Teaser- "Adventure is taking inappropriate Equipment to out of the way places"

Day Seven - Watson Lake to Carmacks, or Chaos on the Campbell

We rolled out of bed early, Fran earlier than the rest of us. We repacked our bikes, storing the removed street rubber in one of the out buildings at the Air Force Lodge. We grabbed a cup of coffee and went to gas up everything, now including all auxiliary gas tanks and empty gas cans. 350 miles to Ross River and a whole lot of wilderness to cover.



I offered up that a common practice was to air down your tires to 25 psi or so for improved traction and handling, at the risk of tire or rim damage in really bad stuff. Every man for himself - we all took some air out of our respective tires, fingers crossed.



The Campbell starts out paved as we roll past the Sign Forest, but quickly collapses after that. The first stretch of construction, we have no idea what the 'to-be' road was going to look like, but they sure had it torn up getting there, it was not motorcycle friendly,though the sign girl, suitably bribed by Fran's charm and Jolly Ranchers was.



We followed a pilot truck through the ten mile stretch of road work, which included extended stretches of wet Calcium Chloride treated road bed. (Given that the Campbell is usually deserted I wonder why this huge effort?).

The road work in our rear view mirrors, we began to get our gravel legs and got used to the knobbies. I ran a Conti TCK-80 front and a Heidi rear, Fran ran a TCK-80 front and a car tire on the rear, and Thomas rode Conti TCKs front and back.



The road turned into a pretty darned good gravel road! Nicely packed and graded for early season, we found ourselves running at a pretty steady 60 with occasional bursts up to 70. We stopped for a break and Fran and I high fived ourselves over how great the roads were and how well the bikes were behaving! Thomas, notably, did not join our premature celebration.



And then it all turned to crap. Really bad crap. Deep freshly mined gravel that was about fist sized with razor sharp edges, the kind that wants to rip the handlebars out of your grip, the kind that wants to lead you off the narrow paths that appear occasionally and hurl you off the road at speed when your front tire hits the softer stuff at the edge of the road. The kind that leaves dense dust hanging in the air for ten minutes after you pass thru. The kind with holes and washouts despite the gravel.

Yeah, like that.

Speeds dropped to 35-40 MPH and there were miles and miles where I think I simply stopped breathing. Fran believes stopping only at wide spots on the road to take a break or refuel. I no longer saw wide spots, I just saw it getting worse and worse.

We stopped in the middle of the narrow road, emptied our fuel cans into the tanks and compared notes. This was doable, but taking a toll mentally, physically and mechanically. Fran's sport suspension was taking a beating, the kind that can result in failed shocks and cracked frames. WTF was the point of dumping loads of gravel like this and not grading or compacting it?

We retightened our loads and got back at it. Remember this is a 350 mile stretch with zero options other than stay at it and carry on.
I took point and hoped for the best, my friends headlights reappearing occasionally in my mirrors.

Until they didn't appear.

I braked to a stop and waited and waited. When they didn't catch up, I knew there has been a problem. The headsets are line of sight only, so of no use here. Groaning, I turned my bike around on the narrow and unforgiving road and headed back.

Thomas had experienced a flat. His bike had been wrestled up onto the center stand and he and Fran were working on the rear tire. The tire had under 100 miles on it. The 'hole' was a gash in between two of the knobs on the rear tire, the problem was the size of the gash easily 1/2 inch.

That must have been a really fast loss of air. But no worries, we had the requisite tire repair kits and electric pumps. Fran coated a tire repair worm with some of the rubber cement and put it in. And added another. And added another trying to fill this gash. The moment of truth.. we aired up the tire and the patch seemed to hold.



For perhaps five miles.

It began to leak, presumably at the same spot, again. Holding our collective breath we added still another worm coated with rubber cement.
BTW.. for all of you who blissfully believe you have a tire repair kit on your bike, be advised that even unopened tubes of rubber cement dry up in a couple of years. And you don't know this until you open said tube in your moment of dire need.

Fortunately we had one or two tubes that actually had liquid rubber cement.

To make a long story short, this ritual was repeated seven times in 50 miles, finally the worms blew out completely and vanished in the gravel. I had some BMW issued plugs that seemed better suited for a gash like this.. we used the last of our rubber cement and jammed them in. We had very low confidence in any repair we could do holding up in these punishing conditions.

We held a caucus in the road. We were out of gummy worms, BMW issued plugs and rubber cement. It was perhaps 6:00PM and we were at least another 40 miles to Ross River. The decision was made for me to ride ahead to Ross River and try and buy more tire repair stuff, they'd have to have it there. Unless they were sold out. A distinct possibility. I was also open to any alternative technology to this situation.

I went ahead, my GS was now designated our official support vehicle for this trip, and got to Ross River. This town is essentially a Reservation town, a bunch of shuttered auto repair shops, the mandatory Gas/Grocery store perhaps a hundred houses, dusty streets and a bunch of mangy dogs lying around in this early evening.

Gas was a pretty high priority for me so I stopped at the pumps behind the grocery store and topped off all my containers. A local riding a 4X4 pulled in behind me. I put on my best 'American Tourist in need of help' face and explained my dilemma. 'Turns out he is a mechanic and works for the only other profitable business in town, a heavy equipment operation. He gives me fairly general directions to the home/business and told me to knock on the door of the house in front of a large yard of equipment and a huge outbuilding and ask for Dennis. With a decidedly non-mangy German Shepherd chained to the front porch.

Shift focus back to my intrepid fellow motorcyclists back on the Campbell, the BMW plugs had blown out, amazingly enough nearly in front of a side road leading back to an actual dwelling..an inhabited cabin! The owners of this cabin had offered assistance in the form of driving the flattened tire and wheel 30 miles (there was a back route that was even rougher than the Campbell) into town to a guy they knew. Removing the rear wheel from an RT requires removal of the muffler and other stuff, but Fran and Thomas got 'er done and Thomas took off in a pick-up truck with two absolute strangers. Fran swears he heard banjo music as they left. The guys left their huge mongrel dog to watch over Fran.

Shift back to me, I persuaded the attentive German Shepherd that I was no imminent threat and I knocked loudly on the front door... trying to overcome the din of a television tuned to the NHL playoffs. Dennis answered and said he'd try to help. SUCCESS! I hoped. 'Turns out Dennis is the owner, but not one of the heavy line mechanics, who were gone for the day. We wandered back to the Work Shed and he rummaged around in the tire repair area. For $20 he sold me more gummy worms, more rubber cement and a really cool German made truck tire patch, which I had no idea how to use.

I headed back, eyes peeled, hoping against hope that I'd find my buddies riding cheerfully and fully inflated into town. No such luck. I found Fran dozing on the side of the road, Tom's bike up on the center stand and no rear wheel and no Tom.

Fran awoke and filled me in. 'Sounded a lot more hopeful than any plan I had been able to concoct.

Thomas eventually returned with the tire fully inflated and a repair of a truck tire patch internally mounted in the tire - professionally done by someone else back in Ross River. I think he said it was a Priest who did the repair, I'm not sure. We all thanked these 'Angels of the Campbell' and slipped them some currency to cover their gas costs. Anyhow the presumably now blessed tire and wheel went back onto his bike - this takes a few minutes - and we are off again, fingers crossed!



