Vancouver Island Day Trips

I'm sorry if this RR is getting to be more about me working on my bike than about riding on Vancouver Island, but I suppose it comes out of being able to ride and commute all year (much of it in the rain), rather than putting the machine away for 6 months and working on it in the off season. This is my only vehicle, so I can't afford to neglect it anymore!

It's been a month long ordeal, but I finally have all of the rear suspension bearings and wheel bearings installed! That took way longer than it should have....It's a big job when everything is stuck together. It's not how I like spending my weekends!

Now about those machine shop perks...There are a few things that have made life easier being in my line of work. I have made the odd few parts for the bike including stainless wheel spacers, exhaust brackets and switch mounts, and if I need a special tool, sometimes I can make it. A while back, I made up a few punches to make the process a bit easier.



This is how far I had to tear into it to replace the upper shock bearing, and to boot, I'll have to do it again! I missed re-installing a snap ring whick holds the bearing in place...I hate having parts left over....



Good cleaning opportunity though!



Just last weekend ( June 3rd, Happy Birthday Dad! Mom's was May 31st ) I finally defeated the last stuck frame linkage bolt.

I soaked it in oil and half beat it to death with a drift the previous weekend, and it would not budge. It's a real tight spot, and the angle of contact was not great.

It finally budged when I used an idea that Eric at work gave me. I made up a block to fit between the nut and the frame stanchion, with clearance milled into it for the brake sensor mount, which I didn't want to crush. I then held the nut stationary while turning the bolt, and it started to crack loose! Tightened it once more, and wegded it on the block again to loosen the crud, and drove it home with the drift!





It's a beautiful thing!

Hi there, been very busy the last while. I'm in the middle of trying to find a new apartment rental, so that is taking up most of my time. I haven't posted in about a month! I got one good ride in, before my piece of shit aftermarket stator died after 4 months.
I am soooooooooo lucky to never have broken down in the bush! I was coming home from work, and hit a red light. the bike sounded like it was out of gas, so I switched to reserve. No problem. The light turned green, I gave it some gas, and got nothing but backfiring, and FOOT LONG FLAMES OUT OF THE PIPE!:eek1 Top speed, 10 kph. I was able to push my ride home about 10 blocks, using the engine to get up only the worst hills. I had just enough power to do this without backfiring. I get home 1AM. SOMEONE STOLE MY GARDEN HOSE!!!!!:dog Great.... Bikes not running, and I can't even wash the mud off.......What a monday that was.....

Next morning I get to work on the bike. I check all the carb connections, vent lines, air filter, and I drained the float bowl. I checked the wires going to the plug, they were fine, I checked the plug itself, it was fine, and was wet with gas. Odd thing was, the bike idled fine. By then I was out of Ideas....I reluctantly got the shop to pick it up for the first time ever.....They checked the valves and timing ( needed doing anyway ) checked the carb and adjusted it (much healthier on de-cel now) and came to the conclusion that the pickup coils on the stator went bad, and were giving poor spark.
Two and a half weeks of sprinting on my bicycle to catch the very last double decker bus at 12:10 AM, and $1134 later, and I have an OEM stator, and a tip top DRZ. Yep, it's going to be a hard month, but at least I have my machine.

My bus driver was great! Didn't have to pay once, He had loads of stories, a few magic tricks, and I even learned how to make a Paralyzer! "I love night shift, I can smoke on the bus, I can make fun of the passengers, why would I want to change?"
Yep, I love night shift too! I might have to take his bus just for fun some day!

I used to enjoy night shifts. As I get older though I find that I just can't sleep as well as I used to during the day. Next job I find is going to be straight days for sure.

eleven hundred bucks for all that work eh? Ouch. Well I guess you've got to pay to play eh.......

Glad you're moving too... someone stole your hose? WTF?!

The day before my stator fried, I was out in the bush, about 20 clicks in....Man am I lucky! I saw a lot of wildlife that day. Some whimsical force keeps me from having mechanicals in the bush....
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A grouse and chicks. She had about 4 of them. Looks like good eating to me!

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I stopped by a place that I think was called Pete's Pond. Didn't have the map that day. This little guy hopped up beside me. He was real good for the camera!

