There are days when you wish you could write a thank-you note to whomever it is that's responsible for perfect climactic conditions.  This was definitely one of them - cloudless sky, warm but tolerable temperatures, and a nice breeze to cap it off.  In spite of the beautiful weather the turnout was relatively small as it was a long weekend in Canada (Victoria Day on Monday).  Showing up at Primal Ride were the usual suspects: Adam & Rhonda, Darrin, Jason, Chris and a friend of his named Mark, a new fellow named Dave, and of course yours truly.

A little sidebar here…on the way up to the restaurant, Darrin and I switched bikes, just to see what the opposite ends of the sportbike spectrum felt like.  Having ridden a V-Twin for a year or so now, I was keen to get back on an inline four and the GSX-R is probably the reigning King of them; certainly it's one of the most popular.  I was expecting quite an uncomfortable ride - my bike has a relatively upright seating position while the Suzuki puts the body in a more radical racer-like pose - but it wasn't at all bad.  Even with my 6'2" frame I could see riding it all day long with no real objectionable discomfort.  However, the view of the instruments could use some improving (I understand Suzuki has fixed this a bit for '98), as you either need to crouch down and look beneath the windscreen or sit up and look down through it from the outside to see the clocks.  Another item, which I would hope is only native to Darrin's bike, was the electrical problem he's been having intermittently.  The fuse for the instrument panel (and the turn signals) has been blowing infrequently for the past month.  When I swung a leg over and started riding, it did it's little trick and so I spent the first half-hour not having a clue where I was in the rev range and short-shifting the thing…handled great but no power - or so it seemed.  We stopped at a service station and Darrin swapped in a new fuse and off we went.  Tada!  I had been shifting at probably 9 grand when the Gixxer doesn't come into its realm until well over 10; and then it comes on like a freight train.  It's a really great bike but I'm a lazy rider and would hate all the shifting that has to be done to keep it in it's relatively narrow power band.

Anyway, back to Primal Ride…
 
As we sat outside, musing over the days itinerary (of which we had none), and regaling each other with amusing and witty anecdotes (of which we also had none), I heard the wild purr of the Bavarian Horizontulus Opposimus, a creature not often seen outside of its natural habitat.  Its natural habitat is, of course, a licensed BMW motorcycle showroom…damned expensive things, which sound like hang gliders and move like cruise missiles.  I'd seen these fellows last summer during a ride sponsored by Cycle Canada magazine - one of them was a pretty quick pilot, unafraid of dragging bits of his beloved Bimmer around some pretty sharp turns.  They joined us for breakfast but would be riding their own route that day.
The rest of us ended up going to our usual spot, Parry Sound.  It was unfortunate that we decided to go there via the somewhat nasty, and certainly notorious, Highway 13.  I believe the current score stands at:

Ontario Public Highway #13 - 3
As Of Yet Unnamed Motorcycle Group - 0
 
Simon's crashed on it twice, Chris once, and the victims of its bad luck this time were Adam and Rhonda.  Adam's was fairly uneventful; the stays for his fairing broke off at the welds (from stress, not due to a crash) and he was forced to remove the front plastic and relocate the headlight using some zip-ties and tape.  Rhonda on the other hand, managed a slightly less than elegant dismount after coming around a turn into some sand (SAND??!!  On Highway 13??!! Surely you jest!).  No major damage, but the leathers have some lovely character to them now and the wind whistling through the cracks in the fairing should help scare off any deer thinking of crossing our paths.

From then on the day went wonderfully - Highways 632 and 141 through Rosseau (my personal favourites) were in great shape and I had a knee-draggingly-wonderful time flicking the big Honda V-Twin through the twisty bits.  We stopped a couple of times at the one service station they have there to refuel both the bikes and ourselves.  (Great homemade cookies by the way).

I'll be without my bike through this week as she'll be in having some minor surgery - new stainless steel brake lines, new performance brake pads, and some cosmetic improvements in the form of polished edges on the rims.  Should be ready for next weekend…
 

May 24, 1998

They say the sun don't shine on the same dogs ass every day, but on this particular day the sun was shining quite nicely on mine.  Well, in fact all of our asses were in danger of becoming sun burnt as it was yet another gloriously beautiful day here in Ontario; I'm only worried that we're using up our entire quota of nice days in May.

The weekend was a fairly busy one as Jim, a friend of mine from Michigan and fellow VTR owner, and his two "sons" named Eric (one's his real son and the other's just a spare), were driving up Saturday afternoon to join us on our Sunday ride.  Terry and I had been stuck in Mississauga awaiting my brake lines to be completed and we barely made it back in time to meet Jim at my house.  They brought their bikes up on their new trailer as a test for the upcoming Sportbike Rally in Parry Sound, which conveniently enough was where we would be riding the next day.
 
