4 - Twisty Roads, Biking on Boats, and Our First Flat

The day started at a slow, relaxed pace, as I like. It was Monday morning and we had decided to leave my paradise named Fernie with our eyes set for the coast. Colin was his normal morning self, getting up and ready for the day before Kevin or I thought of moving. Coffee was on, which was reason enough to get up; that was a motivational tool he used often.

Kevin had a few days off work and decided he was going to join us for this first day of riding and a night of camping at a lovely little place called Fletcher Falls, just north of Ainsworth Hot Springs. His model E DR-Z didn’t have bags of any sort so he filled a backpack with a sleeping bag and mat and we were off.

Our first planned destination was Creston to take in the Kokanee brewery tour, and with our late start to the day, we were shooting for the second last tour. Shortly after Kev filled his stock tank with gas in Cranbrook we were sailing west again, with a tight possibility of making the tour. Not more than 5 km out of the city, however, I had to pull over. I felt a sensation that I had experienced once before at highway speeds where my back end just started feeling greasy on the pavement. Over a matter of ten seconds or so it got worse and worse and I knew I had a flat.

To the side of the road with Kevin following, I went and got quickly to work finding a piece of wood to prop under my right-side footpeg. I had the wheel off by the time Colin had realized we weren’t behind him anymore and came back looking for us. Now the tough part – breaking the bead. I used the kickstand of the DR-Z and the heel of my boot, along with Colin’s weight and a lot of my cursing to finally break it free of the rim. Spooning the worn tire off the rim was next, followed by swapping the blown tube with a spare I pulled out of my pannier. Breaking the bead was one thing, now it was time to seat it again, and all we had was a small hand pump I had brought along; still needed to buy a little 12 volt compressor. I had it seated pretty well at 10 psi, actually, but it was miserable going after the plastic threads of the pump gave way and it wouldn’t stay attached to the valve stem anymore. Fortunately we had other bikes, so a bit of rope to secure the wheel on the back of Colin’s bike and I made my way back to Cranbrook to fill it at a gas station. Click, rumble, rumble, psshhtt, twist, twist, and I was moving again.

I struggled getting the wheel and all spacers, cush drive, sprocket, and brake lined up to slide the axle through, but with Kevin’s help I got it all back together. We had now burned a bunch of time and had not only missed the tour we were shooting for, but were 10 minutes late for the last tour of the day. The kind lady working the desk said we could meet up with the group halfway through and she didn’t even charge us. We missed the brew house and fermenting sections which I was most excited about having been making beer for the last several years, along with Kevin and Colin, but we still got the most important part of the tour – the free beer tasting!

After the tour in Creston we rode an absolutely amazing road along the east shore of the Kootenay Lake as far north as we could. The Ainsworth Hot Springs were on the west shore which we reached in the dark after waiting an hour for a ferry to take us across. Although I was hesitant to spend $12 on a resort hot springs, Colin talked me into it, and boy was it great to relax the body and muscles. Another 12 km or so up the west shore and we turned down a dark road at Fletcher Falls. We each filled a duffle with things we’d need for the night and hiked down a kilometer or so to the lake where we set up, started a fire, and enjoyed some more of BC’s own under the magnificently starry sky. This happened to be where I learned I lost the mounting plate for my tripod, and so after setting everything up to shoot the stars over the lake, I couldn’t. 

The view from our campsite at Fletcher Falls

Our campsite at Fletcher Falls had Inukshuks all over the beach

Kevin left us in the morning, heading back across the Ferry and onwards to Fernie, and Colin and I had a very relaxing day. We made up some coffee, did some writing, took a nap, and packed up. 

Coffee making set up

It must have been at least 3 pm before we were moving on the bikes again. We didn’t make it far this day, but after taking another short ferry we followed a worker off to a small village called Edgewood where we camped on a pristine little lake for the night. Houseboats sat all along the shore where their habitants had a great view of some foothills in the background.

The bikes at some point this day

 Waiting for a ferry across

The view from our site in Edgewood

I slept with my fly open this night and woke up to this view

From Edgewood the next morning we continued westward on more amazing roads, leaning the bikes back and forth around curve after curve. I learned today that my tool tube was a bit wide and mounted a bit low as I felt it contact the ground around a few corners. The end caps on both sides were now ground a bit flat; I’ll have to keep that in mind in the future.

In Vernon we stopped to check out the National Army Cadet Training Centre and got a bit of a guided tour from a fellow KLR owner who happened to be the Sergeant in charge of the base in the off season. It was a neat little experience as we both work with the Cadet program and had never been out this way before. We carried onwards again with our sights set to ride the Sea to Sky, highway 99, from Lilooet to Whistler. That road is killer! The speed limit is only 60 km/h which should tell you how twisty it is, and how fatal the falls would be off of a corner. The bikes handle it great at speeds a bit higher than I’ll specify.

