So we got to the end of the gravel. My bike had been making a heck of a rattle for the last hour or so When we got to the small town where the ashpalt starts I got off to have a look. My exhaust pipe had cracked right through just where it comes out of the rear cyclinder. This was causing the bike to run bad, overheat and casuing a heck of a noise. Renauld had a few o clamps and I was going to get a soda can and rig something up, no worries. Then a local tells us what time it is...**** we forgot about the time change. We now barely have enough time to catch the ferry. Given my bikes condition I take off for the ferry leaving the other fellows changing brake pads on one of the GS's.
The asphalt ride to Blanc Sablon was great. Nice road, fun twists and excellent scenery. The small fishing villages are fantastic, right out of a post card.








I did not realize that we would be entering Quebec again along this road. Of course I could have guessed a town called Blanc Sablon was french.



Now I also did not realize how small of a town Blanc Sablon was going to be. For some reason I just assumed it was a small city. Ferry and how many times the name had been spoken due to it being the last stop in what we thought would be Labrador. Blanc Sablon is wee, not much there if you were thinking along the same lines as us.



In the backtground is downtown Blanc Sablon in the above photo

We got to the ferry, checked in and got in line. Worth noting is that you don't really need reservations for this ferry. The lady at the counter told me they would never leave a bike behind I like that attitude. Driving a truck? make a reservation ! Blanc Sablon doesnt look like the nicest spot to get stuck in, beauty scenery for sure just not much else to do.


So.....................
Not exactly sure what took place here. Dan was trying to get his rain pants off, a nice stranger saw him struggeling and offered to help.



So............................ somehow they ended up in this position. As everyone was staring I blurted out (yes I have no control over my tongue)..."Hey Dan, bet you didn't think you'd find love in Labrador". Renaud spit his drink out, Dan's face went red, the stranger looked..well...shocked and embarassed...and me...I had water rolling out of my eye's I was laughing so hard. At this point I hear someone ask how it tasted and this just set me off laughing again. Man if the stranger is watching I am truely sorry to have such a laugh at your expense, but damn was it funny. Dan.....what the hell was going on?



Got on the small ferry (it's about a 1.5 hour ride) and tied down our bikes (they provide straps).



Had a walk about deck as we took off. If I couldnt ride bikes I'd ride boats, I love being out on the water.







Met this fellow from the Toronto area (forgot your name, sorry). He was riding a vstrom and had also just finished the TLH. He was two days ahead of us and said he had percet weather, nice and sunny and dusty. He'd said he did the museum and stay in red bay and mentioned it was great. We'd met before at a few riding events in Ontario. Cheers, see ya next time, small world

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So.....a hard decision was made. I decided on the ferry to end this trip short and head home. This was not an easy choice for me by any means. A few factors lead to me to this choice. The surgery I was recovering from was acting up and the idea of being "out here" and having it kick in again and needing a specialist scared the crap out of me My bike was running like crap and needed work. My budget for the trip was blown to hell because of hotel sleeps instead of camping (no regrets I hate camping in the rain when a hotel in nearby) and bike repairs, I was catching a cold (runny nose and sore throat) and this was not a good thing for a recovery from said surgery, we had done the TLH and that was one of three ticks for the trip and the only tick for most of the fellows, the weather forecast showed one good day then another week of rain on the island, my wife is trying to get her business up and running and I promised I'd have the construction phase done for her but left before completing it (yes she was pissed), I have alot of trips left to come and the extra bucks not spent could go towards this, next year SkiBum69 will have the Newfoundland section done and I'll come back and ride it with him.
So a hard choice was made, not one I was proud to announce but one I felt needed to be made.
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After getting off the ferry pelvis and myself headed south to deal with the ferry situation while everyone else headed north to the viking museum. Having a photo of a viking on my bike (ya not a real one but hey) was one of the ticks I wanted on this trip. I'm a geek at heart and love anything to do with swords and medeval times Pelvis had no more rear brakes and was scraping rotot and I believe he felt he'd had a good trip and was willing to join me for the drive home...thanks Pelvis Would have been a long drive home by myself.
We had been hearing rumours of how crazy bad the ferry situation was. Four of the guys had made reservations for two days later leaving from Port Aux Basques but we (Dan, Pelvis and myself) hadn't as we figured we would do it once we got to the island and looked at the weather, the calendar and how we were feeling. So we called the ferry terminal and were informed the next opening was 3 weeks away Jeepers this just won't do. We chatted with a few other bikers at some gas stations and they were telling us tales of people waiting in line for 9 days on standby Jeepers this won't do either. The newspapers were telling how the next day the local trucking companies planned on blockading the ferry terminals so no one could get a ferry As I understand it a broken down boat and bad weather had screwed uo the schedule big time. Also a coouple of big trucking companies booked every available commercail spot on every ferry for the summer and then would cancel at the last minute if one of their trucks wasn't going to be on it, this was really screwing the small trucking companies over. In years past it used to be a first come first serve...but the government in all their wisdom implemented this new reservation system and it sure didn't seem to be working out. So without many choices we headed south down the island and figured we would see what we could do.
The drive down the highway was absolutely gorgeous. Breaking waves on our right as the sun set over the water horizon, nice granite looking rock faces on our left, very little traffic and a very smooth road with some nice bends. Picture perfect.



