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.
Not the best title but eh, does it really matter, as long as you know what I mean, okay then.
I discovered Google Earth a while ago, a few years actually and since then it has caught on, devouring the minds and souls of all individuals that immerse themselves into the 3D wonder. It’s cool and I too fell into its poisonous tractor beam but eventually realized that I should get a life. So I did get a life and found myself tuned to Wikimapia.
For those who don’t know what Wikimapia is, it is an interactive system linked to Google Maps and you describe the world or where you live or the places that you’ve gone to and so on and so on. I’m ranked like 4500 or something in describing the places that I know and have gone to. It’s proven to be a useful tool because if you’re going to another city it would be nice to see what the locals have written or see where the locals hang out or just plain see and if it doesn’t work out then blame it on the rain, remember that song.
So I mentioned a few places on Wikimapia, some useful and others, well actually they are all useful. You should go and check it out and see if anyone has described anything close to you or maybe a place you visited.
As for me, I found my place and figured I would show the world.
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.
So I’m looking around for a new air compressor to serve my air needs and I see something about a chainsaw and a V8 engine. I thought, WTF?! A V8 engine to power a chainsaw. I had to see this engineering marvel or at least the blokes that built this thing. Sure enough, the video says it all. I wonder how much faster it would go if you put a turbo on there or maybe some nitrous.
