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Red Tiger Racing 2007 BC Trip |
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June 18, 2007 (Day 1)
- Day started out interesting as Nolski had his headlight burn out so
we ended up leaving for Calgary 2 1/2 hours later than what we wanted
to and had to change a few plans when we got there as we were getting
in to late after taking a wrong turn trying to get to Okotoks and taking
eight hours to get to Calgary.
Truck All Loaded And Ready To Go!!
- Day was good and ended up putting on about 500km and ending up in Cranbrook, BC. Day started a little rocky with us getting a warning in Calgary and threatened that we could have our licenses pulled and bikes towed just after we finished our breakfast. Once we explained to the police that we were on our way out and on our first day of our trip he seemed a little more forgiving (good thing). All we ended up with was three warnings and told not to speed or get stopped for anything while in Calgary or Alberta, but do whatever we want in BC.
- Only problem we had all day was a poor decision on taking the scenic route not far from Black Diamond, Alberta on a gravel road that was way less than ideal for the street bikes, but still made it to Cranbrook in good time, had a snooze, shower, food and ended up going out to catch the last 3 minutes of the stripper show and called it night.
Waterfall we saw in Lundbreck, Alberta this day
- Day went good again ending up in Kelowna, BC at Bonnie Allan's place (Nolan's hometown friend) after a 600km day. Hit a few nice roads during the day and finally got to use the whole tire to the edge. Seen some beautiful country going through the mountains and took two ferrys. Highlight of the day was that we saw another group of sport bike guys that we let go ahead of us as we thought they would be pretty fast as they all had nice new bikes and wearing Arai and Suomy helmets, but had to show them how to take the corners and ended up passing them with the trailer in tow.
- Day went very not good. I ended up wiping my bike out on a corner near Lytton, BC and probably ended up totalling my bike off, but won't know till I get it back to Saskatchewan to make a claim on it. When the bike slipped off the road it slid into the ditch and flipped upside down for a bit then came back down all with the trailer in tow. I wrecked a lot of the fairing, but could still rode it to Lillooet with no clutch and found a shop and ended up rigging a reservoir and made the rest of the night to Whistler were we stayed for the night. I ended up fairing out pretty good out of the whole thing with a scrape on my arm. I have included some pictures of the bike at the scene of the accident so enjoy.
Me picking the bike up just after I wiped out. (Thank you Pinhead for helping while you are snapping a picture)
After we got the bike picked up and standing again I had to pick a bunch of stuff up.
- Left Lillooet and took a really nice road to Pemberton and passed through Whistler. From there we headed to Horseshoe Bay and caught a ferry to Langdon where we met Kari. She was an awesome girl that let us stay with her and her husband Tristan's place in Halfmoon Bay for the night. To top it all off she did our laundry for us that night and made us coffee in the morning before we were off. They also proved what a small world it was as Tristan is from Maidstone (about an hour) and knows my aunt and uncle from there. Ended up putting about 310km on at the end of the day.
Waterfall just outside Lillooet on the Duffy Lake Road.
Kari & Tristan In Halfmoon Bay On The Sunshine Coast (Great hosts)
- Headed out from Kari & Tristan's place with the weather less than perfect and headed to Earl's Cove where we caught a ferry then to Powell River where I did a few more repairs on my bike then caught another ferry to Comox. Hit some rain, but made it to Victoria, BC where we stayed at Nolski's Uncle and Aunts for the night. Pinhead and I went to a movie in Victoria and ended up getting pulled over by the police again because our plates weren't displayed properly, but got away with another warning and put into the BC police computer system. This is now the second province we have our names and license plates put into the computer and got warnings for, but still no tickets (Knock on wood). Put on 340km during the day.
- We took a car out to Peddler's Bay and went fishing for halibut in the ocean with a friend of Nolan's uncle named Claude Champagne. We ended up not getting anything, but two dog fish which look like small sharks. Once we got back to shore and Nolan's aunt and uncle we packed up again and headed to Nanaimo. We checked into a motel that was a dump and tried getting our money back because we weren't going to stay there, but had problems and have a meeting with the manager tomorrow morning. Ended up going down the street to a much nicer hotel and called it a night. Pretty slow day only putting about 120km on the bikes.
