The Little Differences

Well I’ll start off this blog with the statement that the new WordPress interface is bullshit.  Or could it be their quick post function is bullshit.

So here I am in Boisbriand, QC a sort of semi industrial area just Northish of Montreal.  It’s my first time in this area, I usually work South of Montreal in Rive Sud, St. Cathrine or way past the old city in Rougemont.  Quebec is pretty but if you don’t speak French, once your outside of Montreal, English gets harder and harder to come by and my menu French will only go so far.  Lucky for us communication is 85% non verbal.  You can get pretty far with hand gestures and shrugs.  But it’s still a bit isolating, more so than just being out on a gig by yourself.  At least when I’m out on a long run on the bike, a hotel or motel room is a spot to let everybody know you’re 0k and to chase away the day’s exhaustion.

Otherwise it’s just a place to think about stuff, which isn’t always a good thing.

I’ve been looking at a few forums and such and breaking down the advice being asked for.  Now I for the most part leave out the motorcycle forums in this as those questions usually pertain to this bike or that helmet or some such other related bike issue of comfort, distance and wear.  No I’m talking about the artistic leaning forums where the general question is, “How do I circumvent the process?”  Which always cheeses me off.

But I suppose it’s a fair question these days as the studios seem to be hot on the heels of that very same question.  The short answer is of course, you can’t.  It’s tons of hard work, good ideas, more hard work, people you know and luck.  And it’s the same for the studios, whether they want to believe it or not.

Deep down it’s about sacrifice.  What chunk of your soul, family, self respect are you willing to carve off and throw to the wolves to get to your goal.  Bearing in mind, there is no guarantee of any success by doing this.

Yes it does sound like a recipe for addiction.

I must be getting better (or worse) I’m thinking about writing again.

Definition

We spend a lot of time being different people.  There’s who you think you are, who you’d like to be and who you really are.  I’d like to think we’ve all got the first one pretty well locked in and we’re all always grasping after the second one.  The third one?  Well that reserved for those long hard looks in the mirror now isn’t it.  Though let’s face it we’re all pretty good at lying to our own face.  Or as the more euphemistic put it, “Dream of a better future.”

Dreams die hard.

But that’s not really accurate is it.  Dreams don’t die as much as change.  We also don’t have just one dream, we have many.  Some bigger than others.  Some of my smallest dreams are far more profound than my grander ones.  The people I feel bad for are the ones who have no dreams at all.  It’s not enough to exist.  The world is too grand a place to settle for that and as fucked up as it is (and let’s be honest, it’s always been fucked up) it’s still pretty spectacular and a good chunk of the people in it are pretty cool.

Except for the Rednecks who insisted on talking through the night in the parking lot of the Tar Heel Motel in Nag’s Head, NC.  Inconsiderate assholes like you guys, suck.

So it was a tough decision to walk away from the writing thing but not as tough as you might think.  For one thing the industry has changed and not really for the better.  The focus is on profit and market share as opposed to story and discovering the audience for the film or God forbid, take a risk.  No sooner had I hung up the spurs than people came knocking after my one script still out there doing the rounds.  My ambivalence shocked me a little but then again, I might have just been too exhausted to react.  When everything takes years to happen, it’s not as exciting as you think it might be when it does.

So you stare at yourself in that mirror and ask, “Is this really me?”  I’ve certainly put in the work.  I’ve sacrificed family and friends for it, is the payout worth it?  I just wanted to tell a good story and maybe have an actor or two bring it off in a believable fashion.  With two pictures in the can, I’m still waiting.  Yes, sometimes realizing a dream is not the best thing that can happen to it.  And let’s be honest at a certain point, it stops being a dream and becomes real hard work.

And still, I’m pretty happy with the way things have turned out, even with the tragedy we’ve endured and all that goes with it and the ongoing frustrations of having a special needs adult to take care of and advocate for.

