Choppers for Charity, a fundraiser that was put on by the ECL Group of Companies for the last decade has been put to rest by the new owners, RTL -Westcan.

The fundraiser for the Alberta Childrens Hospital Calgary and the Stollery Childrens Hospital has been one that our members have actively supported and some have been involved with since bikers were first called to help out to help..

ECL  was a family business that was very active in the commmuntiy and believed they should give back to their communities that gave so much to them. They allowed their employees to use their work time and offices to do their fundraising and use their contacts to help get corporate donations for their charity.

Every year they got more and more donations for the hospitals they championed for, getting hundreds of thousands of dollars each year to forward to those hospitals that needed the support. First for the Alberta Childrens Hospital in Calgary, then adding the Stollery Hospital in Edmonton.

It is a sad day in the charity world when good people like Tom Federicks and the staff of ECL no longer are around to do this fine fundraiser. I understand that business is business, but I am grieving the loss of this company to new ownership.

Blessed are the "old" staff of ECL, Tom Fredericks, Ocean trailers, and all the other corporate supporters of the ECL Choppers for charity.

Blessed are the supporters from Freightliner trucks Calgary who for years did a fine job of BBQing and serving up a great meal for the charity.

Blessed are the bikers who came out every year to give supporters rides on their Harley Davidson motorcycles.

You will move to the front of the line for Karma gifts. We are sorry to see you go.

Hopefully, someone from one of the corporate sponsors who DO SUPPORT the community and this charity, will step forward and take over this fine charity! We as a community, need Choppers for Charity! 

Congratulations to the raffle winners:

• Ticket #873, Peter Goetze, winner of the '67 Camaro
• Ticket #2158, Dwight Jonassen, winner of the Harley-Davidson Fatboy

victoria trip 2010

 

July trip to Victoria.

Black,  Maurice and I  are home from B.C.  and we had quite the trip.

Hot, clear weather the whole week in B.C and Alberta,  except coming home to our beautiful province, where we were greated with cooler weather and a few raindrops.
Maurice and Black represented their club and dressed in with their EMS WHITE KNIGHTS back patch for the trip, and I of course went as SABRE.
Black rode out on her Suzuki/Lehman Trike, Maurice on his Honda Shadow and myself on my Harley Davidson.
 
We  travel very well prepared and  this trip started out with nothing less than our usual viglilance.

We did a complete service on all the bikes at our local Bike shop/service centers. Mine ot  a Harley shop and The Suzuki and Honda to their Dealerships to make sure all was ready for the trip as we do not like bike problems on the road. (Who does?)

 

The Harley is still under warranty and was run through it's regular required service check-up and service.

 

 We purchased a new tire for the Lehman/Suzuki trike as Black was developing a flat spot on her trike steer tire and it looked like it was leaning a bit to the left so wanted the tire replaced and the neck bearings/frame checked and tightened.

The differential oil was topped up and bikes were ready to ride.

 

All checked out A-OK.

We got the bikes home and loaded them for ther trip. We have learned over the years of air travel, scuba diving,  intercontinental travel and biking to pack light and just take what you need, so our packs are usually less than 20 lbs, and this trip was no exception.

All was loaded as it always is on the bikes,  with an assortment of rubber tie downs and cargo nets. So we were ready to go.

 
My spare hemet was on my bike held on with a Carabiner. The Carabiner failed, and the helmet fell off by Lake Louise and Black stopped and picked it up. Maurice said he had his extra helmet clamped on to his sissy bar and it was riding fine by his pack, so he took mine and clamped it on the same way. It was gone when we arrived in Field B.C. (a 20km ride) so I figured my helmet wanted to go off by itself somewhere,  so we didn't look for it. Besides, twice bouncing down the road at highway speed was probably enough to break it a little, and it should be replaced anyway!

We got stopped for about a 1/2 hour for road construction between Field B.C. and Golden B.C. so we got off our bikes. Since it was very hot outside, we took off the helmets and stood around talking.

When the road opened, everyone started moving,  so we pushed our bikes to the side so we could get dressed again and Black's glasses fell off the seat and a transport ran over them.
She needs a new prescription anyway, so she was going to replace them, but we had to buy her cheap ones to do the holiday with.
 
The rest of the way out was uneventful, just sun, sun and sun! we arrived in Sicamous and decided to sleep there got a room and walked to the local pub.
 Maurice  had 2 beer!!  The lush!

Maurice is a tea drinker, and usually does not drink any alcohol, but it was such a hot day the first beer went down before the bar lady walked away from the table! I had a beer with him but it was so hot out, that after 2 it was time to quit.

The motel we stayed at was the Pines and they were close to downtown so they were used as a matter on convienience.
 
