Baironhorse
Well-known member
Yes it worked for me...amazing...have anyone of you guys done the canada east to west coast route??
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GTA area dirt / gravel riding routes and tracks
- Thread starter alon
- Start date
Yes it worked for me...amazing...have anyone of you guys done the canada east to west coast route??
I haven't done the east to west but I'm planning to do the Ontario section this coming summer with some modifications for more dirt in certain places. I need to figure out logistics though because I'll be riding the little bike and can't ride all the way to the eastern part of Ontario and then begin the TCAT. Ideally, I find a friend or family member who is willing to drive out with me and then drive my truck and trailer home for me from there that way I can ride from the east to the western part of wherever I want to stop and the. Turn south back toward Toronto. I'm looking to ride and camp along the way (combination of parks and wild camping) so packing light is a must on the smaller dual sport bikes but I've got that figured out and then riding back from the western portion I'll do along trails and gravel, avoiding pavement as much as possible which I think I can do based on last summer's research. Having said that, if the dollar exchange improves between now and next summer, I'd also consider doing something similar to this from north to south and back (Allegheny a Forest area in Pennsylvania all the way south to Tennessee and back) - the ETAT (eastern trans-American trail) is almost as well documented as this TCAT. Honestly, for me it all depends on whether conditions and time allowance as with this ETAT trip, I could easily drive over the border into Pennsylvania and park my truck there waiting for me to do the ride and come back to it and then home. As much as I wanted to do large portions of this TCAT last summer, I had a great time doing day rides off road as well as multi-day rides where I'd trailer three bikes to an Ontario campground, pitch our tents and use the campground as the base for day trips in the areas surrounding the park. I did this in Bancroft and camped in Silent Lake park, did day rides (all day long rides) and it was fantastic plus enabled us to ride these day rides with zero luggage on the bikes, making riding that much more fun.
Having said all that, I will also add that an Algonquin RAP trip is definitely interesting to me (Round Algonquin Park) - also fairly well mapped and documented ride that offers about 1400km of off road and gravel riding all the way around the massive and beautiful Algonquin Park. The snowmobile clubs organize these trips every winter and I know a few guys who have done it on their dual sport bikes in the summer. Depending on the actual routes, you can find an all gravel / easy dirt ride or as hard as single track riding nearly all the way around the park and since Algonquin is surrounded by crown land, you can wild-camp at no cost as well. I've got all the fuel locations mapped out and some very good tracks to make this happen over four days and three nights and that's without pushing too many KMs per day, leaving plenty of time for breaks and dinners at the campsites every evening and I've got a place in Baysville (lake of bays) to park the truck and trailer and use as the beginning / end point of the RAP.
Re: GTA area dirt / gravel riding routes and tracks plus GPX viewer links
For the round Algonquin park, yes - there's a gnarly path around that I want to take and I'm afraid your lack of ground clearance will be really bad. You've got time between now and then to buy a dual sport
By the way, I see how warm it's supposed to be this Thursday (Xmas eve) and am considering doing some gravel / off road riding. Interested?
For the round Algonquin park, yes - there's a gnarly path around that I want to take and I'm afraid your lack of ground clearance will be really bad. You've got time between now and then to buy a dual sport
By the way, I see how warm it's supposed to be this Thursday (Xmas eve) and am considering doing some gravel / off road riding. Interested?
Supernam
Well-known member
Re: GTA area dirt / gravel riding routes and tracks plus GPX viewer links
No can do, will be in The Great Smoky Mountains camping.For the round Algonquin park, yes - there's a gnarly path around that I want to take and I'm afraid your lack of ground clearance will be really bad. You've got time between now and then to buy a dual sport
By the way, I see how warm it's supposed to be this Thursday (Xmas eve) and am considering doing some gravel / off road riding. Interested?
Re: GTA area dirt / gravel riding routes and tracks plus GPX viewer links
Great thread, especially for newbies who are not familiar with Ontario trails like myself. Thanks for the initiative, Alon.
I just downloaded the TCAT gpx file from your dropbox without any issues. I am just familiarizing myself with Garmin's Basecamp and was wondering where I can download all the pictures marked on the route and to which folder they should be copied to.
It would be great if you could add more info about each route as you mentioned, such as average duration, bike friendliness, camping tips, refueling points (when not available in the gpx file). Also, I would imagine that you record all these single day and short multi-day routes you do and I think they'd make a great addition to your list. Maybe creating a spreadsheet file downloadable from your dropbox would be an option as well.
Anyway, thanks again and I look forward to go back to off-road next season!