We all rode together back into Ross River, topped off our tanks and took stock of our situation. The last few miles leading into Ross River were perfectly civilized gravel, and the map indicated pavement ahead. There was really no official place to camp in town, it was obviously still daylight at 9:30PM (Check your calendar and latitude) so we decided to ride on to Carmacks.

The road ahead was indeed paved and the evening bright and lovely. We sped along hoping never to hear Tom on the Bluetooth reporting another blowout.

Midnight in Carmacks, YT

Right.

Anyhow we made Carmacks around midnight, and found the only operating camp ground along the Yukon River. The entire operation is for sale - as is about everything else we saw in the Yukon- but the owner accepted $20 cash and allowed us to park our bikes in a 'camping' area down by the river. I broke out some freeze dried backpacker's meals and we all dined quite well. We would actually have eaten anything and been happy that night, but backpacker's meals have progressed and developed over the years and are quite now edible, so few of the old side effects seen (and heard) back 30 years ago they they were first introduced.

Tom and I pitched our respective tents and we noted that Fran had opted to set his tent up on top of a picnic table. We didn't ask why, just pulled our baseball caps down over our eyes and went to sleep praying that the Dempster would be easier riding tomorrow.

Oh Boy. We were seriously wrong. Again.

Mag Wheels

Pauls1150 said:

More More More!

Yeah, I'll vouch for the mountain lion caution - if you're slow and look like food, you can have a problem. SoCal has had many instances of adults, kids, and pets being stalked. (Bears just go through the garbage and lounge in the pool.)

Question - On the Trump and the RT, how did the mag wheels hold up?

Click to expand...

The mags on the Triumph got bent, and were hammered back into shape as needed with the flat end of a camp hatchet. The RT had other issues, but no bent rims.

Day Eight ? Carmacks to... somewhere on the Dempster

We got an early start even though we had a late night previously. We rode over into town and took a quick pass through the small grocery store looking for replacement food for what we fixed the night before, nothing looked right. Thomas and I went down the steps to the restaurant next door and had breakfast, getting the life story from our waitress... endless trauma and heartbreak, she coulda written a Country and Western song off of her problems.

Anyhow the eggs were good and the coffee hot. Fran was doing some minor repairs on his bike in the parking lot and joined us a few minutes into our breakfast. I laid out the map - we had about 75 miles of paved road before we were to turn North onto the Canadian Dempster - Canada's version of the American Haul Road.... it was built on ancient trails following rivers and ridges and leads to the Arctic Ocean and the valuable mineral deposits that lie up there.





We tightened up our loads and headed out. I remembered that there was a gas station/car repair shop at the bottom of the Dempster..when we got there, the car repair shop was long vacated, but there was an automated 24 hr fuel station. We topped off everything, checked tire pressures, crossed our fingers and headed up.



The scenery on most of the Dempster is just stunning, and it just goes on and on and on. You really and truly get a sense of the vast emptiness of Yukon when on this road. (Yukon is larger than the State of California, but has fewer than 35,000 citizens. The Government seems to have opened the visa process and today there are way more Asians living up there than in 2009. They operate the small businesses, run and usually own the gas stations, they are the Doctors and shop keepers.... and are taking root in their new country)



Not that we saw much of anyone on the Dempster. Of any variety or complexion.

Gravel for the entire length to Inuvik, NT, when I rode it in 2009 it was more memorable for its length than actual bad riding conditions. In 2014 we will remember it for a lot more. And once again, I never made it to Inuvik.

The first half was average gravel roads, nicely maintained and rideable at a good clip, but as we got further and further North it all went to crap...but the scenery....





This was a replay of the Campbell from yesterday, loose uncompacted gravel, washouts, and whole sections that stretched for eight or more miles that were simply and literally a chore. The freshly cut gravel was deeper here, thank god there was little traffic because getting out of a gravel path and over the berms of looser gravel is an religious experience. Some of these sections ran for eight or more miles in length.

We needed to keep our speed up but all we could manage was 35-40 MPH.

We stopped and refueled on the side of the road, looking like refugees from a Mad Max movie. I looked at Fran's Auxillary fuel tank and pointed out that it was taking a beating, two of the aluminum tabs were broken and the platform mount looked like it was hanging on by a couple of bolts. He noted this and said it would be fine.

I checked over my bike, she was holding up better than was I. Thomas must have been wrestling with the RT, but as always, he never complains.
I grabbed another Five Hour energy and the road goes on. In 2009 I observed that the Dempster is a Sisyphean task, when you think you've got the boulder to the top of the hill, it just rolls down to another hill. And another. And another.

Cameras can't capture the vistas and scenery. I know, I've tried.



Crossing high ridges, I saw the remains of dead Caribou, either killed by wolves or vehicles, scattered along the roadside.

The Sena came to life. Thomas was reporting another blowout just as we were exiting still another vicious stretch of gravel.
Oh ****.

I, of course, was probably a quarter mile ahead, but pulled over and then tried to turn around. And stuck my foot in a hole. And dropped my bike. There was no assistance, I started pulling off panniers and leaking gas cans and got 'er upright and facing the right direction. I just left my panniers and gas cans on the side of the dusty road.



I rode back, Thomas and Fran once again had the RT up on the center stand and Fran was sprawled out in the gravel looking for the leak. After repeatedly refilling the tire with air, he determined that the original hole, repaired yesterday in Ross River was again leaking. Which seemed to mean to us that there was no hope for a gummy worm fix.

Which meant what? Bryan's GS as a support vehicle again. Thomas removed the pannier, muffler, case guard and wheel assembly (he was getting pretty fast at this task) and I strapped the tire and wheel assembly on the back of the GS and headed North to Eagle Plains, YT. Eagle Plains is NOT a town, it's just a gas station/heavy line repair shop/restaurant/bar/motel. I'm not even sure it shows up on the Garmin GPS. I just knew it was there from the previous trip. And I just knew it was only 5-10 miles ahead. And I hoped it was still open - retail is a fragile business model up here on the Arctic Circle.

Right.

It was just over 40 miles of bad road. I was riding the ridges with fantastic and endless valleys on either side- running out to the horizon. Except that I was riding fast, or as fast as I could trying to beat the clock, hoping that the fuel/repair depot would still be open when I got there. Whenever I got there. If I got there. I wasn't viewing the scenery.

I was riding the inside lane trying to stay on a compacted area when I saw the cloud of dust and a pickup truck heading South. I was in her lane. Closing speed was probably 80MPH. I don't know what happened, but suddenly it was over, the lady driving the truck laid on her horn and moved over to the other lane, missing me.. and a head-on by a matter of feet.

And it would have completely been my fault. And there are zero medical options on the Dempster.

I skidded into the pump area at 8:15PM - the sign on the door said the shop was open until 9:00PM. Except that it wasn't. Lights off and door locked.

There is literally no place to go if you're in Eagle Plains but the bar. I suspect that the folks who live there grow to have a drinking problem, if they didn't already when they arrived.

I kicked the dust off my boots and walked into the bar. The pretty waitress listened to my tale of woe and jerked her thumb over her shoulder towards an older gent who was pretty obviously really into watching the NHL playoffs and pretty much into his fourth beer. Or sixth.