We got into Whistler with some rain and soggy boots and I took us to a little spot I knew we could camp for free in the woods. After setting up we met my friend Alissa on a bus heading into the Village to go have a few drinks at a bar. A lovely visit was had that night with her and her boyfriend and we made our way back to our totally legal campsite for the night. There is more of Whistler to come in the next post for sure. We’re so close to the coast we can taste it now.

3 - Fernie Fun

We awoke on what was now day 3 in our cozy little apartment and began the slow gathering of our belongings. It still wasn’t hot out, but it also hadn’t snowed another 10 cm overnight. Our lovely friend and host, Josh, had left for work already that morning so our departure was made a bit interesting. In order to lock the door to his place we elected to climb off the balcony and jump down; I imagine if anyone saw us they would have called the police.

Our departure should have been simple enough after we stopped at the Chinook Centre and I purchased the little tablet/ultrabook I’m currently typing on. It was a purchase I had meant to make before leaving, but then decided I would wait to save some taxes in Alberta. Anyway, it should have been simple, but after trying to adjust my chain in the underground parking, we found it was completely shot. Well shit, it’s day 2 of riding and I already need to replace my chain. Turns out I didn’t have another few thousand miles of life left on it.

I limped the bike over to Blackfoot Motorsports where I forked out for a new chain and a chain breaker tool that neither of us had, and proceeded to change it in the parking lot out front. That chain breaker pushed the rivets out like buttah! One of the mechanics there was nice enough to let us use his torque wrench for the rear axle as well.

With the new chain, Mitzi was a dream to ride again and we pointed south. Colin was leading this leg and we managed to miss the exit we wanted so I pulled over onto the shoulder before it was long gone. There was a ditch a couple hundred feet across between us and the exit we wanted, so when I saw a break in the traffic I cut across it. As I came up the other side, aiming between the wooden posts that lined the road I saw a sight that terrified me but had no time to do anything about. There was a thick steel cable run between all the posts that I hadn’t seen blended into the color of the asphalt and before I knew anything it clotheslined my forks between the wheel and high fender. WAM! I got very intimate with my tank as the bike slammed to a stop and toppled over tangled in the cable. Shaking myself out and picking up Mitzi I couldn’t help but think what an idiot I was.

Finally having made it out of the city we rode a couple hundred miles along the great number 22 and then the Crowsnest Pass towards Fernie. As we descended into the valley for the last 60 miles or so the snow began to disappear and the temperature rose pleasantly. We were greeted in the by our good friend Kevin as we rolled into town and promptly had beers in hand.

We spent the next three days hanging out in Fernie with friends, both new and old. Kevin took us on some killer rides up logging roads to summits, a rope swing over a lake, and waterfalls. He rides a DR-Z400E that he just bought back in the spring - that bike is wicked.

This was a platform to hang glide off of. I can only imagine how awesome that would be.

We found a little incline to snap some climbing shots. Colin on his KLR

Kevin on his DR-Z

Me on my KLR

Colin on the DR-Z

Me on the DR-Z

Here was a little waterfall we climbed down to on that ride

I climbed up behind the waterfall to shoot Kevin below

We played disc golf with a big group one evening, drank beers, enjoyed some of BC’s own, played forest for a night, rode some killer bike trails, and drank some more beers. Kevin loves to cook and so do both Colin and I, so we made meals ourselves every day. We did sushi one night with some salmon he had been given from a recent trip to the coast and it was phenomenal. Even as I woke up at 4 in the morning and puked my guts out, it was still worth it. Apparently we had given ourselves a bout of food poisoning. Well, Kevin and I anyway, Colin seemed unaffected.

The sushi and tempura we made

I was playing with my camera when we went out to play forest and had some fun with the streetlights

Honey and Duke were the best cuddlers around

Fernie is the coolest place I’ve lived and I visit anytime I can. I’ll end up there again one day, but until then, the fairly regular visits will have to suffice. I’m a bit scared of not having a winter snowboarding season this year; I think I’ll go through a pretty bad withdrawal. Or maybe I’ll be too distracted by beaches and jungles and mountains down south and won’t even think of home. I doubt it, though.

2 - Riding, Snow, and Beers

The day was a brisk one, with a high of only 9° Celsius and thick, overcast skies. The wind was light, but out of the northeast which was to our advantage as we opened the throttle towards Calgary, our planned pit stop for the night. You have a lot of time to think when making the journey from Saskatoon to anywhere else; the roads stretch on towards the horizon as you pass Rosetown, then Kindersley, Alsask, and so on. To break the monotony of a drive we had done countless times on our way to the mountains we detoured off the number 7 highway to one that was just as straight; the traffic was much lighter though, which made it more pleasant.

