"You meet the nicest people on a Honda."

Probably one on the most unforgettable lines in the history of advertising. 

Corona 19... these tourist traps may be idle for several months yet.

The entire Japanese take over of the motorcycle industry World Wide was underway... certainly in the process of cracking the door in.  I had my first Honda, a Super/Sports 90 shortly after this phrase had taken the USA by storm.

Best overheard tourist question... " Is Prince Edward Island surrounded by water.?"

 Mine was chrome and black, it was 2 years old when my parents bought it for me so I could get around working in my spare time.  Of course... in my spare time I did enough of that to look good but as the months and years passed... the bike became so much more than a mule to me.

Imagine seeing the numbers finally stopping here!

It was my own rocket shot to the moon!  Yup that little horizontal 4 speed manually operated/shifting mean machine was a call to Freedom for me. 

I added a couple of bumper stickers to each side of the tank, one proclaiming we should   

                 "Cure virginity and the other... advocating the banning of the bra!" 

                          Hey, what did you expect from a 13 year old kid?

I'm a lot older and wiser now I like to think, but in many ways that bike and the hundreds since, launched my career of riding to the heavens.  I would go as far as saying that riding saved my life.  Remember it was the "swinging 60's" and drugs were so rampant if not as in your eye as it is today.

I went two years to a High school with a population of 1800 or more kids.  When many of my school mates were getting drunk, shooting/smoking up and generally tossing the dice with their lives every weekend... my bikes became time machines by which I got escaped from that scene.  Many a Monday we learned that some one died in a car crash, drunk or otherwise intoxicated.


Today during these Co-vid 19 days, where social distancing is the current buzz word, it's almost like it was in 1968 for me.  Back then I would ride my Honda to Wabamun Lake or Elk Island National park or Jasper Banff and then Vancouver and in '75 right across Canada.  And it hasn't stopped.

A couple of days ago, enjoying the warmth of s PEI spring day, I was on the road again.

Repsol HONDA

Riding my Piaggio MP3, one of the most enjoyable machines  to take up a corner in my garage enjoying the peace and quiet, I had stopped over in New Glasgow taking in the sunshine overlooking the river, I came upon the only other machine in the Jam factory parking lot, a parked  Honda Repsol edition of a CBR 600.



Gazing across the gardens I saw who was no doubt it's owner judging by the helmet in hand and decided on a chat before moving on.

Low and behold the rider wasn't a young man, but a young woman!

Being one of the early advocates of women riding, no doubt nurtured by my Rider training days in the mid 70 and then again the 80's we had a lovely little chat.  Nikki... was certainly one of those people that Honda referred to, You could have transplanted her to  '64 other than the fact that she hadn't yet been born!

I remember well sending in advertising featuring women as riders to one of the Majors... We were going over my ads and he was telling me that the reason given for discounting about 60% of the handful he had in from of him was because those ads had featured women.  I pointed out to them that the women I had used in those ads were actually riders and graduates of the National program for which I was a Chief Instructor, and they were in deed... riders.

His last word to me was... "They're rejected because women don't ride."  Period.

My reply, I remember it well in our conversation was... "Yeah... well they're going to!"


Can you imaging such a thing today?


                                      I asked her name, she replied Nikki.

I didn't say anything, but I was smiling a mile wide.  Her name is Nikki and she is riding a Honda.

 Fast replay to the swinging '60.

You see, Nikki Rogers was in grade 8 while I was still in grade 6.

 She was in Junior high, while I was ending my days in Elementary school.

 Nikki "taught me how to "kiss"






I taught her how to ride.


  

Sometimes I surprise myself...

PART ONE

Occasionally I surprise myself.

It's not often I come up with some small thing that looks to me like a potential truth.

In my early career being a youngster growing up in Edmonton/ Fort MacMurray, and... a youngster riding motorcycles, I would find something that maybe looked like there could be some truth. 

Many of you know that I was a DP kid growing up in the big smoke itself... Edmonton AB.

To say I spent much of my childhood, thought of  treated as the child of Displaced Persons parents would be a truth. I was  18  months of age when the COLD WAR caught fire in Budapest.  My father had spent 6 years in a hard labor camp under the Iron fist of them "Russkies" after the war as a dissident.

When Uncle 'JOE' signed his last death order, Mr. Khrushchev declared a general amnesty.

That sprung Dad.  A short while later on the same day and the same month I was born into a very unsettled environment.



Fast forward a bunch. I took to riding motorcycles at age 13. Back in the day, bikes and real biker's (The Rebels/Kings Crew etc) weren't very highly regarded by society in general.  At age 14 while I attended grade 8 at Wellington Junior High, Principal Mr. J.D.  Marles called me into the office. 

