Real Talk!

When we left the suburbs of Bancroft, last evening, we had about 3/4 of a tank of gas in the Goldwing. The odometer read 6345. Fabian has decided to use premium gasoline for the trip, so we're paying for the finest... less gunk and all that stuff.

The Riders met at the Shell Station in Belleville at 9 a.m. and we topped up our tank for $17.50 and read the odometer... it said 6468. The second stop was Ingleside, another $20.01 and the odemeter read 6706. From there, we went to Moe's Diner for lunch. I had an official Montreal Smoked meat sandwich. It was as good as you can get.

Then on to the station beside Moe's where we gassed up for $11.00 and the odometer read 6825..not quite 500 kms for $48.51. We stopped again in Joly, Quebec and put another $21.00 in the tank and the odometer said 7057. We forged onward stopping at St. Alexandre Kamouraska and put $20.02 in the tank, our reading 7275.

We checked in to the hotel about 8:25 at Riviere du Loup and walked over to the local St. Hubert's for some supper.

The weather was sunny. The scenery, was nothing short of staggering. The names familiar to me, from the paternal side of my family tree. Except for congestion in Montreal, the traffic seems to be heavy there, every time we visit... especially just outside the LaFontayne tunnel... the roads were reasonably quiet and comfortable. I have to say that the people in Montreal are very kind to motorcyclists...

I think Fabian sometimes wishes we had taken our Harley... but I do so appreciate the comfort of my cushy seat on the Goldwing... it is such a smooth riding machine... we've been comparing to the Boss... he's riding a Yamaha Star 1100 and seems to be fueling up with the same dollar as we are... and he's been using bronze.

Now the Star is probably about 850lbs, with the Boss and his stuff loaded on it. The Goldwing is probably closer to 1300lbs with us and all of our stuff... which means we've been getting some pretty impressive mileage from our Honda.

We saw a wild looking machine on the 401... some kind of hot rod version of the CanAm Spider... two guys in it... and I have to admit we may have gone 190 kms an hour, for two or three clicks... to catch up so that I could get a picture of it.... the cheeky guy driving it was taking us on a merry chase. I got the pic and we had a laugh... we really don't promote speeding and we seldom do... but... it was one of those "what the heck was that?" moments.

We also saw a lot of CanAm Spiders on the road... and more scooters than ever... I'm going to continue to take notes of our mileage and gas consumption... it's interesting... in light of current gas prices, I'm beginning to think that biking is going to become more popular than ever.

I have been eyeing the trike kits that our Honda dealer installs- they're pretty cool. Incidentally, the guys at Lindsay Cycle are AWESOME! Fabe tells me that Harley is going to be making trikes in factory in '09 or '10. We met a REALLY senior citizen one day and she was very comfortable touring on her trike... so, there is a future for all of us, in the bike world.

So, having written this and called home to check on pets and family, we are plum tuckered out, as they say.

& tomorrow is another day.