Ryan J. Allen » driving

General Updates

Ryan J. Allen — Sat, 19 Mar 2011 02:33:55 +0000

Hello, world. Here are some general updates.

Last night I woke my motorcycle from hibernation. Immediately it felt familiar and comfortable. I took it around the block a few times, as did Adam J., and it was generally a great experience. I rode to work this morning and the weather was beautiful. It was warm, the roads were dry, and the sun was shining. A little cooler on the ride home, but still awesome.

I received my new chain tool in the mail. I have started a post about why I have this and will not repeat it here. It is exciting, though.

The previously mentioned road trip with Will has decidedly become an east coast trip. It removes some of the randomness, but is still awesomely exciting. I am more excited about the idea of going out east than going to the US.

I had a group assignment for my class titled Social Context of Business. The group was 8 people and we had to produce a 20-page (double-spaced) answer set to a series of questions about BP. It was a challenge to coordinate but the project was completed and handed in on-time.

Oh, and I forgot to mention: I ran a half-marathon tonight. This is in preparation for the full I am meant to run in 10 weeks. I haven’t been taking the training very seriously, though I should change that. In 2 weeks I will be running the Harry Spring Run Off 8 km run in Toronto. I should be ready for that.

Road Trip!

Ryan J. Allen — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 15:42:10 +0000

Next month my brother-from-a-different-mother, Will, and I are going on a road trip. I’m actually really excited about the trip and I’ll tell you the reason that you might find most interesting: we have next to nothing planned. It will be a classic road trip with a menial goal and a lot of time.

On Friday night I will leave work and drive to Kingston. Early Saturday morning I’ll get Will and we’ll be off. We’ll have up to 9 days for the trip, and I think we’ll be heading East–I’d like to touch the Atlantic Ocean. That’s the limit of what we have planned. We might spend our first night in Philadelphia, Quebec City, New York, or Fredericton. It might be in a hotel, at a campsite, or at the house of someone we know. We might eat dinner in a grocery store, at a chip truck, or in a Michelin Star restaurant.

Personally I am also excited to be joined by Will on this trip. I don’t usually get to spend a lot of time with him–at least, not since we’ve grown up–and am always excited by any such opportunity. But it’s even more exciting to do something so cool with him. I hope it’s something he’ll enjoy.

Black Devil – Moscow Ride

Ryan J. Allen — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 02:11:21 +0000

If you read autoblog you’ve already seen this, but I just had to repost it.

There is a video on YouTube of “Black Devil”‘s ride through Moscow. It is completely insane. You have to watch it. If you get bored (unlikely) skip ahead to the 4:00 mark.

What a way to shorten the commute time.

I Didn’t Win a Barbecue

Ryan J. Allen — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 04:34:36 +0000

Last weekend was packed full of adventure.

My journey started directly from work. I had the pleasure of taking a 2009 BMW 750Li for the trip. This made the driving extremely enjoyable, comfortable, and easy.

The first leg was Ottawa to Kingston. I needed to stop into Kingston to pick up my tent and sleeping bag. When the 416 was nearing an end an unbelievable rain storm. Cars were slowing down to less than 80 km/h; some were pulling over. The rain sensing wipers were praised, and the 19″ V-spoke wheels kept me cruising without delay.

From Kingston I continued on to Toronto. It started to get quite sunny so I put the automatic rear sunshades up. With lane departure warning enabled, active cruise control with stop and go, and active blind spot detection the car basically drove itself. My overnight destination was One King West where I valet parked the car, naturally.

In Toronto that evening I met up with Mr. Keeves. He is confirmed to be alive and well. We met after he had finished working for the day, and we made our way to a microbrewery on Yonge St. This place had flammkuchen, a treat that I hadn’t had since leaving Germany. I had as close to traditional flammkuchen as possible–it was good, but not quite right.

The next morning I met Stephanie and Erin for a run. It was awesome to meet with them on such short notice. We ran through Mt. Pleasant cemetery, and along Yonge and St. Claire. At nice as the route was, the company was better. I had some 50% off fruit that I left with Stephanie. I wonder if she ate it.

I visited MEC, the CBC’s World Cup Street Party, and Starbucks before heading into traffic en route to the Niagara region. The traffic was surprisingly bad for a Saturday afternoon. This caused me to stop for some New York Fries–I’m not complaining about that. The best-in-class infotainment system in the BMW kept me on track, in contact, and entertained. It was a real joy even in traffic.

