Post Alaska Ride Information
Well we survived the Alaska ride, but not without acquiring tons of stories and pictures along the way. Here are the basic details:
10 US states
7 Canadian provinces
10,500 miles
4 weeks
18 nights tent camping
7 nights hotels / bed & breakfasts
2 nights "RV"
1 night hostel
Highest elevation: 10,947 ft on Beartooth Pass (Above the tree-line)
Highest latitued: 67° 15' 23" N in Coldfoot, AK (North of the Arctic Circle)
Great Lakes touched: Superior, Michigan, Huron
Longest Day: 635 miles (1021 km)
Here are some of my favorite pictures
And here are all of my pictures
10 US states
7 Canadian provinces
10,500 miles
4 weeks
18 nights tent camping
7 nights hotels / bed & breakfasts
2 nights "RV"
1 night hostel
Highest elevation: 10,947 ft on Beartooth Pass (Above the tree-line)
Highest latitued: 67° 15' 23" N in Coldfoot, AK (North of the Arctic Circle)
Great Lakes touched: Superior, Michigan, Huron
Longest Day: 635 miles (1021 km)
Here are some of my favorite pictures
And here are all of my pictures
EDIT: This is attempt #1 at a post-ride report. I'm quite disappointed with it, and plan to revisit this in the near future (to add pictures and whatnot).
As disappointing as it is, I did not complete a ride report after this ride. I desperately wish I had, but I didn't pull it off. Getting right back in the groove of things (work) after I returned is my main excuse... but it's also difficult to keep track of a 28 day ride. I started by writing notes at the end of each day, but as exhaustion caught up with me, I began putting it off, and simply hitting the sack every night. In hindsight, I wouldn't even attempt this again without a smart phone, or preferably, a tablet of some sort. That way I could easily use a voice recorder and make daily notes that way, or even keep an updated blog on the days I had the time. That being said, I'm going to attempt an extremely brief summary now, years later, in hopes of keeping the memories from fading.
Our mileage estimate had us at about 12,000 for the trip, but the actual mileage turned out to be about 10,500. We cut a few dirt sections out on the ride up, and heavily modified our route once in the state of Alaska. The large loop map below is still quite accurate. The one modification we made that I have regretted since, was we didn't make it all the way to the top of Alaska. We went above the Arctic Circle, to Coldfoot, AK, but then we turned back for Fairbanks. It was the right decision at the time, but I still wish we would have pushed on. It rained some every day we were in Alaska, and the road to the top (Dead Horse, AK) is dirt. That means that it turned to a bit of a muddy mess. It wasn't horrible, but it was bad enough that we didn't want to ride the 415 miles each way on our overloaded bikes. It was also quite cold towards the north end, and camping would have been uncomfortable, while hotel rooms are extremely scarce. The Denali highway was another road we hoped to ride, and we started it, but it was a muddy mess as well, and we weren't prepared to fight it the entire 135 miles. My Ulysses (and it's tires) did not do well in mud at all... it was the right decision at the time.
My bike had a couple issues along the way. Right off the bat (day 3 I believe) in the middle of nowhere Wyoming, I blew a rear wheel bearing. This is a somewhat common issue on Buell Ulysses', and I was trying to obtain a backup to haul along, but I gave up my search, and left without one. We ended up at a hunting lodge around 10am, and my Buell was completely unrideable, the bearing had been obliterated. I made a call to a Buell friend at home in Columbus explaining the situation. He had new bearings on his shelf, but it was Friday, so shipping couldn't arrive till Monday at the soonest... no good. I also shot a text out to a few followers letting them know we were temporarily down. I soon got a call back from Mark, the Buell friend in Columbus. I will forever remember that phone call... no hello or anything, he just said "How much do you love me?????" He found a general store, about 60 miles from our location, with 3 of the correct size bearings in stock. Unbelievable. I asked no further question at the time, just thanked him profusely, and set a plan in motion. George would set out for a replacement bearing (and a spare), and I would work on getting the bike ready. I used my rope to lift the back of the bike in the air, pulled the wheel, and spent about an hour trying to get the stuck out bearing race out of the hub. I eventually succeeded, and George eventually returned with a perfectly fitting bearing (and spare), and by mid afternoon, we were back on the road! A month or two later, I finally got to ask Mark how he found the bearings, in the middle of nowhere Wyoming. Turns out, he researched the Buell bearing, and found generic crossover part numbers. Then he looked up bearing distributors in my area. This general store popped up, and he called to see if they had the needed part number in stock. How awesome! I am forever grateful! Later in the trip, one of my fork seals began seeping fluid. The northern (AK and Canada) dirt roads use a mud concoction that basically turns to concrete when dry, they can destroy fork seals if you don't keep your fork tubes wiped down after riding in mud. This issue didn't effect the bike at all, and was an easy fix back at home, but it's worth mentioning.