I sat down next to him, introduced myself and explained the situation. We needed a serious flat repair, the kind that involved dismounting the tire from the rim and laying on a truck tire patch from the inside. Stan listened, nodded and informed me that nothing was going to happen tonight. But, I pointed out, the sign says you?re open until 9:00!. Stan informed me that the road is closed and all his guys had gone home. (WTF could home be?).

I played the dire straights card.. we are literally in the middle of a narrow Dempster, on a curve, 40 miles to the South, it's now 8:45, we've got no food or water or beer! "And what exactly do you mean the Road is closed, we've been on it all day!". "Ferries aren't running on the Peel or McKinzie rivers" he retorted, "that's why you probably didn't see any semis on the road today."

Right. And I thought we'd just been kinda lucky on the traffic front.

Stan took another swig and asked what we'd been doing nights to this point? "Camping" ... "Great", he said, "you can do it again tonight."

So, Customer Service and general Yukon tourism isn't a really big thing at his repair shop.

I pleaded to at least be able to buy gas, he grudgingly told one of the other patrons, who must have worked for him, to go unlock the office and let me buy some gas.

As I left the bar, he told me to leave the tire/wheel out front and he'd get to it the next morning. I got my gas, left the tire/wheel leaning up against the door of the shop and headed South.

This round trip had probably taken me over three hours, I eventually came on my panniers and spare gas cans on the side of the road, stopped and bolted them back on and rode down to my waiting Partners. I told them that I had good news and bad news, and that the bad news would involve camping somewhere around here.

The guys took this all in stride, after all if we didn't want an adventure, we'd have gone golfing in Hilton Head or something.

I walked down from the road... all roads are elevated at least 5 feet above the Tundra due to permafrost... and promptly sank down into deep moss. Like thigh deep moss. OK, no camping there. I scrambled back up to the road and suggested that we just pitch our tents in the Northbound lane. In the gravel. In what was of course, still broad daylight. We'd only seen a couple of vehicles all day, we'd just have to take our chances.



Thomas and I went to work and soon had our stuff pitched and laid out, Fran, on the other hand, decided that this would be the night to sleep in his riding outfit in the road. In the Iron Butt circles this is known as the Iron Butt Motel. Whatever.. he laid down on the gravel, flipped his visor down and was soon dead to the world.

Never one to pass a chance at a celebration of the moment, Thomas and I got our camping chairs out, lit cigars and watched the Midnight sun move laterally above the horizon, all the while working on our tans.



Tomorrow I'd get the repaired tire back, mount it, we'd get breakfast in Eagle Plains and figure out what to do since the plans to get to Inuvik were dashed, by the fact that the ferries weren't running due to house sized ice floes floating down river and out to the Arctic Ocean.

Wrong again. Things were to get really, really pear shaped, really, really soon.

Day Nine ? Disaster on the Dempster

Sleeping on pointy gravel with an air mattress that either was still leaking, or had developed new holes just isn't a great idea. I rolled over on the gravel, unzipped my tent and crawled out onto the Dempster.

Ouch.

Fran was decidedly cranky, evidently sleeping directly on the gravel, even in your riding suit and helmet is an even worse idea. I checked my watch and suited up, may as well get heading back to Eagle Plains and hope against hope that Stan had gotten to the flat and had been able to repair it.

Thomas rolled out of his tent and commented on the constant wind that had picked up during the night... especially evident on this high ridge. Dust and grit blew up from the gravel as I pointed myself North for the 42 mile ride.

I arrived in Eagle Plain and was pleased to find that the tire was fixed and remounted - Stan indicated that a second hole was punched through the TCK 80 tire and that he'd fixed it with an internal truck tire patch. I paid him, topped off my tank, strapped the tire and wheel assembly to the back of my bike and rode back to my stranded colleagues. When I arrived, I saw that they had optimistically packed up their tents and gear. I unstrapped the repaired tire and Thomas took it over to install it on his bike.

I packed up my kit and pointed my bike back North as Thomas finished the reassembly of his bike. We all thumbed our starters and resumed our trek North on the unforgiving Dempster Highway. Today's gusty prevailing wind picked up and up and made riding in the gravel even more fun, but at least the dust that we kicked up was almost immediately blown off to the stunted forests to the East so we didn't have to breath it in.

We pulled into Eagle Plains in the late morning and went directly to the restaurant, since we hadn't eaten much beyond almonds and dried fruit for a day or so. Surprisingly the food there is really good, the head chef is a master at working with what he has at hand to create appealing meals... quite an improvement over the Chinese-Western restaurants we'd encountered earlier.



Our schedule had picked up a day with Inuvik being inaccessible, so we went over to the camping area at the North end of the parking area and pitched our tents. The wind had risen to probably 40-50 MPH.. the tattered flags that flew from the Eagle Plains main building were snapping in the gale. Tent pitching was challenging.. everything had to be double staked and anchored by additional weight. I noted very large bear footprints around the area I'd selected for my tent. We walked back to the Lodge at Eagle Plains and paid a few bucks to use their hot showers... what a luxury... the dust and grit washed off and I felt almost human again.

I noted that the Lodge dogs worked as a team in trying to hunt to Snowshoe Hares that hung around the edges of the property.. they had a Golden Retriever mix and a large German Shepherd that unsuccessfully tried to double team the rabbits, with no success that I observed. One of the workers at the Lodge commented that they lose dogs to bears every year when they get excited and head deep into the bush chasing these Hares.

Oops.

It was probably late afternoon when we decided to ride the 20 or so miles up to the Canadian Arctic Circle for the requisite photo ops. We headed North and within eight miles or so Thomas radioed that his bike felt odd.

Fran and I rode back to do a check.. another flat? Cracked frame?

We worked together and put Thomas' bike up on the center stand and immediately found the problem. And we were stunned he'd made it this far. When he had replaced the wheel assembly back South on the Dempster the threaded holes in the mounting flange had evidently collected some of the stone grit and dust that had been blowing for the past 24 hours. (We hadn't put the mounting bolts back in place, leaving them in a magnetic dish next to the bike). The grit and dust created a situation where the bolts when threaded in wouldn't go all the way... Tom hadn't realized this, cranked 'em in to what felt like the normal torque specs and had ridden, with the bolts only 2/3 of the way in. That rear wheel probably had 3/4" of play as it rocked on these firmly torqued, but only partially installed bolts. The threads were shot on the back half of each bolt and the threads on the front end weren't much better.



And while we weren't quite at the end of the world, we could nearly see it from this spot on the dusty road.

We futzed and tried to clean the holes in the flange, tried to lubricate our way in, tried about everything we could think of. No way... and if we tried any more pressure with a cheater bar, Fran was concerned that we'd break off a bolt.... then our fate would be sealed.

I rode back to Eagle Plains and found Stan back in his shop and tried to explain the situation. What I really needed was a NAPA store or a Snap-On Truck to buy a metric tap and die set to try and correct the threads and clean the flange holes. The repair shop at Eagle Plains here caters to the occasional errant tourist and mostly the heavy trucks that ply this highway when the ferries are open or the rivers are frozen. Not a good place to find metric stuff in general. Stan was helpful, kinda, and we did go thru his mechanic's tool boxes, but nothing even close was found.

