Not much to say about this ride. It’s all super slab from Placerville to San Diego. I did meet Globebiker for lunch outside of Modesto. Turns out I met Gordon the same day I met Mike. It was at a motorcycle gathering of the members of the Honda Shadow forum. This was back in September of 2006.

L to R: Caleb, Chad, Mike, Pat, That Guy, His Wife, Gordon in 2006

And here’s Gordon and I today.

Gordon and Chad

The rest of the day was uneventful – just the long haul back to San Diego. There, the lovely Michelle was waiting for me with a warm supper and lots of warm hugs.

The apparent sole owners of every motel in Burney are friendly, but a distracted couple. This was illustrated by a key rattling the lock on the door last night about 10:30. I was still awake and was able to open the door before the two fellows on the other side could gain entry on the own. Awkward greetings were exchanged and after showing them I had a key for Room 9 (as did they) and since I obviously had taken residence they muttered about their bad luck and left. I did provide them with the after hours contact number for the owners and wished them luck.

This morning I’m up early enough but not moving overly fast. I’ve finally eaten, packed and on the road by 10:00. It’s a moderate distance day today at 300 miles. But I plan to go through Lassen National Park and it is a weekend, so I’m expecting traffic to be heavy.

Lassen National Park is a little known Park in northern California. Its claim to fame is volcano and geothermal activity. It’s like a mini-Yellowstone, except different.

Here’s the closest and most abundant snow I encountered the whole trip.

Lake Helen in Lassen National Park

Highway 49 from Sattley and on into Placerville should have been amazing. But get stuck behind a cager (or a string of ‘em) who won’t pull over and you’ll be gritting your teeth the whole way. Lots of turns, limited straights and no passing lanes means you’re part of the parade.

Psychology Test

I made it to Mike’s place (he, uh, made it back OK. Sorry I didn’t tell you) around 4:00. I wanted to get there earlier because I wanted his opinion on my rear tire. If he said it needed to go, we’d need the time to find a replacement. Mike looked at the tire and without hesitation said it would make it the 500 miles to San Diego. I thought it would, but you can never really tell when you are wishful thinking.

Same tire, same time, different side.

I not only made it to bed early last night, I was also able to fall asleep rather quickly. That doesn’t happen often. As a benefit I was up early and on the road by 8:00. I must have went through all the pretty parts of Idaho yesterday. There was one section that should have been fun, but traffic, rain and my uncooperative grip heaters had me muttering sarcastic comments to myself. Mainly about the grip heaters.

Most of the ride was straight and flat through farmland and some rolling hills. The grass is green so it’s kind of pretty, but not the sort of thing you stop and take pictures of. I have seen many deer. Many with the white polka-dotted fawns. I also see tons of horses, many with foals Must be that time of year.

The state of Idaho will continually remind you of two things:

No mention of chicken.

The early start, easy roads and non-distractingly scenery really let me eat up some asphalt. By 6:00 I was checking into a motel and had covered just over 500 miles.

They say there is a desert in eastern Oregon.

I think this is Mt. Shasta.

Going from Kalispell to Missoula I saw these flowers growing in the forest.  I call them Snowball-On-A-Stick:

These should be manadory along side golf fairways.

Highway 12 in Idaho from Missoula to Kooskia is a blast (except for the road construction). Lots and lots of curves, but nothing too technical. Just lots of leaning from this side to that side at a pretty constant pace. Oh, its through some pretty terrific scenery as well.

Scenery off of Highway 12

And speaking of Missoula, do your best to go around it. My GPS took me on the business loop right through the heart of it. Lots of stop lights and turns. It’s my fault. I should have reviewed the route more closely. But when creating the route the towns are just dots on the map, not some huge conglomeration of streets! Damn details.

Who’s da ho? Idaho!

I stopped for a late lunch/early dinner at a café in Kooskia. I took a seat in the booth by the door and sat facing inside the restaurant, my gear piled in the opposite seat. Sitting in the booth in front of me is an old man, also facing towards the inside the restaurant (i.e the direction as me, so I normally look at the back of his head). When I was taking off my jacket and piling up my gear in the seat the old man turned to look at me. I said “Hello” or “How are you?” or some other appropriate greeting and the old man just made a noise that part “hrmmph“ and part knowing chuckle. It was 100% dismissive.

