Alaska 2012

[dt]

Thought I’d lob an early report in on my Alaska Trip plans, which will probably change a dozen times between now and then, but I’ve been working diligently on this and I have the broad brush of a plan laid out. Input of any sort is always greatly appreciated.

As far as the route, the map below is the current working plan…point A to point B and so on. If I pull this off, should make tire tracks on the Alaskan tundra heading toward Tok (Point D) sometime in early July. I’ll be in Skagway, Alaska (Point E) on the 4th of July (I may go there first). Home base will be in the city of Whitehorse in southern Yukon Territory (Point B). This is where I know some folks and who are making some ride arrangements for a small group that will form there. Most of those guys will be heading to Prudhoe Bay in northern Alaska, but not me. I’ve reserved a room at a lodge in Whitehorse for the full week I’ll be in that area. I’ve also booked one night in Faro (Point C) in the Northern Yukon Territory as I’ve signed on to a two-day group ride up into the Yukon Wilderness…all dirt roads and trails.



As far as the back end, I’ll get into that later. Wish I could tell you that I was attempting Prudhoe Bay, but I don’t think I’m up for the extra 2,200 rough-rocky-muddy miles that would require. As it is, this will be 10,500 miles and it’ll take me a month. That should be enough of an adventure. 

Should have some more info as the plans develop...

[mrbones]

Now this looks like an ambitious road trip. Have you ever done one so big before?

[Croz]

dt,
Have you ever considered setting up a website for your trip? You could put your prep posts on there as well as on here. Would also give you a place to chronicle the actual trip as you do it. I could see it getting quite a bit of traffic as you work toward the trip. I think I lot of riders would like to see the prep work as well as get updates and see pictures of the actual trip.

[v65infla]

This is going to take some advance planning for tires.  Preference would be to have as fresh of tread as possible before you do your two days off road but you want to all some break in time.  Maybe plan a tire swap a day out before you get to that part of your trip.  You will have to know how many miles you are getting out of tires, pounding the highway well in advance so you know how many miles you can have on your current set when you leave. 

Perfect planning would to have a set wear out just before you get to your off road portion of the trip and then have the new tires last until you return home. 

After needing tires on two of my last three trips I am starting to become somewhat of an expert.   

[dt]

Now this looks like an ambitious road trip. Have you ever done one so big before?

No. My personal record is 2,200 miles in four riding days last summer up to Lexington, Ohio and back. The trip up to Whitehorse is a little under twice that, and that Ohio trip kind of established what I think I can do in terms of pacing myself. So it’ll be something like two days on the bike and one day off on the way up and back. Plus, unlike the Ohio trip, I have a motorcycle that’s actually made for this sorta thing now and I’ve already determined that I can cover much more ground on the XT in the same amount of time as I could on the XR.

Have you ever considered setting up a website for your trip?

That would be cool, but it would probably be a distraction too. There are so many little things to get squared away. Just today I learned that I need a special Canadian ID from my insurance company just to get across the border. That’s the kind of crap, little things like that, that’s got me worried. I can make it to Alaska, but if I got turned back in North Dakota that would really suck.

Having said that, my family and business partner required that I be hooked up with a personal tracker and I’ll probably go with Spot and the Spot Adventures Service. That’s kind of like a webpage in that you can post pictures and reports but it’s more about being able to report periodically that things are going okay…or not, I guess.

[dt]

After needing tires on two of my last three trips I am starting to become somewhat of an expert.   

Haha…yeah, I forgot you put one to rest up in Ocala last month. 

I definitely can’t do this on one set. I think the easiest way to deal with it is put a fresh set on for the outbound trip and have a fresh set put on in Whitehorse for the trip back. There’s a Yamaha dealer in Whitehorse that told me they could source any tire I wanted. Plus they can do a service when I get there.

[Zarticus]

After needing tires on two of my last three trips I am starting to become somewhat of an expert.   

Haha…yeah, I forgot you put one to rest up in Ocala last month. 

I definitely can’t do this on one set. I think the easiest way to deal with it is put a fresh set on for the outbound trip and have a fresh set put on in Whitehorse for the trip back. There’s a Yamaha dealer in Whitehorse that told me they could source any tire I wanted. Plus they can do a service when I get there.