Georges bike also had a couple issues. Our second day in Alaska, the bike sputtered and stalled on the side of the Alaska Highway. It turned over, but wouldn't start. I back-tracked and grabbed some fuel cleaner/stabilizer and starting fluid. We still had no luck, and eventually killed the battery. We ended up locking the bike to a tree off the side of the highway, and leaving our camping gear behind so he could ride on my back seat. We traveled nearly 200 miles to Fairbanks, but arrived 5 minutes after the U-haul store closed. Without camping gear, and not wanting to spend hundreds of dollars on a hotel room, we found a hostel with a couple open beds. Unfortunately, it was a miserable experience, one that we'd both like to forget, but it got us through the night (I guess), at 6am we were up and leaving for Uhaul. We rented the smallest truck they had with a loading ramp, and they let me park my bike in a locked area while we ran down to pickup George's KLR650. We made the most of the trip, and, upon arriving back, put my bike in the truck as well, so we could travel together to get it sorted. We met up with an ADV rider in Fairbanks who was going to change our tires, and he helped us do some diagnosing. We discovered his battery was needing replaced, so we did that first. Still no luck on the starting issue, so we worked further, and found he was getting no spark. We assumed it was the coil. We stopped at the Kawasaki Dealership, and were disappointed to learn, they were not interesting in helping. They wouldn't let us look at a parts manual or service manual (without buying one), and they didn't care to help us find a coil that would work. All they were interested in doing was ordering the exact part from Kawasaki, and wait the week or two for it to arrive. We then visited the Yamaha/KTM dealership, and what we needed, extremely helpful staff! We spoke to several sales people, all giving tips and ideas, then they brought us to the service building, and we spent half an hour or so talking through it with the mechanics. In the end, they gave us dozens of ideas, but they also offered to drop what they were doing and help us diagnose it, if we could get it there. We drove back in the Uhaul truck, grabbed the bike, and headed back. Before we went in to bother them, we did several of the tests they suggested in their parking lot. Eventually we found, if we took the spark plug cap (the end of the spark plug wire that pushes onto the spark plug) off, we would get sparks shooting out of the wire! The cap has a resistor in it, but we even bypassed that with heavy gauge solid copper wire, still with no luck. We brought the faulty cap in to the shop, and were excited to tell them we found the problem! They found an aftermarket replacement in a catalog, but it would take some time to order in... then, like any great shop would do... they took the part, and said "Let us go take a look around." I think about three different folks went off on a grand scavenger hunt, looking for a Kawasaki part the size of my pointer finger, in a Yamaha/KTM dealership the size of a grocery store. Eventually, they excitedly came back with an exact match! HOW COOL IS THAT! They were a bit hesitant, and apologized; "Sorry guys, this brand is more expensive. The part is 22 dollars, but we can give it to you for 19, if that's OK?" I burst out laughing. Apparently, the aftermarket one in the catalog would have been about half this price, so they were genuinely disappointed in having to charge us $22. Obviously, George didn't care one bit, and bought the part. We ran out, installed it, and promptly found the battery was dead again (from our diagnosing in the parking lot). I hopped on, and George pushed, and it fired up immediately! VICTORY!!! The only other issue with George's KLR came from it being a bit overloaded, and the chain became too tight. While venturing away from Fairbanks, he popped a link in his chain. I ran back into town and picked up a new masterlink. We were able to get it installed on the side of the road, and all was well from then on.
The two nights we had the Uhaul, we used it to our full advantage. We parked it in the line of RV's in the Walmart parking lot, and inflated our air mattresses in the back. Turned out, you can fit two motorcycles, and two single air mattresses in the back of the truck, with room to spare. We were quite pleased. When life gives you lemons...
Just about every day in Alaska, it rained some. Most of the day was clear and beautiful, but it seemed, as evening approached, so did the precipitation. This began to put a damper on our time there, and we decided to leave a bit earlier than expected. We took The Alaska Highway in, so we opted for the Top of the World Highway out. What a great road. It was mostly dirt, but well maintained and very enjoyable. We passed several active gold mining operations along this road; from one man operations on home made rigs in creeks, to full scale quarry style setups. We missed the boarder crossing (this smaller crossing closes early), so we stayed the night in Chicken, Alaska. Cool place! One store/hotel, and one saloon. We spent the evening in the saloon (of course), and absolutely enjoyed every minute of it. There were all walks of life in here; European tourists mingling with professional gold miners, EPA and BLM workers, and us. The conversations were fantastic.
Back into Canada, we passed through Dawson; cool town! Has an old world feel, and a casino that still takes gold as currency. And due to one final evening of rain, landed at a hotel in Carmacks. Interestingly, we were playing a game of cat and mouse with a couple other adventure bikes this whole day. We saw them at the boarder crossing first thing in the morning, then they would pass us, we would pass them, they took off from Dawson before we did, and they thought they got away, but when we pulled into the only hotel for a hundred miles, there they were, unpacking their bikes. In these tiny towns, there are generally just a few establishments. Carmacks had two, a store/gas station/gift shop, and a hotel/bar/liquor store/restaurant. We went to the bar for a night cap, and ended up closing it down. The locals in these tiny places tend to be very interesting, and seemed to enjoy talking about our travels. All of the employees were college age kids, who get recruited from big Canadian cities. They live in the hotel and work in one of the two buildings in town, and hung out in the bar when not working. We spoke with them, as well as the older local folks. There was a Native there who just got off from his shift (a week I believe) in a fire tower. For the past week, he lived in a fire tower... looking for smoke. Wow. that's a job! His first stop after getting off work is this bar, where he drank canned Budweiser (seriously, all the local older guys up here drank Bud from cans), and bought us the drastically better Yukon Gold. Another old guy, who I can promise you spends more of his 'retired' life in this bar, than anywhere else in the world, challenged me to a game of pool. I told him I was terrible, but would play for fun if he really wanted. I will never, ever, forget this, because I played the absolute best game of pool in my entire life this evening. This guy was hitting trick shots and crazy bank shots... and I still FREAKING WON! I couldn't believe it. To this day, every time I play pool (and miss every shot, and lose every time), I remember beating that guy, that one time. Anyway, conversing and drinking with these folks made time fly by, and before we knew it, they were closing. No clue what time that was... but I recall getting up, very slowly, at about 11am, and not leaving till close to noon the next day. Some hotel employee tried to give me hell because it was passed checkout, but one of the folks we were drinking with was working within sight, and I just pointed at them and said "whatever, it's all their fault" and walked away. It was a great night, and because we left Alaska a little early, we didn't care one bit how far we made it these days heading back east.