When I arrived to Eric’s parents’ place I met with Brunke and Rebecca then setup my tent. I have a super tent that virtually puts itself up, and does so in seconds. It didn’t take long, so we managed to get some joy riding in with the Bimmer. Scott had most of his fun with the active drive mode set to Sport+.

After a delicious meal at Casa B. we headed to the Thorold Legion for Eric and Tiffany’s “Stag and Doe”. I had committed that I would win a barbecue at this event but I did not. The barbecue in question was a Broil King Crown 10. I had quite bad luck at this event, actually: after spending around $200 I had no barbecue, no money, a “fun basket” prize, and I didn’t even save Tiffany from getting a pie in the face.

The drive back to the “campsite” was pretty nice. The girls in the back seat had the massage and heating features on. They were quiet and relaxed. The amount of stuff we comfortably fit in the trunk was also quite impressive.

Sunday morning was an amazingly complete breakfast followed by a trip to see Niagara Falls. I had never been. We spent $20 to park for 10 minutes to see water falling off a cliff. It was worth it to not have to make a special trip from Ottawa to see them again.

I left the Niagara region at about 13:30 and made it to Kingston at 17:00, in time for a steak dinner with family. It was amazing, but it disabled me for a short time due to being full. I left at around 21:00 and returned to Ottawa. I drove to Ottawa via highway 15 and had enabled the automatic high-beams as well as night vision with pedestrian detection to assist with a comfortable drive back. And after hours in the car, if I ever felt restless I simply enabled the driver’s seat massage.

Alas, I returned to Ottawa without barbecue. I spent this week procrastinating from doing my school work and researching barbecues. I am happy to report that I think I found a winner.

Scanning the Intersection

Ryan J. Allen — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 06:43:15 +0000

When you learn to drive from a good teacher they will always advise you to scan an intersection as you approach it. Slow down, look left, look right, proceed with caution. It is a bit of advice we might follow on a driving exam, but is lost through driving experience. Sure, you might observe the intersection as you approach it but if you have the right of way you’re going to assume you’ll get it, not the other way around.

On a motorcycle, scanning the intersection could be one of the best things you can do for your own safety. It is at the very least an equal to the many other defensive driving techniques that must be employed to keep safe. Intersections often present a scenario with more inputs compared to riding down a road, which is why I believe they deserve some special attention.

When I started riding I first though doing the full intersection scan was silly. I felt like a safety square doing all the right things, as ridiculous as they might seem. In a car I wouldn’t generally do the “look left, look right” in particular, and I felt some embarrassment in doing this on the bike where it is even more obvious. But this little head move has removed or relieved stress from more road crossings than I would have imagined.

Tonight while riding home from downtown I crossed the intersection at Gladstone and Bronson. I was travelling westbound on Gladstone. This particular intersection gives good visibility from the north side of Bronson, from which I watched a car blatantly burn through a red light at a pretty good click, only to turn it into a really late, wide right turn. This driver obviously didn’t pay any attention to the traffic coming through the intersection. Fortunately, I was armed with the knowledge of this vehicle’s exception (as well as having an idea of the space I had behind and around me), so I wasn’t quite surprised when I had to brake hard when this driver intercepted my path. That is not to say that my heart didn’t race a bit, but I came out otherwise unscathed.

Safety first.

Altercation

Ryan J. Allen — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 03:10:30 +0000

I was involved in an altercation tonight.

I left school on my motorcycle and was driving along on Laurier. I had decided to take a scenic route home. I pulled up to a light in the right lane and a car entered the lane behind me, then jumped the curb and pulled up beside me! (I was, of course, in the blocking position.) He rolled down his window and asked “what the f*** was that?” Timing was on my side, as the light turned green at just the right moment for me to fill his ear with the roar of my engine and I was off. I heard a squeal of a tire (not mine) and did worry for a block or two that I was being followed by this “cager”, but lucky for me this was not the case.

He may have had a valid complaint. Maybe I spooked him. I’ll take a lesson away from it, but I fault him for encroaching in my space. And, really, what is someone going to say to you if you pull up beside them and say that?

After the altercation I went to Puzzles and met a group of people, including Jeff Howard. Puzzles has been his bar for 30 years, and he is a self-proclaimed dart player. He was quite drunk, but he was still able to throw slightly better than anyone from our group.

Sure it’s cold, but the roads are clean and the sun is shining

Ryan J. Allen — Sun, 28 Mar 2010 05:10:09 +0000

Last weekend Adam and I drove down to Kingston to pickup my motorcycle, which spent a year and a half hibernating in Nana’s workshop. The folks at MotoSport Plus in Kingston did a great job of preparing it for slumber, and then did a great job of brining it back to life this spring. But as much as I trust them, I am much happier to have the bike in my own possession.

