Motorcycle Guide to the Gaspé Peninsula
ultimateride

Part Twelve | Gaspé Peninsula Trip Summary

Ultimate Ride Ep 12

If you’ve been following this season’s Ultimate Ride each week then you know that last fall Norm and I flew out to Quebec City looking to spend four days exploring the roads that both dissect and rim the famous Gaspé peninsula.  Our ultimate destination was the famous Percé Rock and the roads that hugged both the St. Lawrence and the Baie des Chaleaur to our delight were without a doubt some of the nicest most picturesque roads in Canada.  But there were some other surprises along the way that reinforced just way Norma and I make these annual trips every fall – fourteen so far.  In Historic Gaspé we satisfied our tireless thirst for early Canadian history, this time going all the way back to 1534 then there was the morning, when searching out a free lunch from Norm’s sister in Matapedia, we stumbled along one of the longest bridges in North America.   And then there was the terrific scenery in seemingly deserted highway one thirty two that took us out to Percé Rock.  Over all it was a great road trip and certainly one of our best Ultimate Rides so how do you top that?

Dave

So Norm, first of all, I can’t believe we’ve been doing this for fourteen years and second of all, here we are talking about doing our fifteenth ride and we have just got over watching the fourteenth in Gaspé and your impressions looking back on Gaspé… what’s the lasting memory now that you’ve seen the series?

Norm

I think, watching the series, it was the scenery which I had mentioned a couple times.  I was really surprised, I wasn’t expecting that at all and now looing back at it, it really brought back a lot of good memories about the road that we rode.  The road down into Matapedia  along the river, towards Baie des Challeurs and then when we cut across to Ste. Anne des Monts we had another river fun on that side and even on a very bad, cold, rainy day along the coast with the mountains on the right, just beautiful again.

Dave

Yeah, we had two beautiful sunny days and we had two nasty cold days  but it didn’t slow us down and in some ways, kind of looking back on the footage now it sort of added to the drama of the ride.  Those grey days were just a beautiful as the sunny days.  If you had to talk about ride number fifteen – Ultimate Ride number fifteen – have you given some thought as to where we should be going in a couple of months?

Norm

Yeah I think that… I thought about it a little bit last year, you know, all the places we’ve gone, as you said, fourteen years we’ve done a lot of… states and provinces and areas of different countries and it’d be kind of cool just to bring it back home to our back yard and one area of Ontario that we haven’t done, in the south side of Ontario, because we’ve done the loyalist trail, we’ve done Algonquin park, We haven’t done anything up around Tobermory or Manatoulin Island or up towards the Sioux and you know a lot of our customers come back and say that’s beautiful riding up there and I’m thinking that might the one for this year.

Dave

Sounds good to me.  If it’s anything like the last 14 I’m sure it will be a fun time so alright, let’s get the maps out and start planning a trip.

Norm

Perfect.

Dave

Sounds good, thanks again.

Norm

Thank-you.

Dave

That was a great one.

RIDE GUIDE TO GASPÉ, QUEBEC

Gaspe is one place, as a motorcyclist you want to see, it’s a motorcycle mecca, it’s all about the ride. There’s a lot of history here as well but this one is all about the ride. You’re on the coast of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, you’re on the coast of Baie des Chaleur. You can go in and out of the Gaspe peninsula on these various roads and you’re going to get changing scenery continuously so it’s a real cool place to go as a Motorcyclist.

TECH, GEAR & INNOVATION WITH HARLEY-DAVIDSON

Over the twelve part article Dave Hatch talks to Harley-Davidson about how to shop and fit a bike, get the right gear, suit up for the season and pick the right accessories for your ride. These riding tips will keep you safe and prepared but more than anything get the most out of your ride.

THE ART OF TOURING

Season 26’s “Winging It” was all about the art of touring and celebration of Honda’s iconic touring machine the Gold Wing’s 40th anniversiry. Ken Edick a veteran touring biker and owner of a Honda Gold Wing shares his best tips on touring. The tips include everything from the proper riding gear to take along on a long tour, the equipment, the additional tools and things to take along just to make sure that you keep moving and enjoying your experience.

Test Your Motorcycle Riding Skills

Recently we’ve been working on improving the riding skills of Anthony Mann by putting him through a series of motorcycle riding skills exercises designed by Matt Fletcher at Yamaha Motor Canada. Matt had hoped this friendly little challenge would show us all how we can become better riders when we practice our sport.  All you need is some open pavement like an empty parking lot and a couple of make shift cones or pylons.

PROUD SUPPORTER OF

The mission of the TELUS Ride For Dad is to raise funds to save men’s lives by supporting prostate cancer research and raising public awareness of the disease. Our goal is for men to continue to be there for their families and friends for years to come. The parade of vehicles grabs the attention of the masses and the media on ride day, the research helps find hope for the future and the awareness has the potential of saving men’s lives today.