As I ordered and later ate my lunch, at different times the old man would turn to look me, or my pile or gear, or crane his head to look out the window (for my bike, I guess) and each time he would utter the noise and then turn back. I found the whole thing rather amusing as I had chalked the old man up as being out to lunch in more than just the physical sense. So I grinned to myself each time he hammrrph’d me. I did not hear him utter a single coherent word the entire time I was there. I don’t even think the waitress attempted to talk with him. It would be interesting to know what he found so repulsive or funny about me and my stuff.

After lunch I run Highway 13 to Grangeville. Another fine, fine piece of asphalt. The scenery is river and valley compared to river and forest seen on highway 12, but still pretty. You’ll run this road at bit faster pace.

After Grangeville I hope on US 95. I wasn’t expecting anything, but was rather pleased when I rounded a corner and caught this view:

You really aren't seeing it. Trust me.

Pretty neat, eh? Ok. Picture taken, ride continues. Two corners later I see how this road makes its way down to the valley:

Wheee!

Oh very nice. Very nice indeed. I’m gonna need a picture so I find a place to turn around. The turn around spot has a hysterical marker (they were all historical until some road fatigue made them hysterical. I think that’s how I will refer to all them henceforth). One of the signs mentions something about insane switchbacks of the old road. Sounds neat. But its not until I’m back on the bike that I see what it’s talking about.

Corners stacked on corners!

Oh my. How do I get on that road? Not impressed. Here’s google’s view.  I’m talking about the unmarked road there in there center, not the labeled US 95 on the left.

You can get to it from either the top or the bottom. The road is clearly signed as “Old US 95” if you look for them. I found my way on and rode down and up. It’s nicely technical. It also doesn’t have any painted lines so your normal cues for lane position are gone, thus it’s a hard to get the corners setup right.

At the bottom of Old US 95 is the town of White Bird. It seems like a nice little town as many of the people there waved to me.

All in all it was good day riding. A long day, but good. I spent a lot time on the edges of my tires. They really need that.

While loading up the bike this morning an old guy on bicycle with sacks overflowing with plastic bottles gives the Strom a good looking over. The guy is obviously not homeless — he’s shaved, clean and wearing clothes that only the retired wear. His name is Richard and he’s an old-time, hard-core, ADV Rider before there was ADV Rider. He’s ridden Europe. He’s ridden North Africa. He’s ridden the Western Hemisphere from “the northern tip of Alaska to the Southern tip of South America. Had to ride through all four seasons in four months” he says as he rifles through the garbage can outside the hotel. He said I should do that some time. And if I do I should take lots of “good Kodak film”. After we’ve chatted a bit he gets a little self conscious of his dumpster-diving as says “I like going through the trash. People throw out the damnedest things”.

The ride from Canmore to the border crossing is mostly uneventful. I took highway 40 from Canmore to Longview. Yesterday Nathan had cautioned against this as he thought the road was gravel and mud. Richard said it was a paved beauty and there is another road that’s gravel and mud, but that’s old highway 40. Or some such. Anyway. I take it and it’s a great road and it has great scenery. Along with the views I see several dear and a few mountain sheep.

View

View

They like to lick up the road salt.

And then there’s this sign:

Have you seen this cow?

The scoundrel. The menace. I hope they catch her and lock her away for life. I bet she’s all hopped up on BGH too.

I also had another bear incident. As I’m toodling along highway 22, not far from the border crossing, I round a corner and scare a bear up out of the ditch on the other side of the road. And like a properly frightened animal, he’s now sprinting for the ditch on the other side. My side. I stand the bike up and get on the brakes and get everything whoa’d down before our vectors intersect, but for the second time this trip I am way too close to a bear. The bear never slows down. He tears across the road, down into the ditch and into the woods. It looked like another young grizzly. He was stocky, light brown at the neck and shoulders and darkening as you got to his hind legs. There are two images burned into my mind. The first is as I round the corner and the bear is leaping up on to the road. The second is the bear just sprinting as fast as he can go, but with his head turn to look at me as I’m bearing (pun!) down on him.

