Canada ride- Part V

St. Ignace, MI is a beautiful place. Definitely a tourist attraction because of neighboring Mackinac Island (and the historical bridge, of course), but still gorgeous. It's right on lakes Michigan and Huron, and is a really cute little town with lots of bed&breakfasts, bars, ice cream shops and hotels. We stayed at a hotel that was right on the water and it was awesome. I had never stayed anywhere that close to a lake, or slept in a hotel bed that comfortable. We walked up to some restaurant right on the water and had fresh fish from Huron, and I sat out on the beach that night and enjoyed some time alone. The view of the stars was almost as good as what I have out in Iowa, so that was pretty neat too.


The next morning, we went out to Mackinac Island. The ferry tickets are expensive, but worth it seeing that it's really the only way for a tourist to actually get to the island instead of by air.
Mackinac Island is really interesting because those who live/work there don't use motor-driven transportation. The only motors on the island belong to landscaping equipment and emergency vehicles. The cops only use the cop cars when they really need them, and usually patrol on bike or horseback. There's also tons of places to rent bicycles from there- it's the best way to get around town.

(View of the Island from the ferry)

But perhaps the most fascinating part of Mackinac is it's architecture. I'm not an expert on architecture, but it's loaded with classic Victorian and New England-style homes, which is something I'm not used to seeing in the heart of the Midwest.

(Taxi!)

There's also a ton of places to shop/eat/whatever here. Neat bike shops that will make you a custom bike during your stay using old Schwinns and new Schwinns, plenty of fudge and candy shops, museums, etc. Did I mention the architecture was beautiful?

After we had our fill of awesomeness, we crossed the historic Mackinaw Bridge (Watch the ModernMarvels episode on this, it's actually fascinating) and headed towards the Flint, MI area and tried to avoid Detroit traffic. We didn't do a very good job of that and found ourselves dodging through some messy roads and at around 10pm, landed in ___, to hook up with the president of our motorcycle club.

(Continued in Part VI)

Canada ride- Part IV

After riding in a downpour for about an hour and a half, we stopped in Wawa, ON for something warm to eat and some time for our gear to dry out. Wawa wasn't that impressive of a town, (except for their gigantic geese sculptures) but was more of a "town" than White River was. We got back out on the road and it finally stopped raining.

(The Infamous Wawa, ON Goose. Courtesy: Picassa)

We were led into the Lake Superior Provincial Park, and saw some of the most beautiful sights southern Canada had to offer. Half of the route went deep into the forest, and the other half was along the coast of Lake Superior. I love Lake Superior; it had a really inviting waterfront. We stopped at one park to actually enjoy the beach and dip our feet in the water. I also learned about bear-proof garbage cans here...apparently they're American-proof too, I couldn't figure it out at first.

(Catherine Cove, ON)

The rest of the day was rainy and filled with gas stops at really seedy establishments. At around 4, we found our way to Sault Ste. Marie and quickly found the bridge to cross the border (My Dad has been to the oddest places way too often and still knows how to navigate through them). Stopped at the duty-free store to pick up some souvenirs and then left the country over a big old metal bridge that was packed with cars. It took us about 20 minutes to cross it but as soon as we got back onto ground, we were greeted with another longer line of cars waiting to get into the US.

(Welcome to the United States.)

Getting back in to the US was way different from getting into Canada at the Int'l Falls entrance. Here you pull up and they ask you a ton of questions, have someone walk around your vehicle with a dog, record your license plate, ask where you're from, how long you were in Canada, what you brought back, etc. I had some problems getting the gate to raise because I was on a motorcycle and pissed off a few drivers, but I didn't care.

After that, we were itching to just be somewhere, so we made a mad dash straight through the peninsula and made it to St. Ignace in about an hour and 20 minutes. And there, I found one of my favorite vacation spots ever...

Continued in Part V.

Canada ride- Part III

The trek to White River was certainly an interesting one. There was lots of beautiful scenery, despite the gray clouds that hung above us. The roads were in decent shape and were nice and twisty...that is, until we encountered our second bout of Canadian roadwork.

This is where I experienced the worst drivers ever: Canadian truckers.

Now I don't want to downplay truckers in general; if you have a CB radio and listen in on truckers' conversations, they're usually hilarious. If you have one in your car and are in need of some help, they're usually pretty helpful people. But in this case, I had a near-death (well, sort of) experience with the grill of a gigantic Mack semi.

