Bun Burner Saddle Sore Rides

Found this on another forum. Been toying with the idea of a 1600km ride in 24hrs ever since I saw it. A lot of guys think its pretty crazy, but reading the stories from the guys who have completed rides like this, and longer, its a pretty surreal experience. I have even planned a route within Alberta that would qualify.
Route would start and end at the Flying J in Sherwood Park (24hr gas station). From there west on hwy 16 to Hinton. Then North through Grande Cache to Grande Prairie and Rycroft. Then turn east to Donnelly Corner, High Prairie, Slave Lake, Athabasca to Laclabiche. Then South to Bonnyville and Vermillion then back home. Around 1650km total. I would think I can complete the route between 14 and 16hrs.
I'm very familiar with all the roads on the route with the exception of Hwy 40 from Grande Cache to GP.
This is my planned route. Any suggestions on roads to maybe avoid, or add for scenic value?
https://goo.gl/maps/osJy84VpQbcy6bgu5

Here is the link for the associations website:
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Tahoma,Calibri,Geneva,sans-serif]http://www.ironbutt.com/themerides/ssseries/


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Highway 40 is a nice road. The only thing is, Gp south can be a very busy road with heavy traffic. Going trough GP might slow you up a bit unless you take the road north of Costco to the highway (80km/hr on that stretch).

This would be awesome. I ride to kelowna from Edmonton lots in one day. When I Get there I ride the evening with my buds. Maybe 1200 km in one day. That’s a big day. But 1600km would be sick.

Going through BC would be a real treat.
When my wife gets her bike next spring, trips through the mountain parks will be on the dockets as often as we can.
Our first cruise through Jasper in the fall got her hooked.

Depending on your ride, street bike or enduro I have done a few interesting rides/drives.
From Edmonton to wildwood turn off. This is the old highway through these small towns that everyone buzzes by now. They all come back to the main highway. Just after Edson is this side road. Medicine Lodge road to township rd 530a which is the old highway broken pavement so cruiser bikes be careful.
Go up to the end and you will find a natural spring water with the cleanest water. Go back the way you came in and continue on 16. When you get the Jasper gate get a pass through Glacier Park. Going through Jasper you will see a sign for Snaring overflow camping. This will be for the enduros. Take road up to and past the campsite to a sign for Cristina Lake. There are times to go in and times to come out for a reason. This is an old gravel and rough rocky road that was used for a fire road. I did this with my 1 ton Dodge and there is a switch back section that I could touch the rock wall out my drivers window and open passanger door over cliff side. Now the time in and out comes into play. The one doing it wrong gets to back up. By the way no trailers for obvious reasons. I go up to the lake staging area and turn around there return to 16. Do your thing in Jasper make sure to fuel up in Hinton or Jasper. Another interesting side road in Jasper is up to pyramid lake. Nice paved windy. Patricia lake is were operation Habbakuk took place. They made a war ship out of pykrete. Info sign next to lake and infoweb of course. Fyi divers the wreckage is still in the lake.
Then to Pyramid were there is a nice parking area and a nice bridge walk to the island for a leg stretch. Return to Jasper then up to Glacier. Now even in June July up there you can have a snowball fight so pack warm gear. Just after the gate turn up to Marmont Basin. This again is the old highway repaved recently make sure to stop at Athabasca falls. Nice boardwalk above the falls looking into the gourge. Then Sunwapta falls as well. Next stop of interest is icefield discovery center were you get the ticket and bus ride back to the skywalk. I haven't done that yet. Continuing on you will come to Sask crossing. Neat shop but touristy expensive. 2 options take David Thompson turn off to Rocky Mountain House to Red Deer and hwy 2 home or continue the adventure. When you get to Lake Loise turn off to get on hwy 1A. Again the old mother road. Keep in mind it is 60kmh and the popo are there. Road is narrow winding and paved with some neat stops. You will come back to hwy 1 at Banff. Then at Canmore you get back on 1A for a final old hwy stint to Calgary then the boring hwy 2 home.