See he likes bikes too.  In fact, Colin’s big fan of Moto GP, Moto 2, World Super Bike and World Super Sport.  He’s missing regular bike races on the TV as much as me.

But I digress.

Happiness must be manufactured.  In a world of infinite choices such as we have right now, there’s a lot of very unhappy people out there.  Mostly because they concentrate on having stuff rather than focusing on what their stuff can do for them.  I enjoy my DSLR because it captures the beauty around me when I stop to have a really good look at it.  I love my helmet cam because it captures the stuff I’m moving through that I don’t have time to take that picture of.  It also allows me to remember what I rode through that day that was memorable.  Sometimes it’s easy to forget just how cool it was because you’re too busy doing it to actually remember it.  If that makes any sense.  It’s sort of shy I feel like I should have had two flights in the Lancaster to really appreciate it.  The first time, you’re too busy thinking, “Holy shit!  I’ m in a Lancaster.” to fully appreciate the fact, you’re in a Lancaster.  I love my Netbook that allows me to post on the Internet to my blog as I relive the day’s exploits in print and I love my bike who took me there.  I also love my wife for putting up with my yearly wanderlust.  I’m not the easiest guy in the world to be around when a trips in the offing.

I’m glad some roads and what I saw and experienced on them are only available in my head.  Those ones are for me and me alone.  Not Youtube.

 

 

 

All good things…

I took this picture last weekend using my Canon T2i which recently replaced my trusty old Canon Xti.  Though at minus 15C, I was only up for a few shots before my fingers fell off but I knew back in the car once everything had warmed up enough to move again that I had a cool shot.  Doubly confirmed when I got them downloaded on the computer.  Which is one of the reasons I love Digital SLRs.  Unlike the old days, I can shoot and check out what I’m getting in almost real time.  None of this waiting for the lab to get your prints back to you crap or if you were more industrious, developing your own negatives and prints.  Working in RAW format is so much easier than trying to decode how color is going to come out from your filter pack or your dial settings.  Plus a decent amount of camera memory just lets you shoot and shoot and shoot.  Infinitely cheaper than emulsion.

Obviously so because Kodak filed for bankruptcy this week.  Even though they developed the initial technology, they just never seemed to be able to get it to work for them.  Their corporate culture just couldn’t accept the fact that film was dying or at the very least withering.  See the thing with dinosaurs is their size is dictated by their food supply.  Lots of food equals big dinosaurs.  Not so much food and things shrink to maintain the equilibrium.  You want to look at a dinosaur today and you’re looking at a bird.  A bit of a step down from a Brontosaurus or T-Rex.

So in it’s heyday when the brownie cameras were capturing frame after frame on emulsion film and Kodak rolled through every type of film camera out there from 8mm to 70mm, Kodak was king.  Even Polaroid with their almost instant development only took a small piece of the market.  I’m old enough I remember the ones you’d take and then have to wait the however many minutes before you pulled the wrapping open on the print.  The later versions were a big improvement but for clarity you still couldn’t beat a real SLR camera.

My first experience was with my Dad’s Pentax K1000.  I think he had a 35mm lens and a 120mm lens for it.  Because of my uncle he also got into developing his pictures.  Black and white at first but later color.  I of course was interested in it as well, so I started hanging out in the darkroom and learned how to develop my negatives and of course how to expose a print and then move it through the various baths to get a finished product.  That began my love affair with black and white photography.  Color was a pain in the ass because you had to keep the chemicals at a very set temperature range and there were way more of them to piss around with.  Thanks to the C100 process on color film it was a lot easier to have them develop a series of prints and then decide which ones to get blown up (if any).

Just after I got married, my Father in Law gave me a Canon AE-1 Program.  It was a real workhorse of a camera though the last picture I ever took with it is this one.

Which as far as pictures go is pretty cool.  Though the total cost to get this image was over two hundred dollars in film and developing, which is why the AE-1 Program now sits on my shelf and not in my camera bag.

