Motorcycle Adventures

It was our first day long ride together, and we decided to go to Merritt BC, where Nicole’s parents have a new piece of property they are building a house on. The weather was wonderful and warm, and although we had intended to leave early, around 9:45am, by the time we really got going it was 11am…

Merritt is about 250kms from New Westminster, and takes the number 1 highway to hope, and then the number 5 Coquihalla Highway (toll highway) to Merritt.

I had remembered there being many places to stop and rest of the Coquihalla, so one of my goals for the day was to stop at a beautiful lookout and take a great photo of Nicole and I and our bikes.

We stopped for fuel and lunch in Chilliwack (White Spot – our Favorite) and then continued on. The sun was shining, barley a cloud in the sky, and the weather was pleasantly warm without being too hot. To Coquihalla was much more pleasant than I had remembered when driving it by car. Normally it’s quite a boring highway by car, but we really enjoyed the ride. Although it’s not a twisty highway by any definition, it is surrounded by beautiful landscape, and it’s an easy ride with wide lanes and often 6 lanes accross, we could go at any speed we wanted easily without slowing down traffic or feeling like we were going to slow. It was, looking back on it, also a great highway for us to go on our first long ride with our new bikes.

The toll on the highway for motorcycles is $5, half of what a car pays, For the two of us it was the same price as driving a car. It was a little bit colder on the summit but nothing uncomfortable. The day was quite windy, so we got used to adjusting for the windy conditions, and by the end of the day we hardly noticed the wind, despite it being windier on the way back then on the way there.

As it turned out there weren’t many places to stop, and most of the ones were you could stop were covered in gravel, which I avoid travel at all costs… We had no reason to stop other than to take a photo, and so we just kept going until we got to Merritt.

Merritt is a cute little town. It’s quite a bit smaller than I had expected, but it does have a Walmart, with the most wonderful friendly staf,f we would later discover. It also has a Canadian Tire, an Extra foods, and various other stores. The landscape is dry and warm. In Merritt the temperature rose to 27 degrees, probably 10 degrees warmer than in Vancouver. It has a very open feel – so unlike the dense feeling of Vancouver.

We made our way, with the help of my GPS, to a little road past the town, which carried on for about 16km. We barely saw another vehicle, and it was the most pleasant curvey road, winding its way through the hilly countryside. It was like a painting.  I think it was my favorite part of the whole ride.

Nicole’s parents live on 22 acres outside of town. their property is really wonderful. Their property lies at the bottom of a small hill.  The hill and surrounding trees make is perfectly private. There is a pleasant stream that runs through the edge of their property, and a perfect amount of clearing and space to build a house. There is no lack of trees on the rest of the property, so it will be a perfect place to build. The climate is extreamely dry – the uncovered soil is more dust than soil.

We had a great visit, if not a short one. We had a tour of the stream running behind the property, twice, by Darren, and met the neighbors as well. We are looking forward to many rides up to visit and eventually we’ll be able to stay overnight as well and enjoy a little getaway on their property.

We left quite late, close to 7pm. We had to stop off and get some more fuel in town, as well as make a stop at Walmart to find a way to mount Nicole’s Microphone closer in her helmet. By the time we did all that, and started to make our way home, the sun was setting… This, as it turns out, was not the worlds brightest bit of planning. The ride up the Coquihally was not quite as enjoyable as the way there. There was a very long section of pavement that had been prepped for paving – leaving only the grooves. It was incredibly uncomfortable and unsteady feeling to ride on, and it felt like it went on for a good 20 minutes. It required an exhausting amount of concentration.

The summit had changed from wonderfully warm to incredibly cold. The cold was almost painful coming down from the summit. I couldn’t wait to make our way back down… Most of the ride was uneventful, but the combination of the cold, and later on, darkness followed by tiredness, made the trip back not nearly as enjoyable. When we got into Chilliwack, it started to rain, and that was the final straw for us.

We made a pit-stop at the same White Spot we stopped at earlier for some warm food. We were served by the words rudest waitress – her tip was small. Apparently we were keeping her from better things to do We had even contemplated staying overnight in Chilliwack as we were tired and cold and now wet, but after eating and feeling better, we decided to make our way home after all.

When we left the restaurant the rain had stopped, and for most of the ride home it didn’t rain any more… We were tired when we got home however. We didn’t make it home until after midnight…

We learned a lot from our little adventure day. When we go on vacation next week, we have a lot more information and experience to draw from. We know we don’t want to ride 500km in one day on a regular basis. We also know we don’t want to do a lot of night time riding, and we know that we need to leave ourselves more time with the motorcycles than we would need with a car. There are more frequent stops to rest, stretch, and put fuel into our tanks and bellies.

All in all we had a wonderful day, and don’t regret anything we did. It was all part of a great adventure for the day, and next time, we’ll have even more fun having learned so much.