(As mentioned in my previous entries, Canadian DOTs tear up the entire road when they do road work and don't do it one lane at a time like they do in the US. )

Eventually the pleasant ride came to a stand-still on Highway 17, and we were yet again waiting in a line of semis hauling things like wood chips and logs. We sat on our bikes for about 15 minutes before we started crawling again, and after crawling for about a mile or so we ended up on that infamous dirt-gravel mixture, but this time it was wet. Extra wet. Both my CX and Dad's GT struggled through the slosh while still trying to maintain balance and speed, but the trucker behind me in this turquoise Mack with a grill with a "jaws" bra on it was losing his patience.

As I was trying to balance myself going 10 mph uphill, this trucker (I kid you not) is a little over a yard away from me (bumper to bumper). I try to keep calm and quickly take my right hand off the bars and move it out pushed it downward a few times, trying to tell him to slow down. It's not a foul gesture, just an obvious way to say "you really need to slow down, I'm having issues". He then honked his horn at me.

Now.

Semi horns are loud. They're supposed to be loud. They're probably extra loud in Canada to scare bears or moose off the road.

I'm sure you've had a semi honk behind you before. You were probably in an enclosed car and were startled, but probably had an easier time getting out of his way. But you've never been riding out in the open on a motorcycle when a pissed-off trucker LAYS on his horn four feet behind you when you're having a hard enough time just staying upright. This scared the hell out of me and I tried to speed up. I could tell my Dad saw the whole thing, because he was doing the "slow down gesture" as well. Two minutes later, he gets up right behind me again and lays on the horn and then does a "honk-honk-honk-hoooooooonnnnkkkkkk!!" and if I hadn't taken the risk and gave it all the throttle I could in second gear to speed up, I would have been underneath that truck in a split second. Did I pull over to the right? No. I literally had nowhere to go, but into oncoming traffic.

My Dad made the bold decision to swerve over to the other lane, and swerved yet again into that lane's shoulder, and I followed suit. In any other situation, this would be a stupid (and illegal) move. In this situation, it might have saved me my life.

Did I flip him off? Of course I flipped him off. The guy almost ran me over twice and was obviously being an asshole about it, so I gave him a nice bold display of Yankee hand gestures in my bright yellow rain suit on the side of the road.

That my first real episode of road rage.

Then I saw a black bear in the ditch, and hoped the bear would slip into his cab at night. And then I thanked God that the bear wasn't in the ditch while I was pulled over or stopped in a mile-long line of traffic. I decided that was way scarier than getting ran over by a truck, so I felt better about the situation. (But I still hoped the bear would maul my tormentor that night).

About an hour after that, we stopped for gas and met a female rider from Vancouver that was riding her 80's Honda Magna to a business meeting all the way across Canada to Halifax (This is roughly the equivilant of riding from Washington state to Maine), who happened to be staying in White River as well. We offered to have her join us at dinner, but she said she was hitting the sack as soon as she got to town because she was going to be up and at it at 4 or 5 the next morning. She's doing the ride in a week.

White River, Ontario.

White River apparently has a reputation for being the "birthplace" of Winnie the Pooh. It was also quite a remote town until the early 60's- In the late 1800's, it was a rail town and wasn't accessible by car until 1961. (thanks, Wikipedia) About 100 miles outside of White River, you'll start seeing these old wooden signs advertising WtP's origins in White River, and it makes you think it is some major attraction.

When you pull into White River, you'll realize that Canada has been lying to you. Sort of.
Apparently I didn't see all of White River, but what I did see were two hotels, a gas station and a donut shop. We pulled into the Continental Motel and walked into the lobby, where we were greeted by a 50-something woman (wearing a WtP sweater, of course) and her insane collection of Winnie the Pooh collectibles. It was like walking into an episode of Hoarders, but with WTP stuff on shelves. She was very nice, and told us to check out the Winnie the Pooh park located next door. She made it sound like it was an amusement park...

We got to the hotel room (A+ on cleanliness, by the way) and walked over to the attached restaurant for dinner. I had been craving pasta all day, so I was stoked to have some. I ordered a ravioli bowl thinking I was in for a bowl full of overstuffed beef ravioli. What I got was way different: A bowl of the tiniest raviolis possible, with a pea-sized amount of meat in each. The sauce was Ragu with leftover ground beef and lots and lots of celery. Celery? Who puts celery in their pasta?

