Motorcycle-Overland

Finally...

2009-03-15T14:48:05Z

March is here. 2 weeks until April. I thought we'd be covered in snow until May.
Weather is getting better each day. A few good rain storms to wash away the residual salt/dirt and out comes the bike.

How much snow is enough?

2009-02-05T01:18:50Z

Toronto has been covered in snow since mid-December. Nice if you're 7 years old and live near a toboggan hill. Not so nice if you're and adult trying to get from point A to point B through the city.
It should all be gone in another 8-9 weeks :(

Bike is stored at my buddy's place and looking forward to getting back on it. I'd love totake a trip to Yellowknife this summer. I'm un-employed so I have the time. Just lacking $$$. Oh well...

- out -

Not the usual summer

2008-10-05T19:36:36Z

Now into October. Still have the bike out, but already thinking about storage. Between band rehearsals and rain I still managed to ride 10k this season thanks to the work commute. Spent more time in gridlock though. I'm very happy with the GS. I've wanted one for years and the wait was worth it.

Summer . . .finally

2008-07-05T16:04:15Z

Took a while but summer is here. As usual for the past few years we've had no spring. Lousy, cold weather until May, then summer-like in June.

I've had the bike for 3 months now and have not been putting the kind of mileage I usually do. Just under 4k km. Shitty weather and weekend band commitments have kept us from taking weekend rides. Oh well...I will save $$$ on service.

So far the GS is riding great. Same old BMW 4200 rpm 'vibes' but it's beginning to smooth out now. This bike seems windier than the 1150R, but I think we've had windier weather this summer. Either way, good to be riding.

- out -

2 weeks until pick-up

2008-03-30T15:13:14Z

The longest winter of my life is nearly over. Crusty, grey snowbanks still flank most side streets and highways. I hope the summer hits as hard as this past winter.

New bike & 6" of snow

2007-12-02T16:00:29Z

Just traded in the 1150R that carried us across the country in 2006.
The new steed is a 2007 1200GS.

Looking out the window at 6" of snow (this early in December??) and at the calendar.
4 full months of anxiety to deal with before I can get out on the new ride.

There are far too many accessories available for the GS. My credit card will take a beating before I put the first kilometer on the thing!

- out -

A Labrador state of bike

2007-09-04T01:45:29Z

- bike transmission goes in English Point Labrador.

No, wait....now it went in Deloro Ontario. Same shit, different Province.

We had a gorgeous ride through eastern Ontario until the transmission went again. This seems to happen every 33k kms. An interesting conversation with BMW awaits me this week. Warranty expired 32 days ago. I'm confident they'll repair it, but the root of the problem is the main issue now.

You can tell the season is beginning to wind down once you notice it's dark before 8:30.
We'll squeeze in another 1-2 trips before storage. Just not sure what bike we'll be riding!

- out -

Middle of August already??

2007-08-13T00:31:22Z

Mid-way through August and it feels like yesterday we were packing for the May-24 weekend trip.
Like every year, the summer is flying by. Sometime this week I'll hit the 10k km mark for the season. Don't know where the miles came from as we haven't been on any extended trips longer than a weekend. I guess the 60 km round-trip to work and back has helped. I've found some great roads this summer. The latest was in Miners Bay, just south of Minden. Lots of hills and twists. Will have to get up there again before the snow starts to fly. Maybe a fall colours ride?

29 degrees in Toronto - and we're lovin' it

2007-06-12T02:14:39Z

I picked up the bike in mid-April. I thought it was spring! We no longer have a spring. We jump from winter to summer. Must be a global warming thing.

No extended trips planned this year, but we've managed a 3-day trip over the Victoria day weekend and we'll plan another few over the summer.

Some of our friends, however, are travelling.
- Jeff (Toronto)is presently riding to Deals Gap to tame the Dragon. He took 1 week and will have a blast!
- Uwe (Germany) recently finished touring through Japan and is presently in Vladivostok (Russia) having a few brews with some other riders.
- Sergio and Ligia (Brazil) are working and riding around parts of Brazil.
- Sjoerd (a new acquaintance from Norwich, Ontario) returned in April from a trip to Mexico and is always planning his next trip. He's been to Mexico about 30 times and has written a detailed guide focusing on inexpensive places to stay and tons of travelling info on Mexico.

