The
Squamidian Report – March 20 / 10
Issue #408
Including:
The Ontarion
Hi All,
Well, it was inevitable. We all knew it would happen eventually. ‘The Wife’ came home. After spending a month in Kitchener helping her mother and sister take care of her father she decided it was time. I booked her a flight on Westjet out of good old WW (YKF) for Vancouver (YVR). That Westjet flight still does a connection in Calgary (YYC) so that adds about an hour and a half to the flight time. From what I’ve heard, as of this coming July they will be doing a non-stop YKF to YVR. That will sure make flying back and forth nice. Her flight got in just after 10pm and we were out of the airport by 10:30. That put us home by midnight. Getting through downtown Vancouver during the early morning or late evening is never a problem.
Her biggest adjustments for being home were the time difference and the green. Green grass, Green trees, flowers and blossoms. But then she needed to clean the house, water the plants, do laundry, pay a bunch of bills and do grocery shopping. After all, I do want her to feel ‘at home’.
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Well, it was inevitable. We all knew it would happen eventually. I went out and got my license sticker for the new bike. Just like everything else in BC, vehicle insurance is very expensive. In fact, BC actually stands for ‘bring cash’ as anyone who has come here can attest to. To make it worse, we do not have any competition when it comes to basic vehicle insurance. We have government issued insurance. It is sort of the same branch of government that would be the ministry of transport in most provinces. So we have no choice but to purchase our insurance through ICBC, just like we must renew our registration through them. Our registration and insurance are linked, you buy one with the other. You don’t have to buy a full year’s worth, you can purchase any number of months worth over 3 months. But when one runs out, so does the other. In the case of a motorcycle, you can purchase registration and insurance for the riding season and choose your start date. The intervals are full months so if you start at say, March 18, you would go to October 17 or November 17, that kind of thing.
Luckily, we can buy our optional coverage such as fire, theft, vandalism and collision from 3rd party companies and that is what we do because it usually comes in at about half the cost of the same coverage through ICBC. The optional coverage we leave on all year as it covers the bikes while they are being stored and the registration and licensing has expired.
There are many downsides to government only insurance aside from cost and unaccountability. A private insurance agent might at least in principal be there to work for you if a problem should occur. Not so with ICBC, you don’t deal with an agent if you have a problem, you deal with a government bureaucrat. Should there be an issue to deal with, ICBC does not care who is at fault. They end up paying so their only concern is to pay out as little as possible. This is all the unfortunate result of having an NDP government for a decade, through most of the ’90. Anyway, I digress.
Thanks to several days of heavy west coast rain our streets were finally sand free enough for me to be confident about heading out on a machine that weighs about 865lbs. Would not want to slip on a sandy patch. I fired up Big Blue and headed down to the highway and then turned south on the highway through town and just kept on going out to Horseshoe Bay. It was a bit on the cool side along Howe Sound because the winds were blowing in off the water but the sky was blue and the sun was shining.
There is only one way to describe how this bike rides. “WOW” Everything I have heard about the new frame and wheels is true. Smooth, stable and precise. It follows the curves like it was on rails. As this was my first ride on the new bike, I needed to ride with engine break-in in mind. The best and fastest way to break in a new engine is to load and unload the piston rings about 10 times in a row. To do this you simply climb into about 4th or 5th gear and then accelerate and decelerate those 10 times or so, so the compression forces the rings against the cylinder walls where they wear precisely to each other. Then just ride like you normally would.
The bike felt solid and firm and responsive. Perfect. The engine has a powerful feel and has lots of that Harley loudness. My only concern is the seat height and comfort. It felt hard but it is hard being brand new. It needs to be sat on for a couple of thousand clicks to get softened up and to conform to my bony form. It also sits a bit high for me and if I had not had my boots re-soled with thicker soles and lots of treads I would not be able to properly set my feet on the ground. Again, she weighs in at 865lbs and I need to be able to set my feet firmly on the ground when at a stop. Once the seat breaks in a bit the rides should be pure pleasure. Heck, they are now. Come on riding season, we are ready.
doug
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THE ONTARION REPORT
Hello everyone!
Holy smoke it’s been nice here in Kitchener this past week or so. I guess we just might have brought this good stuff home with us from Florida! It can stay here for the rest of the year if it feels like it! I’d love to have this nice spring weather all year long but I know it’s not going to last. We’re most certainly going to have at least one more winter slam before March is over I’m sure. Oh well, we sure can’t complain about the winter this year so what’s one more little blast of cold before official spring!
To make it feel even more like spring, I spent yesterday helping my brother in law pick out a new car. We actually found the car he bought at the first lot we stopped at. He picked himself up a very nice little Kia Rio four-door sedan. It’s a 2005 model with only 76k on it. It’s still under warranty for another five years on the drive train so he’s got a nice reliable car. Spring always brings out that feeling of needing to look at new vehicles for guys. I don’t know what it is that makes that happen but it seems to just be a “right of passage” for guys. If it were up to me, we’d be living in a tiny bungalow with a 12-car garage and a quadruple drive way. Why waste all that money and space on a house when you can keep you vehicle collection in a nice surrounding? LOL! Oh well, I guess a guy can dream can’t he? Doug seems to be doing ok with his updating of his motorcycle but he should be hanging on to the one he’s moving up from. That’s how you amass a collection of vehicles. You’ll never increase the numbers if you keep trading the old ones in on new ones! LOL! You’re supposed to be keeping them all!
Even with all this nice weather, I still haven’t taken my bike out of storage. It’ll be another few weeks for me if we don’t soon get some rain to wash all that winter sand off the roads. We’ve seen lots of bikes out around KW but it’s just too risky for my liking yet. Once it rains a few times or the street sweepers get out on the roads more I’ll feel better about riding again. I’m hoping we have a nice long warm summer for riding this year. Over the past few months I’ve developed arthritis in my fingers. So far I’ve been able to keep them limbering up by mid morning but if they get any more painful to bend I may not be able to squeeze the clutch on the motorcycle to enjoy riding. Now THAT would be a pity for sure! I’d just have to buy one of those automatic motorcycles with no clutch to pull. I sincerely hope that day never comes. I like the feeling of shifting too much to go that route.
Carole and I have been pulling all the summer chairs etc out of the shed over the past week and readying the back yard for a nice warm season. The only problem we have is that the moles have done a real number on our back lawn over the winter. They have burrowed under the snow and we’ve got a mass of trenches cut all over the back lawn. I’ll have to bring a load topsoil in to fill the mess and top dress the lawn. Then it’ll be seeding time and nursing the grass back to health. I think I’ll take a run over to the garden centre and pick up whatever it’ll take to rid our yard of these pesky varmints, something that KILLS the whole family of rodents without killing the plants or the family pet. I hope the landscaping people can recommend something that is fast acting. I hope it’ll work this time of year and I won’t have to wait until fall or winter to spread it out for their demise! Anybody reading this know what I can use on these destructive critters? If so drop me a note!
That’s it for this week folks!
Thanks for tuning in and I look forward to talking to you all again next week in The Ontarion Report.
My fingers are killing me so I’m going to sign off for now!
Bye for now… Greg.
PS: Something To Think About>
A balanced diet is a cookie in each hand!
One last thing, here is a link to some pictures taken while in Florida, that have been uploaded to ‘the doug site’.
http://www.thedougsite.net/Pictures/Greg/florida1.html
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Have a good one..
the doug
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