Sunday Ride in the Valley

Into the Valley

Being our host, Andrew on his Road King took the lead, followed by Keith and Sue on a gleaming Electra Glide standard, Lynn or her 1200 Sportster Custom, Caroline on her 883 standard, and then myself on the T-Sport. Riding the caboose by choice were Axel and Ilse on their side-hack equipped FL police bike. It didn’t take us long before we left the busy 417 and started on a wonderful exploration of some of the back roads of the Ottawa valley.

Whenever riding in a group, it’s always tough to please everyone. It’s either too fast, or too slow; stop too often, or not often enough, and so on. For me, this was the first time on many of the roads we followed in this part of Eastern Ontario, and some of the views across the Ottawa River were spectacular. If I were on my own, I would have taken advantage and found somewhere to park and drink in the sights. But I also realize that if I was alone, I probably would have found some important chore that needed doing rather than being out and riding in the first place. Thanks to Andrew and Keith who took turns leading, I have been reacquainted with some really great countryside that I had forgotten existed. Plans were already forming in my head to come back and re-visit parts of our route, and even go further.

I was quite pleased that Caroline was indeed keeping stride with the leaders. The roads were curvy, sometimes narrow and occasionally rough, but she didn’t lose ground and looked competent from behind. Although the group stretched out a bit at times, for the most part we rode well together.

Andrew is a rider who loves to ride. I imagine that if he didn’t have to stop for fuel for either himself or his bike, he would just go and go. It is like he gets into “the zone” where nothing exists for him but the road and his machine. Everything else around him slowly melts away, like those following him frantically gesturing with waving arms and flashing turn signals that he has missed the turn we were supposed to take. Now that we had passed two possible roads without turning, I twisted the grip and passed our slowing group to chase after Andrew before he disappeared over the horizon. I didn’t catch his attention until my crackling pipes were aimed back at him. I had overshot him by a few feet while reducing my speed back to much saner levels.

The Tractor Incident

Just after the spill, we take a breather on the side of the road.

Back on track, we continued heading west along the river. Things were going smoothly until we pulled up to an intersection with a two-way stop. A large farm tractor was coming towards us on our left, its four way flashers on. Andrew stopped, and then proceeded across the intersection.Keith also stopped, but then to my surprise he too accelerated to follow Andrew. By now the tractor was almost on top of him and I cringed for the impact. Luckily, Keith now suddenly aware of the imminent collision slammed on his brakes and simultaneously tried to veer away, losing his balance in the process. His immaculate bagger gently fell to the ground, and his wife rolled away like tumbleweed to avoid being crushed by the tractor, the bike, or both. The tractor came to a halt mere feet away from impact.

As it appeared that no one got hurt, my next instinct was to save the bike. I kicked out the jiffy stand and leapt off of my bike as soon as I was sure it would not roll or tip over. I then sprinted as quickly as I could to assist Keith in lifting his bike back upright. At the same time the tractor operator had hopped out of his cab to check on Keith. A quick damage appraisal of the Electra Glide and seeing nothing apparent, I returned to my bike and rode it across the intersection to park at a corner store. The others did the same.

This is the store where I bought the batteries so I could take a picture of it.

In every dark cloud there is a silver lining. This unscheduled stop gave me the opportunity to pop in the store and purchase a couple of batteries for my wife’s camera. I had discovered back at the truck stop that the camera had just enough juice to partially advance the film before slowly whining to a halt. With batteries loaded, I recorded our unscheduled rest break.