When I finally bit the bullet and switched up to Digital at a level that was past the point and shoot.  I did it with a Canon Xti.  At 10.1 Megapixels it was pretty kick ass and with the ability to shoot three frames a second (without a motor drive) it really allowed me to get some stunning action shots.

But when I needed to slow things down, it was there for me as well.

But as good as it was, it doesn’t take HD video and while Canon’s first foray into that realm with the T1 wasn’t spectacular.  The versions that quickly followed took up the slack and after a couple of years of waiting and a bunch of research, I settled on upgrading to the Canon T2i body and my daughter got the Xti and a couple of basic lenses with it (I’d upgraded to Image Stabilized lenses and what a difference that made).

At 18 Megapixels the difference in shots was astounding.  A tech later explained to me that the volume of data allowed for another 45,000 variations in color within the chip.  Which means the final image is always very close to what you shot as long as you got your white balance right.  This really cuts down on your workload in post as it really just becomes an issue of picking the shots you like and converting them from RAW to jpg.

Because at the end of the day.  My camera is how I record the cool things I see, do or have happen to me.  It allows me to share sometimes how I see the world and at other times how I’d like the world to be seen.  In the end aren’t those all good things?

Why We Ride

I started writing this a few months ago and never posted it up for whatever reason at the time.  I may offend some but treat it as an Op Ed piece and move on.  I don’t worry too much about other peoples opinions as far as I’m concerned that’s a good chunk of why the world is as screwed up as it is.  If there were more immediate and direct reactions to our actions perhaps we’d learn to be a bit more in tune with the situation.  I’m constantly amazed at the number of  weapon and gun carry threads on various riding forums (except and maybe this is ironic on ADV where riders really are off of the beaten path).  I’ve never been in a situation where a friendly smile and a wave haven’t been enough to get me out of there, usually in better shape than the situation started out on.  People are for the most part good and a good chunk of the rest of them are just curious about the nut on the bike, where they’re coming from and where they’re going too.  What’s five minutes out of your day to fill them in?

Why We Ride

Really?  No idea, who can really speak for the masses?  I just know about me.

I mean I can speculate about you but it would sound judgemental and elitist.  Yeah, I’ve been accused of that a few times.  So best we don’t talk about why you ride.  I believe the only person to you need to prove anything to is yourself and even then, sometimes that’s not a good thing either.  Bikes have a way of levelling you out hard if you’re playing the fool.

See (and this is just me here) I really don’t try to encourage people to ride.  It’s effing dangerous out there (in case you hadn’t noticed).  I mean it was bad when I started riding but they didn’t have cell phones, texting and DVD players and GPS units to take your mind off the road.  Drivers had to make do with applying their make up, drinking beer and hot coffee.

So why anybody would take up riding later in life is frankly beyond me.

Oh I’m not saying you don’t have your reasons, I’m just saying I don’t get it.  I mean I was mentally broken at a young age by that sneaky imp of riding, the Honda 80 Dirt bike.

Undersprung, I mean seriously crap suspension, underpowered and viciously snakey when it wasn’t appropriate to be but I terrorized the field next door and the gravel pit down the road (always being careful to walk the bike there not ride it, honest officer).

I got my bike license when I was 17 and my first bike was a 1980 Yamaha DT175.

While a good number of my buddies were hauling ass on their Kz 400s I was hitting the local logging roads up Sumas Mountain on my DT.  This is where I learned two strokes are finicky in how they put the power from the rear wheel down to the ground.  First gear could be just a bit underpowered and second gear was pure overkill and it can be tough to drift on a logging road, cause they can change from gravel to rock to dirt to mud in about as much distance.  So the bike would hook up and propel me into the bush and scrub (and trees) at the side of the track.  Lucky for me the DT never had much in the way of bodywork.  I will admit, sometimes I do miss the satisfaction of throwing down on a kick start but like the bruises on my ankle, the nostalgia fades.

