The Bikes:

ST1100 Honda~ John Lucas
R80ST~ Ted Hall
R1100RT~ Gerry Dockum
R1100RT~ Jack Sabey
K1200LT~ Rob Mitchell
K100RT~ Roger Reckis

The Plan: To stick our fingers in the James Bay and taste the salt water. And to tour the Hydro-Quebec dam. 1130 miles, straight north to the end of the road. Gerry showed us this article from the AMA Motorcycle magazine to Roger (R2) during the winter.

I had a bit of trouble however. My bike has a mini fairing and I got soaked before leaving Vermont in a steady rain. Change of clothes and all was fine, for awhile. My electrics counldn't keep me warm at the speeds we were traveling. John loaned me a pair of dry gloves, mine were soaked, but I was still miserable. Rain, ugh. Somewhere along the trail, Rob was asked if we could test ride the K1200LT. Sure, no problem, I'll be happy to loan it to you. Ha, says I, jump on this old boxer for a 100 miles in this crappy weather and I'll lose a friend. More on this later!

We arrived in Val d'Or and searched out the motel, a Comfort Inn. Presenting ourselves, the clerk knew nothing of our arrival. And you guessed it, there was a book reading convention in town and nothing available. Sound like a fun trip so far? So the clerk gets on the phone and makes contact with a small motel/hotel down the street and we are golden. More than comfortable for 5 tired guys. We parked the bikes near the reservation desk side of the motel for security and in hopes of R2 seeing the bikes there when he pulled into town at midnight.

Off to score a meal and coffee. The temps were down to 36 degress, raining lighty, overcast and blowing. Found a great restaurant in town, all within walking distance. Pacini Italian. Features a bread bar. A hot gridle. You select your sliced bread (7 different kinds), toast it, then when its done, there are 5 different spreads. Garlic, tarragon, onion, butter, pesto. I had 6 slices before I was done. Hey, you gotta keep up the body/core temperature!

They food was excellent and the gourmet desserts were to die for. What a treat in a small town out on the frontier. I left the party and headed back to the motel to explore the town a little and who should be walking on the otherside of the street, yepper, it was R2. He blasted up from Springfield, Vermont. So now we were the team North.

The next day it was raining, blustery, 44 degrees at departure time and the weather station showed rain and the temperatures falling. What are we nutz? The next stop was Matagami, the last gas before a Stopping Point 237 miles up the road. Serious business here. 237 miles, no gas or help at all. Nothing! And its raining and I am already cold and damp. We fueled up at Matagami, slammed down some food in a small eatery and headed to the Ranger Station to check in. You don't go on this road without letting some authority know you are out there. Its raining, I am now wet at the hands and stomach plus my feet feel wet (though they are not). R2 is the only one carrying spare gas. I have a PD tank, so I have the range of 350 miles, the rest of the bikes will make it if we travel about 75mph. No more and fuel suffers.

It's raining, and the group splits off, three and three. Rob, Gerry and I stick it out as the slow group, the others get out in front and disappear in 5 minutes. At 17 miles I'm asking whether this is all worth it or not. I didn't come all this way to blow it off--I want to continue but I am struggling. The rain is steady and the wind in howling at 75 miles an hour. We are bucking head winds, mostly coming at us from the northwest, my left side is noticeably colder than my right. At 37 miles, I am pissed that I didn't bring a Winnebago. I start to form little fragmented songs in my head. I don't know a song from beginning to end, so I take parts that I know and stick them together to make nonsensical songs with different tunes and melodies. Great entertainment for those that should be confined. Rob led the way. I thought about his offer to ride the LT, many times, but I at this point would have to pry his hot skinny hands off the bars and bury him in the bush to just ride on.

At 137 miles, I had to stop and see what else I had for clothes in the saddle bags that wasn't wet. Gerry offered an unused rain jacket to put under my Motoport Rainproof Jacket. I was wet. A few more long sleeve shirts and yet another pair of dry gloves and we were on the way. My First Gear pants worked perfectly. Only 100 miles to go. The rest of the way was singing and figuring a way to kill Rob for the bike. At 225 miles we caught up the other group, John and Roger down to 60 to 65 mph, almost out of gas. At one point they stopped and waited for us, then kept going. Clearly these guys were ready to jettison me for a warm shower and food, but they stuck it out and stayed with me.

Radission, at last! Tears welled up in my eyes, then promptly froze. It was a steady 35 degrees. We checked in and got permission to park the bikes right in front of the motel entrance. After getting registered, we all parked out front like we owned the joint. We... except me. The bike was dead. Hit the starter buton--click, click--then no lights or dash cluster activity. Ok, push to jump. Nope, nobody home. Now I get to warm up a little, I get to push that cute little boxer back up the hill and park it next to those other pretty bikes. I wonder if they will miss Rob back down in New Jersey Tuesday morning?

There were power lines and power grids in every direction you looked. The motel was new looking and very modern. Its was the cultural center of town, with bar, swimming pool, spa, rooms, full grocery, post office, interpretive center for the dam, information center, and much more. Two restaurants in town, one a snack bar, and one a full serve. After dinner, I am going to trouble shoot and see what is going on with the bike. Hot tubby, core heat returned, off to a delightful dinner with the boys. Dinner was substantial and offers of advice crept into the conversations as to what could be the problem. I figured with all this muscle power around me, we could at least push the bike back down to Montreal and have it serviced there. After dinner, I scooted up to the bike and quickly found a loose negative battery terminal connection. Ah, life is good! The only other bike problem we had was Jons ST1100 was down on power and gas consumption. The next morning before we went on the dam tour, we changed out his plugs and all was well.