We are enjoying the stellar weather here in Toronto and get out whenever we can.

Cheers,
- Lorne

Ahhhh!!!

2007-04-05T01:41:44Z

Winter is almost over. Another riding season to look forward to, and another useless entry so this journal doesn't expire from inactivity!

- L

Blog & site

2007-01-03T02:00:31Z

We've noticed that people are finding our live-journal entries, but not our site.
For those that are interested we have trip pics, our route, packing list, links and videos on our web site at http://www.motorcycle-overland.com

Cheers,

Back to Regular Life...

2006-11-04T19:43:11Z

It took us a few weeks to re-adjust to stationary life in Toronto, but we're now both employed and back on the 9-to-5 treadmill with 2.5 million other Torontonians.

We have a short trip in the plans for the summer of 2007. No other plans for an extended trip right now.

It's now time to store the bike for the winter...so until April I'll surf and read about other traveller's stories and think about our next adventure.

- L

Toronto - home

2006-08-24T21:37:34Z

We got back to Toronto on Aug 23. Ninety days and 27800 kms after we started in May. It's been a fantastic adventure. We'd like to do something like this again in the future.

26000 on the bike
1100 km by cargo ship (3 days)
350 km by flatbed truck
250 km by bus
7 ferries throughout the country.

This has been the trip of a lifetime, so far, and one we'll remember always.

Thanks for all the comments, and those folks who followed our journal quietly.

We have met so many people on this trip, and a couple of weirdos, but that goes with the territory.

No accidents, illness or mis-haps. Lucky us!

- Lorne & Cindy

- - out - -

Kenora - Ontario

2006-08-18T02:26:10Z

Well, we're back in Ontario. After Milk River AB, we spent days riding through the prairies, on secondary roads, and of course, some were dirt and others just horrible. We stayed at a farm B&B one night and got the farm tour the next morning. Very neat! We still meet lots of people who are curious about our journey.

We'll be in Toronto before next Saturday. Not sure which roads we'll take or which towns we'll pass though, but this is likely our final post while on the road.

Thanks, everyone, for the comments and the recent anniversary wishes (we were in a camp site in Assiniboia Sask).

It's been amazing. We've travelled over 25,000 km to date.
We'd like to do something like this again in the future. Sponsors???

- Lorne

So hard to write a tidy paragraph when so much has happened....don't know where to start. The prairies have been beautiful, such a stark contrast to the mountains. We witnessed a bad accident in, ok don't laugh because it was awful, Climax, SK. A truck tire blew up in a garage of the service station where we stopped to fuel up. The guy was conscious, had a broken arm and bruised face and help was soon on its way....he didn't remember a thing. Anyway, there were lots of people there to help and hopefully he's ok. Weird to be back in Ontario. We have mixed feelings about going back. Miss everyone but so used to life on the road.

Thank you all so much for staying in touch with us and your anniversary wishes. (Did Lorne mention that the anniversary campsite was beside a hockey arena?) Tres romantique, n'est ce pas? But it was great to be doing this incredible trip......Less than a week left...

Cindy

Milk River - Alberta

2006-08-14T00:12:59Z

Milk River is a tiny town a few miles away from Writing-On-Stone provincial park.

From Vancouver we took the Crowsnest Hwy (Hwy 3) through some MORE amazing scenery and roads. We passed through the Frank Slide today - where Turtle Mountain gave way and rocks the size of mini-vans filled in the Frank valley and covered 3/4 of the town.

Just past Crowsnest, the mountains faded behind us and we've spenmt the last 2 hours in the priaries. The southern part is nicer than the northern prairies - I think.

Tomorrow we should be in Sask.

- L&C

Tofino B.C.

2006-08-10T16:21:22Z

Tofino is a resort town, right on the pacific ocean (Banff west??). Furthest west you can go on Vancouver Island. Gorgeous here. We spent 3 days on the Island - mainly because I had to get my bike serviced here. The roads are fantastic! The trees are emormous, some of them have a 4-foot trunk diameter.