I rode the hell out of that bike, it was my only mode of transportation for three years, rain, shine or sleet, mostly rain, it’s not called the, “Wet coast,” for nothing.  I told my wife before we got serious, “I come with two wheels, if that’s going to be a problem, tell me now.”  I think now maybe she thought I was exaggerating but she should have figured I was pretty broken as I kicked my KH400 to life under her roommate’s bedroom window those nights I stayed over.  Though once we were married, there was a brief period of not having a bike while we had our kids.  We needed that money for raising our family and work really did cut down on the riding time, well any free time but it wasn’t like it wasn’t in the back of my mind.  The sound of a motorcycle exhaust does strange things to the mind of the afflicted.

And then the terrible thing happened and while we struggled to rebuild that which we had lost and cope with a loss we could never, would never really recover from I knew I needed to get back on a bike or lose my mind.  Because there’s one thing I do know.  When you’re on a bike, it’s your world, it’s your focus.  Never mind the stuff that’s happening on the edge of it, you deal with what’s going on totally in the moment.  It became my lifeline back to the rest of the world.

Well most of the world, I still don’t get a bunch of it.

Between my shrink and the bike (a 1990 XT600 a good friend found for me) we pieced a decent simulacrum of who I used to be or at least laid the foundation for who I wanted to be.  The XT served me well for twelve years and I still miss it.  There were a couple of others prior to the current 04 DL-650 but they were ungrateful bitches and deserve little mention.

I must admit, I’ve lavished a lot of attention on it and we’ve done a lot of miles together and we’re itching to do many more.  Some days I just don’t want to stop riding cause you’re thinking, “It just can’t get any better, “ (unless you’re riding through Nebraska where the thought is, “I’ve just got to keep going, I’m still in Nebraska.”) but you do because, well it’s dark out and critters like to surprise you.  So you hit the campground, or you hit the motel and the minute you stop, the road catches up with you and you think, “Why am I doing this?  Why do I ride?  Why do I do this to myself?”

For me, my bike is my own personal spaceship.  It takes me to places I’ve never been.  It tests me, sometimes it even fights me.  It lets me be an idiot, it lets me push myself out past the point of all reason and it never judges, except that one time on a diminishing radius turn in West Virginia but to be fair, I deserved to be judged in that case.  It’s a fine partner in crime and every time I get on it be the ride long or short, I can feel my heart beating and know that’s a good thing because it really is all about the journey, we all get to the destination someday.

This coming year, the plan is to ride the Translab as far as it’ll take me but there are some caveats as already there may well be personal stuff that will need taking care of which might push the trip another year.  I hope not but fortune favours the prepared.  What I really hope is that my buddy Kelly will be able to make the journey with me but if he can’t make it in body, I know he’ll make it in spirit.

I wish you all a prosperous new year and may your troubles be few.

Not long now…

Dakar 2012 is on the horizon and as it is every year here in North America, we struggle to find any coverage of this magnificent event.  So I’m struggling to provide links to help others fulfill their need too.  These are just a few to start.  As we get closer to race day I’ll try to find as many blogs and video link as I can, not to mention ADV’s Dakar 2012 forum .  Lots of good info to be had there.

I’ll be posting up more links as we get closer but for now just to make sure there is access to the coming highlights here’s the link to the SBS Australia feed.

Here’s a link to the official Dakar 2012 site.

Eurosport’s Dakar page is here.

Here’s the KTM Dakar Newsroom.

More Dakar 2012 from Bikes in the Fast Lane Motorcycle News.

Freedom Cycle’s Dakar 2012 Race Blog.

Motorcycle USA.com Dakar Page

The Dakar Blogspot.com

The BF Goodrich Motorsport Feed

Dakar Adventure

Redbull’s Dakar Page

I wish any and all involved in this race Godspeed and good luck.