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This is the second time I have had this happen. I come up to a Doe and fawn, and Mom darts into the bush while the fawn plays dead! Is the doe saying "Chase me"? I'm not sure I understand this defense strategy.

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Not too often you see Macmillan Bloedell signs anymore. They used to be a huge company on the island. Locally owned too.

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Stopped by an old favorite! Not sure if there's any fish anymore....

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Some Interesting sights on a ride I took from the top of the Malahat to Cobble hill on the trail. Just past the trailhead, the first pic was back in winter, and I had to drop the bike to 45 degrees and push it uphill to get under the smaller tree.



Thanks to whoever cut that section out! This was late July.



I love old bikes, I met this guy at Oliphant lake doing some fishing. Check out his rig!







I'm curious if they keep up on removing the Scotch Broom in areas that are re-planted on the Island. This is what happens in areas that they don't. It takes over massive chunks of the land letting nothing else grow. It's very hard to get rid of. I have never seen it anywhere but the Island.



Some edibles along the way. Salmon berries,they're just a bit tart yet.





Near Mill bay.





This is the car I grew up with! Well, not this one, we didn't have a skid plate or a winch. I can see how it would make a capable bush whacker.



My Mom called it her little snow cat. One of the schools I went to was at the top of a steep hill in Lake Cowichan, and when it snowed there, we'd wait for the big tough 4X4's to slide backwards down the hill so we could crawl right up with no trouble whatsoever! It would never get stuck in winter. I have fond memories of the 84 Tercel 4x4.

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Mid July, I was coming home from work about 12:30AM, and saw some flashes in the distance. Conditions were right, very warm night, high humidity, you could feel the electricity in the air! About 1AM, I decided to ride to Gonzalez to check it out. It put on a show alright! Very rare to see this here.







It continued into the next day.



POW! I'm not sure why, but this photo had more views in one day, than any I have ever posted to Flickr! Within about 2 weeks, it had over 4000 views... Is it because I caught it at 1/20 seconds exposure, or did it just catch the eye as a thumbnail?

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Well, I wont say it's been a bad summer, but heat didn't really kick in until the weekend of August 5th. I decided it would be a good opportunity to head up island. I went out to the Alberni Valley, and explored some of the lakes and trails north of Great Central Lake. It hit about 33 Degrees Celcius when I was there, and only dropped to about 18 at night! It is probably the first time I have camped out on the Island and have not woken up to have my tent completely soaked in dew. It was real nice out there.

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I did get in kind of late, took a left, took a right, and BAM! perfect camping spot on a lake with a wharf! Nice find! Just enough time for some beer and fishing! Locals might recognize the airplane on the bottle. It's a picture of one of the Martin Mars water bombers based out of nearby Sproat Lake. They were built in WW2 as transports, and are the largest flying boats in the world. As a kid I used to see them flying over Lake Cowichan to pick up water for local forest fires when things got dry.

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Morning wildlife.

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Fished for a while, saw them swimming by, but no such luck. Headed for the hills to see what I could see before heading home.

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Looks like I'm above Great Central! Still don't own a GPS..... Why bother?

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wow some great pics and it looks like I will be talking to you via PMs later about some routes. tomorrow I will taking a friend who just got a DR 200 out to Forebay Via Muir Creek .

Is that Tugwell Main? That's a great area! Have you done the Tugwell Creek Crossing? My buddy is editing a vid of that right now!

You and I gotta have a coffee sometime! I'm sure we'd have lots to talk about!

That's about right, I didn't see any powerhouse though. I rode south along the west side of Lowry Lake towards a scout camp, and then headed west at a 4-way towards the climb. As far as I could tell, I couldn't get much farther west of this.
I've got a vid of the climb, I'll have to post it sometime.

That would be interesting to explore the other side of the lake, might take a while to find a trail head, eh?

Labour day weekend, I was off the Island riding the BCBATR, a 3 day dual sport event starting in Harrison Hot Springs, BC, and ending there, after doing a giant loop through to the desert and back, almost all the way to Kamloops! It was a seriously fun ride, with probably 80 bikes present. I will have to post those pics on another thread...This is my air filter after 3 days.