As we detoured, straight as an arrow and bundled up in all our layers, we were in chase of the winding roads of the Rockies to be had. We just had to get through this first cold, long day.

Our detour had an ulterior motive to just getting off the main road - we were in search of a small town called Dorothy that was mostly abandoned. Dorothy lay in the bottom of a valley just south of Drumheller, and as we passed through we could see there wasn’t a hell of a lot going on. I stopped beside a dilapidated grain elevator and Colin pulled up beside. We looked back over the highway and saw an old steel bridge leading to a dirt road up into the hills.

“I really want to go check out that road” I said, muffled by my helmet. Colin moved his finger around his GPS and decided it might actually be a shorter distance so off we went. Well, that dirt road turned to slick switchbacks climbing right into the snow-strewn hills we had seen from miles back. Calgary and the surrounding area had gotten a bunch of snow the last couple days, and it looked like we were in for more.

For the next forty minutes or so we fought the slick, loose, wet dirt and gravel with visors barely translucent, trying to make our way to a more travelled road. It was getting later than we had hoped to get into Calgary, so with a few more tank slappers and visor wipes we were on the Trans Canada heading west once more.

Josh came out to greet us in front of his apartment in downtown Calgary as we hobbled off our bikes. We had covered 620 km of mostly straight, cold distance today, and the sleet coming down was really getting on my nerves. As we unloaded the things we thought we’d want for the night I managed to lean the wrong way on Mitzi sending her to the ground hard. That’s drop number two for me today after an embarrassing drop at the Kindersley Co-op this arvo. I really need to add more preload to my rear shock.

We woke the next morning with the intention of heading to Fernie; the weather, however, had different plans for us. It had snowed all night and the city was chaos. We saw the heavy, wet snow take down trees from the warmth of Josh’s place, one of which took out the phone lines to the building. The power was out and there was a pretty constant sound of sirens echoing through the city. Let’s wait this one out for a day.

As Josh had gone to work, our buddy Wonger picked us up to go for lunch. Something Asian inspired, Colin had texted. Well, I ended up having the best Pho of my life thus far, including both soft tendons and tripe which were new to me.

Back at Josh's place I snapped a quick shot of a world map he had on the wall and with a little photoshop magic drew a rough route south.

That night brought on beers and pizza and eventually a hike up Nose Hill to overlook the city. And drink more beers, of course.

1 - A Typical Start

I woke this morning with a fuzzy feeling through my head and body. I lay there for a minute trying to figure out why I felt this way; was it the late night, or something else? Wait, why did I have a late night? I stumbled out of the room I had been staying in at my folks’ place for the last week and remembered rather promptly as I toppled over on a sleeping bag laid out on the floor. I’m going to South America!! Today was the big day of departure, the day I had been anticipating for the last three years of school and summer work.

I looked at my phone to see that it was an hour later than my alarm was set for. Still not packed? Check. Colin’s going to be waiting, but I doubt he expects anything different. The milk poured over my crisped rice cereal which began to make pleasurable sounds as I sipped my coffee. This will probably be the last time I have fresh ground beans in some time.

I hurriedly stuffed my extra pair of underwear and t-shirt into a compression sack and tossed it in my saddle bag. I saw the large black ABS tube leaning against the wall that I was meant to mount to the front of my skid plate; this was to hold all my tools which were currently in a scattered pile on my dad’s work bench. Vice grips, a few appropriately sized metric wrenches, some needle-nose pliers, a ratchet, and a driver with some hex, phillips, and blade bits. A perfectly sized crescent wrench hung neatly on the wall, so it too ended up in my stash.

As I made the 10 minute journey to Colin’s house I recognized the extra weight up high and took note of it. I didn’t have more than a Jason-sized sliver of seat space between my large tank bag and my duffle – I’m going to need to do something about that.

Once there we both took the opportunity to do a couple last minute fixes. I had just replaced the touch screen digitizer on my old Zumo 450 GPS last night and needed to wire it and my 12 volt outlet into the accessory relay I had made on my trusty KLR, Mitzi. Mitzi was a wonderful girl whom I met in Buffalo a year and a half ago and had fallen madly in love with. She could take me anywhere, along with my camera equipment and camping gear. A guitar will join me down the road and I’m not sure what else I could possibly need for the next nine or so months heading for Ushuaia, the southernmost city in the world.

Meet Colin and I. I'm the one with the dirty muzzy.