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First, let me tell you, I will deffinately sign up for the Border to Border 2006 ride. The 2005 event was fun. This year there were about 37 bikes. Mostly BMWs of one type or another and Goldwings. There was the odd bike or two, like the Honda Scooter with an 4 gallon aux tank nicely plumbed into the fuel system. For me, a Goldwing or Wingabago rider, I can not fathom doing 1700+ miles on a sport bike, but there were 3 that I recall. A CB1000 Nighthawk (hope I have that right), a 'busa and a BMW and I have no idea of the model, but before he left he'd mounted saddle bags and trunk. And I think Nighthawk and the 'busa both complete the B2B in under 24 hrs! Matter of fact it looks like may 7 riders made it thru the Canadian border in under 24 hours.
The morning of the ride, I stupidly fell back asleep after my wake up call. I gathered all my belongings and head for the bike parking just before 5AM, only find my bike was the last bike left. DOH!!! I loaded up my gear and got the electronics mounted and set up for the ride and headed out of the lot and south to the Mexican border a couple of miles away. Hit the toll booth going into MX and the little lady knew what was going on but asked anyway, "Are you going to Canada?". Yes ma'am I am. She then chucked and told me I was headed the wrong way. I told her I was going the long way 'round which she got a good laugh from. Down the dark scarry ally with several locals laid out on the trunks of their cars dozing. I hit the main road headed back out of MX and paid the exit toll. In the very broken English the attendant asked if I was going to Cananda and I nodded. I think he said good luck and have a safe trip, it's a long way up to Cananda. Then again he may have been deporting me from his country. My time started at 5:03 AM.
Immediately north of Laredo I locked the speed on to 70mph, just slightly faster than the DPS Trooper I was following. He pulled off at the Truck inspection site and I bumped the speed up and continued on. First fuel stop just north of San Antonio. My next fuel stop was just south of the I35 split in Hillsboro, And the gass and go continued ever 180 to 200 miles. Just south of Sioux Falls, SD, maybe about 11:30 I had to add some clothing, the temps dropped to the low 50s.
At my next fuel stop in Brookings SD I saw hotel and one of the other riders in the event parked there and decided I'd get 3 or 4 hours shut eye. I'd already calculated that I wasn't going to make this a extreme ride by making it in 24 hours. I'd come up with a time defaceipt somewhere early on and had steadily cut that down I thought. But at this last stop I figured I couldn't cut it down close enough, especially having 340 more miles, one more fuel stop and a border crossing -- al in 3 hours.... NAW, Ain't gonna happen. 25 hours or 35 hours, what's the difference when you have 36?
I woke up and got geared up and hit the road with more than 8 hours to go a mear 340 miles. I stoped in Fargo and topped off. Maybe 50 miles south of the border I passed another Goldwing, not knowing if he was in the endurence event or not I continued on and started to tag a long. then he dropped back, I gues he wasn't comfortable with my pace and the fact that I had passed an INS vehicle. Just short of the border I pulled off and carefully hid some of my electronics which are not legal in CA. The other rider pulled up as I mounted up and pulled off just behind the INS vehicle I passed earlier. The other rider kept up the next few miles to the border.
As we entered one of the lanes he pulled up next to me. We talked a bit and I found that he was in the ride and he was from Houston. I was called up to the CA border guard. I have found out that I am quirte ignerant at internation border crossings. I hand the officer my my TX DL and Canadian Yellow Insance Card, not knowing I'm required to have a birth ertificate or passport, neither of which I had with me. The officer startes his interigation, and BTW, he looked like a bad B grade straight to video villan, big handlebar mustache, shaved head, about 30 pounds over weight and no neck and maybe 5 and a half foot tall. He asked me my liscence plate number and I started to give it to him, 3-0-6-S-blah blah, he shaking his head I', like ***. He said to take my helmet off and get off the bike and look at the plate and read if off to him. ***... over. I compley and he promptly hands my paperwork back with some extra papers and tells me to park under the shed and go inside and see the officers. He asks if that's my friend on the other bike. I tiold him we were making the same ride, but I didn't know him. He looks at me with one eyebrow perked and his head cocked and says but you rode up together. I ignorantly pointed out all the cars that pulled in together. He calls the other poor rider up. Before I can get off my bike the other rider pulls up next to me. Shaking his head and saying he didn't understand, he had his birth certificate, passport, insurance and DL ready to hand the officer. The officer handed him the same oblong yelloow sheet as me but never asked for anything other than his license plate number and telling him to follow me in to the officers. OOPS!
Once inside, we finally introduced ourselves... his name is Vern. We finally get to the head of the line. CA customs does one vehicle at a time, if that vehicle has 5 people, they do them all then move to the next vehicle. It's time consuming.
Finally I step up to an officer and begin to get asked questions. Another CA Customs Officer comes from around the counter and asked Vern if he was in the ride with all the other bikes that were coming thru. He said he was and so was I. The officer snatched my paperwork from the officer that had it and took Vern's too. Then that officer and several others had a little pow wow in a hallway where we could see but not hear. We didn't know if this was good or bad. The officer that had taken our paperwork came back out from around the counter and handed us our papers and told us to enjoy our star in Cananda, we had 24 hours to exit. About that time the knucklehead that was outside came in and I watched his jaw drop as I made eye contact and nodded to him as I walked out of Canandian Custums on my way to Emerson and the nearest ATM to end the ride.
My time stamp on the ATM slip is 3:35PM. An hour and a half to spare.
