Virginia / James Bay / North Road / Quebec / Mt. Washington

[whatsgnu]

As so many have already written.... Great RR !!! Thanks so much for sharing

[donnymoto]

Thanks guys, really glad you enjoyed it.

Was actually 14 days total round trip. 10 days was in Canada.

I think a Concours with DS tires would do OK on the North as well, just take it easy on the bumpy stuff, in general it's not a bad road at all, at least when I ran it.

[Throttlemeister]

Loads of good information here, I'll give a good ride up in my RR I'll be there in a week or so maybe. I'll report on stealth camping opprotunities along the routes. Those bicycle guys are the real crazy ones, got to be wild riding the TT with a load of rice.

The North road will shave some time off coming in from the East and keep the doubling back down a little. Lots of dead ends up on the far roads, at least it gives you two chances to see if you missed anything on the way up. I'm sitting in Deer Lake, New Foundland right now researching these routes and this is great recent first hand information, thanks for sharing your experience.

I'm choppin at the bit ready to get there, should be nice and cool with no bugs I'm hoping.

[RockyNH]

Originally Posted by donnymoto

Campgrounds I stayed at or saw with showers and laundry. I thought all these camps were great:

• Lac Matagami (w beach) KM 37 on the JBR. Fresh, clean water at tent sites. Best I've ever tasted.
• Raddison, excellent place; + kitchen, firewood, power and water.
• Chibougamau looked very nice, south side of town. Not sure of details but suspect it's nice.
• Lac Saint-Jean at Mashteuiatsh (w beach). Full facilities plus a food bar with hot food. Excellent swimming.
• Campground off Route 167 on a lake, 70 miles NW of St-Félicien. N49 08.284 W73 35.594. Nice looking sites surrounded by a lake.
• Des Érables La Malbaie Water at tent sites. Most overlook the St. Lawrence. Ultra clean and landscaped.

JBR Campgrounds: listed on JBR website are accurately described except the 'nothing more than a parking lot" description wasn't quite accurate, there were fire rings, picnic tables and pit toilets. My favorite site of the whole trip was described as this, the Rupert River. I heard good things about the Duncan Lake campground.

North Road camping is also listed on the JBR website. I didn't see any of these sites. but assume they're similar to the JBR sites.

SEPAQ. If you see camping that has a SEPAQ sign means you need to call and make a reservation if it's not possible to pay on the spot. I talked with them on the phone and some SEPAQ campgrounds have a host there so you can just show up. I had the number with me so I could just call as reserve as I was setting up my tent, or make note of a few sites I liked and ride out to nearest cell access and call/reserve from there.

I didn't see many opportunities to "stealth camp" since road's ditches are graded pretty aggressively to just pull off into the bush. However arriving late at a picnic area is fair game in my book. (tellem I said it was OK to camp there)

NOTE: There are so many campgrounds in this part of Quebec. I would just ride until I got tired and found a camp area would soon present itself.

Thanks for the camping info Don... It looks like they were plentiful and decent. I will likely be camping my whole trip here next year... what were the campground prices...

[K75STER]

Graet RR

These roads have really piqued my curiosity!

I've done the Alcan, The Haul Road, and my favorites-Denali Highway and The Top of The World Highway from Chicken, AK to Dawson City Yukon.

There's nothing like the North Country!!

Got some maps just yesterday and hopefully I get up there to do some riding & exploring!!

[donnymoto]

Originally Posted by RockyNH

Thanks for the camping info Don... It looks like they were plentiful and decent. I will likely be camping my whole trip here next year... what were the campground prices...

The campgrounds w showers around $20, JBR and North Road free. SEPAQ I believe are also around 20. Will be interesting to see throttlemeisters stealth camping info, add that to this and there's a lot of info.

[Elkhound]

That was a great trip.
And the ride report is an excellent read.

