Sunshine Coast Tour 2010.05
A hot bike between my legs. A 4-day weekend. Wonderful roads and scenery. A chance to "bond" with my kids. What could be better? A few things, actually. Read on.
Our original plan ... which did not survive the first encounter with reality ... was for my daughter, my son-in-law, and me to ride Vancouver Island and the Sunshine coast of British Columbia on our Ducatis. Unfortunately, my son-in-law's bike experienced a near death experience just days before the trip. One of the battery cables came loose and shorted across the frame to the battery. I'm not an electrical engineer, but I know that melting the cable is not a good thing. He ordered a replacement cable from Ducati (yep, in Italy) and they sent one ... actually they sent half of one, and his bike was out of commission until the other half arrived. Not in time, as it turned out.
So my daughter and I rode our Ducatis to Victoria, and he drove his car. (Why? More later.) We had planned to ride to Port Angeles and take the Black Ball ferry directly to Victoria. But we'd had a very severe wind storm and there were HEAVY seas on the Straight of Juan de Fuca. We heard reports of swells which gained stature through out the weekend ... from 10-20 footers and up. Our plans were Fuca'd. Rather than suffer the risk of dumping (and damaging) the bikes on the ferry, we rode (in rain) to Twassen and took the ferry to Nanaimo and motored on in to Victoria from there.
Why did he drive his car? I promised "more later." It's now officially later. My daughter and her husband are Eddie Izzard fans and he was performing a show in Victoria Thursday night. Fans? Big fans! I was able to pick up a ticket at the last minute and we saw the show. My last minute ticket was in the last row of the last balcony with poor acoustics. I heard about 1/3. Based on the third I heard, the rest of the show was brilliant. Oh well.
Next day, we rode north toward Campbell River. Our original plan to ride out to Gold River was too optimistic so we bagged it and rode to the top of Mount Washington, instead. Wonderful ride and we had a bit more time to explore Courtenay. See the photo captions for color commentary.
The next day, we had our best riding day and had a chance to ride on THREE ferries. We were up at 5:30 - so much for the myth of bikers partying late and sleeping late - and caught the ferry form Comox to Powell River. Breakfast on Board! We then rode north to Lund which has three things going for it: A nice hotel according to some bikers we met who stayed there; A wonderful bakery where we had our "second breakfast;" and the start of highway 101. If you want to ride 101 the whole length, it starts here and ends at the tip of South America. So that's kind of cool and the Sunshine Coast part is a fabulous motorcycle road.
Our second ferry was from Saltery Bay to Earl's Cove. It was a relaxing ride with Killer Whales playing in the waters around us. If you've never seen Killer Whales in the wild, it's quite a treat! Waiting for the ferry, we chatted with half a dozen other bikers. Everyone had checked their rank at the door and we enjoyed talking bikes, roads, and adventures. We'd been advised to be the first off the ferry to enjoy what was to be the best road of our trip. And we were. The road was empty, perfectly paved, and perfectly cambered. Our bikes are better than we are riders and performed superbly. We did 40 km/h corners at 40 mph; 70 km/h corners at 70 mph; but drew the line at 90 km/h corners. We avoided a brush with a Speed-Tax-Collector and in general enjoyed the ride immensely.
Pretty much the same group of bikers rolled up to our last ferry leg, and we picked up a few. This was from Langdale to Horseshoe Bay. From Horseshoe Bay we took Marine Drive through Stanley Park and into Vancouver. Note to self, don't ride a motorcycle in Vancouver during rush hour! We took a passenger ferry over to Granville Island, walked around, had dinner, and hit the sack.
Next day, Sunday, we had breakfast and blasted home via I-5. We did find a FABULOUS BORDER BYPASS ROUTE that saved us an hour and a half at the border crossing. It was recommended by one of the bikers we met who lived in the area. It works, and we're selling the route for $50. Send me an email and we'll arrange for the transfer of funds and information. We detoured from I-5 briefly to take Chuckanaut Drive around Bellingham which was fun. And we were home by noon. 700 miles. Great ride. Fun long weekend!
