Dreams, Perspective and...Maybe Growing Up a Little?

It was the summer of 1986, or so, and I had a part-time job delivering a weekly newspaper in my neighborhood in Maryland. I already knew that, sooner or later, I'd be a motorcyclist, but at this point in time, I was relegated to a BMX bicycle, which was where pretty much all of my meager earnings from the paper route went. While out delivering papers on my route, I started to notice a particular line of Honda motorcycles showing up pretty much everywhere. Some were 500cc bikes, some were 700 or 750cc bikes, and every once in a while, I'd even see a mighty 1000cc version of the bike. Whatever size, I was immediately drawn to the bike any time I saw one. White, with red and/or blue trim, a modestly sized fairing surrounding the single square headlight, and the beautiful V-4 engine on display for the world to see, I thought it was the most beautiful bike I'd ever seen. The bike was, of course, the first generation of Honda's legendary Interceptor, and I was so taken by the bike that, to this day, I still think that the only suitable color for a proper sportbike is white.

When Honda introduced the Interceptor, the press and public alike raved over it. As one of the first generation of true sportbikes, the Interceptor was one of the quickest, best handling bikes around. It truly was revolutionary. As a testament to the job Honda did on the design of that bike, the modern version of the bike lives on in Honda's current lineup as the VFR800, albeit as a sport-tourer rather than a pure sport bike. Nevertheless, it has a devoted fan base, holding its own against such rivals as the Triumph Sprint and Suzuki Bandit.

When I recently saw a 1985 VF700 Interceptor on Craigslist, I packed up my riding gear, drove an hour out of town to the current owner's house, and looked over the bike, thrilled to possibly bring a childhood dream to life. Seeing the bike in person, I was all but sold.

You see, after seven years and roughly 40,000 miles on my V-Strom, I've started to become a little bored with it. I had hoped that either my XS750 Cafe Racer or the '78 Goldwing might deliver a little more performance than the "slow" V-Strom, but the V-Strom has proven to be quicker off the line than either of my other bikes, and absolutely eats up the vintage bikes in the handling department. Something a little sportier, a little sexier, a little more exciting was what I was hoping to find with the Interceptor, and so far, things were looking good. I was about ready to hand over the cash for the bike, but first, a quick test ride to make sure it really was working as advertised. I fired up the engine, and my-oh-my, what a glorious sound that emanated from that beautiful V-4 engine! I put the bike in gear, feathered the clutch and rode down the block onto the highway, and...

Meh.

When I rode the Interceptor, I felt like I was on my familiar, somewhat stodgy V-Strom. Sure, the riding position was a little sportier, but I was profoundly disappointed by the performance. This bike was a legend, groundbreaking. It was the stuff of some thirty-odd years of dreams. And it felt almost exactly like my old, faithful standby. There was no rush of adrenaline when I spun the throttle. It tracked around corners well enough, but didn't exactly carve them the way I expected a sportbike -- even an older sportbike -- to do. It was good, solid...but not terribly exciting.

I walked away from the sale, feeling rather depressed.

A few days later, I had a bit of an epiphany. The problem was that I had essentially started my motorcycle life on what truly is an amazingly good motorcycle, but since that was all I had ever known, I was taking it for granted. Before I bought the V-Strom, I spent hours studying the bike on-line, reading every review and magazine article I could find. While a lot of owners were somewhat self-deprecating about the bike (I'd heard the term, "old fart's bike" thrown around quite a bit on the Stromtrooper forum), most of the actual reviews I'd read were overwhelmingly positive. Having owned mine for so long, I'd have to agree with the reviews. My V-Strom has handled every combination of poor roads, ham-fisted rider technique, crappy weather and bad judgment that I've thrown at it, and despite all of that, it has never, not even once, stranded me anywhere. With its somewhat bulbous front fairing, it is perhaps not the sexiest bike ever made, but it has been nothing less than an excellent motorcycle, and after riding the Interceptor, I began to realize just how little credit I had given my bike, and to some degree, how much I had built up the Interceptor in my mind.

I once read that sometimes fantasies are best left unrealized. The Interceptor, my two-wheeled fantasy since before I was old enough to even have a license, will remain just that, I think. It's a beautiful motorcycle, with an amazing exhaust note, but I wouldn't trade my V-Strom for one.

As for something a little sportier...well, a few weeks later, my wife pointed out another ad that she found on Craigslist, and now, I'm the proud owner of a low-mileage, 2006 Triumph Speed Triple:

...but that's another story for another day. For now, I have two brand new tires and freshly-installed braided steel brake lines on my V-Strom. It's time for a post-maintenance shake-down ride :)

Animation of Some Cool Weather Near Flattop

There was some interesting weather up near Flattop on the way home today, so I took a detour, capturing a series of photos with my cell phone that I stitched together into an animation:

Call me weird, but I love riding in misty, moody weather:

Maybe it's because of all of the family trips in the mountains of Japan when I was a kid <shrug> I dunno, but while it may be more fun to ride on warm, sunny days, there's something about fog and mist in the mountains that I really enjoy.

Miscellany

Mid-winter a few years ago, a co-worker asked, "What do you do for fun, once the riding season is over?" Having just acquired the XS750 project, I replied, "There are two seasons in Alaska: riding and wrenching." I don't like to waste my riding season working on the bikes, since the riding season is short enough as is, and invariably, once I start working on a bike, I'll end up with it off-line while I'm waiting for parts to arrive. On the other hand, I do enjoy tinkering on the bikes, so taking them apart to perform all the maintenance and upgrades during the off-season -- when I can't ride, anyway -- is a good way to spend the cold, dark winter months. To that end, I have thrown myself into work on all three of my bikes over the last two months.


