The making of a road captain

This is my friend, Wally. Last summer I joined a riding group called the Southern Cruisers on his recommendation. He belongs to the chapter in Brampton and I belong to the one in Toronto.

Every Southern Cruiser ride has a Road Captain, who rides in front and is responsible for setting the pace and leading the group through traffic. It also has what members of the SC call a Tail Gunner, who rides last and helps the Road Captain by doing things like changing lanes at the same time as the Road Captain so the rest of the group can change lanes safely in between the two of them.

Most riding groups have some version of both. Members of GTAMotorcycle.com have a Ride Leader and a Sweeper, who brings up the rear and makes sure no one gets left behind.

This past Sunday, Wally took his Road Captain test with his Brampton chapter, and led his first SC ride.



Here is the group before the ride.



The last photo shows Wally discussing the ride route with Bill, the senior road captain who was along to observe. He still has to get input from the other road captains before Wally gets the green light to become a road captain. Fingers crossed!

Postscript: Wally totally aced the whole thing and has been leading rides for his chapter of the Southern Cruisers all summer. I borrow him sometimes, too. He's a great ride leader!

First all-day ride of the season!

My riding buddy Timothy had to go to Sturgess Cycle in Hamilton to pick up his new bike and the day was gorgeous, so I went with him. Here he is, with his new love.




And here he is, gearing up to ride!

We hit up Snake Road in Burlington first. But that's a very short ride -- you can do it end to end and back the same way in 20 minutes. Timothy wanted to get a good feel for his new baby.



After my disappointment checking out the condition of Southwood 13 yesterday, we figured most of the twisties up north would be in similar condition. Some of the fellas on the GTAMotorcycle.com boards said Forks of the Credit Road near Caledon here in Ontario was still pretty sandy. Highway 507 isn't very technically challenging, but it slaloms nicely and gets a lot of traffic, so decided to head up there to see if it was any cleaner.




Here's a map of how to get to the 507 from the 401. The section from B to C is the part that is the 507. And here's a link to the complete Google map.



It was almost pristine. Here's a pic I took of Baby while I was waiting for Tim to ide by so I could get action shots of him on his new baby. There was some sand on the side of the road, but the road itself was quite clean. We were able to push the speed limit a little bit. Fast enough to get some nice leans on the sweeping curves.





Here are some nice shots of Timothy putting his new ZX-6R through her paces.

You gotta admit the lad has excellent taste in his choice of colour. (grin)

We looked *GOOD* riding together. I'm not prejudiced at all! (laughing)

Southbeach 13

I was hoping to go on a couple of group rides this weekend up to Southwood 13 north of Orillia. If you click on the Google map on the right you'll get a better look at the road.



But it was so full of sand during that glorious week-long thaw in January, I decided I better go scout it out before taking anyone up there.





Good thing I did.

Southbeach.

That's what I'm calling it now. As you can see in the pix on the right, there is so much sand it might as well be one long, curvy beach.

Never got out of 2nd gear the whole time -- and was in 1st for much of the time because the asphalt was so broken it was like riding on gravel.

Even where there isn't sand, the winter heave has wreaked havoc with the asphalt and turned it into gravel-sized chunks. The road is almost impassable on a bike.







I rode it as far as I could -- almost to the end -- but couldn't go more than a kilometre past the last railway crossing because the road was flooded. Forgot to take my camera out to get a pic of the flood, but on the way back (knew there wasn't anyone behind me) stopped a few times to chronicle the sad state of one of my very favourite twisties.

Forget about riding Southwood for more than a month. It needs major repairs and several heavy rains before it's safe. Normally, it's 30 to 45 minutes from one end of Southwood to the other. Today, it took an hour and 15 minutes each way.

Baby's got new shoes -- and the riding season is open!

Two weeks ago I went and picked up Baby from Brampton, where she was taking her winter nap in the garage at my friend Wally's house. It was barely above freezing, so I wore my heated gloves and Gerbings heated liners (they all daisy chain and plug into a harness I connected to the battery) under my leathers. Had an appointment at Riders Choice in Mississauga to get new tires and a chain put on her. Bought them as part of a special deal they offered at the bike show in January, and part of the deal was that the installation was free.

Even inner-city roads and highways were still pretty messy that weekend. Some of the turns -- especially on highway ramps -- were pretty hairy because they were still full of gravel and sand. But the ride to the shop was mostly uneventful, if you don't count the ditzy woman in the Toyolla Coronary who decided to pass me on the inside of the "on" ramp to the 410 South off Sandalwood. Almost ran me into the guard rail. I don't think she was *TRYING* to run me into the guard rail. I just don't think she cared if she did.

