My GPS Summer

By M. Sean Klady

I had heard about the forthcoming Kawasaki G.P.S. series from a friend who had ridden the two events in 2002, and it sounded like a great way to get more off-road riding into the season.  I usually ride the majority of events in the Kawasaki Trail Ride series on my Yamaha DT200R, but it was too small and had too little fuel range for the G.P.S. rides.  I talked to Warren Thaxter at the motorcycle show, and he recommended a GPS unit from GPS Central.  Now I just had to get a bigger bike.  The Kawasaki KLR 650 is the most popular with the riders in the series, and seemed very reliable with lots of aftermarket support.  Being cheap as usual, I was determined to buy one at a “winter discount”.  I found a nice clean low mileage 2001 example at a used car dealership in Ajax, got the GPS in the mail and I was ready to go…..well maybe not quite.

The first ride was the “Blue Mountain Tour”,(May 17^th) starting in Guelph .  The day was overcast and blustery, with heavy rains the day before.  The ride was advertised as a mix of gravel roads and back roads, with a little pavement thrown in.  Also, it was allegedly ok for 50-50 street/dirt tires.  I had ordered new tires (Kenda 270’s, a roughly 60-40 dirt/street tire) but they had not arrived at the shop yet.  So, since the ride was supposed to be easy, I thought that the 50% worn rear Bridgestone Trailwing would be adequate.  Did I also mention that I had only had time to ride the bike once before? 

The starting drill for the G.P.S. series is basically the same.  Unload bike, put on gear, pay entry fee (although the organizers STRONGLY prefer that you pre-enter), load routes/waypoints into GPS, rider’s meeting and go.  I had a small problem in that my GPS unit did not want to load all the routes, in fact in  would only load the first one.  Oh well, my good buddy Kevin Nicol had a different GPS with no problems, so I can just follow him.  There was never a shortage of people willing to buddy up with you to share their GPS, although buying beers for the GPS buddy at the end of the day is HIGHLY encouraged.

We hooked up with another friend, Eduardo Masionis, and set off.  After the first 20 kms or so I noticed that we had to take some short cuts across muddy trails, maybe a 100 meters or so.  That’s when I discovered that my rear tire quickly turned into a giant brown donut, with the traction equivalent of drag racing slicks covered in oil.   After a few tense moments, I managed to putt-putt through the worst sections.  Kevin, leading on his DRZ 400 with full knobby tires, kept wondering what was keeping me.  The next section was a clay farmer’s tractor trail across several kilometers of fields.  It didn’t look too bad, but I was determined to take it easy, so I was only doing 30 kilometers per hour or so.  Kevin and Eduardo quickly faded off into the distance.  I decided to up my pace just a bit.  Next thing I know, the back end goes sideways, and here comes the ground up to say hi!  Did I mention that I was riding with a broken rib from the Beagle Bash Enduro/Trail Ride just prior?  Fortunately, I landed on the OTHER side of my body.  As usual, the first priority is to pick the bike up so your riding buddies don’t know you crashed.  Except the ground was so slick, that when the bike was halfway up, I would slide backwards away from it.  Eventually I had it back on two wheels and surveyed the damage.  Hmmm, broken radiator shroud, broken side panel and….no brake pedal.  The mount had sheared off along with the pedal and the bottom half of the master cylinder.  At this point Kevin and Eduardo returned and they both agreed that the brake pedal was no longer connected to the bike (smart guys, eh?).  I decided not to be a spoil sport and said that I would take the roads back to the start, as I wasn’t comfortable on the greasy terrain with no back brake.  So, that was the end of that ride.

