After an afternoon of culling photos, updating the journal, and sink-laundry I decided to venture deeper into nearby China Town in search of dinner. I walked past the street market where the tourists were just filtering in, and within a few dozen paces noticed a marked increase in the seediness of the neighborhood. Nearly every other person on the street was an...
With the bike crated and carted away, I was free to pursue more budget-friendly lodging options, and made my way toward the hostels of Main street. Shane at Richmond Motorsports gave me a lift to the Sky Train station, and soon I was riding the elevated rails north from the industrial area of Richmond, crossing the Fraser river to the downtown area. After checking in...
My freighting company had recommended I contact Richmond Motorsports (now defunct) to handle the crating of the motorcycle. I’d been in touch with them a few days before, and let them know they could expect to see me on Thursday afternoon. I found their store easily, and from my very first contact was treated very well. Multi-tasking service manager Miles...
I continued the hot highway drone northwest into the tawny hills of Oregon, and entered Washington surprised to be surrounded by massive fields of crops. After 500 miles, searching for lodging in Ellensburg, and being weary and wary of braving the hoofed wildlife of Snoqualmie Pass, I paid much for little lodging. Following the next morning’s free carb-fest...
So begins the long freeway burn to Vancouver, B.C. — necessary to ensure that the bike is prepped, crated and in the shipper’s hands on Monday the 9th. I rode fill-up to fill-up, stopping at rest areas to pull off my boots and socks to let my toes loose to play in the grass. I was paying extra attention to staying hydrated: the August sun turned the...
From Farmington we headed to Durango to meet Larry, who would ride with us for the day. John had peeled off from our group during the previous night’s deluge, so after Larry joined us, our group again numbered four. Randy and Larry were on Guzzi big twins, and Pete was astride a BMW RT1150, so your author’s overloaded 650 single was the rolling...
Let the record reflect that we intended to depart Silver City at 8AM, and indeed I pressed the starter button at 8:03…but we weren’t on the highway until two hours later thanks to a misdiagnosed starting problem with my bike. What we thought was a flooded carb was actually a lack of fuel delivery. Once it was all sorted, we headed north through...