Motorcycling: Back to the Future

Yesterday being another day in our unbroken string of over two weeks of good weather, I decided to go for an all day ride with my camera and my new (got them yesterday) binoculars. As a destination, I chose Hawk Cliff, near Port Stanley. The annual hawk migration is in full stride, and on some days I am told 10,000 hawks fly by. For my ride I decided on Mary Ann's Burgman, as recently the Burgman has been acting strangely, and I wanted a full test after the recent tear down to do a valve inspection. I also took a water bottle, not the plastic pop-bottle type, which Mary Ann says is dangerous, but a new stainless steel space age type.

All 21st century stuff seems to have warning labels. The Burgman is loaded with them, and in Canada you can double that because for every English label you need a French one of the same size and equally visible. Even the water bottle comes with warning instructions. But my favourite is now the binocular instruction book, which is full of warnings and death threats. "You should never look at the sun with binoculars." Good one, binocular book writers. What else? Do not pinch your fingers between the two binoculars when adjusting. Do not swing the binoculars by their strap, you may conk somebody on the head, do not give the plastic bag to a baby, do not swallow the lens caps, do not drop the binoculars on your foot, if you chafe your eye area with the eye cups, see your doctor.

So off I go on a crisp cold but sunny morning for who knows what may come my way. I got on the 401 and started pushing the Burgman a little. It was running really well, a bit of a surprise, which encouraged me to push a bit further. Soon I was matching speeds with the faster cars, meaning 140 kph. It felt great, with the wind and sun at my back where they should stay all the time but don't. I turned off at the Aylmer overpass, and waved to the cop standing on the bridge with the radar gun in one hand and walkie-talkie in the other. He's been there for at least a week now, I could actually feel the 401 slow down as we came over the hill before the radar trap.

In less than 90 minutes I had reached Port Bruce on Lake Erie, and noticed a public washroom near the beach. There was a motorcycle parked in front of it, looking a bit like the 2010 Triumph Scrambler that I had been lusting after in my previous blog.

As I got closer to the olive green bike, I realized here was something that was not new. The rider himself looked like he could have been cryogenically frozen in the fifties, with his helmet, beaten up leather jacket, boots and jeans. As I pulled up and parked beside him, his face took on a look as if he was watching an alien spaceship landing. Then I remembered I was on the Burgman.

The rider from the fifties waited for me to remove my helmet and earplugs and we began to do what we obviously both love best, swapping stories of motorcycles with somebody else who actually cares. I wanted to know where he got the bike, he wanted to know if the Burgman had any gears (It doesn't) The Triumph rider was sympathetic to my tale of valve clearances, as his 1955 Triumph TRW was a sidevalve model that you could probably do in your sleep in under 5 minutes - given a set of Whitworth wrenches of course.

The Triumph appeared to have the original paint and tires too. He explained to me that the worst thing about the cracks in the tires was when you got sand in the cracks, that would eventually work down to the tube.

Another old timer walking his dog joined the conversation, and suggested a race between the bikes around the park. I don't know if all the ports along the Erie Shore are jammed full of bullshit artists, or if this was all true, but the second man began to tell us quite detailed stories of his trip to the ISDT in Sweden in 1978, financed by the insurance settlement on a car accident, to help his son compete for the Canadian team. It all sounded true, but being the skeptic I am, I had to Google it when I got home and found out that yes indeed the 1978 International Six-Day Trials were in Sweden. And they were actually rained out, as he mentioned. (To anyone into scramblers, the ISDT is beyond legendary)

Well all things come to an end, we parted ways. With my 25 hp, I easily overtook the 15 hp Triumph on the road, and with a wave, carried on to see the migration. Unfortunately no hawks.

Anyway, the day was not a total loss.


Picture credit: http://www.ukwheels.com/motorbikes.asp?bike=Triumph%20TRW