We are now officially F***ed.

I rode back with a handful of washers that I thought might be useful in filling the gap created by the buggered threads. Fran took over this problem and using the washers tried to fix the wheel firmly enough to the mounting flange that Thomas could at least ride it back to the safety of our tents staked, and hopefully still there, on that high Eagle Plains Ridge.

Thomas turned around and Fran and I went on to the Arctic Circle marker for the requisite photo ops and for Fran to spread the ashes of some loved ones. Of course I dropped my bike on the severely off camber parking lot area and broke my turn signal lens. Grrr.



I got the pictures and we turned around and headed back, hopefully to catch up with Thomas back in our parking lot camp.

No such luck.

Perhaps a mile beyond where we had left him, we found his RT lying on its side, the rear wheel had fallen off, he sensed the imminent disaster and brought his already low speed down before the wheel separated from the mount, the bolts went flying and he slewed to a stop and dropped the bike on its side in the deep gravel.





His Satellite phone was out and deployed as he tried to think of what possible combination of solutions actually existed for him at this point. There weren't that many.

Fran and I stopped and we all got his bike up on the center stand in the middle of the dusty road. We walked back and retrieved what bolts we could find in the gravel and dust... when we got to three I declared victory.

Fran drew the short straw and was sent back to Eagle Plains to find Stan, presumably in the bar. Within an hour we saw the dust plume of Fran returning in Stan's pickup truck. Fran explained that tomorrow we could use Stan's truck and trailer to bring the bike back, but currently the trailer was full of debris and junk and we?d have to drive it to the dump in the morning, so it could be used to accept the bike.

Stan told us to just leave the bike where it was, it'd be fine.

Is anyone following this? This is not exactly AAA service. I felt like we were becoming citizens of Eagle Plains Lodge and would soon be in a Northern Exposure episode.

We left Thomas' bike in the middle of the gravel road for the evening and Fran and Tom rode back in silence. WTF were our options right now?
I rode back trying to think of what options there actually were to consider? We had an unridable bike requiring parts that were probably not available anywhere outside of the Big Cities of the US...and we were hundreds of miles from the nearest paved road.

Of course to make this more interesting, land line phone service at Eagle Plains now mysteriously vanished, though their internet signal continued. Thomas went to work, texting his wife who was down in Florida... she in turn called the RCMP (The Mounties), AAA, the BMW Roadside Assistance team and did Google searches for assistance.

I, on the other hand went to find a cold beer.

This circus went on for the afternoon, with Carolyn trying to explain to potential service providers where Eagle Plains actually was.. the only ones who knew were the Mounties.. and predictably they were of no help. They might always get their man, but a dead bike, forget about it.

After several beers I found Thomas and we began to list our options. All were bad. Absent the right tools to actually fix the threads on the bolts, they were toast. Given the conditions we'd faced on the way up, I didn't think a non-BMW, non-hardened bolt could be trusted to take the battering, so that option was out. We'd have to get new bolts and perhaps a new mounting flange.

Calls to the BMW Dealer in Alaska were pretty much useless, they didn't have these parts and would have to order them.

Thomas called a BMW shop back in the States, and the best they could do would be to overnight the pieces.. but there were essentially no options to get them from the nearest town, Dawson City, 300 miles up the Dempster to Eagle Plains. The Manager at the restaurant thought that if we were lucky it'd take a week to arrive.

Tom's wife in the meantime had found a towing service in Dawson City... but he'd only consider the job if paid cash... and we're talking $1200.

More beer seemed to be a good answer at this point...we wound up drinking in the bar, chatting up some South Africans on an adventure, making friends with the dogs who had the run of the place and watching the midnight sun. At some point I made my way back to my tent, only to find it hanging on by a single tent stake as the gusty winds continued unabated.

What to do?

Day Ten Decisions

We rolled out of our tents early and walked over for breakfast and food. Fran found Stan and was given the keys to his truck and the open bed trailer loaded with debris and trash.. we piled into the truck and went off to find the dump he'd mentioned so we could unload the trailer, so we could retrieve the bike. The dump was located eventually and we found the center of it surrounded by a high voltage fence to keep the bears at bay. Somehow Fran backed the rig up and we proceeded to add to the piles of trash and junk, being careful not to get close to that fence!

Mission accomplished, we drove back to the waiting Beemer. I suggested that we find at least a couple of the bolts in the gravel and remount the rear wheel onto the bike so we could at least power it up onto the trailer. That seemed to be the best idea, so we got that done and strapped the RT down for the rough ride back.





I was worried enough about our strapping job that I rode shotgun with the bike on the trailer back to the repair shop.

We unloaded the bike and I was able to get it into the empty shop, rear wheel flopping around.

We then returned to the restaurant to discuss our options. Thomas had decided to call this guy in Dawson City to drive up, get the bike and to drive back down to the land of paved roads. I thought he'd be better off ordering the parts, getting them up here by hook or crook - and replacing them himself.

Thomas is quite deadly with a wide variety of scary military weapons, but at this point he had lost any self confidence in repairing the bike. And none of us thought the Stan had any interest, period.

As I said early on, we'd decided that in the event of an unridable bike or a serious injury the obligation of the surviving riders would be to get the unlucky guy to a safe place where he had options and the ride would go on.

So we did. And it was a tough and emotional decision to leave Tom and his bike at the Arctic Circle.

As far as we all knew, Tom's ride back to civilization would be arriving later that afternoon to get him down to Dawson City, where his driver knew a guy with a motorcycle shop who might be able to help. We all promised to stay in touch via text and phone and reconnect somehow in a few days if at all possible.

Little of that proved to be true.

For Fran and me, the ride down the Dempster was easier than the ride up. For whatever reason the gravel had settled and even compacted and the ride was less hair raising. The scenery Southbound is even more breathtaking than it was Northbound.

Earlier I mentioned that there were Caribou remains on the sides of the road on some of the high ridges we rode, I stopped and picked up a passenger, Cari-Boo, and strapped her to my side pannier. The Caribou was probably a victim of a wolf pack or a Semi. The wind and weather had done a pretty good job of curing this hide, and Carri seemed to enjoy the change of scenery.



We hooked up at the bottom of the road, refueled and rode into Dawson City. Up here words like 'Highway' and 'City' need to be taken with a grain of salt, Dawson City is an old gold mining town with authentic structures and genuine piles of rock left over from the first gold rush up here. Perhaps 800 people actually live here.



The streets aren't paved with gold, actually they aren't paved at all. We found a cute touristy cafe and had dinner and regaled the couple next to us with our stories of daring exploits. Eventually we departed and took our completely filthy bikes to the ferry boat across the Yukon River. The Yukon River runs so fast that they keep giant piles of gravel and Cat dozers on each side so they can rebuild the gravel ramps to the ferry several times each day. It's a never ending battle with the rushing waters of the river.



We camped in the public campground on the other side where I succeeded in dropping my bike not once but twice on the soft dirt in our campsite. I eventually gave up and parked it on the access road.

I checked my texts... no word from Thomas.

