The All Around The Province Trip

My buddy and I have been talking about doing a ride for a very long time. Coordinating such an event got more complicated when I moved to the east coast a few months back, leaving him behind in Ontario. He called me last week to tell me that he was coming out via a northern route through Quebec, Rouyan, and Chibougamau of all places. Since he was doing some heavy lifting by doing that northern route I felt compelled to meet him at some point so we could do an Atlantic mini tour which would end at my place in Moncton.

For anyone interested, you can see the route here, THE ROUTE

So it was decided that I would hop on my bike Saturday morning and ride the super slab up to Riviere Du Loup where we would have a bite to eat and possibly head east. That seemed ok on paper but the forcast didn’t look good at all and in reality it was worse.
I hit the road at 8am sharp and set a fierce pace with the intent of beating him to the rendezvous point. It was raining pretty hard and the temp was about 55F if I’m to trust the interceptor’s gauge. After twenty minutes I was soaked to the nuts despite my Tour master rain gear and I was cold. The bike wasn’t happy either as it had developed a front end vibration that was quite severe and was making my hands go numb. I stopped and checked the front wheel to find that the balance weight was not to be found and must have departed at some point in the past. Not a happy or comfortable man, I soldiered on at a reduced pace of 120 kmph.
Finally I arrived in Fredricton and decided to pull off the highway to see if I could solve my front end shimmy. I went to Canadian Tire to buy stick on wheel weights with the idea that I could install one, ride the bike, see how it feels and then move it till I found the sweet spot. Seemed reasonable since I assumed that I wouldn’t find a bike shop and even if I did they would most likely not have the time to actually remove and balance the wheel. The Canadian Tire store wouldn’t sell me the weights because they were for the shop to use only and they told me to go the NAPA auto parts store down the road as the sold the weights. Of course they gave me this funny look like I was out of my mind if I thought that I could actually make this plan work.
The guys at NAPA were really helpful especially when they suggested that just next door there was a bike repair place called “Erics” that could probably do better than a handful of weights. They were correct and before you know it I had my bike out back getting tiny beads installed in the front tire or at least I thought. As it turns out, my alloy 90 deg valve stems prevented the beads from entering the tire and after ten minutes of trying they gave up and said they were sorry but they couldn’t help.


Back to NAPA I went and soon I was on my way with a bunch of stick-on weights and a belly full of coffee. The rain had stopped and I was feeling optimistic about my plan and things in general. I installed a half ounce directly opposite the valve step for the first trial and headed off to see how it felt. Surprisingly it was actually better but far from perfect so I stopped and moved it one spoke counter clockwise. This continued for a while as I tried different positions and fond the best result. Then I doubled the amount and it was like the clouds parted and the sun shone brightly as it was smooth as silk. Thank god! But then the rain came back and with it my misery and the biting cold.
Hours later I arrived at the destination, soaked, tired and cold. My buddy and I had exchanged a few texts as we got close to the rendezvous and I had misinterpreted one which took me 50 kms out of the way to the wrong town. The extra 100 kms of riding was the worst as it was along the St Lawrence river where the fog was heavy and the temps dropped to 46F. When I finally arrived at the hotel, the hot tub was a very welcome site! I could have stayed in there all night long.



The following morning broke with cloudy skies but at least it wasn’t raining. We headed out with the intent of reaching the village of Gaspe by the evening. It’s somewhere between 5 and 6 hundred kms so it should have been an easy ride. We visited almost every town along the way, riding as close to the water as possible to soak in the Atlantic culture and their coffee shops too.



We didn’t want to run any highway if possible. The scenery was spectacular and the small villages with the piers and fishing boats were all we could have hoped for until the rain came back and man did it hit hard.
After we hit Cap-Chat it was game on and the temps dropped into the 40’s.




