C
Crow18
Guest
So, yeah, it's taken me almost two months to get around to writing this up, and there aren't that many photos. Still, it was my first extended trip on the K75 and it was kind of a fun experience, so here it is.
One of the traditions among my hockey friends is the annual Easter Co-Ed hockey tournament in Vancouver BC. Usually there are a couple of teams that go up from Portland, and every other year or so I manage to get organized enough to go. This year, my wife and I decided to take a few extra days and ride the bikes up. I arranged with a teammate to carry my gear in his truck, and I planned a few different routes.
The ride was planned to shake me out of my comfort zone a bit. Since returning to riding, I've primarily been a commuter, and I've been itching to do a little more than my usual thirty miles a day. I also wanted to start using the bike as a vehicle for photography, a hobby I've lapsed out of through sheer laziness.
The tournament itself involved three games in three days (Friday, Saturday and Sunday), with the possibility of a championship game on Sunday afternoon. We ended up leaving Portland on Thursday morning, and taking I-5 up through Southwest Washington. The first thing to bump me out of my comfort zone happened around Woodland, Washington, when I saw my wife, Lisa, zooming up in my rearview mirror, trying to get my attention, and then swerving to dodge a big black thing in the road. I thought "Hmm. I didn't see that big black thing in front of me..."
So we pulled off, and I ran half a mile back down the freeway to retrieve my right-side city bag. I had done some maintenance just before the trip, and hadn't attached the bag correctly when I was done. Fortunately the bag was intact, minus one bungie-buddy, and I attached it correctly, and just for good measure secured it with a rubber tie-down strap that I found on the side of the freeway on my way back to the bikes.
We took a hard left just past Centralia, and got on 12 toward the coast. At Aberdeen, we refueled and picked up 101 North. You'll notice that, so far, I've been unsuccessful at the getting-back-into-photography part of the plan.
North of Aberdeen, 101 winds through national parkland, reservation land, and privately-managed forest. There are nice twisty segments, enough passing lanes, and plenty of little side roads calling out for further exploration. And, yeah, we didn't pull off, didn't stop, didn't take any photos. My wife refers to this as Sled-Dog Syndrome. Just go go go and keep going.
My bike and my body were holding up pretty well so far. Everything that was going to cramp up had cramped up a hundred miles ago, and there was no sign of the stress-tremors I sometimes get in my left hand. North of Forks, 101 turns East and winds around the shore of Lake Crescent, a clear blue, fjord-like lake. The light was starting to go at this point, especially under the trees along the South shore of the lake. That, anyway, is my excuse for not stopping to take any photos. We kept rolling all the way in to Port Angeles, and got a room for the night at the Red Lion next to the ferry terminal.
We got up early the next morning and I walked down to the terminal to buy tickets and find out what if there was anything special I needed to know for putting motorcycles on the boat. There wasn't really, and I went back to help pack. On the way, I found a small bird sitting in the street next to a big plate-glass window. I recognized it as a Gold-Crowned Kinglet. We usually get one or two a year smacking into the windows at our house, and they never hit hard enough to be more than stunned for five or ten minutes. Still, it didn't seem like a street was the best place for him to sleep it off, so I scooped the little guy up and carried him back two blocks to the hotel. And that's when I finally got the camera out.
I found a good place for the bird to hang out while we finished packing (yes, he'd already pooped by the time I put him there).
Here's Lisa. Her bike is a Yamaha FZ-6.
And this is me, practicing my game face. You can see the Crow logo on my city bag. The text next to it says Finish the play, feed on the corpse. Crows Hockey.
We had enough time after packing up to get gas and have coffee and a danish at a local coffeeshop. As we were eating, a guy rode up on a Transalp, and we chatted about bikes and stuff while we caffeinated.
We were the only riders on the ferry to Vancouver Island, and they loaded us last. Tie-downs consisted of a pair of yellow nylon ropes tied to the railing of the companionway we parked next to. We tied them on, but didn't really have a lot of faith in them. Here's a view of Hurricane Ridge from inside the belly of the beast.
