The Making of a Cross Canada Route

[Kk.]

Originally Posted by hardwaregrrl

I'm here. Still heading home. Stayed at a friends in Indy last nite. Camped the last two nites in the rain and rode 3 days in the rain. I smell bad. Can't wait to sleep in my bed. The KLR just blew out it's spark arrestor and my float on a carb was stuck was stuck open and pouring gas out. So were a bit frazzled but should get in tonight.

The weather isn't looking too good here either. Good luck you guys!

[rinho]

Nice trip !
Really fun to see nice pics from places I also been once... especially this year as I can't ride, it helps me remembering nice things !

[garry499]

Amasing pic's guys! Looks like ya'll had fun even without shoes Sean! I especially liked the gull poo. Thanks for the lesson on drinking "Smanchie" coffee too. That wll be handy to know for future pirate tours!

[shipwrek12001]

We had alot of laughs over that coffee, and a few more over someone taking pictures of my bags and not saying anything.....

here is a few more pics






our fairy....









heading into the hail and thunder..




the green valley






couple more church shots






A man's man garage.... thanks for everything Fab...



What a great time we had, amazing sites and amazing people we met....

[skibum69]

WOW! Amazing ride guys! As for me and my plans to do tracks of the TLH and check out a new to me section below Relais Gabriel the hurricane completely screwed me.

Last Wednesday I left and rode across the island in the hurricane, lost my hydration pack with various stuff in it and ran out of hgas in the first 50km's of the day. After I finished 700km's in and out of rain I headed north in gusts well over 90 km/h for the last 30 km's. One gust actually picked up my front wheel.

2 nights waiting in the motel for a ferry and next thing I know I'm out of time to make it to MOntreal for this morning so I turned and ran to Port Aux Basques to catch the boat to North Sydney. A couple of longish days later I'm in Montreal.

My poor knobbies are fried and I only got about 60 km's of dirt on them, sigh.

Anyway I'm picking Sue up at the airport in an hour then off to CroMag! Yay for that anyhoooo

[shipwrek12001]

Hey Deadly, do you have a pic of the TNE now as it stands? on some kind of map?

[sailer]

great report and pics
like the route threw the middle of NB

[hardwaregrrl]

Just want to say that I'm sorry and I suck.....I've been so busy with work I've not had time to edit my pics. I promise to get to it this week. Here's a teaser shot on THE Wash Out!!!

[Emmbeedee]

Originally Posted by hardwaregrrl

Just want to say that I'm sorry and I suck.....I've been so busy with work I've not had time to edit my pics. I promise to get to it this week. Here's a teaser shot on THE Wash Out!!!

Yikes!

What's going on here?

[Deadly99]

[hardwaregrrl]

Originally Posted by Emmbeedee

Yikes!

What's going on here?

Ha! Well that happened in '08 and I wanted to get a pic of the bike with the new sidestand at the same place in Minnesota. Excaliber put that deep cycle on the bike to get me home, charging system failed. And the xtra weight snapped the stand!!!

[Emmbeedee]

Originally Posted by hardwaregrrl

Ha! Well that happened in '08 and I wanted to get a pic of the bike with the new sidestand at the same place in Minnesota. Excaliber put that deep cycle on the bike to get me home, charging system failed. And the xtra weight snapped the stand!!!

That's a relief! One of those things you can think back on (and perhaps laugh about now).

[ZZR_Ron]

Originally Posted by hardwaregrrl

Just want to say that I'm sorry and I suck.....I've been so busy with work I've not had time to edit my pics. I promise to get to it this week. Here's a teaser shot on THE Wash Out!!!

You really just hit some odd weather when you were here! I think that hurricane in the east screwed up the weather patterns...it has been pretty nice ever since.

At least you have a story to tell!

[hardwaregrrl]

I left work early to get this sucker done!!! Mike and I will write up a full RR and post the link here. But I don't want to muck up this thread too much....

Mike and I



So, I contacted Deadly99 on the whim that I may go visit my family in Detroit. Then head up to ride the portion of the TCAT north of Superior. But when he told me they needed to map out NW Ontario, I cut my family out of the picture. Ha! They never come to Atlanta to visit, so I needed a real vacation. One where the men are separated from the boys. My mom is turning over in her grave right now wondering where she went wrong....

So, I'll just start at the beginning of the route Ted sent me.



So we were met at the border by Old fart at play aka Steve. And it's a good thing we were. He ended up cutting out a large portion of TC17, and kept us on the railbed almost from TB to Sioux Lookout. That's Steve in the yellow Darien.



Just from the beginning, we had already hit a snag in the GPX file. We were supposed to cross a bridge that looked as though it had been long gone. So Steve rerouted us to this trusty bridge.