I resolved to be better prepared for the next ride, the 2 day Ride to Remember, from Bowmanville to Picton  (May 31/June 1) as part of a charity event.  New tires front and rear, upgraded rear pedal mount, and front and rear guards.  I also bought an expanded memory chip for my GPS, hoping that would solve the route problem.  The weather forecast was the worse part though, cold and rainy, with highs in the single digits (this was May 31/June 1).  Given the horrible forecast, at the last minute I switched to my DT200, assuming that the off-road bits would be water-logged (as they were). Again my GPS would not load properly and I was had to rely on Kevin.  The course on the first day had a lot of off-road trails in the morning, but since it was intended for larger bikes, all the sections were easy on the DT200, and there were lots of gas stops available.  Also, the rain held off until after lunch.  Oh, yes, the rain!  About 2 pm a cold drizzle started coming down.  We all had some rain gear, but decided to press on in our regular off-road gear, hoping the rain would stop.  Instead it just came down harder, and got colder.  The end of the day was mostly paved country roads, so there was no single track to warm us up.  Kevin was riding lead (with the functioning GPS unit) and Eduardo and I were riding behind, about 60 km/h, when out of nowhere a small dog ran out from someone’s front yard and directly under Kevin’s front wheel.  We were cold, wet and miserable, but we were far more miserable as we contemplated the mortally wounded animal on the road.  Kevin, the gutsy guy, went and advised the owner.  Leaving out the details, we moved on again.  I was running low on fuel, but we knew our destination was not far, and we had a siphon hose, and no one wanted to make a detour for fuel.  I was on fumes as we pulled into the old army base in Picton.  The Kawasaki tents were there, trailers and demo bikes were there, but no people!  The cold wet weather had emptied out the place, and were virtually the only ones there.  But the bowl of chili huddled under the Kawi tent tasted better than a 5 star restaurant.

Day 2 was warmer and drier, with a nice mix of trails and back roads.  Other than a flat tire sustained from what must have been thousands of old nails at the base, we got back without any further incidents.  (thanks to Warren for one of his professional lightning fast tube changes).

Ride 3 was in the Gatineau Hills, north of Ottawa .  Brian Flannigan, who lives in Ottawa , had laid out a beautiful route, with many miles of twisting paved roads winding around small lakes, mixed in with gravel roads and logging roads.  The weather was damp a few times, but dried up quickly.  I decided to be bold and bring my girlfriend Coretta along on the back of the KLR, and overall we both had a great ride, especially since there was no clay or single track.  This rid e was perfect for the larger BMW GS type of bikes, lots of fun without anything that would lead to dropping the bike.  I had sent back the first GPS unit (which had some kind of software gremlin in it) and exchanged it for a better one (Garmin 176).  The guys were extremely helpful at GPS Central, they took the first one back no questions asked and shipped the second one out right away, but due to travel plans I wound up shipping it to the hotel the night before the ride and installing it in the parking lot the morning of the ride.  It worked flawlessly, an excellent unit.

Ride 4 was July 12^th, the Tour of Niagara, starting in Welland .  It was a mix of scenic roads, back roads, and road allowances, with only a few short obstacles thrown in to make it interesting.  It ended with admission to the racetrack at Welland to watch the races.  Girlfriend had enough of being a passenger, and since she rides an EX500 on the street, I figured that she would be ok on the DT200 since the ride was “easy” and I would ride the KLR with the GPS unit.  I forgot one small detail.  To a street rider, a one foot mound of dirt is a mountain, a small water crossing is the Amazon, and gravel is like ice.  Needless to say, our pace was not brisk, especially since I had to ride both bikes over the nasty bits (which by my standards were NOT nasty bits).  After riding through Niagara falls on the main road (trying not to get run over by rubber-necking tourists looking at the falls), we went across a grass-covered road allowance in a light drizzle.  Notice how there’s rain on every one of these rides?  Anyway, about half-way across this road allowance, I looked in my KLR’s mirror and noticed the DT200 lying on its side.  A little too much throttle on wet grass and the bike had gone down.  The real problem was that at our last sight-seeing stop she did not put on her helmet strap.  The helmet had twisted on her head and whacked her lower jar and the side of her head.  She asked me to look at her bottom lip since she could taste blood.  On inspection, all the skin on the inside of her lip was torn and it was bleeding pretty well.  Putting on my most sincere face, I said that “it didn’t look bad at all” and we could keep going.  We made it to the lunch break without any more incidents where she got to tell everyone about her first crash.  After lunch is started to really rain, and I could tell that the combination of the dismal weather and the pain/swelling from the crash was going to put an early end to the day.  She actually did pretty well for a couple more hours before convincing me to head back early.  One of the nice features of the GPS is that you can load in all the local roads in advance, so finding a short cut back to base was easy.  However, since she was in pain and dinner and the races were not for another two hours, we decided to head back to Toronto and call it a day.

Ride 5 was the Cliffshore 2 day “Ride to Hastings ”, camping out overnight and returning the second day.  Kawasaki provide a truck to carry everyone’s camping gear and luggage to the campground and back, so you could ride with minimal gear on your bike.  For some reason my girlfriend decided to pass on this one...  The course was much more challenging than I expected, again due to lots of……RAIN!  It rained on and off on Saturday and pretty steadily on Sunday.  Lots of double track forest trails, gnarly rocky uphill climbs, water crossings and all sorts of slimy stuff.  The KLR was willing to take anything I could throw at it, but it was a lot more work than the DT200 would have been.  The DRZ 400 crew had a much easier time than I did.  Those of us unfortunate enough to be camping in tents wound up crowded together on the campground stage, since it at least had a partial roof on it.  The Kawasaki gang cooked up a nice barbecue and everyone got to tell lots of lies, um, I mean “trail stories”, into the evening.