Nolski holding up his catch of the day
All three of us on Claude's Boat
- On this morning after a lot of arguing we finally got our money back from the first hotel we booked into the night before that we didn't end up staying at because it was gross and unclean. Pinhead argued and argued his little head off until he finally got his money back and things straightened out. Because of that we got a late start and went for breakfast in Nanaimo with an old college friend of mine, Shannon. From there we headed up to Tofino and saw some more beautiful BC scenery on the way. Once in Tofino we found a small waterside lounge and had a few drinks and wings. We left Tofino and stopped at a beach a few kilometers away, played in the sand and had some good bonding time. (as seen below) From there we headed back to Nanaimo and went to another friend of mines place (Beans) just outside Nanaimo and got a quick grand tour of his dairy farm. From there we went and caught the ferry from Nanaimo to Horseshoe Bay then rode into Vancouver and met up with a friend of Nolski's Yoon Kim. With the late start we still had a great day of riding and managed to put on about 550km.
Picture of a lake with the mountains in the background on the way to Tofino, BC.
Coastline from Radar Hill near Tofino, BC.
Nolski and Devin found some quality time on the beach.
- Had a good day today waking up in Vancouver and going to "Mountain Equipment Co-op" and getting a few things for the girlfriends and things like that. We went lunch with Yoon and were on our way out of the Vancouver and on our way to Summerland to meet an old college teacher of mine and Nolans. Had a good visit with him and ended up back in Kelowna at Bonnie's place again for the night. Throughout the whole day we put on about 550kms.
Scenery from the edge of Summerland where our college teacher retired.
- Got a late start leaving Kelowna, but still wanted to really push making it to Calgary for the evening and ended up putting just over 600km on the bikes at the end of the day. Finally made it to Calgary around 10:00pm and made it to the strippers. From there we went back to Aaron Moss's place where we sat down, had a drink and celebrated the end of the trip and our two year bet that my motorbike wouldn't make 50,000km. Had a rough few last km's, but it made it.
- Pinhead was up and gone early at 7:30am headed home for Saskatoon as he hadn't got any for a few weeks. We are assuming that closer he got to Saskatoon he was having a "harder" time. Anyways, we phoned him later and he was all relaxed and glad to be home. Nolski and I wanted to do the Kananaskis loop from Calgary so Aaron jumped on my bike with me and we took the 320km trip. Got hit by some heavy downpour on the trip, but got through it, dried out and back into Calgary where we settled down at Aaron's again.
June 29th, 2007 (Day 12)
- Didn't do much this day as we were still in Calgary, pretty much just
waiting for the race day to begin so that we could go watch and head home.
Did some shopping around Calgary, watched a movie then went out to my
girlfriends family reunion just outside Calgary. Nolski headed back into
the city and ended up having to rent a hotel room by himself for $150
so that kinda sucked for him. Bonus is that we will be watching the first
day of the motorcycle race in Calgary tomorrow.
- Ended up finally rounding the trip up and watched some motorcycle road racing and it was pretty exiting. Amazing how much power some of the bikes had and how quick that they got moving by the end of the straight away. After the races we didn't do too much and camped out at Bree's (My Girlfriends) family reunion and planning on going to the races again the next day.
July 1st, 2007 (Day 14)
- Woke up and decided that we had seen enough racing the day before and
decided to head home. Nolski drove by himself and headed to Swift Current
to go to his parents place for a bit, and I loaded my poor beaten bike
onto the trailer and headed home.
This concludes our 2007 BC Trip. Hope you enjoyed the pictures and story that went along with it and would like to send a big thanks to everyone that helped us out this year with accomodations and any help in any way. Goes to show how great people from Canada can be when we were helped out with places to stay, laundry and any mechanical problems.