Eventually we came to a Liard Hot Springs provincial park at the very top of British Columbia. We wavered back and forth trying to decide to pay the entrance fee and check it out or not. In the end... we had nowhere to be for a week or ten days, so even though it was still before noon, we gave in. These are natural hot springs that haven't been too molested by man (not like the ones I saw in Colorado that were swimming pools), these are still natural ponds/streams, but have a couple benches and a small platform on one side. Still very much in nature. We went and hung out for an hour or so, but decided pretty quick, we wanted to be here after dark. The place closes after dark, but if you're staying in the campground, you still have access to the hot springs. It also just so happened, we rode through the campground on our way back, and it was the nicest looking campground we had ever seen. We payed our fee, and picked a site. We bought a couple bundles of wood, which they told us they would deliver for us. Nice! We went walking around, or wasting time, or back to the springs (I don't really know) for the afternoon, and came back to find two, jumbo rubbermaid tubs, full of wood waiting for us! Awesome! And WOW we bought way to much wood. We also saw a Triumph Scrambler with a sidecar pull in, so we went to go find him. Turns out, it's the same guy we saw at a gas station days earlier, and we exchanged waves as we passed each other. Great guy. He came with us to marinate in the hot springs in the middle of the night and we chatted for a long time. Eventually we headed back to the site, we invited him to ours to burn some of our excess amounts of wood. I remember, George had his travel sized Jack Daniels bottle out (great for a night cap), when he walked up, looked at it, looked at us, then set his travel sized bottle of Jack Daniels down on the table and said "Good choice!".
Matt. That was his name. He was riding that side car rig, and apparently teaches a class about riding with a sidecar back home... in Oregon or Washington if I remember correctly. The next day we all left together, and Matt led the way. I had an absolute blast riding behind him. We were riding spirited, and that takes quite a bit more effort and energy on a side car rig. He was leaning into corners to counterbalance, and having a great time. About 200 miles after the Hot Springs, we split up, when George and I turned north.
We cut north before heading too much further east, into the Northwest Territories (province) of Canada. There are only a couple roads that go into that province, and we were passing one, so we spent a day going up there, just to say we did. We went to a small town to their visitors center, and got gas. The whole town was run off a power generator; probably diesel powered, pretty interesting.
Back to the people we met. I've mentioned Matt with the sidecar. The folks at the bar in Carmacks. In Fairbanks we were in a bar and grill when a youngish guy walked up to us, gave us an odd look, like he could tell we didn't quite belong, and simply said "What's your story?" We told him we were here on motorcycles, we rode from Ohio. He immediately pulled up a chair, told the bar tender that he'll get the next round, and said "Go on!" It's cool to meet people interested in our story, and always fun to talk about life in the places so far from what we're used to. Somewhere near Anchorage, we were stopped in traffic for construction behind this monstrosity of an RV, with Euro plates, and a Koln sticker. It just so happens, a few years prior, George and I spent a week in Koln Germany. I went up and talked to the guy, he was real hesitant at first (because I walked up to his window on the freeway, but we were stopped in construction traffic for what was probably 15 minutes) and as soon as I told him we were in Koln, he (and his wife in the passenger seat) exploded with enthusiasm. We spoke for a couple minutes, they were over here for a year or so touring all of North America. I love the enthusiasm of Europeans. We met other Germans in the saloon in Chicken Alaska. They were the same way. Obviously not loving the loud busy bar, and having trouble relaying their order to the bartender through their thick accents. George and I helped out with the pronunciation of something, and they thanked us and moved away to a corner. We found them a bit later, and mentioned asked if they were from Germany (as their accents alluded), they were, and again, when we mentioned that we had traveled there before, their eyes lit up. We had some great conversations. These folks just aren't used to Americans traveling. It truly is a shame. We, as a nation, have huge opportunities available to us, yet, as a society, have decided to work ourselves to death. In Cold Foot Alaska, north of the arctic circle, 250 miles up a mostly dirt road (FAR from civilization), we were in a gas station when two other adventure bikes pulled up, and then two more. Six of us... George and I, plus two from Britain, one from Croatia, and one from Ecuador. All happened to run into each other at a gas station. The Brits laughed and said that we were the first Americans they've met in their travels! Even over here (in North America), the majority of the tourists are from Europe. The Croatian at that gas stop was Petar, and we ran into him several times.
Originally in northern Canada, on our way to Alaska, we found him at a random gas station, and were ogling his bike when we discovered a license plate we'd didn't recognize. We asked him where he was from, and he laughed and asked, did you see my license plate? We said yes, but we still didn't know. Croatia! We were both shocked, and impressed, and secretly wondering where in the heck Croatia was. Cool as heck guy, who had been traveling non-stop for a couple years now over here on his KTM Adventure. He did an around the world ride in 2009, and was playing in all of South, Central, and North America in 2010-2011. As of right now (2013) he is planning a trip back to the Amazon region in 2014. Later, as we were turning around because of muddy conditions on the Denali highway, literally, as we were turning around, on the side of the road, here he comes, standing on the pegs, probably cruising around 45 mph, huge grin visible through his helmet, we waved hesitantly, like, "dang look at him go." while he waved back energetically, like, "ISN'T THIS GREAT GUYS!!!". We couldn't help but to burst out laughing. Then of course, we met up with him again in Cold Foot at the gas stop.
I remember camping with a Canadian who was traveling this summer, just to bicycle all the big Canadian mountain passes. He would drive to the closest campground, sleep the night, then the next day ride his (road) bicycle over the nearby pass and back, camp another night, and then drive to the next mountain pass. All summer long. Intense!