Naturally my hands froze up bad and I couldn’t feel my fingers but my core was warm so it could be worse. We decided to turn inland on 198 and head for Murdoch as we figured that it would warm up away from the water. Oh we were so wrong! The road climbed and climbed, some 600 meters, as we entered the highland country and with altitude came wind and colder temps. I was just hanging on and riding as fast as I could in hopes that at some point things would change for the better but they didn’t. By the time we reached Murdochville, we both needed fuel so I took advantage of that to seek shelter for half an hour to thaw my hands out and drink a Keurig coffee. It was raining steady and the wind was blowing the rain horizontal outside. I didn’t want to push on but we couldn’t stay there forever.



The run from Murdochville to Gaspe is about 90 kms of beautiful road. It runs through the hills with tons of twists and turns much like the earlier section running up to Murdochville. It would have been a dream ride in the dry but in my state and under these conditions it was hard work and I was counting the miles click off all the way. I was also having some handling issues that sapped my confidence in the bike and slowed me down. As it turned out, the reason for this was my rear tire failing. When I say failing I mean wearing out to the bare cords. When we finally arrived I walked behind my bike and saw the steel wires sticking out and a strip about half an inch wide of cords exposed. I said a few words naturally that aren’t for children to hear but I had survived that adventure and surely there would be a dealer in the area with a 180 rear tire that we could install in the morning before pressing on. I was wrong!
The next morning I showed up at the door step of the local Honda dealer looking for a tire, any tire, as long as it fit. “None in stock sir”, is what I got back from them and when they called around there were no tires within a safe riding distance. I wasn’t a happy camper but this was all my fault as I didn’t think my rear was in bad shape and I had looked at it prior to departing on Saturday. Here I was 1000 kms later, stuck up the creek without a paddle.



Part 2 to follow with some pictures hopefully……

 

I've certainly heard stories where people had more fun! I think my newly adopted personal mantra would work well here. "It's cool, that $#!+ builds character."

 

op2:
Good to see you rack up some miles there bud :thumb:
It was be nice to have some pictures of those roads you are talking aboot eh

 

I really don't understand why you did not stay dry in a Tourmaster jacket. I thought they were waterproof!

JK. Is it my imagination, but is insanity riding quite common with us Canadian Folk. I am waiting for my replacement credit card to arrive so I can order up new tires before I dare ride mine another foot. It too has a strip about an inch wide and 18 inches in length when I arrived home from my little ride. Waiting for the pix.

I just may make it out your way in 2016. That is a secret plan of mine anyways. Don't tell the wife. She doesn't know this yet. This time I will start out with lots of credit built up on my credit card to pay for my anticipated break downs.

BTW. Thank you to you and fellow Monctonians for your support last week.

 

It's what we do eh!

BTW
Way busy at work and no time to finish the story or upload the pics till this evening. Sorry for the teaser...

 

Just think. If you were in PEI, your "All around the Province Trip" would have been a couple hours long.

 

Part 2.
Picking up the story at the point where I was sitting at the Honda dealer in Gaspe. Things were not going well but I was getting lots of practice with my French so I suppose there was a silver lining. The dealer had called everyone he knew and he had found nothing that would help me out. The only option was to order a rear tire and book a hotel while we waited the two days it would take for the tire to arrive. Two days!!! How is it possible in this day and age that a tire couldn’t be found and shipped in 24 hrs? I decided to take a time out and went outside to stew for a while.
I sat on their snowmobile loading ramp thinking about options and enjoying the sunshine while I marveled at a manufacturing facility located in the industrial park behind. They were making enormous blades for wind turbines that had to be 80 feet long or more and there were dozens of them sitting in a huge staging area waiting to be shipped out. One blade was loaded on a special trailer and a police escort was preparing to assist this behemoth enter the road way on a journey to parts unknown. I was thinking, “why on earth would they be making these way the hell out here?” But I suppose that there was a willing local workforce and land was cheap so why not. There was also the fact that these monsters dotted the landscape all over the Gaspe peninsula as the wind blows consistently out here.