We spent the night in a small town called Rocky Harbour which is tucked into the bay on the left of the above photo. I needed to get on the web and see what I could do about the ferry situation. Nice hotel, good food, cold s (yes this was Pelvis's last province/territory to complete his list, CONGRATS on fullfilling your dreams Pelvis ) and the lady at the concierge let me use her computer.
We tried phoning the ferries but a message simply said we are too busy, try another day please...WTF ! I logged into their site and was greeted with all red x's showing every ferry was full except for tomorrow at 6pm...well I quickly picked two people and a motorbike, then i realized that meant they would think two people on one bike, I added this to the shopping cart and went back to add another bike/person but the ferry now showed full. Screw it I went to the shopping cart and hit buy, the price dropped and the bike was removed. Screw it I hit pay and got a reservation for 2 passenegers with no vechicle. Went back to the site and it now showed that ferry as full and no other ferries as having a spot open (even for passenegers for the next 2 weeks). So good/not good news. The plan.......SMILE...it's hard to get mad or deny people with big grins

Woke up the next morning and had a great drive down the rest of the island. Have I raved enough yet about how beautiful NFLD is?
Heck they even brag about how clean their washrooms are at gas stations











We stopped off the highway to get gas in this small town. The local kids all showing off doing wheelies, etc The lady at the pumps says "you must be roasting".....I still had the liner for my coat on, windy and about 15 degrees celcius...she informs me it was the warmest day so far this year Coming to NFLD, bring warm clothes, summer is a relative term







While driving down the road I spot this guy in the middle of nowhere and spin her around to have a chat.



Meet Joe. Joe has been walking for a year and a half. He left Victoria BC in the fall of 2008. A real cool guy and he had made a real neat rig. Perfectly balanced, nice sun/rain cover etc. Joe only plans one day at a time and if it rains he stays put. Wow what a difference than the last week of my life. I was very envious of him at this point. Real interesting fellow to say the least, if you see Joe, stop and say gidday Of course I had to take his rig for a spin



When we got to Port Aux basques we headed straight for the ferry and got in line to get our tickets. Now.....Pelvis isn't always the most smiley guy I re-enforced to him to just keep grinning. We got to the front of the line and played dumb with the sweet gal. "But I picked two motorbikes on the drop down", "well then I'll just pay the difference", "well no worries we'll wait and get the next boat". Boat full, no way, next one, full no way, etc She says hold on I'll get my manager, this grouch of a lady comes up (yes I understand these people have been yelled at all day everyday by pissed off people but seriously that isn't my issue is it, cheer up my taxes are paying your salary ) and says right out of the gate, no way no chance in fact I don't even want to see those bikes cross this line. ARG..."keep smiling Pelvis". The sweet heart in the ticket booth leans out and says "Just drive, ignore her when she screams and drive right by the food and immgration people, DO NOT stop. There is a building down on the left where people can complain. I'll phone ahead and tell them you are coming." Smiling worked. A quick thanks and vroom. "Hey, stop those bikes" Vroom

