Kilometers today: 388.1 (2,642.2 so far)
Hours in the saddle: 5:47 (42:19 so far)
Theme music: Talking
Monday night I looked at three different tide tables to figure out our day Tuesday.
The first was for Bar Road, a sandbar that is a road at low tide between St. Andrews and Ministers Island. You know what that means? That’s right bitches — this morning we drove 1 mile across the motherfuckin’ OCEAN FLOOR!
While most of the surface was large gravel (“fixed” that pushes you around, not loose gravel that you can push around), Julie found some sand and repeated what happened the last time she found some (in New Mexico) and the Tigress ate some sand. Instincts for offroad riding are really opposite to those for road riding in several ways. I just need to keep training myself to not correct for the ass moving around and not to slow down. The way back was much better. I noticed on the way back that when I automatically eased off the throttle when things got rough, my front tire started dragging. Just got to keep going. I look forward to seeing that go pro footage…in 2 weeks.
So one reason I don’t take the Tigress out by myself is because if I park on any kind of slope, she’s so tall and heavy and I am just on my toes that it’s really hard to stand her up from the side stand if I didn’t park on a level surface. So if it’s leaning too far over downslope, sometimes I need Jaron to help me stand it up. This happens a lot when on a non-pavement surface when the kickstand sinks a little in to the ground. Well, he was already ready to go and I couldn’t stand it up by myself. So I used some elements from all of this offroad training I’ve taken and figured out a way to do it. For example, one instructor had us balance the bike with one finger while walking all the way around it. The lesson was that it wants to stay up and we’re the ones that fuck up the balance. So I balanced the bike with one hand while standing next to it. Stepped far enough back that I could throw my right leg over. (This is hard when the seat is taller than my inseam.) Then I scooted my left foot closer until I could slide enough over to the right to put my foot down, flip up the kickstand with my left foot, and get going. If I dropped it, it lands on the kickstand. So it took a couple of tries but I think I have a solid method. Onward!
FYI, here Americans have to sign a paper receipt in addition to doing a chip reader. At a gas stop, the attendant said that she needed my John Henry. #adorbs
We got some intel from a retired local at a gas station closer to the sea caves, the subject of the second tide table. He was on a purple cruiser which Julie complimented. Then he came over to help Jaron pick his bike up which literally just fell over when Jaron bumped in to it.
Pictures simply do not do any of this justice.
The tide was rolling in at St Martins sea caves.
Kind of hard to see, but in the middle of that red stuff there is a sea cave.
The seaweed just dries in little whiskers for like 6 hours at a time between tides.
There was a group of Canadian Harley riders here and some of them were looking at our bikes, so we got talking with them. They were giving route suggestions and Julie asked if they would show her on the map and we talked for a little bit. As we were packing up, they asked Jaron to take their group picture and they were just the most cheerful group of Harley riders I’ve ever seen.
We caught up to them at the toll booth for the Fundy Trail Parkway and the road captain walked back to us and said that if the guy asked, we were with them, because then we could get a group rate. So it was slow going while 14 motorcycles paid at the toll booth. (It took 12 to get a group rate, so they didn’t need us to get it and were just being nice.) The toll worker said “oh, you’re not with them, because those aren’t Harleys”. I shrugged and said we were and he rang us up at the group rate. The group even waited for us before they started — because we were with them. One of them was flying a Canadian flag on his bike, imagine that. We rode with them to the end of the parkway. At the turnaround we decided to take a break and get our bearings for our next stop.
This is my favorite view from that drive. And there were many stunning views.
We had about 3 hours to go to our next stop and we made it for 1.5 of them before some serious brain and body fatigue set in. We stopped for ice cream at a country store with some good old fashioned Big Dairy propaganda.
From there we figured out our lodging and punted the third tide table, Hopewell Rocks, to tomorrow. We rode through Fundy National Park and had a lobstah dinner in Alma.
Check out this view while we ate our lobstah.
It was getting to be dusk and the mosquitoes came out. These are some dedicated mosquitoes. Must be only the strong survive the Canadian winters. There weren’t a lot of them, but the ones there were bit thru clothing and got my hairline and all the places. These mosquitoes were worse than the ones in Galveston, TX. IJS.
We put down at a hotel near Hopewell Rocks which we will hit in the morning at low tide.
These pictures are not in the most logical order, but that’s what you’re getting before we crash. We took on a lot today and will be pacing ourselves better from now on.
Leave a Reply