The ferry ride was uneventful, and I was able to puzzle the Canadian Customs offficer with my story about riding a motorcycle to a hockey tournament, and going from Portland to mainland BC by way of Vancouver Island. I think he figured it was a dumb enough story that it must be true, and we rode on. Plan A was to ride up to Comox and take the ferry across to Powell River, and then take 101 and a succession of short-hop ferries down to Vancouver. Plan B was to take the Nanaimo ferry straight across to Vancouver. Plan A involved catching two more ferries, and I not only had a game that evening, but I also had to check into the hotel and catch up with my teammates who (a) had my gear and (b) knew where the rink was. So we went for Plan B. We had a nice short run up from Victoria to Nanaimo, stopping for sandwiches in Duncan, and rode up to the ferry terminal just as they began loading motorcycles. The only other riders were an older couple on cruisers, who didn't talk to us.
Again, the ferry ride was uneventful. I was glad, because I couldn't make much sense of the signage on the boat. The one above seems to suggest that, in the unlikely event of a water landing, a ladder may be used as a flotation device.
Here we have an example of effective signage. I don't know what's up there, and I don't want to find out.
As we waited to get off the ferry, the cruiser couple were a little more friendly, and we chatted about places to go until they fired up their engines and drowned out the ferry's big diesels.
We arrived at the hotel in Surrey pleasantly before rush hour, checked in and found my teammates. Then we went out and took everything easily removable from the bikes, cable-locked them to each other, and zip-tied the bike covers onto them. Yeah, it wasn't the best neighborhood in town.
The tournament was at Planet Ice in Coquitlam. The facility has four rinks and a bar upstairs. We all carpooled to the rink in three vehicles. Our first game was against Wenatchee, the only other US team in our division. Our goalie, a 21-year-old who was probably away from home for the first time in his life, had been partying since he had arrived at the hotel at noon, and he was feeling a little woozy at game time. My defensive partners and I made sure he only faced 5 shots, and we won the game, 4-1.
With three exceptions, everyone on the team is in their mid-30s to mid-40s. Here I am with the three exceptions. The fellow drinking from the pitcher is called Meat. Yes, Meat finished the pitcher.
Here's the team, in our hideous jerseys, after the Wenatchee game. The green sheep is the product of a convoluted dirty joke that isn't funny enough to bear repeating. The embarrassing thing was that the logo matched my ugly green hockey gloves (so, yeah, that's me with the ugly green hockey gloves), which I wear because nothing matches them. Any time someone asked about the jerseys, I told them our captain was totally colorblind and he thought they were Toronto colors. If you look on the right side of the photo, you can see Lisa, behind the boards and also wearing orange. Her job throughout the tournament was to mind a 6-week-old baby whose mom and dad were skating with us (she's the one with her glove on the goalie's shoulder, and he's the one about to kiss Meat on the neck; odd people). If you know Lisa, which you don't, the idea of having her watch a baby is pretty funny. It's not that she hates kids, but she has absolutely no interest in them one way or another.
The rest of the tournament didn't turn out as well as the first game. I don't think I've ever beaten a Canadian team at a tournament in Canada. The last team we played was basically three generations of one big extended family. My toughest assignment during that game was making sure Grandpa didn't score.
Since we had been eliminated from the Championship game on Sunday morning, and the weather looked like it would finally turn bad on us, we packed up and headed out, with a brief stop at Canadian Tire to buy some silicone caulk for a half-inch rock chip in my headlight. We decided to just get on the slab and head south, and see how far we got. I had arranged to take Monday off from work, so there was really no rush, but the weather maps were showing several days of rain coming in off the Pacific. We crossed the border at about 2:30pm, gassed up and gunned it down I-5. We hit rain at Everett, and were stopped on the freeway in it in Seattle at several points. At our last gas stop in Tacoma, we agreed to just go the rest of the way without stopping, unless it was absolutely necessary.
Well, long story short (too late, I know), my speedo gave out pulling out of the gas station, my rain pants were useless by the time we hit Olympia (at which point the speedo started working again), my gloves were saturated at Centralia, my boots were sloshing water out of the tops at Longview, by the time we crossed the Columbia into Oregon I was convinced that at least one of my gore-tex boot covers had torn off and flown away, and my fog-free visor insert gave up the ghost in the Terwilliger curves, five miles from our house. The punch line was when I found out, as I finally stopped the bike in the driveway, that no, I hadn't lost the boot covers; they were still technically attached to my feet, but also wrapped around the foot pegs. I managed to get my left foot down, and then the side stand, while I freed the other foot.
And then we went inside, turned the thermostat to 80 and used up all the hot water in the house.