(This was the era of the Strap, Detention and the like.  It was never good to visit the inner domain. )

After "banning" my Honda S 90 from school property, with the report that "he wasn't going to have that kind of influence at his school" he administered the strap across both palms.  I don't remember how many but suffice to say, it was fairly regularly. There was NO defiance in my head.  I hated the strappings and avoided JD at every opportunity.  Kids today have it so good, I wouldn't wish my experiences with today's kids. Can you imagine, law breakers like our principal would have gone to jail!  That would be a switch. There was lots of prejudice to go round three times over back then.

I began riding my bike again and from what I remember the Boss left me alone for the most part, might have helped that I was a star athlete and clearly not a budding Hell's Angel!

I took up motorcycling as a means of bugging out when I was picked on due to my foreign accent and probably the garlic sauseges my Mom fed me. I rode to the Zoo which a long way from my home in the North West of the city.  Eventually that became nearby lakes and shortly after that to the Rockies, and in 1975 I rode my then year old BMW to Vancouver and across Canada, and let me tell you... it's a BIG ASS country!

I was 20!



No matter what was happening in my life or my family's, I could escape for an afternoon or a day or more when I got my first pup tent. Riding was freedom to me.  Freedom from the arguments in our home, the tension and sometimes the physical stuff.  In today's language we'd call that abuse.

I couldn't possibly imagine what my parents went through.  I came to terms to all that decades ago and as the father of two girls, I'd say... We did OKAY.

Bikes = Freedom

I don't know why people today ride bikes, everyone has a personal reason, maybe it's "cool" maybe thrifty, maybe joyous, too me it became my life.  Brought the National Motorcycle training Course to FM, then a new program and I was getting in on the ground floor so to speak.  They said it couldn't be done but then again they said the same thing about my moving across the country at 26 to open what turned out to be a terrifically successful life choice. 

No need getting into the details here anybody that knows me or is a regular reader of this blog may understand what motorcycling has been to me.  If I said a "life savor" you could take that to the bank. On second though buy bikes, forget those bastards known as the Banks!



EVEN today, I did some riding, in fact a full day of riding the MP3*  The other day was the Serow and got my groceries yesterday, on the SYM Citicom i 300. Started cool today but during the day saw the on board thermometer reach 22 C  (how bout that Ronnie!)

In essence I had two rides today, which now a days is great, My medically challenged pal and partner, Willy has to be hand fed and of course Coco, whom I rescued from my home in Glendale AZ.  Yeah... so the days of riding off somewhere on the spur of the moment will have to be shorter and more local.  Hey, such is life. 

Motorcycles equal Freedom.

Face plant

One arm of Long River

SPRING is taking it's sweet time warming our planet, well at least the east coast.  Make the riding more pleasant at least. There's been lot's of catch up time for apartment work, servicing the lawn mower for summer and of course getting the blower put away.  Having a warm enough day and chores, I haven't been out much but yesterday after a hard day's work, with a bright sunny sky and no off road traffic, I geared up the Yamaha XT 225 Serow* which I serviced a month ago and have not had weather to ride.  I have many routes that are appropriate for dual purpose riding and I decided to ride my short loop clock wise while the was a little heat in the air.

What a pretty (quiet) ride.  What I call my "short loop" About 25 km

Bright sunshine day

Warming the engine thoroughly, I headed up the hill where the extension of County Line road  heads through the woods for another 2 1/2 km before opening up into rural residential land once again.  I saw why the road is "not" recommended for travel, the tree strippers are again doing their thing, this time out of sight of the general public etc for the ATV and dirt riders that use it virtually daily. 

Left shoulder, hip meet Malcom Smith Racing gear

ONCE  before in the Island's history, literally the entire island was stripped of woods to build sailing ships. It's a shame to see huge swaths of land just stripped.

In any case I hooked up with the north shore highway (#20) where I made my detour (short loop remember) on a short connector to Irishtown road.  From there barely 100 yards north was the sign to Campbell road.  Normally this road is impassable but it's early in the season. I rode until I was out of road and take the right of way on last years corn field.  With no foulage yet I had some decent photo ops and rode some of the PEI trail network, both winter and summer. That deposited me onto Burlington road and then to the short cut-off to Long River arm.  

Left knee

There were a few early season cottagers about, but given the Corona virus thing and the isolation we are facing, and of course the rather cool weather, It was like being the only living person within miles!

THE riding was fine for the most part, dry except for a few low areas that have standing water. 

Riding the last leg homeward bound was a little tricky with ruts, some knee deep and with the sun going down from a low angle, it was like riding with a powerful strobe light making things difficult to see.

Can be tricky. Sandy to hard pack.

