The Saga of the Final Drive

We left Calgary in the wind and rain, the same as when we arrived and it looked like we'd be spending another day in waterproofs, but things eventually cleared up.

The scenery changes abruptly once you leave Glacier National Park and enter the Okanagan Valley, the trees start to disappear and everywhere looks barren with the exception of areas of cultivation alongside rivers.

We would have to do the trip to Vancouver in two days so we decided we'd stop in Kamloops which would give us an easy ride on day 2 but missed the turnoff so continued on to Cache Creek and found a motel just before dark.

The days ride had been fairly unspectacular but had taken us a little over 8 hours to cover 430 miles, so it was good to get a decent meal and a good night's sleep, and tomorrow would be a simple run into Vancouver via Whistler and the Sea to Sky Highway.

The road from Cache Creek to Pemberton is without doubt one of the best, if not the best road we have ridden since we arrived, super road surface, lots of curves and virtually no traffic.

This is one of Sue's favourites, the water really is that colour.

Tens of thousands of trees and this osprey decides to nest on a power pole

Zaap!

The road follows the river through the valleys and up over the mountains where the terrain changes back to forests watered by the rains from the Pacific.

Most of the surrounding lands are native American reserves

Sue at Duffey Lake with new style 'helmet hair

These Canadian beavers don't do things by half!

Coming down into Pemberton the road drops sharply down a series of hairpin bends, we were following a pick up towing a caravan type trailer and a shortwheel base jeep. About half way down we started getting that overheated brake drum smell and by the time we got near the bottom the tyres on the pick up were smoking. I made a quick move and overtook the jeep and shouted at the woman driving the pick up that her tyres were about to burst into flames, she pulled over at the first opportunity and I proceeded to spray water from plastic bottles over the tyres in an attempt to cool them down. We stayed with her long enough to make sure there was no risk of fire and after 20 minutes the rims were still too hot to touch.......lucky lady.

The rest of the journey should have been a steady run past Whistler and into Vancouver, no more than an hour and a half, instead it took us four hours! What we didn't know was that the 2010 Winter Olympics will be held in.......you guessed it,Whistler! Everywhere you looked ten miles either side of the village there was construction of some sort, They were laying new roads, building athlete villages and private condo's ready to cash in on the inevitable tourist influx next year.

It's bloody hot sat on a bike on fresh tarmac.

The next day in Vancouver the first task was to locate the BMW dealer to hopefully sort out the visor problem. I left early and Sue stayed at the motel, I figured it would take me around a couple of hours maximum to get there and back..........WRONG..WRONG..WRONG.
Arrived at Pacific BMW and spoke Mike in parts, I explained the situation and stressed he was our last hope. "No problem" says Mike, "we don't have any visors in stock and I can't afford to lose 2 new helmets until the visors are replaced but I'll take one off a new helmet to help you out". Good effort, at least Sue's helmet will be repaired and I can manage with mine until I can get one shipped out from the UK. As a gesture of thanks I decide to get the tyres replaced at the same time, the TKC knobbies we have been running are too soft for long hauls on tarmac and the front tyre is just about shot. We replaced the rear when we did the crash repair work in Fairbanks so it still has a couple of thousand miles worth of tread left so we'll haul it with us and swap it back when we get to Baja.
"Right Sir have a seat and get yourself a coffee and we should have you out of here in an hour".20 minutes later the service manager comes in and says, "we have some bad news, I'm afraid your final drive has failed". Now to give you an idea of how serious this is, in terms of anatomy if BOB's engine is the heart of the bike then the final drive is the legs, in other words BOB's F*"*ing crippled!.....Swearing, Panic, Anger....how could a bike with less than 12000 miles on the clock have such a catastrophic failure such as this?. The service manager appreciates the gravity of the situation and explains that to repair it under warranty could take 3 weeks if they can get the go ahead from BMW to do the work. We cannot afford to be tied up for another 3 weeks so he offers to carry out a temporary fix by selling us a used drive with some minor cosmetic damage to keep us on the road, and for us to take the bust drive with us and arrange for repair or replacement at a future planned location on our route. "This should have been picked up when you had the rear tyre replaced in Fairbanks" says he, well there's nothing we can do but get on with it and seeing as BOB is due a 12000 mile service we book it into BMW in Seattle and head off to Vancouver Island for a couple of days.

The ferry from Vancouver to Nanaimo (still smiling)

We decided to take a trip across the centre of the island and spend a day whale watching on the Pacific coast on the way across we passed through Cathedral Grove home to some of the worlds oldest and largest Douglas Firs

Not as tall or as large as the giant redwoods but still impressive, some are over 800 years old and the largest is over 9 metres in diameter.

This one looks dead.

We also stopped at Sproat Lake and called in to see the worlds largest flying boats, the Martin Mars water bombers

http://www.martinmars.com/

Tofino harbour on the Pacific Coast

Somewhere out there is the tail of a grey whale about to dive, they disappear for five or six minutes on a lungful of air and resurface hopefully next to the boat. Our whales never did!

Isn't she pretty Capt'n, and if you think I'm going to use this photo to make a cheap gag about seamen then think again!

Totem poles

We spent two days in Nanaimo chilling out and whilst there we visited the Silly Boat Regatta down on the harbour.

Silly boats ready to go

Silly boats racing..... silly boats sinking

On our return to the Vancouver we picked up the final drive and rear tyre and headed to Seattle for the service. The border into the States was a breeze, after trying to find GB or UK on the computerised vehicle records the guy gave up and became more interested in asking how we got the bike here and how much it cost.

Canadian US Border

Much to Sue's amusement, after riding in sweltwering heat all day the three individual foam pads inside my helmet created a new Klingon style 'hair do.

The people at Ride West BMW in Seattle were great. They serviced the bike and also checked out the warranty issues with BMW Germany for the final drive. We had a quick look round Seattle and visited the two main attractions, the Space Needle and Pike Place market.

Pike Place Market

Check out the prices

We also managed to sort out the GPS problem whilst in town, I had paid for the US/Canada map download from the Garmin website but due to hard drive space shortage I was unable to get the maps onto our PC. We called in at the Touratech warehouse in Seattle who are the main importers of aftermarket add ons for dual sport motorcycles, the guys there were really accommodating and allowed me to connect the GPS to their computer and download the maps in the shop. We also decided to invest in a pair of tank panniers which will allow us to shift some of the weight forward on the bike and give us a bit more storage space.

This one went on the Touratech website

Next stop.........?