That's all I can remember for people... so, how about some camping memories... Liard Hot Springs was the nicest campground, but in Alaska, our one dry night there we went Wilderness camping. There is a great book (and movie) out called Into The Wild, about a big city kid who gave up on that life and went up to Alaska. Hitched a ride to the end of a dirt road, and then hiked for days, till he found a abandoned bus (left as a hunting cabin), where he stayed all summer. As winter began, he couldn't get back to the road, and eventually died out there in the bus. Hard Core right?! Well I researched where this was, and found the road he went up. I actually found the bus, but knew we couldn't get there on the motorcycles (river crossings!), but we rode up the trail as far as we could. Eventually we were stopped by mud, but found a perfect wilderness camping area right near the heart of Denali National Park. We setup camp off the road a bit, in an area with great views. That was, for me, the most interesting camp site. We had talks of staying up to try our luck at spotting the Northern Lights, but we where exhausted, and it doesn't get dark up there in the summer till near midnight. We camped in other great settings like the Canadian Rockies, near Glacier National Park, near Bear Tooth Pass and Yellowstone National Park, and off the coast of Lake Superior and Lake Huron. We stayed in a spectacular Bed and Breakfast in Badlands National Park South Dakota, after a hellacious storm ruined our camping plans.
We saw just about all the destinations on my list below. Badlands National Park was our first stop after 1200 miles of cornfields. Just about anything other than grain would have been a welcome sight, but Badlands is very cool to motorcycle through. We took the main road in, and continued out on less common (and unpaved) Rim Road. Iron Mountain Highway (and loop down Needles Highway) is one of the greatest motorcycling roads in the country. It's that great. We just clipped the corner of Yellowstone National Park, but did stop to see one large bubbling hot mess of minerals and water that Yellowstone is known for. We also saw tons of Bison. It's exhilarating to motorcycle through, around, and next to the monster creatures. Beartooth Pass is an easy paved mountain pass that dives into Yellowstone, but it's a great ride, and goes over 10k feet. Glacier National Park is beautiful, but we didn't spend much time here, a stop in the visitors center, and a drive around the Going To The Sun Road, and we were out and headed to Canada. Soon we were on the Ice Fields Parkway, going through the Canadian Rockies and Banff and Jasper. Wow. Just Wow. Amazing road through an amazing area. Gas cost almost $10 per gallon on the Parkway, but it's hard to be mad about anything when you're surrounded by glowing blue lakes, soaring mountains, and shining glaciers and snow-pack. We made it to the start of the Alaska Highway after 6 days, and took numerous pictures at the large famous sign. Two days later we were crossing the boarder into the State of Alaska. It was a much needed boost, because half of that day was in dropping temperatures, and drizzle/rain. We rode into Denali National Park as deep as we could without paying to go on the tour bus. Lots of wilderness up here. Lots. Wrangell-St. Elias National Park was the same, impressively large wilderness. Sure it's the largest national park in the country (at 13.2 million acres), but when well over 300 million acres are owned by the Feds or State government, and in essence, look like wilderness, what's the difference between this 'national park', and the surrounding trees and mountains? That's oddly like a too much of a good thing attitude I guess.
Now I'm stuck. I don't know how to end this not-ride-report. Usually I'll end with some summary like "It was a great ride, and I can't wait to do the next one" drawn out into a paragraph, but that sounds odd, considering I'm writing this years later, and have already done several 'next ones'. It was a great ride. No doubt. We kicked ass: 10,500 miles, 28 days, mostly camping, working through bike problems, seeing a seriously large chunk of this continent! That's right, not country, but continent.
We did it... and you should to.
As disappointing as it is, I did not complete a ride report after this ride. I desperately wish I had, but I didn't pull it off. Getting right back in the groove of things (work) after I returned is my main excuse... but it's also difficult to keep track of a 28 day ride. I started by writing notes at the end of each day, but as exhaustion caught up with me, I began putting it off, and simply hitting the sack every night. In hindsight, I wouldn't even attempt this again without a smart phone, or preferably, a tablet of some sort. That way I could easily use a voice recorder and make daily notes that way, or even keep an updated blog on the days I had the time. That being said, I'm going to attempt an extremely brief summary now, years later, in hopes of keeping the memories from fading.
Our mileage estimate had us at about 12,000 for the trip, but the actual mileage turned out to be about 10,500. We cut a few dirt sections out on the ride up, and heavily modified our route once in the state of Alaska. The large loop map below is still quite accurate. The one modification we made that I have regretted since, was we didn't make it all the way to the top of Alaska. We went above the Arctic Circle, to Coldfoot, AK, but then we turned back for Fairbanks. It was the right decision at the time, but I still wish we would have pushed on. It rained some every day we were in Alaska, and the road to the top (Dead Horse, AK) is dirt. That means that it turned to a bit of a muddy mess. It wasn't horrible, but it was bad enough that we didn't want to ride the 415 miles each way on our overloaded bikes. It was also quite cold towards the north end, and camping would have been uncomfortable, while hotel rooms are extremely scarce. The Denali highway was another road we hoped to ride, and we started it, but it was a muddy mess as well, and we weren't prepared to fight it the entire 135 miles. My Ulysses (and it's tires) did not do well in mud at all... it was the right decision at the time.
My bike had a couple issues along the way. Right off the bat (day 3 I believe) in the middle of nowhere Wyoming, I blew a rear wheel bearing. This is a somewhat common issue on Buell Ulysses', and I was trying to obtain a backup to haul along, but I gave up my search, and left without one. We ended up at a hunting lodge around 10am, and my Buell was completely unrideable, the bearing had been obliterated. I made a call to a Buell friend at home in Columbus explaining the situation. He had new bearings on his shelf, but it was Friday, so shipping couldn't arrive till Monday at the soonest... no good. I also shot a text out to a few followers letting them know we were temporarily down. I soon got a call back from Mark, the Buell friend in Columbus. I will forever remember that phone call... no hello or anything, he just said "How much do you love me?????" He found a general store, about 60 miles from our location, with 3 of the correct size bearings in stock. Unbelievable. I asked no further question at the time, just thanked him profusely, and set a plan in motion. George would set out for a replacement bearing (and a spare), and I would work on getting the bike ready. I used my rope to lift the back of the bike in the air, pulled the wheel, and spent about an hour trying to get the stuck out bearing race out of the hub. I eventually succeeded, and George eventually returned with a perfectly fitting bearing (and spare), and by mid afternoon, we were back on the road! A month or two later, I finally got to ask Mark how he found the bearings, in the middle of nowhere Wyoming. Turns out, he researched the Buell bearing, and found generic crossover part numbers. Then he looked up bearing distributors in my area. This general store popped up, and he called to see if they had the needed part number in stock. How awesome! I am forever grateful! Later in the trip, one of my fork seals began seeping fluid. The northern (AK and Canada) dirt roads use a mud concoction that basically turns to concrete when dry, they can destroy fork seals if you don't keep your fork tubes wiped down after riding in mud. This issue didn't effect the bike at all, and was an easy fix back at home, but it's worth mentioning.
