Be forewarned, this is no usual TS trip. There is no Porsche content, no hookers, no fancy eating, no police arrests (surprisingly enough!), no fine watches, no powerboats, no gold, no Georges V hotel, no Vegas and no Jox content.

How the idea of trip was born is actually simple.

Plates/registration for bikes have gone through the roof (yup, thanks to our commie state monopol instigated personal liability/plates/driver's license thing ... think of it as the DMV, but they also pay out for bodily injuries) ... from 300$ to 1410$/year for a sport bike (only 300 to 600$ for normal bikes). Motorcyclist associations had organized a demonstration in Quebec city, in front of the parliament.

So we were going to Quebec on saturday whatever happened. Called up a buddy
- hey, how 'bout we do a little detour on the way back? I got the directions, we keep going after Qc City, we make a left, then another left, a right and we're back home
- uh, ok, sounds lame ... how long is that?
- 1150km
- ridiculous! I'm in.

And I wasn't kidding ... this is our road book for all 1150km, we did not get lost or even backtrack even once.


Demonstration in QC, 5-6,000 bikes, pretty good turnout.






We left the party early to head to Tadoussac a couple hours north.

Waiting for the ferry in Tadoussac. Those couple hours were quite miserable, to be honest. Night, poorly fitted stuff, cold (2-4 degrees), at "altitude" (2000+ft), no windshield to speak of ... windchill was annoying.


Firsts on the ferry! Take that!


Tent is setup, bikes are sleeping inside. Hilariously enough, it's the first time either bike has slept indoors in months ...


Oh, good morning to you ...


Now that's properly loaded! Mid-corner wind gusts were a bit of a concern, but it was all fine! Now let's hit that breakfast place, I want eggs and BAAAACON!


Fjord Road ... sounds good to me. Biodiversity Valley ... LOLZ


The road was amazing, smooth sweeping corners tucked between cliff and river ... highlight of the trip for sure! No traffic, no cops. Glorious.


Saguenay Fjord in the distance.


Picturesque little village next to the fjord


Saguenay fjord. Closer to where we were inthe morning it's much more spectacular and you can actually walk on top of the cliff, but we didn't have the time for that ... oh well.


Lac St Jean and a loaded Z ... believe it or not, it didn't really affect handling too much, I didn't dare go over 100mph anyways, for fear everything would be ripped to shreds, and crushing the Hypermotard behind ...


More Lac St Jean


Damn bike got all the love at every single gas stop (all 10 of them!!! stupid 9L tank!). The Z cried a little every time. It does look stunning ...


Beach of sorts, speedos were not worn.


But we threw rocks in the water.


And later that day, after a 4h dash through nothing but woods and almost running out of gas (the Duc' of course, not the Z!)


It's some river we followed for an hour or 2, looked glorious in the golden late evening light.


Loaded Z is still loaded. Hard to believe all that crap stayed back there quietly!


Gas receipts after 1150km ... that's 8 for me, the Duc' has a few more. Silly small tanks. Needless to say, both bikes performed flawlessly ...


For an impromptu stupid idea, it was a great trip, and celebrated covering 10k since april in style!

Do I need to mention I still love my bike?

 

Wow Looks like a great trip!! How was the Hypermotard on a long trip like that?? I've heard there not the best for long distance... Im sure the small tank was a PITA.

 

Awesome. That's what it's all about!

 

That is amazing. I am hoping to get a streetfighter and do the same very soon.

 

Very nice, would love to do a similar trip!

 

Nice, looks like fun!

UBC wants to know whether you were the pitcher or catcher...

 

Woa looks like a kickass trip!

Makes me want to get my bike permit even more...

 

Looks like a very cool trip! Thanks for sharing your pics with us.

 

Very awesome, looks like your standard European vacation trip. We regularly did 2,500-3,000km during our summer excursions through Austria, Italy, France, Spain and Switzerland. Landscape and roads are so diverse and fun, scenery flies. Here in the US you would be 80-90% of the time on boring highways. I brought my Harley back with me when I moved to the US from Germany. Did like 800 miles on a weekend from Baltimore to the Skyline Drive and Shenondoah, to Virginia Beach, back up the Eastern Shore and back to Baltimore. Got to see almost nothing, no ocean except over the bridges, no valleys nor horizons excpet on the rare outlook parking spots. Boring. Sold the Harley.

Missing roads such as Via Mala


Passes in the Alps:


and the lakes in northern Italy:


driving along the Riviera, here Portofino:


and then back through Switzerland, here Zermatt and the Matterhorn


You do not even need to plan your route just drive. I have not even posted any pics of the French Riviera and Costa del Sol hot spots. Best trip I ever did was criss-crossing the Alps, one pass after another. Did 2-3 passes every day. Unbelievable.

 

It did awesome for not being a long distance tourer. The last 200km he said he was moving on the seat a bit and was getting bothered by the total absence of wind protection (at least I could get down on the tank and have some sort of protection). The biggest concern was the small tank ... at some point we knew there was a big portion of road with no gas. When we refilled he had less than a quart left ... yikes!