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I’ve mostly ridden in the tropics of Asia and the filthy-hot deserts of Australia, and did not fully comprehend or respect the unseemly magnification of coldness that mid-October riding in Ontario confers on the optimist.

Last Sunday, even though it was weirdly cold-seeming at first sniff in the early a.m., I resolved to do a 4-5 hour leaf tour in the northwest — Caledon, Escarpment, Albion Hills, maybe Elora Gorge — this time with wife bolted astern. She’d only ridden with me once before and loved it — the previous weekend when I took her to see Scarborough Bluffs via the beaches.

So I put on longjohns, jeans, longsleeved t-shirt, sweatshirt, sweater, a moderately-insulated leather jacket kindly given me by the administrator of this site, heavy socks, big leather gloves with the fluffy inserts, and a scarf. She wore tights under jeans and I don’t know what else — anyway I warned her to dress warmly, and to bring along her fancy new Nikon.

I was comfortable at first, having stayed on Allen Rd and off-highway to maintain speed and wife-freakage at a minimum. But it was taking close to forever to get anywhere non-ugly, so when I saw Hwy. 400 I slid on and locked in at a lawbiding 100kph.

Within three or so minutes, my knees felt like they’d been hit with frozen crowbars, areas of my hands — the bits not touching the heated grips — were past numb and into hypothermical and spazzy. This was not helped by my gloves, so thick the throttle and clutch had become more on/off switches than instruments permitting nuanced, controlled locomotion.

Honestly, the entire ride was not an experience defined by subtleties. By the time we arrived at some actual leaves, I was wondering about my undying enthusiasm to embrace anything with a decent likelihood of going all wrong. Lily couldn’t be heard over the ice wind, and last I’d recalled, 20-30 minutes prior, she’d declared herself cozy.

So when I stopped and said, ‘Let’s get some pictures of us out here in the woods on the bike!’ she replied with, ‘No fucking cameras. I want to go home, NOW! I have never been this cold, ever. I cannot feel my ass.”

Now a few years ago, I would’ve persuasively attempted to sweet-talk her into staying with it a little longer and adopting a toughened attitude. But three days of no food, sex or conversation seemed barely worth the effort I would need to summon to make my half-frozen mouth form the words, and then get a ‘no’ anyway, so I grunted ‘OK’ and pointed Naomi the bike back to Toronto.

Home in under an hour, she ran straight for the bed and balled up under the duvet, groaning. I joined her a few moments later, after I was able to straighten my knees enough to walk. Spooning for warmth, I placed a hand on her bare bottom, and the hand auto-recoiled in terror: That ass was as frigid as a boneless, skinless chicken breast straight out of the freezer. I rubbed, slapped, intensively spooned and cajoled it, but it remained nothing but ice-like a good 15 minutes.

‘You need a hot bath,’ I said, ‘and I will draw it for you.’ I made it medium-hot so she’d be able to take the temperature contrast. She stepped in and with great haste stepped out again, holding herself over the tub fearfully, like it was full of piranhas. I had to chill it back down to near outdoor temperature just to get her to dip a toe. Once in though, she adapted fast and after she’d got the water hot again, invited me to join her.

It was the first time we’ve done that in years.

Damn, I love my wife. And my bike.

Paul Fenn

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Sunday last delivered me a fine offroad session up Albion Hills way — just some trail that the ATVs use. It was gorgeous and it scared me. Intermittent sand patches, which are pure Hail Mary on a bike wearing street tires — you just have to remember to give’r on the throttle and steer like a man awakened by poisonous snakes in each hand, and hope you make it across to the traction again.

Almost lost Naomi (that’s what I’ve named she-bike) when I ran out of bite going up a hill and had to back it down — bike’s so heavy it wouldn’t even roll backwards downhill through sand and rocks. Was I sweating and whimpering, please don’t let me drop her, she’s too young? Yes, and in several tongues.

