Tuesday, July 29, 2025

KS. we have crossed the border, eh!

Chip arrived at Stoney and Nicole's later in the day on Sunday. It's good to see him again, and now it's really starting to feel like the journey is on. We spent the next day on Monday prepping bikes and organizing gear. My bike was due an oil change, and a new set of tires. So that's another benefit of staying with friends, use of garage and tools.  

Stoney was nice enough to run us into town for some last minute supplies, I needed to replace the headset in my helmet because Sena apparently doesn't realize that some people might ride motorcycles in the rain. Luckily I was able to find a box of 2 older model Sena headsets for cheaper than 1 new model, so that gives us a spare set if (when)we should need it. Added bonus being it snapped right on to my existing mounts, downside is it's probably going to be the same poor reliability that Sena is becoming famous for in my book. Yeah I could have bought something else, but for various reasons, I didn't. Moving on. 

Nicole cooked us an incredible dinner that evening, honestly she fed us way better than we deserved while we were there. Thank you so much Nic! Tuesday morning after breakfast, we geared up and we're rolling out at about 1045am, not an early start, but since we had to travel through the middle of Seattle, we wanted to wait for the traffic to die down a bit. After a couple hours ride, we came to the Canadian border, and crossed through with no issues at all. 

As we made our way up through Fraser Canyon, we were expecting the temperatures to drop, they had been in the 70s and 80s through Washington, pretty comfortable in the dry air. But as we climbed up through the mountains in Canada, it got hotter, and hotter, and HOT!  104 degrees to be exact. And it stayed there for hours, prompting us to get a hotel for the night. So that's where we are, the town of 100 Mile House, British Columbia.  I still can't figure out why they haven't renamed it 160 Kilometer House, but oh well.  

 

Other updates are as follows

-no arguing about gas stops, because for the first time in history, both our bikes have the same fuel range. 

-arguing about navigation has been put on pause, we have discovered that Chips GPS is not loaded with Canada maps, so currently I have the only 2 functional visible nav units while riding (we dont count cell phones, they stay protected inside pockets)

-new tires on road bikes are nowhere near as nice as new tires on a dirt bike. It's going to take a few hundred miles and some pressure adjustments to get these things to tame down a bit. Higher pressure means longer life (which I need out of these tires) but slightly twitchier handling over uneven highways.  Everything is a trade off. 

KS

1 comment:

368/6.5

I’m here in Green River, WY having a beer and reflecting on this trip while I look out to the sun setting to the west over the flat top butt...