As long-time readers of this blog know, I do occasionally travel without the Airstream in tow. It’s never as comfortable or as easy, but there are places you can’t go with an Airstream and things you can’t do. (It’s hard for me to admit that, but it’s true.)
For the past year or so, my older brother Steve has been talking about a big tour on his BMW motorcycles. We took an initial 500-mile trip on these bikes back in June 2012, with Colin Hyde and our friend Eric, through the Adirondacks. That was a big success, so the next year Steve & I took off to Quebec for a couple of days, and ever since we’ve been talking about a truly awesome adventure around Quebec’s Gaspé peninsula that would take a couple of weeks.
A ride like that isn’t as simple to plan as an Airstream trip. Packing for two weeks on a motorcycle is nearly impossible if you try to anticipate everything. The major trick is to be ready for a wide range of weather conditions. Even in summer, Gaspé’s weather can run anywhere from 50 to 80 degrees, with plenty of rain and wind. We also planned to camp every other night or so, to up the “adventure” quotient and hold down the cost, which means a tent, sleeping bag, foam pad, etc.
Being an adventure-loving nut, my brother plotted numerous side trips up into the mountains where we would be out of reach of cellular service, roadside assistance, restaurants, and virtually all other services. So being reasonably self-sufficient was important, too. We had to carry some food, lots of tools, spare parts, and first aid kit. I also was responsible for trip documentation, so I brought my Nikon D90 with 18-200mm zoom lens, an iPad, and an iPad keyboard.
All of this meant a large load for the BMWs and careful strapping of the gear into waterproof bags. It felt a little like carrying a passenger. I wondered if by the end of the trip we might jettison some gear just to lighten the load, but there was really not one thing in any of our bags that we didn’t absolutely need.
This trip was a sort of tribute to my father, who died this year. In his final years he didn’t have a lot of things he could enjoy, but he did like to live vicariously through us, watching Steve and Eric work on the BMWs, tracking our progress on trips via his computer, and hearing about our plans. He said he really wanted Steve to do this trip, and to be sure to bring Eric (who was like a son to him) and me along. So while none of us needed much pushing to join the adventure, it was nice to know that we could fulfill one of Dad’s last wishes by doing it.
A note on the motorcycles: We are riding two kinds of bikes, the BMW F650GS and the F650 “Dakar”. These bikes are virtually the same except that the Dakar (which I’m riding) has a little more ground clearance, a larger front wheel, and some suspension changes. It’s set up more for off-road than the other two bikes, but all three of them are capable of traveling on dirt and rough roads, as you’ll see in later blog entries. The point of these bikes is not to have a comfortable ride like a big highway cruiser, nor are they true dirt bikes. They are designed to go anywhere. As Steve says, “They aren’t the best at anything, but they are the best at everything.”
If you aren’t familiar with motorcycles, you might be surprised to learn that they have one-cylinder engines. These are called “thumpers” for the vibration they produce. The advantage is that they are simple (which helps with roadside repairs) and fuel efficient. We get 69 MPG with these, which helps quite a bit in Quebec, where gasoline cost about US $5.50 per gallon (CAN$1.42 per liter) this summer.
The next few blog entries will document this trip as it happened. I’m going to pre-date all the entries to the days they actually occurred, all 13 days of the trip, and release them one per day. I hope you enjoy the ride as much as we did!
