'nother trans lab trip

[zombie]

I've been wanting to do this trip for a while now especially after reading Marks ride reports over on advrider.
Was planning on sept. but I'm going for surgery and had to pick the first week of Aug.
Three of us went and one of the lads rode from San Diego Ca for this trip.
So Friday morning 28th july at 4.30 we hit the road.
I met Kendall in 07 when I sold him his BMW 1150 adventure and we rode together in Alaska and have been friends ever since.
My other friend Liam lives in Hyannis and is taking his Tiger. Funny thing is I've owned all 3 of these bikes at some stage.
I decided to take my BMW GS1150 as the tires on it were newer than the tires on my Tiger.
I ended up spooning tourances on and hope for the best.
Couple of pics of night before getting ready.

[zombie]

We had planned on staying in Burlington VT on the friday night but ended up pressing on as we realized we had a long ways to go. we rode up through Quebec city and pressed on into Tadoussac Quebec where we got a ferry across the river for a total of 642 miles for the first day.
Quebec is mostly french speaking but easy enough to figure out what you wanted. Canada seems to be booming right now and so things were more pricey than the states.
The ride onto the Ferry was awesome as it was sweeper after sweeper and great views of the St lawrence on your right and people were moving right along and speeds were right around the 70mph.

[zombie]

The big GS really impressed me with it's comfort and it's effortless to ride at speed. It's one of those bikes that's really versatile and does everything I want it to do and does it well.
Next morning saturday We got up nice and early and headed North to Rte 389 which is where the Adventure really starts.
We took a left at Baie-Comeau to start the ride up to Manic 5 Dam where the road turns to dirt.
Rte 389 just plain rocked as we had it to ourselves and with the long travel suspension we just cranked right on over all sorts of rough road surface.
We arrived at Manic 2 dam and gassed up.
All three of us were in good shape and were looking forward to hitting the dirt road at manic 5
When we were gassing up we bumped into 5 lads on suzuki dr650's on their way back down , they had started with 12bikes and lost 7 with some injuries ans mechanical breakdowns and a couple who just quit.
We listened to what they had to say but I couldn't help thinking 12 bikes up there is a lot of people to travel with, even on group rides I'm not comfortable with any more than 4-5 bikes or maybe I'm becoming anti-social in me old age
We mounted up and rocked and rolled our way up to manic 5 dam, again empty road and great views.
Couple of Pics of Manic 5 dam
Start of the dirt

[zombie]

Once we started the dirt part I just had to get my head around being as relaxed as possible on the bike and let it go where it wanted to go, I'm not a dirt bike guy and have very limited experience on the dirt. I had set my tire pressures for 40psi in the rear and 36psi in the front and decided to leave it like that and just take my time. As Mark has mentioned before this road really needs your attention but once I got comfortable I really started to enjoy the buzz of riding on dirt.
Now the sun was shining and the weather was warm and that was a recurring theme thruout the whole trip, for whatever reason the weather was epic the whole trip , must be the luck of the irish or something.

The biggest issue was getting passed by big trucks as I would get swallowed in a cloud of dust and be invisible for a while , took a bit of getting used to but it sort of became fun after awhile.
I became used to it fairly quickly and just threaded my way thru it.

the road ahead.

[RandyO]

yer makin me wanna take a vacation in a bad way mick

[zombie]

After gassing up we decided to head for Labrador city and the road was pretty cool until we were about 65 miles away from the city and the road turned to shitty nasty gravel and twists and turns .
There is good dirt and bad dirt and good gravel and bad gravel and bad gravel sucks big time, I just slowed down and meandered along without getting stressed out about it.
My gas light came on as I miscalculated the amount of gas I needed to get to lab city but I grabbed a couple of litres out of my mates bmw adv as he has a capacity 0f 7.9gls .
We made it into lab city as it was getting dark and realized the time changed so it was kinda late when we got there
All the motels were booked out so we ended up camping at the back of the airport.
The place is a contract town for the big mining outfits and construction companies and runs 24/7 365 year round
I liked the place and you could tell people were making money as it's all newer pickup trucks and quite a few bikes even up there.
Heading into the city we were passed by a guy flying on what looked like a duc sportbike or R1 or something anyway it was red and freakin' fast.