Overall, it was a good, fun trip. It's good to know that we ride well together, we communicate well as we're riding, and we can read each other's body language. Next time, we will spend more time exploring and photographing, and less time in sled-dog mode.
One of the traditions among my hockey friends is the annual Easter Co-Ed hockey tournament in Vancouver BC. Usually there are a couple of teams that go up from Portland, and every other year or so I manage to get organized enough to go. This year, my wife and I decided to take a few extra days and ride the bikes up. I arranged with a teammate to carry my gear in his truck, and I planned a few different routes.
The ride was planned to shake me out of my comfort zone a bit. Since returning to riding, I've primarily been a commuter, and I've been itching to do a little more than my usual thirty miles a day. I also wanted to start using the bike as a vehicle for photography, a hobby I've lapsed out of through sheer laziness.
The tournament itself involved three games in three days (Friday, Saturday and Sunday), with the possibility of a championship game on Sunday afternoon. We ended up leaving Portland on Thursday morning, and taking I-5 up through Southwest Washington. The first thing to bump me out of my comfort zone happened around Woodland, Washington, when I saw my wife, Lisa, zooming up in my rearview mirror, trying to get my attention, and then swerving to dodge a big black thing in the road. I thought "Hmm. I didn't see that big black thing in front of me..."
So we pulled off, and I ran half a mile back down the freeway to retrieve my right-side city bag. I had done some maintenance just before the trip, and hadn't attached the bag correctly when I was done. Fortunately the bag was intact, minus one bungie-buddy, and I attached it correctly, and just for good measure secured it with a rubber tie-down strap that I found on the side of the freeway on my way back to the bikes.
We took a hard left just past Centralia, and got on 12 toward the coast. At Aberdeen, we refueled and picked up 101 North. You'll notice that, so far, I've been unsuccessful at the getting-back-into-photography part of the plan.
North of Aberdeen, 101 winds through national parkland, reservation land, and privately-managed forest. There are nice twisty segments, enough passing lanes, and plenty of little side roads calling out for further exploration. And, yeah, we didn't pull off, didn't stop, didn't take any photos. My wife refers to this as Sled-Dog Syndrome. Just go go go and keep going.
My bike and my body were holding up pretty well so far. Everything that was going to cramp up had cramped up a hundred miles ago, and there was no sign of the stress-tremors I sometimes get in my left hand. North of Forks, 101 turns East and winds around the shore of Lake Crescent, a clear blue, fjord-like lake. The light was starting to go at this point, especially under the trees along the South shore of the lake. That, anyway, is my excuse for not stopping to take any photos. We kept rolling all the way in to Port Angeles, and got a room for the night at the Red Lion next to the ferry terminal.
We got up early the next morning and I walked down to the terminal to buy tickets and find out what if there was anything special I needed to know for putting motorcycles on the boat. There wasn't really, and I went back to help pack. On the way, I found a small bird sitting in the street next to a big plate-glass window. I recognized it as a Gold-Crowned Kinglet. We usually get one or two a year smacking into the windows at our house, and they never hit hard enough to be more than stunned for five or ten minutes. Still, it didn't seem like a street was the best place for him to sleep it off, so I scooped the little guy up and carried him back two blocks to the hotel. And that's when I finally got the camera out.
I found a good place for the bird to hang out while we finished packing (yes, he'd already pooped by the time I put him there).
Here's Lisa. Her bike is a Yamaha FZ-6.
And this is me, practicing my game face. You can see the Crow logo on my city bag. The text next to it says Finish the play, feed on the corpse. Crows Hockey.
We had enough time after packing up to get gas and have coffee and a danish at a local coffeeshop. As we were eating, a guy rode up on a Transalp, and we chatted about bikes and stuff while we caffeinated.
We were the only riders on the ferry to Vancouver Island, and they loaded us last. Tie-downs consisted of a pair of yellow nylon ropes tied to the railing of the companionway we parked next to. We tied them on, but didn't really have a lot of faith in them. Here's a view of Hurricane Ridge from inside the belly of the beast.
The ferry ride was uneventful, and I was able to puzzle the Canadian Customs offficer with my story about riding a motorcycle to a hockey tournament, and going from Portland to mainland BC by way of Vancouver Island. I think he figured it was a dumb enough story that it must be true, and we rode on. Plan A was to ride up to Comox and take the ferry across to Powell River, and then take 101 and a succession of short-hop ferries down to Vancouver. Plan B was to take the Nanaimo ferry straight across to Vancouver. Plan A involved catching two more ferries, and I not only had a game that evening, but I also had to check into the hotel and catch up with my teammates who (a) had my gear and (b) knew where the rink was. So we went for Plan B. We had a nice short run up from Victoria to Nanaimo, stopping for sandwiches in Duncan, and rode up to the ferry terminal just as they began loading motorcycles. The only other riders were an older couple on cruisers, who didn't talk to us.