When we get to the complaints department you can tell people are pissed off and have been waiting a LONG time. "keep smiling Pelvis". This over the top gay fellow seems to be in charge and is telling his employee to keep telling people the boats are full, nothing they can do about it. He looks up and down the line up and spots me and Pelvis smiling like idiots (the only people smiling in the whole place), leans over to the young girl and says something, she replies "Susie from up front called and said these two would be coming here". Well he looks us up and down, winks and rolls his eye's in that gay I'm checking you out manner So without breaking the smile off my face I wink back.....wow shivers up and down my spine, I can hear pelvis freaking out behind his perma grin, lol The fellow tells the yound lady that me and Pelvis will be getting on the next boat and winks as he walks away Hells bells baby, we're on. Not only that but he gives us a cabin with two beds, a tv and a private bathroom

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We had a few hours to kill so we drove back into town and hit up a Canadian Tire to do a "get home job" on my exhaust.
The break


The tools



The after



While doing this Pelvis notices my chain guard is all bent up and inside the spokes of my rear wheel. Well that explains some of the rough running behaviour my bike has been having for the last 20 minutes. I cut out the chain guard and WOW is my chain loose. I had tightened it a few times during this trip and prior to leaving and wasn't having any issues. When they start to go they go fast I could almost remove the chain from the sprocket by hand. We tried getting a longer bolt to replace the tightening bolt, contemplated placing a nut between the bolt and plate but in the end none of these solutions would work for a 2000 kilometer ride back home. Screw it let's have a coldy and some food and just get on the boat, we'll deal with it on the main land.

You can see in this photo where the chain was slapping. Rubbing through the mudguard and getting dangerously close to the rear wheel. Also started rubbing on the spring of my rear suspension.



A quick burger and in town then off to the ferry. I sincerly felt bad for the guys on bikes who were in the standby lane. They didn't get on this ferry, god knows how long they ended up waiting in that parking lot.

Tieing down the bikes (they provide tie downs)





A great boat, hit the bar up before heading down to crash in the cabin and watch some tube.





Adios NFLD, I WILL BE BACK







Got a last minute room in Nova SCotia as our ferry came in at something like 2am. Luckily it was less than a mile or so from the ferry. Chain was bouncing all over the place. Crashed for the rest of the night and got on the phone first thing in the morning to see what I could do aboout getting some parts. Well, I could get a new chain delivered in 3 days. My back sprocket looked like it would make the ride home but the front was in rough shape. Past point, past hooking, starting to crack from the loose chain jumping I assume. So stay in Nova Scotia and visit a friends friends who was willing to come pick us up, buy a 380 dollar chain and wreck it on the drive home on the worn sprockets OR get Uhaul and get the hell out of here?





Sure enough the minute we head out it starts pouring rain and winds of up to 90 km/h the radio was saying. I'm not a big cage fan but damn the heat and windsheild wipers were real nice Not much else to say, am 18 hour drive home without anything to write about. It was real nice to get home and start planning the next trip Two more weeks and I head out with some guys to do a section of route we've planned heading to northern Ontario. Time to order some parts and give the beast some serious tlc

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And what happened to the other guys? Dan spent a week in Newfoundland, went through 6 more fuel pumps (jerry rigging snowmobile pumps onto the bike and vapour locking the cyclinfer;s everytime he stopped and forgot to turn of the fule lines), got rained on alot but generally had himself a good time by the sounds of things. The other guys went north up the island to check out the viking museum, spent a night in gros Morne park camping then headed home uneventfully.
All in all it was a great trip. Has the weather of been nicer the Trans Labrador would have been fun and dusty. But this is the way the cards played out...you dont always get to pick the weather when your on a trip. We made the best of it and in the end we all felt a certain sense of accomplishment which was great.
So that's the Labraodr section of the route. One lllooonnnggg road. I think it's about 2300 km's long of which about 1700 of it being gravel. A very cool place in the world for overland travelling in my opinion. Lot's of wilderness, some nice scenery, great people to meet along the way, etc



I need to get back to work now but I'll post up another province soon

chug

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Some information about the TCAT (Trans Canadian Adventure Trail).

