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Creating a Cross Canada Overland Route Creating a Cross Canada Overland Route
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Ride Tales Post your ride reports for a weekend ride or around the world. Please make the first words of the title WHERE the ride is. Please do NOT just post a link to your site. For a link, see Get a Link.
Photo by George Guille, It's going to be a long 300km... Bolivian Amazon

I haven't been everywhere...
but it's on my list!


Photo by George Guille
It's going to be a long 300km...
Bolivian Amazon



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  #76  
Old 28 Feb 2011
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Winter on a bike in Labrador? Not my cup of tea
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  #77  
Old 28 Feb 2011
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The terminus for the TCAT has been decided, a small town called Winter Harbour on Vancouver Island. It is the most westerly town accessible by road in canada and makes a fitting end to the route.

David is creating the route across the island and has provided some pictures of what we can expect.


A dip in the ocean at one of the beaches near Winter Harbour would be a good end/beginning to the journey... This picture was taken in December...
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  #78  
Old 28 Feb 2011
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Cross post from david, aka Gunnerbuck

Quote:
Originally Posted by gunnerbuck View Post
Today was our second attempt to ride up to have a look at the place as it's been a few years since I was last there...

Was glad to see the road bare of snow this time after the slipfest we had in our attempt a couple weeks back...

We turned back after 20 km of this the last time...

Todays ride was interesting as the roadbed was frozen with an inch or 2 of wet muddy goo on top... Half the time it felt like you were riding on a flat tire... On the return trip my speedo quit reading because the goo built up on the sending unit near the front axle...

A few teasers from today:


Nearing Port Hardy


Looking down Holberg Inlet..


Probably the worst hazard to watch out for are the Fat Trucks... Not much room for a bike to pass when you meet them, Vanisle is one of the last holdouts for these big beasts... We met this guy as a downhill surprise and all we could do was swap our intended direction in a hurry...


Winter Harbour store... It's only open 1 hr a day in the Winter... Possibly because there are only 6 fulltime winter residents so shortening their hours is a way try to survive till summertime brings the people back...

They do have their own post office..

The settlements original main road consists of a boardwalk that runs along the waterfront...

And they grow big carrots..


This would be my proposed end/start for the TCAT... The roads dead ends at a trailhead about 20 KM past Winter Harbour...


Park the bike and take a short path to the beach...

I guess you'd be looking at Japan if you could see that far

Good spot to take a celebratory dip..
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  #79  
Old 28 Feb 2011
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Vancouver Island Cont'd

Quote:
Originally Posted by gunnerbuck View Post

Winter Harbour has a pretty nice campground right in town... When I worked for the Regional District Parks it was on our rounds....




The building in the backdrop is the Scarlett Ibis, it's still in business on the waterfront {when the tides in} in downtown Holberg...

The base during the war years was at Cape Scott and was dismantled in 1945... During the 60s the San Joseph base near Holberg went into service until about 1990 when it too was dimantled ...The area where this CF base was has completely gone back to nature in the 20 years since it's demise...The gymnasium from the base was loaded on a barge and towed around Vanisle to Sointula where it is in use today by the elementary school... The road up to the radar station is a no go as it is heavily gated near the bottom of the hill ...

I believe these old piles are all that remains of the worlds largest float camp
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  #80  
Old 28 Feb 2011
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The Cariboo region in BC is slated to be on the route


Lotsa room to camp...





Most riding areas you get your scenic bits with miles of ho-hum in between... In the Cariboo you spend the whole day in euphoric splendor, there are not many dull bits to put you to sleep...
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  #81  
Old 28 Feb 2011
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The routes we are creating are designed for four wheeled overland vechicles as well as bikes.


































On sunny days I am very glad to have my bike, but on those days where its cold and rainy my mind turns to a vechilce like Rob's nicely setup Landrover and trailor. Guess you can't have everything
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  #82  
Old 28 Feb 2011
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As a whole the poject is coming along nicely. The TCAT is on course to be completed in the fall of 2012. The True North east route should be completed this summer. A handful of folks are working on shorter "weekend" routes across various area's in Canada. Our new website, graveltravel.ca, should be up and running this fall and ready to begin distributing routes.

A very rough overview of Canada showing the TCAT is pink and the TNE in blue.



The logo for the TCAT is complete, thanks to Anthony for his grpahic design expertise. As he posted early the templates for the book are almost completed and I have spent too many hours typing away for it. Spring can't come soon enough, nothing like writing and researching bike/truck routes all winter to get a person twitching :ylsmoke:




A logo is underway for the TNE and the write up is almost complete for the new website. In May a friend and myself will be riding the sections that are left unridden and will have a finalized gps route in place for the launch of the web site this fall. The TNE looks like a great route, best guess is two weeks from the Maine/New Brunsiwck and return via paved roads. Some pretty diverse and remote country is included.





In May we have approximately 60 or so folks coming up from the states to pre ride a few days of the TCAT. Termed the Roaming Rally, it should be one heck of a fun couple of days. A real diverse crowd from beginners to expert racers, big bikes to little bikes to landrovers. This should give us a good idea as to how the different user groups feel about the terrain. The portion of the TCAT they will be riding/driving has about 6 optional technical sections which are sure to challenge the less experienced folks. Stay tuned as I'm sure some "interesting" stories will come out of this event :smiley_drive:
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  #83  
Old 28 Feb 2011
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Some random pictures from the New Brunswick folks showing some of the roads of the TNE in that province.







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  #84  
Old 28 Feb 2011
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A cross post from Anthony

Quote:
Originally Posted by Antontrax View Post
Heya folks,

Here's what Deadly and I have worked out for the logo and the printed guidebook

Disclaimer: It ain't finished yet!
This is just a rough draft of what the guidebook will be like. I've misappropriated some photos from this thread for the design, permission will be gained and credit given for the final document.

There are still many tweaks to make on the design, I'll be working those out with Deadly99 as the content is closer to being finalized. I've designed the document so that it will be easy for some nutcase to plug-in the heaps and heaps of photos, text and maps that will be part of the final guide

Each chapter/section will be colour-coded for easy reference, and I'll try to keep the text a reasonable size for legibility while sitting 'round the campfire intoxicated

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  #85  
Old 28 Feb 2011
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Here comes a barrage of photo's from the East Kootenay valley. I am cross posting these photo's and most belong to a fellow who goes by Jager on advrider. The east Kootenay Valley is a great place, I lived there for three years and I think alot of people will be impressed when they travel the route this area of BC :ylsmoke:
Enjoy the eye candy :smiley_drive:






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  #86  
Old 28 Feb 2011
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  #87  
Old 28 Feb 2011
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Check out the road in the background













The East Kootenay valley seperates the Rocky Mountains and the Purcell Mountains. In the next photo you see the Rockies. The route follows logging roads through the Rockies for a few hundred miles before entering the East Kootenay valley and crossing the Purcell Range into the West Kootenay Valley.



















A big thanks to Jager for all the tips on the roads in the area and for showing us some amazing photo's :victory:
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  #88  
Old 13 Mar 2011
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Great read guys, hey how can i sign onto you website I tried but need to register but no link. Please complete the trip across Canada as it is my bucket list and I don;t need the trans Canada and want to follow your route. Cheers Booysen
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  #89  
Old 13 Mar 2011
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Booysen View Post
Great read guys, hey how can i sign onto you website I tried but need to register but no link. Please complete the trip across Canada as it is my bucket list and I don;t need the trans Canada and want to follow your route. Cheers Booysen
The site will be open in September of this fall...

Enjoy your travels
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