Day 2 started out dry, but quickly deteriorated into a constant drizzle.  I had come close to “watering out” the KLR in a particularly deep water hole (up to the seat!).  Shortly after, my GPS fizzled out also.  The bike power connection had died.  Oops, since I was relying on the hookup to the KLR’s battery for power, I had neglected to put fresh batteries into the GPS for back-up.  I assumed that something in my home wiring job had shorted out in the deep water. Sigh.  Good thing Kevin had signed up for this ride, I can always follow him……

About half a kilometer from the finish (Warren’s back yard), Kevin, who is admittedly a faster rider than I am, on a DRZ400, which is a faster bike in the rough stuff, got a scent of the finish line like a horse heading for a warm barn.  In other words, he took off, assuming that I knew how to finish the route since we were so close.  Now, if you don’t know where you are, and you don’t know where you are going, and your GPS is dead, and you don’t have a paper map since you have a fancy GPS, half a kilometer could be a 100 kilometers.  I was cold, tired and wet, and lost.  After driving in circles for a while (on paved roads at this point), I decided to go to the only reference point I knew, which was the route from Highway 401 to Warren’s house.  All in all, I did an extra 35 kilometers (on top of the 315 kms for the actual route).  I was not exactly pleased, but everyone seemed to think it was funny that I arrived an hour after everyone else.  Somehow, the humor of the situation was lost on me. 

Ride 6 was September 14/14 in the Laurentian Mountains north of Montreal .  I had planned to attend but had to back out at the last minute with work and other complications.  The only one I missed!

Ride 7 was the last ride for the season, a two day ride October 4/5 in the Opeongo Mountain area.  This ride had been written up in Cycle Canada the year before and I was really looking forward to it.  But, surprisingly enough, the forecast was for single digits and rain (sound familiar?).  I had talked Eduardo into going on this one, but Kevin had to pass given that he tore his ACL doing some expert level something-or other (Not a GPS ride of course!).  The actual terrain was a mix of gravel road and logging/fire roads, with a  bit of 2 track trail mixed in.  Warren likes to insist that there is no “trail” on these rides, just un-opened road allowances.   Ed Strohak laid out most of the route, and he seems to agree with Warren that there are no trails either.  But when I’m slipping and sliding up rocks and boulders on a path barely wide enough for a 4 wheeler, I call that a trail.  Just before lunch we were treated to a sudden hail-storm, a new experience in off-road riding for some of us.  Did I mention that it was 2 celsius when we set out?  I was very glad as I rode through the hail that  I chose to wear my street helmet instead of my dirt helmet, the rest of the gang were not pleased, some of them using duct tape as impromptu skin protection.  Day 1 finished uneventfully, with Eduardo and I arriving back at the start just after the “fast” guys, very unusual since we usually dawdle and take photos etc.  Excellent steak dinner and adult beverages were enjoyed by all, many thanks to our gracious hosts at the Land O’Lakes Inn.

Day 2 dawned clear (hurray!) but still cold.  Whereas the Day 1 loop had been to the north of the base, Day 2 was to the south.  We had an uneventful morning until Eduardo’s KLR started making a loud noise from the back wheel.  The agreed upon diagnosis was a bad wheel bearing, and we limped along, hoping to make it to the lunch stop, where the bike could be put into the support truck (the support truck was on every ride, to pick up any damaged bikes and/or help with field repairs).  The noise got so loud, Warren suggested that we leave the bike and ride two-up to the lunch break and come back for it after, which we did.  Eduardo and I are both over 6 feet tall, so I’m sure we were an interesting sight pulling into to the restaurant, which was full to capacity, the nice day having brought out all the tourists to look at the fall colours, both in cars and on street bikes, as well as our GPS group.  After a hearty lunch, Ed and Eduardo went back to retrieve his bike with myself following along behind.  By the time we got back to the motel, the rest of the riders had returned.  Sadly, the Kawasaki G.P.S. series was at an end for this year, and so was my summer.  Hopefully Kawasaki and the other sponsors will support the series next year.  One suggestion: more rides, less rain!  Ride Safe.