The main route is designed for larger bikes loaded with gear. It is primarily made up of gravel roads and some easy double track. In total it looks as if it will be somewhere around 15, 000 kilometers long and will cross 7 provinces. Rain forests, mountains, grass lands, prairies, forests, tundra, etc The geography changes and so do the different cultures, languages, etc

The GPS files will be distributed at no charge from our web site once the project is completed. In total we have 9 people working on the route. Without their help this project would not be feasible...THANKS!

A guidebook, maps, DVD, decals, etc will be sold for a modest price. We hope to make enough money to cover the costs of setting up the website and ongoing costs to maintain it. Along with the TCAT we are also hard at work on a couple of other routes...but this thread is about the TCAT.

ALong the route there are several optional tracks. We've labelled them as Technical Sections. A grading scale will be done and each optional section will be given a grade and explaination as to what can be expected. SOme are easy, a few are challenging...but all are "doable" If you see wtaer crossings, mud holes, etc you can be rest assured they are on one the technical sections. Originally the route was going to be a bit more hardcore, but based on opinions over the last year from various forums we decided to make the technical terrain optional and created the main route to avoid that thype of stuff. Alot of these posts were written prior to making that choice.

Currently we are about two years into this project and expect to finished in a year and a half. We have been having a blast creating the route, meeting new people, seeing new places and riding some fun terrain.

I hope everyone enjoys the read, your feedback is welcome. The project has morphed over the years based on feedback from the various forums.

All for now
Cheers
Ted

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Here comes the Ontario section or what we have completed of it so far. Grab a or three...it's a long read.
The route for Ontario begins at the Quebec/Ontario border in the city of Ottawa. Ottawa is a city of approximately 1 million people. The decision to have the route cross a major city was made soley based on we felt folks may need a break from the boonies and also to get access to parts/tools/mechanics, etc by this point in the route.
About 50 km's of ashpalt will bring the route out "into the country" and some gravel roads, eventually bringing them into the town of Merrickville, Ontario.
Scotch Line coming into the town of Merrickville, Ontario.




The route has intended spots to spend the night. Of course this bases the route on a schedule, some folks will find the schedule much to fast and others way to slow. Nothing we can do about that I suppose. The places to spend the night are being choosen based on things like campgrouns,motels, laundry mats, stores , restuarants, grocery stores and so on. Merrickville is a small touristy town and seems to have most of what is required for a nights stay.
This is the first installement where the route splits into the main route and the technical route. I'm not going to differentiate between the two in this thread but if something looks a bit too "serious" for your vechicle or skill lvele, know that the section your looking at "may" be on the technical sections. make sense?

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The route takes some gravel roads and a few short jeep trails before ending up in a town called carelton Place, Ontario. A short section of gravel/jeep roads ...



leads past the town of Almonte and follows a nice double track through the bush

before ending up on this powerline (NOTE:technical section)

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Some water crossing are inevitable. Nice on a hot sunny day not so nice when it's cold.
Depending on rain the water levels can change. Use common sense and walk what you can't see, always a good rule on thumb.

The two pictures below are the same water crossing, but taken two days apart from each other. One good day of rain can swell the water levels.






Good example of too deep ....







Please remeber not every photo here will be on the route. Some days we got stumped and deadened, some days the terrain just became unsuitable or trails led us in the wrong direction.



I don't want to give the wrong impression...this is the go around or "main route" past the hydro lines



Back to the good stuff





Flat tires, like taxes and death are inevitable













Off the hydro line for a stint around some bogs before getting back onto it







More flats .....