In August, I rode my ultra-reliable V-Strom to work one morning, and noticed that it was acting funny while I was idling at a stop light. The turn signals were kind of flickering rather than blinking, and the engine seemed to be running rough, which is very unusual for that bike. I revved the engine a bit, and it settled down, leading me to think that I had a dead battery. That wasn't particularly surprising, considering that it's still the original battery -- six seasons old, now. After work, sure enough, there wasn't enough juice to start the engine. Fortunately, a co-worker was able to jump start me, and I made it home...but just barely. I needed the bike running ASAP, since our motorcycle organization had an event that weekend (this was a Thursday), so rather than taking the time to perform full diagnostics, I jumped to the most likely cause -- a dead battery -- and bought a replacement the next day. After work, I plugged in the new battery, started the engine, and connected a multi-meter to the battery terminals, reading 12.3VDC...not good. I should have been reading just over 14VDC. I took the Yamaha on the BACA event, then ended up ordering both a replacement voltage regulator and stator...at which point, I found that I also needed a gasket for the stator cover, since the V-Strom drips oil onto the stator to keep it cool. I believe I already mentioned something about invariably waiting for parts, once starting a maintenance project?

...all the while, I'm riding the 5000-RPM-idle cafe racer to BACA events...

...an hour away from home, one-way...

...in the rain.


The cafe racer is a fun bike, but with clubman handlebars and NO fairing to protect from the weather, while wearing leathers only in the rain (no rain suit, because my orange nylon rain suit does not exactly scream, "I am a bad-*** biker, and can keep you safe from those who mean you harm") at maybe 40F...not so much.

I was really missing my fairing, my heated grips, and my heated jacket liner, lol (fine, I'm a wuss; what's your point?!?!)

Then, on yet another cold, rainy day on the cafe racer, I started having problems getting the bike into first gear. I could shift into neutral, second, third, etc., but I had a bear of a time getting the bike to downshift into first at intersections. In frustration, I parked the bike, and caged it with my wife to escort one of our BACA kids to court, then when I got the chance to check the Yamaha Triples web site, I discovered that the XS750's have a tendency to break the layshaft bolt, which then causes difficulty shifting into first gear.

Great...with maybe three weeks left in the riding season and BACA Anchorage getting busy working with kids, I had not just one, but *TWO* broken bikes. The whole point of having a second bike was to have an alternate in case a bike broke down!

With the Yamaha now out of service, I jumped into high-gear trying to get the electrical problems with the V-Strom sorted out, since fixing the charging system seemed like a more manageable task. Yeah...no. After finally getting it all put back together again, I took the Strom out for a 10:00 p.m. shake down ride. I was elated for the first eight miles, as the cheapie Amazon.com volt meter that I had plugged into the accessory electrical socket was showing a steady 14.4VDC while riding. Then all of a sudden, I noticed that my voltage was dropping: 13.7V...13.6V...13.5V...about a tenth of a volt per second, more or less. I quickly whipped a U-turn and raced back home...12.9V...12.8V...7.0V. Wait, what?!?! 14.0V...12.2V...13.1V...I started seeing wild voltage swings all over the place, and my LCD panel on the bike had gone completely blank. The engine was running rough again -- the ECU wasn't getting good voltage, so the fuel injection was getting squirrely -- and I just barely made it home (the bike died in the driveway). I opened up the bike -- AGAIN -- and determined that the brand new regulator/rectifier had failed. I parked the Strom, because quite frankly, I was completely fed up with it. I had sunk $450 in parts on the V-Strom in the last two months, and it STILL didn't work right. I spent the rest of the season riding my wife's CB750A to BACA events, and caging it to and from work, sigh.

Fortunately, this was the point that I found the GL1000 project, and I had so much fun working on this bike, that I eventually built up enough motivation to dig into the V-Strom again. Electro-Sport made good on their warranty of the regulator/rectifier, which I re-installed last night, and which now seems to be working properly.


Then, I managed to obtain spousal approval on a pair of Dime City Cycles mufflers for the Yamaha, which are now sitting in the garage, waiting for me to fabricate new balance tubes and connecting pipes to the existing headers. After that, I'll need to drain the oil and dig into the transmission case to replace the layshaft bolt. Oh, yeah...and I've got an envelope full of carburetor parts -- butterfly shaft screws, butterfly shaft seals, circlips, and springs -- for the XS750. Hopefully, those will resolve the high-idle problem on the cafe racer; if not...new carbs?

As for the GL1000...it needs a new voltage regulator, too. Unlike the V-Strom, the 'Wing uses a separate voltage regulator and rectifier, but most of the after-market units I have found seem to be integrated. Oregon Motorcycle Parts makes a reasonably priced unit that seems like it would fit the bill quite nicely, and in my initial conversations with them, they seem to be pretty good people to work with. I expect to have their VRRPM3H-GL1000 model on order in the fairly near future. After that, lower handlebars (so I can connect the front brake line), and a new battery...and the GL1000 should be running! I still want to replace the rear shocks with Hagon 2810 TTSA's, like I did on the Yamaha, and I'd like to order new side covers and shelter covers from E-Bay, because I'd like to go satin black on the 'Wing, but I don't want to ruin the original plastic, since it's in reasonably good shape. However, that's all wish-list material, not necessary-to-get-the-bike-running items ;)

Liter Bike!!!

As I've mentioned before, my very first motorcycle was a 1978 Honda GL1000 -- one of the original Goldwings -- with the engine in pieces.

Against my better judgment, I sold that bike before I ever got it running, and I've kicked myself ever since. Then, in March of 2010, I bought my Suzuki V-Strom

which has been a great bike, and which I've truly enjoyed.

However, I've run into a bit of a conundrum recently. About two years ago, my wife and I joined a motorcycle group that "...seeks to empower abused children to no longer be afraid of the world in which they live." My XS750 cafe racer,

while a lot of fun, isn't really ideal for riding with this group: it still idles at 5,000 RPM once it's warmed up, the exhaust is rusting to pieces (more on that in another post, coming soon to a web browser near you!), the rear view mirrors and tail lights are all but useless (which makes it kind of hard to keep an eye on the riders behind me -- or for them to interpret my intentions --when riding in a group), and I removed all of the provisions for carrying passengers. Making things worse, while my wife is a capable rider with a bike of her own (a pristine 1977 Honda CB750A Hondamatic)

it also has a few characteristics that make it..."sub-optimal"...for riding in our group. Although it's a very cool piece of history, it's not a terribly fast bike (yeah, it's a CB750, but the Hondamatics had a significantly de-tuned version of that engine) among other things. Consequently, she often rides pillion on my Suzuki V-Strom when we are riding with the group.