Nothing but Bikes…

Went to the Toronto International Motorcycle Show 2011 yesterday.  I’m not in total riding withdrawal yet as I managed to get a short ride in last Sunday to my club’s breakfast.  This particular show is where they trot out the best and brightest of the coming year.  This year the Italians were well represented by Ducati, Moto Guzzi and Aprillia.  There had been a rumor that MV Agusta was to have been there but I didn’t see any of their bikes on hand.  Which is too bad because they are one of the historical premier marques of the industry.

As I’m currently very happy with my ride an 04 Suzuki DL-650 which after about five years of owning (and riding the crap out of) has evolved into pretty much the perfect bike for me as far as comfort and handling go (though we’ll be tackling the suspension this Spring) I was more interested in some new gloves and getting my hands on the new Moto GP film, “Fastest.”  However, the show did allow me to sit on some amazing machines that I must admit cause some deep stirrings of want in my soul, namely the Diavel above and others not so much such as the Zero Bikes (electric) which felt like toys.  But more on both of those in a bit.

There were a few surprises or shocks really.  BMW is finally heeding the encroachment of all the other bike makes into their Adventure Bike Turf and are lowering their prices.  This could also be an offshoot of them producing a greater amount of their product out of China.  What it ultimately means is that the brand new V-Strom 650ABS is within a thousand dollars of a BMW F800GS.  As loyal as I am to my DL-650, this does give me pause as the BMW is a sexy bitch as far as Enduro’s go.  I also sat on the Triumph Tiger 800 XC and yeah, it feels very competent and it’s also in the right price range, though by the time I get to it, I’m sure I can get a good deal on a used one.

The Yamaha Super Tenere’ was also there.  At 1200cc it’s one of the big ones and it looks and feels it.  I’ve owned a few Yamaha Enduro bikes over the years and while the ST is miles ahead of them, there is still that fundamental flaw I’ve always found with their offerings of the heavy front end.  It’s a big motor, I’m sure it pulls like a tractor but it looks like it’d want to go pig pretty quickly if you hit the soft and loose stuff and there’s nothing I hate more than going over the handlebars.

Triumph has some gorgeous new colors on the Thruxton, a beautiful candy apple red with a white racing stripe up the middle.

No range to speak of (200Km) but that’s a dead sexy bike.  There was a young man there lamenting that it was his, “Favourite bike,” and that he hoped to convince his girlfriend to let him buy one.  I advised him that if it was a too great a problem to surmount then the solution was a new girlfriend.  When I first got together with my wife, I advised her that I, “Came with two wheels,” if this was going to be a problem to let me know immediately as I’d be making other life plans.  You ride because you ride.  This state is not dictated by other people.  I didn’t stop riding when I had kids as so many do, because it’s considered dangerous.  Life is dangerous and as most accidents happen in the home I figured I was safer on the bike.

But seriously, girlfriend or wife not cool with riding?  Keep the bike, get rid of them.

Back to the Diavel.

When Ducati announced that they were getting back into the cruiser market, it was met with raised eyebrows.  There last effort had been…  Well there’s no other way to put it, poor.

I mean it looks like a Yamaha.  Very uninspired.

The Diavel is not that bike.  I will say that it is a polarizing machine.  You’re either going to love it or hate it but to my mind and my eyes, it’s the most futuristic looking machine I’ve ever seen in the flesh.  You don’t sit on it, you sit in it.  I’ve never had a bike seat grab my ass like that.  It’s surprisingly comfortable with a similar sitting position to my Strom.  The bars are nicely placed and straight so the steering inputs would be instant and the dash is very clean.  At 167 HP it would be hard not to leave a long black strip of rubber behind you at every stop light.  Yes, I’d consider being very unfaithful to the Strom for this one.  Maybe she’s not a classic beauty but she is an interesting one and I’m pretty sure she’d rock your world and leave the sheets damp and rumpled.