Georges bike also had a couple issues. Our second day in Alaska, the bike sputtered and stalled on the side of the Alaska Highway. It turned over, but wouldn't start. I back-tracked and grabbed some fuel cleaner/stabilizer and starting fluid. We still had no luck, and eventually killed the battery. We ended up locking the bike to a tree off the side of the highway, and leaving our camping gear behind so he could ride on my back seat. We traveled nearly 200 miles to Fairbanks, but arrived 5 minutes after the U-haul store closed. Without camping gear, and not wanting to spend hundreds of dollars on a hotel room, we found a hostel with a couple open beds. Unfortunately, it was a miserable experience, one that we'd both like to forget, but it got us through the night (I guess), at 6am we were up and leaving for Uhaul. We rented the smallest truck they had with a loading ramp, and they let me park my bike in a locked area while we ran down to pickup George's KLR650. We made the most of the trip, and, upon arriving back, put my bike in the truck as well, so we could travel together to get it sorted. We met up with an ADV rider in Fairbanks who was going to change our tires, and he helped us do some diagnosing. We discovered his battery was needing replaced, so we did that first. Still no luck on the starting issue, so we worked further, and found he was getting no spark. We assumed it was the coil. We stopped at the Kawasaki Dealership, and were disappointed to learn, they were not interesting in helping. They wouldn't let us look at a parts manual or service manual (without buying one), and they didn't care to help us find a coil that would work. All they were interested in doing was ordering the exact part from Kawasaki, and wait the week or two for it to arrive. We then visited the Yamaha/KTM dealership, and what we needed, extremely helpful staff! We spoke to several sales people, all giving tips and ideas, then they brought us to the service building, and we spent half an hour or so talking through it with the mechanics. In the end, they gave us dozens of ideas, but they also offered to drop what they were doing and help us diagnose it, if we could get it there. We drove back in the Uhaul truck, grabbed the bike, and headed back. Before we went in to bother them, we did several of the tests they suggested in their parking lot. Eventually we found, if we took the spark plug cap (the end of the spark plug wire that pushes onto the spark plug) off, we would get sparks shooting out of the wire! The cap has a resistor in it, but we even bypassed that with heavy gauge solid copper wire, still with no luck. We brought the faulty cap in to the shop, and were excited to tell them we found the problem! They found an aftermarket replacement in a catalog, but it would take some time to order in... then, like any great shop would do... they took the part, and said "Let us go take a look around." I think about three different folks went off on a grand scavenger hunt, looking for a Kawasaki part the size of my pointer finger, in a Yamaha/KTM dealership the size of a grocery store. Eventually, they excitedly came back with an exact match! HOW COOL IS THAT! They were a bit hesitant, and apologized; "Sorry guys, this brand is more expensive. The part is 22 dollars, but we can give it to you for 19, if that's OK?" I burst out laughing. Apparently, the aftermarket one in the catalog would have been about half this price, so they were genuinely disappointed in having to charge us $22. Obviously, George didn't care one bit, and bought the part. We ran out, installed it, and promptly found the battery was dead again (from our diagnosing in the parking lot). I hopped on, and George pushed, and it fired up immediately! VICTORY!!! The only other issue with George's KLR came from it being a bit overloaded, and the chain became too tight. While venturing away from Fairbanks, he popped a link in his chain. I ran back into town and picked up a new masterlink. We were able to get it installed on the side of the road, and all was well from then on.
The two nights we had the Uhaul, we used it to our full advantage. We parked it in the line of RV's in the Walmart parking lot, and inflated our air mattresses in the back. Turned out, you can fit two motorcycles, and two single air mattresses in the back of the truck, with room to spare. We were quite pleased. When life gives you lemons...
Just about every day in Alaska, it rained some. Most of the day was clear and beautiful, but it seemed, as evening approached, so did the precipitation. This began to put a damper on our time there, and we decided to leave a bit earlier than expected. We took The Alaska Highway in, so we opted for the Top of the World Highway out. What a great road. It was mostly dirt, but well maintained and very enjoyable. We passed several active gold mining operations along this road; from one man operations on home made rigs in creeks, to full scale quarry style setups. We missed the boarder crossing (this smaller crossing closes early), so we stayed the night in Chicken, Alaska. Cool place! One store/hotel, and one saloon. We spent the evening in the saloon (of course), and absolutely enjoyed every minute of it. There were all walks of life in here; European tourists mingling with professional gold miners, EPA and BLM workers, and us. The conversations were fantastic.
