10,000 km (est.) - Toronto, Ont.

This was a long, cold ride. But I'm home now, and glad to be back.

It didn't help that I loaded up the dirt bike in the rain yesterday morning after pushing her underneath the hotel's small awning for a bit of shelter. Then I checked out and put on the last of my clothing, wrapped thickly in five layers for the hours of windchill and road spray. As soon as I put on my glasses, they began to fog. This is not fun for anyone, but motorcyclists put up with it because there's no choice on a road trip if the warm, dry weather is to be enjoyed on other days.

So heavily bundled, I waddled outside to the bike and watched the sheets of rain smash hard against the asphalt. And just as I was about to get on, another hotel guest, a man with a cigarette, came through the door behind me and lit up.

"So you're going to get wet then," he said, with a thick London accent.

"Nothing gets past you, eh?" I replied, and muttered: Please start. Please start on the first kick.

The man stood and watched as I slung a leg high over the saddle and settled myself down. "You got far to go?" he asked.

"Toronto."

"Toronto? Where's that then?" This is a Brit who's found his way to Schenectady, New York, but hasn't heard of Toronto.

"About 350 miles," I told him.

"My God - sooner you than me!"

The bike started on the second kick and ticked over gently as I fumbled on my gloves and then my overgloves. The man's cigarette was half-smoked as I pulled in the clutch and then shifted into first gear. The bike immediately lurched forward and stalled. The cold oil was still too thick to lubricate smoothly.

"She doesn't want to go, then," said the man.

I started praying thick and fast - "Please start. Please start. Please start" - but the next kick produced just a cough from the engine. And the next. And the next half-dozen. She was flooded. The peanut gallery carried on watching as I got off, completely fogged up now, and pushed the bike out into the rain to drain the carburetor.

It took a long time for her to start, and needed five drainings of the carburetor and many, many kicks of the kickstarter before she finally caught. I think the gas was contaminated. By this time, I was soaked with sweat on the inside and soaked with rain on the outside. The watching critic gave up on me as amusing entertainment after a second cigarette and wandered in to the dry and the warmth.

The rain kept up for another hour or so once I was finally underway, but I'm afraid there was never a moment as I crossed New York on Hwy. 20 that I felt glad to be on a motorcycle. The cold, clammy sweat gave me a thorough chill and I just wanted to get home. It took about six hours to get to the border, another hour up from there, and now I'm home. My car's parked in the driveway and I'm looking forward to driving it for a while.

However, if the weather's good this weekend... 

9,450 km (est.) - Still in Schenectady, NY

It's pouring rain. The temperature is 44 degrees, with a frost advisory. 350 miles to go to get home. The motorcycle doesn't look too tempting.

I guess this is just to make sure that I don't end this trip with any more wanderlust - or at least, not motorcycle wanderlust...

9,450 km (est.) - Schenectady, NY

Today was the first day the bike wouldn't start.

She just didn't want to catch, and that's always more of an issue when you're heavily dressed for the cold wind and she's parked in the warm sun and there's only a kickstarter and the hotel desk clerk is watching you through the glass door.

I pushed her into the shade (and away from watching eyes) and drained the carburettor (which always floods after a dozen or so unsuccessful attempts). Which reminded me, screwdriver in hand, that the speedometer had stopped working. So I pulled off the cover for access to the cable, but found that the cable is fine. And if the cable is fine, and I'm heavily dressed in the warm sun and anxious to get started with the day, that means the speedo isn't about to get fixed. It'll be something broken within either the auger down by the wheel or within the dial itself. And that's probably not fixable, just replaceable.

The irony's not lost that we made it to the very end of the journey, and now she'd like to head home. It's annoying, though - not because I don't know my speed, since I don't really speed on this bike, but because I don't know when the gas tank's running empty. There's no gauge and I tell by resetting the odometer each time, but that no longer works. So I'll just refill her every couple of hours and it'll be okay.

