Rides & Events

Some nights there are far too many hours between when the bar lets out and when the cemetery opens up. Those are the nights bad things can happen. Those are the nights when your best bet is calling up a ...

2011 would be the last of five consecutive years that Ashley and I would hit the Toronto Motorcycle show together. Here are a dozen pics from the show. Can you tell which motorcycles we LOVED?

Later this week I'll cover what to look for at the 2012 Motorcycle Show.

Five years ago today I purchased my first bike, a 2005 Derbi Atlantis 50cc two-stroke scooter. I bought it from a so-called “scooter dealership” (read: glorified clothing store with a service garage). They sold me a helmetthat was far too big, and couldn’t have be bothered to show me the controls to my new scooter after they handed me the key. That is to say, five years ago today is the day of my first two wheeled accident, about 10 feet down the alleyway from the first place I ever fired up a bike.

We’ve all been down this same, long road of learning. This short story looks back on how quickly motorcycling can become a way of life.

The City of Toronto is Canada's most densely-populated urban metropolis. The multicultural city is one of the fastest growing in North America. Not an inch of skyline can be seen without a crane working on the next skyscraper in and around the downtown core. Many Torontonians have taken up motorcycling to escape the urban slug fest known as all day rush hour traffic. We try to ride out of the city as often as we can. Little do we know that the city has some great little roads hidden away waiting to be discovered by a motorcyclist.

I love living in Toronto. The motorcycle community is great. There are motorcycle meets almost every day of the week, loads of events, and we still get free motorcycle parking.

The Mad Bastard Scooter Rally is like your crazy ex: You'll call it foul names, find yourself caught up with it in situations you'll regret in the morning, and no matter what you do to protect yourself this rally will be a pain in the butt.

For some of us, leather and cruisers just aren’t hardcore enough, and crotch rockets just don’t capture the true essence of riding. We are the few, the strong, the proud. We are the Mad Bastards, and this is our story.

The spontaneous and unplanned rides are sometimes the most fun. It started with a text message from my girlfriend: “What are we going to do today?” Before long we found ourselves near the historic village of Kleinburg, Ontario. Kleinburg is surrounded by beautiful hills and branches of the Humber river.

The town is picturesque and its early 1800s origins have been left unspoiled.

How do you turn 6,000 into 60,000? Ask residents of Port Dover, Ontario, a small community on the north shore of Lake Erie. Every Friday the 13th Port Dover is filled with over 50,000 motorcyclists. This year marked the 30th anniversary of the event which first began in 1981 to tune of a group of a little over 20 friends having fun while the Rolling Stones sang "Start Me Up" over the radio.

In December of 2008 I found my father unable to make his way up a flight of stairs by himself. He felt weak on one side than the other. We were fearful of a stroke. The hospital assessed him and ordered an emergency CT Scan and MRI. This was no stroke. They said they found something “deep within the brain”.

Escaped for a week to ride from Ottawa to Toronto and through Quebec to Montreal.