Vancouver to Revelstoke Road trip

[Daveontheedge]

Well, today is the big day. My first multi-day road trip from Vancouver to Revelstoke, heading through the Okanogan Valley! Google maps tells me it is 594km and 7hr 42 mins give or take.

http://maps.google.ca/maps?f=d&source=s_d&saddr=6931+Cooney+Road,+Richmond,+British+Columbia&daddr=49.84755,-119.6003+to:Revelstoke,+British+Columbia&geocode=FeYr7gIdcyqp-CmVgmjktAqGVDEJhvB-Zn23Kg%3BFf6c-AIdVAvf-Ckbbw87qwqCVDHalXBBJfmctg%3BFRY5CgMdRXX0-Cml3Wr6BTd5UzHK79a5fWQ8Tw&sll=50.155786,-120.783691&sspn=3.009198,8.453979&vpsrc=0&hl=en&mra=dpe&mrsp=1&sz=8&via=1&ie=UTF8&t=m&z=8&layer=c&ei=oxlvTp6ZBsiyiQLn0J2aDQ&pw=2

I will be meeting up with a Navy buddy in Revelstoke, who rides a Vulcan, for 4 days of riding and will make sure to take plenty of pics along the way. Odometer at trip start is 22751km, I'll keep you posted with pics and total mileage when I return.

[TrailCub]

Bon voyage, Dave!

I hope you guys have a really enjoyable trip and a SAFE one 

Looking forward to your ride report.

[Daveontheedge]

What an amazing trip! My final odometer reading was 24411kms, giving me a total of 1660km over a 4 day span. The biggest mileage days were day one and four at about 595kms. Those two days consisted of travelling between Vancouver and Revelstoke by way of Hope, Merritt, Kelowna, Sicamous, and then on to Revelstoke. My return trip was the exact same route as it kept me along the lakes in the Okanogan, which is a spectacular ride no matter what vehicle you are in.

The weather started out cloudy and about 16C, but by the time I had arrived in Merritt it was sunny and a scorching 34C! The highways were pretty quiet after I passed through Chilliwack and all the way through to Kelowna which let me cruise at about 110 - 120 kph. The furthest I pushed without gas was 183km between Merritt and Vernon, had to flick it onto reserve about 10km outside of Vernon. I had other opportunities to fill up sooner but wanted to see how far I could get on one tank with the new gearing. Even loaded down with a tank bag and saddle bag I was really impressed with the way the bike handled. These bikes are truly amazing. I don't really recommend anything much further than this as it left me with one hell of a sore neck and backside though! I got off the bike in Revelstoke and felt like I had been horseback riding for 12 hours! As it was it took me 8hrs exactly door to door including fuel and lunch.

Here are some pics from day one. I'll post more about day two and three later! This first one was topping off fuel in Merritt.

[Daveontheedge]

Along Hwy 97C between Merrit and Kelowna.

[Daveontheedge]

Woods Lake, just North of Kelowna, on the way to Sicamous.

[Daveontheedge]

Hwy #1, the Trans-Canada Highway, just East of Sicamous looking East.

And yes that sign is for Moose crossing!

[CB1 in SF]

Great report so far, can't wait to read the rest!

What kind of saddle bags are those?  Any trouble swinging your leg over?  I find myself kicking my new tailbag (Cortech) a lot.  Also that's a big tank bag, how to do you reach the clip-on's?  

[rigwit]

Looks nice, and sound's like you enjoyed the trip, personal if I'd been there,and had my rods and reels, I wouldn't have got past pic 3.   

[Daveontheedge]

Sorry for the delay with Day two...been busy at work and too lazy to do it when I get home. So here it is.

Rigwit...if you had stopped there you would have missed out on some of the nicest fresh water fishing in the country!

CB1 in SF...the tail bag is by GEARS : http://www.gearscanada.com/products/details/83/7/navigator-tail-bag.html
My bag is a couple of years old, so they have made some mods to them since then, but very easy to install and you can really fit quite a bit of stuff in there. As for the tank bag, it really was not an issue. It made for a nice wind break on the highway and I have no problems reaching the bars around it or seeing the gauges.

Day two started in Revelstoke, sunny and an expected high of 24C, with some discussion as to which direction to head out. We wanted to head North towards Mica Dam up by Mica Creek, however it was 150km each way with no gas stations.

In the end we decided to ride South on Hwy 23 to Kaslo, about a 198km ride each way, including a ferry crossing from Shelter Bay to Galena Bay at Upper Arrow Lake. Several small towns along the way spaced nicely for when we would need gas anyway. Along the way we stopped for lunch in a town called Nakusp and passed through New Denver on our way to Kaslo. The stretch between New Denver and Kaslo was what motorbikes were built for! Unbelievable...twisty, new asphalt, single lane, very VERY light traffic, 90kph speed limit, 1km sections of tight turns rated between 40kph and 60kph (all easily handled at between 90 and 110kph ). We stopped for a few pics, but honestly were having too much fun to stop! On the return trip we followed the same route as it made the entire trip worth while.

The evening finished off with heading back to the hotel for a shower and to get changed before we went West for about 8km to a bar/restaurant called The Great White North, were a high school friend of mine is the head cook. We arrive there around 9pm to find out he was not working, so after chatting up the waitress we headed back into town to drop off the bikes at the hotel, have a couple of stiff drinks of Sailor Jerry rum and coke and walk into down town where the real trouble started.

Since the first night, Steve had been on a quest to find Lamb's Blacksheep a spiced Rum that tastes of cinnamon and vanilla. I was skeptical  but figured what the hell. On our walk to the next restaurant, we found a liquor store that carried it so we picked up a bottle. Now, I don't know about the UK, but here in Canada they don't exactly let you carry a bottle of booze into a restaurant with you. So we take a couple of quick swigs and hide it in a front end loader that we passed on our way. Dinner was nothing special and we are pretty sure the waitress forgot about us because it took more than an hour to get our food in a fairly quiet restaurant. By this point Steve is eager to go get our bottle and finish what we started....

Neither of us are big drinkers, but this trip was about "the boys weekend out". From where we stashed the bottle and back to the hotel was probably about a 5km walk. We started this at around 1130pm. 2/3rds of a bottle, two drunken phone calls across two time zones (one to his not so happy wife and another to a Navy buddy who couldn't make the trip), several nature breaks, an up close investigation of a train, and an unusual conversation with a lonely kid working the graveyard shift at a local gas station and we arrived at the hotel by 2am . Sorry, no drunken photos were taken.

Here are some pics from the day trip though.

The first one is my buddy Steve as we are waiting for the ferry at Shelter Bay.

[Daveontheedge]

On the ferry headed to Galena Bay. Bikes get priority!

[Daveontheedge]

Outside of Nakusp (excuse the finger at the top ) and the one section of road heading into Kaslo.

[Daveontheedge]

In the town of Kaslo. The paddle wheel is the S.S.Moyie, and was one of the last active paddle wheels in Canada. it was brought up onto shore, restored and turned into a museum.

[Daveontheedge]

Along the road outside of New Denver. Don't ask me what this boat is doing here, it's way into the middle of the mountains with only a very rocky mountain river near by! And Steve doing his best Japanese tourist pose...he is not Japanese by the way

[Daveontheedge]

Finally some of my favourite shots and probably my favourite spot along the road to New Denver at Summit Lake.

[Daveontheedge]

More Summit Lake.