CANADA’S COMMUNITY
I’ve ridden bikes for about 40 years, but almost entirely off-road. I used to think that when the time came (i.e. kids left home and the career starts to seriously wind down) I’d use my off-road skills to ride the wilds of Romania or Bulgaria or maybe expedition into the Sahara. But now that the time has come, I’ve had visions of something more, for want of a better word, ‘cruisey’. What I didn’t want to do was trade one of my dirt bikes in for one of the latest uber powerful and equally costly adventure bikes. After all, I might not like road riding at all.
A solution appeared at NEC Live in the form of the Rocky Mountain Adventure Bike Touring Company, run by Alan and Lisa who offer guided tours of the Canadian wilderness and ticked several boxes. For a start, I’ve been to Canada a couple of timesI’m short, about 5ft 6in, and the compact 500X was fine with me. Indeed, its size was a positive benefit. Next was the riding. Alan and Lisa offer different tours for different riders, from a week of pure road riding to a true adventure, wild camping way up in the Arctic Circle. I chose a middle way, which involved a week of mixed tarmac and dirt back roads with equally mixed accommodation of camping, cabins and a hotel. As the clincher, it wasn’t nearly as expensive as I expected – I got the green light from home, and booked it.