In the middle of March we had a couple of months were the weather was ridiculously awesome. I didn’t have my bike at this time but it made me excited to pick it up. But by the time I did pick it up the weather had changed–normalized–and my riding has been limited for this very reason. I did go out for a little ride today in +3 temperature weather and have a couple of things that make this a little better.

First and foremost, I picked up a balaclava from MEC: the CTR Mistral Multi-Tasker Pro. I wear this under my full-face helmet (a Scorpion EXO-700). This helps a lot. Of course, it’s useless if you don’t have a nice warm sweater under a jacket that is done up all the way.

With this my upper body is warm with one exception: my hands. It can get very cold. I went looking for some gloves that might be okay in the cold and ended up with a pair of Alpinestar SR-2 Drystar gloves. They’re a definite improvement over any other pair of gloves I had before. For my other gloves I have been wearing a pair of those stretchy black gloves underneath as a liner, but with these gloves I can get by without them. I can still feel some chill on the hands but it’s bearable (at least, for the short distances I’ve travelled). I should be able to layer these gloves with the little black gloves for added warmth.

Tonight I did a ride wearing these two pieces with the sun down and the temperature sitting at 0. They performed better than any other gloves I had paired with the black gloves. With my upper body taken care of it was my legs that were cold. Also, a motorcycle seat can get pretty cold very quickly at night.

Motorcycle – Back in Ottawa

Ryan J. Allen — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 05:29:48 +0000

It was a bit of a chilly day, but an eagerness to get the bike out in the warmer weather led me to pick my motorcycle up from Kingston. I drove it back to Ottawa where it sits safely in my garage.

Now, I am quite tired after a long day (early wake-up, gym, drive to Kingston, ride to Ottawa, birthday party), so this will be brief. I will say that the bike felt very natural–like I hadn’t ever taken a break from riding. I am thrilled with it, still. I cannot wait for some nicer weather.

Seatbelt

Ryan J. Allen — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 12:02:31 +0000

I don’t think we have a general problem with seatbelt safety in Canada (or at least, Urban Ontario), but that doesn’t mean it isn’t an important issue. The Sussex Safer Roads Partnership in the UK have posted a brilliant advertisement about it called Embrace Life. It’s very good.

Avoided cleaning my apartment another day

Ryan J. Allen — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 06:43:02 +0000

Oi, mates.

It was off to Stuttgart yesterday as planned. I got there in great time, as traffic was fine and the unrestricted areas of the autobahn did allow me to hit my car’s top speed of about 210 km/h. (Aside: I’m driving the new VW Golf with 2.0L TDI diesel engine, due to be released in Canada in October. I’d consider buying one.) Stuttgart is really much closer than I really think it is.

Church was great. The message covered Luke 15, which is pretty joyful. The congregation was bigger than I expected. I was lead to believe that 200-250 people showed up this week, but was told that the church congregation is in the 500 people area. It is primarily made up of Americans serving the US military, though there was a mix of others. (I met a guy from South Africa, for example.) One really interesting thing was singing “Holy, Holy, Holy” in a mix of English and German (Heilig, Heilig, Heilig). I’m not very good at singing German.

From IBC Stuttgart I went down to the city centre and discovered a Sommerfest! But before exploring it I made a quick detour to Starbucks to enjoy one of their world famous iced coffees. I think this made the Sommerfest even better, as the bulk of stands set up were cocktail bars–not places of much interest to me. I walked around, sat a bit, listened to some of the music, and ate some ribs. The size of the event was impressively large.

Stuttgart is a great city. Even just walking around the Schloßgarten was nice and relaxing. I thought a bit about my other visits to Stuttgart and recalled the Built to Spill concert, the rainy day with Katy, the first time I came to Germany and had no idea what I was doing, leaving Stuttgart and then letting Evan drive on the autobahn–some fine memories.

After visiting the centre I went to the Porsche museum. This was very cool. I had the audio guide to help guide me through what I was looking at. I saw some airplane engines, and learned that Porsche designed the original VW Beetle! At the end I bought a neat little book that includes photos and text about the cars in the museum, which should be a nice coffee table compliment to my book about the BMW Welt.

After leaving the museum I thought about eating a nice, traditional Swabian meal and possibly staying to watch a movie but I decided it would be much nicer to share a meal with some German friends in Karlsruhe–and, I have a large list of movies that I still need to watch at home. So I returned home and we eventually all went to Multi Kulti in Karlsruhe. I’m definitely going to miss German food when I leave.