As I went down to my bike, a guy in a huge Ford pickup slowed down to chat. He'd just come from Alaska across the road we'd be on tomorrow morning. He warned that the gravel on the West side of the Customs station was really bad, and that there were quite a few cars and trucks with flats. I nodded, assured in the knowledge that we'd already been through the worst possible roads.

Nah.

Day Eleven. Top of the World to Fairbanks AK.

Believe it or not we were still on schedule because parts of our trip had been clipped due to the non-running ferries to Inuvik. We rolled early, sans coffee, and rode across the famous Top of the World highway. Up, up and up we rode into the swirling clouds and muddy gravelly roads. unlike my 2009 trip, I was actually able to occasionally see some of the legendary views this time. No guard rails, no pavement for the most part, this road demands your full attention.





Soon enough we showed up at the Poker Creek Customs office, only to find it not open yet. Yep, I'd forgotten that we are now entering the Alaska Time Zone. We chilled out for 25 minutes or so, I mentioned to Fran that he should ask for the Passport stamp pictured below. I've had fun with my stamp in other parts of the world, famously stoic European Customs Agents crack a smile whenever they see it.







We crossed into Alaska and the road that the guy had mentioned last night was before us. There was a rental motorhome on the side of the road with a blown front tire, and the driver looking pretty distressed as he surveyed the damage. The gravel this time was indeed big.. mostly fist sized... and freshly dynamited out of whatever mountain was being mined. My bike bounced around and my arms and legs took a beating as we hammered our way through this mess...I honestly think it ran for five miles or so. I observed another pickup abandoned on the North side of the road with not one but two shredded tires.

I'll bet the Alaska DOT got a few calls and letters about this 'road'. And any help was gonna be a long ways away.

We arrived in Chicken, Alaska and had our rather delayed morning coffee... I deviated from my normal pattern and had a frosted roll from the shop with my coffee. Mmmmm. For those who have not been there, Chicken, Alaska consists of three ramshackle buildings with an outhouse at the end. Famous for their coffee and baked goods, for many of the foreign and elderly tour bus tourists this is the very height of their Alaska adventure... kinda the end of the road up from Fairbanks for busses. We just pass thru.





I've always liked this little sign they have posted on the wall. The dog is long gone, but the rest stays pretty true.

No further drama as we went down to Fairbanks, we did encounter a local rider who guided us right to the University of Alaska Student Housing Building where I got us registered. We thought we'd be three at this point, so I had reserved a Student Housing Condo that comfortably slept four people, as always I appreciated the hot showers and free laundry. The rate is competitive or lower than commercial lodging options.. and did I mention the free laundry?

Fran and I ordered in a pizza and washed it down with Root Beer. No word from Thomas.

We had unpacked our gear from the bikes as tomorrow we'd be doing a two day round trip on the Dalton Highway, also known as the Haul Road to Deadhorse where we'd be lodging in one of the commercial establishments there... extra weight on the Haul Road is a bad thing at every level. We stowed the gear in a closet, taking only the bare minimum needed to survive the 1000 mile trip on the gravel and crap on the Dalton. The last time I headed over I encountered a serious blizzard on the Atigun pass over the Brooks Range with calf deep snow over the gravel, and avalanche warnings, so you can be sure that I packed every bit of heated gear in my kit.

In early June, you just don't know what to expect up there...it changes day by day and even hour by hour.

I did assure Fran that the Haul road is over rated, and except for the blizzards on Atigun Pass, is usually easier that the Dempster. Fingers crossed. Someone had asked if the cast alloy wheels stood up to the beating - here is a picture of Fran repairing a bent rim incurred after that stretch West of the Custom's office at Poker Creek... the flat end of a hatchet worked pretty well.



I did note when Fran was pounding out that bent rim that his Auxillary Fuel Cell seemed to have taken some further damage on that last stretch of highway. He still didn't seem concerned.

Oh Boy.

Day Twelve, The Haul Road aka The Dalton Highway

We rolled out of bed early, rebalanced our bikes, now freed of a lot of weight, and headed North. I will note that it gets pretty hard for even me to get lost here as the number of options for roads is decreasing steadily as we gained latitude.

Eventually it gets down to one road.. The Dalton Highway.



I did muff the refueling on the way up requiring that we double back about 15 miles to the gas station/cafe on the paved road heading up. There the credit card reader was out, so we paid cash for our fuel...while standing around we noticed a RV full of Japanese businessmen that was getting their propane tank topped off.

(REMEMBER, if heading up the Dalton, stop at Hilltop Gas/Truckstop for fuel, the next fuel option is in Coldfoot- quite a ways up the road!)
Fran did a wonderful job of engaging the Japanese guys in limited conversation and gestures; they loved getting their pictures taken with us with our filthy and bedraggled motorcycles. I think. Or perhaps they were just humoring us.

One thing I noted, compared to 2009, there were a LOT more motorcycles on the Haul Road. In 2009 at roughly the same time of year I saw three bikes, including mine. This trip I saw literally dozens as everyone puts the Dalton on their bucket list. The truckers feel, justifiably, that THEY own this road... not the motorcyclists. This occasionally leads to 'discussions' on road etiquette.



When an oncoming truck approaches I slow to a near walking pace if I can. If the trucker does the same - and they often do - this saves a lot of shattered lights, visors and so forth since these trucks tend to throw up stones. These folks are paid by the load, so doing this costs them time. I always appreciated the gesture and waved my thanks.



The Southern end of the Dalton is loaded with long steep grades, if recently treated with Calcium Chloride these grades become torturous runs... wet freshly treated roads are as slick as whale snot. You don't stop, you don't turn and just try to pick your line and pray that your good tires will work to keep you upright. And that the treated section ends quickly.

A few weeks after we went through I understand that a father and son team on a HD had a pretty serious accident on the Dalton that involved a Medivac extraction. Any bike can be ridden anywhere, but please think twice before taking a street bike with street tires onto any of these roads. You are endangering yourself and when you crash, you snarl up everything. It's not like there is a lot of traffic up there, but there are heavy trucks with schedules to keep.

End of lecture.

We rode through to Coldfoot, refueled and topped off our tanks and fuel cans and headed over Atigun Pass. Clear and easy this time, we made great time onto the high plateau to the North. There the road conditions started to degrade... the road crews were obviously working hard to repair the winter damage, but we were pretty early in the season. There were more than a few areas of severely washboarded and pot holed road, where everything was shaken and stirred. Those parts were fine, it was the downhill grades with fresh Calcium Chloride where it got interesting. At one section, I slowed down gradually and over the Sena Bluetooth I heard Fran screaming "Don't Stop, Don't Stop!!" Evidently that rear car tire didn't offer much on stopping ability on slick surfaces.







I let him go ahead and he kept up a good pace. Until I came over a ride and found him with his bike on the side of the road...his Auxillary fuel container had ripped itself off and fallen to the gravel road, splitting wide open in the process and spilling three gallons of gasoline. Yep, these are rough roads.





Fran put the ruined cell back onto the rack (that was still being held in place by magical forces beyond my comprehension) and tied it down with rope or duct tape or something and we continued.





I thought he'd have enough fuel to make Deadhorse, but I wasn't sure. 'Turns out he was in better shape than I was in this category.