Next day I went down another ATV trail I noticed going off the tertiary. What a night-fugging-mare. Gravel. Deep, skiddy, corn-flake dry, hurtful, mean gravel, perfect for an ATV with fat tires, and the opposite of perfect for me. Got about 200 feet in, realized I had to turn around or have no end of drama, but as usual, when I try Naomi just sits there like a 250kg carcass, mosquitoes coming in like a million Spitfires and it’s a wall of jungle on either side, no room for my proven 20-point turn escape technique. Needed, located, my superhuman, turned the blob around like she was balsawood and roared out of there, drenched and panting, sticks and stones for a wake.

Stayed on road from then on. Stumbled into Cayuga, home of the Cayuga International Raceway, and what was there but roadbike racers. Watched the superbikes peel a beautiful course for an hour or so, had a burger back in town on the river, let the sun drop and then headed home via the escarpment, the 400-mile long, 400-or-so-foot-high limestone scar mostly covered with forest and farm that I am eternally discovering the wonders of. I’ve climbed it, caved it, hiked it, mtn biked it, contracted full-body blooms of poison ivy on it and now I’ll be touring it. Tomorrow, I hope.

Finally got a (mediocre) shot of Naomi and me out west of Hamilton. Will try to do better in the coming decades.

Paul Fenn

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I went northwest today in the full knowledge that I was heading into much rain, and was not disappointed. Saw some fine country, and many an unseemly grey-stone country estate with Oz-size gates and portly, tanned men driving Navigators in polo shirts and big stainless wristwatches, perfecting that tough-to-achieve Tony Soprano look.

I was testing my new jacket, a Shift fabric number I acquired yesterday evening for summer riding. My beloved black leather was beginning to kill me in the hot, especially when gridlocked under direct 2pm sun, surrounded by trucks on all sides belching diesel heat from underbellies. The Shift was ideal – warm, comfortable, lightweight and ultra non-blowy, and it stayed dry even in persistent moderate rain. Its red-grey-black high viz factor also gives me peace.

So I went south, stopped for a feed in Milton and when I stepped back out for more tar, things had gotten serious. I decided to head home, via Derry Rd instead of making for the QEW, where there’d be more chance of carnage. I slid into my rain pants and matching jacket – over my jeans and Shift jacket – a hyper-yellow foul-weather combo made for sailing. I’d only tried it once before, during the Marblehead yacht classic (Boston to Halifax) in 2001 and had frozen my ass clean off the whole way. But they worked pretty well this time.

My main problem riding through cats and dogs was seeing anything beyond my speedometer. I wear glasses, so riding visor-up gets them nice and wet. Visor-down and I am in a killer London fog at anything under 50kph. So I settled for 50% vision mode the whole way home… quite nerve racking I guess, since by the time I killed the engine in my driveway, my shoulders were locked up into a tense jam that I hadn’t noticed till then. Though nothing a double vodka couldn’t set right.

The F800GS continues to augur deep into my heart. Such an able, willing damsel, in all circumstances.

paulfenn

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David, my client, and I took off to Haliburton last Sunday for a toot along some twisted bit of road. Now one of the biggest problems Ontario has is an almost total lack of them, crazy ones anyway. Ontario’s highway engineers are surely some of the world’s least imaginative – to them, curves are the devil’s playground and must be avoided like the Autobahn.

Now I must preface all this by saying I’ve driven the 101, aka the coast road from Vancouver to Mexico (in a ’67 Ford Galaxy 500), I’ve ridden motorcycles and jeeps on the madly kinked ribbon of macadam laid down upon the lava mounds of the Gunung Batur caldera in Bali, I’ve powerslid through the jungles of Sulawesi, dined on rocks and bush-flies on the GAFA (Great Australian Fuck All), and slamshifted my way through many a Thai hinterland. So I suppose for me, discovering Ontario’s bikeworthy roads is rather like losing your virginity to Angelina Jolie and Giselle at the same time, only to bump into Courtney Love on your way home, and she offers you a drunken BJ – well, hmm, I, um, that’s really kind, but uh…

Still, I did enjoy myself immensely. And it was necessary to get out under the sun and away from all the estrogens that strain at me (step-daughter, wife, her four female employees, a sister, a mother), though I do love them all. And David is a rock-solid rider, something I also need in my life – you know, a proper role model. He doesn’t do reckless.

