Motorcycling: September is Here

September is here, and I went for a ride today with two friends. Usually I'm not really keen to write about a ride like this, because the subject matter seems too boring, but I'm going to make an exception for this one. Not because it was a real standout ride, but just about any ride has some interesting stuff in it.

Today is the second day of what looks like a week of nice weather forecast. It started cold, but warmed up to about 25c in the afternoon, which I consider the perfect temperature to be able to wear a lot of protective gear without discomfort. Also, I don't need to open the cuffs on my jacket, meaning no bees or wasps can fly up there and sting me. That happened once last year, and I think I would rather get a speeding ticket than have a bee sting. (More on that later). I'm also thinking about bees because I found a wasp nest behind the bricks of my house and this morning I was spraying the wasps, wearing my full motorcycle gear (with a scarf wrapped around my neck) to prevent getting stung. I didn't actually get stung, but my face shield fogged up so I couldn't see where I was going, and ended up having to lift the visor with all the mad wasps buzzing about.

After all that excitement, I got the Vulcan 900 out of the garage and went off to meet Barry and Bob at Tim Horton's in Paris. Of course, were headed to Port Dover, as none of us is original enough to come up with a better destination. Besides, we've seen every other place in driving distance from here, and Port Dover at least has lots of other motorcyclists to talk to. You never seem to meet the same person twice and you can hear the most amazing stories if you're willing to listen to some of these random bikers.

Bob has an old Suzuki Intruder 1400 with about 60,000 km on it. He briefly sold it a couple of years ago to buy a Kawasaki Ninja 1200. Now as a rule, many motorcyclists do not like lending their bikes, but Bob is OK with exchanging bikes with me, so not only have I ridden a Ninja 1200, but also I got a chance today to ride an Intruder 1400. So I would have to give my opinion here that a Kawasaki Ninja 1200 is just too powerful for me. I rode a Honda CBX for many years, which I did not think was too powerful - despite the fact that I almost slid off the back of the CBX once at full throttle when I released my grip on the left bar to grab the clutch lever. But the Ninja, well that's just too much power. I think Bob felt the same way, and sold it, and was lucky enough to buy back his original Intruder. After trying the Intruder a couple of times, I think I see the appeal. It's fast enough, it's comfortable, it actually has a great feel when you set it up right. Bob has a Mustang seat, crash bars with highway pegs, a small windshield, and plastic saddlebags. We exchanged bikes to let me get a feel for that oh-so expensive Mustang seat that you can't properly test unless you actually go for a longish ride. The rear suspension was so much softer than my Vulcan that it actually felt like I was floating over the road. So it was not a scientific test of the seat, because the rear springs soaked up most of the pounding I would have gotten from the Vulcan seat/rear suspension setup.

The styling of the Intruder 1400 doesn't appeal to everyone (Barry for example, but he has a Harley), but I really liked the unusual bend to the narrow handlebars, the thumping of the big pistons, the smooth hydraulic clutch, and the highway pegs were also useful. With the highway pegs and the back lip of the Mustang seat, it's easy to push yourself back far enough to completely take the pressure off the seat base. When you can do that, you can ride for a long time without numbness setting in.

Getting back to the speeding ticket - while Barry was leading we got into a small town with a 50 kph limit, and came up behind two tractors pulling trailers at about 30 kph, followed by a couple of cars that were reluctant to pass. Barry pulled out and went by all of them in the blink of an eye, and ran straight into a radar trap. The lucky part was that he didn't lose his licence. Cops in Ontario can suspend your licence on the spot and impound your bike if they think you are stunt riding, or racing. Merely riding with a couple of other people can be called racing, so Barry is probably lucky I didn't pull out to pass right behind him, which is what I often do. And I have heard rumours that even lifting your ass off the seat of a motorcycle can be called "stunt riding". Hey, I do that just to go over a bump so that I don't lose an internal organ.

By the way, it may be different in other places, but here, if we ride in a group and one guy gets pulled over by the cops, the rest just keep driving on and wait up the road a ways - or go to the next meeting place. We do not stop to talk to the cops as a group, that just asking for extra speeding tickets to be handed out. Not that we get a lot of tickets, my last one was 15 years ago, Barry's was 30 years ago. I don't think Bob has ever got one, if he did it must have been a bum rap. I sometimes ride with people with different rules. But I am never going to get into another group whose rule is "If you see a cop everybody split up and run for it".

Other than that, we had nice weather, talked to a few other bikers, and got home safe. Not the most original or exotic ride on Earth, but we make do with what we are dealt.