As we rode North following the pipeline the road conditions varied from great to awful and back again. We finally arrived in Deadhorse enshrouded in ice fog blowing in off the Beaumont Sea. 29 Degrees F felt really, really cold. Normally you can see Deadhorse from 25 miles away ... not this day.

I looked for the Arctic Caribou Inn - run by the very capable Isabella - but discovered it was no more. We wound up taking rooms in another establishment with identical architecture (Prefab sections placed on elevated platforms and bolted together).

We had a very late makeshift dinner in the cafeteria, looked like we just missed the 'formal' dinner hour...but no worries. They ALWAYS have food available 24/7. Something can be found.

When we had checked we noticed two women who had obviously ridden up, probably just after we arrived. When we wandered into the cafeteria Fran immediately saw them and sat us down next to them. Remember my earlier comments about Fran being an improbable Chick Magnet? Within a few minutes we were all best friends... Nancy and her friend had ridden up from Fairbanks - Nancy and her husband operate a motorcycle rental/Alaska Tours business out of Anchorage called Rent Alaska - http://www.rentalaska.com/index.html where they rent a range of motorcycles to folks for their Alaska adventures. Nancy's friend agreed to accompany Nancy for this mini-adventure ... Nancy was taking stock of the Haul Road and taking hundreds of pictures that will eventually wind up on their website.

We recounted our misadventures on the Dempster and Nancy said that Rent Alaska has the caveat on their website;

** Absolutely no riding or travel on our rental motorcycles on or to:
~~~ DEMPSTER Highway to Inuvik, Northwest Territories
~~~ CANOL Road in Northwest Territories

Yep. They'd had a customer crash on the Dempster and it took her personally driving the 700 or so miles up from Anchorage to retrieve the ruined bike and injured rider. Anyone want to guess her actual costs per mile? A lot. As we had discovered there are few options for repair up there.

Since there is no alcohol served up in Deadhorse, I decided to call it a night, leaving those two lovely ladies to Fran's diabolical schemes. No actually, he means no harm. Really.

Day Thirteen ? Deadhorse back to Fairbanks



We rolled early, but with round the clock daylight it's always a little hard to tell. We had a good grease laden breakfast something involving eggs, cheese and hashbrowns served with a ladle and washed it down with coffee.

Everything in Deadhorse is always either mud, snow or dust. There must be moments when you can walk outside without getting your feet filthy, but as in life, timing is everything. Fran wanted to get a picture of us in front of the Hotel's sign, so we positioned our bikes and asked strangers to get our posed pictures. Along comes the lone policeman in Deadhorse in his 4x4 cruiser, amused by our antics and frankly intrigued by the fact that we'd ridden so far.



Fran's daughter is a police officer with the Illinois Highway Patrol, and he carries a number of her picture cards - kinda like baseball cards for situations just like this. He traded this card for one of the officer's cards.... the policeman had some great stories about the types of people he winds up dealing with up here. There are a few every year who seem to wind up here with no money, no vehicle and no prospects.

He told a story about an older guy who rode his Harley up and by the time he made Deadhorse he was so freaked after repeatedly dropping and crashing the bike, that he spent days trying to find anyone who would strap the bike to a trailer so he could fly back to the land of paved roads.

We got our pictures and asked the policeman if there was a store where we could buy a few things, like replacement batteries for my Spot transponder. He started giving directions... roads in Deadhorse are poorly marked and confusing... he eventually just gave up and told us to follow him over to the store. Which has about everything. We got our batteries, I got a few more five hour energy drinks and we left, only to find a whole group of riders from California outside also looking to top off their kits.
Darn Motorcyclists... they seem to be everywhere! Note - in 2009 I saw very few women up here - and the women I saw looked pretty rough around the edges - -70 and high winds will do that to your face. This time I saw quite a few attractive young ladies working in the trades. Evidently attempts at establishing a more diverse population and the fact that the pay is very, very good is working....for the better!



I was amused by some of the local tradespeople taking OUR pictures.... they just fly in, they can't imagine riding a motorcycle up. (Reality check, there are people who ride their bicycles up and back ... what we did was nothing) Some of the guys told me that under one of the buildings there a Grizzly bear had built a den and would be seen around town occasionally.

Yikes!

An Oil Field service boat in dry dock - probably a few weeks from being launched for its summer chores

Fran headed out to find gas, and my bike wouldn't start. Bingo on fuel. Nothing. The irony of being out of fuel in the oil capital of Alaska isn't lost on me. I drained the final drops from one of my extra fuel cans and was directed off to one of two refueling stations up there open to the public. These are darned hard to find, in what is essentially just a large dusty/muddy/snowy industrial park at the end of the world. I did find it... only to discover that I'd completely lost Fran.

'Took me probably 30 minutes to find him, you wouldn't think it'd be that hard.

He'd gone to the other fueling station. Anyhow, we headed out, a little late and he told me over the Bluetooth that the ladies we met last night would be spending the night at our U of A Condo. 'Works for me ... not like I had any cleaning to do before they arrived.

As always, the road back was seemingly a different road than the ride up. But it was still 500 miles, and it was still darned cold. I wore both my heated jacket liner and my heated gloves AND cranked the heated grips up to stun.

Surprisingly, and disappointingly, I didn't see as many Caribou as in 2009 and saw no Musk Oxen... which are by themselves worth the trip! No unusual drama, sections that yesterday were flooded with slippery Calcium Chloride were today set up and dry, some severely potholed parts were regraded and some were recently flooded over and slick, but thankfully not on extreme grades (Some of the Haul Road grades are close to 8% - which is quite steep).





I didn't see Fran's girlfriends either, so who knows?

We eventually arrived back in Fairbanks, our bikes and riding gear suitably coated with mud and calcium chloride. I think we ordered in a pizza again... Nancy and her friend called about 11:00... and asked if the deal to share the condo was still on? I assured them that they were welcome and started to provide directions, but Nancy's daughter had lived in these condos when she was in college, so she knew the spot.

I don't think we'd left any pizza for them, but they came with beer (note for any non-motorcycing readers, stopping to buy beer and then carrying said beer on your fully loaded motorcycle is a neat trick.)



We spent an hour or so chatting about the ride, the road and the Motorcycle rental company Nancy and her Husband operate. 'Seems like an interesting business, but they have to make 12 months revenue in just four months.

I suggested that Nancy and her husband do a write-up on how to ride gravel roads and then publish it on their website, since I've never seen a good one...and that's what their customers are renting the bikes for in most cases.

We turned in, pulled the room darkening shades down and dozed off. For Fran and me tomorrow would include riding the famous Denali Highway and then following the rest of the Pipeline down to Valdez!

Well, that was the plan anyhow.

Still no word from Thomas. I tried to call his cell - no answer, or the call didn't go thru............ where was he?

Just a reach out?

Is anyone reading this? Should I keep writing it??

yup

Beemer01 said:

Is anyone reading this? Should I keep writing it??

Click to expand...

This is a great read, please continue.

Day Fourteen, Denali Highway and on to Valdez

We all arose early, had some instant coffee and went our separate ways.

Did I mention that somewhere during the unspeakably rough roads thus far I'd developed a leak in my final drive? I sent an iPhone picture of the seepage to my mechanic buddy and he told me there were two options, one to find a BMW dealer and wait for an opening for service or two, just keep adding oil.