While I can ride two up in the group on the Wee-Strom, it too is less than ideal for this purpose. First, surrounded by a big-bore Kawasaki Vulcan, a Honda VTX-1800, several Harley-Davidson's (go figure), and a bunch of H-D trikes, the Strom sticks out like a very tall, bright orange, sore thumb.

It just doesn't look the part. More importantly, as much fun as it as when ridden solo, the Strom is a bit under-powered and under-sprung for riding two-up, especially when riding in a group of torquey, large-displacement cruisers. Finally, the brakes are a bit soft for carrying two full-grown, American adults at highway (ahem...) speeds. To solve this problem, my wife and I considered buying her a Sportster 1200 with a Frankenstein trike conversion kit but although it was a hoot to ride and would certainly have looked the part in the motorcycle group...well, it just wasn't a good fit.

We talked it over, and decided that maybe I should sell the V-Strom and buy a more capable two-up bike. After reviewing the options, I had narrowed the list of potential mounts down to a 2016 Suzuki Bandit 1250, a 2015 Triumph Speed Triple,

and a brand new, unsold 2013 Honda CB1100.

Once again, none of these bikes were quite right. The Bandit was the most practical choice, but would need suspension upgrades since they are reportedly undersprung, just like my V-Strom. The Speed Triple was the bike that set my pulse racing, but the passenger seat was a joke, the bars were really low for riding any length of time (although not as bad as my XS750), and I was worried about insurance costs on a hooligan bike like that. The CB1100 would probably be the most comfortable, but I didn't like the red paint, it had no windscreen, and while checking it out at the local Honda dealer, I was already making a list of modifications to make it more of what I wanted (read that, "$$$"). It would have worked, but it just didn't make sense to drop roughly ten grand on a brand new bike, then chop it up to re-make it the way I wanted.

No, none of these bikes were ideal, even if they were a step up from my V-Strom.

Then, the other night, my wife was looking at the bikes for sale on Craigslist when she found a 1978 GL1000 project. Hmmm...I like GL1000's...

Better yet, even after upgrades, the price is low enough that I wouldn't have to sell the V-Strom, and I've seen a couple of seriously cool GL1000 custom bike builds. I set out making a list of upgrades, changes, and simple maintenance items to make a vintage Goldwing suitable for our needs, and came up with the following preliminary list:

Item	Justification	Parts List	Cost
Brake Rebuild	The current owner already has removed the front brakes for a rebuild, and as I found with the XS750 project, neglected brakes are a nightmare. Rebuild these now before they end up in as poor shape as the front brakes on the Yammie were when I bought it.	K & L brake caliper rebuild kits, K & L master cylinder rebuild kits, new brake pistons (cheap, and solves a lot of problems), braided stainless steel brake lines.	$425
Dime City Cycles "Euro" Handlebars	As I recall, the stock GL1000 handlebars aren't that bad -- way better than those evil monstrosities, invented by the ghost of Torquemada himself, that Yamaha shipped on the XS750 -- but I'd like something a little sportier. This would be a much lower priority change, but I really want to replace the old brake lines before riding season, and I'm not going to buy braided stainless steel brake lines twice for this bike. That's just a waste of money.	Dime City Cycles "Euro" Handlebars	$50
New Headlight	Bike had a Vetter fairing; needs new lights and mounting hardware.	E-Bay "Dominator" headlights and cafe racer fork ears.	$140
Replace Timing Belts	Cheap insurance. Bike has an interference engine. If a timing belt breaks, you will be tearing down the engine to replace pistons and valves. That's why the engine on my first GL1000 project was in several Rubbermaid boxes when I acquired it.	Gates timing belts.	$30
Uni Foam Air Filter	Easy, inexpensive maintenance/performance upgrade item.	Uni foam air filter	$25
Ignition System Refurb	Spark plugs are a no brainer. Coils and wires are relatively inexpensive and simple to replace, also. Finally, points and condensers wear out, giving a weak spark. Replacing these parts should make for a better running engine.	DR8EIX spark plugs, coils t.b.d., 7mm silicone spark plug wires and NGK spark plug boots from Mike's XS, and a Sudco tune-up kit.	$200
Suspension Upgrades	Suspension is one of my key concerns. Vintage bikes are notoriously undersprung, and I've been happy with these springs and shocks on my XS750. Note: I'd prefer Race Tech springs and valve emulators in the forks, but at 1/3 the cost, these win the cost/value argument.	Progressive Suspension fork springs and Hagon 2810 TTSA shocks.	$414
Total:			$1284

There are other things I'd like to change too, but this should be enough to get the bike to the point where it is reasonably reliable, comfortable, good looking, and capable of running with the best of them while two-up. I won't be schooling competent sportbike riders in the twisties on a vintage Goldwing, nor will I be the flashiest bike in the state, but this should be a vast improvement over the status quo. And, I'll get to regain some of that karma I lost when I sold my first GL1000 project, lol.

I'll go take a look at the GL1000 tomorrow, and who knows? Maybe by tomorrow night, I'll be the proud owner of yet another GL1000 project bike ;)

Edit: I bought the 'Wing:





There are a few maintenance items that need to be completed before it's ready to ride, but in all honesty, it's a very clean bike for its vintage. After looking it over, I've changed the planned maintenance slightly. There are a few things that have already been taken care of, and a few things that I probably won't change until after the bike is running (function first, cosmetics later -- a lesson I learned from the XS750 project). Here is a Google Sheets document outlining the plan in more detail. I'll leave the table above as a snapshot of the original plan, but the Google doc will be changing as work progresses.

Loud Pipes?