I do though — under optimum conditions, of course. And I managed to crank it, on and off tar. We found some dirt track in the bush about 10k south of H-town and I went a bit batty in there. It was dry, so traction with the Battle Wing street tires was no sweat. The F800GS handles so naturally, too, fishtailing when it should, unleashing no unpleasant surprises other than mad acceleration, except when I forgot to switch off the ABS and couldn’t do the 100-foot back wheel skid I’d planned. I don’t know about ABS… I’m sure the scientists at Bosch who thought it up meant well, and it’s saving lives daily. But when it engages, it feels like God, an all-knowing Germanic God, is reaching down and sticking his fingernails into my Brembos, saying ‘Nein, Herr Paul. Ziss iss not ze time for such silliness. Now shtop it!’ Fortunately, you can turn God off. You just have to remember to.

We rode and we rode and we rode, and it began to hurt where it will. And when we shot out of the secondaries, back onto Hwy. 35 south, and got on the 401 west, it was traffic. So we nudged back northward at around Oshawa and took Hwy 2 through town. Oshawa’s cool. Never seen it before. Assumed it was all treeless subdivisions and Pontiac Sunfires like it looks from the 401. But it’s got old buildings and guys with dreadlocks and girls with good legs and has a charmed, human feel to it in places. It’s also got at least one stupid wanker of a cab driver who ignored the advance green that was in our favour and nearly plowed through David. But like I say, he is solid and sensed that slacker brainwave long before it became an action and so avoided drama with barely a heart flutter.

And my role model imparted a lesson in me: When on a bike, everyone’s out to get you. Never think otherwise.

paulfenn

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I was away all weekend with my wife and step-daughter at an old friend’s gorgeous island on Lake Joseph in Muskoka. The old friend has a kid of her own now, but is doing it up as a single mom. Her four-year old girl, who’s kinda cute, came with attached maid, and grandma too, along with a total of about 29 hours of intermittent rain.

The mosquitoes were great fog banks of peeling hellfire, and when the sun came out every few hours and you went into the open areas where they don’t stray, the deerflies and horseflies took over bloodletting duty. The kids, when not eating, drawing or sleeping, were scrapping. Mine tried to drown hers once in retaliation for hairpulling, and the maid leapt in to prevent a murder. Old friend was fighting with her mom. The maid, a Filipina who really knows when to keep her mouth shut, mainly did that. The lake was coated in a film of pollen which collected mainly near shore, so you were swimming in what looked like powdered sulphur.

As a Newfoundlander might say: O, it were grand.

I was very well behaved though. I’d been prepared for the many banalities that were sure to pass while stuck in an all-female possse, with no sunshine and many bugs, and so packed plenty of beer, wine and literature, as well as mozzie repellant. And I declare with sublime pleasure that, apart from an ever-growing storehouse of experience-fueled wisdom that no one wants to hear, I have become the beneficiary of a new aspect of being me, now, here: Muskokan mosquitoes no longer bite me. Not one of them would, no matter how tempting I made myself, which included many bare-assed dives off the high rocks.

We drove home Tues aft, and as we hit the customary gridlock on Hwy. 401, I suddenly remembered that I own a motorcycle. As soon as I’d unpacked the car I rode it to the liquor store, got cider for the wife, Chimay beer for me, went ridiculously fast a couple of times and in the end decided I’d had a fantastic weekend after all.

Never underestimate the healing power of horsepower.

paulfenn

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There’s a scene in ‘Blood Diamond’ where DiCaprio’s character accuses the female journalist of being an adrenalin junkie, but like it’s a bad thing, as though she’s just a new class of asshole getting in his way. I remember thinking, ‘Fuck, so is Hollywood commoditizing the love of adrenaline now, making it just another category of consumerist desire?’ A notion like that can really knock the wind out of your storm jib for a time.

Since birth, I’ve been a lover and seeker of the adrenaline deluge. On my street it was normal — every guy and many girls were that way. It started with riding our Mustang two-wheelers off plywood ramps we built. It escalated to building ski jumps in the ravine, off which we did aerials — spreadeagles, daffies, mulekicks, backscratchers and helis (most since replaced by less visually interesting moves like… crossing your skis?). Then it was onward to cars, motorcycles, blue-water sailing, mountain bikes, girls, inebreants, rock climbing, freediving, spearfishing, waterskiing and surfing, not necessarily in that order.