Given my ADD tendencies, I opted for Door #2. Except that for the life of me I couldn't find the access port to add oil to the final drive. It turns out that the wizards in Berlin had decided that as the final drive oil was a lifetime item, they had omitted the access port for this model year. That's OK, except when the seal fails. A quick check of YouTube showed a hack for adding oil anyhow, involving the removal the pannier, the rear wheel, the rear brake caliper and finally the speed sensor. Evidently the German engineers never contemplated the possibility of a seal leaking.

They'd never ridden these roads either.

We passed a Yamaha/Suzuki dirtbike/ATV shop on the way into town and we stopped on the way out of town to get a quart of gear oil. Then Fran demonstrated his mechanical brilliance by suggesting that given the tiny vertical access hole, I'd better buy or steal a syringe for adding the oil. Right. Never occurred to me.

We stopped at the Fairbanks Walmart and I searched high and low for a syringe...finally I approached the nice woman at the pharmacy counter and made up a story about having a sick child at home and needed a way to precisely measure her medicine out. I was handed a syringe. Given my disreputable appearance I'm happy there were no further questions about the real use of this device.

Fran was fully prepared to do this final drivectomy in the Walmart parking lot, but I declined... I mean it was just seeping, how much oil could have been lost? He rides an English bike, leaking oil is no big deal to him.

We rode South towards Denali Park. Denali Park has been called "pure Alaska" and attracts Tour Busses by the score... all filled with elderly tourists with walkers out to buy souvenirs, trinkets and who hope to capture a picture of a real live wild animal with their hand-me-down point and shoot cameras. The smell of BenGay was overwhelming.

We got down to the Town area, refueled and grabbed a hot dog, wading thru tourists in line. I noted that we were given space in the overheated dining bay without too much fuss. I told Fran that we'd head South... when the tourists took a right to be herded onto the Park Service official busses for their safe and sanitized tour of the Park, we'd turn left and head onto the Denali highway.

Definately not safe and definately not sanitized.

As we left the restaurant/Gas Station/Souvenir shop there was the biggest moose I've ever seen on the roadside grazing on some of the local flora. 'Had to have gone 1300 pounds. Fran, of course, didn't see it. I believe Fran could pass a dozen Cheerleaders on the side of the road, waving Pom-Poms and not see them.



Yep, as always, words like 'Highway' are used rather liberally. The Denali is a bit of work, goes over two passes but also goes through some pretty fabulous central Alaska terrain. We saw moose, herds of Caribou, and bears... including a Grizzly gorging itself on dandelions. Frankly the Black Bears were getting annoying, I no longer marveled at their grace and beauty, I just blew my overly loud horn whenever I saw one on the road ahead of me hoping I could scare them back into the bush.





Where was I? Oh yes... riding the Denali. The road was in marginally better repair than I remembered from 2009, but the washboarded sections still wanted to shake your teeth out, especially when the road crosses the glacial eskers.



Fran was way out ahead of me this time... I later discovered that he'd chased a herd of Caribou down the Denali (he actually saw these for a change) and discovered that these critters can run at 35 miles an hour for a while, given the right motivation and proper encouragement.

I got towards the Eastern end and noticed that my bike was handling very strangely. Like broken frame strange. (I have no idea what a broken frame bike handles like, so I'm just making this up) but something was amiss.

I pulled into the now abandoned restaurant at the junction with the Richardson Highway (as mentioned, retail is a somewhat fragile business proposition up here) and found Fran. We got perhaps ten miles down the road and I radioed to him asking for him to look at my rear tire as I passed him.

Yep, flat. And like an idiot I'd ridden on it that way for the last 30 miles. He told me to find a wide spot on the road... I did what I could. We wrestled the bike up onto the center stand and I broke out my pump to add air, so the puncture could be located. (BTW... get an electric pump for your kit if heading down these roads. At this point we'd have used a case of CO2 cartridges if that had been our inflation method of choice). As quickly as the pump got working the Mosquitos descended. OMG. And I'm originally from Minnesota where we pride ourselves on being able to endure these flying vampires. These were bad...the kind of bad where you inhale three, swallow one and bite the heads off the rest, just so you can spit them out.



Fran lay on the ground, riding suit up and helmet on for protection, spraying a soap solution onto the rotating tire looking for the leak. I eventually found it, the hole was so large that it was blowing dust and gravel around every time the hole got to the 6:00 position.

It was about this time that the crumbling asphalt on the side of the road gave way and my bike slowly pitched off the Richardson Highway and upside down as it slid down the gravel embankment.

That was fun.

Fran was fortunately to the rear, not the side when this happened, but it sure looked dramatic to the passing motorhome... which quickly braked to a stop with a couple of locals piling out to help.

I explained that this, contrary to appearances, was not a crash with fatalities, just a flat tire. They immediately leant a hand and the four of us were able to wrestle my bike back upright and onto the side of the road where the shoulder wasn't crumbling away. One of the guys looked at our situation and went back to the motorhome. In a few minutes we heard the sound of a Honda Generator and saw them walking back with a heavy duty compressor and 50 feet of orange extension cord.

Wow. This was like the compressor at your local Goodyear store. My tire inflated so quickly that it literally popped up off the ground. Our savior then produced an industrial strength repair kit with oversized gummy worms and fresh rubber cement and in a few minutes I was repaired and ready.

We thanked them profusely and offered cash, but they declined. "We never leave anyone behind up here" they said... and stuck around swatting mosquitos until I was repacked and ready to go.

We assume they'd never spoken to Stan back on the Dempster Highway.

We got riding again, but this repair had cost us 90 minutes or so. I looked at my map and mentally calculated the time we'd need reach Valdez.... we'd be arriving at about 10:30PM, assuming that the section that suffered the landslide a few weeks ago had been repaired... and getting to Valdez would involve crossing some really cold costal mountain passes.

I mentally popped smoke, and radioed to Fran that we were going to do another slight deviation from our plan and were going to camp this side of the mountain range and save Valdez for another trip. We stopped for fuel and I mentioned that Fran that I'd seen a public campground just a few miles back. We turned back and easily found the sign announcing that this public park campground was open for the season!

Did I mention the mosquitos? OMG. This campground seemed to be ground zero for them. We put up our tents as quickly as possible... I actually fled to the outhouse to take off my riding suit... and I dove through my tent door, flipping around to zip the door shut. I then spent fifteen minutes systematically killing every mosquito that had gotten in. Deet had little effect on these guys, though I had certainly sprayed myself with it liberally.

Note... Fran eschews bug spray of any kind for reasons that are obscure to mere mortals. He claimed to have an agreement with the bugs not to bother him. That agreement seemed not to be in effect that evening as I heard him slapping the little vampires over in his tent too. The next morning we discovered that this campground seems to have been constructed on reclaimed swampland, with hundreds of dark pools of water all around us.

Perfect.

No dinner. No bourbon. Just bugs.

Tomorrow we'd start heading towards Burwash Landing and back into Canada.
I went to sleep with the drone of circling mosquitos over my tent.

Wow!!!!! Been along for the whole trip report....AWESOME trip!