And did I mention how cold it was up in White River? White River prides itself on being "The coldest spot in Canada" (which, after a little research, was proven to be wrong) and it had to be about 48-50 degrees up there, with rain. The next morning we departed for the border in a downpour, but only after stopping to see the famed "Winnie the Pooh Park".

Let me tell you about this "epic" park. Epic fail, more like it.
The park has a single statue of Pooh up in a tree with his jar of honey. It's old and the colors have faded. There's a podium in front of the statue with a plaque that used to be on it, which has been removed. There's a new-ish playground behind it, but none of the equipment was Pooh themed or even colored- it was all just yellow and blue. There's a sign out front that says "Come to the WtP Festival, held every August" and that was it. That was the park that had been advertised several times 100 miles back. Even as a child, I know I wouldn't have much fun there.

We got back on the road and traveled south towards the border. We were getting tired of Canada and her tricks.

Continued in pt. IV.

To Do 2011

Thinking about my last big motorcycle trip, I went into the garage about an hour ago and looked at my two bikes with big ideas in mind. I think this next year instead of doing long-distance travel, I'd like to stay closer to home and do some improvements on my bikes. Here's a quick list of what needs to be done.

CX500

Fit/modify new tank (Deluxe tank! gives me twice the capacity!)
Fit new HD pipes to bike (Had the pipes for a year already)
If time allows, find a new seat cover & replace.

Titan

Rent/Buddy out a trailer and haul it over to the car wash and wash the hell out of it
Take off cover and inspect kickstarter- probably needs new gears
Test bike to see if it kicks over and starts and see how well it runs (maybe a test ride?)
Clean the metal (exhaust, forks, etc)
Air filters
Check oil filter and tank

Needs new/used
Rear fender
Tires
Grips
Kick lever
Rear brake lever
Cables
Battery (or alternate source of power for lights, the bike has no electric start)
Bulbs (probably)
Engine case hardware

Customize (pretty unnecessary stuff, but whatev)
Clubman handlebars
Paint (candy apple red or candy green)
Emblems

I think I can get the bike running and in good shape (if the kickstarter is all I need to replace) for about $400-500. The tires will suck up a lot of the budget at around 120 for both (if I'm lucky). A new kickstarter shaft + lever will run me about $80. Cables will cost around $35 for both, hardware is $20, brake lever is $30, chain is $40, battery is $40, fender is $80, grips are $10.

This leaves me at $455, but it could be more expensive or cheaper. The goal is to keep this bike a budget bike and get it running and looking decent to either keep or sell. Thankfully, it's easier to work on than the Honda.

Canada ride- Part II

Southern Canada is a lot like West Virginia.

If you've ever been to West Virginia and drove around, you know what I'm talking about.

I could say more and be pretty descriptive, but I'd be an asshole at the same time, so I'll leave it at that.

Trans-Canadian Hwy 17 cuts through the most deserted land I had ever been on. I've been to the Badlands and I thought that was pretty deserted, but this was worse. There's no gas stations for miles and miles and my bike had a range limited to about 120 miles at 60mph (including reserve). That day, I stretched it to 150 miles at 43mph. As soon as I hit 90 miles on the odo (where I usually expect to go on reserve) I turned on my left turn signal to let him know I hit reserve. Dad hit reserve soon after that and we rode about 10 more miles without any luck for gas stations, so we pulled over and looked at the map. The map showed a few towns, but we had already passed them and didn't see anything advertising a gas station, convenience store, etc. We decided to push on at 40mph to stretch our gas, and would go slower if we had to. The road was pretty deserted anyway, so nobody would really care if we were going that slow. After riding for about an hour at 40mph (panicking the entire way) we finally pulled over to some sort of rest stop and asked someone if there was a gas station nearby. He directed us to the nearest one (about 3 miles away) but it was one that we totally would have missed if we hadn't asked. It was a tiny ESSO establishment on the side of the road with two pumps and a small convenience store.

Now I had never been to Canada before, so I didn't know that full-service gas stations were commonplace there. A young guy about my age came out and grabbed the pump and headed towards our bikes while we just stared at him. As he was about to touch the bike we our staring faces turned into WTF faces and we stopped him before he could open the lids to our tanks. The pumps themselves were some of the oldest I had ever seen, and I thought I'd seen the oldest ones riding through Missouri last year. They of course didn't take credit cards and had the little numbers that flipped over on the display.

