Hero (Part 1)...

Now, where were we anyway?

As I recall, I was still whining about my inability to get back up to speed at Mosport.  ….Mosport.  Seems like a long time ago…

So long that the VRRA Mosport Festival and DOCC Mt. Tremblant event have come and gone, the leaves are turning color and there’s an ominous chill to the night air.  The season always comes to a close far too early up here in The Great White North, but this year I’d really appreciate just a few more good track days.  Maybe even a race…

But I digress.

In catching up with Adam Bennett in mid-July, it became painfully obvious that his Cancer was heading in the wrong direction, that the VRRA Festival was taking on greater significance in the grand scheme of things and he was looking at a ton of work to get equipment ready for the event.  Adam’s son Hugh had shown an interest in vintage sidecars last season and went so far as to take the VRRA’s sidecar school this past spring.  In fact, he and Adam were lucky enough to borrow a rig and get an afternoon of seat time in at the Quinte TT back in June.

Adam was anxious to capitalize on an opportunity to bond with Hugh and with the sidecar offering an experience they could share, he went off in search of a rig that he could pick up for the Mosport Festival.  As luck (or lack thereof ) would have it, the only rig available with a right-hand chair was one built and run by the infamous Dudes of Hazard team originally out of Nova Scotia.  A deal was struck for the rolling chassis and a Yamaha XS650 motor sourced from sidecar guru Paul Whittaker.  Adam described the DoH rig as “rough” and seemed to be somewhat overwhelmed with the task of rebuilding it.  I’d been so busy up ‘till then that I hadn’t been over to his place in a few months, and with more time on my hands, I made the trip across the river to see how much trouble he gotten into. 

Bottom line?  Lots.

He’d actually made up some time with the renewed energy that came from the cessation of a year’s chemotherapy treatments, but it was obvious from my first look at the rig that there was a significant amount of work to be done before it could turn a wheel (or three) on the track.  I decided to rearrange my priorities and jump in with both feet but the hard part was figuring out where to start.  Building a bike with someone is a challenging enough process even when you aren’t pressed by an aggressive deadline and if you plan to make time, both parties need to move ahead intuitively and almost independently.  It was almost as if I was asserting my style and approach when I pointed at the exhaust system Adam had built from scratch and declared that a slash cut outlet was an absolute necessity.  He gave me The Look – then nodded in assent.  I then wandered off in search of a suitable plastic bucket to serve as a donor for material to fabricate a front number plate. 

We decided that we should focus on getting the thing to run before we even looked at issues like brakes and suspension and I came up with a jump start connection for the electric starter while Adam set-up the oil cooler and fuel pump, fuel lines and final electrics.  The chair came off and went back on more times than I can recall as we continually improvised all of the peripherals against the new XS650 motor.  As we stared at the choke cable ends and pondered an approach for a quick and dirty lever – it occurred to me that were could simply cut some grooves in a small block of wood, lock wire same to the frame and tie wrap the cables to a convenient location on the frame.  The prototype worked and a Delran version appeared the next morning.  We planned to jump start the rig from Adam’s car, but when we made the connection we got sparks and smoke that surely indicated a naff starter motor.  Undeterred, we tied the front end of the rig to the trailer hitch of Adam’s car and prepared for a white-knuckle drag start.   Amazingly, the thing bust to life in a heartbeat and the quiet suburban neighborhood was treated to the sight of Adam and I running the rig tentatively up and down the street as we figured out what worked..  Encouraged by the result, we still had much to do – the clutch slipped, the shifter needed better support and we had a bad starter.  A few days later, I returned with a portable battery pack – ready for the next round and Adam had made enough progress that we declared the rig fit for a maiden run at our secret test facility – Tattooed Eyebrows Road. 

Adam left with the rig on the trailer and I set out on the Hyperstrada – and as I drew closer to the location, my requirement for caffeine hit an almost obsessive level.  But, how to carry a Tim Horton’s coffee 3 kilometers on a Hyperstrada?  I pulled into Tim’s without a solution, but ready to improvise – figuring that there had to be some way to keep a coffee intact in the backpack I was wearing.  Turns out that the large double cream three sugar just slipped into the small pocket on the front of the pack and having the lovely and talented counter girl carefully slip the pack onto my back, I walked with perfect posture out to the Hyperstrada got onto the bike and set down the road riding off to my destination with the ever-present fear of hot coffee exploding out of the cardboard cup at any moment – but spurned on by the promise of hot java to accompany the endless chain of cigarettes that would surely be smoked as we sorted out the rig.

OK, the carbs were out of the ball-park which meant the inevitable dicking around with float levels and needle positions (we didn’t have any jets), but it was a glorious 30 degree celcius summer evening on an empty country road in the middle of the woods.  And I had coffee and smokes.  We were like two reckless teenagers running up and down the road – shirts off, no helmets – drinking in the sheer fun and adrenaline of it all – laughing and taking turns piloting the rig..  In the world of loudbike, there are three very distinct types of experiences that keep me coming back to what we do despite the cost, the setbacks and disappointment and the time that it sucks from the relationships that we have with family and careers.  They let me to move above the endless white noise of modern life and allow me to simply be.  The sessions in the shop when every thing just comes together and I become lost in the music, the metal and the machine – the perfect laps where the bike simply disappears and time goes into slow motion – and those truly magic moments when my good friends and I allow ourselves to be kids again.  And things like Cancer simply cease to exist for a precious hour or two.

Content: 1987 Ducati 750 F1, 2005 Ducati Multistrada MTS1000S, Yamaha XS 750 Period 2 Vintage Racing Sidecar Outfit, VRRA, Adam Bennett, Hyperstrada, loudbike, Steve Munro