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Motorcycle Safety and Awareness
Welcome to think bike, the podcast about all things motorcycle and the voice of motorcycle safety and awareness in Alberta. Your host is Liane Langlois.
Liane:Hey, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of Think Bike. This week, I'm pretty excited to have my good friend Graham Barros on. He earlier this year did a crazy trip up the Dempsters Highway, which I am so unfamiliar with and really excited to have him on to talk about it because there is a lot of conversations about going up to the far, far north and what to expect on things like that. So today it's Dempster's Highway.
Liane:Welcome to the show, Graham. How are you today?
Graham:I'm good, Leanne. Thank you for having me.
Liane:Well, I appreciate you coming on. I know there's a few of you in our friend circle who have done this trip this year and I think you're all British and I think you're the one who's the most coherent in English so that we can understand. Some accents are thicker than others, so I appreciate you doing this with me. Just to start off with our our listeners, who is Graham Barros and what got you into riding?
Graham:So I am 51. I'm originally from the South Of England, just near London, just North Of London. What got me into riding, I think when I when I was a kid, I used to be in the back of mom and dad's car and see all these bikes zoom past, especially on beautiful sunny days because as you probably know, it rains a fair bit in The UK. Not as much as Wales though. And, yeah, it was just it was it was one of those things.
Graham:You just see them go past you. You just think that must be amazing to to fly past and fly down the road with not a lot around you, the wind, the noise, and all of the senses. So I think that's what originally got me interested in bikes. And then I got into watching the British super motorbike racing and World Superbikes and then MotoGP and just thought that was just absolutely awesome to watch those guys and what they do.
Liane:When did you get your first bike?
Graham:So I got my first bike when I was about 16. In The UK you can ride at 50 cc. I got that and didn't have that one for too long and then I got upgraded to a 100 cc and then ended up having pretty nasty bike accident.
Liane:And
Graham:I ended up spending six weeks in hospital and almost losing my left leg. So then I had a little bit of a break from bikes.
Liane:Yeah. I would imagine. What happened in that collision?
Graham:I hit a lamppost and, yeah, wrapped myself around the lamppost. So I had a compound fracture of the left femur and broke my right pelvis.
Liane:Jeez. Were you just going too fast? Or I guess, how long would you go?
Graham:They only do they a 100 cc, that that thing you said just about touch 60 miles an hour.
Liane:Yeah.
Graham:But no, I was only I think I was only doing sort of maybe 30 miles an hour, 50 kilometers an hour. But unfortunately, I I didn't have the experience. I hadn't taken any lessons or anything, and I was just I was just messing around and I clicked the curb is what I ended up doing and it just threw me off in front of an lamppost.
Liane:It's interesting because then all the time that I've known you and I've ridden with you, like you're a solid rider. We won't talk about your excessive speed problem, but
Graham:Well, I don't have an excessive speed problem.
Liane:Sure. We'll go with that. So what are you what are you riding now?
Graham:So at the moment, I'm riding a 2017 Triumph Explorer Tiger 1,200. I've had that since new. I'm hoping to clock it up to 80,000 kilometers this year by the end of the season.
Liane:Oh, sounds good.
Graham:But great bike. I've had it since now. I keep saying every winter when I put it away and wrap it up for the winter, and I keep saying, well, maybe it's time to get a new one, and I'm gonna get it out the next season and get on it, and I just love it. Absolutely love It's it's a great bike.
Liane:Yeah. I it is they're a little tall for me. I need like a low rank kid on a Tiger and I think you can do that. But I know you spend a lot of time off roading, but where are some of your favorite places to ride either on road or off road?
Graham:Anywhere sort of around the because I live just on the edge of the foothills. So we have some great rides straight off my doorstep from here. So I love riding out. And a few of our friends that you also know, we go out into the foothills and we ride around the on road, and we do a few of the off road trails. But I also like the Kootenay area.
Graham:I love going there. Fantastic roads, fantastic scenery. I just like going anywhere that's got really good roads, nice twisty roads, and and then obviously up into the foothills and into the mountains, you then I'll get in the off road trails as well. So I'm I'm not I learned to ride off road on the bike I've got now. So it's a big bike to learn to ride sort of off road, but I think Triumph's done an amazing job with the electronics to put it into off road mode to give you then the confidence I feel to be able to go off road.
Liane:Yeah, so speaking of the Kootenays, I remember quite a few years ago when we were out there together at our annual little gathering. And I can't remember what year it was and we were all coming back from Fish Lake area between Haslow and New Denver And I was on my sport bike and you were in front of me and we just kinda decided to get a little spirited. We'll we'll call it that. Remember us going past our friend John, right? Yes.
