Route to Deals Gap via BC and Cali

shanekingsley

shanekingsley

Curry - so nice it burns you twice
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I'm going to spend the weekend of Oct 9-11 @ Deals Gap. I thought it would be nice to visit my sister on the way, but she lives in Richmond, BC. My wife thought it would be awesome if she flew out to my sisters to meet me, and we ride 2up south from BC down to San Diego along the Pacific Coast Highway. Then she would fly home from LA and I would carry on my trip over to Deals Gap and come home.

Normally I hate riding on the highway, but with this type of trip that slab will be inevitable for long stretches. I don't think I can take more than 4 weeks off work, so I'm shooting for 21-30 days for this. I figure 20k would be the ideal distance for this trip with some long days here and there to eat up the miles. I'll bring a tent and split time between motels and campgrounds.

General idea of route
BC, Cali, Deals Gap Route.jpg

I've done lots of trips between 5-10days of moto camping, so I figure this is more of the same, adding oil changes and a tire swap or two along the way.
I've ridden throughout Arizona and in Ontario up to Thunder Bay, but never out west to BC or down to Cali before.
Any must ride twisty or mountain roads along the way without detouring too far off the general route?
Any thing else to suggest that I should plan for?

Hoping that by October we have the all clear to ride like this again.
Thanks!
 
That's a nice trip.
Can't really offer any advice on the route. Other than good for you for not taking the Canadian route. The prairies are really boring.
If anything I would try to ride up to Calgary and than over to BC to get some of the mountain into your trip.

I did take part in a trip from here to BC and back. I tagged along with a friend. This was a long time ago, early 2000's. Car was a 96 intrepid.
Fun trip and one I will remember. We tented all the way and even slept in the car at some truck stops.
We took the Canadian way there and the US on the way way. We didn't go as far south as you plan.

Anyways, good luck and ride safe. I for sure will be watching for updates to your plan and trip along the way.
 
If it were me I'd split that into a few adventures and spend more time enjoying the hotspots versus trying to jam in all that mileage inside such a short period of time.

My wife and I went out to the coast in 2008, 34 days or something like that and 11,000KM. It was an OK pace and we had some down days to do the cool stuff, but there was also a lot of long days hauling ass in between to be able to take those days.

20,000KM in 21 days is a really difficult pace to maintain unless you're doing to be doing back to back iron butt's and then still doing 400-500km even on the "slow days". I'm fairly confident you won't enjoy yourself. I'm all for riding hard, but even I know when to draw the line, especially when you're 2 up for part of it and also need to fit in time for servicing your bike, etc.
 
^^
I think that it would be hard to do anything that would resemble fun and entertaining if you are riding 1000kms a day.
It would probably get to the point where the minute you would get on the bike in the morning, all you would be doing is counting down the kms till you hit that motel or camp site.
 
oioioi said:
^^
I think that it would be hard to do anything that would resemble fun and entertaining if you are riding 1000kms a day.
It would probably get to the point where the minute you would get on the bike in the morning, all you would be doing is counting down the kms till you hit that motel or camp site.
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It depends. If I am on a "riding" trip, I am normally on the bike from about 06:30 to 22:00. Stop for breakfast and dinner and a few gas stops so about 1:30 not riding. In 14 hours a day, it's very hard to get less than 1000 km. Most days are closer to 1200 to 1700 km depending on road type.

My wife would not be at all happy on that type of trip. There is no time for stopping/visiting/sight seeing off the bike at that pace.
 
Barber (near Birmingham, Alabama) and Wheels Through Time (Maggie Valley, North Carolina) museums?
 
Wow. I did something like this ... in 1990, on a Kawasaki Ninja 750, which is a comfy bike by today's standards. Our trip was 19,000 km over 5.5 weeks, in July and August. Believe it or not, we only really got rained on the last day. (The occasional little sprinkle doesn't count.)

We went across Canada, to Calgary, to Banff, to Prince George via the Icefields Parkway, down BC 97 to Salmon Arm, to Vancouver, across Vancouver Island, ferry to Washington, then all the way down the coast highway. Stopped at Alice's Restaurant just south of San Fran. Did the Avenue of the Giants (redwood trees). In the LA area, we did the Mulholland Highway, the Rock Store, Latigo Canyon Road, and others. Then the Ortega Highway to Lake Elsinore. We missed Palomar Mountain ... didn't know about it. Did Angeles Crest Highway. Then on to Death Valley, Grand Canyon, Utah, Estes Park Colorado, and then after coming out of the mountains north of Denver hot-footed it the rest of the way home.

Average was around 500 - 550 km per day, we only did 1000-ish per day for the last couple of days to get home from Colorado. Aside from the occasional short hop, those were also the only days we rode on major interstates,

This is a little different from your proposed route ... but we had more time.

