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Published: October 20th 2012
Okay, so I finally made it out to Vancouver. It took me five days and a not-so-straight-forward 1936 kilometers to do it, but I made it. I have to give a big thankyou to the Nickel family for putting me up at their place (again), letting me store my stuff at their place (again), and reminding me of everything I would otherwise forget to do or bring with me (again). So thankyou Nickels!
I have decided to name my bike The Red Baron, after a non-existent bar in Lac La Biche.
I left Edmonton at around 2:00 on Sunday, thinking I might make it down to Lethbridge that night. Six and half hours later, I rolled into Calgary. Sunday was the first time I had ever loaded up the bike with all my gear so I was a bit nervous about riding down the number 2 to Calgary; instead I meandered my way down to C-town on secondary highways, stopping frequently to put on more clothes, then take off more clothes, then, you guessed it, put on more clothes. At one stop, I came out of the gas station and about 8 bikers had parked around and were checking
out my bike. When they found out I was heading to South America, they started offering advice on border crossing into Mexico, and gave me some contact info for one of their buddies who had just headed down that way a week ago. I was just happy they didn't ask me any questions about my bike because then they would have realized how little I know about bikes. So overall, the first biker encounter was a positive experience.
I crashed at my sister's (adopted) place in Calgary that night (Thanks Christine!), and headed down to Lethbridge the next morning to visit my friend Rae. This was my first biking mistake. As one of the windiest places on earth, Lethbridge is a terrible, terrible place to take a motorcycle. The worst part about fighting through the wind to get to Lethbridge was that I was headed in the opposite direction of Vancouver. It was great to visit with Rae but then I had to drive back the way I had just come, through the wind which was blowing away at a steady 40kph and gusting up 100. Did I mention this sucked! The wind just kept getting worse from Lethbridge
to Pincher Creek, where it finally started to let up. I spent the night in a cheap motel in Crowsnest Pass, near Franks Slide.
The next morning, I got a taste of riding in rain which is quite pleasant compared to wind. Another biker at the motel looked at the sky and said it was going to be a rainsuit day. Rainsuit, eh? Should probably add that to the list of things to buy here in Vancouver. I stayed ahead of the rain most of the day, but it caught me on the other side of Creston, BC. And then turned into a bit of snow near the top of the pass there. The bad thing about snow is that it doesn't flow off the visor of your helmet, so I had to constantly wipe off my visor, while keeping an eye on the semi-trucks behind me. Still way better than wind though! I spent the third night in Castlegar, which sounds like a place right out of Game of Thrones.
Day 4 was a great riding day, down into Osoyoos which has some rediculous views, and through the valley up highway 97 to Kelowna where I stayed
at my cousin Terry's place. We went for a bit of a wine tasting, then out for dinner and had a good visit. Yesterday, I drove the last 450 km to Vancouver. The drive started aweful (rain and snow again), then was amazing (highway 5A, deserted, dry, and windy roads), and then I got to Hope... where it started raining hard and didn't stop all the way to Grandma's place in North Vancouver. Thanks to Vancouver's awesome traffic and bridge construction, this meant I got to hang out in the pouring rain for three solid hours. I actually poured water out of my boots when I finally arrived.
So, I've done more riding in the last five days than in the rest of my life combined. I feel like the wind, rain, and snow lessons from this first leg of the trip should serve me well down the road. That said, I will never take a bike anywhere near Lethbridge again.
Later,
Andrew
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Dave Lamb
non-member comment
Looks like fun
Looks like a good interesting start there Andrew. I am looking forward to following your progress for, among other things, the geography lesson which I am told that I am lacking in. Good luck and have a great ride.