I've never been a "loud pipes save lives" guy. I believe paying attention and playing the "what-if" game ("what's the stupidest @#$&!!! thing another motorist around me can do, and what will I do when -- not if -- they do it?") are the best ways for a motorcyclist to keep him/her -self safe. I've also always held the opinion that being courteous when sharing the road was a good idea. I've often cringed when another motorcyclist with straight pipes rode by, worrying that non-motorcyclists would lump us all in the same group. To me, the "loud pipes save lives" crew has always seemed like they were trying to rationalize their unbaffled exhausts with a thin veneer of justification. However, I'm starting to think that I was wrong. Loud pipes might not be such a bad idea, after all.

So I'm on my way to work on my V-Strom the other day, cruising down a 45MPH, secondary road (two northbound lanes, two southbound lanes, and a suicide lane down the middle). I'm in the right-hand northbound lane when a dually work truck pulls out ahead of me. No problem; he's far enough ahead that I can slow down or change lanes to avoid him. There's a four door Jeep Wrangler in the left-hand lane, but I've got room to change lanes, so I do. About the time that I turn off my turn signal and get stabilized after changing lanes, some complete tool in the suicide lane pulls into my lane so effing close that there's no time for me to brake, and the work truck is still just slightly ahead of me in the right-hand lane, and not yet up to the speed of traffic. I do a quick assessment of my options (not many), and think to myself, "I'm not gonna avoid this one. This is gonna hurt."

Fortunately, my guardian angel (who has got to be mainlining Valium at this point in my life, and who is well past due for a promotion, lol) points out the one escape route I have available. Maybe. It's marginal, but the only other option I have is to go over the hood of the Escape or CR-V or whatever little SUV it was that pulled in front of me (identifying make and model was honestly not at the top of my priority list at this point), so I grab a fist-full of throttle, and go for it.

As it turns out, there was *just* enough room for me to lane split between the SUV and the work truck, even on my wide-butt Suzuki, and I managed to successfully slip between them before I rocketed down the road ahead of them, wanting to get as far as possible from the distracted driver in the SUV as fast as possible.

As readers of this blog will know, I've been trying to figure out how to repair the broken, obnoxiously loud exhaust on my Yammie for a while, but ya know...after this incident, I don't think I will, after all. I'll probably do enough work to clean up the cosmetics on the XS' exhaust, but no one has *EVER* been unaware of me on the (103+ dB) Triple, whereas on my (83dB) V-Strom, I've had more than enough close calls. In fact, I think I'm even going to retrofit my Strom to a louder can, as well.

I originally posted a slightly shorter version of this rant on one of the forums I frequent, and several people chimed in with various observations about the pros and cons of this plan, including some interesting things I hadn't thought of, like an anecdote about revving the engine on a louder bike to make sure that an obviously distracted driver knows you are there. Since, in our society, honking the horn is often used to express displeasure with other motorists rather than to politely get someone else's attention, revving an engine once or twice on a sufficiently loud motorcycle can draw others' attention to you without the baggage associated with honking your horn.

Others, of course, took issue with my decision to make sure my bikes were loud enough to draw attention to them, mostly due to the fact that being loud can be offensive to others. I get it. That's why I've ridden my Strom for six years already with the stock exhaust. That's why repairing the broken exhaust on my Yammie was such a priority for me. But here's the rub: I can't count the number of times I've had to take evasive action to avoid another motorist who obviously didn't see me. Some of them were merely annoying; I had options and was able to avoid the conflict by adjusting speed and/or position without much drama. Others were a little more memorable, like the teenager in the bright orange H2 Hummer who looked me in the eye, then pulled out Right...Freaking...In front of me (and then tailgated me after I swerved past him in the oncoming lane of traffic!!!) or the twenty-something punk that had a near-death-experience (although he didn't know it) after he cut me off with so little room to spare that I locked up my rear brake TWICE to avoid crashing into the rear quarter panel of his car. This year, however, I've had two instances where I really didn't think I was going to be able to avoid the accident. Fortunately, I was wrong both times, but these two incidents have shaken me up enough that I'm seriously re-thinking my stand on loud exhaust systems on motorcycles. As a good friend of mine recently said in a Facebook post, "An aftermarket exhaust is cheaper than your deductible." Hmmmm...that's actually a really good point!

If cagers are so self-absorbed and self-centered that they can't put down the cell phone for the twenty minutes it takes to get to work, can't be bothered to put on a turn signal before changing lanes, and can't be bothered to perform a head-check or even look in their rear-view mirrors before pulling into traffic, then I no longer care if my exhaust disturbs their Zen moment with Enya on their 1200 Watts of Dolby Surround Sound during their morning commute. My right to have a reasonable chance of arriving alive at my destination is just a little more important than your right to peace and solitude inside your insulated cocoon. Sorry.

So here's the deal: I'm going to try to find a louder-than-stock exhaust for my Strom that (hopefully) will drop the weight a bit (OEM exhausts are notoriously heavy), that (hopefully) will improve performance and/or gas mileage a bit, and that (hopefully) will garner a little more attention from other motorists when I ride. I'm shooting for something that won't be obnoxiously loud, but I definitely am looking for something louder than stock. From the evidence I've seen, motorcycles are all but invisible to other drivers; I'm tired of being silent (or close enough, anyway) as well.

[end rant]

Summer 2014 Wrap-Up

Despite the best of intentions, the 2014 riding season turned out to be somewhat anti-climactic.

Don't get me wrong -- it wasn't a bust by any stretch. I finally made it to Valdez, I got the Yamaha running well enough to put a few hundred miles on it, my wife and I participated in the Christmas in July charity ride, and Sue Zuki (the Strom) turned 30...thousand miles, that is ;) Unfortunately, I ended up trailering the Strom back from Valdez, the Yammy ended up with a pretty serious mechanical setback, and this year's Ride to Hope turned out to be the Ride to Girdwood due to some seriously foul weather.