That trip pre-dated internet, cell phone cameras, etc. I have two old skool photo albums from that trip.
 
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GreyGhost said:
It depends. If I am on a "riding" trip, I am normally on the bike from about 06:30 to 22:00. Stop for breakfast and dinner and a few gas stops so about 1:30 not riding. In 14 hours a day, it's very hard to get less than 1000 km. Most days are closer to 1200 to 1700 km depending on road type.

My wife would not be at all happy on that type of trip. There is no time for stopping/visiting/sight seeing off the bike at that pace.
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So at the end of the day, you just went around North America and all you saw is what it has to offer from the roads that you were on.
Not saying that there any anything wrong with that but sort of counter intuitive .
 
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I agree on the long days eating miles hard and fast, but I guess it really comes down to what sort of mission you're on. If you're on a mission to just get to the west coast as fast as humanly possible without actually seeing anything along the way aside from what passes your visor at high speed, IMHO that can be accomplished on a bike inside 3 days.

But that looks to me like a trip with scenery and road experiences that one wants to enjoy, and stretches with speed limits far lower than what one needs to average high miles. To me this would be like riding route 66 but still needing to be on the west coast on a tight schedule - sure you can probably do it but a lot of the experience is going to be lost.
 
Should add that in my case, this was done in the last half of my last work term at university (co-op) - I worked the first half of the work term and then left in late July with the only deadline being to get back to school in September. It was before internet and cell phones, but it was also before mortgages, full-time jobs, debts and obligations ... I didn't own a car at the time ...
 
Brian P said:
Our trip was 19,000 km over 5.5 weeks, in July and August. Believe it or not, we only really got rained on the last day. (The occasional little sprinkle doesn't count.)
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A 40-50 timeline would be what I'd consider far more reasonable. 21 to 30 I wouldn't myself.

When we were stopped somewhere out west (Yellowstone NP IIRC) on our aforementioned trip in '08 we spotted another camper in the park with Ontario plates and chatted them up - they were doing the same trip as we were (albeit in reverse, USA west and Canada home, we went the other way) and they were trying to do it in 2 weeks. They were frazzled. Can't possibly understand how it was enjoyable honestly.
 
I have a similar trip planned, though in July/August and mostly through Canada atm depending how the borders opening pans out, and if anyone will even give travel insurance going south. I did want to do glacier national park, and Alaska instead of California, so lets see. I do like your down south route heading back, looks nice and warm. I love your realistic timelines too, lots of people come here saying they want to do such a trip in 2 weeks and I wonder how. I'll probably have 1-2 months time, benefit of being jobless, however that also means no money so can't be out forever lol
 
Thanks for the suggestions so far.
Scorpion, if you go for your trip, then let me know what you absolutely would recommend I not miss.

I have been from here to BC by train, plane and automobile. Never by bike though and never been through northern states either. I do think I will want to ride from Calgary through our Rockies as that is a remarkable stretch! I've already been to Barber Museum in Alabama and camped there for the vintage fest weekend, but I will go to the Wheels of Time museum in Maggie Valley, so thanks for that suggestion Baggsy.

Admittedly I do cram a lot of riding into my trips, because I prefer my solo bike trips like that. I technically have 5 weeks of vacation in 2020, so I have a bit of a buffer anyways if I should want it. The direct route of this trip is only 11,500km, so I'm not at all concerned about my timing, pace or distance.

So I should have mentioned that it's less about whether I can handle it or not, but more about what what amazing roads with big nature in all it's glory would you suggest I consider riding through? On my bike trips, I don't want to visit cities, attractions and that sort of thing.
 
I had a thread/route of a similar nature up for discussion
before our world went topsy-turvy last little while
hope you are able to do it Shane

a few takeaways from that convo
suggestion from @Lightcycle was the 4 corners region
Utah, Arizona, NM and Colorado
have seen some of that region and would like to see more
jaw-dropping natural landscape for us Ontarians

from there depending how you order it
there are some more interesting ways
to get over to the Appalachians on the way north like your route indicates

NM and TX are dreadfully boring and flat
the northern portion of the deep south states are no better
come to think of it the coastal areas of those states are no better

upside to your route is if you're running behind
you can slab-blast it across those 5 southern-flat states in 2-3 days
 
Shane. Consider leaving the gap for another trip. If you've never been to Yellowstone, try to fit that in.
Cal to Reno, through the desert is interesting. Lots (enough) to keep you interested in that part of the country. (I'm assuming you've been to the gap a time or two).
I did 9700 miles, similar route in 3 weeks (76). In a car. Not much downtime in 3 weeks, lots of driving to get home in time. I remember 2 days at the Stampede, ane 2 days in vegas.
If you can extend the 3 weeks, do it!
 
