GS Owners eat your heart out | GTAMotorcycle.com

GS Owners eat your heart out

Incredible thread. I can only imagine a time where all you had was two wheels and a sense of adventure.

Seems to me like you have to travel pretty far these days to getaway from the long arm of the traffic-enforcement law and get off the beaten path.
 
There's nothing stopping anyone from riding like this, except for today's helmet laws. Ditch the GPS, ABS, TC, CAA etc. and get an old air-cooled enduro, find a nice trail and let'er rip.
 
Bikes even when I started in the 60s were tough and we regularly took our 305 Hawks etc on off road trails and jumped dunes etc.
Spills that would do a thousand dollars in damage these days or more were the norm and you might bust a lever or lose a turn signal.
Most thinks just got bent back into place.

I recall riding the clay hills north of HWY 403 on various road bikes.

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Sure the later Bultaco or TL125 were far more precise but hell we had fun in the mud and hills on anything that would keep running :D

I think my leg still gets sore in rainy weather from a suddenly appearing gully under the Superhawk.....damn that was a loooong way down.
Bike took it....leg.....not so much. :cry

Adventure is where you find it and tough lighter do anything simple bikes opens more opportunities. One reason I like the CB500x.
It's also one reason I encourage street riders to get off the pavement.

Downside is trying to find places to ride :(

Still.....doing a heavy old Harley off road takes a special breed.

My GF road around on a similar vintage Honda 175 on Palm Island and out in the bush in Australia. Simpler times.
 
Wow, I'm amazed that there was a time when people took Harley's out of their garage for long enough to trek like that.
 
MacDoc that area was called the clay pits - remember how the bikes would run counterclockwise on the easterly course and then some fool in a dune buggy would run it clockwise? Ah, the good old days.
 
Lived in Aldershot and that is where I learned to ride. First bike was a Honda S65, damn should have mothballed that one.
 
Think I heard HD haters gulp...come on think of somethin..lol.
 
Knew they were termed the clay pits but don't recall any sort of a track except down at the bottom east corner of the site where they actually had organized activities later.
Looks like there is a track off to the left and top there. Not there when I rode.

We generally ran through the hills and there was a quarry across the road that was available tho frowned on....some fun hill climbs on the road bikes there.

You can see the quarry is still there to the east of King Road ....seems there are still clay areas behind the factory

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For those orienting - the escarpment is along the top edge...there used to be trials courses in the general area as well.
That's the 403 between Burlington and Hamilton.

Neat to see the old quarry hills....

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Reminds me of Jamie's dirtbike fun on his R6.

I did some extremely mild offroading on my 650R. Too scared to need to replace the fairings to do anything too dramatic. I was going to try some deep snow in my back yard just for fun but after I got stuck on a tiny spec of packed snow in the driveway with the smooth street tires I figured my adventure would be very uneventful. I did consider slapping some TKC80's on it to get some traction but never got around to it before I sold the thing.
 
I think bikes have become too specialized for the most part, and I think that is why there is such strong interest in the "adventure bike" category (espcially in Europe where people actually ride a lot.) Bacially Adventure bikes are just decent every day bikes that are broadly focussed so do most things reasonably well.


I grew up on the south side of Rice Lake and started riding at age 13. It was all country so we routinely rode the bikes pretty much everywhere. (I got pulled over by an OPP when I was 20 or 30 miels from home and he just told me to get home. I was 13 at the time.) Northumberland Forest was not too far away so that was a regular place to go but we went pretty much everywhere.

My first bikes were all used. All were road bikes and all were routinely ridden in the forest, on fire roads, in sand, in gravel pits, etc. 1969 Honda 90 C200. 1967 Honda CB175 (looked just like the Honda 305 above) 1973 (I think it was not sure anymore) Honda CB350, 1969 Norton 750 Commando. Then I moved to Toronto. My first new bike was a 1981 Suzuki GS850 (550lbs dry big heavy four cylinder.) I didn't do it routinely, but I remember riding it on some dirt trails up around the Forks of the Credit.


..Tom
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