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3 days, 1200 miles. Between DC and Toronto on a CBR.

4K views 22 replies 10 participants last post by  Hughie1987 
#1 ·
Well, I waited long enough to put this together so here goes:

On July 15th, with 4 hours of sleep, two mates and I set out North from DC to Toronto along with the sunrise.



Our bikes were packed and setup for mild touring. I put on 5 dollar stair tread tank grip specials from the orange home improvement store, a throttle paddle, padded shorts, and a MILSPEC DIY gun box luggage system to complete the list of mods for this trip. The two guys with the bird and the VFR didn't have much faith in my @ss and the tourability of the CBR... They were wrong and b!tched more than I did with their throttle locks and Corbin seats.



Gear: Icon Alliance Dark, upper from the Teknic Chicane two piece, JR alter ego 2.0 pants, TUG EVS vented shorts, A* SMX5 boots, and some Fly racing Brawler gloves.

The image isn't from the trip but the bike is setup exactly as when we took off. I found the gun box while roaming about a gun show in VA from a collector. He didn't seem to mind much what my plans were with it. Maybe I'll make a quick post later on how I mounted it since it's not the purpose of this thread.

The morning was quite uneventful save for a fuel stop both for bikes and ourselves at a Bob Evans in Hagerstown. Their egg bowl mash of breakfast food was awesome.



We got lucky with the weather as it was pretty much overcast until we got to Central PA so the heat was down and humidity didn't feel as awful. Once we were in the mountains of PA, humidity was minimal, the temperatures were nice and cool, and the sun was shining to boot. This lasted all the way to Niagara.

Here's a pit stop 20 miles South of Altoona, PA. The VFR looked like it was losing rear tire pressure.



And the other side



Another fuel stop in the middle of nowhere surrounded by a whole lotta nothing.



When in PA, it's a matter of fact that you stop by and refuel at a Sheetz. Plus I like the look of my bike so here's a shameless self promotion shot:



We did try to find the first Sheetz but it turns out that by now it's a hollowed out building... So that was skipped. Plus we were already a few hours behind schedule at this point anyway.

NY welcoming committee:



We got clocked going 70 on a 55 by the NY State popo just as we crossed the state line. When we saw the lights, our butts clenched and prepared for the fines... My experience is that the cops are more likely to hand out tickets to far-out-of-state motorists because there's little chance the accused would contest.

So we shut the bikes off, took off our gear while the trooper waited in his SUV, and prayed to whatever gods we could name. The dude came, took our documents and went back to run them through. We didn't bother with excuses and simply told him we're coming from the DC area to Toronto. As he came out of his SUV, I saw he only had our licenses and registration papers in his hands. You guys can imagine the tween-girl-squeals I wanted to let out in joy. So he gave us a verbal warning and told us to get on the way. I didn't miss a beat and asked for a photo-op. The man is now a hero in my books.

The rest of the road through NY was pretty uneventful save for some gorgeous roads that I enjoyed too much to stop and take pictures of.

/end pt1
 
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#2 ·
Finding out we're in the middle of some massive moto-event:



When we got to the Anchor Bar in Buffalo, we were greeted with pockets of BMW motorcycles and there was a small fleet at the bar. What you don't see is the back parking lot that was full of BMW motos. It turns out there was a massive BMW rally some 7000 strong that were doing an East Coast-ish run. It finally made sense to us why we were seeing so many of them on the roads.

When in Buffalo:



A good pile of wings that we couldn't muster to finish.

Preparing for the last few legs of the trip:



Annnnnd US Niagara:



Part of the viewing deck was sectioned off so that was a bummer but at this point it was already getting dark and we were just happy to see the border crossing. Apparently each night at 10pm there are fireworks from the Canadian side.

I have to say, it's a huge pleasant relief to finally switch my bike to metric after the crossing. I grew up with those units and to this day the only unit of measurement that I can picture lengths, volumes, and feel weights from just hearing the numbers. American units, I still have to pause and consciously think about them.

It was a little strange for the first few km to be seeing 100+ on the dash though.

A few words about Ontario drivers: You guys are awesome. When we signaled to switch lanes, the drivers behind usually made space. And those ahead gave way when we were obviously coming up at a faster pace. Plus you treat speed limits as suggestions. Most of the limits on the roads were 90 or 100 but the packs were moving 130 on average. This made me happy and the local PD seem to be OK with this too. So in short, you guys are disciplined and generally pleasant to be around on the road. I can't say the same to the drivers State-side where turning signals are taken as challenges as to who can take up the space first and block off the road ahead. This was strongly felt when we crossed NY-Ontario borders in each direction.