Great thread, especially for newbies who are not familiar with Ontario trails like myself. Thanks for the initiative, Alon.
I just downloaded the TCAT gpx file from your dropbox without any issues. I am just familiarizing myself with Garmin's Basecamp and was wondering where I can download all the pictures marked on the route and to which folder they should be copied to.
It would be great if you could add more info about each route as you mentioned, such as average duration, bike friendliness, camping tips, refueling points (when not available in the gpx file). Also, I would imagine that you record all these single day and short multi-day routes you do and I think they'd make a great addition to your list. Maybe creating a spreadsheet file downloadable from your dropbox would be an option as well.
Anyway, thanks again and I look forward to go back to off-road next season!
Re: GTA area dirt / gravel riding routes and tracks plus GPX viewer links
I believe that when you download the route files, you simply use Garmin Express or Basecamp to move them onto your GPS device and when you do that, all POIs, pictures, etc should transfer automatically. Depending on the file type, you can actually bring up information for each section of a route (the path between two waypoints) in a simple table in Basecamp. When you do that, each section will display the actual distance (versus vector distance which is the straight line, as the crow flies distance) of the section itself plus the overall route length. I get that this is not the same as knowing the average time for routes because what you don't get in the route files is the average speeds / challenges / obstacles for each section so what I can do for now is go back in to each route file that I've uploaded and generate some riding points that will highlight known challenges, the terrain attributes and general level of difficulty / bike requirements / tire requirements / etc. please keep in mind though that I haven't necessarily created these routes; some I have, others I have downloaded from other sites and co riders and others I have downloaded and haven't even ridden personally - obviously those will be the hardest for me to comment on. The TCAT file from coast to coast is the product of many years of research and amalgamation of actual rider routes by Ted Johnson of www.graveltravel.ca - kudos to him for building such a spectacular and massive library of information. The TCAT file is immensely full of POIs such as fuel stops, lodging, vistas for picture taking, etc however if anyone here is planning to actually ride the TCAT, I'd suggest that you visit www.graveltravel.ca amd read through the vast amount of information and pictures of the TCAT - in there, you'll find tons of useful information from the exact type of riding for each major section to lodging and timing suggestions with many useful photos. As for camping tips, I tend not to share my thoughts on camping because everyone has a very different idea of what camping should be like and what's good for them. Personally, I have camped anywhere from provincial park camp sites with neighbors three meters away to wild camping on crown land. I think what I'll do is maybe start another thread that covers motorcycke camping itself and what works for me in terms of equipment, camping sites, etc - thanks for suggesting that, I do think it would be helpful to people here.
Lastly, I will say this - never mind my notes and files, just come riding. I ride often on both weekends and weekdays and ride with a wide variety of bikes and riders. My off road riding is on my KTM 530 which is a highly focused off road dual sport bike - that basically means that it literally sucks crap on highways so I avoid them. I also don't get too jazzed about high speed gravel riding and I love varying, challenging terrain riding but I am always very clear with those who ride with me on what they need and what they should expect from a ride with me. I'm typically considerate of people's abilities and comfort levels, no one ever gets left behind and no one ever feels like they need to push themselves out of their comfort zone. No one ever feels like they're in danger - you will only ride what you want to ride and always have options to go around challenges. I love multi-day off road camping rides and I've done it with both the bike packed for camping as well as trailoring to campsites and using those campsites as home base for day trips (Bancroft is perfect for that). I am planning to race the Baja Moto Rally in October so much of this coming season will be focused on vastly I proving my fitness and riding skills if I don't want to end up dead in a Mexican desert but that will not affect the casual riding I'll be doing and the rides I'm happy to lead. I live in Toronto so day rides typically mean one of two ride routes: the Hockley to Creemore ride or the Bethany ride routes - both of those are typically 9:00 am to 4:00 pm kind of rides and you'll be good and tired at the end. Both cover highly varying terrain and challenges and both run through absolutely beautiful landscapes from dense forest trails to open gravel roads that overlook beautiful vistas. Fuel range is not an issue as you'll never have to do more than about 100km before reaching a fuel stop and we always break for lunch. We don't run race paces, just casual and fun riding wi lots of time to make fun of each other and our epic failed efforts to ford small creeks, jump logs and traverse muddy ruts. Come along, I guarantee you'll have a great time.
