Alaska!
Today I was supposed to ride from Haines Junction, Yukon Territory to Tok, AK however, that turned out to be a pretty short ride so, I manned it all the way up to Fairbanks - a respectable 493 miles.
I’m staying at the U. of Alaska dorms for a whopping $35 a night. A member of advrider.com, the motorcycle forum I frequent, has made arrangements with the university to allow motorcyclists to stay here at a discounted rate. Nice!
Tomorrow, I’ll change my oil at Adventure Cycleworks - an independently owned repair shop (aka - Dan’s garage). Dan is thoroughly versed in adventure motorcycling in AK. He even talked me out of buying new tires. Said mine had plenty of tread for the job. That’s a savings of about $300 (or more) Nice!
Here’s the kicker, though. I’ve gotten conflicting reports of the Haul road condition (the road to the Arctic Circle and Deadhorse). Geoff, an experienced rider from Down Under, said, a few days back, it was a piece of cake. Said he could have done it in a day. Then, later, in Stewart, I talked to a guy who had just done it and said it was tough going. Said they had just put down stone ranging in size from golf ball to softball. I get here and Dan from ADV Cycleworks tells me it was closed today but he didn’t know why. I would hate to get this close and not make it.
So here’s my plan, I’ll get out and size up the situation. I’ll go out a bunch of miles and see how it goes. If it’s good, I’ll go to the Arctic Circle and re-evaluate there. If it’s been too tough going, I’ll at least have made it to the circle. If it’s not too bad I’ll keep going north and re-evaluate as I go.
If you missed the first one, you can see it and all my stammering, here.
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