The
Squamidian Report – June 30 / 12
Issue #527
Including:
The Ontarion
Hi All,
On the morning of the day that Ron and Maggie dropped in, I had hooked up with a couple of riders from the riding club and we did a toot back up into the Calaghan. Mostly for the nice ride but also in hopes of actually getting some pictures of the bears in there. Based on the amount of bear poop all over the road, there has to be a lot of them. But as I’ve said before, they don’t seem to exist when we have cameras along. However, this time we did see a couple at least. Probably a lot more saw us than the other way around but we saw two. First one was a big shiny black grazing on grass beside the road. At that point our cameras were still in our saddle bags so we could only stop at a respectful distance away and look. Once past that bear we pulled over and got the cameras out, just in case. We started riding again and right around the next bend in the road was a big cinnamon coloured brown bear strolling along at the side of the road. The dumb part was a car had stopped and the silly lady got out right beside the bear to get a close-up picture. When the bear turned toward her we moved forward on the bikes and that convinced the bear to move off the road and disappear into the brush. So the only pictures we got were from a bit far back but we did get some. I think the woman was ticked at us for scaring the bear away but too bad, we did her and the bear a favor. As I’ve said before, these are wild animals that must be respected.
http://www.thedougsite.net/12-Rides/CiniBear2.jpg
When we came back down out of the Calaghan, the guys I was riding with headed on into Whistler for a late breakfast at the Wildwood, and I turned south and headed for home so I would be there when Ron and Maggie dropped in on their way back to the city from Whistler. I was and they did so we had a nice visit and ate too much of ‘The Wife’s’ chocolate cake.
Didn’t give bears any more thought until the middle of the night when half the neighborhood was woken by loud banging and scraping out on the street. A neighbour across the street had left his garage door open and a bear had gone in and pulled his big plastic garbage container out and had dragged it onto the street where it was banging on it and pushing it around in hopes of getting it to open. It made quite a racket. Shining lights at it and shouting at it didn’t seem to have any effect so a neighbour chased it away with his pickup truck. The sad thing is, this bear will be back and at some point wildlife officers will have to destroy it.
*
Last Saturday our CMC chapter hosted a Slow Speed Skills Refresher course. This is where a controlled course is set up with tight curves and turns, narrow sections and ‘surprise’ stop or swerve left or right sections. The idea is to improve and polish your ability to control and maneuver the motorcycle under slow, and surprise conditions such and when a car pulls out in front of you at an intersection or on a parking lot or when trying to make tight maneuvers. We invited riders from another club as well as anyone else who might be interested. One of our members works for the city of North Van and was able to secure the use of a parking lot at one of their sports fields. That worked out very well as we were able to close the gate to keep cars out and force walkers and hikes to stick to the side walk. The only problems we had were dog owners who insisted that it was ok for ‘their’ dog to be running free. They didn’t seem to understand that the numerous parks department signs ordering all dogs to be kept leashed and cleaned up after in the park meant their dog too. But, all that was dealt with and we had a great time and everything went well.
One of our members has the training and expertise to conduct these kinds of sessions (which is why he is our Skills & Training Officer) and he enjoys the opportunity to help the rest of us improve our abilities as riders. We as a chapter enjoy the opportunity to share this stuff with other bikers. Our turnout was about as good as we could want and any more bikes would have created logistical difficulties. The day had been forecast to rain but for some reason the sun came out over that area. Most of the Lower Mainland stayed raining.
While it might seem obvious that clutch, throttle and brake control are key to controlling the bikes, it takes practice and coaching to get it right. Trying to ride a 900lb motorcycle through a U-turn that is too tight for the bike’s steering turn angle is tricky, it’s not enough to just go slow and turn the bars, you must lean the bike to get a sharp enough turning radius to make it through, and, you must not put your foot or feet down as that means you lost control. So, its how you feather the clutch while keeping the engine revs up a bit in order to harvest the gyroscope effect of your flywheel, and apply rear only braking for drag that gets you through. Very challenging and a lot of fun. By the end of the day we were all pretty well beat, happy but beat.
