Well, since you asked....(and I know it isn't an ST trip, but what the heck....):
I set off from the
Disaster Central Workshop in Windsor, ON (right across the river from Detroit, Michigan) at about 7:30 AM on Sat. Oct. 13 in a frosty haze. My '76 Yamaha XS650 Standard, Lucille
started -
somewhat reluctantly - but she soon settled down to that nice steady
loping sound that we love about our XS650s. The engine oil temperature on my
Dogbunny thermo-dipstick was way down in the "low" zone. Frankly, I had so many layers of clothing on and my faceshield was misted so badly, that I couldn't bend over far enough to read the number. Therefore, I avoided revving to try to prevent caving in the sump screen. The skies were totally overcast and threatening and as I rode past the puddle that always seems to form at the end of our driveway, I noticed a skim of ice on it. Hmmmm...at that moment, I had three distinct thoughts:
- WOW - those weather reports must have been a bit optimistic about the temps around here;
- What the heck am I doing? I'm in my 7th decade and I am going to ride several hundred miles with two other similarly aged chaps on 40+ year old motorcycles in THIS kind of weather - just for fun? I must be an even bigger idiot than many people say....
- OK - so, its a bit "fresh" outside. What the he!! - I'm a Canadian - aren't I? We are the Frozen Chosen - not like those wussies who don't ride after Labour Day.
Anyhow - on the way out of town I stopped for fuel and then got going to my first waypoint at the home of my riding buddy, Lakeview, near Chatham, ON. The distance is around 45 miles on nice secondary roads and at first, it went fine. Then, around 10 miles from his place, it started to rain -
just a bit - but it doesn't take much rain at those temperatures to make you danged chilly. Fortunately, the rain stopped after a few minutes and I soon arrived to find Lakeview's bike and gear set outside his shop. Now, he was wisely ensconced inside where it was warm. He kindly invited me in to thaw and after a few minutes, I was OK again. We went back outside and -
HALLELUJAH - the sun was out! Any temperature rise was purely ceremonial - but it
FELT warmer and that was good. I put on my rain pants and that helped keep my upper thighs dry and warm for the remainder of the day - quite comfy actually!
We set-off for London - another 75 miles or so - to pick-up RobinC who had also (unwisely?) accepted my foolish invitation. That ride was a bit tougher as we started out on the big 6-laner Hwy 401 to avoid plowing through the city of Chatham. The 401 is the busiest highway in North America according to many sources, and so Lakeview and I had to goose the two old '76 XS650 twins up to around 65-70 MPH against a substantial east wind to "
keep up with the Jones". The bikes did OK and the sunshine helped light the way for us quite nicely. In London, I resorted to my iPhone nav system to get us to Robin's home where his bike was out waiting for our arrival. There we hatched the plan for the day:
- I had to hit a pharmacy for some bandages (I got a dose of poison ivy pulling a downed tree off the Tail of the Dragon roadway on the Vintage Yamaha Rally trip two weeks ago and the raw skin on my wrists was getting chewed-up by the cuffs on my gloves) plus we needed to be sure to have a safety pee (we're old duffers 'ya know...);
- then we would take the twisty scenic route down to Port Stanley which is a beach town on Lake Erie for a hamburger at Mackie's famous beachfront diner and fun emporium.
Here are a couple of photos of the three bikes (one with Lakeview himself) at the plaza where we did the first set of tasks (
and thanks Robin for gently applying the dressings to my poor old wrist).
NOTE: the Tim Horton's in the background -
did I mention that we are Canadians? Check out Lakeview's very tidy red 1976 - kick-only bike and Robin's beautifully polished '77D...and of course...dear old Lucille with the three-tone striping (
very 1970's) in all her scratched and dented glory.
After all of those preliminaries, we headed out for Port Stanley and what a great ride it was! The temperature had gone up considerably (possibly as high as 10 or even 11C - which is about 50 deg. F) and so we three Canucks were all toasty warm. We rode south through the
Railroad City of St. Thomas, ON where Ford used to build all of the big Crown Victoria police cars that are used by coppers everywhere in North America (that Talbotville Ass'y Plant is now, sadly, closed).
