The city life is tough | Page 2 | GTAMotorcycle.com

The city life is tough

I'm not a morning person, but I'll happily wake up earlier on the weekends to go riding than I do during the week for work.

Agreed. 7AM departure from the 416 gets you to Calabogie and the 511 for lunch, while taking all the good roads to get there. Back before sunset.

Though it's been awhile since I've done a 1K day.
 
Elmira has that

@zahmer - I got mixed answers from my real estate guy about parking a motorcycle behind my car in a condo. Please let me know how you work out!!
Don’t listen to your real estate guy. Contact the board or check the condo parking lot out yourself when you’re viewing the condo.

Real estate guy has no skin in the game. You’re on the hook, and you’re stuck with the issue when board says ‘nope….can’t park your bike in here.’
 
Agreed. 7AM departure from the 416 gets you to Calabogie and the 511 for lunch, while taking all the good roads to get there. Back before sunset.

Though it's been awhile since I've done a 1K day.
Best way to do it for sure - these rides are so much fun. And you sleep like a baby afterwards.
 
This was my parking situation years ago (see pic). Was friendly with all the security staff - would ask if they ever wanted coffees when going for a short run or leave them some dessert whenever we had a big gathering. No one cared about the bikes. Was doing an oil change once, the hatch of the car up to block the view of anyone walking by. Heard footsteps and figured they'd nail me this time (not allowed to do any maintenance on vehicles - written into agreement). Turned out to be a security guard who was really interested in bikes and had a bunch of questions. I ended up getting to know 4 people in the building through conversations while back there. It was a pain to get a bike out when there were cars parked either side though.

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I don't own any street bikes anymore and never will in this city. Between insurance, traffic, bad drivers, uninteresting roads, I did not enjoy it at a certain point. Heck, last weekend I went on a bicycle ride with my wife, up Bayview from Corktown Commons towards Evergreen Brickworks, and there was a car inches behind us heading northbound in the two laned dedicated bike lane. He switched over to oncoming traffic to get past us and back to the bike lane when he saw oncoming traffic, luckily, just after the hill and not before it. Could have easily been a head-on collision - a motorcycle was a few vehicles behind in the group of oncoming traffic. It's not a rare occurrence to see something stupid like that. It happens quite frequently around where I live in the city.

These days I only ride at the track. Bike is in a storage unit. I can do whatever I want there and no one bugs me. I enjoy riding way more than I ever have. The intensity of riding at the track one weekend satisfies the craving to ride for about 3-4 weeks for me.

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This was my parking situation years ago (see pic).

I can commiserate.

For years, I lived in a condo and they had a policy of one vehicle per spot. I don't think they were thinking of motorcycles when they wrote this up, because despite this, I still managed to squeeze in six bikes in one stall without anyone complaining. But I had to do all my maintenance work on the bikes and cars at night when I was sure nobody would come down into the parking garage. And if someone did come into the garage, I had to be all smiles and make friendly so as to not to get reported to the condo board.

Never had a problem, but it was not an ideal situation.
 
I can commiserate.

For years, I lived in a condo and they had a policy of one vehicle per spot. I don't think they were thinking of motorcycles when they wrote this up, because despite this, I still managed to squeeze in six bikes in one stall without anyone complaining. But I had to do all my maintenance work on the bikes and cars at night when I was sure nobody would come down into the parking garage. And if someone did come into the garage, I had to be all smiles and make friendly so as to not to get reported to the condo board.

Never had a problem, but it was not an ideal situation.
Did exactly the same for years in CityPlace/Fort York, oil changes, carb cleans and the like at night. I pushed my luck one day by replacing my steering head bearing out on the street 😆 (condo garage was dark af) but even then the friendly parking enforcement lady gave me two hours to wrap it up without getting a ticket. Weeeeeee.

I'm in Mimico now, condo rules say one vehicle per spot but no one cares.
 
I'm in Mimico now, condo rules say one vehicle per spot but no one cares.

I honestly think those rules were meant to stop someone from trying to jam in two smart cars in one spot, or three cars in two spots, and having one stick all the way out into the aisle.

As long as all the vehicles are within the stall, this really shouldn't be cause for concern to anyone but the most die-hard of the Karens...

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I honestly think those rules were meant to stop someone from trying to jam in two smart cars in one spot, or three cars in two spots, and having one stick all the way out into the aisle.

As long as all the vehicles are within the stall, this really shouldn't be cause for concern to anyone but the most die-hard of the Karens...

karen-M.jpg
Lol where did you get that from?
 
The problem with living in a condo or apartment building is that enforcement of the rules that may call for only 1 vehicle per spot could change at any time, and then you'd be SOL. Just takes one PITA type person to complain to condo / apartment management company and then the friendly guards are told to enforce the rules.

The reality of living in the GTA, and especially in the downtown area, is that you're probably a minimum of 2 hours+ from pleasant roads and in a riding day this travel time eats up just about half of your day. I have no solution to this other than to stay overnight in good riding areas to minimize travel time and maximize riding time on good roads.
 
Agreed. 7AM departure from the 416 gets you to Calabogie and the 511 for lunch, while taking all the good roads to get there. Back before sunset.

Though it's been awhile since I've done a 1K day.

That’s 10am for me…going slowly!

Not a morning person, also not a commute type person. Been there done that. When I came to Canada I had two opportunities…Kingston or Toronto both with pretty good research groups. I chose Kingston based on quality of life, no commute, reasonable house prices. Never regretted it.

Sometimes I miss city life but then I’ll just go and have a City break…..in Montreal since Toronto isn’t all that interesting for me.
 

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