For the millions of us who grew up in the pre-metrosexual era, the promise of adrenaline at some point in one’s day was, still is, a hellova reason to wake up mornings. It’s what makes you feel that you have indeed emerged from the sleeping state. It reconfirms your purpose, gives you a reason to travel to failed states in pursuit of some rock or wave or trail. It helps you make friends with eccentric people with whom you’d have nothing in common otherwise, it tests your balls (or ovaries), humbles and teaches useful lessons, like the value of not giving up. It gets you knowing and working with, even enjoying, your most private terrors. Not to mention that a rush of adrenaline is as satisfying as the filthiest sex, especially when you’re able to combine the two. Oh, that afterglow.

Back in Toronto for 11 years, after 11 years abroad, I find myself apathetic, or more accurately, unalive, at times. I came back here, after a feral and adventurous overseas turn, carrying the notion that I’d like to find a wife, move in, calm down and enjoy the contemplative life of a guy who’s lived some and who will now read, write and hold extremely interesting dinner parties, and be satisfied with that. After all, my body’s too worn out to ski, snowboard or play team sports. Thanks to knee and back carnage, I haven’t been able to run any further than across the road for years. Problem is, my desires, my energy levels, my instinct for stirring up a little shit remain undiminished from their peak, if there’s been one yet.

Enter the motor. I mostly drive mine like my mom drives her Honda Accord. Mostly. But when I know there’s a place where the chances of a car, cat, idiot or something else not wanted in front of me are minimal, I opt for adrenaline. I brutalize my throttle. I attempt to scare the daylights out of Paul Fenn for a few seconds. I try to slap fair-to-middling back to the shadows where it cowers in abeyance a few more hours.

So a salute to adrenaline junkies worldwide. Think I’ll go buy me a wingsuit and chute and head off to Norway this weekend. Or maybe the weekend after.

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I’d been hoping to join an accomplice on a Sunday morning ride up the 507, but bad babysitting planning on my part prevented it.

So at around 2pm yesterday I got my 1/2 day pass and rode the QEW around the Horseshoe exiting at Fruitland and along the Escarpment to Niagara-on-the-Lake and then the Falls. I had no map and don’t know the area well. Seemed like that fact might make it a slight adventure.

The Escarpment, if you don’t know, is a limestone welt that rises anywhere from 100 to several hundred feet above the ground it passes through and runs about 400km from the Niagara area to the end of the Lake Huron-Georgian Bay peninsula at Tobermory. I’ve hiked, mountain biked, climbed its rock, but never had I ridden a motor along the old ’scar.

I took the first road going up it, working east toward the Falls. That would count as the first time putting the new bike on a steep bit of switchbackery. And just when I was really starting to like it, I was up. So I found another road down and then another up, and so on for most of the day.

This bike eats the steeps like they’re gasoline pills. No grade can affect its performance. It’s a cheeky player through the corners, too. Hit a bit of sand and gravel on one curve, but kept looking to where we wanted to be going, and though both wheels shuddered and chirped an inch, they stayed true to intent. No time even to locate my fear.

But now that I know the bike really handles, as well as grunts, I guess I’m fully stoked. What else can it do, I wonder? Guess I’ll need knobbies to find that out. TransAmerica Trail, anyone? Seriously. I’d like to take a few weeks off next summer and engage that ribbon of mud and heartbreak in some light battle.

As time went on yesterday, though, my ass began to feel kicked. Tailbone seems to bottom-out on the seat after a couple of hours. It can be relieved by leaning down onto the non-gas tank on my left arm, or by adopting a perfect arched-spine sitting posture or by standing on the pegs like a twat, but these only help for so long. At some point you have to get off and walk your arse back to civility. I can’t tell if the seat is iffy or my cheeks are still in training, but I was fearsome glad to get home at 9pm and back to walking.

When I look back, it was a seven-hour ride with, at most, one of them spent off-saddle. Guess I expect too much. Fill me in, fellow F800GS owners, and others.