Liane:Who was a road racer in his time. And what happened after that, Graham?
Graham:Well, I I was not particularly going too quick, I felt. I had a passenger on at the time. And but John wasn't impressed that I overtook him with a passenger on.
Liane:Or a girl on a sport bike.
Graham:Or a girl on a sports bike. So I think the red mist sort of came down a little bit with John. And yeah, we got a bit spirited. And unfortunately, a car pulled out on him from a turn. And fortunately with his experience, slowed it down as quick as he could and as much as he could, but had to unfortunately dump the bike.
Graham:Yeah. Which I believe then hit the rear wheel of the car and spun the car around.
Liane:Yeah, the car ended up so when I came around the corner, your passenger who was a first responder back home in The UK was with John and an oncoming off duty physician from Nelson just happened to be there. So they were with John and you and I were kinda trying to manage the traffic. And I remember the minivan that was doing essentially an Austin Powers three point turn in between two blind corners because that's a smart thing to do. Ended up kind of teetering over towards the lake and it was still running and I had carefully reached in to shut it off that we secured that scene pretty quickly, you know, with all things said and done. I think we handled everything right.
Liane:I don't think we were going too much above what the speed limit was when we came into that whole scenario, but you know, these are the things that jump out on us. Just wanted to throw that little story in there because that was a fun day up until that point. But John, just for everybody listening was was fine. He was back at our event later that night, had some big bruising down his side, but his experience definitely did help him in that scenario. And the rest of us were able to, I think the first responders us we did the best job securing that scene and getting traffic moving and they were very impressed with us.
Liane:Dempsters Highway, all right, let's start this because I'm unfamiliar. So you leave from High River and you're essentially pointing your motorcycle north and not stopping until you hit water is my guess.
Graham:What what you you not quite. You have to stop a few times over the
Liane:But I mean yes. Okay. So what is in a nutshell, what is the Dempsters Highway?
Graham:So the Dempsters Highway is a gravel dirt road that was initially built for the workers out there because it is out into the Yukon and Northwest Territories and it is remote. You're out there and it's you don't see people too often. But it runs from just South of Dawson City in the Yukon, and it runs over to Inovik. So it's the the actual Dempster is seven thirty six kilometers of gravel and dirt road. And yeah, it's just right through oh, when you once you're on the Dempster Highway, you also enter the Arctic Circle as well.
Liane:Oh, neat. So where do you end up?
Graham:So you end up once you come to the end of the Dempsey Highway, end up right in Inuvik. And then from there, I was going up to Tuk Tuk Tuk which is another 150 kilometers north on again on gravel roads. Gravel and dirt roads.
Liane:So not good for street bikes, better for dual sport or adventure bikes with knobby tires?
Graham:Well, you say that but you see all types of vehicles and people, yes. Mainly the adventure style bikes are best built for that type of thing. On the way back along the Dempster, I actually bumped into a young couple with a very young baby and they were trying to transverse it on or in an original old Volkswagen Beetle camper van.
Liane:Oh.
Graham:When I saw the lady with her baby, I was like, yeah. Good luck with that, and I hope everything goes okay because they're they're not the most reliable vehicle anyway.
Liane:Yeah. And
Graham:she had broken down. They had broken down at a place called Eagle Plain.
Liane:Mhmm.
Graham:So that is when you're starting the Dempster, Eagle Plain is the first fuel stop you come to, which is 273 kilometers up the highway. So on a bike, you you need to take a a jerry can off. So you need to carry some extra fuel.
Liane:I was gonna say not a lot of bikes have that range unless they're like certain like sport bikes, like high power, like the big bikes can, but even then you're pushing it.
Graham:The the the new the newer GS BMW GS adventure bike comes with a 30 liter tank so you'd be okay with that. And the new Triumph Tiger also comes with a 30 liter tank. I took extra fuel with me. I actually did make it from the start of the Dempster to Eagle Plains, and I think I rolled in there and my fuel gauge was saying I had 10 kilometers left. I was quite impressed that I made it there without actually putting extra fuel in.
Liane:Right.
Graham:But so yeah, it's for Is the first
Liane:that kind of sorry to cut you off. Is that like kind of what the distance is you're expecting for fuel stops on that whole kind of near 800 ks stretch or is there
Graham:On a little bit the second part of the the Dempster is Fort McPherson which isn't as far. It's about two hours past Eagle Plain.
Liane:Okay.
Graham:So two and a half hours depending on road conditions, I guess.
Liane:Yeah.
Graham:So that's another thing as well. I was really lucky when I went up with I had I went up at the July, and I had exceptionally good luck with the weather and with the road conditions.