While my dad was gassing up the bikes, I went into the convienence store to use the washroom and get something to drink. I couldn't find the bathroom in there, so I asked the lady behind the counter, who was wearing a t-shirt with the sleeves ripped off with a picture of a teddy bear holding a flower on it. I was very polite to her when asking, but all I got out of her was "CAN'T YOU READ!? ITS OVER THERE...dumb f'ing Yankee..." I went back and still couldn't find it but a young girl (probably her daughter) led me to the bathroom, embarrassed at her mom's lack of manners. After that I grabbed a drink and realized I didn't know how to pay in Canadian money and forgot the difference between a "toonie" and a "loonie". I just slapped a bunch of cash on the counter and hoped for the best. The crabby lady gave me a look and shook her head and gave me my change and we were back on our way.

So that was my first real encounter with a Canadian in their own territory, and it supported my theory that this area was a lot like West Virginia. Although, if you said "dumb f'ing Yankee" in WV, you'd probably get tar and feathered or shot. Probably the latter.

The rest of Canada 17 was pretty much the same. My next Canadian encounter was with the Canadian DOT...

When Canada repairs a road, they don't do it one lane at-a-time. They rip up the whole freaking road (sometimes 5-10 miles long) and make you follow a pilot truck and ride over loose gravel and mud to get past the construction. If you don't ride, let me remind you that it's not easy to ride a motorcycle through gravel at any speed. It's best to ride through it at 10-25mph, but doing that and trying to balance your bike loaded with luggage and keep it going straight at the same time while there's a line of honking cars behind you isn't fun. I experienced something like this at least four times on my trip through Canada and this was the smoothest construction I had encountered.

We eventually made it up to Thunder Bay (which has great views, similar to Duluth's scenery), but we found out it wasn't that great of a town. We stopped in a hotel and walked about 5 blocks past tons of strip clubs (we couldn't tell if we were in the wrong side of town or not) to a Canadian Applebee's, where I was introduced to Canadian beer and gravy. Molson Canadian isn't too bad, and the famous gravy wasn't bad either. Its basically a heavily spiced brown gravy that Canadians treat like ketchup. It goes on anything ketchup goes on, but I preferred to just use it for my fries.

After that, in the morning we departed for White River, ON.
Continued in Part III.

Canada ride- Part I

Okay, so I feel pretty guilty about not posting anything in the last six or so months.

The Canada trip was bittersweet. I saw a lot of cool things and actually rode my bike to a foreign country, but 70% of it was ridden in really cold rain. It rained the entire way to Minneapolis, it rained on the way to Duluth, it rained (a little) on the way to Thunder Bay, it rained (a little) on the way to White River, it rained the entire way from White River to the US border, it did not rain from St. Ignace to Flint, but did rain halfway from Flint to Chicago. And then it rained the entire way from Chicago back to Iowa.

So we started off heading up towards Dubuque. We crossed the border into Wisconsin and followed the border a bit and then crossed back into Iowa because my dad got lost. As soon as we crossed back into Iowa it started pouring, but it was okay because we had our rain gear on for warmth earlier anyway. At about 3pm 60 miles south of Rochester, MN the CX had a major meltdown.

During the hardest rainfall I had ever ridden in, I experienced a feeling that was similar to running out of gas when I forget to put it on reserve. The bike loses power, falls behind and sputters as I move into the slow lane to turn on the reserve and speed up. It takes about 30 seconds to kick in and bring me back up to speed, but this time doing so didn't help. I had ridden about 70 miles already, which (depending on the conditions) is when I should usually switch over to reserve anyway. It was still sputtering and revving and demanded that I quickly downshift and turn it off. I did that and sat there for a minute, and then I started the bike back up again. It hesitated but eventually started and idled fine. My dad was about 7 miles ahead of me before he realized I had pulled over (despite my honking and light flickering) and had no remedy for the situation so I got back on and rode it for another 20 miles until it did it again. The rain was coming down in sheets now and was starting to collect on roads in every small town we pulled into, but as soon as the heavy rain subsided, the bike ran fine. When we got to Rochester we pulled the fuel line and put an entire new tank of gas in it (thinking water got into the fuel and fouled it) and then it ran like usual all the way through the busy Minneapolis traffic to our destination.

The next day we departed Minneapolis and headed towards Duluth in partly cloudy skies. It eventually started to rain 100 miles out but after a really boring ride up north we arrived in Duluth where it was nice and sunny. Duluth is pretty scenic and seems like a fun town, but there's a lot of homeless people and nomads with backpacks running around because its pretty much the end of the line for Minnesota. After visiting the cool locomotive station there, we headed up to Hibbing, MN where my next problem arose.


