Although a highway breakdown is not an ideal way to start a motorcycle trip, what one CBC radio host found was a warm Powell River welcome, laughter and a standing invitation with a new friend.
Stephen Quinn, host of a daily news show “On the Coast,” was out touring on his near-mint condition Yamaha RD400 on the Victoria Day long weekend, when the 40-year-old bike began experiencing problems just outside Lund.
After hobbling back into Powell River, what Quinn found was a whole community of interested and knowledgeable bikers ready to lend a hand.
“I didn’t know who he was,” said Guy Ricard of Guy’s Power and Marine, Quinn’s first stop. “But if a man needs a hand you give a hand…What would you feel like if you were on vacation and broke down someplace?”
Determining Quinn’s bike needed an outside consult, Ricard closed-up shop and took him over to Andy Vestering at Powell River Outdoors.
“I can fix pretty well anything,” said Vestering, who explained it’s not at all unusual for other businesses to bring him work. “It’s just that small town thing.”
Vestering, a rider of a Kawasaki KZ1000—identical but for a missing decal to those ridden on the 1980s’ TV show CHiPs—took Quinn’s bike out on a test run to decipher what was wrong.
Tracing the malfunction down to a broken vacuum line or oil depleted crank case, Vestering offered to square the bill if Quinn ran over to get him a slice of pizza.
Rob Merz, a guest at Westview Centre Motel where Quinn stayed, said he knew the bike was something special as soon as he heard it roll in.
“I knew it wasn’t an average modern bike so I peeked out the window and see this 40-year-old motorcycle out there in very good condition,” said Merz, a self-described “gear-head” with an interest on motorbikes and antique vehicles.
“That bike is an icon,” said Merz, of the Yamaha RD400, which he later found out was a former museum piece held in Vancouver’s Deeley Motorcycle Exhibition.
More interested in learning about the bike, Merz said at first he was not aware he was speaking with a celebrity.
“He just seemed like an average city guy,” said Merz, currently away from his Kamloops home to work at Catalyst Paper Corporation Powell River division mill. “My wife is a real big fan of the CBC and she was quite surprised and pleased when she found out who it was.”
“Usually I have no one to talk to about what I do,” said Merz, who posts videos of his own “epic rides” on YouTube. “We got to chatting about bikes and all sorts of stuff.”
Merz, who has remained in contact with Quinn, said the CBC host has a standing invitation to visit him in Kamloops.
He said making new friends is all part and parcel with being a motorcyclist. “You pull up to your motel and unpack your bike and pretty soon you get people coming up wanting to talk to you,” he said. “It’s all part of life on the road.”
“I met a lot of great people on motorcycles on my way up to [Powell River],” said Quinn, in an email to the Peak.
Although Quinn said his bike is back in the shop he does not, when asked, appear ready to make the switch to mountain biking just yet, answering, “I’d have to peddle that, right?”
Quinn wrote of his Powell River experience in the June 12 edition of the Globe and Mail.