When you get ready to leave on a trip & look at your rear tire & say I hope this will last till I get home you should replace it before you leave

[dt]

Another little thing I found scanning some travel sites is that our domestic health insurance isn’t valid in Canada. Travelers are encouraged to purchase travelers emergency medical insurance for their trip. A couple quotes indicate that it’s probably between one and two hundred dollars. Now to figure out if those plans cover helicopter evac.

[dt]

One of the rides I’ve signed up for is a two day trip on the Canol Road into the northern Yukon Territories. It’s a rough, gravely 280 mile road that the Canadian Oil Company built in the 40s to transport oil from the north. We’ll ride this road up to a town called Faro in a single day and then another less aggressive road back. This is the one time that I know of (so far) that I’ll need to be carrying spare fuel. A few photos...

[Zarticus]

Hell, Thats like a smooth highway comparied to what we did a couple weeks ago

[dt]

Yeah, but I don't recall any fifty foot drop offs on the sides of that road. 

[dt]

Have you ever considered setting up a website for your trip? You could put your prep posts on there as well as on here. Would also give you a place to chronicle the actual trip as you do it. I could see it getting quite a bit of traffic as you work toward the trip. I think I lot of riders would like to see the prep work as well as get updates and see pictures of the actual trip.

I was surfing around looking over blogs this morning. Might consider that rather than a whole website. They look like they're all mostly template driven...and free. 

[dt]

Okay, I set up a BLOG on blogspot, which is a Google platform. There are a bunch of these blog services (Click), but since I already had a google account this one made sense. It’s totally free and real easy to set up and actually kind of fun. It was all template driven. Anyone can put these together. I put in a few posts. When the Alaska trip starts I can post daily reports and I can also embed the Spot Tracker Map. Of course, that assumes I get connected on the road. There are a million of these blogs so I’m not sure who will find it. I think this will just be something more for friends and family.

[v65infla]

Here are a couple of Alaska blog's from a guy on the ST board that did the trip.  I haven't read them yet.

http://anchoragetola-tim.blogspot.com/

http://uptoalaska.blogspot.com/

[dt]

Most everything is coming together pretty well on the Yukon/Alaska Road Trip. The bike is set up pretty well and all I need to do is some additional wiring for my GPS and compressor, but that’s a breeze now that I have the Fuzeblock installed.

I believe I have a working plan for the tires now, which has been somewhat of a worrisome area. Although my OE Bridgestone Battlewings still have some life, next week I’ll be switching them out for a set of Heidenau K-60 Scouts. These are a new design 50/50 dual sport tire (compared to the 80/20 Battlewings) and reviews have been outstanding. Aside from the fact that reviews report excellent grade capabilities, these tires are being revered as one of the best 50/50s for long hauls on the slab with some getting north of 10K miles on them.



I’ll run the Scouts through early May at which time I’ll have another set of Battlewings installed. I might have run them all the way up to Yukon, but I’ve got a trip up to North Carolina in May and the Scouts aren’t up for those roads. So I’ll be on Battlewings for the ride up to Yukon. Once in Yukon, I’ll have Yukon Yamaha tee’d up to install a fresh set of Scouts for the riding we’ll be doing in the Yukon Territories and Alaska…and I’ll ride the Scouts all the way back. That's the plan, but it depends on what I think of the Scouts over the next couple months.

Another reason for getting the Scouts now, aside from getting a sense for how they’ll do on the slab, is that I’ve signed up for an Adventure Challenge out of Junction, Texas in April. This is a two-day clocked challenge that will have a lot of the types of roads that I’ll be on up north. Aside from the fact this will be a blast, I’m doing this because I’m really not getting off-road experience on the Tenere around here. At 600 pounds with all my junk on it and not-so-good dual sport tires, it’s really a tough ride here in the sandbox. A lot of the dirt bike riding techniques are quite hard to apply on it, particularly turning on sand covered forest roads; like steer with your rear is difficult because 600 pounds is saying, “phuck it, we’re going straight!” Anyway, it’s a 2,600 mile round trip over and back and then the challenge is somewhere between 500-600 miles with an overnight in Del Rio, Tx. I was looking over some photos of prior challenges and…dang!




I finally got my Spot Personal Satellite Tracker in the mail yesterday so I need to get that set up. It’s a little thing…I’ll probably lose it. Assuming I don’t, this device just provides and tracks one’s location on googlemaps, it can send a couple prewritten messages and it can send for help if that’s ever needed. I think that I’m supposed to be able to set this up such that we could link a tracking map into a website or forum like this. I’ll look into that.