Incidentally, the actual GPS unit that you use and the mapping you load on it will also make a huge difference. I use a Garmin Montana and I use both Garmin street mapping as well as the Ontario Backroads Map loaded - that Backroads map is incredible; literally every trail in Ontario is clearly marked on it - I've doscovered so many little riding gems by using that map as I ride along Backroads. When I've seen trails, I simply veered off the gravel road to check them out and saved my tracks for later. But again, if you ride with me, you'll be covered for mapping and GPS.
I believe that when you download the route files, you simply use Garmin Express or Basecamp to move them onto your GPS device and when you do that, all POIs, pictures, etc should transfer automatically. Depending on the file type, you can actually bring up information for each section of a route (the path between two waypoints) in a simple table in Basecamp. When you do that, each section will display the actual distance (versus vector distance which is the straight line, as the crow flies distance) of the section itself plus the overall route length. I get that this is not the same as knowing the average time for routes because what you don't get in the route files is the average speeds / challenges / obstacles for each section so what I can do for now is go back in to each route file that I've uploaded and generate some riding points that will highlight known challenges, the terrain attributes and general level of difficulty / bike requirements / tire requirements / etc. please keep in mind though that I haven't necessarily created these routes; some I have, others I have downloaded from other sites and co riders and others I have downloaded and haven't even ridden personally - obviously those will be the hardest for me to comment on. The TCAT file from coast to coast is the product of many years of research and amalgamation of actual rider routes by Ted Johnson of www.graveltravel.ca - kudos to him for building such a spectacular and massive library of information. The TCAT file is immensely full of POIs such as fuel stops, lodging, vistas for picture taking, etc however if anyone here is planning to actually ride the TCAT, I'd suggest that you visit www.graveltravel.ca amd read through the vast amount of information and pictures of the TCAT - in there, you'll find tons of useful information from the exact type of riding for each major section to lodging and timing suggestions with many useful photos. As for camping tips, I tend not to share my thoughts on camping because everyone has a very different idea of what camping should be like and what's good for them. Personally, I have camped anywhere from provincial park camp sites with neighbors three meters away to wild camping on crown land. I think what I'll do is maybe start another thread that covers motorcycke camping itself and what works for me in terms of equipment, camping sites, etc - thanks for suggesting that, I do think it would be helpful to people here.
Lastly, I will say this - never mind my notes and files, just come riding. I ride often on both weekends and weekdays and ride with a wide variety of bikes and riders. My off road riding is on my KTM 530 which is a highly focused off road dual sport bike - that basically means that it literally sucks crap on highways so I avoid them. I also don't get too jazzed about high speed gravel riding and I love varying, challenging terrain riding but I am always very clear with those who ride with me on what they need and what they should expect from a ride with me. I'm typically considerate of people's abilities and comfort levels, no one ever gets left behind and no one ever feels like they need to push themselves out of their comfort zone. No one ever feels like they're in danger - you will only ride what you want to ride and always have options to go around challenges. I love multi-day off road camping rides and I've done it with both the bike packed for camping as well as trailoring to campsites and using those campsites as home base for day trips (Bancroft is perfect for that). I am planning to race the Baja Moto Rally in October so much of this coming season will be focused on vastly I proving my fitness and riding skills if I don't want to end up dead in a Mexican desert but that will not affect the casual riding I'll be doing and the rides I'm happy to lead. I live in Toronto so day rides typically mean one of two ride routes: the Hockley to Creemore ride or the Bethany ride routes - both of those are typically 9:00 am to 4:00 pm kind of rides and you'll be good and tired at the end. Both cover highly varying terrain and challenges and both run through absolutely beautiful landscapes from dense forest trails to open gravel roads that overlook beautiful vistas. Fuel range is not an issue as you'll never have to do more than about 100km before reaching a fuel stop and we always break for lunch. We don't run race paces, just casual and fun riding wi lots of time to make fun of each other and our epic failed efforts to ford small creeks, jump logs and traverse muddy ruts. Come along, I guarantee you'll have a great time.
Incidentally, the actual GPS unit that you use and the mapping you load on it will also make a huge difference. I use a Garmin Montana and I use both Garmin street mapping as well as the Ontario Backroads Map loaded - that Backroads map is incredible; literally every trail in Ontario is clearly marked on it - I've doscovered so many little riding gems by using that map as I ride along Backroads. When I've seen trails, I simply veered off the gravel road to check them out and saved my tracks for later. But again, if you ride with me, you'll be covered for mapping and GPS.
