Rock, Drop and Roll - Kelowna to home

After I bought the shiny new BMW scoot, I had to leave it! My wife and I still had a fair bit of our holiday left and my better half didn't really want to spend the next five or so days driving by herself in the car. I made arrangements with my brother-in-law to truck it out to Kelowna and I would ride home from there.

I finally arrived in Kelowna, desperately excited to take the scooter, but it wasn't there yet! Unfortunately for me, it was arriving the next day so I had to wait..................

The BMW C600 Sport arrived just before dinner time. We first had to figure out how to get it off the truck without destroying my new baby. We backed it of the truck into my other brother-in-law's house, and then used the ramp to take it down the stairs. It worked flawlessly!

About ten minutes letter, I had suited up, grabbed my 'Go Bag' of a few clothes, iPad, and my shaving kit, and off I went!

First stop was to get it insured. Luckily there was no need to inspect the bike but the small, pregnant woman who I dealt with had to hunch down low to the ground to read the VIN off the front forks. She was less than impressed!She did get me a good deal on my optional insurance, though. My ICBC insurance was almost $1300 (gulp!) but I had no choice on that. For optional coverage, ICBC would have charged another whopping $900 but with a private insurance company the bill was a more reasonable $200.

Then it was on the road!

I carefully made it from Kelowna to the turn off to the connector. I could tell I was a little nervous because my hands were a bit sore from holding on so tight. However, once I hit the connector, with its 120 km/h speed limit, I opened up the Beemer and started to relax.

Riding my Vespa in no way prepared me for the amount of power and the absolute rush that I feel on the BMW. I felt that I was on a rocket ship as I blasted up the highway. It was quite windy and I had to stay focussed as the wind tried to push me around. Every so often, when the wind really started to kick, I would look down at my speedo and find that I had cranked up to 140 km/h! I tried to keep it around 110 because of the wind. It was almost a magical moment on the scooter.

I took a couple breaks on the way to Merritt and then stopped at the tourist info rest stop for a very quick break as they were closing up the rest stop. Then it was onto the Coquihalla.

The Coquihalla is a very nice cruising highway. The curves are nicely banked and the wildlife is fenced off the road. As I approached the summit, I felt a bit of a chill in the air so I turned on my heated gloves and seat! Wonderful1 Again, I couldn't believe how good it felt to ride on the road with my BMW. I was amazing!

I arrived in Hope around dusk and filled the tank for the first time. It took me a little while to figure out the fine points of how to insert the pump but I did, eventually, work it out.

Then, dear readers, a terrible thing happened.

I rode down the road to the McDonald's for a burger. I shut off the scoot.

Unlike the previous ten times where I put the kick stand down to stop the engine, this time I just turned off the key.

Then I hopped off the bike, not realizing that 500 plus pounds is a lot more to manage than a 250 pound Vespa. As I felt the scooter shift heavily towards me, I tried valiantly to steady the bike but to no avail. In fact, I realized that I had better get out of the way and I did.

Bam!

The scooter landed on the ground.

Now what? I didn't know if I could right it again.

I put ALL of my energy into it and slowly the scooter lifted up. I quickly put on the kick stand and inspected the damage. A script on the front of the cowling, a scrape on the rear fender and the top knobby bit of the left brake lever was gone.

After that, I had my tasteless burger and got back on the scoot and finished the ride to Maple Ridge without incidence. The machine had performed very well - the only weak link was my poor dismount!

To end this blog entry, take a look at this website - 101 Ways to Drop Your Bike. It included some well needed laughs to help salve my wounded ego!

Next excitement? Headed out to do the Cascade Loop on Monday with a stop in Omak and a stop in Seattle.