Liane:Yeah, that's probably very important.
Graham:Is.
Liane:What is the draw to riding this road? Like I would imagine remote brings a whole new level of like beauty in what you're riding through, but what is the draw to ride this highway?
Graham:I think it's just the freedom and the sense of adventure with all the TV and YouTube videos out now of people riding around the world and obviously probably the most famous one is you and Charlie Gorman doing their four different trips that they've done now across the world. And I think if you've got that incentive to do longer trips and when you want to do adventure riding but you're limited on obviously, people are limited on time off from work and money and everything else. So if you can find that little bit of adventure in essentially in your backyard then why not do it?
Liane:Yeah, no, How long did it take you to okay, how long this has two parts to this question. You're already laughing. How long would it take a regular person to do this trip versus Graham's speeds?
Graham:Well, okay. So you're gonna be really impressed with me now Okay. Because I set myself a goal of not going over a 110 kilometers an
Liane:hour. What?
Graham:So
Liane:How often did you actually achieve that?
Graham:The whole time. When I was on the road, especially on the straight empty roads, I was just setting my cruise at 110 and just enjoying the view and enjoying the ride. I wanted to enjoy the view when I get to a road that's quite twisty and I want to enjoy the ride, then obviously I I do that. But on this trip, I I was like, no. I'm gonna stick to a 110.
Graham:Some people will say that I did go over that, which I did. So I used an app to record the trip and it records it through your location. So I sent that to a couple of my friends not realizing that that showed top speed on on there. And I think one of my friends said that at one point actually on the Dempster, I hit a 152 kilometers an hour.
Liane:I'm sure there's not a lot of police around but
Graham:I remote was enjoying the ride.
Liane:Yes. Yes.
Graham:But it's so the overall trip there and back was twelve days. I did it in twelve days, which was 7,890 kilometers.
Liane:Jeez. That's a lot for one trip. That's awesome though. What is the landscape like up there? Like, you're talking about taking in the view and and I mean, I can't imagine a lot of twisties up there.
Liane:Like, I'd I'm very naive to the north.
Graham:So as you know, I live in Southern Alberta near Calgary. So leaving from here, I actually didn't take the highways because you head up towards Grand Prairie, but I took a lot of the back roads. So I went the Highway 22 up to Mountain And then there's from Mountain House, it was west on Highway 11. And then I for a short period, and then I took Sun Rising.
Liane:The Sun Child Road. I'm on that every year. Love that road up to Drayton Valley.
Graham:So I took that road up to essentially Highway 16 and then I went down to Hinton and took the Highway 40 up through Cache Creek and up through to Grand Prairie. Once you get north of Grand Prairie, the scenery changes a huge amount. You're sort of leaving civilization behind.
Liane:Yes.
Graham:So it took me four days, I believe, to get up to Dawson City. And for at least two and a half days, the landscape was just forestry for as far as the eye can see. Yeah. Just forestry. It's just amazing how much forestry we have here in Canada.
Graham:And you get to ride two and a half days. So from where I live to Dawson City was 2,997 kilometers. Just to get Yeah. To end
Liane:That's pretty cool. Was there lots of wildlife that you have to watch for? Like I could imagine again remote and now you're telling me lots of forests. Like I can see big bears, elk, moose, like what did you see when you were out there?
Graham:And caribou as well.
Liane:Oh cool, great deer.
Graham:Yeah. So I didn't see as many caribou as I would like to. I'm quite naive with the North there myself. I had actually been planning the trip since around 02/2019, and I was gonna do the trip a lot sooner than what I did. But then what with COVID
Liane:Yeah.
Graham:That put a stop to that sort of thing. So this year, I was in the position to be able to go and went ahead and done it. So but, yeah, you get the bison and bears and moose and let's say caribou. The strange thing is is living in Southern Alberta when when you see those types of animal, not so much caribou, but when you see moose and bears and stuff, they just sort of look at you as if it you know, they're used they're so used to people stopping and and looking at them. When you get up north, they're really nervous.
Graham:So, you know, I mean, I didn't get as many pictures of the wildlife as I would like to because they see you. You try and pull up nice and quiet. You respect their space, give them some distance obviously. But then they look at you and they get a bit skitty and they're off back into the trees. Yeah.
Liane:Nothing like those Icefield Parkway bears that just come out and say hi.
Graham:A friend a friend of mine recently just come over for a visit from Toronto, and I took him on Highway 40 from Longview up through Kananaskis. And we saw a black bear, mum, with two cubs on the side of the road. We stopped, we took some pictures, we sat and looked at him for a while, didn't bat an eyelid. We went about three kilometers down the road and then we saw a grizzly with three cubs. And again, didn't bat an eyelid, carried on beating all the berries and
Liane:Just doing their thing.
