Leaving Hyder behind to escape the rain I headed for a town called Smithers about 800km away. The ride was mostly uneventful except for the odd bear along route. I’ve seen so many now I just slow down for a look when passing. I did figure out how to tell the difference between the types of bear though. The grisly highest point is above his front legs where as the black bears is his rump.

I parked up at a town called Smithers for the night. Funnily enough the next town on route was called Burns ( alright, Burns lake ). About 650 km later I ran into a guy called Julio in a gas station. I met Julio in Fairbanks last week. He’s ridden from his home in Eucador all around south America and up to Alaska, he’s now heading to Florida to fly back to Columbia. We were both heading the same direction and decided to ride together.

I was just mulling over the days proceedings in my head and forming the conclusion that it’s been a mostly uneventful day except for the stunning scenery as usual,  when suddenly Julio’s chain snapped. It  had also whipped around and broke his clutch pump in the process. We spent an hour or so at the side of the road, fixed the chain but with no clutch it snapped again when trying to kick it into gear. It was now getting late, we were in the middle of nowhere and the bugs were getting furious. We had no choice, I had to tow Julio the last 103km.

Towing motorcycles with motorcycles is dangerous enough but we now had to do this through the Canadian rocky’s up and down mountains and in the dark. I looked back at Julio after about 30km and gave him a thumbs up to see if he was ok. When he shook his head viciously from side to side I thought I’d better stop. We had to wrap the strap around his handle bars and he had to hold onto it so that in an emergency he would be able to just let go. The only problem was that he had gotten the strap wrapped around one of his fingers and he had now lost all feeling in it. It was real funny, for me anyhow. At one stage we were up to 85kph going down hill just to keep the rope taught. It was an experience for sure. We made the 103kms in about two and a half very eventful hours. At the last corner about 10 meters from Don’s house I took a tumble when the strap pulled me sideways, it was real funny, for Julio this time.

We ended up staying with friends of Julio’s, Don and Cathy, who done a fantastic job of looking after us. Don’s also an adventure rider who has ridden all through the America’s himself. Thanks for your hospitality guys it was great. The next morning I washed my bike at Don and Cathys place , tightened up some loose bolts and headed off through the rocky’s to a town called Banff. Honestly I’ve never seen such scenery, I could have spent all day taking photo’s but I was hungry.

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