February 3rd, 2015 This past December, powersport enthusiast website What A Ride unveiled a contest to ride with a young MMA fighter from Sturgeon Falls in Northeastern Ontario, Canada. That fighter was Mitch Gagnon, who would go on to fight Renan Barao in Brazil on December 20th, 2014. As Mitch’s training program was extreme to say the least, What a Ride and Mitch collaborated on setting up a ride where he could cool off in … [Read more...]
The What A Ride Podcast: Season 1, Episode 1
Hello and welcome to the What a Ride podcast, where we explore everything that makes life worth living. In our first episode, we're wrapping up the motorcycle season in Ontario for 2014. You can subscribe on iTunes here or copy and paste the RSS Feed into your favourite reader: http://feeds.feedburner.com/whataridepodcast or Download this episode right here: Download Episode 1: This is the … [Read more...]
Stray Dog
"You gotta do something to feel alive" opines Ron "Stray Dog" Hall in this touching doc playing at the TIFF Bell Lightbox as part of the upcoming Rendezvouz with Madness festival. We couldn't have said it any better ourselves. Especially when that something is riding. We all come to this crazy world of motorcycling for different reasons but a common feeling among riders of all stripes is that the road is the place where we feel most … [Read more...]
Seize the Weekend—A Father and Son Adventure in Grey Bruce
Life Has But A Finite Number of Perfect Weekends: Saugeen Maitland Big Dog Ride by Brokentooth I let out strands of line from the grass trimmer head. This gives the whirling mass a new pitch much like the sound of angry bees preparing to swarm. Across the lawn my son blinks the stinging sweat from his eyes as he labours up hill pushing 4 horses of rotating fury. Squinting into the cloudless sky I look for some epiphanic wisdom to … [Read more...]
BIKERS REUNION BABY! – Why Northern Ontario’s Best Motorcycle Event is Truly A Breed Apart
OK, I'll confess, I love Northern Ontario. Gimme trees, rocks, lakes and streams and I'll be right at home for days. Sure, my body lives in the city, but my heart lives deep in the wilds of the north with the bears, moose, wolves and bugs. So it'll come as no surprise that this is my fifth year doing the Temiskaming Loop to attend the Bikers Reunion in New Liskeard. While my first few years weren't as great as my fourth (check that … [Read more...]
An 8000km Adventure to Hudson’s Bay on Two Wheels. In Winter.
To put it in perspective, Google Maps cannot even calculate the directions from Owen Sound to Fort Severn, Ontario—two dots at opposite ends, south to north, of Canada's second-biggest province. But Oliver Solaro made the entire 8000km journey (there and back, via Manitoba) on his Kawasaki KLR this past winter, documenting the entire trip. After a certain point, there are no paved roads connecting the two locations - only an ice road … [Read more...]
Escape the 400s – Ride Free of The Superhighways
Ontario is home to tens of thousands of kilometres of paved roads, with hundreds of incredible roads, and dozens of great routes. There are also thousands of kilometres of soul-crushing superhighways called the 400s. We’ve spent the last five years riding every road in the province, looking for ways to avoid these highways. To check out all the routes visit www.EscapeThe400s.com … [Read more...]
A Great Road Trip – Winterdance Dogsledding Tours
A few weeks ago, at the insistance of a friend, I reached out to Tanya McCready at Winterdance Dogsled Tours to see if there was still time to get in a dogsled tour on on her 5,000+ acres of backwoods trails near Haliburton, Ontario, just south of Algonquin Park. I knew my old friend Sarah Lemay, who runs Toronto's only breastfeeding boutique Evymama, would be up for just this kind of adventure. With some quick-thinking related to … [Read more...]