The Official Ongoing Kitchener-Waterloo and surrounding areas thread | Page 254 | GTAMotorcycle.com

The Official Ongoing Kitchener-Waterloo and surrounding areas thread

We need our own "I saw you" thread for KW, haha
Saw a nice KTM RC8 getting gas on Weber toward Fairway yesterday around lunch time, wonder if that was any of you fellows that post here

I think I'm the only RC8 rider in KW that posts on GTAM (please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong) - the one you saw wasn't me though... bike was in the garage with the wheels off!
I've only seen 2 other RC8's on the road in the KW area in the past 2 years....
 
I've seen another RC8 rider floating around, not sure who it is though
 
Had a broken elbow all season. I'm dying to ride what's it take to meet some new people to ride with? I need to get out. Sunday is open for me. I don't know the riding areas around moved up from the gta. Would like to meet some people to ride with. Nothing crazy though still doing physio on the arm. Pm or post something thanks
 
Things are usually a bit quieter once mid summer hits for group rides. Bigevildoer and myself are down in the states for a bit and it depends on the track riding schedule. If your still interested mid august, give us a shout
 
hey (nocageRus) if there is no rain i might go out for a casual 600cc ride locally. i will let you know at 1pm if your still able to go and we can decide where to meet, ttyl!
 
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I was thinking a ride to Niagara this aft would be fun if anyone's down

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cant go too far so falls isnt go for me. could be showers in spots but i will PM Russ about maybe a quick run around nearby.
 
Deals Gap + The Snake trip report
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The trip went awesome. No tickets, arrests, or air ambulances for the group. We left K/W early since its about a 13 hour drive to North Carolina. A tractor-trailer was a little aggressive on one of the ramps near Ayr and decided to high-side it over the rail. On the way home someone flipped their tractor trailer on a straight section of highway 6 & 401. Now that is embarrassing, at least the first guy was on a curve. The trip down was a push to get there before dark. The cabin we had was at the end of the NC28, up a mountain pass, which is a pretty crazy road in the daylight, let alone at night. We made it with about 30 minutes of daylight to spare, unfortunately one member of the group arrived a little later than expected and had to negotiate it in the dark which was quite a challenge. We can add off road hill climbing to the list of CBR's capabilities. Interesting seeing a track bike go up a mountain goat path. The cabin had a nice view of the mountain valley.

There was concern about the street legalness of the CBR with some R1-style aux. lights, fans, a D675 taillight and a few other farkles. The exhaust dB was also a concern. Turns out down there, anything goes. Some very questionable street legalness on quite a few vehicles made the CBR fit right in. With the number of people running straight exhausts in dune-buggys, go carts, full on race cars, and other machinary that shouldn't be on the street, it was not a concern. Even Tim's exhaust had nothing on another RC8 floating around there. To be fair his sounds much better than that monstrosity. Police presence was light, we actually saw very few cops, so the usual public race-track shenanigans it's knowing for were alive and well.

One morning a 48-foot semi decided to run the gap. They are banned from the road, but being literate clearly isn't a qualification in the trucking industry down there. Historically shorter trucks were allowed, so road users rode with a little more caution. Now, no one expects a truck like that. When we ride down there, you always need to expect the unexpected. Focusing on the line with maximum margin for error vs the race line is always key.

After others mentioned the truck made it to the end, we went down. Sure enough, bike laying in the ditch. No rider, so I hope he is alright. A state trooper arrives not to long after, and parks his cruiser 1/2 way in the lane on a blind decreasing radius corner. Not the smartest move. On a separate occasion, a Harley missed the very first corner and put it into the ditch. That's a bit embarrassing.

Currently they are repaving the NC side of the charoholla, a glorious 60 mile road through the mountains in a state park, so there are no houses. The entrance to it is some super tight corners of which an R6 failed to negotiate. We arrived after the medics were there, and someone put it right into a dump truck. Bike was pinned underneath the frame of the truck, so this must have been a head-on collision. Not high speed, but still quite a crash. By the looks of it the R6 completely missed the corner, with plastic bits all over the place. I hope that rider is ok.

After 5 days at deals gap, we went over to Boone, NC for the US421, aka "The snake". Skeptical of claims how good the road was I'm happy to report it was definitely worth while. We got pretty drenched on the BRP heading over there, but found some fantastic roads. The gap is only an 11 mile stretch that most riders do the first 8.5 miles then turn around. The snake is about 40 miles, over 2 mountains with some insanely fun hairpins and little traffic. Some of these are hairpins with extreme elevation changes, 15+ feet in a single corner. The variety made the road extremely fun. Trucks are not banned from this road, however they are advised not to use it. We found a 48 foot truck making its way down that couldn't even keep it between 2 lanes. Fortunately they made it safely down.