My friend Leslie, who had given me a lift to Brampton, was following me in her car. I could almost hear her cursing -- she's very protective when I'm on Baby. Thought for a minute she might try to chase after the ditz, so I started flashing peace signs.

But idiots are everywhere in the GTA. If I let myself get upset every time someone pulls a boneheaded move like that I'd be constantly exhausted. So I concentrated on getting to Mississauga in one piece and enjoying the rest of the ride.

Baby's old tires were touring tires, which aren't particularly suited for the kind of riding I like to do. The kind of riding I'm trying to learn to do. But at the beginning of last summer I thought I was going to be riding to Oregon and didn't want to have to change tires before I got back. So I had touring tires put on her.

But then I couldn't find anyone to ride to Oregon with me, and still had touring tires. Regretted it many times over the course of last summer. Even on the ride down to North Carolina and Tennessee. Yes, that was touring -- but could have used sticky tires when I was on the Tail of the Dragon.

LOOOOOOVE my new tires. Metzeler M3s: compound tires that are hard in the middle and soft on the sides. Really sticky. They fight me when I try to turn the bars when Baby's at a stop.

It rained a lot that first week, so we didn't get out much -- just when the rain stopped for a little while. Didn't go far, because the rain came in spits and spurts. and never knew when it was going to start pouring again. But didn't really mind -- we needed the rain to wash away all the sand, and, in some places, ice that was still on the roads.

And I'd just landed a whack of work (interesting stuff on the hydrologic system and how Canadians use water), so didn't have much time to ride last week, anyway.

So this past Sunday -- my birthday -- was the first day I got out on Baby for more than a few minutes at a time. Rode her to a Chic Riders meeting at the Goose & Firkin on Leslie St. north of Lawrence. This was my second meeting with them. I signed up at a meeting in March. I think I'm going to like riding with these folks. They seem to be a really together group of women. It wasn't cold enough on Sunday to wear the Gerbings, but it *WAS* still cold enough that only two other women showed up on their bikes. So we didn't go for a group ride afterward.

Terra Nova, Snake Road and a fine group of fellas

I've had to work this week so this is the first chance I've had to post about the ride I went on last Sunday with a new group of fellas from GTAMotorcycle.com.
We started out from a parking lot in front of a Tim Horton's on Woodbine south of 16th Avenue in Markham. That's Bernard on the far left in the blue jacket, the fella with the serious back protection in the middle is Errol, while the person standing to the right of Errol is Ray. And that's Chris on the far right. The other fellas are going to have to write me to identify themselves because I can't remember their names.


I didn't do a count of bikes, but there had to be more than 30 who came on the first leg of the trip down to Snake Road in Burlington. We broke up into several groups.
I asked to be in the slowpoke group and a guy named Tibor, in the beige jacket in this photo, volunteered to ride lead for us.


I think Tibor was the only person there not on a sport bike of some sort -- the next pic features his bike in the foreground when we stopped to connect with the other groups in the parking lot of a church at the corner of No15 Sideroad.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it's a Vulcan Classic (probably an 800). Tibor lamented not being able to ride as fast as the sport bikes, but believe me, he can really ride. I had to work to keep up with him.


This is Tim with his Kawi at the church stop. Tim and I have been comparing notes on camcorders and camcorder mounts. He's taken some pretty nice footage of his rides.




And this is Cleemore with his Gixxer at that stop.





I'm afraid I can't remember the names of the red duo, taken in the parking lot of the church, in this photo. Perhaps they'll email me to remind me and I'll add their names later. The route we took to Snake Road from there included some interesting roads with a couple of nice curves.



The beginning of the ride didn't bode well, since two bikes went down before we even got to Snake Road.

Here's a sad Mike and his bike, which he took into grass once he figured out he was going down whether he liked it or not. The fairing took a hit, but his sliders protected most of it so the damage wasn't too bad. The other pix is a closeup of the damage to the fairing.



I didn't get the full story on what happened to this Ducati, but it clearly took a fall to the right because the brake lever lost its knobby bit on the end. The Duc belongs to Chris, who's in the group shot on the top of this page.

This was my first time on Snake Road: it has a lovely rhythm to it, although it's way too short -- maybe about 10 minutes worth of riding. There are a lot more curves in it than is apparent when you click through to this Google map. But it was a long ride on the 401 to get there.