Graham:Yeah.
Liane:So you said that you needed to pack fuel. I know you're also like a camper. Like how did you prepare and pack for this trip? That's a long way to go on a bike. Like, I mean, I'm a clean underwear person.
Liane:Like how do you do things like this? Like that's a long time to go and we are limited in our space. So where did you stay? How did you pack for it?
Graham:Well, no knows that we should be talking about my underwear. Yeah. It's you don't want to overpack because you don't want to add too much weight to the bike. So obviously I took my tent and my camping gear. And then clothes wise, I was basically changing my t shirt every other day and then unclean underwear, obviously.
Graham:I'm not typical man that sort of turns his underwear around four times in one thing.
Liane:Turn it inside out, there's a new pair.
Graham:Yeah. But yeah, you have to try and obviously pack to keep the weight down and I prefer to sort of go as minimum as I can. I mean a few of my friends said, oh, you taking spares? Are taking spare tires and such? And I'll put a new set of tires on on the bike before I left for the trip.
Graham:And I always carry a puncture repair kit, plug kit, and a compressor. My tool kit I've made up for my bike Pacific, so I don't carry extra tools I don't need Right. In the hope that you won't have to use them. But, yeah, I mean, part of the challenge of being so remote is you go in the back of your mind, you're like, if I break down, or God forbid anything else happens, and you could be lying there for hours before anyone else comes past in some places. So I took some food with me.
Graham:I took some cereal bars and I took some of those dried noodles that you just put boiling water with. And obviously I had to take my tea bags and my Jetboil because I do love my cup of tea.
Liane:What about like let's get back to that, like you don't know how long you could be laying there before somebody finds you. Did you have any safety measures in place? Like I know there's some GPS tracking things. Like did you do anything like that?
Graham:I had an app on my phone to share my location with my wife. So while I had cell signal, I was sharing locations. I did warn her that there's gonna be times where I'm gonna be sat in, and it's gonna show that I'm sat in one place until I get to the next area that has signal. So I did tell her not to panic. Obviously, you can get the the the tracking tools that have GP spot tracking, didn't get those.
Graham:I mean, they're monthly charged on them. It was a one off sort of thing. And was sort of I knew I was going to be taking it fairly steady on the run up there. So I thought, well, chances of me having an accident is very slim. And unless, you know, you can't sometimes avoid unexpected things like some wildlife running out and jumping into the road in front of you.
Liane:Yeah. Yeah. I know that, you know, the location sharing on Apple phones or the find my friend things, do cut out and then my whole thing is always where I know I'm gonna be somewhere it cuts out. I have a check-in point and then I have the check-in point on the other side. And if you don't hear me from me by that certain time, then I'm somewhere in the middle of there.
Liane:Did you do that with your lovely wife to not panic her?
Graham:Yes. She knew where I was heading each night because I gave her a rundown of roughly where I was heading to. So I just said to her, said, yeah. I mean, there's gonna be spots there where you just don't have signal on cell phones. So if you don't hear from me, if you don't hear from me the next day or I don't pop back up on your app to show that I'm moving the next day, then you know that I'm in between those gaps somewhere.
Liane:Yeah. Yeah. It's scary for people who, you know, aren't with you and you have those things, but you do the best that you can with putting those safety measures in place. Did you learn anything about like yourself or have any big revelations while you were on this amazing solo adventure? Like I could just I could just imagine being out there, no contact, like nothing going on.
Graham:I'm certainly pleased that I went on my own for the fact that I could run to my own schedule. Was gonna go with a friend of mine, but the timing didn't work out because by the time I come back, he was wanting to get his bike all serviced, change tires, and then come out to Triumph Rally in Nelson. So it was Chris Mitchell. So Chris actually went up before me and backed down. And then when I went up, was just like, yeah, this is it's good because then you can you haven't got to worry about other people's schedules and know, what they wanna do or so what I sort of learned about myself is what I sort of already sort of knew that is I I I like doing big trips.
Graham:So I've already got it in my mind. I'd like to do another bike trip over to the East Side Of Canada eventually. And even if I get the opportunity probably when I retire because it'll be a long one, but I'd like to ship the bike back to England and then do the whole of Europe and decide whether I want to go into Africa from there or not.
Liane:Oh, that'd be follow the footsteps of Ewan and Charlie.
Graham:Yeah. Well, I've always ever since I've been riding, I've always got it in my mind I really would like to ride around Italy. Italy's got some beautiful countryside and scenery and mountains. It's got everything to offer. You know, it's good food, good wine.