With the carburettor drained and the speedo cover replaced, she started on the first kick and purred steadily and nonchalently. But it took a long time to travel through Massachusetts - the roads are all very narrow and winding, and filled with traffic that cannot overtake and follows great snakes of vehicles through the quaint villages and over the twisting mountain byways. Especially following the Mohawk Trail, where this photo was taken at the top of a pass near Williamstown.

Monday will be a longer day than I'd hoped, but at least there'll be home at the end of it, not just another hotel.

9,085 km (est.) - Exeter, NH

The distance is estimated because my speedometer's just broken.

The guy in the photo here with me, with my motorcycle parked in the bookstore where I gave the reading, is Jim Landis. He's the original editor of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, the book I followed to write my own. He now lives here in Exeter and has never been on a motorcycle in his life. Looking at my bike, with all her dust and scratches, I'm not sure that's about to change.

If you want to know more about my actual book tour, check my other blog at zenandnow.org.

9,074 km - Hampton, NH

Big rush in the end to get here, and I have to get out to a reading in Exeter just down the road by 7pm. New Hampshire was a little farther up the road than I anticipated.

Came the scenic way along I-95 and then I-93 to see the Boston skyline, but spent most of my time underneath the Boston skyline, in the longest urban tunnel I've ever experienced. This was the $10 billion Big Dig, and the tunnel is four-lanes wide in each direction, spacious and impressive.

At least, I thought that, heading north. The people stuck in the tunnel heading south, jammed due to a car fire just south of the city, were probably not so impressed.

8,973 km - Providence, RI

This wasn't on the route. The route was simple, printed out from Google and in my pocket, skirting away from the coast and through New England to Boston. This is the long way round.

I was keen to get to Massachusetts because for many years I've known it as the only American state that I've never visited, and for that matter, never ridden through on a motorcycle. I've ridden in every other one, including Alaska and Hawaii, and most times on this same dirt bike, either Jackie Blue or Jackie New ( long story behind the names - read my book to find out).

Except that riding along the highway today, I saw a bunch of cars with Rhode Island licence plates, and that got me to thinking where exactly Rhode Island is on a map of the U.S. And that got me to realize that there's no way I can ever have visited Rhode Island before. I can account for every other state, but not the nation's smallest. And so, of course, I had to come through here to say I've done it. Which I have. Now.

Right, that's done then. Just leaves PEI as the only Canadian province I've never visited, and Nunavut as the only territory. I'll see if I can deal with that Nunavut thing this winter.

8,769 km - Bridgeport, Conn.

I bought the chain lube yesterday evening from the Ducati dealership ("last can we have in stock!" said the guy, which probably means most customers - posers - get the store to do it for them, like brokers with their Porsches), but forgot to buy some oil, which was dumb because the Suzuki needs some. I carried a litre of Harley oil with me throughout the ride west on the Hog and never used it; I didn't need to do any maintenance whatsoever, though she could do with a pre-winter once-over when she's back and off the truck.

I rode out of New York this morning, taking FDR Drive because it would bring me close to the Harley dealership on Lexington Ave. The Suzuki has Harley oil in her because that's what was handy in the garage for the oil change before leaving Toronto. But after battling multiple lanes of jammed traffic on 57th Street and outside Bloomingdales, I eventually found the Harley dealership and it looked suspiciously small. Sure enough - it sold only clothing. It was a fashion outlet of the main dealership on Long island. They looked at me blankly when I asked about oil. I should have called first. And you know what? The place was packed, and there was no sale or discount deals...

That detour cost me a half-hour or so, but I found my way out of the city and to this dealer, which I spotted from I-95. I parked the bike outside with the ranks of chrome and wandered inside (in my Harley jacket and Harley pants) to help myself to the washroom and coffee, in that order, but the parts guy didn't acknowledge me at all when I tried to pay for the oil I found on the shelf. I paid at the clothing counter instead which - guess what? - was packed.