Ok, back to topic. Finally in a garage, away from the bugs and other flying debris on the road:



It took us a grand total of 18 hours to get to one of the mate's aunt's place. FAR underestimated the time it would take us to do the road on bikes. Google suggested it would take 9 hours so we figured 12 in reality with the frequent fuel stops. WRONG. But only because we took extended breaks every hour, hour and a half or so.

Greeted with good vodka and a table full of food:



/end pt2
 
#3 ·
I'll skip most of the Toronto stuff since we were on foot and only rode into the city. What I'll say though is that the waiting lines for the CN tower were nauseatingly long so we decided to touch the tower, to mark the occasion, and spend the ticket money at a bar instead. This worked out well. There was also a Guns and Roses concert going on that day so the city was full of, umm, visual spectacles. Too bad we didn't do proper research otherwise we would have definitely got the tickets for the concert.

Here's something to appreciate though:



An E30 M3. 150,000km on the clock the the man is USING it instead of watching it rot in a garage. If you can see in the photo, the man knows exactly why I jumped out of my seat at the restaurant screeching like a tween girl at a Bieber concert. His wife seems to be tired of the kind of attention and the kids have no even a clue why so many strangers are excited about an old ass car that smells of oil and gas.

Also, my moment of squid but repping the MD flag!



The gun case also doubles as a perfect arm rest on stops.

Farewell committee:



It was awesome for these folks to offer up stay to three loud and quite stinky dudes that show up never on time. My gratitude.

The mandatory Canadian Falls:



And my getup for crossing back into the states:



The Canadian side is a far better view than what the States got shafted with. I'm not only talking about the viewing angle, but the viewing areas as well. The ones in the states seemed rather industrial and soul-less. The Canadian side had a proper walk, with clean streets and moto-friendly parking with plenty of grassy areas to sit down and enjoy a lunch at.

Even here was packed with BMW rally folks:



And another shameless self promotion:



From this point on, there were only a couple of interesting thing to happen. And I didn't take many photographs since we were focused on getting back. One event was that one of the mounting brackets I fabbed for the gun case failed from fatigue and I had to do a road-side repair as not to spew mu luggage all over the road.



And another is that the VFR got a nail in the rear tire that we noticed just after leaving Niagara. Good thing I packed my plug kit. Here's a stop we made to make sure the plug was doing it's job:



At this stop I found a carcass of what used to be a squirrel or another large vermin and stuffed it behind the dashboard in the bird. I had a good laugh.

That was the last photo I took but here are some snapshots from the VFR's helmet cam to part with.

/end pt3
 
#4 ·
Central PA is absolutely gorgeous with well paved roads. Needless to say we had a little fun.







You can see in the last pic the carcass tied to my gun case luggage that I saved to annoy the guy on the bird at a later time.

Phew. That's it for the road part. 3 days and 1200 miles with good friends, awesome bikes, family, and international travel. Would I do it again? Absolutely. We're in the process of figuring out a way to make it out to Montreal or go South to Miami on bikes.

tl;dr Go screw yourself.

/end
 
#6 ·
It's actually not too bad. I got some padded shorts to go under the riding pants and the @ss pain was minimal. You could definitely feel that something's not quite comfy but I'd much rather spend 40 bucks on shorts that I can use on any bike than a bike-specific 300+ Corbin at this point. Height of the bars isn't too bad either if you sit duck-foot and balls to the tank.
 
#10 ·
I thought about wearing my gel mountain biking shorts on long rides when I still had my CBR, but the bars definitely were an issue for me. Maybe cause I'm on the shorter side.
 
#12 ·
Yeeees. It was quite a trip. Next time though we're going to opt for more than a single day at the destination.

I thought about wearing my gel mountain biking shorts on long rides when I still had my CBR, but the bars definitely were an issue for me. Maybe cause I'm on the shorter side.
I thought of picking up padded cycling shorts from a local store but wasn't quite pleased with the material and the quality of the padding. Felt just felt like another RR seat sewed into the bum. Doesn't gel get all sweaty and sticky after a while?

Dude you guys are my idols lol, I've wanted to do something love this ever since I started riding. Awesome pics!

Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk
Then pick a destination within a few tanks of gas radius and a free weekend. The hardest part of this trip was marking out the dates to make sure all three of us could make it.
 
#14 ·
Heh, yeah. Near 400 miles just to get out of state is a pain. Though I wouldn't mind doing a hop from Key West to Georgia border by the coast line.

If you do go up North, you'll be yearn to come back South again. Actual Winters suck.
 
#20 ·
Thanks for sharing. I'd like to do some touring, but I can't do distance on the cbr
 
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