Re: GTA area dirt / gravel riding routes and tracks plus GPX viewer links
Hi Alon,
Thanks for all the tips, info and, of course, for the invite. I'm 1:40" from TO further south in the Niagara Region but loading the bike on the truck (or hauling) is always an option Currently, I do not have a street legal dirt bike (my road bike is a Ducati Hypermotard SP) so I'd be restricted to green plate areas (this might change in the near future).
As for my question regarding pictures, my bad, when I saw those camera icons on the route in Basecamp, I assumed they meant actual pictures were available like in their "Garmin Adventure" tool. About TCAT, I came across graveltravel sometime last week hoping the gpx file would be readily available for download but that wasn't the case. The interested party is supposed to contact Ted Jonhson and the file is sent by email but since we were in the thick of Xmas, I decided to wait and not bother him. I came across TCAT info at Adventure Rider forum where they were discussing the beginning of the project, deciding the best way to documenting the trails a la TAT and I was glad that they had decided then to make a road book. I did not read through cause the thread was more than 100 pages long but (sadly) it seems they finally opted for gps files in detriment of the road book...
Oh... about Baja 1000... you're brave! It should be a lot of fun but doing it as a privateer takes a lot of skill, health and wealth! Also, you will have to make a whole lot mods to your EXC... but if you have what it takes, then, by all means, go for it!
I will check the back roap gps map, thanks for the tip!
Hi Alon,
Thanks for all the tips, info and, of course, for the invite. I'm 1:40" from TO further south in the Niagara Region but loading the bike on the truck (or hauling) is always an option
Currently, I do not have a street legal dirt bike (my road bike is a Ducati Hypermotard SP) so I'd be restricted to green plate areas (this might change in the near future).As for my question regarding pictures, my bad, when I saw those camera icons on the route in Basecamp, I assumed they meant actual pictures were available like in their "Garmin Adventure" tool. About TCAT, I came across graveltravel sometime last week hoping the gpx file would be readily available for download but that wasn't the case. The interested party is supposed to contact Ted Jonhson and the file is sent by email but since we were in the thick of Xmas, I decided to wait and not bother him. I came across TCAT info at Adventure Rider forum where they were discussing the beginning of the project, deciding the best way to documenting the trails a la TAT and I was glad that they had decided then to make a road book. I did not read through cause the thread was more than 100 pages long but (sadly) it seems they finally opted for gps files in detriment of the road book...
Oh... about Baja 1000... you're brave! It should be a lot of fun but doing it as a privateer takes a lot of skill, health and wealth! Also, you will have to make a whole lot mods to your EXC... but if you have what it takes, then, by all means, go for it!
I will check the back roap gps map, thanks for the tip!
Re: GTA area dirt / gravel riding routes and tracks plus GPX viewer links
As for the Baja, I'm 46 and out of shape but I'm strong and I can handle hot weather well. My 530 EXC is not stock, lots of goodies and well equipped for this type of riding but I still need some of the rally navigation parts like the rally road book and ICO computers, etc. and I'll need greater fuel capacity (more than my current 12 litres) but that's an easy bolt on as well...keep an eye on legislation changes that will hopefully allow green plate bikes to run the same rules that they've enacted for ATVs, etc out of the cities now - they can roam freely on road shoulders and I'm hoping the same for green plated bikes.
As for the Baja, I'm 46 and out of shape but I'm strong and I can handle hot weather well. My 530 EXC is not stock, lots of goodies and well equipped for this type of riding but I still need some of the rally navigation parts like the rally road book and ICO computers, etc. and I'll need greater fuel capacity (more than my current 12 litres) but that's an easy bolt on as well...keep an eye on legislation changes that will hopefully allow green plate bikes to run the same rules that they've enacted for ATVs, etc out of the cities now - they can roam freely on road shoulders and I'm hoping the same for green plated bikes.
Same here, 46, healthy but by no means strong, hehe... Also can comfortably take on hot weather as I'm originally from Brazil. Yep, that's what I was referring to mostly: the whole nav system/tower and extra fuel. I know a French guy deeply involved in the concept design and execution of this year's Yamaha wr450 Dakar Rally and he told me Yamaha will make available approximately 50 replicas for sale, like KTM did last year, but it should cost top dollar...
The rally navigation, ICO and switches aren't actually that big of a deal and I've got a rally style fairing and headstock setup ready for those pieces. Also, Acerbis makes a 27 litre fuel tank that bolts right on. Apart from that, I've already got additional oil capacity and cooling, additional water cooling, steering damper system, suspension mods, protection pieces and a reinforced rear subframe to support luggage, etc.
Supernam
Well-known member
Well, my bike is but I'm sure I'm not
I'll be ready in 2017!
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