The roads out of TB and to the rail bed were very nicely maintained logging roads. No pucker moments at all. But I have to admit, I dropped my bike in ZZR Ron's driveway. I was carrying so much shit, I'm 5'4", and I was backing up on an angle downhill. It was a perfect start to the TCAT. Oh, and we were seriously hung over. Thanks Ron, you made my hands shake all day.

And here's the start of the rail bed.



Nice rock on the sides for a bit.



Not too long after we began, we ran into the one and only tunnel you'll pass through on this railbed. Super cool to hang out in and was a nice 20 degrees F cooler in the tunnel. And it was warm outside. Y'all had been having some strange weather that we benefited from and suffered through.



Captain Mike.





We hung out and snapped some shots, Steve took a few of Mike and I!!! Again, my friends are always asking why I want to spend my vacation in Canada. You guys are just, friendlier. I mean, I know Steve was having fun showing us around, but it took all day to babysit us!!! So again, thanks for the wonderful warm welcome STeve.!!!

Ok, enough pansy shit. ZZR Ron kept saying that we would love it on the railbed. We would be totally in the wild and wouldn't see anyone for days!!!! Ah,....fail.





This dude was a bit weirded out that I was snapping photos of him. I mean, can you blame him.? I do look like a midget in my riding suit on my giant bike.



See. Weird looking midget type person.

So the gravel on the rail bed changes from nicely packed, to just barely. There is no reason to be freaked out about riding on the rail bed. A novice could easily do it with an unloaded bike. We averaged that first day around 40mph. But beware, there are side streets that do enter the rail bed that are kind of hard to see until you're on them. It would be unlikely to meet someone, but it could happen. So really pay attention to cross roads. There are several from TB to Upsala, then they taper off to about one every 20 miles or so.

So, Ted had asked if I was afraid of heights as we may be passing over some of the old rail bridges. This is what came to mind...



Ha ha!!! I'm such a dumb ass. This is what we ended up with as the first bridge.



You can see the new CN rail line running along side here as we are very close to Upsala.



We got into Upsala around 4.30. Steve bought us lunch at the shop.



There are a few provisions here besides gas.





But not many. We hadn't had breakfast this morning, and add in the hangover and just the joy we felt from being in this environment, we were starving. Thanks for lunch, Steve. But people, the food here was not very good. You've been warned. There is a LCBO store combined with the Post Office, its the white and red building in the background. They were closed on Sunday.......and had limited hours. If you want beer that first day, get here before 6pm on a weekday. I think Saturdays till 4pm

Look for this weird ass thing....



Upsala was about a 10 mile jog to get to off the rail bed. We said our goodbyes to Steve here as he had to go and see his Dad on his b-day!!! All the way to Atikokan!!!! What a ride!!!

Bye Steve.



Oh shit! We're on our own now for real. No beer!!!! No idea where we'll end up (lie). We shot for Quorn lake as was recommended by Steve and Ron. But, we weren't really sure how far time or distance wise it was. We also couldn't remember how to get back to the rail bed as I was a dope and turned off the track mode when we turned to Upsala. What a bunch of idiots.!!!



We eventually found our way back. There is a boo-boo on my gpx file for Ted that I don't know how to edit. And this is where it happened trying to get back to the rail bed.



We got to Graham, and it's a bit of a crap shoot navigating using the gps file off the rail bed and back on here in Graham. But this sign is a good mark to shoot for as it begins just past the sign. I kept wanting to turn east for some reason until Mike threw a rock at my head and said "west, we want to go west. right?". Mike had not looked at a map or had even brought one with him. He was navigating blind. If he was in front, I'd just buzz him with my uber powerful BMW and dictate the turn. That worked pretty well the whole trip. It was good keeping him in front on interstates as the BMW can get away from the KLR pretty easily.

While in Graham I noticed my boxes felt a bit....shaky. Earlier in the day I had lost some hardware to them after we had gotten off the only "goat trail" of the trip. I figured they'd let loose again..

Fail...



Aw, shit. I really should rework the whole system, but I usually just reweld it when I break it. Which is often. Straps to the rescue. Graham was also quite busy that Sunday nite. Lots of trucks with people asking if we needed assistance! I think they were all berry picking. I was tempted to ask these guys if we could buy a few beers.



Strapped up and ready to head, ah, west! Yes! Now, mind you it's super fun to haul ass on the rail bed, but mind those cross streets and the SAND!

Landing gear.



Loud cackling noises..



Butthole puckered face.



The sand will snag your ass down if you aren't careful. The cool thing about having too much shit on your bike is you can really wheelie through it super easy.!

Now, I feel like a shit cause it was getting late, and we hadn't reached the lake. We knew we needed to take bear precautions tonight and that would take a minute to set up two camps and hang our food. We came upon this...