Thanks for taking the time and effort to share this with us. I know that I'm never going to attempt a trip like this so this is as close as I'll ever get. I'm slapping at imaginary mosquitos in my office right now ;-) HATE those suckers and I lived in Minnesota too.

Teaser

What I've been enjoying most is the spirit of your adventure. And of course the unexpected details including a Triumph wearing a car tire (seems to have worked, so far), the crazy "road" surfaces and the characters in those small outposts. I did much of that trip (all but the Dalton) in 1990 on an R100T. Whenever we saw a GS we'd say "That's what we should be riding." But I've got to say it's not the bike but the rider who takes it on. Thanks for sharing. Keep it coming!

36654 said:

Same horse different name.......

Click to expand...

This is a great ride report which I look forward to your periodic updates. I can only imagine the howling whine of the hoards of mosquitoes that night in the swamp!

Keep it coming - I'm certainly enjoying it!

Beemer01 said:

Is anyone reading this? Should I keep writing it??

Click to expand...

Yes! and YES!

Don't leave us hanging...

I don't read ride reports. Glad I didn't miss this one.
This report has been excellent.
Thank you.
Is intermission over ?

Day Fifteen ? Earthquakes, blown fork seals and? who was that Girl?

I awoke to silence. No mosquitos. I peered cautiously out of my tent to see if they were massing for an attack. Nothing. Fran emerged from his tent and walked over to the thermometer mounted on his bike... 31 degrees. The bugs were probably just stunned, not dead, but that was good enough for right now.

We shook the frost off our tents, packed up and motored down the road in the clear Alaskan morning. Soon we turned Northeast onto the Glenn Highway towards Tok, the Wrangel Range gleaming white in the morning sun. Somewhere along the Glenn Highway, Fran radioed that his bike seemed to be running hot...the next gas stop we peered at his radiator ... yep - nearly coated over with solidified mud and calcium chloride. This was a job that only a high pressure hose could deal with.

Tok, Alaska was ahead, we'd surely find a high pressure wand there - and there was still the matter of my leaking rear seal to deal with. Maybe I could actually find an asphalted parking lot to work on my bike?



Parts of the Glenn Highway were under reconstruction and then the clouds lowered and it started to rain as we gained altitude. At one point we stopped for gas at a bar/liquor store/gas station combo..I walked thru the bar, it was perhaps 10:30 in the morning, and the regulars were all there working their way through their daily rations of beer. I loved the fact that a mosquito coil was burning like incense by the front door. I bought a fifth of Jack... and man has to have his priorities. And it was cold out there.

We made Tok around noon. 'Turns out that one of the gas stations offers free access to their high pressure wand if you buy gas from them. This was probably put in place with RVs in mind, but it worked for us too ...Fran was able to blow a lot of the baked on crap off his radiator with the water pressure. I on the other hand was cultivating an authentic filthy adventure bike look.

Fran suggested that I do my final drive oil job on a paved parking lot, next to an auto parts store, since these jobs always seem to require tools not in your tool kit. This was genius it turned out. And even better there was a NAPA store just down the road, where the nice lady was amenable to my ignoring the "Don't repair your vehicle in front of the store" sign, when I told her I was just going to add oil. I didn't tell her that doing so would involve disassembling a BMW across two parking spots. On the flip side I did, as Fran had guessed, have to buy several expensive tools that were needed and not in my kit.

The syringe of oil worked perfectly. And of course I have absolutely no idea of how much oil to add, so I injected 500 ML, crossed my fingers and hoped for the best. This only took about 90 minutes including the random conversations you always have with the locals when you are trying to do a project like this.

We left Tok and headed Southeast on the Alaska Highway. We crossed back into Canada... ahead of us was an interesting duo, she looked like an aging professional "dancer" who'd had some failed Botox treatments, he was a heavyset middle aged guy, they were driving a UHaul...they had a cat and litter box on the front seat, and they were trailering a late model Mercedes. The Canadian Customers people were having a field day.

Now that, I'll bet, has a great back story.

The Alaska Highway down towards Burwash Landing is always in rough shape. This time it seemed ridiculous. There were dips and whoops rises that I never remembered from 2009, heck I was nearly airborne on a couple of occasions. When we pulled off for a 100 mile break, I noticed a sign showing the violent history of Quakes forming this area. I also saw that UHaul scream by, the trailer with the Mercedes rocking, bouncing and swinging in the rear.



We finally reached Burwash Landing, where in 2009 I'd bought gas, camped in the bear free meadow, ate dinner in the restaurant and had a restaurant encounter with a self-proclaimed Arms Dealer, who tried to sell me an AK47. The gas station/hotel/restaurant had sadly gone bust. Which was a problem since we were nearly out of gas, and my trusty Garmin was telling me that there was no fuel for hundreds of kilometers.

There was also a new problem...... The right side of Fran's Triumph and riding suit were splattered with fresh oil. Those whoops and dips? He'd blown his right fork seal.

The fuel thing was however a more immediate issue, if we were to believe the $700 Garmin. (See earlier rant). We drained the rest of the fuel from my cans...not much there... and got back in the saddles to see what would happen.

The still frozen Kluane lake blew icy winds across the road, I shivered and rechecked my gas gauge. I was showing 20 miles of range, and Fran wasn't a whole lot better. We crested a rise and there was Destruction Bay... a wide spot in the road, but one that had a gas station! Which appeared to have been in operation for about the past 25 years. Give or take.

Thanks Garmin.

We stopped and fueled everything up, tanks, gas cans...the works. Fran went to go inside, when I noticed that he'd been derailed in this task by a conversation with an attractive young lady riding solo on a KLR thumper with Alaska plates. Somewhere along this conversation he discovered that this area had experienced a 5.3 earthquake just 20 or so hours earlier. Which explained the road conditions. The thing is when you're out in Destruction Bay on the Alaska Highway, an earthquake just doesn't seem like that big a deal. The road develops a few more dips, the trees sway and life goes on.

The attractive young lass was going the same direction we were...there are only two choices after all... so we decided to ride together at least as far as Haines Junction where there was sure to be camping and food.



She rode fast, Fran rode faster...crossing the broad wash area at the South end of the lake the blowing dust was thick.... I eventually caught up with them at another Chinese-Western Restaurant which had about the same dismal food as the others. At least this one had cold beer. We sat and chatted and it quickly became evident that this Chick was running from something. She had just flown to Anchorage and bought this brand new bike and purple bike luggage...she changed her name a couple of times over dinner, finally settling on Crystal. She was evasive about where she actually lived and referenced a motorcycle accident down in San Diego a few years back that she was receiving a settlement for. Beyond that she wasn't disclosing anything.

And she didn't want her picture taken. So there's that.

Whatever. I paid for dinner so she offered to pay for a campsite. Still another Asian owned campground and she coughed up $25 on her Visa card (at least her credit was good) and we set up camp. "Crystal" hammock camped, though it didn't look to me like she had much experience in doing this...ditto her packing skills for her gear on her bike.



We started a fire and spent another 45 minutes trying to get a fix on her, which was getting us nowhere. I polished off a bottle of Jack and headed off to my tent, leaving Fran to try and figure this gal out.

I think Fran is also a Minister of the matchbook variety, so I'm sure he tried to counsel her.
I think she snored too, or we had bears sleeping nearby.