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New Year's moto resolutions

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Lightcycle said:
Wrote an article about it:

www.yumpu.com

WRITTen BY Gene Lee PHoTo

WRITTen BY Gene Lee PHoTo WRITTen BY Gene Lee PHoToGRaPHS BY WILL Lau anD kaM nonG 5:48AM – Mile 0: toronto I slide in my credit card
www.yumpu.com www.yumpu.com
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That was a great read - really gave me a sense of what the ride might feel like. Thanks!

Being in the US would make this ride so much easier ! I think in Texas the limit is 85 in some places.

And thanks for sharing the routes - I might just crib from your suggestion.
 
NuggyBuggy said:
That was a great read - really gave me a sense of what the ride might feel like. Thanks!

Being in the US would make this ride so much easier ! I think in Texas the limit is 85 in some places.

And thanks for sharing the routes - I might just crib from your suggestion.
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Toronto-Cochrane-Sudbury-Toronto is a great 1000-mile loop, it can be done in 24 with full 8-hour sleep and zero night riding. There are no routes thru the US without night riding.

I fear deer.
 
Mad Mike said:
Toronto-Cochrane-Sudbury-Toronto is a great 1000-mile loop, it can be done in 24 with full 8-hour sleep and zero night riding. There are no routes thru the US without night riding.

I fear deer.
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Yup. Coming back at dusk through PA during our IB a car smoked a deer in front of us as we weaved around deer and car bits strewn across the road and still spinning.

I believe a few members here have smoked deer and split them in half on their bikes.
 
Mad Mike said:
Toronto-Cochrane-Sudbury-Toronto is a great 1000-mile loop, it can be done in 24 with full 8-hour sleep and zero night riding. There are no routes thru the US without night riding.

I fear deer.
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The Around the lower great lakes route comes up as being 20 minutes faster when I punch it up, and that accounts for typical border crossing delays as well as Google Maps takes average speeds into consideration, which makes sense between the two routes as average speeds on the 401 and I81/90 than 11 & 144 in Ontario.

Yes, you risk border delays IF you don't time things right, or fail to check the fastest border crossing at the Michigan end of things, but you also risk road closures on 11/144 which don't have any reasonbly viable options to get around either if they happen. At least with the great lakes option you have plentiful plan B options (Waze to the rescue) if there was an unforseen closure. There's long stretches of both 11/144 with no good alternatives.

Toronto/Cochrane/Sudbury/Toronto also comes up about 75km short of the 1609km required as well, so using Toronto as the starting point you'd have to go to, say, St. Catherines to get the proper distance. That brings it to 16.5 hours.

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The around the lake route is actuallly 20 minutes faster despite actually being almost 30km longer, and if one maintains a better pace and keeps your fuel stops tight, you can easily get that down to under 15 hours, 14 even if you're willing to maintain a more "creative" pace. ;)
 
I went looking for my old Spotwalla tracks today (to answer a question posed here) and promptly discovered that the site went to a paid structure a year or so back and now even *storing* your old tracked rides costs money, and I guess I never paid and my account seems to have been deleted. No emails informing me of such, no nothing.

That kind of sucks. But, alas, I went and looked back at my Google location tracking history and found my first ever IBA certifiable ride.

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Looks like Google missed some miles as happens sometimes when service was spotty (which is where Spotwalla doesn't falter and keeps on tracking and buffering for later upload), but that was the gist of it. It was basically a 100% backtrack ride - not particularly an exciting route necessarily, but there was actuall a method to the madness that I won't get into here.
 
PrivatePilot said:
The Around the lower great lakes route comes up as being 20 minutes faster when I punch it up, and that accounts for typical border crossing delays as well as Google Maps takes average speeds into consideration, which makes sense between the two routes as average speeds on the 401 and I81/90 than 11 & 144 in Ontario.

Yes, you risk border delays IF you don't time things right, or fail to check the fastest border crossing at the Michigan end of things, but you also risk road closures on 11/144 which don't have any reasonbly viable options to get around either if they happen. At least with the great lakes option you have plentiful plan B options (Waze to the rescue) if there was an unforseen closure. There's long stretches of both 11/144 with no good alternatives.

Toronto/Cochrane/Sudbury/Toronto also comes up about 75km short of the 1609km required as well, so using Toronto as the starting point you'd have to go to, say, St. Catherines to get the proper distance. That brings it to 16.5 hours.

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The around the lake route is actuallly 20 minutes faster despite actually being almost 30km longer, and if one maintains a better pace and keeps your fuel stops tight, you can easily get that down to under 15 hours, 14 even if you're willing to maintain a more "creative" pace. ;)
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Around the lakes is a It’s a good route, but it’s boring and there is little chance of maintaining speed through urban Toronto, Cleveland or Toledo - I doubt it’s faster.

