bit of advice, NEVER travel in a window seat on a14 hour non-stop flight.  First of all, what the hell can you see at 600 miles per hour at 35, 000 feet, in the middle of the night. AND never take a window seat when you've had a kidney stone attack less than a year before.  Climbing over people when you need to hit the LOO (in a hurry) is not fun, especially when they are trying to sleep. I arranged for an isle seat for the return journey.

   Friends I had known when they lived in Vancouver back in the late 90's early 2000's arranged to pick me up from the airport early Saturday morning when I landed. Since the day was still young, and jet lag hadn't set in, I got a quick tour of their lovely home in a somewhat rural area about 70 km south west of Auckland.

We quickly decided to take a ride in the vicinity. I got to borrow Christine's bike, an '08 Ninja 650. I followed Christopher on his WEE-Strom.  I was amazed at the vegetation there, almost tropical.

  There was a nice park with an old fashioned Lighthouse an easy ride from their home.

more later...

Bigger is Better?

BACK in my Calgary days, just prior to leaving for the east permanently, I had the awful chore of finding homes for forty years of motorcycle related magazines.  Geez... I had magazines since the sixties!

There were two complete pallets four boxes high and nearly a third.  I had street bike mags, dirt bike mags, touring magazines, ATV mags, snowmobiles and watercraft mags... I had Cdn magazines, American magazine and a handful of boxes with Brit mags.

I had so many enthusiast related magazines, I think I had more bike mags than Tom had Playboy's!

I gave away hundreds, no doubt many ended up in the landfill, shame...

This VTR 1000

However I did keep about 200-300 issues that I managed to find room for in the Cargo trailer, (hey, I can always buy a new bed!) with the remainder of my furniture.  Every now and again I will pull out a half dozen and plunk them down next to my bed, the loo or on my kitchen breakfast Island.

My current batch includes an issue of CYCLE 1, a Cdn magazine published in Montreal.  This particular one from May 1987, selling for a $ buck and with a photo of the nearby Rocky Mountains on the cover.






Of course having lived most of my life in western Canada I was very familiar with the Rockies. The cover had two motorcycles on it, the first a 1982 Honda FT 500 Ascot with a small plexiglass fairing on it, a duffel bag bungied to the seat, while the bike behind it, was a mid 80's Suzuki GS 400 this one with a small "sport" fairing.  There is a third bike that the photographer was riding that was off the cover.  It was a Yamaha RZ 350.



This particular ride covered some of a route I had ridden often from Edmonton to Jasper, south along the Icefields parkway to Banff, and then home via Calgary.  If I only had one overnight I would turn left at Highway 11, take it to Red Deer and home to Edmonton the following day.

Years later I would do it in reverse, when I lived in Calgary.

Then this DL 650

I did variations of this ride many (many!) times during the decades with fond memories of unexpected snowfalls, a huge (Columbia) glacier that is now barely a memory, and that ride with Merv all the way from Ft Mac during final exams week, where I showed good judgement  by skipping the week (there's no substitute for cubic experience) and riding my then new T 350 Suzuki Rebel, followed by Merv on his then new 250 version.  What a ride that was, heavy rains had turned HW 63 gravel roads to goo and after swallowing gallons of coffee pondering our fate as the 65 miles we had covered took hours.


Eventually a trucker with an empty trailer, gave us a lift to Edmonton from where we continued after a stop over at Gerald Belke's house.  There were so many memories of that trip but the favorite was having Merv tell his Mom that he wasn't going to be home during the week, as I forced him into coming along at gun point!

"Ummm, Mom... I'm at Miette hot springs.  Where is it...? well in Jasper National park."

I think Merv was grounded for a year and had to sign a document confessing to and promising never to listen to any of these hair brained ideas again.  Merv was in eleventh grade while I was graduating.

Anyway, getting back to CYCLE 1...

To this 2015 CBR300R

These guys or riding tiddlers by comparison to bikes to come just a few years later.

I often impart my wisdom talking to people, that think travelling on a twin cylinder Yamaha 350 is insane.  Me on the other hand, like traveling by light weight, fun, and pleasing small displacement motorcycles.


Okay, riding from my shop (Freedom Cycle Inc) to the Yamaha dealer show held in the fall in Toronto, a 1400 km distant jog, to introduce the 1989 Yamaha model line-up, I and a couple of pals, with my promising to keep their beer mugs full at the "Landing Strip" in T.O. would ride from the Island.

That ride was on a Yamaha YSR 50.  I'm still waiting for my sponsorship check from Prep "H"

The only thing in comparison to that since, was a 1000 km through forest fire ravaged British Columbia on my DT 50 in 2004 and south on the same bike during 6 weeks living on a beach in Baja Mejico in 2006!

I often get asked how many mile/kilometers I have ridden in my career, and honestly I have no clue.

What I can tell you is miles vs smiles are about equal.

Even though I went through the "touring bike" thang for many years, on Aspencades, BMW's, Venture Royales (the original) ConCourses etc I still have the best memories on bikes of coffee cup cylinder size!

As I age (yes, happens to me too) I have been fortunate in having the cash to have different mikes in my garage at any one time.  Over the years they got bigger, and now are getting smaller.  In fact I have a DT 50 (yes its the same one, a 1989 model left to me after my divorce) several 2-300 class bikes, including 4 scooters two of which I ride and two gracing my living room.

I will be putting my largest bike, the Triumph Thunderbird on the market this spring, although I LOVE the bike, the weight and girth is getting more difficult, it does out weigh me three to one!

