The open road still calls after all these years

By Lethbridge Herald on October 3, 2025.

Al Beeber
Leave It To Beeber

I keep in touch with a crew of friends from my Ontario days and occasionally we will reminisce about the 1980s and all the fun we had  on lakes, ball diamonds, golf courses, sheets of curling ice and motorcycle trips.

As you saw in The Herald recently, I wrote a story about fall motorcycling. Since my buddies and I no longer ride because we don’t have motorcycles – which in my case could change next spring – I  relied on an old friend named John McTaggart who I was in Jaycees  with. John’s family owned a clothing store on Fort Frances’ main street and other businesses elsewhere.

Now semi-retired, John is an avid motorcycle rider, going on trips across Canada and well into the U.S. with his long-time buddies on his Honda Gold Wing. If anyone knows motorcycling, it’s John, so it was good to catch up with him.

To me, motorcycles have always been about wind-in-your-face freedom and the chance to experience the road from a different perspective. On the odd trip into Minnesota, I would occasionally take off my helmet and let my man-permed hair blow in the wind, a practice that ended when I was smacked in the forehead by a bug at 120 km/h. Lesson learned.

The first bike I rode was my brother’s Honda 90, which was a 14th birthday present to him from our parents when we still lived in Cardston along Lee Creek. Dad was a lineman with Calgary Power who had been transferred there from Westlock in the fall of 1965 and we lived there for close to four years. I spent Grades 1 through 3 at the old Leeside School before some of us left for a different school atop the west hill just up from main street.

I first rode that little Honda when we moved to Raymond when my brother showed me how to kickstart the engine into life and shift gears. With the parents on a trip to Lethbridge, I rode the bike up and down our alley, too young and naive to think that someone might report me or Grant, and too fearless to think I could crash it.

When I bought my first bike – a Honda 750 Magna in 1984 – I hadn’t ridden one since that little 90cc putt-putt and had to get my pal Bill Toffan to show me how to shift it – one down, three up. Butit had an electric start which made life easier. To me the Magna – a laid back  cruiser – was massive, but I quickly adapted to the weight and spent a couple of seasons riding the highways, even on newspaper assignments. The drawback to the Honda was a tiny gas tank, which made one plan well in advance because I never thought of strapping a portable gas pod to the seat. And come to think of it, nobody else did either.

Since then I’ve had a couple of different bikes, courtesy of my late dad – a Honda 500 and a Kawasaki 1100 which provided plenty of riding fun. And with autumn here and remembering the rides along forested highways, looking at the blazing colours of the leaves still on trees, I’m hankering again to renew my acquaintance with the two-wheeled world.

So what’s the next potential bike?The Calgary bike show last winter  gave me a few thoughts. Perhaps a Honda Rebel 1100 cruiser with the touring package of fairing and hard bags – its biggest downside again being a small fuel tank – or maybe a Triumph Speed Twin 900 with a few accessories. I’m curious as well about a few of the so-called adventure bikes like the Triumph Tiger, Kawasaki Versys or Suzuki V-Strom, but with shortish legs, I need a low seat.

After accidentally dropping a massive – now defunct – Yamaha tourer on myself at a bike show when the kickstand somehow flipped up, I definitely don’t want anything heavy.

In the meantime as winter nears and the riding season comes to an end, I look happily at other motorcyclist enjoying this special time of year. 

Ride on, brothers and sisters, and keep the rubber side down.