These Harley people probably have their priorities right, but unfortunately I'm not one of them. So I don't feel too guilty about spilling some of the oil over their parking lot while topping up my bike. Look closely at the photo here and maybe you can see it...

8,607 km - New York City

Made it all the way through the rain and the cool - thank God for decent clothing and electric vests. The temperature here isn't too bad - low 60s - but the wind is frigid and forces me to wear a balaclava and pretty much all the clothing I'd brought along in case of snow.

This is very different from the 100 degrees of the California desert just a couple of weeks ago,

But even though the old dirt bike turns me into a sail to capture as much wind as possible, the artificial heat from the vest makes it all bearable and the bike got me here with no issues at all.

if the simplest machine around - my old watercooled, kickstart bike - can get me to the Big Apple, then surely anything is possible. And thank God, too, for Butt Buffer seat gel pads... 

8,212 km - New Hudson, New York

Dawdled and delayed leaving this morning, since it was cold and grey and the motorcycle didn't look too inviting. Had a coffee at Starbucks on Ste. Catherines (after signing some copies of Zen and Now at the Chapters) with Rob Harris of Canadian Motorcycle Guide, before finally checking out, loading up the bike and heading south.

It was interstate all the way, but it's a pretty interstate through northern New York, especially now when the leaves are starting to change. It's a long interstate, too, and I was in the middle of pretty much nowhere when the main gas feed stuttered and the tank ran dry. Switched to the reserve tank and started to look around for a service centre, but there was nothing - not at the next interchange, not at the one after that. I pulled off some 40 km after switching the tanks at this town but there was no place to buy gas.

I went into a family campground to find somebody who could tell me where there'd be gas but the place seemed empty. Eventually, I found the main house and knocked on the door. The owner came out and before even looking at me, said "Gasoline?" How did you know?, I asked. "Ten times a day," he said. "There's gas at the next stop south, eight miles from here." And he closed the door and carried on with his life.

I can make eight miles. Just. I hope.

8,001 km - Montreal, Quebec

Who ever would ride a motorcycle in weather like this? Pouring rain and maybe 12 degrees or so - must be nuts.

Rain is the least pleasant of riding experiences - very low quality, as Robert Pirsig would say. It leaks down into your rainproof gear and can make you cold, though that can be countered somewhat with the artificial heat of an electric vest. But the road becomes slippery and your vision deteriorates, with no wiper on the front of the visor and fog forever forming on the inside.

The only solution is to take it slow and steady, which you don't want to do since you're cold and wet and just want to get to the end of the ride, inside to the dry. It takes real discipline to ride a motorcycle safely in the wet. Especially an open dirtbike like my Suzuki, which splays me into the wind like a sail.

Fortunately, I have all the gear (after 30 years of experimenting) to stay mostly comfortable, so it's not that big a deal once I've spent 20 minutes suiting up, preferably before realizing I need to make one last bathroom stop.

I rode out of Toronto after a morning interview on UofT radio, and out on the eastbound 401 past the head offices of Toyota/Lexus, VW/Audi, BMW and GM, and thought about how I might just go in and ask for a vehicle from the press fleet to "test" on the way to Montreal, New York and Boston. Maybe even a nice big Chevy hybrid pickup that could carry the bike in the back. But I didn't. This is the last big trip this motorcycle will ever make (my backside hopes!), and it might as well be done properly, if damply at times. Plus, I'd have soiled the nice leather seats with my damp riding suit.

Got into Montreal long after dark after stopping at my aunt's in Williamstown, near Cornwall, for dinner. The rain had stayed with me all the way to Brockville, but that dinner stop gave it a chance to catch up and accompany me into Montreal. The light on my speedometer is broken, and it's the only dial, so I had only the one head light and one tail/brake light to guide the way. It's a good idea with a bike to flash the brake light when there's a vehicle behind, just to establish your presence, and I did that with extra abandonment here in Quebec.