Today we head back to Vancouver and continue east - this time for sure!

- L&C

Vancouver - B.C.

2006-08-06T02:31:08Z

Finally some warm weather again. Northern and central B.C. is beautiful but much cooler.
Camped the last 2 night. Last night was off Hwy 99 in Marble Canyon. No trailers! Wooo Hooo!! Quiet place on the banks of Crown Lake.

Took Hwy 99 south from Clinton to Vancouver. This is the Sea-to-Sky highway. It's nuts!
(Jeff..it's 100 kms of Forks road - hairpins included, down hill). We passed Whistler and Squamish. Locals call this the nicest road in Canada. Can't really disagree, but we've been on some great roads all over.

As it turns out, we arrived in Vancouver late this aft and found out it's Pride weekend here, plus a long weekend. We made at least 10 calls and finally found a room - right in the Village (they have their own Church St. here). The next 2 nights we'll be in a hostel. Tuesday we take the ferry to Victoria island...so we're going a little further west before we head to Toronto.

- Lorne

Stewart B.C / Hyder, Alaska

2006-08-02T02:14:18Z

We're in Stewart B.C.
Nice small town that has yet to be gentrified. From Whitehorse we took the South Klondike Hwy to Skagway Alaska. WOW...this 110 km stretch had the nicest scenery I've seen in Canada so far. Emerald Lake is beautiful and looks like an emerald in colour.

Skagway is a beautiful setting, but too many places to buy porceline figurines and they have a Starbucks - figures. It's also a port-of-call for the Alaskan cruise ships, so tourists are plentiful most of the time.

The road to Skagway follows the Chilkoot Pass and the White Pass & Yukon Rail route - which was built to get gold-diggers from Skagway to Whitehorse during the gold rush.

From there we took the Alaska Hwy to the Cassiar Hwy in BC. Incredibly scenic as it's a narrow road the the trees are right there about 10 feet away from you in some areas.

We know you Torontonians are swealtering in 35+ degree weather, but here in northern B.C., it's about 15 degrees with spurts of sun showers.

The 65 km ride to Stewart was like winter, cold, rainy, sunny and snow capped mountains. We also stopped to photograph a glacier.

All is going well and we know we are heading south because the sun goes down around 10:30 pm. Big different 500 km makes. In the Yukon, it's still setting after 1 AM.

- Lorne

That stretch from Whitehorse to Skagway is insanely beautiful - we were laughing with absolute disbelief that we were seeing all this - it was crazy-gorgeous, and just kept getting more and more beautiful. And we've seen bears walking at the side of the road. In BC before we got to Skagway, we visited this guy who nurses eagles back to health, so we got to see them close up. One was sitting on his bed....A couple of days ago, on the way to Rancheria (in Yukon) we saw a moose calmly grazing in a pond while lightning forked over the mountains in the distance. I figured out how to take mini movies on my camera, so Live and Amazing Footage will soon be coming to dvd! I am making a movie called Pillion which I've already shopped to several um interested um producers. I did swim in Pine Lake in the Yukon, but did not bathe there.....It was a little chilly.

Cindy

Whitehorse - Yukon

2006-07-29T20:33:27Z

This is our 2nd time here. Stopped in Whitehorse for a night last week.
We're heading south-east now. Weather is great here, as this is the driest part of Yukon - little rain and little snow.

We spent last night camping just outside Haines Junction YT. Gorgeous area. Yukon government campsites are, by far, the nicest we've stayed in on our trip. We camped at Pine River, across from - you gessed it, mountains. It was nice and quiet until the RV's arrived. The place got louder and looked like a Wal-Mart parking lot. And of course, they all have to bring their dogs!

All is well and we're eating just fine. We don't always shower though!

- L&C

Tok - Alaska

2006-07-27T19:19:55Z

"North to Alaska" they say, and here we are.
Took us 7 hours to ride 300 km from Dawson to Tok.

