Three Trumpets near Nakusp, BC, July 2008

The Triumph Kootenay RAT* Raid is scheduled for the weekend of July 17-19, 2009, in Nelson, BC (famous for BC Bud, Budgies and the filming location of the Steve Martin romcom “Roxanne”). This will be my fifth consecutive year attending and my sixth consecutive year touring through British Columbia, although we haven’t always gone on an extended trip to or from Nelson. In 2004 we passed through Nelson a month after the event.

By “we” I mean my buddy John from Thompson Falls, MT, who also rides a 2002 Triumph Bonneville America, although his looks significantly different. We took very different paths in customizing and accessorizing. There aren’t many Triumph Cruiser riders in Montana. When we didn’t kill each other on that first 2004 road trip, we decided to continue to keep traveling together at least to the Kootenay Raid. Last year we went out to Seattle the week before the event and extended the trip, virtually doubling the usual miles (from Helena, not from Thompson Falls). More details, including maps, can be found on my Wiki travel page.

This year we were going to do the same trip in reverse, but other commitments got in the way. Then we were going to do the same exact trip. But now we’re looking at one of the following routes. We still want to make it out to Surrey, BC, near Vancouver, to meetup with other Triumph riders and travel together to Nelson.

Map 1 – Up to Jasper, AB, down to Kamloops and over to Surrey through Whistler. About the same mileage as last year: 1754mi.

Map 2 – Up through Jasper, AB, to Prince George, BC, THEN down to Surrey through Whistler. A little longer at 1924 miles.

Map 3 – A modified redo of our 2004 trip. Probably not likely because we do need to meet friends in or near Surrey, and this is pretty short for a full week at 1073mi.

Keep in mind that all of these figures start and end in Thompson Falls. It’s another 215mi each way for me to get to and from Thompson Falls.

*RAT stands for Riders Association of Triumph and really doesn’t mean shit anymore. It was sponsored by Triumph but they dumped all these events on the dealers, who are actually doing a pretty good job picking up the pieces that Triumph dropped.