The one thing I said I'd never do if we ever did the same trip again would be to rush it. There was so many amazing roads and sights to see that we were lucky we were able to stop (or slow down) and take in some of them and explore on our trip in 08. There were also many others that we simply had to stare longingly at the road signs as we flew past because every excursion off our route or hour off our schedule meant that we had to make it up in time somewhere else - either a longer driving day, or cutting an entire down day out of the trip at some point.

I get it, I like the endurance riding thing as well, but at some point when you come upon something cool to see or a particular area littered with roads that you just gotta ride....to be on a very tight schedule where you're left with little option except to take the fastest one to keep on schedule, it would be a decision I'd regret.

There was lots of roads we didn't get to ride last year when we went to Sturgis, but it was exactly that scenario - we basically did IBA type riding on the to and from so that we'd have time to slow down and enjoy the black hills and such while we were there. But to do those enjoyable days we cut out a lot of other plans we'd originally aimed for - Beartooth pass, the Bighorns 14A and a few others...simply because when I sat down and looked at the mileages involved in squeezing all that into the 9 days we had allotted for the trip I realized we were going to be doing miles at the expense of enjoyment. I cut out everything west of Devils Tower in Wyoming and we had a 3 or 4 amazing 400-500km days riding pretty much ALL the black hills roads instead. Was it a bit of a bummer missing some of the roads we'd wanted to do, especially Beartooth? Yep. But I don't regret spending those glorious 3 days in the Black Hills either enjoying some of the roads like this. (That's us in the bottom of the photo)

ironmountainroad.JPG

I guess my ultimate point is...you're going to go past a lot of cool places like this and really not have time to enjoy them.
 
PrivatePilot said:
The one thing I said I'd never do if we ever did the same trip again would be to rush it. There was so many amazing roads and sights to see that we were lucky we were able to stop (or slow down) and take in some of them and explore on our trip in 08. There were also many others that we simply had to stare longingly at the road signs as we flew past because every excursion off our route or hour off our schedule meant that we had to make it up in time somewhere else - either a longer driving day, or cutting an entire down day out of the trip at some point.

I get it, I like the endurance riding thing as well, but at some point when you come upon something cool to see or a particular area littered with roads that you just gotta ride....to be on a very tight schedule where you're left with little option except to take the fastest one to keep on schedule, it would be a decision I'd regret.

There was lots of roads we didn't get to ride last year when we went to Sturgis, but it was exactly that scenario - we basically did IBA type riding on the to and from so that we'd have time to slow down and enjoy the black hills and such while we were there. But to do those enjoyable days we cut out a lot of other plans we'd originally aimed for - Beartooth pass, the Bighorns 14A and a few others...simply because when I sat down and looked at the mileages involved in squeezing all that into the 9 days we had allotted for the trip I realized we were going to be doing miles at the expense of enjoyment. I cut out everything west of Devils Tower in Wyoming and we had a 3 or 4 amazing 400-500km days riding pretty much ALL the black hills roads instead. Was it a bit of a bummer missing some of the roads we'd wanted to do, especially Beartooth? Yep. But I don't regret spending those glorious 3 days in the Black Hills either enjoying some of the roads like this. (That's us in the bottom of the photo)

View attachment 43074

I guess my ultimate point is...you're going to go past a lot of cool places like this and really not have time to enjoy them.
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That's an easy corner to screw up when going counter clockwise. Decreasing radius into straight into sharp left. Cool though.
 
GreyGhost said:
That's an easy corner to screw up when going counter clockwise. Decreasing radius into straight into sharp left. Cool though.
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That whole area was amazing. I ran Iron Mountain Road 3 or 4 times end to end pretty hard that day and loved every second of it. There was a few people who had no business being on that road (IE, I just bought my first bike, lets go to Sturgis and ride the advanced roads and duckwalk around every corner!), but that's another story.

But along with Iron Mountain there was other spectacular experiences in the same neighbourhood like Needles Highway - riding this entire stretch of road was something I'll never forget:

needleshighway.jpg

I know I would totally have kicked myself had we gone nuts with the endurance thing at the expense of slowing down and doing the really cool stuff at certain spots.
 
Boy, what an amazing trip, I wish I had 3 - 4 weeks to ride out west.

Having spent about 50 -60 days in California over the last 8 years I'd have to say that a trip down the PCH is great, but you're bypassing some of the best roads on the continent. As an example I'd be looking at having the bike shipped to San Diego and then spend 3 - 4 weeks cruising back roads and drop the bike in San Francisco or someplace north of that to be shipped home.

This is one of the websites we use to review roads and plan our trips. Pashnit California Motorcycle Roads | Tours | Maps | Best Rides
 
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