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After a fun morning of hydro lines the route gets back onto some backroads. Now based on the feedback I get from other forums I guess not everyone has sweet backroads like these where they live :victory: These are roads, with houses on them and school buses that pick up kids in the morning. do NOT be surprised to think you are way out there and feeling very hardcore and the voila, a mini van defeating the odds and driving down these "roads" with the kids in the back watching freaking Dora or some other crap on the dvd players. :bike_rider: Laugh now, if you ride this route you WILL run into this situation. It is a bit humbeling to say the least ....
























One more short "technical optional section"










Back onto the main route which leads into a town called Ompah, Ontario




Ompah is a recommend night's stay. This day will have been a challenging onwe for folks who take the technical sections. For folks on bikes...you WILL be wet and muddy. There is no one spot that is really stand out difficult, more just a whole lot of it.

Ompah has a gas station, a campground, a burger/fry stand and .....hmmm.....did I mention the gas station ?

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Just to be clear, one doesnt just look at a map and find a route like the one posted above. ALOT of work went into creating that section...ALOT of fun work
Here's a few more random pics from the first day in Ontario on the route, again not all of the photo's show terrain that made the "cut"

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Some more random pics from the day one in Ontario





So why so many pics from this section? Well it's my backyard so to speak. I wanted this section to be just about perfect and one of the highlights of the route. I hope we accomplished it. Truely it will be a fun day for folks. The main route will not dissapoint either :bike_rider: Did I mention a stock suv would need AT tires ? Same goes for bigger bikes travelling the main route, you WILL need knobby tires.

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A few more random pics from Day One in Ontario section of the route be fore I jump into Day Two of the route for this province.



This is the K and P railtrail and is a part of the main route. The technical section doesnt utilize this trail but does cross it once. Wherever possible we are trying to have the Main and the Technical routes criss cross each other and stay somewhat close.


Some pics of the backroads on the Main Route









A few pics of some of the sections along the Technical Route





















Early season exploring

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Here is a report on one day in particular while exploring for Day One Ontario. Some of the pics may be redundant as up to now I have just been grabbing pics in no particular order for this day of the route. Enjoy the read as we didn't all enjoy this day

So not all day's go as planned
A group of us met at, where else but a Tim Horton's I swear there is something addictive they add to their beans.
A gas fill up before heading out



Some slab to catch up to the route



Re run a section of the route just to see how others feel about it





The backroads in Eastern Ontario are FUN ! Arcol, Hydro Line rd, etc







The ADV salute...or he just doesn't like me Oh wait this is early in the day, he doesn't hate me yet.....it must be the adv salute



Richard's first day of off roading on his 800gs, what a first day ... lol



It always surprises me when your riding on one of these roads and you run across a mini van full of happy little soccer kids with Mom driving and she's all smiles. Yes these are roads, not trails. Ontario is fairly liberal in what they call a road around here





Around this point in the morning we headed over to a snowmobile trail that would push the route further west. A great little trail that went up/down/left/right and I was thinking hells bells baby, this trail will work out fine Then a steep rocky decent that leads into a water crossing with a soft bottom A couple of the fellows indicated that they wouldnt be able to go back up the decent. No worries as the water was low and we all made it through with no issues. BUT this trail would have to get removed from the route. After some serious rain or a typical spring thaw, the water crossing with the muddy bottom and rocks and logs in it just doesn't fit the bill, too bad, we 'll have to re route another day.



On we go



Now keep in mind that we have spent alot of time researching these trails before we go. Paper maps, internet sat maps, locals input, etc. Well the route was GOING TO follow this snowmobile trail and bring us across a big void in the map. Looked great from all the research we did. After finding the trail it had private No Tresspassing signs on it. Bummer, but we figured it's probably only one section of the trail across some famers fields and we should be able to find a go around to catch up to the trail a bit further on. A bit further on and we come to an atv trail climbing up over the bank. Logic suggested that this trail would cut across to the main trail and this is what local's must use to get a round the closed section. WRONG
100 feet into the trail and we came to this