The Top of the World highway is actually on the top, carved along the edge of a mountain range. One bad turn and you slide down the outside for about 300 feet. Oh...the first 10 km was in the clouds, or fog as we call it.

Scenery is even better than before. The dirt/gravel road was difficult as it rained earlier in the morning. Stones, gravel and muck for 65 kms. We made it with no problems, other than being covered in mud from the knees down. The bike was caked with 1" of mud from the bottom of the seat down. Power washed it this morning.

Today we head back to Yukon, then to BC. From here on it's south and east.

- Lorne

Hey, what has sheer cliffs on one (or both) sides, mountains on the other and mud and gravel all over? Yes, the spectacular Top of the World Highway. I was a little concerned when I saw all these tshirts in Dawson City saying "I Survived the Top of the World Highway". What's that about? I thought. Well, now I know. A rider we met said that the word was that the conditions yesterday were "marbles covered with baby shit". How true. The fog with the cliffs on either side was a nice touch. But I'm glad we did it. It was definitely an adventure and Lorne was a champion, getting us through without any spills. And the scenery is like nothing we've ever seen. You really do feel like you are on the top of the world.

- Bouncing Pillion Pothole Woman of the Almost-Arctic

Dawson City Yukon

2006-07-25T05:42:54Z

Were in Klondike town. This place is pretty cool. They have kept this town pretty authentic - and no Starbucks!

Streets are mostly dirt. No sidewalks, but boardwalks. What they say is right. Once you visit the Yukon, you fall in love with it - in the summer anyway. Two days ago we were in Whitehorse. Nice town, but a little less character than Dawson.

We are now off the Alaska Highway and took the Klondike Highway into Dawson. It's just as beautiful. On the way here we hit a 22 km stretch of construction. That meant 22 km of stones and gravel. Good practice for the Top of the World Highway, which we'll take into Alaska.

We met up again with our Brazillian friends and we'll head into Alaska with them. They gave us a slide show of their travels through South America. It's incredible. The highways and scenery is so different from here. Must be nice in real life. Maybe that will be our next big trip.

Tomorrow is a rest day and we'll wander around Dawson. Weather here is hot and sunny. No humidity either.

- Lorne

Dawson City is great and the roads through the Yukon and Northern BC have been lovely and amazing. Except for that teensy construction issue today. But so much of this trip and any trip, are the people you meet and the stories they tell.... After a great day and beautiful scenery to Whitehorse (Saturday) we stayed at this guesthouse called Heritage House. The hosts, Bernie and Pam, are warm funny down-to-earth people, and told the most amazing stories. A friend of theirs and his girlfriend joined us in the back yard with 4 dogs and they told Harrowing and Entertaining Bear and Bush stories that were wild, and had us sitting on the edge of our seats one minute and howling with laughter the next. We will never forget it. Nothing like sitting in a beautiful back yard and listening to stories under the midnight sun.....Weird night camping in the back lot of a motel last night and tonight luxing it out at the Eldorado Hotel in Dawson. Met Serge and Ligia for dinner and then slide show at their campsite. Wish I had time to relate the bear and plane crash stories (luckily everyone lived to tell the tale)

-Cindy

Watson Lake - Yukon

2006-07-21T23:39:36Z

Hi everyone.
We made it to the Yukon. Watston Lake is mile 635 of the Alaska Highway. Strange up here...so far north the sun sets at 1.30 a.m., and rises again around 3 a.m. We are north of 60 now. The mosquitoes and black flies are relentless - never seen it this bad in our lives.

The Alaska Highway is incredible, and of course, every marker or town is 'famous'. Amazing history behind this highway. Google it!

We have seen mountains, green rivers (from copper deposits) and took a dip in the Liard Hot Spring yesterday. Water is between 108 and 129 degrees F, depanding on how close to the source (I got within 10 feet of it!!).

Scenerey is like no ther place we've been. More intense than NF and NS. Wild terrain and more animals crossing the highway then anywhere we've been. Yesterday alone, grazing on the road side (and crossing the highway) we saw moose, caribou, mountain sheep, horses, mountain goats, a black bear and a heard of buffalo. They are emormous. We have to stop until they are off the road - which can take between 2 and 10 minutes.