Graham:And so Italy is one of my bucket list places to ride to.
Liane:Well, if you if you ever do that, we'll bring you back to talk about what it's like to have to ship your bike across the world and then and go do things like that because I'm sure there's some logistics and so is questions that pop up. So we're not solving the world's problems on this trip. We're just realizing I really, really like long trips by myself or probably with your wife on the back would be.
Graham:Yeah. She she likes to she does like going on the back of the bike, but she doesn't enjoy the camping. I like to roughly camp it and she's more of a climber.
Liane:So That's right. I remember that from when I met her. Camping. Camping not the biggest thing. Hey, last question on this or second last question.
Liane:How big were the bugs? I hear like the bugs are monstrous up north.
Graham:Yeah. If if anyone's listening and they're thinking of going, make sure you've got a nice rimmed hat with a bug net to put over your face. Because in certain areas, the I mean, the mosquitoes are pretty bad everywhere. But then they have black flies, these big black flies. And I don't think they bite, but there's just so many of them.
Graham:And they just swarm around your face, and they're just more annoying than anything else. But yeah, I couldn't actually by the time I got back, I couldn't actually see through my windshield on my bike because it was soaking up in bugs and stuff.
Liane:Gross. Yeah, I'm sure your bike was a treat to clean after that trip.
Graham:Oh yeah. I actually washed it three times the same day to try and get it as clean as I would like it.
Liane:With all that said, giant bugs and lots of them, the remoteness, the distance between gas stations to the listeners still worth it? Still worth that adventure?
Graham:Absolutely. If you've got it in mind and you're thinking of going, there's only so much you can plan for. You know, so do your research on tires. So I would like to say, I mean my tires that I'm currently running on my big bike lasted really well. My rear tire is only probably halfway worn down.
Liane:Awesome.
Graham:And other people have gone up and they get back and their tires are totally gone.
Liane:What tires did you put on?
Graham:So I'm running the Dunlop Mission Trail Max at the moment. So the the because I've got two two models out now. They've got one which is I believe it's a newer one, which has got slightly more aggressive tread on it. And then you've got the ones I'm running which are 70 thirties.
Liane:Right.
Graham:But I've been running those for a while now, and there's that I really like them on the road. They hold the road quite well, as you know. Yeah. Riding with me. Yep.
Graham:But the off road, are confident, inspiring, and I was very impressed with how well they lasted on the trail.
Liane:Well, as my listeners have learnt this year from me, tires are super important. I ran into my own issues and spent some money at Aaron's shop in Nelson. So that's good to know that you had a really good set of tires. Graham, I wanna thank you for taking the time to talk about Dempster's Highway. I mean, it sounds like an amazing trip.
Liane:I'm not sure if I'm that adventurous yet, but maybe someday I might do that. I mean, you're 51 and did it. That's me next year. Maybe by then I'm ready to go.
Graham:But I saw I saw some people on on pedal bikes
Liane:Oh, jeez.
Graham:Riding across the dumpster as well. So you you get all sorts of people doing it on all sorts of vehicles. So I appreciate you having me today. And yes, I would definitely ride it again. Yeah.
Graham:And maybe try and take a slightly different route and see some more of the beautiful scenery that we have here in Canada.
Liane:Well, thank you so much for sharing your story, Graham. For everybody else out there, just hang tight for the mailbag or the mixed bag. My god. On today's mailbag, I had a message come in from Todd from Lethbridge asking about if his insurance seemed high at $800 a year. That was it.
Liane:Nothing more. Here's the thing. People need to stop comparing insurance. There are far too many factors that affect insurance that are not limited to CCs, brand, licensed, age, how many years you've been driving or riding, your driving record, how much coverage are you looking for? Are you also insuring your gears?
Liane:Anything custom? Like there's a lot that goes into insurance. Best thing you can do is call up a broker. Our suggestion is Klondike insurance who is a huge supporter of our community specializing in motorcycle insurance or NFP who is also a corporate member who does the motorcycle insurance. Brokers have access to programs and deals that we don't as individuals.
Liane:Also, just a heads up that if you're a member of AMSS, there's a possibility that you might save even more on your insurance with Klondike. Check it out. And that's our show for today. To make sure that you don't miss out on any of our upcoming podcasts or listen to previous ones, make sure you click on subscribe or follow wherever you get yours. If there's a topic you'd like us to cover or a guest you think would be great on the show or even a question for the mailbag, let us know.
Liane:You can connect with us on all the socials, Email us at info@ab-amss.org or reach out through the website at a b dash amss dot org. Thanks for listening to Think Bike. From us, always remember to ride smart, ride safe, and Think Bike. See you out on the road.