The border crossing was almost dramaless. While the guards were casually routing through my top box (they didn’t bother with the side cases — fools!) they managed to unclasp it from its mount. Luckily when I was waved through I pulled over to properly buckle my helmet and stow my passport. For no real reason I checked to see if the guards had managed to get the top case locked properly. They did, but while trying to open the lid the whole case lifted off the mounting plate. I dare not think what would have happened if I not checked.

The plan was to ride Going-to-the-Sun highway in Glacier National Park. But as I’m about to buy my park pass I read the road isn’t opened all the way through. Hmm. Bummer. I was looking forward to that. Then again, its raining like mad. Guess I’m going through Browning.

Jasper NP is a pretty cool place. One might think of it as Grand Teton with lots of freaking ice. Had I known it was going to be this nice I might have made more effort to get rolling earlier. After partaking of the included free breakfast with my room and conversing with the breakfast lady about what I should see today, I’m on the road by 10:00.

My first two stops are recommendations from the breakfast lady. Nice places, but later in the day I decided she needed to get out more.

Patricia Lake

Pyramid Mountain

The second recommendation was Maligne Lake. I can image this looks pretty amazing in the evenings.

Magligne Lake

I also saw some bears. A mama and two cubs. But I didn’t want to pay the circus admission, so my view was from the cheap seats.

Bears in lower right.

The following are pictures from some of the places the breakfast lady didn’t mention:

Glaciers on Mt. Edith Cavell

Ghost Glacier on Mt. Edith Cavell

Athabasca Falls

Sunwapta Falls

A Cascade of Glaciers

A somewhat typical view from the road.

And how could she fail to mention this mother of all sweepers?

Largest, most pointless sweeper ever. But I like it!

It is only 210 miles from Jasper to Cantmore. However I spent so much time exploring side roads and at each of the sites in Jasper that by 5:00 I was just entering Banff NP (only 60 miles from Jasper). Needless to say I didn’t give Banff the attention it deserved.

I took a much needed gas stop in Lake Louise (270 miles on that tank) and met Nathan on his R6. He said he had been on the bike for 7 hours and in that cramped riding position he was pretty sore. He was from Calgary and he gave me some cautionary advise about a route I intended to take. The road is only open in the summer and in July he has ridden his quad through snow there. Yah, didn’t sound like a place I needed to be.

I finally get to Cantmore around 9:00 PM. I‘m pretty beat and it shows.

You look fabulous, darling!

Another day of covering ground. Most of today’s ride was through farmland and pasture land carved out of the forest. Mostly I enjoyed the fact the road had curves. The roads up north were purpose built to move supplies (first war supplies and then oil supplies). With little regard for connecting communities they roads were laid out in the longest, straightest, flattest areas available to reduce construction and maintenance costs (most of the towns along them came later). The roads further south are improved fur trading trails, so they twist and turn and climb.

On a related note, Canadians tend to rate their corners pretty conservatively. By rating I mean that little yellow addendum sign with a speed located under the direction-and-type-of-curve sign. Most all Canadian curves you can just pretend the speed on the rating sign is in MPH and get to it. And that’s from a guy riding a loaded Strom. I bet on a bike designed with corner-carving in mind the numbers would be percent of current speed.

I stopped for the day in the town of Jasper, in the like named the National Park. I had planned to end my in a burg outside the park, but I made good time today and was still feeling fresh so I rode the extra hundred miles. The town is nice right now, although I can tell when tourist season hits full bloom I wouldn’t want to be anywhere near it. The surrounding mountains and views remind me of the Tig Ol’ Bitties park down in Wyoming.

Not many photos today. But here’s what I got:

Lake M-Something

Bijoux Falls and Me

Mt Somebody in Robson Nat'l Park

Mt SomeOtherDude in Robson Nat'l Park

It's a boy elk.

