Today was a tale of two rides. From Kimberley, I set off to the west to ride Gray Creek Pass. I'd ridden this high gravel mountain pass road once before on Kill'r, in the eastbound direction, so I had some idea what to expect. I'll leave the highlights to the captions. All in all, I had an uneventful crossing up and over, finishing the leftover Golden carrot cake at 6,800 ft. elevation. After Gray Creek Store, I hopped on the Crawford Bay ferry to enter the epicentre of BC's finest motorcycling roads. |
What I didn't know was:
- A significant portion of Highway 31 over the top is a winding gravel mountain road! 2nd gear plus/minus one gear. Awesome scenery and a great road, but not fast.
- That somewhere around Trout Lake on that gravel, I would pick up a rear tire puncture. A mangled metal shard stuck in my rubber, causing a slow leak which the Tire Pressure Monitoring System initially alerted me to, and then was the cat's pajamas for monitoring the gradual decline in air pressure. I had to stop 5 times in the 150 km back to base in New Denver to top up the air, either with my toolkit compressor or a gas station hose.
- That three different downpours would get me.
Fifteen minutes before Meadow Creek, some dude was standing in the roadway and stuck both arms fully up in the air as I approached. I slowed and U-turned back to him, at which time I noticed that one hand was holding a beer, so I kept a bit of distance as I flicked Badger's kill switch and asked him, "You flagging me down, or giving me high fives?" It turned out it was the latter, and he had felt compelled to get my attention to let me know that he has a motorbike, and to share a story about riding with a buddy out of Saskatchewan in a thunderstorm once, and his buddy saying to him, <full belligerent dude-in-the-forest voice> "SOMETIMES WE HAVE TO RIDE IN THE RAIN." I'm glad we had the opportunity to get that out of his system while my tire was hissing away. He thanked me profusely for stopping and told me that there was an air hose at the gas station in Meadow Creek down the road.
So, there I found myself at that air hose, refilling my tire, and up rolls another motorbike. To my shock, a KTM 890 Adventure! I assumed it was a fellow rider coming to check on me, but no -- His rear tire was flat! He was a dude from Vancouver Island, riding up in the hills with dirtbike buddies, who were coming shortly behind him to trailer there bikes. We shared a little laugh about the KTM Adventure meetup at that place at that time for that reason, confirmed we were both good, and went our separate ways.
From there, I nursed the hissing tire back to Kaslo, where I bought fuel and used another air hose, and then through a heavy downpour on the 31A as dusk arrived, stopping at the midpoint rest area to top off the tire with my little compressor under the shelter of a huge tree. All the way back to New Denver, I was deciding whether to seek a hotel refund and head straight into Nelson, but it was time to get off the road so I opted for the hot shower and will sort out the tire repair and hopefully replacement in the morning. Lesson learned (again) though -- don't reserve and don't commit to a room until it's really time. if I hadn't had the New Denver room key in my pocket, I would've turned around when that last downpour began (all my jacket vents were open; I got soaked to the bone), and reduced my mileage on the compromised tire.
The adventure is on!
Day total: 448 km, 10h40m Trip total: 2,879 km | Start: Kimberley, BC. End: New Denver, BC. Soundtrack: Shuffle standouts Arcade Fire & Digawolf. |