I’m baaaack. I’m baaaack in the saddle agaaaiinnn…

Well, the season is finally underway. A little late, when compared to last year. And a little bit of a rougher start. But all is well now.
I actually picked my bike up from the dealership where I store it for the winter on April 17. Having a new clutch installed over the winter season, as well as two new tires, brought my season opener bill up to just shy of $1500.00. I paid that happily, envisioning a season of incredible adventure ahead of me.
The adventure started a little sooner than I anticipated. When I parked the bike at home that afternoon – riding straight home from the dealership – my buddy Shawn, who was following me home in my car, announced 4 words that caused my skin to crawl, and my bones to chill.
“Joe, you’re leaking oil”.
I looked up at Shawn, hoping that I had somehow heard him wrong. “It’s all over the windshield of your car dude”.
Fuck! There was no denying it now. I thought that I could smell something a little, well, off, on the way home. Turns out that smell was the stink of brand new oil burning on the rapidly heating cooling-fins of my front cylinder. I had a blown head gasket. And the truth was plain to see as soon as I looked. Freshly changed clean oil was dripping off of the bottom of my coolant reservoir. It was burned into the fins on my cylinder cover. It was running down the feeder tube from the front of the cylinder. It was freakin’ everywhere.
My heart sunk. For a moment.
And then I picked up the phone and called Maurino. He sent a truck out the next day to pick up my bike, and after another interminable 2 weeks, on May 2, I picked up my bike. Again.
I have pretty much been smiling ever since. I racked up 600 kms on the odometer during my first weekend of riding. I went to a swap meet. I’ve already dragged my footpegs in the twisties twice.
The season of my discontent is past.
The first riding weekend of the season was glorious. The weather could not have been better. Warm and sunny, but not stifling. A few of the lads from the CMC invited me to meet up Saturday morning for breakfast before heading off to the always popular Capital City Bikers Church Swap Meet. Lots of bikes, lots of really neat stuff to check out, and as always, lots of friends happy to see each other after a long, cold off-season.

After leaving the swap-meet Dave, Brian, John and I decided that it was time to go ‘dancing’, so we hopped astride our bikes and headed for Calabogie via the 511. Our timing was not great – just as we were approaching the section of 511 that includes some of the sweetest twisties in the area we fell in line behind a group of that really rare breed – ‘Sunday morning Harley riders’. And it was freakin’ Saturday! I swear this must have been a group of Harley riding seniors, because the needle on my speedo never touched 75 kph over the next 15 minutes. Oooohhh, the agony…..the 511 is not a ‘slow-dance’ partner. She wants to be grooved….move those hips….drag those pegs….
We stopped for lunch at Munford’s and after that I split off from the guys. I headed a little further into the hills to a small camping spot that my friend James introduced me to the weekend before and brought him the coffee that he forgot to pack in his camping gear. It was while dancing along the Centennial Lake road that I dragged my pegs for the first time this season.
Calabogie Camp
I remember the first time that this ever happened to me. I was riding on the 327 coming back from Mont Tremblant 2 years ago. It scared the crap out of me at first. But then I took the time to reflect on what had actually happened. My bike and I were no longer ‘my bike and I’. We were one together. Sensory input became muscular output converted to engineering dynamics, horsepower and physics. We flowed through the dance moves with a smoothness that defies my ability to describe through words. And the scraping of the pegs, for me anyway, is almost a sort of ‘sweet-spot’. Maybe simply because of the utter exhilaration that comes upon realizing that the scraping sound of metal on asphalt, in this case, does not bring with it disaster, but instead a sense of triumph.
Don’t get me wrong. I do not go out and make a point of trying to mark the asphalt with the soft white metal of my foot-pegs. That, I believe, would be akin to inviting disaster. But when my bike and I are dancing with the right partner, and all of our moves are in tune, it sometimes happens. And it always elicits an ‘ah, there it is’ feeling for me.
After leaving the camp site I headed home on the 508, another of the local roads that I will never tire of riding.
Then, last Sunday morning I decided to head for my hometown – Lancaster, Ontario. There are several different routes from which to choose when traveling from Ottawa. Some fairly direct, and some less so. I usually choose the less-direct routes, however that morning I decided to travel the same way that I did for years when I was still living in Lancaster but working in Ottawa – the 417 to the Highland Road – Maxville exit, then through Maxville, Apple Hill, along the Chapel road to John Street (another sweet little dance partner) through Williamstown and on to Lancaster.
The day was one of memories. Hundreds of them. Riding down the Highland road I was transported back to 1983, to an evening in January that found me driving home from Ottawa after work one Friday night. A typical Friday night that involved a few too many beers with the guys before hitting the road in my Cutlass. I missed a curve, flew through the snow bank and went airborne off an embankment, my car coming to rest just a few feet shy of a 15 foot wide, 10 foot deep drainage ditch. Just one of many times where, all things considered, I should have been severely injured or killed. Yet I walked away unscathed, having learned nothing, turning it into a story to laugh with the guys about over beers every subsequent Friday night until the next moment of reckless stupidity took its place.
Missed curve
Approaching Apple Hill I began to start focusing on how sweet it was going to be to really push it on John street, a twisty little two lane that follows the river into Williamstown. I had just slipped into fourth gear, throttle cracked wide, when I noticed the flashing blue-and red’s of an OPP cruiser that had an unsuspecting speeder pulled over. That was the only clue that I needed. I kept the needle at or below the limit for the rest of the journey, and considering the condition of the asphalt that was a very good choice. I may have remembered the road, and all of it’s twists and turns. But I had not danced her length on my bike yet. And the crumbling, washboard-rough asphalt may have taught me a hard learned lesson if it were not for that cruiser being there to slow me down.
I do not believe in coincidences.
Arriving in Lancaster I rode to my friend Derek’s house. I went for a ride in his absolutely gorgeous 1972 Camaro and we caught up on each other’s lives. I think it is safe to say that we are both doing much better than we ever thought we would.
Derek’s ‘72  
I then headed down highway 2 to drop in and say hi to my old friend, Trevor. And the memories continued to come. Passing by the mail box that stands at the end of the driveway to the big old Victorian mansion in which I grew up elicited thoughts of waiting for the school bus each morning, and the abilities that my younger brother and I had to find adventure in the ordinary and the mundane. Ah, but for the imagination of my youth.
Childhood home
Just past the old house I rode by the Ontario Tourist information kiosk where I rolled my snowmobile at 65 mph some 30 + years before. And once again walked away unmarked, and unfazed. I can still here Trevor and Scotty laughing about that one.
After a short visit with Trevor, and a promise to get together soon, I headed back to Lancaster and stopped at the Tim Horton’s. There I met another rider named Jo – short for Jocelyn – who goes by the handle ‘Pink Floyd Jo’
The pics here tell that story.
Jo has gone through some life recently, and like many of us has found calm and serenity dancing the beautiful dance on two wheels . Though we had never met before, I know Jo. And he knows me. I shared some information about the club, and invited Jo to check out the CMC 011. I believe that he will. And I believe that he will be another man who has found a place. A place to belong. And a place to be.
I left Jo at the Timmies and headed to Summerstown along highway 2. There I stopped in to see my older brother, and as always, I left feeling even better than I did when I arrived. I love you bro’.
And that was the weekend. I headed back to Ottawa from Cornwall on the 138 to the 417,and clocked 603 kilometers for the first two days of riding this season. As I write this it is cool and rainy at 10:45 on Saturday morning. But the weather channel says it is going to clear by early afternoon.
Hmmmmm….whatever shall I do?
Thanks for riding along….
Peace.