Bike Delivery System: escaping frozemagheddon!

It's supposed to drop into the -40°Cs in the next couple of days.  We're in the bowels of winter here and I'm getting cabin fever.  I've already day dreamed of the kit I'd need to go to track days, but that kit would serve another purpose, to get me clear of the never ending winter with my own bike.

Having a second vehicle that is utilitarian is never a bad idea, but I'm not much of a truck guy.  I am a Guy Martin fan though, and he happens to have a Transit Van!  You can pick up a well maintained, low miles Transit Van on autotrader.ca for about twenty grand, or about the price of a new hatchback.  It'll get over 32mpg,  and will happily carry a couple of bikes and kit (or other stuff) as needed.  With a carrying capcity of over 1600lbs, it would be more than up to the job of moving two bikes and riders out of the snow belt.

When it's about to hit -40°C, the Transit could get loaded up for a long weekend and aimed south.  A power drive could get me to The Tail of the Dragon, where the two bikes in back could be unloaded, ridden hard, put away wet and driven back into the inhuman wintry darkness after a couple of days of two wheeled therapy.

Tail of the Dragon, eating its own tail!

The Tail of the Dragon is only 11 hours away, but while it's minus forty here, it's in the low teens in Tennessee.  A banzai ride in the van into ride-able territory would make the vehicle much more than just a track day tool.

Based out of Marysville, Tennesee, I'd do a 210 mile loop one way and then do it backwards the next day...  Friday: leave noon, arrive in Marysville about 11pm.  Saturday: all day clock wise.  Sunday: all day counter clockwise. Monday: leave after breakfast, be home by 8pm.

Stage one would be getting the van.  At that point I'm in for about $20k.  It'll also come in handy for track days and picking up bikes.  I'd be able to throw my Ninja and a buddy's bike in there for the drive down and get to it.

The Triumph Daytona took out bikes twice its
displacement in Performance Bike's Track test.

Stage two would be getting a bike that doesn't have to compromise to get me there.  A sport focused machine that will arrive ready to take on the twisties would do the trick.  My first choice would be the Triumph Daytona 675R.  At only 189kgs (416lbs) ready to ride, it's a light weight machine that punches well above its displacement.

You can pick up a new, last year's Daytona for about twelve thousand bucks.  For the ten grand under the price of the cheapest Volvo SUV, I'd have a a bike delivery system of epic proportions, with an epic bike in the back of it.  When it isn't taking me out of the snow belt it could be picking up used bikes or taking me to track days.

I've almost talked myself into this!

Coast to Coast to Coast 2.0

I just finished watching Arctic Clutch.  He doesn't go as far as I'm planning to with Coast Cubed and he does it in a more alcohol fuelled young man's way, but he does shed some light on travelling in the far north.  From the video it's hard to tell whether 150km/day on the Dempster Highway is difficult, or difficult because he's hungover.  He does mention how expensive hotel rooms are up there though, which is helpful.

774kms of gravel before another
140 new kms up to the coast,
over 900kms all told - all gravel 

The key to being able to access the arctic coast in Canada and enable a coast to coast to coast trip is the completion of the Dempster Highway up to Tuktoyaktuk.  It looks like it will be completed by 2018.  A summer 2018 coast to coast to coast epic adventure, sounds like a plan!  I'd the first person on two wheels to complete this trip.  Anyone interested in joining me?

Next to the extreme distances involved (the Earth's circumference is just over 40,000kms, this trip is over half that, all in one country!), the hardest part of this trip is the ride north to the Arctic Ocean.  I'd originally thought that since eighteen of the twenty thousand kilometres of this trip will be on pavement, I'd get a bike focused on that task.  I'd stop in Dawson and prep the bike for the rocky portion of the trip with an engine guard and some dual purpose tires tough enough to handle a couple of thousand kilometres over rocks.

An argument could be made for an adventure bike for this, but unless it's a very road focused adventure bike I wouldn't consider it.  Having to put up with a tall, wallowy, wrong-tired, road-awkward bike for just 10% of the trip still seems wrong headed.  What is vital is a bike that can handle high kilometre paved road days that wouldn't fatigue me.

Having seen Nick Sanders double Pan-America Highway run on a Super Ténéré, I'm thinking that a multi-purpose bike might work better, though with having to deal with Central and South America, Nick had a lot more unpaved road to deal with.  There are, however, a number of 'adventure' bikes that are much more comfortable on pavement and can eat huge miles easily.

I'm still always thinking about lighter weight bikes and don't want some litre plus monster to lug around.  With that in mind I'm rethinking choices for this trip, especially if I've got a couple of years to get my ducks in a row.

An early favourite of mine is the Triumph Tiger.  Described more as a good road bike with some off road ability, it would be putting the priorities in the right order but would still have no problems with the Dempster Highway.  Being made-in-England myself, I'd enjoy doing Canada's first coast to coast to coast ride on a compatriot.

I was all set to be a Triumph guy from the start, but my Ninja has snuck up on me, and Kawasaki offers some interesting long distance options.  I've already thought about the Kawasaki Concourse, which would handle the big miles in an athletic but capable manner.  Then there is the odd, but Cyclon-looking Kawasaki Versus (the odd cousin of my Ninja), which looks like it could handle the Dempster.  Maybe Kawasaki would like to bring the Versus out of the shadows and make it the first bike to ride coast to coast to coast in Canada.

Since I've got a couple of years to work this out I'll pound the pavement and see who wants to be involved.  OLN Canada should probably be on the ground when someone completes the first coast to coast to coast Canada ride.  Isn't this like finishing the railroad (finally)?  Canada is, at last, truly a three coast entity and we can all enjoy it.  Over twenty thousand kilometres of travel without crossing an international border.

Canada really is something rare in the world, enormous and unfinished... especially to the north.

Whatcha think Kawasaki Canada?

Time to get the Versus out of the shadows and make it the first bike to ever go Coast to Coast to Coast in Canada?