In 1928, J Graham Oates became the first person to cross Canada on a motorcycle fitted with rubber tires
Born James Walter Graham Oates in 1897 on the Isle of Man, as a teenager he served in WWI as a dispatch rider, both on horse and motorcycle. He was also a motorcycle builder, tester and TT racer.
In 1927 Oates moved to Canada. Wartime comrade Charles Brown, representative of the then-struggling Castrol oil brand, agreed to sponsor the trip. The Trans-Canada Highway wasn’t yet complete, so Oates had to persuade the Canadian Railway Authorities to let him use their railway track.
A 497cc twin-port Ariel was fitted with a Sturgess sidecar made in Hamilton, Ontario. Oates named his combo Toby, He wrote in his diary:
“Days blended into nights but sleep was a secondary consideration to me. Was I not working on my dear little Toby? At last all ready, tyres fitted with great care, kneegrips adjusted just so, handlebars placed to take the strain off my arms and the favourite Terry (saddle) adjusted to a degree for what of the hundreds of miles of spine shattering, body pounding ties of the Canadian railway. Gas, oil and now for the engine, a lusty kick and Toby starts for the first time on Canadian air. But I must take her gently for a few hundred miles in order to settle the bearing surfaces down to their work.”
He later wrote:
“Why did I ever think of this confounded across Canada trip? My neck feels as if the hangman had been putting in a little practice on me. My spine I swear will never be the same again and I am cold as well; never mind, I am. Those that have slept in a sidecar with the framework as a mattress probably will agree with me that it needs a big stretch of imagination to include it under the word comfort. My face was giving me a great deal of pain, it having been blistered and peeled by the combined efforts of sun, wind, and rain. It ached and I almost felt like taking a rest instead of a contemplated all night ride.”
Oates encountered mechanical issues, flat tyres and continual problems with his sidecar, but he completed the 4,000 mile transcontinental journey and symbolically dipped Toby’s tyre in the Pacific at English Bay.