Trip 2 Edmonton to Crowsnest Pass to Castlegar stay in Caslegar the night to Revy then Edmonton
Now the main part is hwy but for the enduros is Caslegar and the Columbia an Western trail. Its the same as the Iron Horse but better in my opinion. From Edmonton hwy 2 south through Calgary. A stop at Nanton To see a piece of aviation history the Lancaster bomber. I did the crawl through of this plane and they do role it out and fire the engines occasionally. Now is a fork in the road stay on 2 south to Fort MacLeod then hwy3 to Crowsnest Pass. Or west through the ranchlands to Crowsnest Pass. No towns or fuel this way but quiet scenery. Frank slide is a stop for sure. There is the interpretive centre to see here. The Pass is its own side trip with all the old mining there. Continuing through is Fernie and Cranbrook to Creston over the Kootenay pass and then Castlegar. I do this with my sxs on deck and stay a night in Castlegar after the Columbia ride. Its 10hr from Edmonton to this point. For me the Columbia is the objective so I will start at 10pm get here at about 8ish ride the trail 4-5hr then drive home same way. Or stay night and go back through revy, that road will keep you awake its twisty. The prize is the Columbia and Western trail http://columbiaandwestern.com they are on facebook too from Castlegar to another Christina Lake. The way I found this trail is this youtube vid
https://youtu.be/017qh11TmHg
Or just youtube search "bulldog tunnel" This is for the enduros in the summer but keep in mind the usual +30 and up temps through here. It is a multi use non designated trail so we can ride motorized for now there will be cyclists hikers and horseback riders. Read the signs at staging area and don't go ripping through. Dont be the excuse to close this for motorized. I also do geocaching which is another way to find these areas. Dont get tunnel vision there is always things on the sidelines. Example there is a water tank base for the steam locos of old and in the rock side is an small and i mean small built shack. Its like 4' inside with a door, window and wood stove. When waiting to fill water engineers would stay in here to keep warm. I do have a detailed garmin trail map I made. Shoot me a pm with an email address if you want it.

Sorry for the long windedness im staying up to do night shifts. This is how I put 450000km on my 2014 ram bought with 104km.

That's a great read. I've seen that video of the BC trail before. That is on our bucket list of 'to do's'. We normally tandem tow around the province, so a change in our tactics, planning and time haven't yielded an opportune time to do it.
I've driven on a few great little highways this last summer, going out of my way looking for additional bike routes. Some look great at the start, then the pavement ends 2kms down the road. Not cool when you ride a cruiser.
Our Jasper trip included the climb to Pyramid lake. That was a great run. We also did the road to Maligne lake, and walked the canyon on the way back. That day it was a tad busy, following rental motorhomes for long stretches. We planned on the climb up to Marmot basin, but decided to head back to the trailer in Hinton and load up before it rained again, which it did, and sucked.

damn 1600km is gnarly. My longest was in Aug. just over 1,000km in a day Great Falls MT to Sturgis SD. Ass was sore AF. Id be in to give it a go, sounds like a fun time. I haven't toured around northern ab in many years.

A good slow cruising twister that requires skill imo is the road to Mt Edith Cavell outside of jasper. It’s a one way in/out road.

Not something you want to hit when doing the Iron Butt tour though.

One of my favorites is Edmonton to gp then south to highway 16,over to jasper south 93 to trans Canada east to 22 then back north to Edmonton it takes about 16 hrs great hot summer time ride.

When I was younger, much younger I drove from Toronto back to farm about 75 miles north of Edmonton.

Day one was from Toronto to Minniapolis through Detroit - rained first 6hrs.
Day two ended in Regina
Day three I was at farm at about 3AM.
My cousin was in his RX7 as the chase vehicle.
I was on a comply 1986 Yamaha FZ750.
Basically slept the next 24hrs.
That was 1988 - today that kind of ride would kill me half way through day one.

A good ride.....once only.

I did Calgary to Salt Lake City on a Ducati 999R in two days once which was rough but my big mile day was on my 2010 BMW GSA and I did just a shade over 1300km in less than 12hrs including a border crossing.

snochuk said:

When I was younger, much younger I drove from Toronto back to farm about 75 miles north of Edmonton.

Day one was from Toronto to Minniapolis through Detroit - rained first 6hrs.
Day two ended in Regina
Day three I was at farm at about 3AM.
My cousin was in his RX7 as the chase vehicle.
I was on a comply 1986 Yamaha FZ750.
Basically slept the next 24hrs.
That was 1988 - today that kind of ride would kill me half way through day one.

A good ride.....once only.

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RX7 and a FZ750 bike....speeds never exceeded 200km/hr right? hahaha

ducati said:

I did Calgary to Salt Lake City on a Ducati 999R in two days once which was rough but my big mile day was on my 2010 BMW GSA and I did just a shade over 1300km in less than 12hrs including a border crossing.

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that pretty impressive on the duce, i couldn't ride from Edm to Calgary on my CBR1KRR with out making a pit stop in RD my ass was numb. rockets have chit seats or im just old n cranky now.

Ballzdeep said:

RX7 and a FZ750 bike....speeds never exceeded 200km/hr right? hahaha

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Never!
lol
But I have done Edmonton to Lloyd minister in 1hr and 25min, same bike.
Regularly over 200.

abiceman said:

One of my favorites is Edmonton to gp then south to highway 16,over to jasper south 93 to trans Canada east to 22 then back north to Edmonton it takes about 16 hrs great hot summer time ride.

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That would work for this ride too. Just have to extend the return trip a bit further east to make the 1600km min. Not a lot on major highways, so it looks like it would be closer to 18-20hr with gas stops.
Might just do that loop with the gang over night and enjoy the sites.

my buddy is on a mission to do a saddlesore 1000 this season. here's the route he wants to do

Trent?

Canning. can't stop for beer breaks and still do a thousand miles in 24hrs. Trent's out