Link to images on the B2B site: http://www.b2b2005.com/html/pictures2005.html
Took me a day and a half to make it to the Canadian border and 3 days to make it back. I took the slow scenic route. The only outta the way feature I stopped at was Freedom Rock http://www.ticz.com/homes/users/bob/On-A-Rock/On-A-Rock.htm
Some pix I took:http://people.consolidated.net/timt/FR-1.JPG
http://people.consolidated.net/timt/FR-2.JPG
http://people.consolidated.net/timt/FR-3.JPG
The morning of the ride, I stupidly fell back asleep after my wake up call. I gathered all my belongings and head for the bike parking just before 5AM, only find my bike was the last bike left. DOH!!! I loaded up my gear and got the electronics mounted and set up for the ride and headed out of the lot and south to the Mexican border a couple of miles away. Hit the toll booth going into MX and the little lady knew what was going on but asked anyway, "Are you going to Canada?". Yes ma'am I am. She then chucked and told me I was headed the wrong way. I told her I was going the long way 'round which she got a good laugh from. Down the dark scarry ally with several locals laid out on the trunks of their cars dozing. I hit the main road headed back out of MX and paid the exit toll. In the very broken English the attendant asked if I was going to Cananda and I nodded. I think he said good luck and have a safe trip, it's a long way up to Cananda. Then again he may have been deporting me from his country. My time started at 5:03 AM.
Immediately north of Laredo I locked the speed on to 70mph, just slightly faster than the DPS Trooper I was following. He pulled off at the Truck inspection site and I bumped the speed up and continued on. First fuel stop just north of San Antonio. My next fuel stop was just south of the I35 split in Hillsboro, And the gass and go continued ever 180 to 200 miles. Just south of Sioux Falls, SD, maybe about 11:30 I had to add some clothing, the temps dropped to the low 50s.
At my next fuel stop in Brookings SD I saw hotel and one of the other riders in the event parked there and decided I'd get 3 or 4 hours shut eye. I'd already calculated that I wasn't going to make this a extreme ride by making it in 24 hours. I'd come up with a time defaceipt somewhere early on and had steadily cut that down I thought. But at this last stop I figured I couldn't cut it down close enough, especially having 340 more miles, one more fuel stop and a border crossing -- al in 3 hours.... NAW, Ain't gonna happen. 25 hours or 35 hours, what's the difference when you have 36?
I woke up and got geared up and hit the road with more than 8 hours to go a mear 340 miles. I stoped in Fargo and topped off. Maybe 50 miles south of the border I passed another Goldwing, not knowing if he was in the endurence event or not I continued on and started to tag a long. then he dropped back, I gues he wasn't comfortable with my pace and the fact that I had passed an INS vehicle. Just short of the border I pulled off and carefully hid some of my electronics which are not legal in CA. The other rider pulled up as I mounted up and pulled off just behind the INS vehicle I passed earlier. The other rider kept up the next few miles to the border.
As we entered one of the lanes he pulled up next to me. We talked a bit and I found that he was in the ride and he was from Houston. I was called up to the CA border guard. I have found out that I am quirte ignerant at internation border crossings. I hand the officer my my TX DL and Canadian Yellow Insance Card, not knowing I'm required to have a birth ertificate or passport, neither of which I had with me. The officer startes his interigation, and BTW, he looked like a bad B grade straight to video villan, big handlebar mustache, shaved head, about 30 pounds over weight and no neck and maybe 5 and a half foot tall. He asked me my liscence plate number and I started to give it to him, 3-0-6-S-blah blah, he shaking his head I', like ***. He said to take my helmet off and get off the bike and look at the plate and read if off to him. ***... over. I compley and he promptly hands my paperwork back with some extra papers and tells me to park under the shed and go inside and see the officers. He asks if that's my friend on the other bike. I tiold him we were making the same ride, but I didn't know him. He looks at me with one eyebrow perked and his head cocked and says but you rode up together. I ignorantly pointed out all the cars that pulled in together. He calls the other poor rider up. Before I can get off my bike the other rider pulls up next to me. Shaking his head and saying he didn't understand, he had his birth certificate, passport, insurance and DL ready to hand the officer. The officer handed him the same oblong yelloow sheet as me but never asked for anything other than his license plate number and telling him to follow me in to the officers. OOPS!
Once inside, we finally introduced ourselves... his name is Vern. We finally get to the head of the line. CA customs does one vehicle at a time, if that vehicle has 5 people, they do them all then move to the next vehicle. It's time consuming.
Finally I step up to an officer and begin to get asked questions. Another CA Customs Officer comes from around the counter and asked Vern if he was in the ride with all the other bikes that were coming thru. He said he was and so was I. The officer snatched my paperwork from the officer that had it and took Vern's too. Then that officer and several others had a little pow wow in a hallway where we could see but not hear. We didn't know if this was good or bad. The officer that had taken our paperwork came back out from around the counter and handed us our papers and told us to enjoy our star in Cananda, we had 24 hours to exit. About that time the knucklehead that was outside came in and I watched his jaw drop as I made eye contact and nodded to him as I walked out of Canandian Custums on my way to Emerson and the nearest ATM to end the ride.
My time stamp on the ATM slip is 3:35PM. An hour and a half to spare.
Link to images on the B2B site: http://www.b2b2005.com/html/pictures2005.html
Took me a day and a half to make it to the Canadian border and 3 days to make it back. I took the slow scenic route. The only outta the way feature I stopped at was Freedom Rock http://www.ticz.com/homes/users/bob/On-A-Rock/On-A-Rock.htm
Some pix I took:http://people.consolidated.net/timt/FR-1.JPG
http://people.consolidated.net/timt/FR-2.JPG
http://people.consolidated.net/timt/FR-3.JPG
See you there!