The three of us got up and headed out at first light..ok, really it was  around 7 a.m. 
We Made it to Salmon Arm and had Timmies coffee, then off to Victoria from there stopping only for fuel (Black's bike and Maurice's bike only get 160kms before reserve between fuel stops so we did Kamloops, Merritt, Hope, Langley for fuel, then to the ferry terminal. We figured we could fuel on the island after that.
 
Once on the island we went a few kilometres from the Ferry to Saanichton, (just past Sidney B.C.) and got a room at the Super 8 motel for the 3 of us to share. There was a bar across the street and a Macdonald's and Tim Horton's  next door so we figured that was a good place to stop.
Unfortunately we were too tired to use any of those services for that night and all called it a day early.
 
We got up, and checked out the area we were in.
 
The motel across the street was the Quality Inn/Waddling Dog Bar and Grill, one on the list of  Renee's "Busted Knuckles Chronicles" Biker friendly places and it had 24 hour day front desk overlooking the parking lot, and I knew from reading Belt drive Betty's article that it took pets and bikers with open arms into their rooms so I figured Maurice could get in without sneaking so we went over to check on the price.
 
We were greeted by  John II  , A Basset Hound who Obviously owned the place and who was behind the front counter. I started to talk to him , but he sent out one of his SUBORDINATES to talk for him.

I told the beautiful lady behind the counter that  I  had heard they were biker friendly through "Busted Knuckles Chronicles." and that "Belt Drive Betty" had said to stop there.
 
I asked the cost and they told me. The prices were 2/3 what we had paid the night before and we did not find a better price anywhere on the island in our travels.
It includes a  free deluxe continental breakfast with hot cereal and boiled eggs and coffee and muffins and toast and other things to tickle your morning taste buds.
 
We went to the room, one of 30 in the Inn,  and  it had 2  king size beds in the room.... We used the "Waddling Dog" as a base for 4 days!!
Their slogan is
COME! SIT! STAY!
SO if you go to the island, watch for the QUALITY INN/WADDLING DOG BAR AND GRILL  Tell em SABRE Said you have to stay there!!
At least go in and say hi to John II. He needs a ride on someone's motorcycle I think!
 
From our base we went to Victoria and inner harbour. we walked the harbour until Black got blisters on her heels and I did the same to a toe. We stumble/walked to our bikes with me whining and Black telling me to suck it up.
 Black, Maurice and I  got onto our bikes and road to fisherman's warf.
 When we arrived in the parking lot this dude who looked like a semi retired dentist or something,  walked over and said "I still have 1 hour of parking left on my ticket would you guys like it?"
So we got to park for free!!
I have to stop thinking that everyone looks at us like biker trash.... it is so 1960's....
 
Maurice looked for his WORLD FAMOUS FISH 'N CHIPS that he had last time were out there and we walked the warf.
 
We headed out of town to Langford where we were going for dinner, but since it was rush hour, I took back streets and tried to miss the main drives. Black  and I lost Maurice within 3 miles, so I had to turn around to find him.
There he was at a service station pumping air into some ladies bike tire for her because she couldn't figure out how to do it!
 
He said he knew I would come back and this lady had dropped 75 cents into the air machine so far and could not figure it out so he offered to help.
She was grateful, but the owner kept asking him to buy gas or move his bike and leave...until we showed up, then the owner went inside and left Maurice alone to do his good deed. Some accept us, some don't. Still 1960's with some a** hol**, errr some people.

 

In Langford we found a nice pub called the TAP HOUSE with no-one except us 3 there. It was a bit out of the way, but friends had told us that this was a nice place to sit and that we could use it to meet up with people we knew in the area.

The service was not so hot though. We waited for coffee, and then waited again for her to take our food order. Refills for coffee only came if we went and asked for it.

Our food finely came and it was ok, but nothing fancy and certainly not worth the wait.
Did I say only us 3 were there?

I would have not wanted to be there if they had anyone else for the waitress to serve!

We had a friend from the area join us there and since the service was so bad we decided to go to his stomps.

 

We headed to the  LOG HOUSE in Langford. Much better service and good atmosphere. They like bikers too, and would like us to come visit anytime. As a matter of fact there is a Hot Rod and Harley show and shine on September 11.

 

               8 am registration

• 11:00 am to 4:00pm - Show
• 4:30pm - Prizes and Awards
• 2:00pm to 5:00pm - Pig Roast
• 3:30pm to 1:00am - Live Band

  http://loghousepub.com/index.php 

  Every Friday the have live classic rock n Roll 9:00-1:00 and Every Saturday they have Country bands 3:30-7:30

  Then it was off to the 4 mile pub for another meeting. It is suppose to be haunted, but The only scary thing there was Maurice. 