We ended up stoping at Mike's BBQ in mountain city which was phenomenally good authentic pit-style as a couple cruisers pull up. Oh jeez, we are in for it now. Turns out they also think its a good place for lunch. Talking to the local police department was actually quite fun. The head of the meth enforcement division was one of the nicest guys yous you will ever meet. On the last day we tried a route through Linville, a rather affluent section of the mountains. There was actually a rolls royce traffic jam. They were like toyota carollas down there. Up front were 2 1930's rolls, with no power steering or brakes driven by very old people. It took a while. Nice cars, but my god use the pull overs man.

On the plus side in NC, they have instituted a slow-poke rule. If there are 3 or more vehicles behind you, you are required to pull over and let them pass. It worked great. I think we need to implement this here, especially on the 401.

So lots shredded tires, great bbq and moonshine. Jumping in the mountain rivers for a cool off felt great.
It was hard to leave :(

Great trip, can't wait to do it again!
 
I concur...
The trip was pretty darn fantastic overall, and I really don't want to be back at my desk at work right now... sigh...

The most amusing part of the trip was also the most painful for me, ironically enough.
As we pulled up to the construction zone on the Cherohala Skyway, waiting of the pilot truck to come back and guide us to the other end, we decided to get off the bikes as it was going to be 7-8 minutes.
A group of 4 Hardley's pull up behind us, leaving their motors idling away. The road has a slight bank (lower on the left, higher on the right, as it was in the middle of a long left turn sweeper). All of a sudden, I hear a woman screaming for help - I assuming she was just scared of a wasp or something like that, as there were several flying around the area. I hear her scream again so I turn to look, and one of the Hardley guys starts suggesting to me that I go help, as I was off the bike. I zip over, and of course, she's half-way dropped the bike, spread eagled all over it and in a panic. I grab the tail, yank it upright, and she seems to be ok. Start making my way back to my bike, get about 5 feet and she starts screaming again. Sigh. Turn back, grab the tail, haul it upright again, in her panic, she slams the handlebars to the left, making the bike start to tip again towards the low cambered left side. Not expecting this at all, I turned a bit, to accommodate the sudden shift, and felt a "TWANG" in the middle of my back. Instant shooting pains as a muscle must have tore slightly. The rest of the day was painful to ride, but made it back safely.

The amusing part, was after all of this happened, the Hardley guys finally decide to get off their bikes and help this hapless woman out. It was like something out of a Benny Hill movie. One guy at the tail, one guy at the front, attempting to move her (on her bike) to a parking area on the other side of the road. She was squawking like a mentally deficient parrot, sprawled all over the bike, the guys getting clearly frustrated... I just couldn't for the life of me fathom why she just didn't get off the bike and let on of the guys do it...

Overall, we did see a whack of crashes (or results thereof) throughout the week. 1 car, 1 bike off the 28, 3 bikes on the Dragon, 1 off the Snake... Heard of a few more on the Dragon, but didn't see them.

The low-light of the trip for me was a total jerk on the Dragon in an F-250.
They were barely negotiating turns at a ridiculously slow pace (5-7 mph in a turn marked 15 mph, etc). After passing 5 pullovers, I finally decided to beep at them. No result. Passed another pull over, so I beeped again and gestured for them to use the pullovers. The passenger (a woman) hauls herself out of the window and starts shaking her fist at me, cursing away - I couldn't make out what she was saying over my exhaust and ear plugs. She gets back in and the driver slows down even further, on purpose. Eventually, I saw a bit of a straight coming up, so I move to the left to see a bit better, and the AS*HAT Brake Checks me, almost coming to a dead stop. Ridiculous. By this time, there are 3 other bikes lined up behind me... Couldn't believe the brake check... wow...
 
Here's a video of the driveway from the truck. It was crazy steep -- 77 meter drop (256 feet or so) according to the GPS. Unfortunately you don't really get the idea of how steep it really is... if you look just after the 1 minute mark you can see a pretty steep drop off on the left...

[video=youtube;38q6ioQTK3s]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38q6ioQTK3s&ab_channel=txkdesign[/video]
 
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Going to head off to Hockley Valley on Saturday around 1pm if anyone's interested and if the weather cooperates.
Not posting up an official ride notice until I see if there's any other interest.
 
So weather forecast says 40% chance of 1mm rain on the Weather Network, 60% on Accuweather. Both at 2pm.
Thoughts?
 
If you can survive NC storms this should be easy. Go for the ride, if it looks ugly turn around

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So, if anyone cares to join, I'll be heading to Hockley Valley on Saturday at 1pm.
Meet: Tim Horton's at University and Bridge St, Waterloo.
Time: 12:50-1pm meet, kickstands up at 1:05
Should be back around 3:30-4 pm or so.
 
Thanks Tim for leading the ride. Was lots of fun and weather was perfect!
Good fun indeed. Blew my headlight though. Damn. Got a new one at crappy tire and will install tomorrow.

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