The Duluth area has some of the crappiest roads I've ever ridden on. Super bumpy with tons of potholes. We took a really bad side road to get to Hibbing, where I lost my luggage.
Losing something that's been sitting behind you and providing you with a back rest for the last 400 miles is a surreal feeling. It was a brand new expensive waterproof duffel bag that had all of my clothes and electronics accessories stuffed in it. It had been wrapped down nicely with about 4 bungee cords so I thought it would have been fine, but as soon as I heard the bungees banging against the side of the bike and scratching my sidecovers (and potentially getting into the spokes of my rear wheel) I freaked out and cautiously pulled over immediately. After meeting back up with my dad, we combed a 30 mile stretch of road for an hour and a half, burning daylight and looking for my missing bag. In that hour and a half about 5 cars went down that road coming from Hibbing like us, and I'm sure one of those cars stole my bag. I went back looking for it right away and still couldn't find it. I called the local Sheriffs office (where they didn't do anything about it, of course) and went to Wal Mart (ugh) and blew $100 replacing everything I lost.

Lessons learned: Be more obsessive-compulsive about your bungee cords. Pull over when you rode through a bumpy road and re-tighten everything. Put a card in your luggage with your name and address on it. Make your luggage visible in case it gets thrown into a ditch.

After that and spending a night creeping the NE MN "lost and found" section on CraigsList and talking to local authorities, we left for International Falls for the monumental border crossing.

It was possibly the easiest border crossing ever. My dad went in first and handed the officer his passport and told him I was with him on a trip and the guy waved me through and didn't even ask for my passport. I stopped at the window anyway to hand it to him just to be sure but he just shook his head and told me to have fun. I had my first taste of Vietnamese food in town (A+) in town there and then crossed a series of bridges from island-to-island to get on the main road to start going across Canada.




Continued in Part II.

Recovery.

So Sunday my dad and I drove up to Urbana to fix and retrieve my bike. We rolled in at 9:00am sharp and after coffee and chatting, we got to work on the bike at 9:30. Rolled the bike into Tom's air conditioned part of the garage and took off the tank, seat and grip and loosened up the carbs so we could get at the cable connections. There's really no room in there, so it took awhile. Finished the job at around 12, and I was shocked at the results. The throttle response was really quick and not loose and slow like it used to be. There was way too much slack in the cable, and by the looks of it, it was going to snap on the road anyway.

So we put back on the tank and seat and put it all together and took it out into the driveway for a test ride. It took longer than usual to warm up with the choke on, and when I turned off the choke...so did the bike. The bike would not run without the choke on, which is unusual and just not good for the engine. I took it out on the gravel road about half a mile to go through the gears, and it worked fine until I noticed that the bumpy terrain was making the choke work its way down to the bottom, eventually shutting it off. We took it back to the garage and after tinkering with it for about an hour, decided that the rubber intake ports were cracked through and were leaking air. We sealed them up the best we could with electrical tape, and as long as we kept the engine going and giving it throttle, it would run. If I come to a stop sign and let go of the throttle, it'll turn the bike off at the stop sign. I decided the job of riding the bike home should be left to the elder rider with over 35 years of riding experience, and he was cool with it.


We only got 4 miles before the battery died at a stop sign.
Battery!? We didn't even TOUCH it!
So I got out of the car and pushed my dad for about 1/5th of a mile on gravel so he could bump start it. We got back to the garage, diagnosed the problem, and realized that the battery connections were really loose. A quick fix with a screwdriver and we were back on the road. This time we made it home with no problems.

Grant Wood's "American Gothic" painted on a barn Along Rt. 30 near Mt. Vernon, IA

The next day, we took a look at the carbs for leaks, and found bad O-rings and replaced them. Took off the electrical tape from the boots and replaced it with a sealant, adjusted the idle and it works great now! We found like 5 problems we had to fix in one week, which I guess is pretty good.

I decided I was sick of my foam grips, so I ordered a set of rubber grips from JC Whitney, which will hopefully come tomorrow along with a Vista Cruise cruise control unit. That will be really nice. Took the bikes to the car wash for a quick pre-ride rinse.

Also, my dad introduced me to a bench grinder on Monday so I could polish some parts. I started with my fuse box cover, and it turned out great! The beginning product looked exactly like the cover on the left, and the finished cover is polished up nice :)



I still have a lot to do before my trip Saturday!