Finally, the following picture is not a botched self portrait. This is the result of handing your camera to a seemingly nice guy who says “Do you want me to take your picture”?

Sasquatch?

I was making some good time today and really putting the miles behind me.  The route was pretty, but it didn’t have the jaw-dropping and stunning views of the last weeks. Also, the thick wilderness is slowly decaying into farm and pasture land so the wildlife is less abundant. The road sides are completely devoid of poo.

I was only motivated to stop for a couple of road signs.

I bet property around here is cheap!

 And people in the Midwest think living down wind from a feedlot is bad.

Oh yah! That's the stuff!

I’m sure when most people see that sign they have some appropriate reaction. Like slowing down and wondering if their brakes are up to par or their load secure and maybe a feeling of dread. When I saw that sign I quivered at how exciting it was going to be. What kind of curve? Steep downhill? Decreasing radius? Off-camber? And all permutations wafted through my mind like choices on a dessert tray. I thought about each scenario, I anticipated the approach and the techniques I would use to smoothly negotiate the hazard, maintain my entry speed and set myself up for a rocketing exit! I daydreamed of a truly gnarly steep downhill, decreasing radius, off-camber turn. I got chills of excitement! My anticipation soared!!

And then I realized I had gone about two miles. What? Did I miss read the sign? I rode further looking for the tell-tale signs of widow-making asphalt. After another 5 miles I give up. I turn around to go look for the matching sign on the other side of the hazard. I don’t find it. I ride all the way back to the first sign and take the picture. I then very slowly (err, very slowly for me at least) ride to the ‘dangerous curve’.

It’s some lousy 70 kph bend — maybe an arc of 60 degrees. Not downhill. Not decreasing radius. Not off-camber. I daydreamed right through it. I didn’t even slow down from the posted 100 kph speed limit (nor from what ever speed I was going). I was cheated.

At my anticipated stop of Hudson Hope I made a wrong turn by not making a turn and found my self on an unscheduled self tour of the WAC Bennett Hydro Electric dam. Its capable or producing 2.7 jigawatts.

What men will do just to have a place to fish.

It was on this little tour that I saw all the wildlife of the day. A few dear. A (real) elk and a marmot. There are no pictures.

The ride from Watson Lake to Fort Nelson is amazing. It’s so cool, I’m not even going to talk about it. I’ll just post pictures of things I saw.

Bison

Mama Bear

Mama and her cub

Fox

'Nother Bear

Whirly-Bird

Mo' Bisons

Stone's Sheep

They're inclined.

View 1

View 2

View 3

View 4

View 5

View 6

View 7

Besides all the wildlife and the views, I ran into four guys at Liard Springs making a tour of the Yukon and Alaska. Three of them were on Stroms and the fourth was on a me-too BMW. Each bike had a spare set of TKC-80s tires strapped on the back. The gents plans include Invunik and Purdoe Bay (can‘t get too much Arctic Ocean I guess). They anticipate going over 11,500 miles and have allocated 30 days for their trip.

One of these things, not like others.

I had been monitoring it and quite honestly hoping it would go away, but the state of my chain was rapidly declining. No amount of chain lube would stifle its advanced deterioration. Yesterday as I was slowing to make the turn at Haines Junction the bike felt distinctly odd and did not sound right at all. I stopped and looked at the chain. It was out of adjustment again, sagging badly and kinking in one or two spots. I adjusted it back to spec, lubed the hell out of it and continued on to Whitehorse as there was nothing more anyone around here could do. Whitehorse is a big town and it’s my only hope.

I get up early, pack the bike and head over to the Suzuki shop. Even though the door has only been open for 15 minutes, they are busy. I tell my tale of woe only to be told there is no way they can work on my bike today. I ask for the just the chain and propose I do the work myself out back with the support of their tools. He is at least considering. It might have worked out, if they had a chain. No. I don’t want the front sprocket anymore either.