Because of the interest we are finding from other riders etc, we intend to put on another couple of these events over the summer. Everyone, including old farts like me like to learn more and do it better. And face it, there is no standing still, if you are not moving forward, you are moving backward. That’s about as profound as I’ll ever get. J
doug
****
****
THE ONTARION REPORT
Hello everyone!
Hey another week has gone by and summer has just begun! I’m certainly looking forward a nice long summer and fall! The one thing that I notice about the warmer weather is that with the windows open a lot of the time we get to hear a lot of what’s going on outside. If it’s not the diesel buses going by it’s the people across the street whooping and hollering at all hours of the night and if it’s not them, it’s their three dogs howling at whatever passes by. We got some good news last week, the people I just mentioned are known around the neighbourhood as “The Party House”! They’ve been living in their house for 21 years and have two daughters who have been notorious party throwers for all of their teen years as well as their early 20’s! They have both been involved in sports of all kinds and are apparently very good at whatever they play! This makes them the stars of their teams and of course the centre for their teams parties! They’ve been causing noise problems for at least 12 of the 14 years we’ve lived across from them. The good news that I mentioned is that three weeks ago a “For Sale” sign appeared on their front lawn and last week, the “SOLD” sign was affixed to their ReMax sign! Whoopie! We’re hoping that they’ve sold to someone that’s going to keep the peace for a change! The other good news is that their house is much smaller than ours and only has a single garage and they sold it for somewhere around the amazing $369,000.00 that they were asking. That makes our place that much more pricey when and if we decide to put ours up for sale and that’s a good thing I think! We don’t have any plans to sell but the thoughts always there anyway. Ya never know!
*
Last week, I think it was Friday night, we were sitting in the family room watching the news at 11:30pm and suddenly there was a loud bang at the side of our house and the power went out. I thought at first that a car had hit a pole or a hydro box or something but when I looked outside there was nothing to be seen. I talked to the neighbour across the street and he said they heard a bang too but didn’t see anything. I could see that the houses to the south and west of us were all without power but the ones to the north and east were still lit up. I figured a transformer had blown somewhere. When the neighbour and I were standing on his boulevard talking about this we didn’t realize there was a transformer vault in the ground about 50 feet to the south of where we were. About a half hour later, a hydro truck pulled up to his neighbour’s front boulevard and when I walked over to find out what was going on they showed me the lid of the vault that was flush with the grass was covered with oil! The service guy said that the top of the transformer in the vault was blown clean off and the oil had spewed up through the vent! It also caused the main fuses to blow on a pole that was about 200’ behind my house to the north. He said they’d have to replace the transformer and it would take from 7 to 8 hours to do the job. I thanked him for the info and headed back inside to tell Carole what was going on. We sat by candle light for about a half hour and enjoyed a tea that Carole had made just minutes before the power blew out. After chatting in the quiet for a while, we decided to hit the hay and enjoy a nice earlier than usual sleep!
In the morning, Bailey our poodle usually wakes us up at around 6am. On Saturday morning, he didn’t wake us until 8am. Carole got up to take him out back for a pee and as she started down the stairs with Bailey in her arms, the power came back on! I managed to stay tucked in for another half hour or so and then joined her on the patio for a morning tea. Of course we rehashed the previous evenings events and were happy that we’d missed all the noise and banging associated with the transformer replacement. All that over with, all I had to do was run around the house and reset all the clocks that are still 110 volt. The battery ones of course were just fine!
This type of event doesn’t really bother us anymore since I’m now retired and don’t have to get up at all if we don’t want to! SO, having the clocks without power matters not and all was well that morning on Royal Orchard Drive in KW!
I think I’ll stop here and do what I do best at this time of night, go make a nice cup o’ tea and relax before bed!
At least tonight the power is still on!
Thanks for tuning in and I’ll look forward to talking to you all again next week in The Ontarion Report!
Bye for now… Greg
PS: Something To Think About>
Two hats were hanging on a rack in the hallway. One hat said to the other: ‘You stay here; I’ll go on a head.’
****
Have a good one..
the doug
The Fine Print!
The articles in these issues are the sole property of the persons writing them and should be respected as such.