Back into Canada, we passed through Dawson; cool town! Has an old world feel, and a casino that still takes gold as currency. And due to one final evening of rain, landed at a hotel in Carmacks. Interestingly, we were playing a game of cat and mouse with a couple other adventure bikes this whole day. We saw them at the boarder crossing first thing in the morning, then they would pass us, we would pass them, they took off from Dawson before we did, and they thought they got away, but when we pulled into the only hotel for a hundred miles, there they were, unpacking their bikes. In these tiny towns, there are generally just a few establishments. Carmacks had two, a store/gas station/gift shop, and a hotel/bar/liquor store/restaurant. We went to the bar for a night cap, and ended up closing it down. The locals in these tiny places tend to be very interesting, and seemed to enjoy talking about our travels. All of the employees were college age kids, who get recruited from big Canadian cities. They live in the hotel and work in one of the two buildings in town, and hung out in the bar when not working. We spoke with them, as well as the older local folks. There was a Native there who just got off from his shift (a week I believe) in a fire tower. For the past week, he lived in a fire tower... looking for smoke. Wow. that's a job! His first stop after getting off work is this bar, where he drank canned Budweiser (seriously, all the local older guys up here drank Bud from cans), and bought us the drastically better Yukon Gold. Another old guy, who I can promise you spends more of his 'retired' life in this bar, than anywhere else in the world, challenged me to a game of pool. I told him I was terrible, but would play for fun if he really wanted. I will never, ever, forget this, because I played the absolute best game of pool in my entire life this evening. This guy was hitting trick shots and crazy bank shots... and I still FREAKING WON! I couldn't believe it. To this day, every time I play pool (and miss every shot, and lose every time), I remember beating that guy, that one time. Anyway, conversing and drinking with these folks made time fly by, and before we knew it, they were closing. No clue what time that was... but I recall getting up, very slowly, at about 11am, and not leaving till close to noon the next day. Some hotel employee tried to give me hell because it was passed checkout, but one of the folks we were drinking with was working within sight, and I just pointed at them and said "whatever, it's all their fault" and walked away. It was a great night, and because we left Alaska a little early, we didn't care one bit how far we made it these days heading back east.
Eventually we came to a Liard Hot Springs provincial park at the very top of British Columbia. We wavered back and forth trying to decide to pay the entrance fee and check it out or not. In the end... we had nowhere to be for a week or ten days, so even though it was still before noon, we gave in. These are natural hot springs that haven't been too molested by man (not like the ones I saw in Colorado that were swimming pools), these are still natural ponds/streams, but have a couple benches and a small platform on one side. Still very much in nature. We went and hung out for an hour or so, but decided pretty quick, we wanted to be here after dark. The place closes after dark, but if you're staying in the campground, you still have access to the hot springs. It also just so happened, we rode through the campground on our way back, and it was the nicest looking campground we had ever seen. We payed our fee, and picked a site. We bought a couple bundles of wood, which they told us they would deliver for us. Nice! We went walking around, or wasting time, or back to the springs (I don't really know) for the afternoon, and came back to find two, jumbo rubbermaid tubs, full of wood waiting for us! Awesome! And WOW we bought way to much wood. We also saw a Triumph Scrambler with a sidecar pull in, so we went to go find him. Turns out, it's the same guy we saw at a gas station days earlier, and we exchanged waves as we passed each other. Great guy. He came with us to marinate in the hot springs in the middle of the night and we chatted for a long time. Eventually we headed back to the site, we invited him to ours to burn some of our excess amounts of wood. I remember, George had his travel sized Jack Daniels bottle out (great for a night cap), when he walked up, looked at it, looked at us, then set his travel sized bottle of Jack Daniels down on the table and said "Good choice!".
Matt. That was his name. He was riding that side car rig, and apparently teaches a class about riding with a sidecar back home... in Oregon or Washington if I remember correctly. The next day we all left together, and Matt led the way. I had an absolute blast riding behind him. We were riding spirited, and that takes quite a bit more effort and energy on a side car rig. He was leaning into corners to counterbalance, and having a great time. About 200 miles after the Hot Springs, we split up, when George and I turned north.
We cut north before heading too much further east, into the Northwest Territories (province) of Canada. There are only a couple roads that go into that province, and we were passing one, so we spent a day going up there, just to say we did. We went to a small town to their visitors center, and got gas. The whole town was run off a power generator; probably diesel powered, pretty interesting.
Back to the people we met. I've mentioned Matt with the sidecar. The folks at the bar in Carmacks. In Fairbanks we were in a bar and grill when a youngish guy walked up to us, gave us an odd look, like he could tell we didn't quite belong, and simply said "What's your story?" We told him we were here on motorcycles, we rode from Ohio. He immediately pulled up a chair, told the bar tender that he'll get the next round, and said "Go on!" It's cool to meet people interested in our story, and always fun to talk about life in the places so far from what we're used to. Somewhere near Anchorage, we were stopped in traffic for construction behind this monstrosity of an RV, with Euro plates, and a Koln sticker. It just so happens, a few years prior, George and I spent a week in Koln Germany. I went up and talked to the guy, he was real hesitant at first (because I walked up to his window on the freeway, but we were stopped in construction traffic for what was probably 15 minutes) and as soon as I told him we were in Koln, he (and his wife in the passenger seat) exploded with enthusiasm. We spoke for a couple minutes, they were over here for a year or so touring all of North America. I love the enthusiasm of Europeans. We met other Germans in the saloon in Chicken Alaska. They were the same way. Obviously not loving the loud busy bar, and having trouble relaying their order to the bartender through their thick accents. George and I helped out with the pronunciation of something, and they thanked us and moved away to a corner. We found them a bit later, and mentioned asked if they were from Germany (as their accents alluded), they were, and again, when we mentioned that we had traveled there before, their eyes lit up. We had some great conversations. These folks just aren't used to Americans traveling. It truly is a shame. We, as a nation, have huge opportunities available to us, yet, as a society, have decided to work ourselves to death. In Cold Foot Alaska, north of the arctic circle, 250 miles up a mostly dirt road (FAR from civilization), we were in a gas station when two other adventure bikes pulled up, and then two more. Six of us... George and I, plus two from Britain, one from Croatia, and one from Ecuador. All happened to run into each other at a gas station. The Brits laughed and said that we were the first Americans they've met in their travels! Even over here (in North America), the majority of the tourists are from Europe. The Croatian at that gas stop was Petar, and we ran into him several times.