Full of rocks, tree's and VERY slick mud. Seems like everyone wanted to turn around...but me. I now apologize formally to all who were involved. Bad call, big time ! So off I go, get stuck, bury the bike and end up dragging it across the last few feet (not easy with a 500 lb bike). Look back and see faces like this



That's the look of "this is a bad idea".
Looking up at the trail, yes that is the trail



Oh before I forget, a local on an atv came up on us and promptly turned around. This should have been a BIG clue. Well I was born stubborn and kept thinking ya but the trail will get better just around the bend, this is still doable WRONG !
What followed was around 2 hours to cover 3km's of trail. The black earth was some of the slickest ground I've ever ridden a bike on. On level ground you would be stuck, tire just spinning away, get a buddy to push type of terrain. Add to the that the fact that I don't think this trail had been ridden in YEARS. How many tree's were across the trail? Dozens. Did I bring my saw? Nope How many bikes tipped over? Every damn one of us. Were the bugs bad? CRAZY bad (and I normally don't complain about bugs). Was it hot? about 36 degrees celcius with 100 % humidity (think sauna temps) And finally how many people liked me at the end of this trail? ZERO
As stated above I do formally apologize, this section is now known as the trail from hell and will NEVER be ridden again.
After completing this section everyone split up, pissed off and went their seperate ways It was only lunch time and we had a huge day planned, ah well ......it was not too be. I seriously thought I was going to get lynched out there. Lesson learned the hard way but a lesson learned











Do you see the trail? It's there...

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A few more pics from "The Trail From Hell"









Do you think me taking pictures during this fiascal made things any better



Heat stroke, check
Piss off buddies, check
Add more to the route, negative
I have yet to see a couple of these lads again......this is NOT how all days of exploring go and yes I am becoming less stubborn everyday......but sincerly I believe it's that stubborness that is pushing me to finish this route. If I was just after "fun" I'd have given up a long time ago. Days like this one become fun about 3 months later around a campfire and a few cold s

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This report is from back in the spring of 2010. Day one left off in a town called Ompah, Ontario. This report is from a trip to explore and route day two of this province.
Met up with Juames and Dan mid June to push the route further west then north up to a small city called North Bay. This section of the route had been examined in detail, many many times. Originally we were to route through a town called Huntsville. That portion of the route had to be re routed due to the G8 Summit taking place in that town We all knew about the G8 but somehow never put two and two together until 2 days before departure. I was a bit dissapointed as I was lookintg forward to some of the trails north of Huntsville that run along the edge of Algonquin Nation Park.
As usual we met up at a Tim's for coffee and to look over the maps again.





Bikes loaded up for a few days



This will become a reoccuring theme, blasting some slab to catch up to the route.



A bit of gravel thrown in for fun on the way west



Look out for these guys



Some fun twisties



We last left the route ending in the town of Ompah, Ontario. Ompah has a couple of nice campgrounds, a gas station/general store and a few other small businesses. This is a recommended gas stop on the route and would make a likely place to spend a night.



Happy to be back on the route and making progress again



The route takes some slab for about 20 minutes before getting back into some back roads.




These backroads lead onto a long hydro line
44.739296,-77.320662
The hydro line seemed to be in good shape. I had done a trip a couple of weeks back where we rode a long hydro line/back road section that I was sure was this section. It only took about a few minutes to realize that this hydro line wasn't the one I thought we'd be riding. A quick look at the map again just to double check we were in the right place that we'd highlighted for the day's route. Yep this is the one we had pencilled in, ah well it looks long (50+ km's) and so far it seems to be in good shape ..........



A nice gravel base, well travelled, looking good





Things started to get wet. Water crossing after water crossing. The good news was that they all seemed to be gravel based and the water level's never got over the front tire.






Some of the water crossing got real dark and murky. A red tint to the water from some mineral in the ground I suppose. Looks cool but a bit unnerving when you don't know how deep they were. We did due dilegence and pre walked a few of the more suspect one's just to be on the safe side.
Juames takes one for the team Heck once your wet your wet, you can't get more wet




Dan getting a big kick out Juames getting wet......his turn will come

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