And a good day was had by all

[Rocky]

On Tuesday my buddy Carl and my other buddy Don met on the edge of town and headed for the BMW dealership in the city of Moncton in the adjoing province of New Brunswick. Don and I rode our H***a 900F's (919's in the US) and Carl of course was on his BMW GS.
Due to its geographic location, Moncton is a hub city for the railroad, auto industry etc., and has huge storage facilities for many industries. I guess that's why BMW decided to concentrate their dealership there in this relatively small populated area of Canada.
We left at 7:30 AM and arrived at 11:00, getting off the four-lane a couple of times to relieve the boredom and for R & R (rest and relief).
BMW gave Carl a loaner bike so we motored around town and had lunch while his bike was being serviced.
We left for home around 2:00 and took some backroads, but there was nothing to photograph so no pics. 5:30 PM found us still out in the boondocks so we looked for a restaurant in a small town and something to eat. We took our time eating and reliving the beautiful riding day we had at long last.
I pulled into my driveway at 9:30 PM, tired but overjoyed at the day on the road with good friends. I slept like a log last night

 

[DaveM]

Now that is great nothing like a good day out with your friends This has been your first real ride this session has it not

 

[otherwise]

Rocky,
You said "getting off the four-lane a couple of times to relieve the boredom". Is that two lanes in each direction or four in one direction? Sorry if that sounds like a silly question but I'm from a different hemisphere and trying to get a good picture of your day.
For what it's worth I don't think we in Australia have any four north and four south highways.

 

[DaveM]

We have a few but mostly in big cities, otherwise on the open road you can find a few two lane either way. Mostly we have the single lane changing into a three lane for a few km to allow passing others in one direction. We find this type of setup mainly up hills where you may get stuck behind slow traffic and it would be unsafe to pass

 

[CarlS]

Kevin, in North America four lanes = two lanes in each direction usually divided by a median strip, but not always.

Rocky, that sounds like a great day. Glad the weather was good.

 

[otherwise]

We have a few but mostly in big cities, otherwise on the open road you can find a few two lane either way. Mostly we have the single lane changing into a three lane for a few km to allow passing others in one direction. We find this type of setup mainly up hills where you may get stuck behind slow traffic and it would be unsafe to pass

Yes Dave that's about how it is in Aus, we may have 4 each way for a very short hop in Sydney or Melbourne but I've never seen or been on one that big. That's why I was asking Rocky the question, to have 4 each way you must carry a huge amount of traffic and I figured Canada was about the same size as Aust.

 

[Rocky]

Whenever I refer to a four-lane here it means two lanes going one way and two other lanes coming the other way divided by a grass median or sometimes divided by concrete highway barriers. There aren't any four-wide roads going the same way in this part of the country, but there are many in and around very large cities like Montreal and Toronto. I've been to both many times by car. Nice places to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there
Yes Dave, this was the first day ride of the season for us and only the second day of solid sun in about 40 days. I've had a few short runs of 20km or so, but that's all. The temp yesterday was up in the 20C (68F) range and great for riding in full gear so we made the best of it. I didn't keep track of the distance we rode, but I filled my gas tank (19L) three times so it was easily 640+ km's (400+ miles).
And yes, we have plenty of passing lanes on hills on two-lane roads too.

 

[otherwise]

Kevin, in North America four lanes = two lanes in each direction usually divided by a median strip, but not always.

Thanks for clearing that up. I was trying to get my head around 4 each way on a long trip like Rocky took.
The main highway between Sydney and Melbourne (the Hume Highway) generally is two each way making it a four lane hwy by your convention, but I tend to call it two because for many miles the median strip is tree lined so you don't always relate to the other direction. That's enough of that, I'm going to dream about it now.

 

[The Seeker]

You guys would go crazy then in the USA where most every city has 4 lanes like described above and many even have 5-6 lanes (10 -12 total) or more. As people have moved to the suburbs and out of cities, commuters in and out of the cities has forced them to widen the roads to accommodate the increased traffic.

 

[DaveM]

I would hate to have to ride in that type of traffic

 

[The Seeker]

What's really weird is that it seems like there is a correlation between the number of lanes and how slow the bumper to bumper traffic goes. The more lanes, the slower the traffic it seems.

One of THE WORST places is the "Beltway" around Washington DC......the traffic there is simply !

 

[The Seeker]

By the way.....in larger cities in the USA nowadays, they usually have what we call HOV lanes. That's "High Occupancy Vehicles" lanes. They are restricted for vehicles which have usually 3 or more passengers to promote car pooling.

 

[Rocky]

I've also been in, around and through many eastern US cities and it's a nightmare alright It's the not knowing exactly where you're going is the scary part.
When I travel south of the border (but not down Mexico way ) I try and plan my route to avoid the cities by using ring roads if there are any. Even then the ring roads are heavy with traffic doing the same thing as I am, but it's not so bad. I'm not intimidated by heavy traffic and seem to make out OK.

 

[DaveM]

By the way.....in larger cities in the USA nowadays, they usually have what we call HOV lanes. That's "High Occupancy Vehicles" lanes. They are restricted for vehicles which have usually 3 or more passengers to promote car pooling.

They tried that here in one of our large cities and it just did not work Then our guys are just used to driving as they want and where they want

 

[The Seeker]

In Pittsburgh, the HOV lane is actually completely separated from the regular lanes and they have a gate with a camera when you enter it. In the morning, it's one-way going into the city and then it changes to one-way going out of the city around 4 pm.

It's 3 lanes wide so you can FLY on it.....plus no cops!

 

[CarlS]

I would hate to have to ride in that type of traffic

What's really weird is that it seems like there is a correlation between the number of lanes and how slow the bumper to bumper traffic goes. The more lanes, the slower the traffic it seems.

One of THE WORST places is the "Beltway" around Washington DC......the traffic there is simply !

Atlanta and Miami are not pieces of cake either!

By the way.....in larger cities in the USA nowadays, they usually have what we call HOV lanes. That's "High Occupancy Vehicles" lanes. They are restricted for vehicles which have usually 3 or more passengers to promote car pooling.

In Pittsburgh, the HOV lane is actually completely separated from the regular lanes and they have a gate with a camera when you enter it. In the morning, it's one-way going into the city and then it changes to one-way going out of the city around 4 pm.

It's 3 lanes wide so you can FLY on it.....plus no cops!

Your setup is better than the Hotlanta HOV setup. It is not separated except at the major interchanges. Motorcycles can also use the HOV lanes in our area of the country. And I take full advantage of that when going through Atlanta.

 

[The Seeker]

Since the Pittsburgh HOV lanes have gates and change direction depending on the time of day, it's rather important that someone remembers to actually make the switch!

It happened here once that whoever's responsibility it is to change the direction at one end FORGOT!!

There was a huge head-on collision. I don't think that guy works in that capacity anymore!

 

[DaveM]

Wow that would be an issue

 

[CarlS]

He ought not to be employed by the state anymore, period.

 

[Rocky]

A while ago I watched a program about the movable medians in Sydney, Australia, that regulates morning and evening rush hour traffic.
Traffic camers all over the place watch the flow of traffic and an operator throws switches to move the medians to open up more lanes or close them.
It was quite fascinating to see - and what an awesome responsibility that operator has