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!

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