2016

It’s hard to believe it’s 2016. Wasn’t it just yesterday we were all panicking about Y2K? Sure seems like it. In fact I still can’t bring myself to refer to the 1900s as “the last century”.  But the progress of time is relentless and, as each year passes, I am closer and closer to becoming that guy on the internet, you know the one, the guy they use to demonstrate how fast we as humans are progressing, the guy who, “In his lifetime he has seen… yada, yada.”. Except, sadly, the more I see the less I think we are progressing, but that’s a rant for another post, or several.

Anyway, it’s 2016 whether we like it or not.

I don’t make New Year’s resolutions. Tried it once (to quit smoking way back when) and it lasted, I think, 8 hours, until I woke up very late on the morning of January 1 with a major hangover. Since then my only resolution has been to not make any.  But that doesn’t mean I don’t view the New Year as a time of renewal, of thinking about where I’ve been and where I’m going – at least as far as one can predict those things. (I am reminded of von Moltke’s famous words that no battle plan survives first contact with the enemy.)

So what’s next? And, more specifically, what’s next with this blog?

I’ve been at this blogging business for 9 years since my very first post ranting about crappy customer service in my Views from the lake – eh? blog in March 2007. A year later I started the short-lived From the Canajun’s bookshelf, followed soon after, in  April, by this blog, On Two Wheels, dedicated to, as the banner reads, “The addiction that is motorcycling”. Since then I have written countless words, am closing in on 900 posts on my blogs covering all sorts of topics, enjoyed nearly a quarter of a million page views, and read thousands of comments from regular readers and strangers just passing through. And, best of all, met some great folks both in person and (at least so far) just in the ether.

But lately I have found my interest waning. In this blog I have barely managed a single post a month for the past few months, and even fewer for Views from the lake – eh?. In part I blame Facebook, or more accurately the laziness in me that Facebook encourages. Let’s face it, it’s much easier to throw a 50-word snark up on Facebook than it is to sit and spend an hour or two writing a decent post. However it’s not nearly as satisfying, and quantity does not really make up for quality.  

So I suppose this is my not-a-New-Year’s-resolution for 2016, to not be so damned lazy and post more frequently.

It’s also time for a facelift. My friend David Masse over at Life on Two Wheels nailed it when he said “Time, like wind and water, inevitably erodes all structures. Things change, and the purpose changes too. When that happens, the structure must adapt, or eventually lose its relevance.” That’s where I feel I am with my current blogs. I don’t intend to try and match David’s excellent work but a refresh is definitely in order. I’m not sure where my thinking on this will take me over the next few weeks and months but one thing is for sure, I will be consolidating my thoughts into a single blog. But until then, don’t be surprised to see some non-motorcycle content in On Two Wheels.

It’s a time for renewal, and isn’t that what the new year is really all about?

Stay tuned.

I am alone

It is a beautiful fall day and I am alone. Sure, there are other vehicles on the road – lots of them – but mine is the only motorcycle I see. I feel sorry for those who have already put their bikes away for the winter. They don’t know what they’re missing, I think.

Trucks parked on the side of the rural roads with hunters patrolling the shoulders looking for evidence of game indicate deer season is upon us. Most carry rifles, some carry bows, but all are wearing blaze orange vests and caps over top of camouflage pants and jackets. I wonder, what is the point of wearing camo then? All look at me as if I’m nuts to be riding today. Some wave; most don’t.
No more bright reds and yellows in the forest. Now the trees are gray and barren, having sloughed off the last of their leaves during the wind storm a few days ago. It’s evident nature is hunkering down in preparation for winter.

Though it’s only 2 PM the bike and I cast a long shadow across the pavement. The sun, in a deep blue, cloudless sky, is already low on the southern horizon, providing light but little heat, a huge change from even a month ago. So it’s cool. The forecast was for 11 degrees, but it feels like it’s still in the single digits. No matter, I’m dressed for it and am reasonably comfortable. Besides, a cup of coffee at Tim Hortons will warm the blood in advance of the return trip home.