[zombie]

Next day was Sunday and the start of the trans-lab highway as up till then we were on Rte 389.
First 45 miles out of lab city heading towards churchill falls was paved and then we hit the dirt.
There was a lot of road work on this section with big machines and graders laying down this layer of marble gravel that was lethal to ride on, definitely needed to concentrate here.
I spent a fair bit of time standing on the pegs and just cruising and found it easier to ride the crappy stuff that way.

look at that beautiful sky .. thats for Duc Dave

Stopping for a leak on the road meant getting
the mosquito net on your head.
Swarms of black flies and them little
bastards bite, you had to walk around
putting your lid back on.

This particular section had large rocks and all
sorts of crap on the road and it dropped 3 feet at one
stage with no warning , happy days

hands in pockets so the bastards can't bite.
You were right about the bugs Mark

[DucDave]

All I can say is it looks a lot different in the rain...!!!

[zombie]

And so as we got near Goose bay we hit brand new asphalt for a quick blast of high speed shennanigans into town.
Goose bay is mostly First Nations people , got to say at this stage everyone we met was super friendly and the nicest people you could meet.
We grabbed a cabin at an RV park and the owner hooked us up with dinner , roast beef , roast pork and about 4 different types of potatoes , just brilliant that.
And she threw in a tub of ice cream to finish it off. Schweeeeet.
331 miles for the day and mostly on dirt and as the miles roll on riding on the dirt becomes way easier and I settled into a nice rhythm of feeling what the bike was doing and just being in touch with it so it became instinctive after awhile.
Tim horton's rocks sort of a canadian dunkin' donuts but better food and apple fritters rule.


Goose Bay sunset.
.
cool fauna.
.

Yaaaahh happy Valley , we're all Happy


Man I just love this place, unspoiled wilderness
friendly people and riding with your mates
Life is good

[markbvt]

Awesome, Mick! Glad you guys had a good time.

I liked the place and you could tell people were making money as it's all newer pickup trucks and quite a few bikes even up there.
Heading into the city we were passed by a guy flying on what looked like a duc sportbike or R1 or something anyway it was red and freakin' fast.

The funny part is that up until last year, those cruiser and sportbike guys only had a 20-mile stretch of asphalt to ride; the road turned to sketchy gravel on either end!

--mark

[OreoGaborio]

Mic, I hate you! Awesome thread, man. Keep the posts comin!

[zombie]

Mic, I hate you! Awesome thread, man. Keep the posts comin!

Dude you got to get out there and make time to ride, it's a really big world.

[zombie]

Awesome, Mick! Glad you guys had a good time.



The funny part is that up until last year, those cruiser and sportbike guys only had a 20-mile stretch of asphalt to ride; the road turned to sketchy gravel on either end!

--mark

I'm with you on the beauty of the place and would go back in a heartbeat.
The asphalt is gaining ground pretty quickly and will cover the whole place in the not to distant future, it'll still be a great ride but I'm glad I got to do it with dirt.
Sketchy gravel now I know what you mean

[zombie]

So monday morning in Goose Bay came and the weather looked crappy so we hoped for the best and filled up and had coffee at Timmy horton's eh!
As soon as we finished and headed onto the bikes the sun was splitting the stones, EPIC
This was the longest stretch between gas fillups and we carried a couple of gls for my bike and the Tiger.
We both just about made it into port hope simpson on fumes after a great day of riding and mostly had the road to ourselves.
A real feeling of being in the midle of no-where out here and I can claim to have been to the middle of no-where by taking a sharp left at the boonies.
Road was in decent shape but we still had to be careful as the road could change to crap in a heartbeat.
I got caught a couple of times but nothing to serious.
Metal bridges were interesting, must be a real bastard in the wet.
Scenery was beautiful tho.

