Innholdsfortegnelse for April 2022 i Motorcycle Mojo Magazine

With this April issue we bring you what might be one of our most diverse issues yet, featuring a look at the 2022 Triumph Speed Triple 1200 RR speed demon, an article on motorcycle camping, and seemingly everything in between. As with most manufacturers, Triumph has had a focus on the industry’s latest and greatest genre: the adventure-touring segment. But it seems Triumph has now filled every conceivable niche in that segment in its lineup and the company appears to be moving back to feed the minds and souls of the speed freaks out there. The company, once known predominantly for its high-performance triples, is moving back into that arena as it releases the Speed Triple 1200 RR with an engine that produces more horsepower than any other Triumph motorcycle…

HAPPY WITH NEW LUGGAGE BAG Love Mojo and it has become my favourite motorcycle magazine. Keep up the great work! I really enjoyed Emily’s travel luggage article in the December 2021 issue. I have been looking for a replacement for my old fabric fanny pack that I hang between my mirrors as a handlebar pouch. I have found it in the Turkana Pellipouch, which was one of the featured items in the article. I contacted Rene at Renedian Tours about fitment for my particular bike and aftermarket bars and he was most helpful and accommodating. I ordered the pouch and received it in short order and I’m very happy with my purchase. As Emily pointed out, Renedian sells highquality products with fast and friendly service. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend…

I’ve got a lot of riding experience, so it’s been a while since I’ve felt like the newbie in a motorcycle riding situation. I had almost forgotten what it feels like to be the least experienced or slowest in a group. But that changed when I took up off-road riding two summers ago. I was relatively new to trail riding, and overcome with nerves because I didn’t want to hold back the group. I would apologize every time I fell over, stalled my bike, or couldn’t kickstart it on the first try. I thought the other riders were getting annoyed with me, and thinking: “Why can’t this girl keep up?” I was sure that they were frustrated with my inexperience. I also figured they were exasperated by my request to…

BISON OR BUFFALO? Many people might use the term interchangeably, but buffalo and bison are distinctly different animals. Old World “true” buffalo (Cape buffalo and water buffalo) are native to Africa and Asia, whereas bison are found in North America and Europe. Bison have large humps at their shoulders and bigger heads than buffalo. Bison also have dark brown fur that’s long on the head, shoulders and forelegs, while the shorter fur covering the rest of their bodies is slightly lighter in colour. Another simple way to tell a buffalo from a bison is to look at its horns. Cape buffalo horns resemble a handlebar mustache; they have a thick, helmet-like base and curl down, then back up. A water buffalo’s horns are large, long and curved in a crescent,…

Ugh. My apologies to our regular readers, but here’s another column about another bike I recently acquired. Actually, it’s a pair of bikes. You know the drill by now: I keep saying I’ll avoid online classifieds, as I have a propensity to make impulsive bike purchases. But whenever I have some downtime, I find myself scrolling down pages and pages of motorcycles for sale. I honestly have no intention of buying, and do it mostly for the interesting and sometimes entertaining ads. But then one will pop up that’s so appealing I just can’t resist contacting the seller. Even so, I’m still convinced I won’t be spending any money, because when an online deal seems too good to be true, it usually is. There are scammers out there to be…

The ghost town of Steveville, Alta., is a quiet place — well, most of the time. You’d be surprised if you saw much else there but grazing cattle and the odd coyote meandering along the shoreline of the Red Deer River, except for on one day in 2021. On this exceptional day, you could expect to see RVs, tents, campers and pickup trucks loaded with dirt bikes as their occupants prepare to ride one of the toughest races Canada has ever seen. This day is when the Red Bull Outliers race took place. Stevevile, a place that would be easily missed if you blinked while driving through it, holds unique terrain that attracted 150 racers in August 2021 to test their skils and push their abilities in attempts to claim…

“Pick your damn feet up and go faster!” yelled my student’s husband. I had been hired to provide a oneon-one riding lesson for that student, but her husband didn’t understand the math, and decided I needed help. I first tried diplomacy to get him to shut up, and when that didn’t work, I tricked him into quietly accessing another instructor’s lessons far away. In most cases, like this one, people should not try to teach their loved ones how to ride. Many of us were inspired to ride by others around us, and learned how to ride with the help of a friend or family member. Statistics tell us that most new riders enroll in professional rider-training courses. But not all do. If you ride, your passion for the sport…

I’m not proud of this: My sixthgrade classmates and I thought we had really accomplished something when our new French teacher fled the room in tears. “Why,” I’d say with a sneer, “would I ever need to learn French?” So the irony was not lost on me when, as a university graduate, I landed my first teaching job: Beginner French. It was precisely that linguistic animosity that Hugh MacLennan described when he coined the title of his 1945 Canadian classic Two Solitudes. Both French and English citizens have struggled with the barriers of language and culture. I know many travellers who have avoided Quebec for fear of an inability to communicate. And that is unfortunate. For my part, it wasn’t an aversion. It was just that there were so many…

WHERE TO FIND QUALITY GEAR? The best places to find camping gear for motorcycle camping are specialized ADV motorcycle travel retailers, or outdoor stores that specialize in hiking and backpacking: if a backpacker can carry it to the backcountry, then there shouldn’t be a problem for a motorcyclist finding room for it. IT’LL COST YOU Remember this general rule: the better the gear, the smaller, lighter and sturdier it is — but it will probably be a bit pricier to have all of those attributes. MAINTAIN PROPER CENTRE OF GRAVITY Pack your bike with consideration of where to put heavy items to maintain a proper centre of gravity — heavier items like tools should be packed as low as possible, with lighter items packed higher. Also consider the weight distribution…

