Motorcycle Life is now a sales agent for Edelweiss Motorcycle Tours

I’m proud to announce that Motorcycle Life is now an Official Sales Agent for Edelweiss Motorcycle Tours. Edelweiss Bike is the largest motorcycle touring company in the world, and runs tours year round on 6 continents. They’re known for a professional, worry-free touring experience in some of the most beautiful places on Earth. Endless switchbacks through the Alps, adventure touring in Africa , or visiting Wonders of the World like the Great Wall of China, or the Nazca Lines and Machu Picchu in Peru. Edelweiss offers it all, with plenty of time on tours to see the sights and enjoy the company of your fellow riders.

Edelweiss is celebrating its 45 year anniversary this year! 45 years of making motorcycle dreams come true…

When you book with Edelweiss, forward your confirmation email to motorcyclelife.ca@gmail.com, and you’ll begin earning Travel Rewards points at Motorcycle Life. Points can be redeemed for credit against future travel, or (eventually) for merchandise and gift certificates on our site.

Visit our Travel Rewards page to learn more.

Wintertime is the time for dreaming…

There was a time when my motorcycle never got put away for winter. I rode 12 months a year. Well, I rode for at least one day each month 12 months a year. Some winters were mild, and I rode often. Others produced ice and snow on a regular basis, and I was hard pressed to find even one day to ride. But for 10 years I managed to get out for at least one day every month. 120 months of consecutive riding. I had a self-imposed rule that the ride had to be at least 10kms to count - a quick ride around the block didn’t cut it!

Two words - Heated Gear. There is no substitute.

But since my deer avoidance crash of 2024, I have been forbidden from riding in the winter. A small concession to keep peace in the household. Here in the Toronto corner of the Great White North, the city uses salt to help keep the roads clear. A terrible practice, and bad for all vehicles. Frankly, having to wash my bike after each salty ride was a pain, though more than compensated for by the joy of riding.

So what is a poor, housebound motorcyclist to do in the long, cold winter?

I sometimes (ok, often) go out to peel back the covers on my motorcycles, just to look at them fondly, imagining where they’ll take me when spring finally springs. My wife has caught me staring, glassy-eyed, as I remember the feeling of riding. She asks: “How can you stand out here in the cold for so long, just looking at your bikes?”

Albert Camus wrote: "In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.”

In the darkness of a cold garage, it’s our dreams that keep us warm.

When do you quit riding?

Somehow more than 6 months passed in between posts. And my loyal readers (all 3 of you), deserve an explanation.

After coming back from a long summer vacation with my family, I worked my butt off for several months at the office, preparing for 2 big events.

First, I had shoulder surgery in November…a tear of the rotator cuff being another gift from my deer-related crash of 2024. Fortunately, the surgery went well, and I’m 90% recovered.

Second, I decided to retire, at the tender age of 57. I haven’t quite recovered from that, though.

My health hasn’t been the best these last several years, with a near death experience from illness back in 2019. I’d devoted over 3 decades to my career as a sports medicine doctor. I loved my work…still do. It’s all I ever wanted to do, since the age of 4. But my poor health just wasn’t going to let me continue. A tough decision, for sure.

The first few months of “retirement” were spent in a sling post-op, so it just felt like sick leave to begin with. Then, slowly, as I was able to do more, but had little to do, so I had to start figuring out new routines. Still working on that. I’m not really sure what “retirement” is going to be like. It’s just too new for me to have a handle on it. But there’s definitely a lot of motorcycle related ‘stuff’ in my plans…more on all of that later.

And, of course, this major change in my life got me thinking…when do you quit riding?

The obvious answer is…NEVER! I started riding in my last year of medical school, so it’s been 34 glorious years. On my motorcycle trip in Morocco last year, one of my fellow riders was 82 years old. Rock on, brother! 80 is the new 60, right?

There may be a shift to smaller bikes, or a 3 wheeler, and shorter rides rather than cross country expeditions, but I hope that I’ll continue to find some way to keep riding. I hope that I’ll still be strong enough to lift a bike off the kickstand. I hope that I’ll still have enough brain power left to remember where I’m going after I get the bike started! I hope that I can keep feeling the wind on my chest, seeing the road unfolding in front of me.

Hope is life’s most powerful fuel.

Tail of the Dragon vs. The Cherohala Skyway - No Contest!

Motorcyclists love curvy roads. So obviously we love mountains, because they’re full of curvy roads. The Alps, the Rockies, the Andes, the Himalayas…all amazing places to ride.

For those of you not in the know, the Tail of the Dragon, or US 129, is an iconic road in the Smoky Mountains, stretching from North Carolina to Tennessee, much revered by sports car and motorcycle enthusiasts as a Must Do.

318 curves in 11 miles.

Switchbacks and blind corners under a canopy of forest…it’s a beautiful road.

There are some You Tube videos of a few truly fast riders dragging knees and crossing centre lines, doing so in relative safety because the road was closed for their use. Cool.

But having ridden the Tail multiple times as a regular rider, I have to say: “Meh”.

