Canadian Map Reading 101
Canadian Map Reading 101
LEANINGS
Peter Egan
PERHAPS I WAS THE VICTIM OF ONE TOO many after-school TV episodes of “Sgt. Preston of the Yukon.” Or maybe I should have paid more attention in Mr. Berhow’s Geography class.
In any case, the first time I took a motorcycle trip from Wisconsin to Montreal, in 1967, I was what you might call cartographically naive.
Never having been there, I somehow imagined that when you crossed into Canada the landscape would be magically transformed into a pine-forested world of rugged mountains, glaciers and wide, salmon-infested rivers where bears batted fish out of the water while red-coated Mounties looked on.
Imagine my surprise when I found southern Ontario much like nearby southern Michigan-mostly flat and agricultural, without a lot of twisty roads. And the roads around Blind River above Lake Huron similar to the roads around Escanaba, straight west in Michigan.
I hit the scenic edge of the Laurentian Mountains near Montreal, but most of the ride consisted of a long, straight drone through an infinity of rain-soaked woods, with about one curve per day. Not exactly sportbike paradise.
This trip also taught me another basic map fact: A road that parallels a large body of water (a Great Lake, for instance) is not scenic if the road is a half-mile or more inland from the water. It's just like any other straight road through the woods, but damper.
I know now I should have gone farther east, or way out west. Essentially, I had picked the flattest, most curveless part of Canada to tour. My tire contact patches wore so perfectly square the bike could almost stand up by itself. I could have used the tires for bookends.
Ah well, we live and learn, and I finally got my revenge this summer, a mere 28 years later. All good things come to those who wait almost forever, if they don’t die first of old age.
Just got back from a week-long tour of the Canadian Rockies, riding a borrowed Buell Thunderbolt two-up with my wife, Barbara. It was a kind of reunion tour, the same bunch of hardriding, hard-living suspects who rode through the Ozarks a couple of years ago with our friend Gil Nickel as guide and organizer. There were about 19 of us on this one, mostly from northern California and Canada.
We gathered in Calgary and rode westward into the mountains, twisting, swooping and climbing through the Rockies for seven days. At last: rugged mountains, glaciers and salmon-infested rivers; grizzly bear warnings! The very country I had imagined finding on that first misguided tour but had missed by about 1000 miles. Bad aim.
Most of the California crowd rode their bikes to Calgary, but Barb and I avoided hammering across the Great Plains for three days when Jim Wild, the owner of a shop called HarleyDavidson of Southern Alberta, offered us the loan of his own pearlescent white Thunderbolt. We had only to fly in from Wisconsin, put on our helmets and ride. What decadence.
The whole trip was organized by two Calgarians (Calgarites? Sounds like a uranium-bearing mineral) named Allan Jackson and Ed Zuck. They picked the route, made up fully laminated rainproof maps, booked hotel rooms and organized a lifethreatening whitewater raft trip. The rest of us had the mindless luxury of tagging along and sampling some of the best roads and most spectacular scenery in the northern hemisphere.
When we told our riding friends we would be touring two-up on a Buell for a week, many offered their condolences. From a distance, the Buell doesn’t look all that comfortable for a solo rider, let alone a passenger.
In fact, both ends of the saddle are remarkably well-shaped and padded for all-day riding, and the handlebar/ footpeg position works well for sporttouring. Also, the bike just flat steers. With endless cornering clearance and effortless handling, it’s a very hookedup and confidence-inspiring bike to hustle down a mountain road with big dropoffs and bear warnings.
The only downside was that the rear tire chewed the corners off our soft luggage (Motorcycle Eats Man’s Underwear) every time we flopped into a turn, but I see Buell is finally coming out with some hard bags, so that problem appears to be cured.
Well, then there. A great trip?
Yes.
Mostly because it was a guided tour, so to speak. Our Canadian hosts, Allan and Ed, are both fast, dedicated riders (K.100RS and hot-rodded Triumph Speed Triple, respectively) and they ride long distances in the Canadian Rockies on their vacations and weekends. They know the roads.
Looking back on it, nearly all the best rides Eve had since that early Canadian debacle have been guided by someone who already knew the territory.
My map-reading skills may have improved since 1967, but there’s still no substitute for local talent, be it Gil Nickel showing us his favorite roads through the Ozarks, my Ducati dealer friend Bob Smith guiding a bunch of us down the true path of curvaceousness through southern Pennsylvania, or the folks from Edelweiss or Beech Tours leading a pack of sportbikes through the Alps or New Zealand.
It seems that whether the subject is good restaurants, lodgings with charm, local beer or great motorcycle roads, you are almost always better off to put yourself in the hands of like-minded friends who are on their home turf. They carry in their heads maps of remembered pleasure and pain best avoided. Essentially, it’s a Pavlovian, conditioned rejection of boredom.
When you travel with people who ride where they live, there’s little risk of boredom, and the good times almost always show up in the cross-section of your tires.
After a good tour, a bike should not stand up by itself. And the tires, ideally, should make very poor bookends.