[zombie]

more pics.

[mycirus]

Awesome pics. It makes me want to go back again. I am def jealous of the nice weather you had. When you said that the bridges must be a bitch when wet I had to chuckle. Yup, they are. I cant belive the guy who brought 12 friends along and 7 dropped out. Thats a huge group.

[mrezra]

Great pics, and write-up, thanks for sharing... however, it is not helping my wanderlust...

[zombie]

After cruising this stretch we arrived in Port Hope Simpson for gas.
Small little fishing village with very little out here and one restaurant.
Great club sandwich tho and fesh coffee so nicely sorted.
It was getting late and we had heard the last 80 miles were really bad but we decided to shoot on as the coffee and the red bulls were kicking in.
We figured it can't be that bad and once again we were proven wrong.
A couple of areas had 4 inches of loose sharp gravel layed down and wanted to grab the front wheel of the bike and chuck it down.
After that it was pot hole city with lumps taking out of the ground , as markbvt mentioned felt liked it had been shelled by naval gunfire.
Funny thing tho this was my favorite part of the trans-lab as the scenery changed dramatically and was beautiful in the extreme.
We rode into some intense fog which only increased the beauty of the place and I stopped here more often than anywhere else.
Riding in the fog where you can't see the bike in front gave me a sense of isolation that felt just right and really brought home how isolated it is up here.
Shortly thereafter we ambled into Red Bay and it gve me a sense of Deja-vu as it reminded me of the little fishing villages on the west coast of Ireland.
My Mate Liam on the Tiger is also originally from Ireland and he had the exact reaction as I did.
Great sense of completion but also a little sad that that part was done.


really shitty gravel.

[zombie]

Awesome pics. It makes me want to go back again. I am def jealous of the nice weather you had. When you said that the bridges must be a bitch when wet I had to chuckle. Yup, they are. I cant belive the guy who brought 12 friends along and 7 dropped out. Thats a huge group.

I was thinking of you guys when I wrote that

[zombie]

More pics from port hope simpson into Red Bay.
Red Bay is stunningly beautiful and is a place I would go back to.


Irish boys



End of the road.

[zombie]

Red Bay pics.
Stonemans brother in tha house

[zombie]

Seeing as we were back on Asphalt we decided to ride into Blanc Sablon about 60 miles so we could catch the early ferry into Newfoundland.
Great road but foggy and dark not so great.
We rolled into Blanc Sablon about 10.30 pm and covered 390 miles for the day,
great incredible day of ridng.
Next morning we went on standby for the ferry and were the last vehicles allowed on the boat, Schweeeeeet.

[zombie]

a little vid of the gravel road and a bit of Newfi
‪trans-lab highway‬‏ - YouTube

[markbvt]

Yeah, that's what the road looked like for probably 75% of our trip last fall. *shudder* White-knuckle all the way.

The previous year we had nicely scraped off tracks in the gravel nearly the whole way, plus I was on my XR650L, so I cruised along at 60-70mph having a blast the whole way.

You just never know what you're going to find up there.

The asphalt is gaining ground pretty quickly and will cover the whole place in the not to distant future, it'll still be a great ride but I'm glad I got to do it with dirt.

Those Lab City cruiser and sportbike guys will be able to ride all the way to Goose Bay before very long... but I think it's going to be a long time before the rest of the Trans-Lab gets paved, let alone Rt 389. The Mini-Trail (that twisty section of 389 between Fire Lake and Fermont, where it keeps crossing the railroad tracks) is going to continue to be exciting for quite some time to come, I think. That section alone would be reason to run dirty tires even if everything else was paved!

Goddamn, I really want to go back up there. Maybe we need to arrange a NESR "Return to Labrador" expedition next year...

--mark

[zombie]

Goddamn, I really want to go back up there. Maybe we need to arrange a NESR "Return to Labrador" expedition next year...

--mark

Name the date and I'm in