Unique times create unique opportunities. The plague that has paralyzed the world has left twowheeled pleasure seekers in a conundrum. Fortunately for us, Ontario has more than a million square kilometres of land, more than 119,000 km of paved roads and 71,000 km of gravel roads. Faraway places always beckon, but I thought why not explore the hundreds of unusual things and places to see right in my backyard? On my trusty old ST1300 and Al McKnight on his Gold Wing, we picked up speed as we left the town of Kirby in our mirrors. Nestled between the verdant hills of the Ganaraska Forest, with the gently rolling, golden fields of the coming harvest rising to our left and right, County Road 9 gracefully escorted us eastward into a rider’s…

I don’t know if the future of motorcycles will be as battery-powered as many pundits claim. Lacking Nostradamus’ vision into the future, I cannot begin to predict what might happen 30 years hence. Hell, for all I know, there will be no motorcycles at all come 2050, with all we hair-inthe-wind bikers riding some sort of fan-blown hovercycle. But this I am absolutely certain of: There will be no BMW R1250 GSA equivalent in the next 10 years that is powered entirely by electricity. By that, I mean that there will be no batterypowered adventure bike that weighs “only” 268 kilograms — BMW’s official curb weight — yet has a real-world 500-plus km of range at a steady 120 km/h. Oh, lots of manufacturers are making incredible boasts of incredible…

50 Beach’s Motorcycle Adventures celebrates its 50th year of tours, making Beach’s the oldest motorcycle touring company in the world. 1,000,000 In December 2021, Triumph revealed its one-millionth motorcycle since the brand’s return in 1990. It couldn’t have come at a better time, as Triumph celebrates 120 years in 2022 — the first Triumph motorcycle went on sale in April 1902. The millionth motorcycle was a Tiger 900 Rally Pro and is displayed at the company’s global headquarters in Hinckley, UK. 59,447 The number of Ducatis sold in 2021, making it the best year for the Italian motorcycle brand in its history. According to Ducati, the most popular model was the Multistrada V4, which sold 9,957 units in 2021. 50 Kawasaki celebrates 50 years of its Z series of motorcycles,…

CANADA’S BIGGEST HARD ENDURO COMPETITION There were four classifications that Red Bull Outliers racers couldenter: PRO: Riders who have competed as a “Pro” in national, provincial or state event(s). EXPERT: Riders with advanced skil level and previous competition experience, but no Pro licence. VETERAN: Thirty-five years of age and older. AMATEUR: Riders with moderate skil level and some competition experience. After the qualifier round, which ran from 9:30–11:30 a.m., was the main event that ran from 1:00 -5:00 p.m. The main event was a chaotic mass-start per classification. Course lap was approximately eight to 10 km in length and race duration was nine laps or four hours. Completion of each lap by the leader would trigger another “Outliers” lap to be opened up, thereby making each lap progressively more difficult…

As the icicles on the trees — and, inevitably, in our nostrils start to melt — it can only mean that summer grows closer by the day. The weather is warming, the days are getting longer, and instinctively, as motorcyclists, we are counting the days till we can ride again. Some of us in more mild areas of this continent may have been riding year-round, but the majority of us are just starting our riding season. So how do we prepare for our first ride? Over the years, I’ve created a bit of a mental checklist. Although it’s not bulletproof, I find it often helps to set me up for the season ahead. Condition of roads: My father always told me to wait until the street sweepers cleaned the roads…

THE WRITING’S ON THE WALL Sherbrooke’s murals consist of 18 giant wall murals over a distance of five kilometres throughout the city. Through an app, you can make a game out of it and challenge yourself on an interactive scavenger hunt with easy, medium or difficult clues about various trivia regarding Sherbrooke’s history. WHERE THERE IS A BIG EXPANSE OF WATER Covering approximately 100 sq. km, Lake Memphremagog measures about 43 km long and three km wide. Most of the lake is in Quebec — only about eight km stretches south of the border into Vermont. The lake is surrounded by hills and mountains, the loftiest being Owl’s Head at 1,024 metres on the western shore. You’d also be wise to watch out for the lake’s monster, named Memphré. The…

ONTARIO’S FIRST GOLD MINE The province’s first gold mine was the Richardson Mine, established in 1866, and it was at this site that the appropriately named town of Eldorado was established. This first mine sparked a substantial gold rush in southeastern Ontario, but it was short-lived, with most of the mines abandoned after a few years of operation. FIND YOUR OWN LOCATIONS If you’ve ridden through Ontario, you’ve likely seen a smattering of blue plaques with gold lettering on the sides of various roads. These plaques offer a snapshot into Ontario’s history. Go to heritagetrust.on.ca, click on the Programs tab and navigate to the Provincial Plaque Program, where you can search a database of almost 1,300 historical plaques in the province…

OLD GROWTH TREES The Red Creek Fir, east of Port Renfrew on Vancouver Island, is the largest Douglas fir on the planet. This massive tree, which is estimated to be between 750 to 1,000-years-old, measures 73.8 metres tall with a circumference of 13.3 metres and a diameter of 4.2 metres. Canada’s second-largest tree is named Big Lonely Doug, which is north of Port Renfrew, stands alone in a clear-cut area and measures 70.2 metres tall, 11.9 metres in circumference and has a diameter of 3.9 metres. LONGEVITY ON TWO WHEELS Yamaha’s XT250 was first released in 1980 with a single-cylinder 249 cc engine that produced 22 hp. The second generation was released in 1984, albeit with its horsepower reduced to 17 ponies due to emissions regulations. The current fuel-injected XT250…