All Hail Highway Engineers!!

Oh WOW!!! Highway 99 Route Engineer is King!  Brilliant, brilliant bit of Tarmac in a most beautiful location.  Don't know what the spec of the road is but you lot at Atkins should take note.  I have never ever ridden such a smooth winding road, not one pot hole in sight.  Route 97 wasn't quite up to the wonders of 99 but then we finished off on route 24 which had yet another brilliant road and sights like the one below

Left early this morning and got out of Vancouver pretty quickly, weather is brilliant and as I say above roads are great.  Took us about 8 or 9 hours to ride the 345 miles which is probably not a good average but included a few stops for either bike fuel or body fuel.  Some of the mountain stuff was done at less than 50mph due to being stuck behind RV's or just not wanting to take hair pins at anything more than 30mph.

My bike with a mountain....

Stop for fuel in Lillooet..

The best bit of todays ride was between here and Clinton on route 99.
My bike and a lake....

Gary and I at the lake..

Very very smiley.  Only on day 1 and this trip is worth every penny.  If its all like this will not want to come home at all.

All arrived back at the hotel in dribs and drabs but safe and sound with our own parking bay right outside reception.

Less mileage tomorrow, only 200miles.  We go into the National Park, via Mount Robson at 4000 ft to stay at Jasper.  Our accommodation tomorrow is in log cabins and we believe they have BBQ pits so a good old Cub Scout camp fire tomorrow night.  We go through our first time zone tomorrow too and lose an hour of our day.  Reminds me that from the time we left Vancouver we are always on our way home. 

Busy Busy Day

We started the day with the thought that we had to do something about packing ready to leave tomorrow morning.  The luggage seems to have regenerated in the few days we've been at the hotel and really not sure its all going to go back into the panniers.

We spent the morning doing something about that then getting ready for our group ride out to Grouse Mountain.  Wenlock and Mandeville now have a front row seat ready for the ride across to Hallifax

John and I have both put our bikes on the floor today.  One of those standing still domino effect situations.  No real damage to body or bike and therefore we are hoping that is all the incidet either of us are going to have for the rest of the trip.  The ride up to Grouse Mountain was great and just a small taster of what is to come.  Didn't want to get off the bike or come back here to Vancouver just wanted to keep riding.  Tomorrow will be 345 miles up into the Rockies and I just can't wait.  Two group shots at the end of our ride and doing the tourist bit at the Mountain

When we got back, Craig got us all together for the pre trip briefing

and then our first group meal, which was a brilliant choice of restaurant.  Superb company and great Italian food.  A good time was had by all and we are all just itching to get on the move tomorrow morning.

Next blog entry should be from Clearwater, hopefully wifi will be available.

Crossing the Canyon

Had free day today so Gary and I went to visit the local Triumph dealer.  Forgot to take any photos though so you'll just have to believe that we went.  The dealer here reckons that he can't give Triumph Tigers away let alone sell one.  He reckons Canadians are too short and fat and prefer the traditional Bonneville or the Storm 1700 cruiser.  Nice bloke though and a great parts department and he has said that any problems we have across Canada he will be able to ship us parts really quickly if we need it.  Its good to know.

The afternoon we spent at Capilano Bridge.  We should have gone there first thing though as you will see from the photos it was just packed with people and would have been much better with less people.  The suspension bridge really rocks when you have a bus load of school kids making sure.  Great place to hug a tree or two

Someone saw this photo and said Jake the Peg.  Didnt notice until that :-)

The following photo is just for Jim.  Saw this and thought of you

Tomorrow is a group ride out to Grouse Mountain.  Should be interesting.  Followed by washing and packing ready for an early exit on Saturday heading out to Clearwater a journey of 345 miles.

Oh Happy Day!! ;-)

Sometimes things call for desperate measures.  Some of us just couldn't wait any longer for some two wheel action that we had to go and hire some bikes.  A good time was had by all and it killed a few hours while we waited for the sign ...

Just as we were coming back in to return these, the long awaited txt message came through.  The bikes are cleared and taxis ordered to take us all to the bonded warehouse.  Apprehension rose for a few of us as we knew it meant a ride back across Vancouver city centre.  You will however see the extra wide smiles as the photos go on.  The next few photos are of us unpacking the bikes and getting ready to leave.