Again, the ferry ride was uneventful. I was glad, because I couldn't make much sense of the signage on the boat. The one above seems to suggest that, in the unlikely event of a water landing, a ladder may be used as a flotation device.
Here we have an example of effective signage. I don't know what's up there, and I don't want to find out.
As we waited to get off the ferry, the cruiser couple were a little more friendly, and we chatted about places to go until they fired up their engines and drowned out the ferry's big diesels.
We arrived at the hotel in Surrey pleasantly before rush hour, checked in and found my teammates. Then we went out and took everything easily removable from the bikes, cable-locked them to each other, and zip-tied the bike covers onto them. Yeah, it wasn't the best neighborhood in town.
The tournament was at Planet Ice in Coquitlam. The facility has four rinks and a bar upstairs. We all carpooled to the rink in three vehicles. Our first game was against Wenatchee, the only other US team in our division. Our goalie, a 21-year-old who was probably away from home for the first time in his life, had been partying since he had arrived at the hotel at noon, and he was feeling a little woozy at game time. My defensive partners and I made sure he only faced 5 shots, and we won the game, 4-1.
With three exceptions, everyone on the team is in their mid-30s to mid-40s. Here I am with the three exceptions. The fellow drinking from the pitcher is called Meat. Yes, Meat finished the pitcher.
Here's the team, in our hideous jerseys, after the Wenatchee game. The green sheep is the product of a convoluted dirty joke that isn't funny enough to bear repeating. The embarrassing thing was that the logo matched my ugly green hockey gloves (so, yeah, that's me with the ugly green hockey gloves), which I wear because nothing matches them. Any time someone asked about the jerseys, I told them our captain was totally colorblind and he thought they were Toronto colors. If you look on the right side of the photo, you can see Lisa, behind the boards and also wearing orange. Her job throughout the tournament was to mind a 6-week-old baby whose mom and dad were skating with us (she's the one with her glove on the goalie's shoulder, and he's the one about to kiss Meat on the neck; odd people). If you know Lisa, which you don't, the idea of having her watch a baby is pretty funny. It's not that she hates kids, but she has absolutely no interest in them one way or another.
The rest of the tournament didn't turn out as well as the first game. I don't think I've ever beaten a Canadian team at a tournament in Canada. The last team we played was basically three generations of one big extended family. My toughest assignment during that game was making sure Grandpa didn't score.
Since we had been eliminated from the Championship game on Sunday morning, and the weather looked like it would finally turn bad on us, we packed up and headed out, with a brief stop at Canadian Tire to buy some silicone caulk for a half-inch rock chip in my headlight. We decided to just get on the slab and head south, and see how far we got. I had arranged to take Monday off from work, so there was really no rush, but the weather maps were showing several days of rain coming in off the Pacific. We crossed the border at about 2:30pm, gassed up and gunned it down I-5. We hit rain at Everett, and were stopped on the freeway in it in Seattle at several points. At our last gas stop in Tacoma, we agreed to just go the rest of the way without stopping, unless it was absolutely necessary.
Well, long story short (too late, I know), my speedo gave out pulling out of the gas station, my rain pants were useless by the time we hit Olympia (at which point the speedo started working again), my gloves were saturated at Centralia, my boots were sloshing water out of the tops at Longview, by the time we crossed the Columbia into Oregon I was convinced that at least one of my gore-tex boot covers had torn off and flown away, and my fog-free visor insert gave up the ghost in the Terwilliger curves, five miles from our house. The punch line was when I found out, as I finally stopped the bike in the driveway, that no, I hadn't lost the boot covers; they were still technically attached to my feet, but also wrapped around the foot pegs. I managed to get my left foot down, and then the side stand, while I freed the other foot.
And then we went inside, turned the thermostat to 80 and used up all the hot water in the house.
Overall, it was a good, fun trip. It's good to know that we ride well together, we communicate well as we're riding, and we can read each other's body language. Next time, we will spend more time exploring and photographing, and less time in sled-dog mode.