The Faces of four mile
It’s a short trek down the old island highway to Victoria’s View Royal area, with a lot of construction and pavong in the area, but it’s worth the effort to dine at the four mile pub.  Built in the late 1800s, four mile pub was the small hilltop cottage of a Scottish immigrant. Over the years, additions were tacked on as new family members were born. It has since ballooned into the building you’ll find just outside downtown Victoria today. The city’s fourth oldest house, Four mile has been an inn, a brothel, a restaurant, and a roadhouse for weary travelers. Today it serves as a pub and  restaurant and liquor store, a homebase for the exceptiona catering crew, and at least one ghost!

We road the twisty coastal road from Langford, toward Sooke, through Mechoosin. great twisty ride and you meet local riders and traffic as you go through high forests and rock and along the sea shore. There is a lot of game on this road with deer and bears and cougars to name a few running across the road as well as livestock so enjoy the twisties, but keep your eyes up and the vision clear!

 
After the easy coastal ride, we figured we better get riding across the island, as it was the long weekend and we wanted to get somewhere before the motels filled up.
Black, Maurice and I  caught the 2 pm ferry and crossed to Vancouver and arrived just in time for rush hour. We stopped for dinner and let the traffic thin out a little before attacking traffic again.

We went on to Hope and got fuel and coffee and had a real nice visit with the local RCMP detail in Tim Horton's, then left to go to down the road a little farther before bedding down for the night.

.
All the motels were full in Merritt so we fuelled and headed to Kamloops.
Again, all motels were full there too, except for a honeymoon suite,  and that was just to cuddly for me and Maurice (and no, I didn't ask Black her opinion.)
...so we went on to Sicamous.. Same story ........so we went on to Revelstoke.

Maybe we should have booked ahead, but when you ride until you are stiff,  and then  100 or 200 more kms after that, it is hard to know where you will be.
If all the motels were full up there,  we decided we would pitch the tent we hauled along for suck,  err such emergencies. It was going to be be 3 am when we arrived in Revelestoke anyway and we were getting tired.
 
Black's trike learched and banged as we went into Revelstoke, but she stayed on it and took it skidding, banging, and bucking off  to the side of the road shoulder.

 

With flashlights and laying on the rocks,  Maurice and I went under the trike trying to find the problem, but in the dark and after burning my forehead on the exhaust pipe I told them we would look at it in the morning. We pitched the tent and talked about the bike breaking and were glad it happened in Revelstoke were the speed limit had dropped down to 50 kms an hour and not when we were doing highway speeds over the Coquihalla Pass .

We had a rough sleep...... trying to sleep, ....trying to figure out the problem with the bike, ....and listening to tractor/trailer with engine brakes screaming, coming down the hill into Revelstoke and C.P. trains shunting engines and traveling through the city.

When we got up, the three of us crawled under the bike to see if we could see anything that might have caused the problem. The pinion seal was leaking, but not too badly so I thought it was not a pinion or crown gear gone.

 

As I looked carefully, I thought the alignment looked bad on the drive shaft/pinion gear mating u-joint, and since the exhaust was now cold I could get right under the damn thing  with my fat head.

 

 I  saw that the 3 by 2 inch rectangular frame of the trike kit had broke free of the differential on the left side of the differential and the right  side had split apart, across the top and both sides  leaving only the bottom weld holding by about 1/4 inch on the  side.

Black had come within a 1/4inch weld of losing the differential right out from under the bike, and if she had lost it who knows where she would have ended up and with Maurice riding tail, what kind of damage he would have taken with a bouncing differential coming at him.
 
We took the bike apart on the side of the road (Maurice, me and Black) as far as we could with the limited tools we had for the Harley Davidson and the Honda and Suzuki metric bikes. We needed more tools to do more disassembly than we were prepared for.

It was call friend time.  Either one with a truck to come get us, or one with phone numbers to try and fix it.
 
 We called a friend "Dave" at 7 a.m. and asked him for a phone number of the guys in Revelstoke who work on his big truck. Dave drives a Harley Davidson and a big truck,  and understands  being stranded..... with flats or mechanical problems on either of them....and knows when it is "CALL A FRIEND TIME!!"
 
 He gave me the number for his contacts in Revelstoke,  but the guy he deals with in Revelstoke had gone away for the long weekend so we had to go find someone else.

We called City Transfer under "welding" in the phone book, but the guy there said he delivered welding rods, but didn't do the welding, but he did know of someone who did some welding named Randy Sopko.
 
We called Randy Sopko at 8 am B.C. Time and he said he would be over in 20 minutes to see if he could help.
I was expecting a 1/2 ton truck with a welder on the back like we see going to the oilfeilds. Surprise!!!!

He arrived  in what I believe was a 3 ton service truck with welders and cranes and tool boxes and a shop on wheels.  “OUCH”!!