As I sat there a group of riders rolled in on a BMW R1200GS, Truimph ST and a Ducati ST3. We had met them two days earlier as we stayed in the same hotel at Riviere Du Loup. They had run a thousand kilometers that day coming all the way from Toronto in the pouring rain. I was impressed! The next day we had seen them a couple of times as our paths crossed and we also ended up at the same restaurant that night. What are the odds and now they were rolling into the same dealer I was stranded at to buy some wet weather riding gear. It seemed to me that they should have done that a few days earlier but hey, who knew it would be this bad. We laughed and chatted a bit before they wished me luck and headed out to god knows where.
So there I was again, stranded with a big problem. I called work to let them know the situation and a one of my colleagues commenced to hunt the internet with the intent of finding a dealer and a tire that would save the day but he never did. I was also searching using my phone but the battery was getting low and I was starting to get frustrated. It didn’t help that my French was rusty but eventually I made contact with a guy who thought he knew a guy that may have one near a town called Chandler. They were a KTM dealer <http://quirionetfils.com/web/> but like the majority of dealers out here, they sold primarily ATVs and dirt bikes as well as these side by side off road machines. I called them up and after some searching they discovered a new Michelin 2CT sitting in the stockroom. I just about shit my pants! They quoted me a very fair price of $240 installed and balanced as well so things were beginning to look up.
Now the whole question of whether I could get there with the bike in its current state. The dealer was 110 kms away (64 miles) and I had a one inch strip of cord exposed on the rear tire and just to make matters worse, it was leaking a little. I had already injected it with a can of goo that was supposed to seal any leaks temporarily and I’m glad I did otherwise things may have turned out worse. I called my buddy who had stayed back at the hotel so he could do a workout and enjoy breakfast and informed him that I intended to attempt the ride to Chandler. We agreed that he would follow along taking his time and smelling the roses. Eventually he would either come across me on the side of the road stranded or arrive at the dealer where I should be ready to proceed with my new tire. It all made sense but I still had to ride my lame beast a long way in a manner that would preserve the rear tire as much as possible.
With that I was off at a blistering pace of 90 kmph! Shifting as smooth as I could and avoiding holes in the road, I watched my trip meter as the miles passed. At the recommendation of the Honda dealer I took a detour around one of the villages on the coast that took me inland through the hills. It was a magnificent detour with tons of twists and turns on smooth pavement and the views were so awesome that I almost forgot about my tire. I’m sure that the turns helped me out as it got me off the bare spot and onto good rubber. I was running too fast and I wanted to go faster but that could have been disasterous so I kept it around the C note.
Arriving back at the coast I turned right heading west towards Chandler with only 30 kilometers to go.