St. Thomas is also where P.T. Barnum's
Jumbo the Elephant died in 1885 as a result of being struck by a Grand Trunk Railway freight train. It really was a terrible tragedy - here is a contemporary artist's conception of the accident. Apparently, the circus people were using the railroad right of way to move their animals from the paddock to the performance area and a train came along unexpectedly.
After St. Thomas, the road became narrower and more twisty (fun!) and ran through some pretty little villages and forest country until eventually, the countryside opened up as we headed west across Elgin County toward the Port. However, the wind had now switched direction and was strongly from the west (our direction of travel). Nonetheless, we really enjoyed the twisty roads and even found an old gas station for another bike beauty shot.
...or two....
During this part of the ride I would estimate our average
ground speed at about 55-60 MPH but our
air speed was closer to 80-85 MPH as the wind was danged strong. It sure felt like we were doing "the ton". Anyhow - all was fine with the bikes and my thermo-dipstick was staying steady at just about 200 deg. F. I was delighted with Lucille's performance - after the recent re-build, she has tons of power and sounds nice and quiet with those Porsche elephant's foot adjusters from
Air Cooled Specialities. In fact, all three bikes ran like tops the whole day and Lakeview got
first-kick starts just about every time.
We soon arrived at the pretty little town of Port Stanley - one of many such towns along the north shore of Lake Erie. Port Stanley is named after Edward Smith-Stanley, 14th Earl of Derby who visited the area in the 19th century. Incidentally, Edward was the father of Frederick Stanley (16th Earl of Derby) who became the Governor General of Canada and donated the first Stanley Cup (the National Hockey League championship cup) in 1893.
The town has a beautiful sandy beach and is very popular in the summertime as Erie is normally quite warm. This year, the lake reportedly hit 80 deg. F (around 26C) which for a large freshwater lake in Canada is pretty danged warm. Of course, the south coast of Lake Erie is formed by our good friends and neighbours in the US - perhaps the high levels of "energy" presently occurring there accounts for the warm waters....
.
Here is a typical Port Stanley summer scene - and please note, it
did not look like this on Saturday.
The lifeguards were
brunettes this past weekend.
At Port Stanley, the typical
bill of fare is beach food and so we hit the most prominent location - Mackie's Diner - which has been there since 1911 (well over a century). Three burgers and assorted fries (no relation), onion rings and poutine (aka
Quebec-style heart attack-on-a-plate) were downed and it all tasted great! A couple of people quizzed us about the old bikes which is always fun too.
Mackie's is a very bike-friendly place with dedicated motorcycle-only parking (
to avoid stupid arrogant little twits who knock over bikes with their stupid flipping VW Golf GTI pseudo-sports cars...sorry - DAMHIK).
Here is a shot of the three XS650s safely sited in the
Bike-Only lot and behind the windows are picnic-style tables so that riders can keep an eye open -
just in case.
You may note that there were NO other motorcycles that day....perhaps they went elsewhere or perhaps they stayed home where it was warm and toasty.
Anyhow, after our meal, we sat around and chewed the fat for a little while but soon, the open road beckoned once again and so after saying good bye to RobinC who rode back home to London, Lakeview and I headed west along the lake shore road and got to his place in the late afternoon. I then carried on to Windsor - figuring I would be low on fuel when I got home. In fact, I went on reserve about 6 miles from home right in front of a gas station so I filled up and toddled back to the DCW in good order.
All-in-all it was a wonderful day with great riding buddies and three superb old bikes.
When I put Lucille to bed, I had covered 323 miles. Here is a map with our approximate route laid-out in yellow hi-lighter.
Amazingly, Sunday was an even nicer day (
who could have known?) and I put another 110 miles on Lucille doing various vital and important "errands" in Leamington, Kingsville, Amherstburg and points there-abouts etc. for a total of nearly 450 miles this weekend.
Cheers,
Pete
