By: Tony Morgan

So I’m in the process right now of finalizing a deal on a 1973 Honda Cb350 Twin.  I have been looking for one for a friend of mine for a couple of years.  He had been looking for an orange or green one, but I had not been able to locate any original ones for less than $2500!!  I didn’t understand why the top-end price, but in the Toronto area, these bikes are very sought after.  I have spent a considerable amount of time the last couple of years, every day, checking various local classifieds sites, not just for CB350s, but everything that was for sale.  There seemed to be, a few years ago, a large influx of, if not quite new, riders; at least ones that hadn’t ridden for many years.  After talking to a few of them who were ecstatic/disappointed/enraged by their own model selection, I discovered that the motorcycling world had changed so significantly over the last fifteen years, that someone who hadn’t ridden for at least that length of time was at a bit of a disadvantage when trying to choose a new model.  They found themselves at the mercy of (sometimes) unscrupulous salesmen, or choosing an inappropriate bike based on looks alone.  More than one person in this position found themselves disgruntled with motorcycling by the end of the season, and chose not to continue with it, when the real problem was the bike itself.

It should be as illegal as it is irresponsible to sell an eight hundred pound chromed behemoth to a fifty or sixty year old individual whose last bike was a Virago 750 in the early eighties.  Sure, they might be smitten with all the pretty colors and chrome, but the last bike they rode (twenty years ago!) weighed three hundred pounds less than cruisers today, but also came with centerstands, tachometers, an easily located ignition switch, and in most cases, more power.  My Dad was one of these “returning bikers” about six years ago, and found himself in this same position.  We looked at all the current crop of cruisers, and his comments were always the same – “Where’s the centerstand?  Where does the key even go?”  I had no answers for him, having not kept up on the cruiser world, and was somewhat disappointed to find that items that had been disappearing off of sport bikes for years in the name of weight savings were also disappearing off of cruisers, where weight is no issue.  Nope, no issue at all.  There were several 1500cc+ bikes that my Dad (who is by no means a weakling, but is a man of average build) could barely lift off the sidestand.  Having resigned himself to looking for a mint, 80′s era “standard” bike, I unexpectedly discovered a 2000 Kawasaki W650, which fit the bill for him, perfectly.  So, I had discovered an advantage to simply being “up” on what was currently for sale around the area, and I have employed that knowledge numerous times over the last little while.  A customer at my framing shop wanted to get back into bikes, but had been balking at a V-Star 900.  He loved the look of the bike, but thought it too heavy, and a little slow.  I inform him I had seen a two year old Vulcan 500 for sale privately in Fergus, which he promptly purchased, and set about loading up the kilometers on it.  He absolutely loves the bike, and has no interest in “upgrading” any time in the near future.

This brings us back to our little 350.   The fellow who wants the bike has faced several rounds of questions from me over time, as I would get frustrated looking for this particular model.   Why this bike?  Why won’t a CB500T do?  What about an older GS400, they were six-speeds with locknut and adjuster valve adjustments?  Nope, had to be a CB350.  Now that I’ve found one for him, I’ve arranged for a buddy of mine who lives in Stittsville to drop off a deposit, and we’ll be going to Ottawa next weekend (March 27) to pick it up.  Embarassingly, I had gotten so excited at actually finding a metallic green 1973, that I don’t even think I read through the entire ad to the end.  If I had, I would have discovered that the purchase price includes a complete, but not running, identical CB350 without an ownership as a parts bike.  Hmmm, maybe next weekend’s trip will include me getting a new project, as well.  Then maybe I can find out what is so damn special about these little CBs.  Stay tuned for pics of the roadtrip, as well as the look of indescribable gratitude on my friend’s face when he is reunited with one of these CB350 twins…

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By: Tony Morgan

My mother asked me, very quietly, if I would consider not riding on March 17, St Patrick’s Day.  It seemed like one of those requests you agree to automatically, to make the asker happy, never really considering whether you intend to keep the “promise” or not.  Last year, on St. Patrick’s Day, by 2:30 in the afternoon, I was laying on the pavement, having just suffered my first serious motorcycle accident in twenty five years of riding, resulting  in the phone call my mother had been dreading ever since she came home from work to find her eight year old son sitting on her husband’s Honda  CM400.