Originally in northern Canada, on our way to Alaska, we found him at a random gas station, and were ogling his bike when we discovered a license plate we'd didn't recognize. We asked him where he was from, and he laughed and asked, did you see my license plate? We said yes, but we still didn't know. Croatia! We were both shocked, and impressed, and secretly wondering where in the heck Croatia was. Cool as heck guy, who had been traveling non-stop for a couple years now over here on his KTM Adventure. He did an around the world ride in 2009, and was playing in all of South, Central, and North America in 2010-2011. As of right now (2013) he is planning a trip back to the Amazon region in 2014. Later, as we were turning around because of muddy conditions on the Denali highway, literally, as we were turning around, on the side of the road, here he comes, standing on the pegs, probably cruising around 45 mph, huge grin visible through his helmet, we waved hesitantly, like, "dang look at him go." while he waved back energetically, like, "ISN'T THIS GREAT GUYS!!!". We couldn't help but to burst out laughing. Then of course, we met up with him again in Cold Foot at the gas stop.
I remember camping with a Canadian who was traveling this summer, just to bicycle all the big Canadian mountain passes. He would drive to the closest campground, sleep the night, then the next day ride his (road) bicycle over the nearby pass and back, camp another night, and then drive to the next mountain pass. All summer long. Intense!
That's all I can remember for people... so, how about some camping memories... Liard Hot Springs was the nicest campground, but in Alaska, our one dry night there we went Wilderness camping. There is a great book (and movie) out called Into The Wild, about a big city kid who gave up on that life and went up to Alaska. Hitched a ride to the end of a dirt road, and then hiked for days, till he found a abandoned bus (left as a hunting cabin), where he stayed all summer. As winter began, he couldn't get back to the road, and eventually died out there in the bus. Hard Core right?! Well I researched where this was, and found the road he went up. I actually found the bus, but knew we couldn't get there on the motorcycles (river crossings!), but we rode up the trail as far as we could. Eventually we were stopped by mud, but found a perfect wilderness camping area right near the heart of Denali National Park. We setup camp off the road a bit, in an area with great views. That was, for me, the most interesting camp site. We had talks of staying up to try our luck at spotting the Northern Lights, but we where exhausted, and it doesn't get dark up there in the summer till near midnight. We camped in other great settings like the Canadian Rockies, near Glacier National Park, near Bear Tooth Pass and Yellowstone National Park, and off the coast of Lake Superior and Lake Huron. We stayed in a spectacular Bed and Breakfast in Badlands National Park South Dakota, after a hellacious storm ruined our camping plans.
We saw just about all the destinations on my list below. Badlands National Park was our first stop after 1200 miles of cornfields. Just about anything other than grain would have been a welcome sight, but Badlands is very cool to motorcycle through. We took the main road in, and continued out on less common (and unpaved) Rim Road. Iron Mountain Highway (and loop down Needles Highway) is one of the greatest motorcycling roads in the country. It's that great. We just clipped the corner of Yellowstone National Park, but did stop to see one large bubbling hot mess of minerals and water that Yellowstone is known for. We also saw tons of Bison. It's exhilarating to motorcycle through, around, and next to the monster creatures. Beartooth Pass is an easy paved mountain pass that dives into Yellowstone, but it's a great ride, and goes over 10k feet. Glacier National Park is beautiful, but we didn't spend much time here, a stop in the visitors center, and a drive around the Going To The Sun Road, and we were out and headed to Canada. Soon we were on the Ice Fields Parkway, going through the Canadian Rockies and Banff and Jasper. Wow. Just Wow. Amazing road through an amazing area. Gas cost almost $10 per gallon on the Parkway, but it's hard to be mad about anything when you're surrounded by glowing blue lakes, soaring mountains, and shining glaciers and snow-pack. We made it to the start of the Alaska Highway after 6 days, and took numerous pictures at the large famous sign. Two days later we were crossing the boarder into the State of Alaska. It was a much needed boost, because half of that day was in dropping temperatures, and drizzle/rain. We rode into Denali National Park as deep as we could without paying to go on the tour bus. Lots of wilderness up here. Lots. Wrangell-St. Elias National Park was the same, impressively large wilderness. Sure it's the largest national park in the country (at 13.2 million acres), but when well over 300 million acres are owned by the Feds or State government, and in essence, look like wilderness, what's the difference between this 'national park', and the surrounding trees and mountains? That's oddly like a too much of a good thing attitude I guess.
Now I'm stuck. I don't know how to end this not-ride-report. Usually I'll end with some summary like "It was a great ride, and I can't wait to do the next one" drawn out into a paragraph, but that sounds odd, considering I'm writing this years later, and have already done several 'next ones'. It was a great ride. No doubt. We kicked ass: 10,500 miles, 28 days, mostly camping, working through bike problems, seeing a seriously large chunk of this continent! That's right, not country, but continent.
We did it... and you should to.
Pre-Ride Planning:
Plans are forming for a motorcycle trip from Columbus, OH, through the USA to Montana, then north to Alaska. From Alaska, we'll take routes through Canada back east, then drop through Michigan and on to Columbus. It'll be a 10,000+ mile excursion over the course of approximately 30 days. Me on my Ulysses, George on his KLR650. Riding Gear, bike parts, and maps are currently being accumulated. Stay tuned for more route information, checklists, and more. I'd love to have a daily updated blog while we're traveling, but taking an internet device was simply going to be too much hassle, plus we'll be running short on time anyway.
