After 5hrs of effort, 4 spark plugs, a litre of oil, one chain, 2 sprockets, valve adjustments, and a few other essentials…it was NOT priceless. It was however necessary and could still make for a good MasterCard commercial.

Motorcycles are expensive, not only to insure but also to maintain. It is a fact of life for every rider and needs to be done at regular intervals. Having a bike in a poor state of repair has far greater safety implications when compared to a car. Drive-train failure on a car simply means rolling to a stop. Whereas on a bike, a broken chain could snag in the rear wheel causing it to lock up followed by a nasty fall.

I’m not here to preach, just offering up a little advice. I would personally hate to be a speed bump because something on my bike broke as a result of poor maintenance.

What a difference a day makes. I awoke to a very warm and muggy morning and hit the road around 9am. I still had a lot of ground to cover and considering the holidiays (Thanksgiving in Canada and Columbus Day in the US), I was concerned about long wait times at the border.

I continued my trek across the 104 into Rochester then north again so that I could continue following the Seaway Trail, which was the route I had been following since entering the United States. This took me all the way to Lewiston then on to Niagra. I was hoping to cross at the Whirlpool bridge, however, that is now only accessable by Nexus Pass holders (of which I am not). So not wanting to double back to Lewiston, which is mostly commercial traffic, I crossed over the Rainbow Bridge back into Canada. I waited a whopping 5min to cross the border.

Okay…what the hell…I might as well drive past the falls since I was there anyway. Here I had bit of a rest (parked illegally) and took the chance to check over the bike.
Simply put…it’s in rough shape. The chain and sprockets are completely ruined and the chain is about to fall off or break. It wasn’t long before a cop passed by to check me out. I told him I had to check over the bike and that it wasn’t doing well but I would be on my way soon at which point he left me alone.

Not wanting to waste any more time or do a lot of extra shifting, I took to the highway and headed straight home.

All in all, the trip around the lake was a total of 849km long and when you add that to the riding from Friday and Saturday, I put on a total of 1547km over four days.

Sunday started off with some miserable weather. Cool and damp for most of the day and wearing layers was the key to staying comfortable.

The first leg of the trip started at 11am and consisted of a straight run across the 401 into Kingston where I waited to catch the ferry across to Wolfe Island and after making the short 11km run across the island I had to wait again for the second ferry to the US. Total time wasted from Kingston to the US was a whopping 3.5hrs (mostly spent waiting for ferries).

Once across the border I hooked up with route 3 to route 104 then westward along the south shore of Lake Ontario. Oswago was the halfway point and time to stop for dinner. Sheppards Pie and a cold beer hit the spot nicely after which I continued well after dark finally stopping for the night in a small town just east of Rochester.

I wasn’t expecting such open arms at the motel that I checked into. Not only were they ready and willing to take in the “noisy motorcycle”, they even offered extra towels to wipe the bugs and road grim off the bike.
Total distance for the day…512km.