The Winter Doldrums

Winter can have a profound effect on motorcyclists. There is a lot of grabbing a hot coffee and staring wistfully at motorcycle magazines, maps, online videos, and parts catalogues. There is a lot of online searching for gear, modifications, and our motorcycling soul. It’s out there. We know it is, somewhere. Maybe in the tank bag. Maybe just in the scent of fuel, and the ticking sound the bike makes as it cools.

I moved here to Canada’s Pacific Southwest, which we still refer to as the Pacific Northwest (for now) just like Washingtonians and Oregonians, about 15 years ago, for the second time. I joke with friends who are often snow-bound in winter that “I moved here because you don’t have to shovel rain”; that the snow generally stays where we want it, on the mountains; that I drive to the snow, rather than through the snow. It isn’t lost on me that I live in a temperate rain forest – that often overlooked counterpart to the tropical rainforest everyone seems so familiar with, and which always seems so fanciful and almost mythical. So, what has this winter been like?

From October to December, we received 200mm of rain per month, over 600mm in total (23.6 inches of rain, in the Measurements of Our Oppressors). I don’t mind riding in the rain – out here, if you don’t ride in the rain, you really don’t ride – but I also don’t like riding in a monsoon. So, riding was reduced through the last three months of the year, considerably. Then came January – little precipitation, but very clear, and quite cold (for this part of the world, at least). Every day was below freezing at the start, and didn’t get much above through the day. Ice on the windshield every morning. People finally having a use for their Canada Goose jackets, aside from fashion. Gloves being a requirement. You see a comical thing, like people finding out the “touch friendly” gloves mean your fingertips are always cold, or using a bank card to scrape the ice off their windshield.

And here, people are always caught unaware, thinking that winter tires are just “snow” tires, not realizing that they have everything to do with the tire’s compound and it’s ability to operate in cold temperatures and still provide traction. So, many don’t bother having winter tires at all, and find out that it’s very slippery when it’s below zero. Then, February arrived. While we were predicted to get between 25 and 30 cm of snow, we really only got 5 or 10cm. That’s enough to stop this city cold. But it kept snowing, for the first four workdays of February. True locals refer to these days as Snowmaggedon, and we generally get one or two days like this a year. Normally, that’s followed by rain which washes it all away, except this time we were greeted with another Arctic Outflow, which again gave us clear skies and cold.

I’ve moved to BC twice in my life, and both times had to sell a car eventually. Both times I was greeted with a wrinkled nose, an almost audible “Ewww”, and the phrase “that car has seen a salty winter!”. Let me tell you something about British Columbians. First, they are very much of the belief that they are “connected to the land”. The Green Party is popular here. People outwardly do care about environmental issues. Our storm sewers identify which sewers outflow into spawning grounds. However all of that goes away when the temperature will be below 2°C. That’s when municipalities, businesses, and normally level headed people loose their minds, and coat the roads, sidewalks, and surrounding grass and plants with salt. And not just salt, but also various other chlorides (calcium, potassium, magnesium), ammonium nitrate and sulfate, and other stuff. I mean, coat it. You can see the painted lines for days, and they re-apply every night. Let me just say: this stuff eats bikes. Cars get treated at the factory for corrosion resistance. Bikes really don’t, and they are so exposed. This stuff is nasty.

Yesterday, it seemed like it broke a little. At about 3pm, it was 8°C, and as is inevitable around here, I started to see bikes. I thought the guys were crazy, but not everyone looks at the gunk on the roads the same way I do. And I admit – I was very envious.

AI Generated image – just to try it out.

So of course, I’m now wistful. Some rain is coming the next week or so and will clean things up for us (and wash everything into the sewers that lead to the spawning grounds – just saying to my BC environmentalist friends who are also scared of the roads when it’s cold). I’m hopeful that I can climb upon my bike towards the end of next week, and have my first ride of 2025, as it normally doesn’t take 7 weeks. With the temperatures up above 4°C in the mornings, that will be helpful. I’m ever hopeful.

During this time, my Regular Riding Partner (RRP) and I have been very productive. Well, semi productive. We’ve decided that we are going to head to another rally this year, having skipped any of them last year. This year, we will once again head to glorious Nakusp, BC, and will attend the Horizons Unlimited Canwest meeting, their 25th year. We really enjoyed our time there in 2023, and look forward to it again. From there, we will have about 9 days to explore the interior of BC, and are currently outlining potential routes and sites to see. The planning has been light so far, but we will get into it a little bit more in the next month or so. A beer and a burger will be in order for that. A meet up, on our motorcycles.

Until then, we can only wistfully dream. Doldrums, indeed – I just want to ride.