What I didn’t find out until I was in my twenties was that that sight had prompted Mom to ask Dad to sell his bike, hopefully nipping her son’s suicidal interest in the bud.  That was a futile effort, however, as we were all to discover that riding a motorcycle was what I had been put here to do.  After owning more than one hundred and fifty motorcycles, logging more than 800000 total kilometres of riding mileage, I finally found myself lying on the pavement, unable to move, and wondering, somewhat legitimately, if this is what death was like.  I suspect all those who talk of “life passing before your eyes” business weren’t really all that seriously hurt, because I didn’t see any details of my life, I only saw what I may be going to miss – the future.

I had already done my “self checks” before anyone had even reached where I was laying, and discovered that I could move my head, arms, and left leg (with some difficulty), but there were serious issues with the right leg.  Passersby were reacting appropriately, encouraging me to lie still, and wait for assistance, but I was fairly calm, and had removed my helmet and jacket, and was proceeding to call my wife to give her the news.  The driver of the minivan that had T-boned me was absolutely hysterical, and I had the dubious honour of calming HER down at the scene, and politely asking her to please move away from me.   EMS were on the scene very quickly, and there was very little pain at this point, merely a bit of resistance to movement.  Your body not doing what is asked of it is a very peculiar sensation, but I had already looked at my right leg, over protestations from the EMS techs, and thought I had some understanding of what my injuries were.

After waiting in Emergency for nine hours for an operating room to open up, having gone for several X-rays and MRIs, the list was long and varied.  I had a cracked, and two chipped vertebrae, broken bones in both feet, numerous broken toes (which were to prove amongst the most painful!!!) , two separate breaks of the right femur, and the biggie – both my fibula and tibia were smashed into about five pieces each where the van’s bumper had crushed my leg against the engine of the bike.  My right foot had been rotated 180 degrees, and was bent back up my leg, so my toes were kind of touching the back of my knee.  I had been sedated after being in Emergency for a while to reposition the foot, as there was very little blood circulation past the break site, and the prognosis for the foot itself was grim, at best.  I didn’t tell my wife at the time, but the X-ray tech only gave me a fifty-fifty chance of keeping my leg past the knee.  As little as ten years ago, they wouldn’t have even tried to save the leg, the breaks were so bad.

The good news was that I had avoided any compound fractures, so no blood, and all the joints of the leg had escaped injury, giving a reduced recovery time, or so the thoughts went…  I went in for nearly six hours of surgery at 12:30 in the morning, and that was my last clear memory for nearly 48 hours.  Waking up in intensive care was the beginning of a crash course in the condition of health care in this province.  You see, I had reached my forty-first year of life without ever having to spend time in a hospital, and my first visit was becoming complex.  When my wife had shown up in Emergency the previous afternoon, the nurses were eager to get my insulin, as my blood sugar was over 25 mgs/l at the time of admission.  Problem was, I don’t have any insulin, as I was unaware that I was diabetic.  Now, all of a sudden, I was dealing with two major health issues at the same time.  The diabetes thing turned out to be my silver lining – rather than lie in bed (cause that’s all I could do) and slip into a depression about what had happened, I could see the accident as adding as much as ten years onto the end of my life, having the diabetes discovered before showing symptoms.  This optimistic outlook was to become rarer and rarer as time passed, but I could cling to it in the beginning, at least.

I managed to escape infection, which is definitely the single biggest concern of the post-operative patient, and was fairly successfully balancing the conflicting demands of two doctors, a diabetic one, and my surgeon.  The surgeon couldn’t care less about the diabetes, ordering me to eat carbs, sugars, proteins, and calcium, with the diabetic doctor poo-pooing all that, and telling me I have to start the process of choosing my foods for the rest of my life, from the standpoint of a diabetic.  The long story of the recovery would easily take chapters, so suffice it to say that bone growth amongst pieces with up to 25 millimeters of displacement in a 41 year old isn’t a quick process.  I was completely non weight-bearing for a full seven months after the accident, which had me in a wheelchair at home, eventually graduating to crutches.  The good news was that the worst injuries took so long to heal, that all the minor ones were allowed to heal fully, without having too much strain put on them too early, which is the most common problem in recovery.