P.S. Niagara Falls and the grounds around it are quite nice, but what’s up with the dowtown? It’s as if they hired the worst urban planner in Nevada, fed him a few expired Oxycontin and let him go nuts. ‘Uninspired’ woefully understates that mess. And, while I’m at it, Ontario casino culture is not quite delivering the Vegas/brat-pack/black tie/bon mot/martini classes that might’ve been hoped for. More like morbid obesity meets the dacron track suit. Good luck with that, Niagara.

Paul Fenn

paulfenn.com

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F’d off yesterday on the bike for the late afternoon, having completed all obligations for my lovely wife’s 40th birthday party — a raucous, squealy, flash-bulby bash at the Drake Hotel’s Sky Yard.

I’d like to just get this one off: What has come over humanity? A bizarrely huge percentage of its members now feel the need to document every hour of their lives with stills and moving images, and then when a special occasion comes, you’re forced into one ceaseless pose for its entirety. It was absurd, watching these people preen and tilt and hug and fluff for a dozen cameras. Just when I’d settle into a decent conversation, someone would stick a lens into my face and demand I yell cheese. Such narcissism sinks empires. ‘Nuff said.

Hungover and spent, I needed the kind of fresh air you have to leave town for. Mind was a blank on where to go, so I took the Allen north through all the fugliness till I hit my first dirt road, and took it. Ended up driving around the Holland Marsh and then west of it through some okay scenery. On one stretch of deserted blacktop I was in sixth, doing 100kph and decided to crank it all the way just to see what would happen. In about two seconds I was doing 160 with no end in sight. Effortless.

Now I normally drive like a granny, in part to feel out my machine and the driving culture here as it applies to bikes, but also because I’m scared of cops and death. But when I hit a spot where I have a full view and there’s minimal chance of connecting with anything, short of falling meteorites, I open her up. I am not disappointed.

The bike’s exhaust tuning, let it be said, is a work of genius. Drive sensibly and you have a pleasing humble rumble; your neighbours remain friendly and even admiring. You could go for decades without annoying a single granny. But call on some horsepower and it’s like somebody uncorked a Spitfire. Bwaaaaaaaaawwwwwwggggggg, hails the F-bike. “Hurt me way more!” it screams, like that girl you once had who showed a bedroom madness that shook you so much you never went back for seconds (and always regretted it). The F-bike also backfires and spits and grumbles on the long decell in a manner that puts a naughty smile on my mug.

Its effortlessness of power and torque still amaze me. It seems not to obey a universal physics property known as resistance — neither the road nor air varieties. Always keen for anything sporting, like a mad puppy, F-bike knows no hesitation, no complications, requires no deal-making. And there’s no stoop ‘n scoop.

Paul Fenn

paulfenn.com

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Yesterday I finished the 1,000-km run-in and did the oil change/servicing. I’d not been allowed to do any serious wrist twisting or to exceed 5,000 revs until now. So after work last night I decided to strike out and sample some of the heretofore hidden F-bombs.

Though powered by an 800cc twin water-cooled 4-stroke motor, last evening my bike ran like a 1,000-cc turbo race engine with a double nitrous chaser. Pointing and clicking it up the Pottery Rd hill, I thought I was redlining, judging by the extreme racket and pace over ground I was making. For curiosity’s sake, I referred to my tachometer. I still had several grand to go before redline. I will confess that I was frightened. The bike’s power, torque and sheer fierceness about it all rattled me. My hands shook when I was done. That’s only happened to me once or twice before. To put that into context, these are the bikes I’ve owned and/or ridden in the order I remember them:

