2014 Western Canada Summer Ride & Camp (KTM 950/990/1190)

A thread for planning the event first brought up over in Orange Crush. Let's talk dates and routes and get this thing happening!
I'll put a few ideas out there to get the discussion started:

Duration: 4 days? Means 3 nights camping and, if we keep it central, most of 3 days of riding, with enough time for getting to and from home for everyone.

Dates: Aug 1-4? The 4th is a stat. holiday in BC, so for us here in this province, only one day off would be required. It's late enough in the year that higher terrain will be snow free.

Where: I like the idea of an West-East traverse across the lower portion of the province. That would mean chances to explore the Southern Okanagan, Kootenays and maybe the Purcell/Crowsnest regions, all very cool areas with very different scenery and fun riding.
On dirt, of course. I also like the idea of having easy / hard routes for the whole ride. Thoughts?

I am on the wrong coast or Onterrable as some call it from the west. But check out www.gravel travel.ca for the TCAT that was made but some of the riders on this forum. It is free to download the maps etc..it is designed to be doable with big bikes and some tech sections. It stretches from east coast to the west coast 18000km of road and trails. Here are a few pages to read up on it http://advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=594395.

I am in for this and August is fine, should be great weather.

This sounds like it would be a blast! Maybe we could incorporate some KVR in to the mix if we wanted to stay on the lower part of the province? <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" /><o></o>

This is a great weekend to be off highway too , lots of red plates (as if there needed a reason to keep it off-road )

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4 days is too short, your better off doing a big off road loop through the Chilcotin, maybe out to Chilco lake...

Just might be able to make it.

This little snippet off Hwy 3 from last July is an example of some of the kinds of riding that I enjoy.

I'd like to string together a route out of a bunch of pieces of riding sort of like this; abanodoned, rough FSR combined with steepish/loose quad trails, great views, alpine passes, few people and the occasional burnt out mining exploration camp, lol. Singletrack is good. Nice camping spots along the way are a plus.

Hopefully lots of us across the province have an interesting section that can be incorporated. I don't mind trying to weave together a route from the bits if people start putting them forward.

I'm going to focus on figuring out a fun "blue" route. Please don't bother with posting easy route stuff for now - I'll work toward figuring out the general riding plan for the blue and post a draft with in the next month or so, providing enough suggestions come in. Then hopefully somebody will step forward to tackle a parallel "green" route.

Here's a few pics.

<a href="http://s910.photobucket.com/user/Kel_ds/media/ClaimstakeMtn_zps1ca9a5bb.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="https://www.advrider.com/advrider-photobucket-images/images/K/Kel_ds_ClaimstakeMtn_zps1ca9a5bb.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo ClaimstakeMtn_zps1ca9a5bb.jpg"/></a>

<a href="http://s910.photobucket.com/user/Kel_ds/media/2013-07-01184744_zpsa20a5000.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="https://www.advrider.com/advrider-photobucket-images/images/K/Kel_ds_2013-07-01184744_zpsa20a5000.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo 2013-07-01184744_zpsa20a5000.jpg"/></a>

<a href="http://s910.photobucket.com/user/Kel_ds/media/2013-07-01184050_zpsc2fb7c09.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="https://www.advrider.com/advrider-photobucket-images/images/K/Kel_ds_2013-07-01184050_zpsc2fb7c09.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo 2013-07-01184050_zpsc2fb7c09.jpg"/></a>

<a href="http://s910.photobucket.com/user/Kel_ds/media/2013-07-01184217_zps8051da9a.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="https://www.advrider.com/advrider-photobucket-images/images/K/Kel_ds_2013-07-01184217_zps8051da9a.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo 2013-07-01184217_zps8051da9a.jpg"/></a>

<a href="http://s910.photobucket.com/user/Kel_ds/media/2013-07-01190541_zps817b5966.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="https://www.advrider.com/advrider-photobucket-images/images/K/Kel_ds_2013-07-01190541_zps817b5966.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo 2013-07-01190541_zps817b5966.jpg"/></a>

<a href="http://s910.photobucket.com/user/Kel_ds/media/2013-07-01184750_zpsf40dc836.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="https://www.advrider.com/advrider-photobucket-images/images/K/Kel_ds_2013-07-01184750_zpsf40dc836.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo 2013-07-01184750_zpsf40dc836.jpg"/></a>

Agreed, but people have busy lives. I'm flexible to a point, but others may not be as much.
I'll go with the consensus on this question, though I think 4 days total (3 days planned, 1 day for travel to/from the starting point) is really the minimum to get a decent amount of riding in......maybe I'll even try to figure out how to do the poll thing.

Good day Locals .

I live in North Vancouver and do allot of evening ride Squamish / Cat Lake ect
Or do the Big Loop Pembeton,Mud Lake .china Head ,Lillouet ect and Back .
There is a 12 of us on 9xx but always challenging to go for overnight .
I usually ride solo but always better to ride with a buddy .We should make a list of rider with there information ? or maybe have beer / coffee one of those days ? Will be busy for the long weekend but love to ride and explore .Claude

This sounds great ! I like Claude's idea of a get together to chat about routes, etc…
And perhaps a (shorter) pre-ride (China head) to get a feel for the groups abilities, preferences, etc… This can be done in a day, or via an overnighter.

This is gathering steam , I'm happy about that as I'd rather be riding than up at 11:30 downloading and looking at gpx files on ADV rider.

I would sooner be making them than looking at them.

If someone was to paint a little patch of orange on their ride ...or already have some orange.......would you consider allowing them to tag along and watch?

I don't see why not. The only reason this is called a KTM ride is because it started over in Orange Crush with some 950/990 owners.

I'm usually up for an evening ride. A get-together to ponder routes would also be good. Maybe I'll suggest a date /place.

I don't know that we'll be able to get the full group together as many won't be able to commit until much closer to Aug., so using a pre-ride as a way to guage collective ability probably won't work well. I think using separate easy and harder routes would allow for variety in ability/interest.

I am all for getting out and riding and meeting some new people, though

This is a great idea.
It's pretty easy for me to get time off from work so I will be following this thread.
Sorry that right now I can not make a 100% commitment

Don't know if I'll be around on that weekend, but great idea getting a bunch of folks together for a ride.

Happy to stay tuned and meet up - I'll likely be looking for an easier route than you guys, with not much dirt experience. Really like the idea of alternate routes all ending in the same place so the KTMs can hang out at night.

M.

I'd be in for all and anything.

I found a cool route solo last year that took me almost from manning park on highway 3, through to Keremeos. It's a cool little area with lots of unexplored stuff. There seems to be a road across the border too, but was really dug out for one person and a 990.
Lots of stuff in the middle here is not maintained, and older, which means FUN!



For a "blue" route you definitely have to do whipsaw. Of course China Head is great area also.

This summer I would really like to get through from Tyax resort area straight north to Williams Lake.

Last summer one day on my way back from Victoria to Kelowna, I did a long detour up hurley fsr, carpenter lake, texas creek etc. Just enough of a taste to want to get north of there and see what is past gun lake.

A friend has also mentioned that there's a rough dirt route from squamish to the sunshine coast. From there, could come back to the Mainland at the north end and head east along the powerlines and see some of the northern stuff. Hmmm.

My pics above were also near Manning Park......

Too many good choices. This probably does need a mapbook and a planning session soon.