I don’t quite achieve a Zen state of riding – it’s not that kind of day – but for a couple of hours I am in my element. I think about the beauty of nature and how transient summer is at this latitude. I enjoy the sense of calm while riding a country road with no other vehicle in sight. I breath the crisp autumn air, with just a hint of decay as the fallen leaves begin their journey to ultimately become forest loam. I listen to, and feel, the sound of the big twin and remark, again, on how much better it runs in the cooler, dense, air. And I wonder if this is my last ride of the season.

Country living – the dump.

Country living has a lot going for it – the solitude, the beauty of raw nature, fishing off the dock, and the dump.

Not all dumps are treasure troves like this one: http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/atari-games-from-landfill-sold-for-more-than-100-000-us-1.3209532

Sometimes they are small town entertainment like the one where we used to go to shoot the rats and feed the bears.But, more recently, with the renew, reuse, recycle mantra in full swing they have become something more.

One of Jeff Foxworthy’s clues to the fact you might be a redneck is “If you come home from the dump with more than you left with.” Well, by that definition, your honour, I have to plead guilty, but with an explanation.

Faced with an instant lawn weed field after a major storm transformed our beautiful forest into so much kindling wood by a so-called macro-burst 3 years ago, I needed to find a way to tame it somehow. A scythe did the job for a while but I was keeping my eyes open for some machinery to make the job a bit easier.

Then one day I saw an old mower on the metal recycling heap at the dump. I went and checked it out. It didn’t run but it turned over okay and the compression seemed decent. The housing was cracked and a couple of wheels were broken but otherwise I thought it might do the job. So home it came with me.

The missus just rolled her eyes (a pretty common occurrence around here on dump day), but I cleaned it up, put in fresh gas, and it fired up on the 3rd pull. I replaced the broken wheels with 2 spare wheels I had in stock (found earlier, also at the dump) and I now have a working lawn mower to keep the weed field at bay. Doesn’t get much better than free. Thanks Bill Mulvihill, whoever you are!

They came, they saw….

… and - whoosh! - they were gone, continuing their whirlwind tour of Eastern Ontario.
I had the pleasure of being host and tour guide for Roland and Sonja while they spent a couple of days in the Nation’s Capitol as part of their Blogger to Blogger Tour 2015.

En route we first had to stop so they could dip their feet (figuratively) in the Mississippi River where it flows under the 5-span stone bridge in Pakenham. Mission accomplished, it was on to Ottawa for the rest of the day.

Clearly you can only scratch the surface of a city of 750,000 people in one day, but we gave it a shot. We visited all the obligatory sites – the Market, Parliament Hill, the Rideau Canal, and the National War Memorial where a couple of reservists proudly guarded the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, this after a guard was brutally murdered there last fall. And we visited a wonderful, but little known, rock balancing artist, John Felice Ceprano (that genre is, apparently, a ‘thing’, with an international community of rock balancing artists that have conventions and competitions) and his work at Remic Rapids on the Ottawa River.





Of course the tour also included a great lunch at a new-to-me Vietnamese Restaurant in the Market and a post-tour beer at an also-new-to-me Bier Markt on the Sparks Street Mall. (link)

All in all a great day with great company.

The Best Bar in America – a review

I don’t recall where I first came across this film, but it was somewhere online. As soon as I read the first sentence of the synopsis (“A whisky-fueled writing assignment takes one man on an epic motorcycle road trip through the bars and taverns across the American West.”) I knew I wanted to watch it. So I ordered it from their web site and a few days later a small package arrived.

An indie film released in 2013, The Best Bar in America tells the story of Sanders, a struggling writer, and his not-so-trusty 1960 BMW R60/2 sidecar outfit as they roll from bar to bar throughout the western US, ultimately ending up in Montana. The journey starts as an attempt to write a book documenting many of the supposedly 11,000+ bars and taverns in the west but, as road movies go, the trip becomes much more than that as Sanders meets various characters during his adventure.

It’s a short film and it flows along at a leisurely pace.  There are no star actors, no pyrotechnics or CGI, and only a couple of ‘chase’ scenes that are more humorous than anything. It’s just an endearing, relaxing ride for about 90 minutes.

I recommend it as a worthy addition to any motorcycle road trip collection.