I remember seeing a Yamaha place when we came through the first time and Mike mentioned a Honda place use to exist. Driving aimlessly around town I was not able to locate either. Pulling a trick from Mike’s playbook I go to the visitors center to get a map. And to my delight the lady behind the counter is able to circle on the map all four motorcycle shops in town. No wonder I could find them. The Yamaha place is way out in the country and the Honda shop is the place labeled Jeep/Can-Am (Snow Machines) and looks like a new car lot. She also marks a Harley Davidson. I stop by the HD place first as its on the way to the Honda shop. You can guess how that went.

Twice as I’m riding looking for the shops and while making a U turn in the Harley lot (in front of witnesses no less), I almost drop the bike while turning left. I chalk it up to being hungry and in a hurry.

I get to the Honda place. Yukon Honda. Place is nice. Big. Clean. I tell my tell of woe. The of course don’t have the OEM Suzuki chain, instead they stock a massive 130 link monster. The tell me they keep a few on hand and have helped out more than one Suzuki customer. The chain is pricey, $170 CAD, but sounds like a sweet bargain to me. Not 5 minutes later I’m wheeling my bike up on to the bike lift.

It’s around this time I notice my handle bars aren’t turning all the way to the left. They hard stop about an inch before they are suppose to. The Honda guy, John (or Jon or Johnny or you get it) says he’ll look at it after the chain is replaced. The new chain gets put on, the extra links are cut off and rivet master link is installed. Yay!

Now we look into my handle bar problem. John fumbles around a bit and then produces a 12mm bolt about ¾ long. Where did that some from? I frantically try to recall if I dropped anything down there when I preparing the bike. No. I’m sure of it. John investigates further and finds an empty bolt hole. The found bolt fits! Yay! My handle bars have their full range back. Yay! The bolt had apparently rattled loose at some point, fell out and lodged where-ever John found it. What luck to find it.

John from Yukon Honda. Truly awesome guy!

After all is said and done, John presents me the bill. I’m prepared for the worst. The total? Including labor and taxes? $210 CAD. Wow! He didn’t screw me! No inflated labor rates. No minimum labor duration. The experience was so awesome I tipped the guy nicely.

So remember kids. If you are ever in Whitehorse, YT and need bike help, go to the awesome Yukon Honda motorcycle shop that looks an awful lot like a Jeep/Honda car lot.

Alright. It’s not even 11:00 AM yet and I’m on the road. Not bad for waking up and having no idea where a new chain was going to materialize or how I was going to get it installed. I’m on the AlCan headed east/south to Liard Springs. My GPS tells me is only 289 miles. That’s odd as I recall discussing it was Rick and it was much further than that. No problem, Rick simply cannot be trusted with reporting accurate mileages. The best example was when he said “two or three” when the actual distance was 30.

I rode this section of road with Mike. Besides lots of trees (the forest is actually somehow more dense in this area) and snow capped mountains on the horizon there is not much to see. So I don’t take many (any) pictures. You do ride through a tree filled valley that was obviously carved by a huge glacier and that was nice.

Landscape in Potrait

All along the Al-Can highway (and many of the other roads around here) there is a very interesting form of graffiti. 

Al-Can Highway Graffiti

Detail

By 6:00 I’m in Watson Lake and the GPS says only 15 more miles to Liard Springs. Now that simply can’t be right. I ride the 15 miles and end up in the middle of nowhere. I stop and consult a mileage chart Rick had made using his motorcycle’s odometer (not from his memory) and it say 132 more miles to Liard. Hmm. Well. What to do?

I know Liard is not a big place and showing up at 8:00 PM means that if the one place to stay is booked full I’m screwed. Not to mention I’m hungry. So I back track to Watson Lake.

In Watson Lake the only motel with rooms left (Yeah, Mike, even the Air Force lodge is full) is quickly filling up with motorcyclists. There are seven in the lot when I show up and three more pull in after I’m checked in. I chit-chat with of them over a beer. These guys are from Anchorage and are doing what I’m doing just in reverse. They make talk of being at the restaurant when it opens at 6:00. I’m invited to ride with them, but I know I’ll not make the 6:00 breakfast. I bid them safe journeys and retire to my room.