Valdez: If you're in Alaska, whether living here or visiting, don't wait 25 years like I did -- it's really gorgeous through Thompson Pass and Keystone Canyon, easily one of the prettiest places I think I have ever been:

On the downside, I heard some odd noises from the rear wheel upon reaching Keystone Canyon on the return to Anchorage. Fortunately, my wife had driven our RV while I was riding the Strom, so I pulled the bike onto the trailer that my wife was pulling behind our RV, rather than riding all the way home. Oh, did I mention that it was pouring rain and bitter cold on the way to Valdez, but warm and sunny on the return trip? Adding insult to injury, the noises I heard in Keystone Canyon turned out to be nothing worse than a loose chain guard that had flopped over onto the chain, so the chain was lightly rubbing on the inside of the chain guard (sigh...) Despite the bad weather on the way to Valdez and the mechanical mishaps on the return trip, I honestly can't wait to go back again -- hopefully all the way there and back next time, lol.

Ride to HopeGirdwood: Then, there was the Ride to Hope, which turned out to be the Ride to Girdwood, due to the extremely inclement weather:

I typically ride rain or shine, so even though I was cold and uncomfortable, I wasn't going to say anything when we stopped in Girdwood to fuel up before heading the rest of the way to Hope. But...to be completely honest, I was not at all disappointed when the group decided to pull the plug on the ride. They headed back to Anchorage, while I snuggled up with a latte at the espresso shop there in Girdwood ;)

XS750 Project: Arguably my biggest motorcycle accomplishment this summer, I also got my XS750 Cafe Racer project running well enough to put about 800 miles on it, including a run to the bike show at the Alaska State Fair in Palmer.

Mechanical Gremlins: However, I didn't log nearly as many miles on my bikes this summer as I usually do, which I blame on persistent mechanical problems this year. Much as I hate to admit it, the V-Strom is starting to show some signs of its age. First, the front tire is nearly worn out, which is good because I <expletive deleted> hate the Continental Trail Attack tires I put on it last summer for the ride to Seattle. I've already replaced the rear with a Shinko 750, and I plan on doing the same thing to the front tire this winter. In fact, the front tire washed out on me once on my driveway this summer, leading to my first drop at any kind of speed, and destroying one of the fog lights I had hung on my crash bars a while back. I've already worn out the chain and sprocket I hung last summer (!), so I've got a replacement in the garage, waiting for me to get a chance to swap them out. And finally, the valves have started chattering a bit, telling me it's (well past) time to pull the plastic, remove the heads, and shim the valves. I'm not looking forward to that. I'm also starting to think that I should probably replace the battery (it's started acting a little less peppy than it used to be) and the brake lines (Suzuki recommends every four years; I'm at five, and I really want stainless steel lines, anyway).

Ok, no problem. The cafe-nated XS750 is running, so I should have been able to take the Strom off-line to work on it, right? Well...no. You see, I spent most of the summer tracking down a problem where the Yammie would run great for 20 miles or so, then would start running a little rough, would lose power, and then would die completely. I finally identified the problem as a plugged fuel vent, caused by my attempts to fabricate a new fuel cap gasket of silicone rubber last summer, and solved the problem (both of them) by buying a brand new, $25 gas cap -- money well spent!

Once I finally had that issue solved, I turned my attention to fabricating the bump-stop seat, which is 90% done now, although I'm not completely happy with it (it's heavy, a little rough in places, and the paint job looks like crap). I've also been trying out how to rework the exhaust system without paying a small fortune ($350, more or less) for a MAC 3-into-1 exhaust kit, which looks a little chintzy to me. I'd rather try to weld up a complete replacement, although I'll need to step up my welding skills to do that...and it's going to cost a lot more than the MAC. Finally, I've had the high-idle problem with the carbs all summer, as well. Trust me, you haven't lived until you've sat in traffic at a red light on a Yamaha triple with a blown-out exhaust system screaming at 4000+ RPM, lol.

Ok, so I spent a little while tweaking the remaining bugs out of the Yammy, some of which I still haven't completely eradicated, but it's still rideable, right? Ummm, no. On the ride to the Palmer State Fair, I blew the head gasket, and was only able to ride back home because a friend there loaned me a quart of oil to replace some of what leaked out all over my left leg and the engine case.

As a result of these mechanical issues, I didn't make some of the other trips I intended this summer. I skipped out on a group ride to Kennicot Mine, a number of group rides with the charity group that I'm in the process of becoming involved with, and I also blew off my hopes to ride to Nabesna this summer.

Project Plan: Needless to say, I've got a winter full of projects planned out for both bikes while the snow flies here in Anchorage:

Project	Bike	Dependencies
Head Gaskets	Yamaha	None
Valve Shim Adjustment	V-Strom	None
Carburetor Cleaning	Yamaha	None
Chain and Sprocket Change	V-Strom	None
Remove Starter	Yamaha	None
Finish Cafe Racer Seat	Yamaha	Match gas tank paint?
Exhaust R&R	Yamaha	Better Welding Technique, lol
Stainless Steel Brake Lines	V-Strom	None
Upgrade Regulator/Rectifier to Modern	Yamaha	None
Shorai Battery	Both	V-Strom: None; Yamaha: Regulator/Rectifier Upgrade

Should be enough to keep me busy over the winter, lol. If I can get the first six items taken care of, I'll be content. If I can replace the V-Strom brake lines too, I'll be happy. If I can get the exhaust system repaired and/or replaced, I'll be ecstatic.

Early Season Ride up to Hatcher Pass

When I was a child, my family lived in Northern Japan. One of our frequent day trips was to drive to the Towada Mountains, a volcanic range of mountains, one of which had a caldera lake, with an absolutely spectacular gorge carved by the Oirase River which flowed from the lake to the ocean below and to the east. To this day, it's one of my favorite places on earth; perhaps my very favorite, even. I remember traveling up into the mountains near the caldera lake one winter afternoon, and being amazed. The snowplows had done an amazing job of keeping the road clear -- but on either side of the road were vertical walls of snow towering way over our heads. It was an impressive sight, to say the least.