And then there’s the Zero Bikes…

It looks pretty sexy here but in the broad light of day, it looks like a toy and it feels like one to0.  It doesn’t feel substantial, the build quality was not inspiring and it’s got to have one of the ugliest kickstands I’ve ever see on a bike.  Plus there’s the simple truth about the range.  It’s not there.  65Km on the highway and it’s temperature dependent?  Or you can putter about in the woods for 165Km – though I’d like to know what the conditions of speed were to generate that number.  Then there’s the recharge time to get back on the road.  It’s simply not a good solution right now.  IMHO, batteries are not the answer, capacitance is.

I’m all for green options but we’re not there yet with the electric stuff.  Though a fusion powered motorcycle would be the shit.

Coping Mechanism

I’m doing a gig in Peterborough.  Last week I got my hair cut as I was getting a bit shaggy.  There was an older gentleman just finishing up in one of the chairs.  It became pretty obvious he was suffering either from the after effects of a stroke based on his mobility issues or some other brain injury.  His vision was strangely specific.  He could make it to a chair to sit down but kept losing visual contact with his friend and he then ask where his friend was.  Our brains struggle to make sense of the world around us no matter how damaged.

The funny thing about mental illness is until it pokes it’s head up, it’s very hard to see in somebody.  I suffer from PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder).  I’ve been through a lot of one on one therapy to learn how to deal with the effects of this.  I’m very lucky, I can hold down a job and continue on in society in a mostly normal fashion.  My disorder for the most part goes undetected by others and I work hard at masking my behaviours to keep it that way.  I look normal but much like my PT Cruiser, the, “Check engine light,” is always on.

When I first started to figure out that I wasn’t dealing with the world in socially acceptable ways.  I sought help.  My family (other than my wife and kids) we’re not too cool with it.  I’m not sure why but it seems that admission of having trouble coping in a mental way is a reflection on them.  Not on the fact you want to hurt yourself and possibly others.  It still mystifies me.  The doc didn’t solve my problems, she just helped me identify them and provided some coping strategies for stressful situations.  But the bulk of her advice was, get enough sleep and eat decently.  Those two things go pretty far.

Every year, Christmas comes round and every year it gets a bit harder to deal with.  The crowds freak me out.  It’s a proximity thing.  It’s not that I think that harm might come to me, I just don’t like so many people in close proximity.  This weekend in the local Costco it was pretty packed and headphones aside, I could feel my face getting tight the deeper I got into the store.  No reason for the heightened anxiety, I’ve been in there before when it was just as packed and no issue.  The only difference this time?  Three aisles of Christmas stuff.

My Ipod helps.  I use noise cancelling headphones, they help a lot.  Reducing a crowd to a sight picture helps greatly.  It doesn’t cancel out the anxiety but it does reduce me having to hear them.  That dull roar.

But I’ve noticed it’s getting a bit worse these days as I get older.  Sometimes it comes down to lack of sleep and other times I guess it’s got more to do with other stressors in my life.  But then that’s the joy of mental illness, you never really know the triggers, you can only suspect what’s going to set you off.

We do a fair number of film related kick off and wrap parties and they are super hard for me.  Film people like to hug.  I don’t.  Oh I’m fine if I know you and we’re good friends but as a rule?  Not a good scene.  It makes my flesh crawl.  I need a good half hour before hand to get my head together and afterwards I feel like I’ve run a marathon.

I’ve also got this thing about sitting on the aisle in a movie theater, well any theater type venue really.  This may be more rooted in common sense though.  Those bladder busting drinks make easy access to the washroom a must.

It is a bit nuts I suppose…  I’ll throw my ass down an unknown trail on the bike or ride solo for thousands of miles and not give it a second thought but a hug from somebody I barely know?

Makes me shudder to think of it.

Dayton Trip – Day 4 – The Return

I realized that most of you could care less about old airplanes and I was probably boring you to tears with stuff about the museum.  So in deference to that, I’m providing a link here to my gallery of shots so that those who want to can view them at their leisure and those that don’t can skip it and we’ll get on with the ride report.