[RockyNH]

Originally Posted by Throttlemeister

Loads of good information here, I'll give a good ride up in my RR I'll be there in a week or so maybe. I'll report on stealth camping opprotunities along the routes. Those bicycle guys are the real crazy ones, got to be wild riding the TT with a load of rice.

The North road will shave some time off coming in from the East and keep the doubling back down a little. Lots of dead ends up on the far roads, at least it gives you two chances to see if you missed anything on the way up. I'm sitting in Deer Lake, New Foundland right now researching these routes and this is great recent first hand information, thanks for sharing your experience.

I'm choppin at the bit ready to get there, should be nice and cool with no bugs I'm hoping.

Looking forward to your report also.. My trip will be next year but I am already excited and working on the planning...

[True.North]

Thanks for the report and great photos. I always like to hear the breakdown and back on the road tales. Someday, I am sure, you sharing your bare wire blown fuse story will save me or someone else when I am out in the middle of nowwhere.

T.N

[donnymoto]

Originally Posted by True.North

Thanks for the report and great photos. I always like to hear the breakdown and back on the road tales. Someday, I am sure, you sharing your bare wire blown fuse story will save me or someone else when I am out in the middle of nowwhere.

Hope so, obviously wasn't a planned part of the trip but definitely had more interaction with the locals than if it didn't happen, was a real positive experience in the end. Also goes to show that getting a disabled bike and all the gear around isn't always that hard or expensive, even with a language barrier.

[Ratman]

Originally Posted by AlanCT

Outstanding trip and report! This looks quite doable with a road bike too (Concours) - except maybe the North Road portion.

One and a half weeks from start to finish, you say?

Definitely doable on a street bike even with street tires, Alan. Two of us rode across from Chabougamau back in '05, he on an '84 Honda Sabre, and me on an '84 Honda Magna (both 1100cc and on street tires). It was a great ride.

Donnie, you discovered a bunch of things that I didn't see. Maybe I'll have to go back. Great report. It'll be sad when the Ruport River is no more.
I spent the night at the sand spit just before you get to Nemaska. About 20 young people from Nemaska came out to drink beer with us. A highlight of my trip.

Let me add that on those fast dirt roads. I'm sure we hit 70 mph at times. It isn't smart going that fast. There will be short stretches of road where the truck traffic has broken the crust of the road bed, bumps ensue for a bit. It could be hell on a street bike at speed.
.....and all traffic is throwing rocks. It is a damned good idea to slow way down for the oncoming traffic (there isn't that much)....and consider that you are throwing rocks when you pass someone going your dirrection. Be considerate of their headlights and windshields.
....and it's a good idea to have protection for your own lights.

[Throttlemeister]

Speed is your friend if you know how to use it on the North Rd. From ~110k to ~160k the blade operator must have been a flunkie, looked like a snow storm just passed through there yesterday. I passed everyone and it was like a Dakar race with all the white dust flying up painting the roadsides and everything on it. Lots of fun, now for that TT road. There's a group of seven that I think where going today, I guess I play sweeper.


The people up here are great!

[feline]

You passed right through my neck of the woods en route! What you see here is not a factory, but the Huber Breaker. This area was once the largest area of Anthracite Coal mining, and these breakers were everywhere. This one was built in the 1890's and closed around 1975, I believe. They had wanted to make a museum/historical site out of this breaker, but due to phenomenal cost, it will likely just slowly rot away.

GREAT photos and trip report, by the way!!

[donnymoto]

Cool feline! That's some good info. I might go edit that part and get that bit of history in there.

[donnymoto]

Originally Posted by Throttlemeister

Speed is your friend if you know how to use it on the North Rd. From ~110k to ~160k the blade operator must have been a flunkie, looked like a snow storm just passed through there yesterday. I passed everyone and it was like a Dakar race with all the white dust flying up painting the roadsides and everything on it. Lots of fun, now for that TT road. There's a group of seven that I think where going today, I guess I play sweeper.


The people up here are great!

Yes, there were a lot of sections on the North that required throttle to keep stable. Luckily I was riding through scattered showers so the dust was minimal.