As I was less than a half mile from pavement at Irishtown Church on my "short" route, I was perhaps a wee bit faster than conditions warranted.  Not that I was going fast mind... but even at 30 or 40 kph it was dicey at times.  It was like this all day but with the strobe factor, and maybe a little more enthusiastic, I got cross rutted and for a few seconds, thought I could save it. It's not like I hadn't been riding like this all day, but the rear tire must follow the front even if it's only for seconds. In those seconds, feet came off the pegs, ankle twisted and I did a pretty decent face plant into the hard dirt road. 

I didn't even have a chance to get out of my own way and my leg between left side of my body, hit he dirt with a hard thud before the hard parts of the Serow dug in.  I was able to pull my left leg from under the bike (good  thing it's not heavy) and sat there for a few seconds taking stock.  I flipped the kill switch, Bless her heart she was still idling laying flat, picked my butt off the ground and took stock. Was anything broken on body, and how was the bike?

One thing of the Yamaha Serow, it's not heavy.  Even with all the street gear, it's under 240 lbs.  

So it's true I am 65 and a half now almost, so I took my time and once positioned to use my legs to take most of the lift, had no problem in lifting the bike upright.  

I did a walk around the bike and nothing seemed broken.  Of course having ridden trail bikes my home life and raced MX for more than a decade, the levers and hand guards gently turned out of the way.  In a few minutes I had the old girl rideable and except for a few extra seconds for the engine to fire, notched into gear and slowly heading to the Church on the way home.  The forks had twisted in their clamps slightly, nothing that a 12 mm socket wouldn't fix when I got there. 

It was only a few minutes till I pulled into my driveway and stripped my gear, parked the bike and had a hot shower.

Today my right thumb feeling better, the swelling has receded and it wasn't quite as sore as yesterday.  

My 225 Serow just a wee bit out of hand. Nothing she can't handle!

I'VE ridden dirt bikes all my life, so the occasional fall is to be expected.  Last time I fell like this was Baja riding the Sierra Giganta mountains in 2007.  I didn't know it then but I had actually fractured my ankle, but after a CDN snow bird gal with 30 years of hospital experience patched me up and rode on. 

Considering the thousands of kilometers I have ridden off road in the Alberta and British Columbia Rockies, Baja peninsula and the deserts of the US SW in California, Utah, and of course Arizona, I've been dang fortunate.  

I had quite the first ride for 2020, on my short loop and I'm looking forward to getting back out there and add to my bag of experiences!

* A Serow is a Himalayan mountain goat. 

Ahhh, yes... our furry friends seen around the homestead.

SPRING is taunting us...

I saw 17C on my Piaggio's MP3's dashboard. That was inland.  Next to the Northumberland Straight, that dropped to an even 10C. That's 50F.  Not exactly balmy... and the only surfing I was going to be doing was on my keyboard!



But consider that winter here takes the better part of 6 months.  That's why it was sooo great having a down south home in Glendale (PHX) AZ. for nearly 11 years.





The ability to take advantage of being south in the 'shoulder' season was a capital bonus to me.

When I was younger, I rode various parts of the Baja Peninsula a dozen times. Cabo, once and several times the mid or north. I'd split lanes in CA and never froze once.

Since those days I ridden many back roads and trails and fire roads centered around PHX.

Now that I sold my southern home, you can chalk another one up in the books.

Now, my riding is going to be closer to home, many reasons for this... my health. The health of my 2 remaining cats, and various other circumstances have pushed me into a different reality, and just because it looks a lot like Frank at 14, riding the city of Edmonton and as far around that point Elk Island national park, Sylvan Lake, maybe even as far as Jasper... the new (old) me will be happy.  My stable of bikes has been changing as well.  The DL 650 V Strom was a great ride for many years but she'd moved on to new advantage (hopefully) for someone this year I will finally let go of the Thunderbird, much as I hat to do, but what's the point in have it collecting dust.  I already have a few old classics, now on to younger classics.

Like the one directly below...

THE MP3 always fascinated me.  Light she isn't, but the ability to 'lock' the three wheeled scooter in various positions is nothing short of amazing.  True it took me about a week or three to feel confident.  Over 500 pounds that's in the range for many motorcycles including my Triumph Thunderbird but the stability is uncanny.  I can push the MP around the garage is as easy as my TTR 125.  Even my 405 lb SYM 300 is hard to manage weighing nearly 3 times a "me".

It's true... I'm not getting younger and also true that I will continue riding as long as possible.  I just ride smaller lighter machines.  I've always been a fan of small light bikes and except for the T-Bird and the MP3, everything is now under 500 lbs and most are under 400 lbs.

Pretty soon the grass will be green and growing, and I'll be out and about, Corona will be behind us and it will be a fresh start.

Cheers all!