Oliver Solaro has succeeded in pulling off one of the more difficult motorcycle expeditions we’ve seen here in Canada—a mid-winter dog food delivery to Churchill, Manitoba.
Although he’s always up to some oddball adventure, Solaro’s an adventure rider whose specialty is riding Canadian ice roads in winter. He’s pulled off some very ambitious trips on the northern ice roads (read one of our interviews with him here), and ended up featured in this short film that showed at last year’s Toronto Motorcycle Film Festival.
But this year, Solaro took things to a whole new level. Instead of his trusty KLR (equipped with studded tires, naturally), he took a CCM GP450 adventure bike, equipped it with a track kit and homemade sledge, and hauled a load of dog food (donated by a New Brunswick company) all the way to Churchill, Manitoba. In case you’ve forgotten, Churchill (mostly famous for its polar bear population) is the town on the coast of Hudson Bay that lost its rail link to the rest of Canada last spring, leaving the population with no land route for provisions. As a result, the cost of supplies like dog food is soaring, with prices as high as $140 a bag. So, Solaro decided to help.
Solaro has hauled two loads of dog food into Churchill in the past week, overcoming some pretty nasty conditions to make the trips happen. We’ll try to get an update from him when he gets back to civilization and thaws out … although that might take a while.
Brokentooth, you’re a real motorcyclist! That’s a long, cold ride, for a very worthy cause.
So… how long did it take him?