A great ride followed across the City.  It was very hot and the nerves made us sweat too.  The lights change from green to red pretty quick, you must give way to pedestrians so have to watch out for that and just keeping an eye on where we were going in general.  Felt great afterwards though and the interest from other road users was a surprise.  At least four of us were shouted at from cars when we stopped at lights to ask where we had come from and what we were planning.  There was a comment from a passer by that Garys Triumph was a rose amongst thorns with all the BMW's.  It made him very proud to be riding British.

I think we all now feel ready for the adventure and the smiles are huge.  Following picture of a few of us parked up at the hotel on our return

The hotel have been brilliant, kept an area clear for us to put our bikes in and our new friend Michael the hotel maintenance guy keeps an eye on them and has taped them off like a crime scene so that nobody can go near.

Planning a trip out in the morning to the BMW and Triumph dealers to say hi and then the afternoon at the tree top walk and suspension bridge.

Paddling in the Pacific

Well its been a bit of a slow day.  Lots of anticipation and little to show for it.  The original plan was that customs would be carrying out the soil check on the bikes this morning, then it was 1pm.  We were all put on standby to go and pick the bikes up at 2.30 when we received a text to say that customs hadn't done the checks yet and won't now do it until tomorrow.  Disappointment all round and at a loss as to how to kill the afternoon.

We now have most of the group with us.  The latest picture from the bar (its always in the bar) shows everyone except Dave who arrives tomorrow and Ian, our van man who must have disappeared for 10 minutes as for some reason he's not in the shot.

Barbara, Gary, John, Sam, Marion, Leighton, Paul, Tony, Andy, Jackie, Craig

After dinner four of us decided to go paddling in the Pacific.  At the end of the trip we will go paddling in the Atlantic. 

Nothing else to add today.  Hopefully pictures of bikes tomorrow subject to customs bothering to turn up to do their job.

Route March

Gary decided today he would take me on a route march.  He still has a lot of Army in him!  Up at the crack of dawn for a good breakfast followed by a 7 mile circumnavigation of Stanley Park.  The only other people we saw were walkers and runners and people doing "excercise", now you all know I don't do that.

I will give it to him though, it is a lovely park, the following photos are of the totem poles at the far end and the "must have" photo taken with Downtown Vancouver in the background (taken by a very nice Swedish bloke).

On our walk we saw the police doing what the police do best.......

They must have gone for breakfast somewhere but the bikes looked great.  Barbara came into the bar this evening with a similar photo of the three police bikes in a line at the back of Fat Burger... it must have been lunchtime.

The following photo really got me thinking about the conversation that must have gone before it....

Client...."I want a big oak tree in my garden"
Contractor..... "Sorry sir, I just don't think thats possible"
Client... "Just make it happen, I don't care how you do it"

Following the Park walk, he decided we should go and visit the local Triumph dealer which was the other side of the city through the druggie district and out the other end about another 5 miles to find out that it was shut anyway because they'd had a water leak.  We got the bus back and the bus driver felt so sorry for the stupid brits that he gave us the tickets for free and made sure we knew where to get off the bus.

The group is getting bigger by the day, we added Paul to our number this afternoon.

From the left, Marion, John, Gary, Tony, Paul, Barbara, Craig.

Craig and Barbara have done a good job today getting the bikes through the first round of customs clearance, however the customs officials have decided they want to give them a soil check to make sure we are not importing any nasties with them.  They are doing that tomorrow morning so hopefully we will be able to go and get them tomorrow afternoon.

Our mascots are patiently waiting for their transport to arrive

Just Arrived

After a very long flight have been here a couple of hours.  The group is getting together, Barbara and Craig the ride leaders were on the same flight as us.  John and Marion got here yesterday and Tony arrived not long after us.  Apparently the cargo ship carrying our bikes docked today.  Craig is off to customs in the morning to see what is happening and maybe we will get our bikes earlier than expected.

It is about 1am in my head but not yet tea time for my body so doing the blog has been difficult.

Us with John and marion in the bar just after we arrived and a couple of shots of Vancouver harbour and Stanley Park.  Better entry tomorrow I hope

Am off for a burger and some sleep.

Gary watching the news and lots of fires across parts of Canada coz its so hot!!