So, when a co-worker told me he had recently tried to drive over Hatcher Pass between Willow and Palmer, Alaska, and had run into walls of snow that sounded like the ones from my childhood in Japan, I decided I needed to take a trip out to Hatcher Pass to see it (again) for myself.



My co-worker had driven up from the Willow side, and maybe the Palmer side was just a little warmer and received a little more sun than the Willow side. Or maybe, I just waited too long to head out to the Pass. Whatever the reason, I didn't find ten-foot-high walls of snow on either side of the road, but it was a great day for a ride, anyway. The weather was beautiful -- warm, sunny, mild winds -- and the trees were just starting to bud, filling the air with the delicious aroma of spring (cottonwoods are a pain in the backside come mid-summer, but they smell wonderful in early May!). Even though the snow wasn't as high on the sides of the road as I expected, there was still too much snow near the summit for either the Pass itself or Archangel Valley to be opened yet...which is not at all unexpected, as the Pass usually doesn't open until around the 4th of July. Nevertheless, if you are visiting Alaska by motorcycle (or even by car), I'd still recommend a trip up to Hatcher Pass, if you find yourself in the Mat-Su Valley. Like the Towada Range in Japan, it's one of my favorite places to spend a sunny summer day.

New Bearings -- Again -- New Brake Pads -- Again -- and a Four Letter S-Word

I installed a set of All-Balls wheel bearings this spring, just before the snow melted. Happy to have replaced the "sealed on one side" OEM bearings with higher quality, fully sealed bearings, I fully expected not to need to dig into the rear wheel bearings for another 50 - 75,000 miles.

Silly me.

On Friday, the week before Halloween, I walked out to my bike at lunch, and found this: rust all over my wheel hub, axle, axle spacer and swingarm. Are you <expletive deleted> kidding me?!?! Yeah, I rode to Seattle this summer, but I've still put less than 10,000 miles on the bike since I installed the bearings, and this was the driest, warmest summer I remember since I moved to Anchorage in 1989. Fortunately, I haven't yet installed the All-Balls bearings I purchased for the front wheel, and it's safe to say I won't be installing them now, either.

Running wisdom at Stromtroopers is that you can get higher-quality bearings from the local bearing shop than either the OEM Suzuki bearings or in the All-Balls kit, so I ran to Alaska Bearing and purchased all new bearings for the bike (plus a couple of bearings for the XS750 project). The total bill: $60, which considering that the All-Balls front and rear wheel bearing kits for the DL650 alone are $30 each, is a pretty good deal.

The bearing installation itself was no big deal, but when reinstalling the wheel back on the bike, I had a bit of a problem getting all the parts to line up while the brake caliper was installed on the bracket that fits between the wheel and swingarm. It's always kind of a pain, and I usually end up dropping the axle spacer a half-dozen times or so -- which means it picks up a lot of dirt and grit, since my garage floor gets pretty nasty while I'm working on the bike, and therefore, I end up cleaning and re-greasing the axle spacer over and over and over and... -- so I decided to try something new this time. Rather than fight with calipers and spacers and the wheel and the axle, I decided to simply remove the caliper while I reinstalled the wheel. Sure enough, that made installation a lot easier...until I tried to reinstall the caliper. It was late, I was tired, and I should have called it a night, but instead, I tried to get the caliper installed first. Bad call, that. There are two bolts that affix the caliper to the mounting bracket, and I managed to torque one too much, snapping it in half >:( and cross-threading the other one. Yeah, that was easier, grrr!!!

Well, I needed a new set of brake pads (again), so I visited my local go-to guys to order a new set of brake pads, and see if they could get replacements for the two bolts I had munged up the night before. Go-Pro was no-go on the bolts, but they said they could order new pads for me. I asked them to go ahead and order the pads, then I ran by my local Suzuki dealer for the bolts -- yep, special order, too. Meanwhile, my bike is sitting on jack stands in my garage during an unseasonably warm, completely unexpected extended riding season. While I can sometimes keep riding through Halloween, I don't believe I have never been able to ride in November, and now that the weather is finally nice enough to ride in November, the Strom is down with maintenance issues while I'm waiting on parts :roll_eyes:

After a week, I paid another visit to Go-Pro, and was told the pads hadn't arrived yet, but that they should be in "later today or tomorrow." Okay, no problem. I ended up getting sick over the following weekend, and therefore, I didn't get a chance to drop by either Go-Pro or the Suzuki dealer until yesterday, a full second week since ordering both the pads and bolts. Sure enough, the Suzuki dealer had my bolts, but GoPro...sigh..."We just placed the order on the 5th (of November -- yesterday was the 8th). They won't be here until at least next week." WT*?!?! I placed the <expletive deleted> order two weeks ago and you just ordered the parts from your vendor three days ago? And my bike has been up on jack stands in the garage for two weeks during cool, but ridable, weather while you guys have been sitting on your thumbs?!?!

I was NOT a happy camper.

Fortunately, I had gone to Go-Pro before going to the Suzuki dealer, and the Suzuki dealer had the exact pads I wanted in stock. Pads in hand, last night, I went back out to the garage to replace the two bolts and the brake pads, with the intention of taking the Strom out one more time (at least) this morning, for what might be the latest-in-the-year ride I've ever made.

Isn't there an aphorism about "best laid plans..." or something to that effect?

I woke up this morning, got dressed, made some coffee and oatmeal for breakfast, and as I was eating, my daughter called my attention to the weather outside:

What the hail? You're kidding me, right? We've had two weeks of unseasonably good riding weather while my bike has been up on jack stands, and less than twelve hours after I get the bearings and brake pad repairs wrapped up, it's SNOWING outside? Okay, fine; it's hail, not snow, but the effect on my plans is exactly the same. I'd be insane to try to go for a ride in that, especially since the rear tire is getting seriously worn after the Al-Can trip this summer.

Ah, screw it. I went for a ride anyway -- to the end of the gravel road I live on -- and the Strom did fine :) It wasn't as long a ride as I had planned, and it sure wasn't as fast a ride as I had planned, but whatever: I got to ride!