Figured this will be an expensive touch on a long weekend callout..... EVEN IF HE CAN'T FIX IT!
 Randy Sopko said we should have called right away and he would have come out. (I thought ya right on a long weekend call out, add an 'after hour' call on that too..... RIIIIGGGHT!!)
 
With his extra tools, we began removing the seats and chrome supports and everything from the bike to get the rear fibreglass panel off the Lehman Trike kit. Once down to the frameworks, we could see where the driveshaft had MELTED the metal guide plate from rubbing it as the welds broke apart on the highway.
 
Randy began to rebuild the frame on the side of the road, he had to use the hoist and crane to lift it up to re-weld the bottom of the frame.  He fabricated a new guide for the torque shaft. The weld job looked better than new!!
 
Then Randy helped put the bike back together. Over an hour of welding and then the rebuild and he replaced the bolts and nuts that had broke in the teardown for us. (Don't use the wrong tools to do the job! Ya I know!!)

and now the painful part, the bill... I asked him the cost.
 
Randy didn't charge us anything for the service. Nothing on a call out on a long weekend! Amazing guy!
 
I have to say it was a breath of fresh air to be meeting people like that in this world, and know that they are still around! 
  
We waved goodbye to  Revelstoke, heading to Golden and our next fuel stop. No Fuel on Rodgers Pass for most of this summer so far so not worth even thinking about it.  We arrived in Golden and fuelled, had a coffee with another old friend, and then left for home.

 
Right after leaving Golden we got tied up behind a drunk driver from SASKATCHEWAN. He could not stay at a steady speed, or turn corners or stay in his own lane ... or drive period.

 
After following him for about 10 miles I got brave enough to pass the ass and once in front we picked up our speed about 15 kms an hour. The drunk shoved his car up the tail pipe of Maurice's bike and as soon as he could get by he shot back into the front of us passing us on the right.
Yup, like some of those morons who ride motorcycles, (tongue in cheek)he passed on the right, in a construction zone, so he could be first...
 
I pulled over to call the police on the jerk, but we had no cell service in that area, so I figured we would sit and let him get a distance ahead of us so we didn't have to deal with him, then we strarted our ride again.
 
When got to Canmore, we knew it was our last fuel stop, so we topped up the tanks, had a coffee, and got ready to roll again.

As we pulled onto the road again, here was that drunk!
 
I thought, "This ain't my day"!!  At least he was driving at 30 kms faster than we intended to travel. Somewhere inside I was silently hopeing a cop was out n about.
 
We ran onto some rain coming into Cochrane area but not too much. Moe cut off there to go home to Airdrie. Black and I  came home, got showered and had pizza and got ready for bed. 
  
 I am home and ready to do the next trip somewhere/anywhere/anytime/. I figure it can't be much more difficult than this one!
Met some good people and some bad people and had some good weather and some crap weather.
Good food and good friends and good biking make it all worthwhile!
Hope you can join us next time!!
 
For info if you do the Victoria ride
MY BIKER FRIENDLY LIST from this trip
 
Quality Inn
WADDLING DOG
2476 Mt. Newton X Road
Saanichton, British Columbia
Canada V8M 2B8
Phone:
(250) 652-1146
Fax:
(250) 652-4946
1 (800) 567-8466
Email:
info@qualityinnvictoria.com
 
 

Randy Sopko
NUTS & GUTS welding and fabricating
Structural
Crushers
HeavyEquipment Operator
250-837-3428
box 8509 Revelstoke BC V0E 2S0

 

 

Four Mile House
199 Old Island Hwy
Victoria, B.C.
V9B 1G1
250-479-2514

fourmile@fourmilehouse.com

 

the LogHouse

2323 Millstream Road Vctoria B.C.

 

 info@loghousepub.com

 
and I didnt get the name of the guy who gave us the parking voucher on fishermans warf, but if there is KARMA, he will get rewarded.

We are off to golden sicamous vancouver and victoria, then home on the long weekend. We decided to take the Friday off and add it to the Thursday making it a 4 day weekend! Cuz we deserve it!LOL

If you would like to join us for the ride, contact us through the shoutbox! Ride is open to all EMS Professionals who are looking  to join our club, and anyone else who would like to meet some of the riders!

Our 19th annual Motorcycle Awareness Ride!

Hosted by URSA and Kane's Harley-Davidson

It starts at noon and goes through Calgary, Bragg Creek, and Cochrane ending up at Symons Valley Ranch for a BBQ.

The purpose of the Ride is to create awareness of the relationship between motorcycle safety, injury prevention as well as to raise funds for our rehabilitation programs.

We would love to see you there at Symons Valley for the BBQ or if you ride a motorcycle, why not join 500+ other riders on Sunday morning May 30, 2010.

Please contact us for details at (403) 272-7722 ext 112

Location: calgary
Start Time: 12:00 PM
End Time: 04:00 PM