I was up by five Am the morning after the museum.  Michael was going to hang back and catch a shower before he hit the road home to Virginia.  I’m seasoned enough by now that it only takes about ten minutes to police up all of my shit and get it on the bike.  There was a cold snap to the air and it was probably down around 34F as I left the hotel and found my way onto the right highway heading north.  I’d though briefly about cutting across the state to Wheeling, West Virginia to hit the Cabella’s store there but I was leaving early enough I’d hit them at around nine in the morning and they wouldn’t be open for another hour after that and waiting around was not going to be my plan for the day.  So I got myself on I-71 and proceeded at speed.

Had I been leaving later in the day, I’d have taken my time and used the smaller less traveled highways but the sheer number of deer carcasses that littered the sides of the highways that I’d seen over the last few days tempered this path of action.  To be honest riding on the interstate at five thirty in the morning still felt a bit risky.  Sunrise wouldn’t be until around quarter past eight.  And did I mention it was bloody cold?  Cold enough that when I stopped for something to eat around seven, I put my rain gear over all of my other gear to try and warm up a bit.  It actually did the trick and I started to warm up, though even with the insulated boots my feet were still feeling the chill.

Just after dawn broke, I stopped for some gas and a warm drink just outside of Akron.  I also decided to wait for the sun to rise a little further in the sky in hopes it would warm up some.  The was a local guy on a blue Goldwing with a side car on it out to enjoy the day in the parking lot.  We chatted briefly before leaving the gas stop with him in the lead.  I matched speed with him as I figured he knew what to look out for Cop wise in the local scene.  On the other side of the city, he peeled off right and I kept on going.  I-71 soon turns into I-76 which turns into the somewhat monotonous I-80.  I stuck it out for about a third of the state and then headed north again on US-8 otherwise known as the Richard C Frame Memorial Highway.  It took me up to Franklin, where I stopped to get some gas.

Both of the attendants on duty were obviously ex cons.  The guy behind the till had three teardrops tattooed by the edge of his left eye.  They hadn’t been filled in yet, so I’m guessing he’s still got those scores to settle.  Full of fuel, I headed through town and on to US-417  Which I got some nice video of all the way to Titusville.

Outside of Titusville, I got on to US-27 which was starting to lead me once again through Amish country.  It was pretty and rural with just enough twists, turns and changes in elevation to make it interesting.  It was also starting to get warmer.  Warm enough to consign the rain gear back to the depths of the pannier but not quite warm enough to lose the Columbia jacket underneath my high viz Tourmaster.  At Pitsfield, I turned more directly north onto US-6 which forks right onto US-958 to Freehold Township and puts you right back on the NY Amish Trail.  It was just before Freehold I had my only real traffic encounter of the trip.  I’m coming up on a four way stop with a black pick up to my right and a red one to my left.  For some reason, I know somethings going to happen which is strange because they both sat at that four way a long time before the red truck decided he was going to cross right in front of me.  Easy on the rear brake to keep me lined up and squeezing the front break trying to bleed of speed so I don’t plant myself in his passenger side door.  I passed behind his bumper with few too many feet to spare.  It’s time like these I lament not purchasing that air horn.

After another brief stint on the Interstate (I-86 this time) it was back on US-62 and up to Buffalo customs and the easy ride home on the QEW.

It was a good trip even this late in the year.

But for now my bike sleeps and we dream of Spring together.

 

Dayton Trip – Day 3 Part 2

As you go deeper in to the hangers of the museum, you see aircraft that you’ve only ever seen in artists renditions or if you were really lucky, grainy out of focus photographs.  Every year I’m amazed at the aircraft I’ve come across in my trips to and across the US.  The US Airforce has made it it’s mandate to preserve what it can of aviation history and they’ve amassed a hell of a collection.