Jim and the two Eric's are about as nice as anyone you're likely to meet and we had a great dinner Saturday night.  The meal was, of course, preceded by the ritualistic running of the bikes whereby young men run through the town being chased by crazed sport-bike riders, all the while risking life and limb with the threat of being gored to death.  Well, maybe not.  Okay, so we just cleaned the bikes but there was a frenzy about it all.

We were up bright and early on Sunday, anxious to get going.  We waited around outside for Darrin to show up.  And we waited, and waited, and waited.  Hmmm….no Darrin.  Back into the house where I discover a message waiting telling me he's having even more electrical problems and the bike won't start.  Damned Suzukis.  (Sorry Darrin, couldn't resist).

He finally managed to get the master fuse replaced and we were on our way to Barrie.  Along the way I demonstrated my newfound ability to perform brake stands (the lines were well worth the money).  We arrived without incident, which I only mention since it seemed to be one of the highlights of the day.
 
I won't bore you with the long details of riding some truly terrific roads (and some thoroughly shitty ones as well).  Nor will I go on and on about planting my knee in one corner or another (just the right one, my left one's still a bit shy).  No, the stuff you really want to read about, and the stuff that is unfortunately becoming a little too regular, is the bad stuff.  And on this day, it was about as bad as it got.

We came off of Highway 632, a road that I would personally like to have bronzed except it would make the bike handle a little poorly, and onto 141 - a road also worthy of some type of accolade.  We've ridden these roads many times without a care in the world.  They're clean, well paved, and have decent sight lines and beautiful scenery.  Yet it was here that Darrin chose to make his mark.  And make it he did.  On the asphalt, on the shoulder, on the grass, on the ditch, on the large rock in the ditch, on his leathers, and - most sadly - on his bike.  And I wasn't there to witness it.
 
We had a group of maybe ten or twelve riders and six or seven of us broke loose from the rest and blasted off down 141.  We were flying and leaning and scraping and all that good stuff until we came to our turn-around point to head back.  We expected to see the rest of the group as we returned to Rosseau.  All the way back I'm thinking "Now, where the hell are they all?  Did they stop for gas?"

Don't I wish.

As it would turn out, at the bottom of the first downhill part of the route, Darrin pulled out and passed the enigmatic Julia (I'll save the story on her for another time).  When he went to pull back in, and doing maybe 130 km/h, he crossed paths with a set of bumps strategically located to make it quite difficult for a two-wheeled vehicle to easily re-enter the lane.  He hit them and, as he recalls it, the handlebars were violently ripped from his hands and he was instantly sliding and rolling along Highway 141 closely examining the wonderful microscopic details in the pavement that most of us only see on The Learning Channel.  (You know the show, Asphalt Organisms: Friend or Foe?).
 
As he rolled along he was also intermittently seeing images of his bike sliding along its left side and Julia, who was in serious danger of running the poor bastard over.  Bike, asphalt, Julia, bike, asphalt, Julia, bike, asphalt, Julia, bike going into ditch, asphalt, Julia, bike hitting rock…you get the picture.  By the time we got to them, the bike was out of the ditch and Darrin was on his feet with a Band-Aid covering his one major abrasion (the slide had eaten a small hole through his glove).  Besides some bumps and bruises, he was quite okay - a testament to the value of a good set of leathers and a decent helmet.  His poor GSX-R however, was a hurtin' unit.  If we'd had a gun we'd have just shot it.  Methinks it will be a few weeks until he's back in action.  At least the digital camera I had him carrying under his pillion cover was undamaged (I know that sounds callous and uncaring, which it is, but the camera's on loan from a friend).

The rest of the day went great.  It ran on a little long, as it always seems to - everyone's tired and you just want to get home and relax.  Poor Jim had a four-hour drive back to Michigan to look forward to.  Ugh.  Well, at least none of his party crashed.  Hmmm…spoke too soon…
 
We were about ten minutes from my house, just exiting Highway 400 onto Aurora road, and were passing two semi trucks that were trundling along in the right lane.  As you went by them, it appeared as if the front one was signaling to come over into the exit lane.  Only as you passed him did you see that he had his four-way flashers on.  I saw them, as did Jim, so we just went by the truck.  Jim's son Eric did the same.  The spare Eric thought the truck was coming in, and twisted the throttle to get by him.  Distracted by the semi, he failed to notice how quickly he was coming up on the ramp - which is posted at 50 km/h.  He exited the highway at maybe 120 km/h - and subsequently exited the exit ramp.  I was stunned (some would say that's a permanent state for me).  I mean, we were blasting around these roads up north, with nary an incident, and here young Eric dumps it 15 kilometres from home.  He was okay - the bike and the reflector he leveled were only slightly less so.

So, for all you bikers who might be interested in joining our little riding group, I'd like to say:
1) Despite the way it appears, we do not regularly have people crashing their motorcycles
2) Make sure your life insurance is up to date and get some collision coverage on your bike