[zuma]

Have a nice trip.

[kat_kitten]

woot!
hopefully see you at some point tomorrow! =)

[Suzukii600]

wish i could take off like that, only question is with all those bags on there is there any room for you?

[woobie]

Have a great trip.

[ct3]

sounds like fun...be safe

[yngveny]

Sounds like you have two great weeks in front of you.
Keep us posted.

[mammut89]

have a nice and safe trip

[whitecl0ver]

Where are the pics?

[IdahoKoolKat]

Stay safe and enjoy the adventure.

[MrBrant]

whew! Just got home (several days early).

Total trip days: 12
Total riding days: 11
Total days riding in the rain: 10
Total distance: a little over 7,300km

Did a nice little loop. A little more riding than I had planned on, and less time spent out in the mountains (where I wanted to spend the majority of the trip...).
Spent most of the time avoiding or out-running the rain.
As posted above, out of 11 days spent riding, I was in the rain for 10 of them. The first 1000km of the trip was all rain riding, as was 900km on the way home yesterday. (that sucked by the way...) Luckily I never had to tent in the rain - I made sure to ride to somewhere DRY before setting up camp!. I was using a ****ty (borrowed) tent that packed up smaller than mine. But even sleeping diagonally, my head touched at one end, and my feet at the other - so a night of rain would NOT have been pleasant. That rain suit was the best $100 I've ever spent!

So about the trip:

Day 1: Friday evening. Left Winnipeg at 5pm after work. Rode to some small town in Saskatchewan and grabbed a (DRY!) hotel for the night.

Day 2: Saturday. Rode to a small town just outside of Calgary. Saw some friends there, visited a bunch and stayed the night in a very Fandango-esque hanger.

Day 3: Sunday: Did a little more visiting with friends, got one skydive in, then hit the road. Went through Crow's Nest Pass and into Fernie, BC. Camping there sucked (no grassy areas for tents), so I ended up about 40km further in some campground. Rode back to Fernie for dinner after setting up camp.

Day 4: Monday. Was planning on hitting the hot springs, then into Banff national park. Unfortunatly, it was raining. The only dry place for the night was going to be in Jasper. So, off I rode. Met some other riders in the (expen$ive!!) campground.
Two of them, Edward and Alisa were heading up to an event in Dawson, Yukon. Since I didn't have any plans, I decided to ride with them for a few days.
Alisa recently returned from a solo bike adventure to South America (http://rumbum.com/926-have-bike-will-travel), and Edward is a product designer for Klim riding gear. Man, they make some NICE gear! I was very jealous.

Day 5: Tuesday. Rode to Prince George, BC. Saw lots of bears on the way. Edward and Alisa were staying with friends, so we parted ways that evening (after deciding on the next day's route), and I found a campground to stay at.

Day 6: Wednesday. Rode to Beatton provincial park, near Fort St. John, BC. Met back up with the other riders there.
There was some great roads along that stretch. One mountain pass was simply amazing. Lots of 10% grades too. It's fun zooming past the trucks crawling up those steep grades!
Gave myself a little bit of a pucker moment, and a lesson on "toes-in"! I was doing that road at about 110-120km/h (75mph'ish). Most of the curves had the lower suggested speeds. One curve I thought I read had a suggested speed of 70km/h (which is the last one I don't slow down for). I think it ACTUALLY said 50km/h. Those ones I slow down for....
The 18-wheeler coming at me in the other lane gave additional focus! Fun times

Day 7: Thursday Rode to a campground just outside of Fort Nelson, BC. It was about 20km down a gravel road. That was fun on the kat!!... We had an amazing dinner of Chicken Fajitas. (Edward had an awesome camping stove that ran off of a bottle of Regular Unleaded. So your spare fuel for the bike is the same as used for cooking!). Mosquitoes and Horse Flies were terrible. After dinner, we hid in our respective tents very quickly!

Day 8: Friday. Rode up to Fort Nelson for breakfast (remember: Mosquitoes at the park!). From there, I parted ways with the other riders, and started my way back south. I wanted to spend some more time in the Rockies, and I was was having a premonition of bike problems that I wanted to be near(ish) a major city for. (more on that later...)
So, I rode down to Grande Prairie, AB and set up camp there for the night.

Day 9: Saturday. Was going to go back into the rockies, but the forecast was nothing but more rain. So instead, I rode from Grand Prairie down to Calgary. Bike started giving me problems once i got into Calgary, and I was glad I wasn't up in the Yukon!. Still don't know what the problem was (is?), but after it warmed up, it would die unless I kept it above 6000 rpm. Also, spat out black smoke when i rev'd her. Seemed to to the highway speeds "OK" though.
Was able to limp it over to a buddy's house (actually 3rd cousin, or something like that).
Went out to Molly Malone's irish pub that night, had some good drinks, met some new people, and (FINALLY) got some food! I kind of forgot to eat that day....

Day 10: Sunday. Day off riding (sort of). Washed the bike in the morning. Went to Canadian tire and picked up supplies for an oil change. (oil, funnel, and an aluminum baking pan to drain the old oil into.
Met up with KK for lunch (Hi Chandelle!). After that, proceeded to the front street in front of my buddy's place to do the world's messiest and quickest (because the drain pan was leaking...) oil change.
Went to more friends/relatives' place for dinner. Bike still running ****ty. Pulled out the spark plugs and sand-papered them all. (they were all fouled).
Ran even worse on the way back to my buddy's place that night. (though that was because I had pulled off the vacuum line to the petcock, so it was running with a massive vacuum leak).

Day 11: Monday. After putting the vacuum hose back onto the petcock and re-doing the cylinder #4 sparkplug connection, decided to try and limp her home (all 1400 km).
She was OK once I got her on the highway, thankfully.
Hit more rain about an hour outside of Calgary. It rained until I stopped for the night in Indian Head, SK. (just east of Regina).
Even added an additional 200km of detour because the Trans-Canada (i.e. the only highway in Canada...) was washed out east of Medicine Hat.

Outside of Regina, I found my least favorite riding conditions (so far): Night, HARD rain (drops still stung through the rain suit, leather jacket, another jacket, and turtle neck...), and a 40-50mph crosswind.

I got as far as Indian head, found a "Bar and INN" (though, the neon sign had a letter burnt out, so it was an "I_N"), and ordered a room, and 2 shots of whiskey.

Day 12: Tuesday. Woke up to more rain, but I was only about 550km from home! It rained for the first two hours or so, but then it got nice. The last 3 hours to home were actually bright and sunny . AND I had a tail wind for the first time on the trip!


All in all, it was a very enjoyable experience. Though after all those highway hours on the bike in the rain, I don't think I'll EVER complain about highway driving in the cage again!

I took some pictures, and will try to get them up soon. (I'm terrible at remembering to take them though, and even worse at stopping when I see something cool that I would like to have taken a picture of)


For now, I'm off to a hot shower then the couch for a brain-off action movie with popcorn and soda!

[steves]

:

[HS2020]

Sounds like you had a great adventure.Go rest up because riding in the rain will wear you out.

[Slofuze]

Chaulk it up to a journey worth remembering! Thanks for the post!.....especially as most of us are figuring out what to pack for our "journeys" this season.

[steves]

So far as runny crappy, I'm guessing that either you got some bad gas, or you ran the fuel tank lower than you normally do and sucked some crap out of the gas tank.

I would drain the tank and carb bowls and refill with fresh gas to see if that doesn't fix the problem.

[spatula6554]

Awesome trip! Glad you made it back safely!