Kettles, a Cobra and The Diverse Face of Toronto - June 2

Saturday, June 2

Setting off ridiculously early at a quarter to seven, I ride along small country roads and eventually Rt. 3 along Lake Erie. Marked as a scenic route on my map, it is no more spectacular than most backroads in the US, but I do make headway about as fast as I would have on the freeway. It'll be a long day, almost 400 kilometers, before I reach Toronto where an old friend lives.

Space age solar panels like these were to be found all over, apparently part of some government program promoting clean energy.

It being so early, and the weather having changed, I'm really cold and ponder if I should have kept the cammo jacket left a the Dayton motel. Also start noticing the preciously few details that - at least visually, here in the countryside - sets Canada apart from the US: More mid-size cars instead of pickup trucks. Road signs are metric, and occasionally in French too. And the flags as everpresent as they were south of the border are Canadian. But flagmania here too? What is going on? At least her maple leaf flag looks nice, and very often it is accompanied by Stars and Stripes, the Tricolore or even Union Jack.

Remembering Canada's war heroes.

At the halfway point I get in touch with Ian Sandy, another fellow Nimbus owner, who lives just north of London. Actually there's four Nimbus guys here in Ontario, almost within shouting distance of each other. Anyway, I get there in time for lunch and a chat, learn that the flag thing is because of Canada Day on July 1st, a full month from now. Ian's wife Donna notes that (like in Denmark) there's no particular political connotations involved with flying the flag.

I also ask about all those signs people have put up, supporting candidates for the upcoming election, or specifically the single one I saw for Doug Ford. Doug is the brother of the late Rob Ford, mayor of Toronto, whose off-the-wall antics - smoking crack, hanging out with gangsters etc. - made him well known outside of Canada. The laughter may still be strained here, so I guess it was funnier directly proportionally to how far away from Toronto you live. Like across The Atlantic. But in hindsight Rob Ford was just the opening act: The main attraction, star of the show, top name on the poster, now rules the USA.
   And thanks to Canada's 'winner-takes-all' election system, in a three-way race Doug Ford will most likely become Ontario's governor in a few days. (Silver lining: Doug Ford does not have access to nuclear weapons).

Food, flags and politics done with, we saunter over to Ian's garage, where much to my pleasure I see a half-dozen Suzuki GT750 motorcycles, as well as one I love dearly; a pristine 1968 Suzuki T500 Cobra, as it was called here. (Ford owns the model name, so in the US they called it 'Titan' instead). The thing is spotless, and Ian being a sucker for tings being original, only the turn signals need replacing before it is up to his standards. Then he'll sell it, and concentrate on the 'Kettles', as the transplanted Englishman calls them. Everywhere else they're known as 'Water Buffaloes'. Of course they are or will be nigh perfect too, with the exception of the one deliberately built up as a 'fake barn find'.

Suzuki GT750s in Ian's well insulated workshop. The one he's standing next to has a three-into-one exhaust system, which looks good, sounds good and gives better midrange power, but is useless at over 6,000 rpm.

1968 Suzuki T500 Cobra. Ian, please take some good pics of it outside, also with you on it, and I'll be happy to write the article.

Swap meet, cat and a single cylinder Ducati engine, an unbeatable combination.

Aside from restoring Suzukis to showroom condition, Ian also assembles complete tool kits for them. Turned out there was a shortage of 10 mm tubular box wrenches, so he made a batch of those too.

The Nimbus sidecar motorcycle was on the floor, lonely fourstroke amongst the oilburners, but on the shelf there was Nimbus beer. Much too old to drink now, but it must have tasted better than Harley's beer, which I regretted trying way back when.

Not many people know the shared ancestry of the MZ's and Suzuki's twostrokes, but in the 1960s Suzuki orchestrated the defection of East German star rider Ernst Degner and his family. Degner took with him the advanced twostroke tech developed by the MZ team (lead by its brilliant chief engineer Walter Kaaden), thus saving Suzuki many years of development work. So thanks to this thief who stole not from the state, but from his teammates Suzukis two-strokes were very good. Underfinanced and under difficult working conditions the East Germans had fought for years against well funded Western and Eastern teams, but now ceased to be a dominant force on the GP scene. Anyone interested in this part of motorcycle history could do well by reading 'Stealing Speed, The Biggest Spy Scandal in Motorsport History', by Mat Oxley. 

Then I set off again, first on the regular road, where I don't worry much about riding helmetless. Ian said the fine is 250 Canadian dollars, so it'll be an exciting moment when eventually they do stop me for this. Here the speed limit is 80 kph (50 mph), though I seem to be the only person actually complying with that. 
   Today's final stretch is on the 'Highway of Heroes', as they call the up-to-18-lanes '401' freeway to Toronto. Once reaching the city's crowded 10-12-14 lane system, I immediately notice the diversity of drivers. The countryside here and in the US states I rode through is mainly composed of white folks, whereas Toronto reputedly is the most diverse city not only in Canada, but in the world.
   And soon I roll into the driveway of the suburban home, where my Polish-Canadian friend Hanna lives. We last saw each other about 30 years ago, have talked only a few times on the phone since, but as it is with some people, we might as well have been apart but for a few weeks. We chat away until late in the evening, raccoons not far from the porch screaming like parrots in the jungle, until we call it a day.