I'll be keeping my XT 600 and 225 awhile longer (I sold my Phx based 350 last fall) my work horse 350 Big Bear ATV, the SYM Citicom 3001, my CBR300R Honda and my most unusual bike I think I've ever owned, a Piaggio MP3 250.  Remember its not the size... it's how you use it:)

I'll still be on the road, just slower and now that I am officially retired... watch out Dana and Danny, Zack, Lisa and Rick and Phil... the Dr. just maybe be dialing your number soon!

… and THIS

Time flies...

20/20... saying that, I almost feel like a visit from James T. Kirk and the NCC 1701

My 65th birth day is barely hours away.  Have I got mixed feelings or what?

Why it seems like only yesterday it was New Years eve and last week was Christmas!  

The  winter is racing by and I have so much to do, plan places to go, and dream of perfect corners to drag the knee, dirt rides on my XT 225 or it's big brother my Big Blue... 600, explore new places.




Like I often say, "off the couch and do something, anything... "

Okay, it was Clive Cussler that said that after every episode of  the Sea Hunters, but you get the picture right?

Deja vu

Superstitions Close up and personal. 

Deja vu.

When I was a kid, riding around in Edmonton,  Alberta, Canada, on first my 1966 Honda S 90, and soon after, my 1968 Suzuki A-100 street scrambler. The feelings I felt, the incredible elation, the charge, the tingle on my skin when my engine fired, the freedom I felt, and later named my motorcycle business,

FREEDOM CYCLE...

can't be simply stated as this.

To this day, I feel the feeling.  I can't describe it. Like jumping into a crystal clear cold mountain lake  or seeing the sun rise or set, snow capped mountains, or really, really great sex... it's still there.

My ultra reliable Chinese built Adventure 150 scooter... like old Number Seven

It's a new year today.  The sun is bright and strong especially for a January winter day. There's little snow on the ground and of course, were anticipated a blustery blowing snowy December 31st. This morning I rose to a sunny day and little fresh snow.  Seemed like a bit of a gift, the extra day to do, well what ever I wanted.  Including this is my Blog and how far behind I've gotten.  Of course some of that is excusable, after all I have a new laptop and even though Tom did an expert job something's always get lost in the shuffle.  There's a lot of things stacked on there for a decade, not all of it retrievable.

For example, Tom says to me via tele... "I was able to save 46,000 pics..."

Man, can you imagine how much Kodak film I saved when digital came on stream!

Anyway, I digress.

I'm slowly getting back up to speed and I thought I would share a little tonight on the 1st of the new year.

Riding the Senator highway, Bradshaw mountains, early December. Yes I did make it through.

Reading Frank Conner(s) adventures had a lot to do with my own drive to ride.  FC wrote stories about riding bikes that often didn't seem suitable for what he was attempting but he made it work.  There were articles about the Superstitions, riding a Trail 90 to Florida from the West Coast or exploring Death Valley.

His travel stories made me think, dream of doing such things on my own but of course, living in Northern Albertan, working in the Oil Sands, getting a Red Seal (no it's not an animal)

When I bought a brand new BMW R60 in 1973 the trips became longer.  Waking in a Jasper Park campground with a foot of snow barely holding up under the weight of my tent, riding the Jasper Banff highway, over the pass, the people I met as I got older and began to put large amounts of miles on the odometer.

Cliff dwellings

As the years passed and I gained confidence and experience, always the dream of Frank Conner, the US south west and the Superstitions, in some ways haunting me.

The famous Painted Rocks

As often happens, one man's misfortune is another's dream come true.  As a financial advisor I had flexibility, I managed my money well and when the WW mortgage crashed in the markets I was ready and able to take advantage and bought a 1026 2 story condo in excellent shape only a few minutes walk from Glendale Community College. I paid cash, bought furniture, a scooter and shortly after a Yamaha XT 350 dual purpose bike.

Takin' a break on a hot fall day.

During the next few years, I tripled the mileage on the reliable Yamaha and rode not just pavement but back roads and trails that were often only remnants of such.  A flash flood or two and what was traversable by JEEP now was a challenge for my trail bike.

I rode everywhere, often overnight... had 5 stories published from the South West and countless Blogs.

ALL things must pass... and after 10 years of having a second home, and with some health issues, and insurance fences pressing, I decided to pull up stakes, drive from the East coast 5000 miles to the AZ desert, and bring back the few things I wanted to keep at my home in PEI Canada.

Getting some patio servicing, oil, filter, tires, chain and valve train... 

So... it's new years day, the year is 2020, truly science fiction territory and I am looking forward to continue riding and writing.

B 29 Enola Gay dropped the bomb on Hiroshima Aug 6 1945  (Pima Air museum)

In 10 years the one and only live Gila Monster I came across.  About 30" in length

D

A/C DOHC 4 V 6 speed transmission

I have several bikes still, some very versatile like my XT 600 others not so much  (like my TTR 125)

Stay tuned, I may not be on here as often but then again, maybe more so.  In some ways my writing may mimic Frank Conner's stories or maybe just a jaunt to the US east coast, maybe not the Superstitions but possibly the White mountains, certainly  New England, after all, last time I renewed my Passport I took the 10 year term and plan to get my monies worth.

So my friends... I will sign off with a Happy New Years to you all... keep the shiny side up and the rubber side down.

My pal for many years... Boo! 

Cheers from the Doc