Toronto-Cochrane is more interesting, less boring, and the only urban area that slows is thru North Bay - worst case is only 5 minutes. You also get a little more than 1hr of extra daylight. The Google mileage shortfall is a route detail, mapping the return using 400 instead of 69 & 48 heading east of Lake Simcoe cleans that up. The only thing that slows a motorcycle along 11 or 144 is heavy rain, both move at 120, much of 11 at 130, I’ve never encountered a closure, and construction areas if any, are usually less that 1km. I do TO -Cochrane at least 6 times a year, it’s under 8 hrs on a bike with a 30 minutes for fuel/eat stop.

The north route is desolate for the most part- any breakdown ends the chance of completing in 24 hrs. That’s probably true for any route unless you breakdown in front of a dealership ready for your emergency.
 
Mad Mike said:
Around the lakes is a It’s a good route, but it’s boring and there is little chance of maintaining speed through urban Toronto, Cleveland or Toledo - I doubt it’s faster.

Toronto-Cochrane is more interesting, less boring, and the only urban area that slows is thru North Bay - worst case is only 5 minutes. You also get a little more than 1hr of extra daylight.
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@Mad Mike : This is great info. Are you proposing Toronto->Cochrane->Toronto as a plausible SS1000 route? On Google Maps it comes out about 100km short, even when it routes through the 400, which I think you suggest, but I could surely detour somewhere or extend the end point. I like the idea of not having to cross into the US.

Also, maybe a dumb question but why does that route gain an extra hour of daylight over going around the lakes?
 
My 2024 Motorcycle goals

1. Pick up the new bike this week and get it converted to a race bike for the 2024 season
2. Continue to grow the number of trails for the dirtbikes by adding at least 2 more thru the tree sections
3. Ride street more than I did in 2023 and sell 1 of the street bikes
4. Be ready with the ice bikes to jump on them at a minute notice if we get some cold weather
 
NuggyBuggy said:
@Mad Mike : This is great info. Are you proposing Toronto->Cochrane->Toronto as a plausible SS1000 route? On Google Maps it comes out about 100km short, even when it routes through the 400, which I think you suggest, but I could surely detour somewhere or extend the end point. I like the idea of not having to cross into the US.

Also, maybe a dumb question but why does that route gain an extra hour of daylight over going around the lakes?
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It's almost impossible to find an exact 1000-mile route, jiggling for 72km is a 5-minute exercise on Google maps.

In the summer, as you go north the days get longer. The longest days are late June with 15hrs 30 minutes of light in Toronto, 17 hrs: 30 minutes in Cochrane. The run is 16-17 hours of riding - pretty hard to do that without a little night riding when going around the lakes.
 
Mad Mike said:
In the summer, as you go north the days get longer. The longest days are late June with 15hrs 30 minutes of light in Toronto, 17 hrs: 30 minutes in Cochrane. The run is 16-17 hours of riding - pretty hard to do that without a little night riding when going around the lakes.
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I had no idea the difference would be that large between the two !
 
Following the show today I think I want to do a loop of both Erie and Ontario this year at some point in time.

Looking at the ‚Ride Superior’ map I got at the show and that’s too ambitious for me…simply due to the 8 days they recommend.
 
mimico_polak said:
Following the show today I think I want to do a loop of both Erie and Ontario this year at some point in time.

Looking at the ‚Ride Superior’ map I got at the show and that’s too ambitious for me…simply due to the 8 days they recommend.
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Lake Superior is very pretty. It can be done in less than 8 days. Just depends how many hours in the saddle per day.
 
Sunday Rider said:
Lake Superior is very pretty. It can be done in less than 8 days. Just depends how many hours in the saddle per day.
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I’ve done it a couple of times. 8 days is an easy comfortable pace, 4hrs of riding and some flexibility if you get some rough weather.

It’s about 35 hours of riding, still leisurely if you want to do it in 5 days.

Hardcore riders could do it in 4 days, but all you’d experience is road.
 
Sunday Rider said:
Lake Superior is very pretty. It can be done in less than 8 days. Just depends how many hours in the saddle per day.
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Could be more if you take in all the sights. (I highly recommend them all)
- Ghost town of Gay
- The Ford village remnants at Pequaming
- #77 up to Grand Marais
- A run up to Whitefish point to the Shipwreck museum (marked now as temporarily closed - winter??)
And that's only the Upper Peninsula
 
Guess I’ll have to settle for Ontario and Erie as a start. A week would be a hard sell with the family.
 
mimico_polak said:
Guess I’ll have to settle for Ontario and Erie as a start. A week would be a hard sell with the family.
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you can always go to the smokey mountains, dont have to spend 8 days, could have a great ride in 3 or 4 days
and I suspect the roads are probably way more fun.
 
bigpoppa said:
you can always go to the smokey mountains, dont have to spend 8 days, could have a great ride in 3 or 4 days
and I suspect the roads are probably way more fun.
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They are, for sure more fun.

I'm planning on going down for Victoria day weekend. Trailer down with 3 or 4 others.

@Relax pm or text me. We'll try and set something up.

Winter dreaming...

Sent from my SM-G960W using Tapatalk
 
bigpoppa said:
you can always go to the smokey mountains, dont have to spend 8 days, could have a great ride in 3 or 4 days
and I suspect the roads are probably way more fun.
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Not even that far! Lots of great roads in Pennsylvania.
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