My daughter has fond childhood memories of family sea kayak trips along the coast of British Columbia and for the last couple of decades she's been agitating for a follow up adventure of some sort. So lately we've been ruminating about riding the Dempster Highway next summer on small displacement (say 50 - 150cc) motor scooters. For those not familiar with this route, the Dempster is a true wilderness road which runs for 740 km. (460 miles) each way through the Yukon Territory and the Northwest Territories. Not a huge distance in the grand scheme of things but it is unpaved and can present challenges in terms of loose gravel and the potential to become a muddy, rutted mess in the rain. It's analogous to the Dalton in Alaska, although the Dalton is partly paved.


This is not meant to be a practical trip so we're not interested in using small dual purpose motorcycles and don't care about speed. It's intended as a quirky project which might also help raise some money for a very worthy charity. And my daughter is short and has never ridden any two wheeled vehicle larger than a bicycle, so I want to maximize the chance of it being more of a lark for her than an ordeal.


We wouldn't try to ride them to the Yukon but would transport them to Dawson City and start the ride from there.


So, what scoots to choose? In a world of endless choice, no doubt the Honda C90 which has done it all, everywhere. Unfortunately, they just don't exist around here. The available choices are:


1) Geriatric Honda Passports - essentially C90s with 70 cc. motors.
2) New or newish Taiwanese large wheeled scooters.
3) A couple of small wheeled Japanese models that some people seem to take off pavement.


The Honda Passports for sale all date from the early 80s. I'm no mechanic and as robust a reputation as they may have, I think that the chance of two geezer motorbikes not having at least one breakdown (in the middle of nowhere) is not that great. There are some Honda Trail 90s for sale but these are all 60s and 70s vintage machines.


Although they are virtually not seen here, a day's worth of travelling from Vancouver could acquire a couple of new Sym Symbas, essentially 100 cc. Honda Cub clones, a model that has some major travel accomplishment to its credit. The Symbas need shifting but have automatic clutches. And locally, less expensive, fully automatic Kymco Agility 50cc and People S150 cc models can be had. Both have 16 inch wheels (compared to 17 inchers for the Symbas) and somewhat wider tires). I've not found evidence of any off pavement accomplishments for these.


Finally, the small wheel, fat tire stuff. The conventional wisdom seems to be that big wheels and skinny tires are best for dirt or gravel surfaces. Yet the web has ample examples of people carousing around in the dirt on a 50cc Honda Ruckus or a 50 cc or 125 cc Yamaha BWS (aka Zuma I think). And then there's the extraordinary story of the Vespas that finished the Paris Dakar back in 1981 or thereabouts (ridden by extraordinary people no doubt).


Any comments concerning this important analysis received with thanks.


Norm