I'm estimating ten days to get to Alaska, ten days around Alaska, and ten days to get home. In order for that to work, and to be able to stop and smell the roses when we want, our 'long days', such as the freeway days across the plains of the Midwest USA and mid-section of Canada will have to be long in every sense of the word; I'm talking 700+ miles. I much prefer not riding at night (even with my 125 watts of HID lighting), and plan on avoiding it unless absolutely necessary. But that's going to mean getting up with the sun most days. I have absolutely no intentions of skipping or flying through the most scenic areas (like many listed below), but I do plan on racking up the miles in between. The full trip in our allotted time frame, I feel is totally doable with rest days and all, but it will not be a piece of cake. It'll not only depend on our physical and mental abilities, but also the bikes and gear holding together.
Tire repair kits, as well as some basic parts and tools will all be brought along for the ride, in hopes of never needing them. We will be shipping a set of tires for each bike to Alaska, and will be doing a tire/oil change around the half way mark. Neither of us should need tires at that point, but we will before the end of the trip, and we don't know exactly when we'll run out of tread so I'd rather be prepared and change them early.
Sleeping arrangements will be mostly camping. We each will be packing our own tent, sleeping bag, and mattress/pad. We are not opposed to the occasional Motel stay, and there are a handful of hostels in Canada that we may visit, but the plan is to spend at least every 4 or 5 nights in the tents. While we have yet to setup exact plans, both the Buell forum as well as the Adventure Rider forum online have lists of folks across the country(s) willing to lend some yard space to travelers with tents. My intentions with these lists are not to infringe or take advantage, but to procure a safe and enjoyable place to sleep, and meet new people!
Route mapping has been accomplished with about ten different paper maps ranging from full USA and Canada country maps, down to as specific as a National Park map. Once the route was laid out on paper, I moved to Google Maps, and laid it out piece by piece online. A very rough sketch of the entire route, as well as more accurate legs of the route are posted below, complete with Google's estimated mileage and times. My route information will serve strictly as approximations, and I completely plan on 'playing it by ear' once on the road; stopping where we want to stop, detouring where we want to detour.
I'm estimating ten days to get to Alaska, ten days around Alaska, and ten days to get home. In order for that to work, and to be able to stop and smell the roses when we want, our 'long days', such as the freeway days across the plains of the Midwest USA and mid-section of Canada will have to be long in every sense of the word; I'm talking 700+ miles. I much prefer not riding at night (even with my 125 watts of HID lighting), and plan on avoiding it unless absolutely necessary. But that's going to mean getting up with the sun most days. I have absolutely no intentions of skipping or flying through the most scenic areas (like many listed below), but I do plan on racking up the miles in between. The full trip in our allotted time frame, I feel is totally doable with rest days and all, but it will not be a piece of cake. It'll not only depend on our physical and mental abilities, but also the bikes and gear holding together.
Tire repair kits, as well as some basic parts and tools will all be brought along for the ride, in hopes of never needing them. We will be shipping a set of tires for each bike to Alaska, and will be doing a tire/oil change around the half way mark. Neither of us should need tires at that point, but we will before the end of the trip, and we don't know exactly when we'll run out of tread so I'd rather be prepared and change them early.
Sleeping arrangements will be mostly camping. We each will be packing our own tent, sleeping bag, and mattress/pad. We are not opposed to the occasional Motel stay, and there are a handful of hostels in Canada that we may visit, but the plan is to spend at least every 4 or 5 nights in the tents. While we have yet to setup exact plans, both the Buell forum as well as the Adventure Rider forum online have lists of folks across the country(s) willing to lend some yard space to travelers with tents. My intentions with these lists are not to infringe or take advantage, but to procure a safe and enjoyable place to sleep, and meet new people!
Route mapping has been accomplished with about ten different paper maps ranging from full USA and Canada country maps, down to as specific as a National Park map. Once the route was laid out on paper, I moved to Google Maps, and laid it out piece by piece online. A very rough sketch of the entire route, as well as more accurate legs of the route are posted below, complete with Google's estimated mileage and times. My route information will serve strictly as approximations, and I completely plan on 'playing it by ear' once on the road; stopping where we want to stop, detouring where we want to detour.
The People
The Machines
2009 Buell Ulysses XB12XT
My Machine
Muffin Top Panniers Alaska Leather Buttpad Palmer Windshield Brackets HID Lights Pirelli Scorpion Trail Tires Jegs Auxiliary Gas Tank And Much More Here |
2009 Kawasaki KLR650
George's Machine
Happy Trails Panniers Alaska Leather Buttpad Happy Trails Bash Plate Happy Trails Windshield Heated Grips Kenda K270 Tires Fog Lights |
The Gear
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1 Pc Waterproof Riding Suit (winter liner and summer vents)
Full-Face Modular Helmet with Internal Sun Visor Waterproof Mid-Weight Boots Waterproof Mid-Weight Gloves 3 Pair Mid-Weight Boot Socks 2 'pair' Bicycle Shorts Under Armour Cold Gear 'long underwear' 'Standard' Clothing (Gym Shorts, Jeans, and T-shirts) 2 Liter CamelBak 1 Piece Rain Oversuit Garmin Nuvi 550 Waterproof North America GPS Ipod Video 5G Canon SD1000 Digital Camera SPOT Personal Satellite Tracking Device |
2 person dome tent (individual tents for more space)
Self-Inflating Mattress Pad Zero Degree Mummy Sleeping Bag Inflatable Camping Pillow SteverStove alcohol burner - for campsite cooking Various Campsite Foods Nutrition Meal Replacement Bars (For lunch!) Fire Starters Basic Tool kit as well as Bike Specific Tools Basic Spare Parts Repair Items (zip-ties, epoxies, liquid steel) First Aid Kit Bug Repellent Bear Repellent (Bear Spray) |
The Destinations
The Route
This large map is a rough estimate, and as such, is not entirely accurate. The individual legs below are much more precise.
Route Information Mileage Cumulative Clickable Map
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EDIT: Due to new found information, this stretch of the route will be slightly modified to include Hatcher's Pass, an unmaintained dirt mountain pass between Palmer, AK and Willow, AK. Additional mileage will be in the neighborhood of 50.
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