Read MoreOur original plan ... which did not survive the first encounter with reality ... was for my daughter, my son-in-law, and me to ride Vancouver Island and the Sunshine coast of British Columbia on our Ducatis. Unfortunately, my son-in-law's bike experienced a near death experience just days before the trip. One of the battery cables came loose and shorted across the frame to the battery. I'm not an electrical engineer, but I know that melting the cable is not a good thing. He ordered a replacement cable from Ducati (yep, in Italy) and they sent one ... actually they sent half of one, and his bike was out of commission until the other half arrived. Not in time, as it turned out.
So my daughter and I rode our Ducatis to Victoria, and he drove his car. (Why? More later.) We had planned to ride to Port Angeles and take the Black Ball ferry directly to Victoria. But we'd had a very severe wind storm and there were HEAVY seas on the Straight of Juan de Fuca. We heard reports of swells which gained stature through out the weekend ... from 10-20 footers and up. Our plans were Fuca'd. Rather than suffer the risk of dumping (and damaging) the bikes on the ferry, we rode (in rain) to Twassen and took the ferry to Nanaimo and motored on in to Victoria from there.
Why did he drive his car? I promised "more later." It's now officially later. My daughter and her husband are Eddie Izzard fans and he was performing a show in Victoria Thursday night. Fans? Big fans! I was able to pick up a ticket at the last minute and we saw the show. My last minute ticket was in the last row of the last balcony with poor acoustics. I heard about 1/3. Based on the third I heard, the rest of the show was brilliant. Oh well.
Next day, we rode north toward Campbell River. Our original plan to ride out to Gold River was too optimistic so we bagged it and rode to the top of Mount Washington, instead. Wonderful ride and we had a bit more time to explore Courtenay. See the photo captions for color commentary.
The next day, we had our best riding day and had a chance to ride on THREE ferries. We were up at 5:30 - so much for the myth of bikers partying late and sleeping late - and caught the ferry form Comox to Powell River. Breakfast on Board! We then rode north to Lund which has three things going for it: A nice hotel according to some bikers we met who stayed there; A wonderful bakery where we had our "second breakfast;" and the start of highway 101. If you want to ride 101 the whole length, it starts here and ends at the tip of South America. So that's kind of cool and the Sunshine Coast part is a fabulous motorcycle road.
Our second ferry was from Saltery Bay to Earl's Cove. It was a relaxing ride with Killer Whales playing in the waters around us. If you've never seen Killer Whales in the wild, it's quite a treat! Waiting for the ferry, we chatted with half a dozen other bikers. Everyone had checked their rank at the door and we enjoyed talking bikes, roads, and adventures. We'd been advised to be the first off the ferry to enjoy what was to be the best road of our trip. And we were. The road was empty, perfectly paved, and perfectly cambered. Our bikes are better than we are riders and performed superbly. We did 40 km/h corners at 40 mph; 70 km/h corners at 70 mph; but drew the line at 90 km/h corners. We avoided a brush with a Speed-Tax-Collector and in general enjoyed the ride immensely.
Pretty much the same group of bikers rolled up to our last ferry leg, and we picked up a few. This was from Langdale to Horseshoe Bay. From Horseshoe Bay we took Marine Drive through Stanley Park and into Vancouver. Note to self, don't ride a motorcycle in Vancouver during rush hour! We took a passenger ferry over to Granville Island, walked around, had dinner, and hit the sack.
Next day, Sunday, we had breakfast and blasted home via I-5. We did find a FABULOUS BORDER BYPASS ROUTE that saved us an hour and a half at the border crossing. It was recommended by one of the bikers we met who lived in the area. It works, and we're selling the route for $50. Send me an email and we'll arrange for the transfer of funds and information. We detoured from I-5 briefly to take Chuckanaut Drive around Bellingham which was fun. And we were home by noon. 700 miles. Great ride. Fun long weekend!