I was starting to feel confident as the bike was riding well and it seemed like I could coast the rest of the way but that feeling soon went away. I started getting hit with strong cross winds which on a normal day aren’t a big deal but they seemed to be pushing me around way more than normal. I soldiered on but I was on high alert because things didn’t feel good and the back end started skating around like I was on dirt. I dropped the speed down a bit and prepared to do some drifting. I have a pretty solid off road background including some ice racing so getting the back end loose isn’t the end of the world but what it meant was that my rear tire was going flat. I stopped at a service station to check and sure enough she was super soft. I tried to put air in but it came out as fast as I pumped it in. Hmmmm, this wasn’t going much further without coming apart on me and I knew I was playing with fire at this point. Thankfully my destination was only a mile down the road and one last blast got me safely in their yard! 
Five minutes after arriving, they had my baby inside with the rear wheel off. It was like watching NASCAR but with nice machinery. Sorry but I couldn’t resist a poke at the rednecks. I decided to let them work while I walked the mile back along the highway to the service station I had just stopped at to buy a bottle of water and to check out a bike that they had chained to a post for sale. It looked like a little GP bike and was all orange with an alloy frame set that looked really sweet. It was adorned in KTM colors but when I arrived I discovered that it was a Derbi GPR50. I’ve heard of Derbi but it isn’t something you see over here much which intrigued me even more. What a cool looking little bike but only 50cc? The owner explained to me that due to the rules in Quebec, his son couldn’t ride the bike on the road because it had a clutch and was therefore a motorcycle and not a scooter. In Quebec kids can ride scooters on the road at a young age without a driver’s license so you see herds of them everywhere. So this little beauty was selling cheap for $1k or best offer. I want it but still don’t know why, LOL. Here is an image of the machine so you can check it out. DERBI GPR50
Wow this story is long and I apologize for that but for those who are still reading, thanks for hanging in.
Back at the dealer, my new Michelin was installed so I settled the bill and thanked them profusely for saving the day and making time to squeeze me in. I installed my bags back on eth bike and headed west to search for lunch. I drove through Chandler a few times but didn’t see anything that caught my eye so I settled for a McDonald’s salad and a bottle of water. There was still no sign of my buddy so I sent him a text to get an update. He was still 50 kms behind me in a village called Perce. He wanted me to ride back to meet him for lunch because the scenery in Perce was off the hook. I’m not a huge fan or riding roads over and over so since I had been there already I said that I would forge ahead and see him whenever. He got the message and remounted his steed to catch up. We still had a long ride ahead of us and lots to see so it’s a good thing we didn’t linger too long. The remainder of our tour of Gaspe was punctuated with beautiful scenery, small villages, ocean vistas and roadside lobster which was awesome!
Riding the Gaspe peninsula can be exciting and beautiful as well as boring as you ride through village after village along the coast. It’s important that you decide what you want and also prepare for the size of this place and the time it takes to get somewhere. It seemed to take forever to reach the end in Pointe-a-la-Croix before we crossed into New Brunswick. Fuel is much cheaper in New Brunswick which is probably due to taxes I suppose. As we fueled up in Campbellton we reviewed the maps and discussed the options. My buddy was hoping for some twisties and didn’t want to even look at the highway so we ended up following 134 along the coast. It’s a nice ride but not very challenging or memorable so when we arrived in Bathurst we once again had the chat about routes. It was not early evening at around 6:30 and there was still plenty of distance to cover before we would find a bed. It was agreed that a blast down the slab with a good steak at the end was the way to go.



We set a blistering pace from Bathurst to Miramichi as the sun was setting and the temperature dropped some 15 degrees. I got cold and had to add a layer of clothing at that point so we stopped at one of the exits to root around in the saddlebags and find a sweater. It was at this point that my buddy expressed an interest in riding the VFR for a while. He didn’t believe that I could be comfortable on the VFR for such a long period of time and figured that a few miles would answer his questions about the breed. So I jumped on his GS for a stint and watched as he roared off on my baby. I could see that he was exploring the torque curve a bit as he slowed down and then rolled it on and disappeared into the distance. Later he commented on how smooth the engine felt compared to the throbbing of his big twin. I asked if he found the second engine that lived above 7 grand and he said that he touched on it just a tad but it was so foreign to him that he would shift and drop down below Vtec range as soon as it happened. I explained that it is beyond this point where the monster comes out and he had another 4500 RPM to play with after the kick in point. He couldn’t believe that it would pull so hard for that long but I assured him that it would if he wanted it to and encouraged him to try it. By then he has getting cold and declared that the bike was awesome but it was a hypothermic chamber on wheels and wanted his big BMW back. Naturally I obliged and was happy to be back in the saddle of my trusty VFR.
Our super slab run ended at around 9pm as we arrived in Moncton. Having been on the bike more or less since 7am, I was happy to see home again. We rolled in and put the machines to be before having a hot shower and hitting The Keg for a steak dinner. The next morning my buddy jetted off to Toronto leaving the GS in my care till he arranged to have it shipped home or flew back to ride it through Nova Scotia.
It’s been a long time since we rode together and I have to say that it was a good time in spite of the rain and mechanical issues we or I faced along the way. It was an adventure that most would look at and ask why we would do it but to them I can only say is because it needed to be done. Where will the next trip be? Who knows? I still need to explore PEI and ride the Cabot Trail so fingers crossed for some sunshine and the time off to make it happen.