September 15th, and it is still baking hot on the island. It has literally not rained for almost three months now, which is extremely unusual. In some places, the dirt had turned to talcum powder like I have never seen here! I headed up Island to Cumberland for a weekend of camping/fishing. The plan was to try and make it by back roads to the set of lakes I visited back in August. By 11:00 it hit about 26C. I had breakfast, and headed for Comox Lake. All new territory for me!









This was from the bridge on Willemar Lake. 5 pound trout were swimming right by my line! Went for a swim too, the water was ice cold! Must be fed by Glaciers up in Strathcona Park.



So I fished this spot for about an hour, when I heard something rolling down the hill and stop....Then I heard a bunch of ratcheting and tinkering, and I thought it must have been mountain bikers. This went on for a while, so I went to see what the matter was. It turned out to be these two guys in a Chevy Suburban who had their battery die on them, and it being an automatic, could not bump start. They were in the process of winching their beast off of the main trail. They asked if I had a volt meter, which of course I didn't. So I continued fishing, expecting to be heading back to Cumberland to get them help at some point. I would never leave someone out this far, without doing something if it was needed! We were 35 kms out, after all.
I guess they figured out it was something that came loose, not allowing the battery to charge. So they asked me optomistically if I thought my DRZ could jump start an "87 Suburban! This was taking a risk of being stuck out there with them, because of my rev-loc clutch not allowing me to bump start either! Nonetheless, we hooked up the cables, and let it charge their battery with my bike running for 10 minutes or so. One of them turned the keys, lights came on, turned it over, the lights flickered, and it fired right up!



Immediately, a $10 bill, and two beers were shoved into my hands for rescuing them! They were chill guys, Aaron and Guillaume were their names, along with their Boxer, "Yukon". It turns out we were headed the same direction, so I scouted ahead of them on an overgrown section of trails on the edge of Strathcona Park. It was good to stick together, it was getting dark early, they knew where we were going, and had a spot picked out for camping. There was lots of lots of food and drink to go around, and I had spark for their beast if it failed again. We became friends no problem!

Awesome stuff thanks so much for the great pics and new rides

So this is mid-September, I still can't believe how nice it is! We camped out at Mcglaughlin Lake, a spot I will definitely be returning to, and it's just up the road from Ash Lake!

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I had my fishing rig ready, and it turned out the guys came ready for trolling! The 8X12 foot wharf had a transom, and out of their truck, they pulled out a 25 horse motor! Guillaume reminded us that technically, any vessel over ten horse must be registered! Imagine numbers on this old thing! It was perfect for trolling however, just dont give it any power, or the front starts to dive!



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The wildlife was friendly too.

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We caught over a dozen fish by trolling over a few hrs, All in all, it was a great weekend, exceptional indian summer weather, great fishing, and I met some cool people up island! I hope to meet up with Aaron and Guillaume again one day,its good to have a few fishing/camping buddies. I'm sure they could show me lots of sights on the north end of the island. we exchanged info, in hopes of meeting up again, maybe next summer. Sure hope so, it was a blast!

And the next weekend, fall fell on us like that! Instantly we had torrents of rain! The Cowichan river had been dangerously low for the fall spawn, so much so, that they shut it down completely to fishing for the first time ever. The rains came just in time.

All random fall photos here.

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very nice pics buddy

wish I was there

You're gonna get those 50/50 tires for the F650 this year, right?

Nice perspective - looks lush.

Thanks! Just overhauled the whole bike last weekend, and got a mechanic to adjust the valves and install a new cam chain the week before! She just purrs now! I also got them to swap my clutch back to the stock one, from the Rev-loc semi-auto....That will be a bit of a learning curve again on the trail!
And like you say, it's Lush here... When I was going over everything, I found water in most of my bearings, water in the fork oil, water in the linkage bearings, and will have to replace them again, along with rear wheel bearings..... I replaced my steering bearings when I did my fork oil, and now the steering feels loose to me! I guess the rusty old ones were a bit of a steering damper!

Sometimes I crave a drier climate! Been to the Okanagan, but I need to see some real desert one day! I can't wait to do a longer adventure somewhere completely different from what I'm used to!