We were to meet up with our tour guides at 0800, an office or two from the main entrance to the hotel. The Interpretive Center is interesting, a stuffed caribou and an attacking wolf full size, are the main feature in the center of the display area. Also Indian lore and artifacts, and a fish tank with a white fish in it, about 18 inches long. If you have the time and can read, it would take about 1/2 an hour to go through there. We can't read, so we blew thru there and took a few pics of the attacking wolf and shot glances at the pics on the wall and were outta there in 4 minutes flat.

We met our tour guide, a full blown marketing professional and all around great guy, Pierre. Pierre was with us sods for 5 hours, enduring loads of questions and reeling off the answers. What he didn't know for sure, he answered with authority, plausable lies and we all got along quite well. This guy should be a motorcyclist. The introduction took about an 1-1/2 hours in an ampitheater that can seat 120. It was all ours, plus the beautiful Marie Pierre, a young lady in training. She can do the tour as a French-speaking guide, but was learning the ropes in English by tagging along. We also had another pretty lady with us, our own Nancy the bus driver, the private 12 seater that took us out to the dam. I can't begin to tell you about how this dam works, it would take too long and I can see some of you beginning to nod off at your monitors already. So, off to the dam. Hop on the bus, Gus, (I had to say that, part of a song) and a drive around tour that ate up the rest of the 5 hours. We drove down into the center of the dam, 550 feet below ground. The turbines are huge. The chamber is 1/2 mile long inside, all open, and several stories high below that. A walk-about in this impressive site. Hundreds of things to see and experience. Its somewhat overwhelming to envision the size and magnitude of this whole concept, but you know what? It works. This is where almost all the electricity comes from for huge cities like Quebec City and Montreal. 40% of Vermont gets there electricity from this facility, and its 1000 miles from Radisson. And its renewable!

As we were coming out of the dam, Pierre asked if we would like to take our motorcycles down into the dam for pics. Yo!, did we hear right? You bet we do! We had some hard miles to put on that afternoon to get within our destination for that night, but made time for the photo oppurtunity. Hey, you can always make it up on the road, right?

We went back to the motel, suited up, and Marie Pierre jumped on Robs bike, the lucky rascal, and down into the hole we went. We lined the bikes up on the main floor and burned 10 kilowatts of flash bulbs worth getting some great pics. Then up to top and some sunshine. Last year, during the summer from June to September 4th, they had 14 hours of sunshine, total! We brought them a little squirt.

Gassed and ready to roll, we blasted to the first way point, 150 miles to the south. We rolled most of the way between 85 to 95 mph. Ain't no stinking boxer gonna get left behind on this trip! The name of the place where you have to get fuel is called the Stopping Place on the maps. It's north of Eastmain near the Eastmain River. You have to stop here for gas. This next stretch is 237 miles long to Matagami. It has fuel pumps, a cafeteria, repair facilities and a few rooms in bungalows. I was going to bail out here going north because I was pretty well knackered and wanted to stay the night and join the boys the next day, but with Jacks caution and sympathy, Robs stares of "you wimp, I don't even have a heated seat" look, Johns warm gloves, Gerry's concern for ALL of us making it together, and R2's sharp pointed tongue and long stout stick that waves back and forth "scum wimp," I made the only choice, continue on. The fuel is priced at 98 cents per liter. You pay it and hold your tongue.

We tempered our riding habits for the next stint. Holding for 75 to 80 mph to Matagami. We pulled into Matagami late afternoon. Tired but feeling pretty giddy. It was a great evening around the dinner table. Locker room type of goosing went on. We were a happy group. Jokes and laughter and good food and beer. Man ,it doesn't get any better than this. We were having the time of our lives. Six happy guys. We have seen the most incredible sights, ridden an awesome road and nobody has falling down. What else can you ask for? And we are almost home.

The next morning, we have about 500 miles to go to get to Montreal. So up and early we rise, eat, and dress for the highway. The weather is going to be pleasant enough. We are all electrified, but toward the end of the day I think most of electric clothing is turned off or is down. For the meek and mild, you may skip over the next paragraph.

Our next jaunt is through the parc, Reserve Faunique La Verendrye, 160 miles of 100 mph sweepers. We averaged 95mph for 150 miles. We passed everything in sight. And that was about 30 vehicles the whole way. We had a Lexus join us for about 50 miles, but he couldn't keep the pace and backed off. What slowed us down was a provincial cop running radar on the southern end of the parc. Gerry leading the whole way and keeping the blistering pace, he saw a cop pull over coming at us down at the bottom of the hill and toned it down to 85 mph. They don't bother you at that speed up there. That was the 4th time in the trip that we went by cops at 85 mph and they just waved. Great country, Canada, eh?

We got south of Montreal in no time and most of us wanted to sleep in our own beds that night. We hit the Duty Free at the border, remember to remember your license plate number if you go through any border dealings, and shot for home. We all got home just after night fall to warm beds and happy spouses.

We all highly recommend this trip to any adventurer out there, its a wonderful experience, great destination and loads of fun.

Oh by the way, we never did get to stick our fingers in the James Bay, thats for another day!

Cheers,

ted hall

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