July has come and gone but not the July weather. April and May are the months that usually inundate Montreal and the surrounding areas with rain but this year it rained well into July. There have been some freakish weather patterns as of late and it’s affected several areas. The west coast of Canada being inundated with more sun than the equatorial countries, perhaps not but I’m sure people in Vancouver would beg to differ. British Columbia has a series of forest fires to deal with and the sun along with lightning strikes have not helped whatsoever. In the meantime, people in Ontario and Quebec have been dealing with the wet and not so wild climate, just wet.
In the first fourteen days of July, twelve were rainy days with some really wicked thunderstorms. This has put a damper on many things and preventing me from riding my motorcycle is one. I’d take out the bike even when it’s raining but thunderstorms and flooded streets is where I draw the line for motorcycling, it’s a motorcycle not a boat. Yes, we got rained on and rained on while the west sizzles and burns, mother nature is not kind this year.
But all this wet weather did not dampen the events that were happening in July, the show must go and go it did. The Jazz festival this year albeit a bit wet at times did not disappoint, from Stevie Wonder to Ben Harper and of course all that was in between which includes the small Dixie bands to solo performers to big band and Cuban musicians and dancers. So the show went on and it eventually had to end. Ben Harper was the closer for most people and it was a good show, at least the rain held out for most of the show, it wasn’t really rain, more of a sprinkling. Hopefully August will be more normal, whatever normal is nowadays.
I think as a motorcycle rider I pay attention to the weather a little more compared to the everyday cager. I’m not talking about hitting up the weather channel and looking to see if it will be sunny or not, what I’m talking about are the details in weather.
For most people, hearing that it will be 80-90 percent sunny is good enough, there is very little thought in wind speed or hourly details, the general forecast is fine. As a rider I like to know a little more. I do pay attention to wind speed and would like to know some hourly information, cloud direction and the like. Sometimes I look at www.theweathernetwork.com but when I go riding I like to look at www.intellicast.com.
Intellicast was introduced to me by a friend named Adam. He is into aviation so the details that are given on Intellicast are the details that he needs and I must say that once I tried it I tend to rely on it. The information is good and you can see all the details you need to make your decision, to ride or not to ride. There is one catch however, Intellicast is U.S. based but we in Montreal are lucky, weather information for Montreal is on there. You can check out the weather info for Montreal here. There is also an interactive map feature that you can click on (see green outlined area) in the picture and you can see cloud cover and direction and the like, you can zoom in/out and pan in any direction. You can also click on the hourly and it will give you an idea of what’s to come, note that on some features the time might not coincide and that’s because of where they get that information from but if you have common sense then you should be able to figure it out. I can honestly say that the site has been spot on for the most part and I haven’t been caught in the rain. For those times that I have been caught in the rain, well I wish I had checked the forecast first, oops, I mean Intellicast first.
Montreal information from Intellicast.com
What you see when you click on the interactive portion
Let me tell you what we need, we need a big ass motorcycle rally here in Montreal.
I’m not talking about a protest or anything negative like that but more like the equivalent of Daytona week or say a weekend. I hear about the Sturgis Rally and the New Hampshire Laconia Motorcycle Week but how about something in Montreal or another municipality close to it. Some people would argue that it would be trouble and we wouldn’t get the support that is needed and blah blah blah. There will always be people who are unhappy and give off negative responses instead of looking at the brighter side of the picture. Something like this could bring in dollars to the local economy and a chance to show that not all bikers are troublemakers but rather the opposite, mild mannered boring 2 wheel owners. I jest, I also own a four wheeler.
It would not be easy to organize something of that size but I think it would get the troops together for a cause and maybe learn something in the process. Parry Sound has an ATV Rally every year and that started off as a gathering in someones yard. They also have a sportbike rally, why does Parry Sound have a sport bike rally and Montreal only has the Moto Show? We need to get organized in the next while and maybe propose something to the city and if they can benefit too then why not, it beats having to deal with that whole scandal that they are in now.
We need a big ass Motorcycle Rally in Montreal, yes, that’s what we need.
April 11th was a nice day. The sun was out and there was a breeze that was definitely cool and that was expected b/c of the single digit temperatures we have been receiving for April. So sunny and cool on a Saturday morning and hopping on the motorcycle to go and join my fellow comrades in a protest rally.
Many people who ride motorcycles know what I am talking about b/c in 2009 the registration fees for owning a motorcycle in Quebec is the highest in N.America. In the end, raising the fees will do what exactly, it won’t solve problems but it could start new ones. The SAAQ has targeted motorcycle owners and if that plan does not work out for them what are they going to do, target the motorcycle owners again, maybe in a few years Quebec motorcycle owners will just move to Ontario or perhaps another province to get lower registration fees. What the SAAQ is not doing is looking at the whole picture, they are impacting the Quebec motorcycle market but that could be their plan all along, to just get rid of motorcycles in Quebec, that’s a lot of motorcycles to get rid of.
I think somewhere there is a statistic that says there is approximately 1.8 million people in the province of Quebec that own motorcycles, that’s quite a voting power if you ask me. So mister Charest, not that he would be reading my blurb and rant but maybe he should think about getting involved and doing something about this whole motorcycle registration thing b/c hey no more motorcycles can also mean no more Charest.
So more protests are on their way and I for one will continue to join my fellow riders.
As I walked around the Pointe St Charles district of Montreal, I realized how much the area has changed and how much it has stayed the same. I haven’t visited the area since 1997. Sure I have driven through but have not stopped to smell or even look at the roses as they say.
The area and how I remember it was going through a change but it was not evident at first, after all many places change but these changes were small. It wasn’t large enough for me to notice when I drove through every now and then. But a few years ago the area started going through a major change, restaurants taking over in areas where antique shops once resided and buildings going through major renovations, enough so that it looked like they had put up a new one. It’s amazing what a bit of cleaning and fresh paint will do. Soon enough the neighborhood was being revamped and more of the middle class and upper class started to buy into what was once considered a lower class area. I never thought of it as lower, middle or upper class, the Pointe was just that, the Pointe and it’s in a class of its own.
It was nice to see familiarity on some of the streets and sad to see what became of others. The businesses that were once there are no longer but businesses come and go and it’s sad to see them wither away and be just a memory, I guess that’s business.
I like the doors
The view from the bike path, look at those condos
What was once occupied is now abandoned
fences don't stop vandalism
the rear of the building