Al-Can 2013

"Beginnings are a very delicate time..." --Princess Irulan, "Dune" (by Frank Herbert)

"Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end." --Closing Time, Semisonic

It was a bright, sunshiny day in May of 1988 when I stood outside Meade Senior High School with three of my best friends, Dave Pettyjohn, Lee McShane and Mark Perry, congratulating and high-fiving each other. Our commencement ceremony had just ended; the four of us were officially high school graduates. As we stood there in the sun, broad grins splitting our faces, I felt like the entire world was just waiting for me to reach out and take it. From the end of my high school tenure was birthed a whole new beginning, and I could make of this new beginning anything I wanted. Both my mood and my future, just like the weather that day, was bright and full of promise.

I am not exactly sure what caused this particular memory to surface as I turned north out of Glenallen, Alaska en route to Seattle, but I couldn't deny the appropriateness of it. Just as I had felt on my graduation day, I was filled with a sense that the world was waiting for me to make of it what I willed. I was leaving Alaska for close to a month, and the thin ribbon of asphalt stretching away into the rolling hills outside of Glenallen seduced me out of my beloved Alaska, promising new adventures once I crossed the Canadian border.

The plan had hatched just a few short months earlier. My step-daughter had been working on a Physician's Assistant certificate through the University of Washington, and she needed help watching her son Clark while she was there. Through some combination of miracles and divine intervention, I not only got my wife to agree to drive a motorhome down the Al-Can while I followed along on my motorcycle, but my wife and I also managed to convince our respective bosses to give us a little over three weeks of leave in which to make the trip. Now, after months of planning, the departure date had arrived, and we were off!

The first day was largely uneventful, although we left Anchorage about two hours behind schedule. As we hit the Glenn Highway, I chuckled as I realized I had the theme song from "Smokey and the Bandit" on my mind:
  East bound and down,
  Loaded up and truckin'.
  We gon' do what they said can't be done.
  We've got a long way to go,
  And a short time to get there...

How appropriate! I mused to myself.

The weather was clear, warm, and sunny, and the V-Strom performed flawlessly. The highway between Tok and the Canadian border meanders through valleys in a number of mountain ranges, and I was mesmerized by the scenery. Having grown up near the volcanic Towada Mountains in northern Honshu, Japan, I love the mountains, and never, ever tire of their beauty. However, the Alaska Department of Transportation has been busy maintaining the roads near Tok this year, and, much as I wanted to sightsee, I found that I had better keep my eyes on the road, as the asphalt was intermittently marred by swatches of gravel where the road crews were busy re-paving stretches of highway. One particular swatch of gravel felt unusually tricky, forcing me to throttle back to about 40-45 MPH. At a rest break a little ways up the road, my wife mentioned that the gravel in that particular section was soft, and about 2 to 3 inches deep. Oh...that explains a lot! Both motorcycle and RV survived the road construction, however, and after approximately nine hours and 430 miles, we crossed the Canadian border -- my first border crossing by motorcycle, and another item ticked off the motorcycling bucket list! -- and rolled into Beaver Creek, Yukon, where I was greatly surprised by the number and ferocity of mosquitoes. Having lived in Alaska since my first trip up the Al-Can in 1989, I am no stranger to mosquitoes, but I have never encountered more numerous nor more persistent mosquitoes than those that welcomed us to the Yukon.

The First Nations border guard was polite and friendly: "You're with them?" pointing to the RV ahead, containing my wife and twelve year old daughter.

"Yes, sir."

"Usually when I see a motorcycle carrying that much gear..." with a nod at the tent, sleeping bag and mattress pad strapped to the passenger seat of my bike, "...they aren't traveling with an RV."

"Once we reach Seattle, I am planning to take a couple of days and continue solo to Crater Lake, Oregon before returning back to Alaska with my family."

A nod. "Ah. Can you remove your helmet, please?"

Oh...yeah. I am wearing a helmet, aren't I? "Sure, sorry. Forgot I had it on."

"Thank you. Have a nice day."

Wednesday morning dawned clear, hot and sunny, just as the previous day had been. When I first drove the Al-Can in 1989, I remember being amazed and somewhat ashamed that the roads in the Yukon seemed to be so much better quality than the roads in Alaska. While there were long stretches of gravel in the Yukon, the paved sections were smooth, seamless, flawless asphalt, whereas the roads on the Alaska side of the border were patched and frost heaved. Not so this trip. Words fail me when I try to describe the asphalt we encountered near Beaver Creek. It wasn't pot-holed or frost heaved; it was something else. It was as if a giant child had dragged his fingers in the asphalt while it was still hot, leaving meandering grooves and ridges a foot wide and tens of feet long in the asphalt. I stood on my pegs and picked the smoothest path I could find; my wife did likewise, but in a 26 foot RV with a ten foot utility trailer behind, it was impossible for her to avoid all the ruts. Eventually, the bouncing and jostling collapsed the legs on the Weber grill that I had strapped down on the utility trailer, rendering it inoperative for the rest of the trip >:( Other than the poor roads, the ride was uneventful until we reached Kluane Lake, where I stopped to shoot a couple of photographs:

After Kluane Lake, we started skirting rain showers, getting sprinkled on a few times, but riding mostly in good weather. We stopped at an absolutely phenomenal pizza joint in Whitehorse for dinner, where I discovered how important it is to perform a pre-ride inspection, just like I used to do when flying airplanes. It was getting late, I was a bit fatigued, and after removing and stowing the carbon fiber side-stand plate that I use whenever I park on gravel, as well as the "Remove Before Flight" reminder flag for the brand new disk brake lock I had purchased for this trip, I fired up the engine, put the bike and gear, slowly let out the clutch and...stalled the engine. Wash, rinse, and repeat several times. I had the sinking feeling that I had a serious transmission problem. No matter how gently I feathered the clutch, the bike stalled with an ugly "thunk" sound. I called to my wife that I had a transmission problem, to which she sweetly replied, "Did you remove the disk brake lock?"