Michael and I agreed that the word, “Wow,” was wholly ineffective to describe what we were seeing but a the same time, we couldn’t stop saying it as each series of steps revealed another and another amazing aircraft.

The USAF lost over 88,000 combat personnel in the Second World War with another 17,360 wounded in action (badly enough they could not continue in service).  A good chunk of the first hanger (over half) is dedicated to this conflict.

And here I am at my absolute favourite aircraft the Mosquito and we’re not even half way through the WW2 exhibit.  We still have two full hangers to go through.  All told it took about seven hours to see what we could.  There’s a separate tour onto Wright Patterson proper to see the Presidential aircraft and some of the other aircraft that have been moved off display in the main hangers.  Which really means another trip to Dayton to see those in the future but I’ll be saving that for maybe the return leg of the trip to see the Spruce Goose.

More to come, including my return trip back home…

Dayton Trip – Day 3 Part One

This museum is huge and there’s a lot of ground to cover so this is going to take a few instalments.

Other than some dark clouds on the first day and a bit of rain overnight, the weather had been spectacular for the first week of November and today was no different.  A bit brisk but not a cloud in the sky.  We grabbed a quick bite at the McDonalds next to the hotel and beat feet for the National Museum of the United States Airforce.

Now I’ve been to aircraft museums all over Canada and the US and even the more modest ones have something to offer a plane freak like me.  I’m always amazed at some of the aircraft you come across.  Michael and I have done the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum on the Mall in DC and the Udvar Hazy out by Dulles and this Spring we’d caught the joint services airshow at Andrews AFB and we’re both in agreement that none of these experiences did anything but exceed expectations.  I had a feeling we were in for a similar situation with the NMUSAF.

But of course, concept never really survives contact with reality.  The reality of the museum is it’s fantastic and unlike the Smithsonian which is vaguely apologetic for a few of it’s displays namely the Enola Gay exhibit.  The USAF wants you to understand in no uncertain terms, they were given a mission and they carried that mission out successfully – twice with no loss of aircraft or crew.  Oh and it ended the war with Japan.

Bock’s Car the aircraft that dropped, “Fat Man,” on Nagaski is there in the flesh and unlike the Enola Gay, she’s not under glass, shielded from the public.  You could reach up and touch her.  You don’t out of respect.  In fact every airframe on display is at arms length

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

The Museum is laid out in sections and it sort of follows a model I’ve seen used to great effect in the Royal Tyrell Museum in Drumheller, AB and the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa.  You start at the beginning and because this is Dayton, you start with the Wright Brothers.

Followed by one of my personal heroes, Glenn Curtiss.  He put wheels on his one.

Things move quickly into the first world war and the establishment of air power.  Their collection of WWI bombers is impressive.

During our tour of this part of the museum we bumped into another guy from Toronto who was doing some work down there for a company that had built some of the original propellers for the fighters and bombers on display.  That’s the fun part about history, you get some of the deeper stuff from some unlikely sources.  We wished each other well and continued on with our exploration.

WWI gives way to the years between the two world wars when the Army Air Corp was struggling to survive amidst the peace and at the same time develop modern closed cockpit fighters and bombers.  Though it did seem to me that while they touched on Doolittle and his efforts in this area, they did gloss over his courts martial a bit but then that can be forgiven I guess as  he did go on to prove everything he’d said right (and obviously the Japanese had read his book).

As an aside, this is an Autogyro similar to the one flown around the arena in Nuremberg during one of Hitler’s rallies.

That engine manifold is a trip.

This Boeing Bomber is the only surviving member of it’s marque.  It was a gift to the US in the 80′s (pre Falklands) from the Argentinians who had bought twenty five of these aircraft for their own Air force.

One of the neat things about the museum is that their mannequins are all doing shit with proper body language and facial expressions to boot.  The pilot of this unfortunate incident is trying to save his wings on the far left of the shot.

More to come.  We’re not even half way through the first hanger.