Ten weeks after the accident, having gained a significant improvement in my crutch handling abilities, my wife purchased a Ural Patrol 2wd with sidecar as part of my “therapy”.  We had considered a bone-regeneration machine available to professional athletes with similar injuries to mine, but it was very expensive, and although the machine could be used indefinitely, at least until there was some sort of electronic problem, the machine is programmed to work only as much as you purchase.  Therefore, after the pre-determined (pre-paid) 600 exposures, the five thousand dollar machine simply stops working (although it is still perfectly functional), and there is no way to turn the machine back in for any kind of credit, or re-programming – it is simply garbage.  Having both a practical and moral objection to this particular kind of thievery, I opted for the therapy that would have a residual value – the Ural.

The Ural will easily take up another complete article by itself, but as I find myself exactly one year to the day since the accident, I am surprised how difficult it has been to put some of these things into words, in many cases, for the first time since the accident.  I could easily have gone on a long political rampage about health care in this province, because I was one of the ignorant masses who had no idea what was happening to our health care.  Suffice it to say that anyone who has spent any time in a hospital in the last five years who still thinks the auto manufacturers deserved the money they got is simply 100% wrong.  Everyone who works in the health care profession in this province who has not been pounded down by decades of mismanagement , overspending and incompetence absolutely deserves to wear a red cape to work because you are all heroes.

I truly hope this has not been a negative introduction to me, but this incident has certainly occupied most of my life for the last twelve months, and I felt I needed to put some words on (virtual) paper to see how I felt about things.  I harbour no ill will towards the driver of the minivan who hit me (who turned out to be a neighbour!!), I thank my gear for saving me (my Canadian military surplus boots almost certainly kept my leg on during the impact), and I now have seen target fixation at it’s absolute worst, as well as give more credence to the thought that car drivers really do not know what to do when the motorcycles first start to come out in the spring.  Be extra careful for the first couple of dozen rides in the spring, or wait a little longer to get that first ride in, because regardless of who is at fault, the minivan ALWAYS wins.

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After many years of stereotypes, showing women as little more than Umbrella girls, The FIM Commission for Women in Motorcycling has produced a video to combat the image that they themselves have helped create at most of their own racing events. Generally speaking, the only women you see on TV at their events, are the barely dressed model type girls holding umbrellas over the riders. The video was created not only to change some perceptions about women in the world of motorcycling, but also to show that they also ride and to perhaps inspire more women to do so.

Participating in the campaign and the video (below) are Leslie Porterfield (FIM Land Speed World Record Holder), Livia Lancelot (FIM Women’s Motocross World Champion) and Laia Sanz (FIM Women’s Trial World Champion). More info can be found on the FIM website (click here)

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We are now coming up on one year of successfully bringing awareness on road safety related issues and we look forward to another exciting year in 2010. In the past year, RoadAwareness has been involved with three notable awareness rallies in Southern Ontario, with attendance ranging from 60 to 200 participants. Each time, we had favourable coverage by the media, public attendance and support of local law enforcement at those events. Newspapers, TV and various online websites & forums, have all covered events associated with us and we hope that they will continue to do so as we spread the message on improving situational awareness when operating a motor vehicle as well as the importance of advanced driver & rider training.

The RoadAwareness Campaign is proud to have been covered by the media several times, not only locally where it began in Southern Ontario but the word is now spreading across North America and the rest of the world. Our website is now being viewed by visitors from around the globe. Here is some of the media coverage we’ve gotten so far:

http://www.roadawareness.org/about-us/media-coverage/

In addition to awareness rallies, RoadAwareness also performed a Distracted Driving Experiment to highlight the dangers of using your cell phone while driving and was successful in showing that hands-free kits are really no safer than using a hand-held phone while talking. In addition, the results of texting while driving were jaw-dropping. All of the participants were far more likely to loose control of their vehicles and hit obstacles…and most did. Click here for more details…

RoadAwareness is joining forces with some great partners in 2010. We are also pleased to announce our involvement in Belt Drive Betty’s Awareness Conga to the Wharf Rat Rally in Digby, Nova Scotia. For more information on this rally, please check out and join this group:

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=291129346434

We hope to assist with arranging various awareness rallies along their route across the country. Stay tuned and join us along the way.

Another notable mention is the establishment of some great working relationships with Young Drivers of Canada, the Traffic Services Division of Toronto Police Services and Queensway AUDI. We continue to solidify these alliances and look forward to working with them further in 2010. Developing new relationships, on an ongoing basis, is a primary focus for us.

Please join the the Facebook Group and be sure to invite all your friends to check out our website and join our Facebook group as road safety affects us all. Safer roads begin with safer drivers!

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