We will be in Whitehorse tomorrow and Dawson City by Sun or Mon.

We met a couple from Brazil who are riding to the north shore of Alaska. We have been riding on their heels since Dawson Creek B.C., now we are riding with them and sharing a campsite tonight. They invited us to ride to Fairbanks AK with them....we'll see.

Other than that - not a whole lot happening LOL!

- Lorne

Ok, Look, everyone can eat as much steak as they want in my honour, just be sure it's one of those tofu steaks, or "fakes". Thanks everyone for your sweet and amusing birthday wishes. I like the name Cinderblock and plan to make it my nom de plume, when I write my memoirs. This trip has been amazing... I didn't have the heart to post anything for a while after Edmonton, I was heartsick after leaving my friend, after not seeing her for 12 years. It was amazing to see Maureen and Adrian and they were great to us. I cried under my helmet all day across the prairies. Lorne thought I was just hot. Northern BC and the Yukon have been Mutual of Omaha Wild Kingdom so far. It is so foreign and amazing for us to see so much wildlife after Toronto, land of the noble squirrel and raccoon. Look, I hate to complain about mosquitoes again, but I have a theory that each one has its own trademark biting pattern, just like no 2 snowflakes are alike. I think one had a plan to make 10 perfectly spaced bites across my forehead. They have all swollen up and my new nickname is Stegasaurus Head. I can't believe we're in the Yukon. Yesterday the scenery was out of this world. Muncho Lake is breathtaking and we had the lakeside road to ourselves. Thanks everyone for your comments.
Funny you should mention that restaurant, Tree Spirit. We ate across the road from there in Nova Scotia and took several pictures of it.

Thanks, everyone
-Cindy

Dawson Creek - B.C.

2006-07-18T19:41:52Z

Dawson Creek - Mile "0" of the famous Alaska Highway. We are spending a rest day here, and staying at the Alaska Hotel. It's a funky old hotel from the 1930's - and it looks like not much has changed. It's dirt cheap, and you get a room with a bed, window and a pedestal sink. I guess this is like the Gladstone back in the day when folks would 'live' in hotels.

Lot's of cowboys up here. Dawson Creek is 55 degrees north latitude - which is about 1100 kms north of Toronto. Sun goes down around 11 PM. People here are nice so far - nicer than Albertans.

Next is the Alaska Highway to Yukon. Once we hit Dawson City, we start our route south and back to Toronto.

To date we have travelled over 14,000 kms by bike. Add another 1500 km including boat, bus and pick-up truck in Quebec. 10,000 km left to go!

- Lorne & Cin

Banff - Alberta

2006-07-14T17:27:53Z

Well we made it to the Rockies after 6 days through the prairies!
Yup..just like the post cards, only larger than life. Weather has been great. Warm/sunny all day, and a brief shower (or storm) for 1 hour after dinner. Evenings still cool down a bit, but after camping in 6 degree waether in Newfoundland - we feel we can handle it.

Bike is riding well and have a 10k service set up for Vancouver (beginning of August).

We've travelled over 13k kms so far. Just over half way thgrough the trip. We are in Banff now, heading up to Jasper and Hinton. Next week we'll be in Yukon.

We've met many people. More bikes out west. Surprising how many people have lived or are from Toronto. Wonder why they left??

Taking plenty of pics and recording in our journals - a way of life already.

- Lorne

Edmonton Alberta

2006-07-10T02:26:10Z

We're in Edmonton staying with some friends of mine who I haven't seen in 12 years. Today was a nice relaxing ride to Edmonton, with a stop to see the Ribstones, aboriginal rock carvings like the ribs of a buffalo, just sitting in the middle of a field. Camped last night in Dilberry Provincial Park in SK, after a spectacular sunset, and moon shining over the water.... Cindy

We're taking a rest day tomorrow, and suiting the bike up with new tires. After Edmonton we head to Calgary then the Rockies.

- Lorne
P.S. Jeff...now in Ed, update the map!!