• Kawasaki 50 minibike - fun, joy, bliss
• Yamaha RD400 (stock) - scary fun
• Yamaha 500 enduro thumper (manageable scary fun)
• Suzuki GT750 Water Buffalo (my first owned machine) a wild, noisy, torque-filled mania
• Honda Nighthawk 400 twin — borrowed from a girl in Vancouver for summer of ‘81 (good clean fun — the bike, that is)
• Honda MTX125 - Thailand ‘89, Ko Phangan — two-stroke water-cooled, the perfect light, fast, tough, maneuverable dirtbike for the island’s muddy unpaved jungle-mountain roads
• Suzuki 250 two-stroke enduro - I’ve forgotten the exact model, but it was damn good fun, and got me to the top of Patong Mtn in Phuket in about three minutes
• Yamaha RD350 - a hell rocket, all the way tuned for racing, a friend’s (I popped a huge wheelie, flew off the back and gave myself about two square feet of road-rash, a crash that also cost me $500 in repairs… owner never spoke to me again, I don’t blame him)
• Kawasaki 1300 (relatively terror-free, until I looked at the speedometer and realized I was doing 180 kph between red lights)
• Harley-Davidson, small one, stock, ridden for an afternoon in Singapore. It was loud, heavy, slow, a pain to steer, but interesting. Don’t think I’d want one though
• Honda XL350 and XL 650R enduros (both purchased in Aussie, both had serious engine probs, so pleasure factor was heavily truncated)
• BMW F800GS - that would be now

I can’t yet comprehend this bike’s many personalities. Part of it is so civilized and quiet that I ride around and girls actually smile at me (or maybe the bike), as if to say, ‘Finally a bike that’s not fluorescent green or orange or a hog (or Japanese Hardly-Davidson), with guy on it who’s just in love with riding and fresh air and freedom, and flirting’ (which, for any bachelors who may be reading this, makes riding the F800GS the equivalent of walking the sidewalks with a frisky little Newfoundland puppy). Or maybe they’re thinking, ‘There’s no fool like an old fool’. I don’t care.

In the parking lot of a store the other night, I noticed a young woman’s eyes pointed in my direction. As I walked in to the store she said, ‘That’s one hot bike you got there.’ I thanked her, but really wanted to say, ‘Not so bad yourself.’ She was, in fact, quite ordinary. Still, I regretted not saying it moments later, as I’m well aware of the good karma that flows to any man who compliments any woman, whether out of true passion or falsity. And what man can’t use more of that?

The other part of this bike remains pure mystery. I only know she has many surprises in store for me yet, and I’m sensing kink propensity and mad willingness.

Paul Fenn

paulfenn.com

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First rural initiative yesterday. Took Hwy. 7 east to Rice Lake/Northumberland backroads. Passed through Bewdley, a town famous for all the wrong reasons. Went off-road several times on gravel, dirt and a nasty forest double track of pure grease-mud and foot-deep ruts, poison ivy everywhere. Got stuck, but got back out, unscathed.

Couple hours later, went happily slaloming down another steep forest trail of sand, stones and mud that motocrossers and 4WDers use to get to their main trails, somewhere northeast of Coburg. Drove around some down there, but the paths were mostly sand, and without knobbies steering was theoretical. Got stuck on the steepest part of the hill going back out. Rear wheel spinning and digging holes in the mango-sized rocks and coarse sand and can’t get the wildebeest turned around. She’s heavy and stubborn when you’re manhandling at no speed, just wants to stay still, or fall over. After maybe 10 failures I got her around, went back down. Bowels were feeling pretty loose by then. Took a few breaths, plotted a better line and gave ‘er. Found a narrow, navigable passage between gullies and boulders and made the top, sweating and breathless, but content. Not a scratch on either of us.

Had to be home by 7pm for hot date with wife. Took a bunch of gorgeous backroads heading westward north of Oshawa/Whitby and found Hwy. 7 again. Saw the weather coming and tried to duck southward, but was deluged. Big drops, so loud on the helmet. Thunder and lightning exploding like flak all around, with eerily low cloud and tornado-making black fog swirling like we’re in Kansas. Very intense experience for 10 minutes and then sunshine. By now I’m shivering. Rejoined the 404 and a jam-up that ran from south of Steeles to the Don Mills exit. That I found very relaxing.

Then, suddenly I’m standing in my living room, wet, cold, hot bath running in the background, telling my wife everything, gulping on a beer. My shoulders and wrists are aching, my face stings from sunburn, there’s a bug in my eye and I feel more alive than I have in years.

Paul Fenn

paulfenn.com

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