You were once wild here. Don't let them tame you.
-Isadora Duncan
THE DREAM she carried me 2∕3 of the way across a continent AND MORE...
However getting there wasn't so easy. Setting out on the open road, I couldn't help but worry about a number of things. I was driving from Ontario to British Columbia, I had a deadline of just over a week to get there. I remember being primarily concerned about the amount of luggage that I was carrying and whether or not it would be a problem for the bikes frame. I had installed an aftermarket luggage rack on a bike that really wasn't even designed to really have such a luxury... I was heading tree planting and needed to carry a ton of stuff. A car would have been more appropriate but there's something enticing about a motorcycle trip and that's the way that I wanted to do it.
The thing about these bikes is they can be tricky to tune, owing to the fact that they have two carbs which operate at different RPM ranges. As I was facing a deadline, I didn't exactly have the time to 'iron out all the kinks' and ended up leaving knowing there was an issue... At high speeds, my engine would start to sputter and die. Anything under 110 KM/h I'd be okay. I had hoped this would sort of fix itself or I could fix it along the way, but I ended up driving for more than 4500KM before I could end up getting it fixed. There were definitely times during the drive where I wish I could be going faster... but I must say, it wasn't the bike's fault... A friend of a friend had worked on the carbs and while he is a motorcycle mechanic and I am inclined to believe him, maybe he missed something or whatnot because a second mechanic said there was dirt causing the issue.
Another thing about that journey was that not even half an hour after leaving my house, I encountered rain, which ended up haunting me for days. I rode for a brief period of slushy falling snow, hobbling to a motel, checking in, only to have the snow immediately stop and have the sun come out. By that time I was already ready to take a breather, even though the next day the weather was bleak nonetheless, and I could have made some good ground. I had picked definitely the wrong season to make this trip!
Sometimes the pouring rain got to the point of having to stop every 30 minutes along the highway, take off my boots and DUMP them out, try and warm up, ride, and repeat the process. Progress was pretty slow and painful at times. But, near the end of my journey, riding through Montana and Idaho, the weather not to mention the SCENERY became so much better... I found myself laughing and singing to myself along the roads at that point, just completely having an amazing time by that point. Of course this style of bike isn't the best at long distance trips... in fact not really meant for them at all, and will introduce a lot of vibrations through the handlebars at highway speeds and do cause your hands to go numb - especially your throttle hand, which you have no choice but to try and grip to of course maintain throttle. This in itself would be a cause for needing to pull over at regular intervals, and the bike was still suffering from the issue with high-speed lag. However, after nearly a week of riding in the rain every day, I was ready to take this; the curves, the scenery, the hills... suddenly, this was utterly awesome and I was happy that I had decided indeed to ride THE BEAST out West! Not to mention, riding a motorcycle automatically raises your badass quotient a few notches, and having the XL on my tree planting adventures was a godsend as well - even getting the chance and pleasure to ride my bike all the way to work and back on a few days when logistically it was worthwhile.
In any case, I ended up selling this bike but all around, it was generally an awesome experience - especially with once all the kinks were ironed out, it was always a very reliable, fairly powerful, capable bike. This bike was one of the last few big kickstart bikes they made before they made them electric start. And while the electric start is a nice thing to have, getting to know the kickstart on that bike happened quickly and it was quite easy and in fact satisfying to kick over, something that could be done with minimal effort thanks to design features incorporated by Honda. The single cylinder 'Radial Four-Valve Cylinder' engine design by Honda ended up being so good it went on to see over ten years of production from the early-mid eighties and beyond, seeing only minor tweaks in terms of the engine design.
| Category | Vehicle Photography |
| Settings | 0.4 s @ f10 , ISO 320 | 78MM |
| Camera | Canon 7D |
| Lens | EF70-200 f2.8 L |
| Flash | Canon 580EX II | Pocketwizard plus X transceiver |
| Location | Selkirk Mountains, BC, Canada |
Lighting Setup
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