First Post

This is my first post just see what this blogging thing is all about. Hopefully I can put some pictures and some news and stories on here, and share it with friends and family.

I am not sure how secure this is, so things will be of a very general nature.

Here is a few pictures just to get things started.

As the Blog name states, I am motorcycle crazy and there will eventually be lots of pictures of bikes on this blog. This is my bike, a 2008 Kawasaki KLR650, and this will be the first of many pictures of this bike. After I went on a trip, and I download the pictures, I realise that I love this bike. Most of the pictures are of the bike with only the background changing. So seeing this bike, and others, in different settings could turn out to be the theme of this blog, or not.

Here is my son on his bike. It's a 2007 Kawasaki Super Sherpa. He does trips with me on this bike and it is also his daily commuter. This is a great, indestructible, go anywhere bike.

We once did 1200km in 3 days around Georgian Bay, and this bike did fine. Not the most comfortable ride on a long trip, but if your body can handle it, this bike sure can.

On this trip around Georgian Bay, we had a bit of an adventure. Once we got to Tobermorey (late since we watched how Germany lost in the World Cup) we could not find any accommodation. After some frantic searching and phone calls, we thought we had a place. At 10pm that night we started following the GPS to our intended overnight spot. We traveled at night down some dirt roads, blindly following the GPS. At 2am the next morning, the GPS said "arrive at destination". We were at a dead end road, in the middle of nowhere. Forrest all around, and no place to stay. When turn the bikes off, it was so dark that we could not see our hand in front of our face. Needless to say we were royally fucked.

We turned around and started backtracking. About 1km down the road we found a vacation cottage next to the road and thought we would see if they have a spot for us to sleep. In retrospect, I don't know what we were thinking.

Put yourself in this picture. You are the occupant of the cottage (80 year old lady with a shot gun and a cat). Middle of the night two bikers show up at the door. Knock on the door. You don't open or answer. They turn the door knob to gain entry. Door is locked. They start walking around the cottage and peep into the windows. They can not get in, so they make themselves comfortable on the front porch, and get ready to spend the night. You get the picture.

Well, we spend the night on the porch. Nobody surprised us during the night with shot guns. No cops showed up. Apart from sleeping uncomfortable, being eaten by mosquitoes and spiders, we did fine.

The next morning we rode back to Tobermorey to catch the ferry to Manitulin Island. It was pissing with rain and we were soaked when we got to the ferry terminal.

Here he's changing his pant at the ferry terminal staging are to see if we can get it dry while waiting for the ferry.

The rest of the trip went smooth and that afternoon we made sure we have comfortable accommodation by 4 in the afternoon.