Musselman's Lake

T never got to come out for the Mt Albert ride, but I wanted to make sure she saw the massive, ostentatious but very nice, houses on York/Durham Line and Aurora Road. These places are beautiful, especially those in the trees where I am sure the tree's have been specially designed to grow perfectly vertical.

Here is the Goolge Earth version of our route

We took a meandering route North West outbound. After the houses we rode around Musselman's Lake.

A cool ride, but having on my base-layer really helped, the sun was out and the ride was just great.

T Maintains her "blocking" position perfectly today

House

Huge House (and T)

Musselman's Lake...and our bikes !

Shoei Showoff

Most people don't RTFM (Read the Fascinating Manual), but I, for once, decided to when my SHOEI RF-1000 Helmet arrived. T and I both bought RF-1000's because the fit SOOOOOOO well, but the cost in Canada was a little crazy. Luckily we found a fantastic deal online. Anyway...now the weather is cold, most people's lid visors are fogging up. Even with the good vents that the RF-1000 has, that doesn't prevent the fogging. Most people respond by opening their visor as little as possible, but that still lets in a gush of cold air and increased noise.

Shoei have combatted that with some visor control, shown in the images below. On the left of the lid is a little black plastic lever. With the visor fully down:
Moving the lever UP will LOCK the lid in the closed position
Moving the lever down will open the visor a VERY small amount. Perfect for de-fogging but not allowing too much air and noise in....give it a go if you own one !

Snow Boarding for Bikers

I'm sure many seasoned bikers know that when the mercury drops (or the alcohol, bi-metalic strip etc.) the thermals come out of storage and join us on many rides. If you are a summer/good weather only rider, then this may not pertain to you so much.

For myself, in winter, I like to Snow Board. Snow Boarding, like motorcycling, is not an in-expensive hobby and requires the use of specific, fit-for-purpose, equipment. Helmet, boots, Goggles, Gloves, Jacket and Pants.

The nature of snow, being that it's when when warm (aka water), means that much of the snowboard gear is designed with waterproofing in mind. Furthermore, boarding can be quite an exertion, generating heat and sweat; resulting in breathable equipment.... aren't these the same qualities we look for in decent motorcycle gear these days, especially for the Adventure Sports riders?

On a long ride last week I discovered the benefits of using snowboarding specific equipment for riding. The boarding pants provide great wind resistance, water resistance and breathability - though they are no substitute for a pair of armored overpants, I don't have any at the moment, and these worked beautifully.

Today (and hopefully the subject of a post later tonight) I decided to try my "Technical underwear" with my motorbike. Technical underwear/Base Layer is an excuse to charge more for long-johns that are "designed for snowboarding". Believing that the principles behind the design for other snowboarding equipment was still relevant here, I tried them out today. My base layer is by Kombi. I have started to notice a few motorcycle apparel manufacturers (FirstGear, Olympia etc) recommending the use of their base layer technology, but a little tip....if you are a snowboarder, then you may find some of the gear useful on your bike too. I found my snowboard base layer to be perfectly suited to motorcycling too, so I won't be buying something specific to the bike !!

I also use the liner of my boarding gloves under my motorcycle gloves when it gets TOO chilly !!!

SPAM Blogs

Ahh, the failure of automation. My newly created blog was considered to be SPAM by a computer program...then write bloody better programs !!!

I wanted to head out with the local riders tonight for a ride, but I had some dental surgery yesterday that left me to tired (and medicated) to ride...hope you guys have a good, safe ride. Let me know if you want to do anything Thurs/Fri

KC to Mount Albert

You can download the route for Google Earth Using the navigation panel in Google earth will let you follow our route from Kennedy Commons to Mount Albert.

What you will not see is the nice brunch we ate, or the ditsy waitress that go almost everyone's order a little screwey; and perhaps only got 1 bill correct !!

The Players:
Mike 'IXFe' Suzuki GS500E (yellow)
Cam 'Kenzie' Kawasaki Ninja 250R (black)
Ed 'ajrobrigado' Kawasaki Ninja 250R (red)
Tim 'Nemy' Kawasaki ZZR250 (blue) ... left us in Stouffville
Ian 'irocian' Suzuki SV650s (blue)
Garreth 'twistedpear' Suzuki DL650 V-Strom (black)
Edwin 'edwin168' Honda CBR600RR (tribal orange) ... joined us in Mt.Albert

There's always one person going the wrong way
It's not a dead end...really!	BRUNCH !!!!!!!
	Smile
C'est moi !

Cranberries

Heavy and V-Tom over at Stromtrooper.com were planning a route North, around the Muskoka area for Sunday, October 5th. I was already planning a pretty big ride in the same area the day before and I didn't think I'd be capable (yet) of 2 back to back 500 km rides!

So it was that I decided to incorporate a few of the roads they had selected into our route.

We set off from King Road car-pool area at King Road and HWY 400. T and I met up with cosines Mark and Sharon. We brought our dog, Tiki, and they brought their dependant; their young son Matthew. T, Sharon and the "kids" would take 1 vehicle while Mark and I rode our bikes.

This was the first long ride we'd taken together, most other trips had been sub 200 km; Mark on his 2008 Kawasaki KLR650 and me on my 2008 Flat Black V-Strom 650.

A cold day to be sure, and as I don't yet have proper fall gear, I decided to bring snowboarding pants - they worked fantastically. My Joe Rocket Alter-Ego 2 jacket kept me plenty warm with just a 'T'-shirt underneath, but I was pretty cold until I put on the snowboard pants (they blocked the wind, added another layer and provided water resistance too!).

Once we got off the HWY 400 and HWY 11, just after Severn Bridge onto Southwood Road, the real journey began. The roads were great to ride, a mix of really nice ashfalt with a few sections of gravel and a few tiny bits of dirt, - even the scenery was great. This is RR-13 I believe. I'm definitly riding this route again - infact, it was so good, I changed the return route so we could ride a piece of this again. Unfortunatly I was enjoying it too much to get off the bike and actually take a photograph !!!!

Anyway, we eventually rode through Bala (beautiful place btw) and onto Johnsons' Cranberry Marsh/Farm. It's great to see cranberries being harvested, as the fields are flooded to make the berries float toward the surface, the skimming the surface for the berries. It's also a great area for a walk, and we spent 2 hours investigating the area before getting back on the bikes and heading home. The girls in the "cage" took the most direct route they could, where mark and I took the route more twisty !

Our route fairly quickly turned into a night ride - I love the silence that you get out in the country, when our bikes stop. The return route took us around the East of lake simcoe proving that the lights on the V-Strom are just fantastic; as stock. In all we did just shy of 500 kms. About 1 or 2 hours of night riding, 30 mins of rain riding and a whole load of fun!!!

Google Maps view of our Rote. We did a bunch or "riding around" that's not shown, but this is the general route taken. Originally we intended to split Lake Rosseau and Lake Muskoka and go to Bracebridge, but RR13 (AKA Southwood Rd) was just soooooo good.