The only water crossing of the trip. It was probably about 18"-24" inches deeps. Knobby rocks lined the bottom. Good traction, but keep her moving or you will loose momentum.

Big feet.



We made it!!



Lovely full moon.



Drying out the boots and drying socks on a stick. Or in my case, burning socks.



It is a really nice spot to camp. I recommend as did Steve, leave your bikes on the rail bed and just walk down. It's a pretty steep hill down to wet sand. No fun on a loaded down, big fat, DS bike. We did hear and see 3-4 trucks pass in the night. But I have an awful lot of retro-reflective crap on the bike. So I wasn't worried. So, not too much navigation today, it can easily be made in one day if you're sightseeing. Quorn lake is the camp spot for this leg.





Day two. No beer last nite, and more importantly, no bears. I had a flask of whiskey and Mike had some Vodka. We were happy with our drinks and rice and tuna night. Hopefully today we'll get past Sioux lookout. I was thinking about finding a welder there and having the rack re-welded, if we got in early enough. Foreshadowing.


Lots and lots of lovely rivers, creeks and lakes in these here parts.




>

But not a whole lot of curves.



Crossed a few cool bridges on this day. Mike wanted to take a dive off of this one. If it had been warmer I think he would have. It began to rain on day two. It followed us the rest of the way home.



Random shots of isolation.

[hardwaregrrl]

Here's a good look at what you'll see as you come onto the 599. Take a right to Silver Dollar for gas and booze, showers and cabins. Or pop up a tent if you'd like! There isn't much else there. But the people were so damn nice.







So, Wally owns this place. Mike got a pic of him I believe. But you can ask them about the roads out of there and they probably would have pretty up to date info. We were told about a wash out that wasn't all that far up the rail bed from Silver Dollar. It was passable by ATV, so we figured, what the hell?!. Ted had routed us up the 642 to Sioux Lookout. But we were here to map. And we knew that the 642 was passable. But what we didn't know was , was the rail bed? We felt it was our job to navigate the rail bed and keep it off road as much as possible. We were the perfect demographic to test the wash out on. Mike, and his limited off road motorcycling experience, although this dude never falls down. He's got lots of experience riding mountain bikes, and that comes in handy. So we've got Mike on his KLR that he kitted out himself, including replacing a blown motor. Then there's me.....short shit on a very heavy bike. A good bit of off road motorcycling experience. But I fall, a lot. I mean, a lot. It isn't uncommon for me to fall several times in a day. But, it's usually when I'm stopped and the earth just isn't there for me to put one toe down.

So onto the wash out!!!!!

That's code for a dirty word.

Here it is!!!





Nice roost tracks.



It was literally 15 minutes from Silver Dollar...and we had done it.!

Easy peasy for a big DS bike. Keep the speed up going down, 'cause you'll need it on the way back up!

I just love it here, couldn't take enough photos of the emptyness.



But then, there was this little, itty bitty, wash out.





Wondering what to do?? It was an easy descent. But the problem lied at the bottom. There was a creek about 6 inches deep, a very narrow creek. Lots of big rocks, and a steep, sandy, rocky, long uphill at the other side. We would need some nuts to ride this thing. Yeah, we were not going to ride up. I thought we should get the bikes to the creek, than walk them up with the clutch. Mike seemed to go along with the idea. It began to rain. I unloaded everything I could, including boxes off of my bike as Mike did the same.



I just had filled up at Silver Dollar. Let me say that again, FILLED UP WITH GAS!!! By the way, my tank holds 11.3 us gallons of fuel. fuck.

We got her good and stuck as I slung rocks right below Mike's waist. Sorry man. It rained harder.



I had brought a little folding shit shovel with me. I always have a shovel as I hate to stumble upon someones used lunch when I'm out in the woods. So I do the courteous thing and bury my shit. Well, I began digging my bike out with it. Shit is shit, tomato tomato.

The other bummer was we didn't have a plan for a camp spot that nite, and I wanted to weld up my luggage rack. Mike was having a problem finding a good place to push on my bike as he didn't want to destroy the rack any more than I already had. We were a bit nervous, Mike wondered why we didn't turn back. So did I. We hoped for a local out picking berries with a winch, we weren't far from Sioux Lookout at this point. We should've stuck to the gps file. Dammit!

Oh, oh!!! I brought a pulley/recovery kit just for this thing here exactly. Pulling my bike out!!! Hurray, as I dumped out 30 ft of webbing, a 50 ft rope, and a couple of biners with pulley wheels. "How does this work?", Mike asked. I felt a bit like the fat kid in stand by me. I brought the comb, for our hair when we get our pictures taken for the paper. Shit. I didn't really have an idea given our surrounding and the circumstances before us. No trees on a rail bed friends. Now what?