The number of bikes thinned considerably after Snake Road, and by the time we finished lunch and set off for Terra Nova there were only eight of us left. The rate at which we kept losing people was somewhat disconcerting on this last leg of the ride. Bob and Tibor got caught at a red light when six of us got through to get onto a ramp onto the 401. Here we are waiting on the side of the road to see if Bob and Tibor were coming along behind us. It turned out they didn't follow us because they thought we were taking a different exit.

We later lost two more people and then there were only four of us. But Tim was texting Bob and eventually we hooked up with Bob and Tibor near Airport Road before the turn to Terra Nova, so six of us ended up on Terra Nova.

Although Snake Road was a nicely technically challenging, Terra Nova provided lots more turns for a greater distance, and some really nice hills. Here's a link to the route Bob said we took from River Road to Terra Nova.

There was one sweeping curve that felt like it was almost 180 degrees. Part of the pavement was pretty rough and patched at the beginning, but the surface improved after that.

I was struggling to keep up with everybody. There were a lot of hills and it was almost sunset so every time I topped a hill the sun was in my eyes. I'd slow way down until I could be sure what was on the other side of the hill. I booted it a bit on a straight after that 180 to try to make up time and ... at the last minute saw the fellas waiting at the side of an intersection. Belatedly realized there was a stop sign. I braked immediately, but was going too fast to make the stop. A quick look left and right showed there was no one coming, fortunately, so I skidded to a halt and turned around on the other side of the intersection.



Bob commented that I'd just used up one of my nine lives. Heh. It's that horseshoe up my ... I mean, my lucky horseshoe that keeps following me around. Was relieved to know it's still working, though. This final shot is our last gas stop before heading home. Although we did a fair amount of slab riding to get to the curvy bits, it was a gloriously warm day and they were all within an hour of downtown. That's good to know when you don't have half a day to get up to Elephant Road or the 507.

A souvenir from the Dragon

I just ordered one last souvenir.

A website called killboy.com sends out photographers to take pix of people on Highway 129 and you can buy a copy of yourself riding the Tail of the Dragon for $5US. Cool!

They put it on a CD and mail it to you, with delivery estimated in two weeks. I took a screenshot of the low-res thumbnail to put here as a placeholder until it arrives.

Fog bound, tired, but home

After staying two days with my cousins Karen and Kathy (that's Karen on the left and Kathy on the right -- and the pix below are the really cool view from the patio at Kathy's condo), left Clarksville in Indiana yesterday morning for Ann Arbor.


The ride was a scorcher. The high in the Louisville area (Clarksville is just across the river from Louisville) for the day was 91F -- almost 33C.

Had to stop about every 150 kilometres to hydrate. It was so hot that after I parked Baby in Toledo her sidestand had sunk into the asphalt by the time I came back.

Every time I stopped I had to strip off my jacket immediately. Perforated leather isn't too hot as long as I'm moving but the minute I stopped I was baking. Every time I met up with another biker he'd ask me "Aren't you hot?" My standard response? "Well, yeah. But showers are faster, cheaper, and less painful than skin grafts."


Was too hot to eat, so by the time I got to Toledo around 5 I was starved. Spent an hour refueling Baby and myself and rolled into Ann Arbor about an hour after that. Filled Baby's tank, checked the tire pressure, lubed her chain, packed her to be ready to go, and crashed until midnight. Wanted to leave for Toronto at 1 a.m. to miss a thunderstorm that was forecast to be rolling through the city around 10.

Turned out I didn't have to -- while I was travelling the forecast had changed for the storm to hit late afternoon.

Still, I managed to get here without getting soaked -- although the fog was so bad on the 403 just west of Hamilton I had to stop by the side of the road for an hour and a half. Took that long to wait for the sun to rise to burn it off. Couldn't just follow the tail-lights of a truck or car because a fine mist from the fog kept condensing in a so quickly on my face shield I couldn't see ANYTHING.

I crashed for a couple of hours and am now catching up with friends. Brought back some bourbon balls -- every time I stopped to hydrate I grabbed a cup of ice to put in ziplock bags to keep them from melting!

A weird thing: almost every time I stopped for gas in Kentucky people kept proudly telling me that you don't have to wear a helmet in Kentucky. I always asked: "Why wouldn't you want to?" I just don't understand opponents of helmet laws. I'm kind of attached to *MY* head.