The road is often crowded, and heavily policed, ensuring that the parade of V twins continues to plod along at the glacial speed limit of 30 mph. To be fair, there are a few cruiser riders that really hustle their bikes along, but they are in the minority. The road carries quite a bit of truck and car traffic also.

The joy of riding a curvy road is to lean a bike over and feel the thrill of Getting It Right. But there just isn’t much opportunity to do that on the Dragon.

The Cherohala Skyway - now that’s a road.

Running from Robbinsville, North Carolina to Tellico Plains, Tennessee, the Skyway runs 41 miles, up to 5400 feet of elevation, through the Cherokee and Nantahala National Forests, hence “Chero…Hala”. There are no hotels, restaurants, or even gas stations along the road, so it tends to be deserted, which is just what I like.

The long, sweeping corners running up and down the mountains can span more than 270 degrees: you set the bike into a lean, and you look into the corner, over your shoulder, and you hold, and hold, and hold, for what feels like an eternity, until finally the road straightens and you get on the throttle and stand the bike up again. Then another corner comes up, just the same, and another, and another.

They say it takes 90 minutes to ride the length of the Skyway, but we’ve definitely done it in less time…by the end of the ride, you’re spent. It’s a hard workout, but a satisfying one.

There are plenty of roads around North Carolina and Tennessee that are more fun to ride than the Dragon. But the Dragon is the one that gets all the attention. I was going to write about those other roads, but maybe it’s better that fewer people know…

What is ATGATT? And why is Ryan F9 so wrong about body armour?!

ATGATT is an acronym that stands for: All The Gear, All The Time.

As you saw from my previous blog, and from this picture, it’s the gear that saved me in my crash.

Having had 2 crashes in 32 years, both having knocked me out cold, I am thankful that it’s my habit to buy good gear and to wear it, particularly to wear a good helmet. My preferred brand is Shoei - handmade in Japan, these helmets are a good fit for Asian heads, and in both crashes, the helmets sacrificed themselves to save my aging brain.

A proper pair of motorcycle gloves, with armored knuckles and padded palms, kept the skin on my fingers despite sliding into a ditch at 80km/h. Same goes for my jacket and pants, keeping the skin where it should be - on my dad bod and not on the pavement.

I’m a former ER doctor, and practicing sports medicine physician. I have seen the fallout from motorcycle crashes up close.

There is no doubt that helmets save lives. There are some naysayers that go on about how helmets have not been proven to stop concussions. Right. But they do stop penetrating head trauma, skull fractures and having your jaw ripped off when face-planting into gravel. Just saying.

Concussions are the consequence of rapid deceleration of the brain inside the skull. Your brain floats around in a bath of cerebrospinal fluid, so when you suddenly decelerate your skull, your brain lags behind and then crashes into the inside wall of your cranium. A helmet can’t stop that deceleration. Concussions happen regardless. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t wear a helmet.

And this is where Ryan F9 goes so wrong.

He says that body armour doesn’t stop fractures, so you shouldn’t wear it. He quotes Dr. Liz de Rome’s study from 2011, which you can read for your self here: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21819816/. In it, she does indicate that the use of body armour does not reduce fractures.

But Dr. deRome’s study concludes: “Motorcyclists were significantly less likely to be admitted to hospital if they crashed wearing motorcycle jackets (RR=0.79, 95% CI: 0.69-0.91), pants (RR=0.49, 95% CI: 0.25-0.94), or gloves (RR=0.41, 95% CI: 0.26-0.66). When garments included fitted body armour there was a significantly reduced risk of injury to the upper body (RR=0.77, 95% CI: 0.66-0.89), hands and wrists (RR=0.55, 95% CI: 0.38-0.81), legs (RR=0.60, 95% CI: 0.40-0.90), feet and ankles (RR=0.54, 95% CI: 0.35-0.83).”

Ok, that’s a lot of stats for those who are not math geeks:

RR = relative risk - the difference in risk by doing something vs not doing something (eg, wearing gear vs not wearing gear)

95% CI = 95% confidence interval - the relative risk outlined might change depending on various factors, but it will fall within this range 95% of the time

So this means that you’ll get admitted to hospital:

21% less often if you wear a motorcycle jacket

51% less often if you wear motorcycle pants

59% less often if you wear motorcycycle gloves

If you wear clothing fitted with body armour, you’ll have:

23% fewer upper body injuries

45% fewer hand and wrist injuries

40% fewer leg injuries

46% fewer ankle and foot injuries

So here’s the problem with Ryan’s analysis. He is only picking one outcome - fractures. But are fractures the only injury we’re trying to prevent? Is it not clear that wearing proper clothing, and in fact wearing body armour, reduces injuries, as per the study that he quotes?

Those of us who ascribe to this philosophy will never be seen riding a motorcycle in shorts, a t-shirt and flip flops. I always wear an armored jacket, armored or Kevlar pants, proper motorcycle boots, and, of course, a helmet. Not a plastic pudding bowl that resembles a helmet, but a proper helmet.

Of course, you’re free to do whatever you want, within the parameters of the law. But don’t be fooled by someone who’s tweaking the stats and selectively omitting data. I am an F9 subscriber, and I love Ryan’s content, most of the time. Just not this time.