&©%#!!!

Fortunately, the flush that covered my face was obscured by my helmet. "Ummm, no...I removed the, ah, reminder flag, but not, umm, the lock itself..." I mumbled. You see, I had cut the cord for the reminder flag about six inches too short to reach from the handlebars to the disk brake, so although I had remembered to remove the flag, I had forgotten to remove the object it was supposed to remind me of, namely, the disk brake lock itself. Feeling like a fool, I sheepishly removed the lock, kicked off Google Navigator on my cell phone (securely mounted on my handlebars) and...promptly took a wrong turn, resulting in a three mile detour through a residential area in Whitehorse. Finally, we found the Al-Can again, and raced off into darkening skies and increasingly strong winds. As we approached Marsh Lake, I pulled into a rest stop to don my rain gear before I got totally soaked, and sure enough, within half a mile...the rain stopped. We finally called it a night in Teslin, after a mere 383 miles taking almost nine hours on the road.

By the time we arrived, my low fuel light was flashing desperately for my attention, and I was beginning to wonder if I would be pushing the bike the last few miles. Pro-tip: when stopping for dinner in Whitehorse, make sure you take the time to fill your gas tank! A 'Strom has sufficient range to make it from Haines Junction to Teslin, but just barely.

Day three began with a hearty ham-and-egg sandwich and a decent cup of coffee at the Yukon Motel (and RV park) restaurant under, once again, clear, warm and sunny skies. I was a little nervous about today's ride, however, as the bridge just south of town is a steel grate bridge, and I have read a sufficient number of accounts of motorcyclists who had been unnerved by crossing such bridges on a bike. I would be crossing the bridge -- my first steel grate bridge on a bike -- with a full load of fuel in my 5.8 gallon gas tank, on a bike that is already top heavy, even without a full load of fuel. I topped off the tank anyway, gritted my teeth, and set off apprehensively. As I rolled onto the steel grate, I was pleasantly surprised by the bridge. Signs warned motorcyclists to "Use Extreme Caution!!!" (as if a motorcyclist should ever *NOT* use extreme caution on the road!), and prophecies of doom from countless other ride reports echoed in my head, but in all honesty, I found the steel grate bridge to be no worse than a gravel road, and in fact, arguably easier to ride than some gravel roads I've followed (Palmer Creek Road, I'm talking about you!). Yeah, it's a little squirrely, but not at all bad. If you can survive the construction to reach one of the several steel grate bridges you'll encounter on the Al-Can, you'll be fine. Just stand on the pegs, relax and let the bike wriggle under you; you'll be fine, I promise! :)

A few hours later, I found myself in a light rain again. We were only about twenty minutes outside of Watson Lake, and remembering how the rain had ended as soon as I put on my rain suit the day before, I decided to press on towards Watson Lake. For the next ten minutes, the rain steadily grew worse, until finally, beginning to be a bit chilled by the cool air, and worried that I wouldn't be able to maintain body heat if my leathers soaked through, I pulled over at a pull-out and donned the rain suit again. Five minutes later...no rain. Sigh.

Day three was a short day, just over six hours of riding time, because our destination for the night was Liard Hot Springs, and we wanted to make sure we had enough time to enjoy the springs. After three days of riding, soaking in the hot water at Liard was incredible. We stayed in the springs until sundown, then reluctantly dragged ourselves out of the warm, relaxing embrace of the water and back to the RV for the night. I set my alarm for early the next morning to sneak back to the springs while everyone else was still asleep...

...but woke to the pitter-patter of rain drops on the roof. Cold, even snuggled under a blanket in the RV, I could not bring myself to don my clammy swim shorts and hike the half mile(-ish) back to the springs in the rain, so I slept in for another two hours. Evidently, the soporific properties of the hot springs affected my wife and daughter as well, because it was yet another two hours before they awoke. As they slowly clambered out of bed, I put on my riding gear and rain suit, then went outside to prepare for departure. My wife and I man-handled the utility trailer back onto the hitch of the RV, as the jack was not tall enough to lift the tongue over the hitch at the odd angle of the parking pad. Finally, the trailer was hitched, and I turned to finish getting the bike ready to go as my wife pulled out of the camp site in the RV.

I whirled back around as I heard an odd grating sound from the RV, discovering, to my horror, that we had neglected to raise the jack on the trailer. My wife had no idea that she was digging a furrow with the trailer as she drove out of our campsite and onto the road. I raced up near the passenger window -- no easy feat in full leathers and shin-high motorcycle boots -- and she started to slow down. I ran towards the back of the trailer to raise the jack when she started driving again. I slapped the side of the RV hard enough to leave a bruise on my palm to get her attention, and finally, she stopped.

By this point, the damage was done. The jack had kinked, preventing us from raising it, so I set to work with a socket set that I fortunately had had enough foresight to bring. Unfortunately, the kink was severe enough that I couldn't lift the jack through the tongue of the trailer, and we were blocking the road out of the campground. "Please, don't let another camper come through here until we have this fixed," I thought to myself...just as another camper came around the corner behind us.

The campers were a father and son from British Columbia, who were gentlemen in every sense of the word. "I work for a trucking company, and I see guys forget to raise the jack all the time," the son graciously stated. The father retrieved an axe from the car and tried to straighten the jack with the blunt end of the axe, but it wouldn't budge. Finally, after several false starts, we set the jack on the ground, and the father began hitting the tongue of the trailer, trying to force the kinked jack through the tongue. At last, we succeeded, but we had set the jack on the trailer wiring, slicing the ground wire in two.

"Sorry about that. I've got some wire strippers and electrical tape in the car," the father said.

I just laughed, shrugging his entirely unnecessary apology off. "If I hadn't forgotten to raise the jack, none of this would be an issue. I'm not at all worried about the wires."

We stripped the ends of the wires, twisted them together, wrapped them with electrical tape, and all was good. Blinkers worked, brake lights worked, and so thanking the two once again for their help, we set off down the highway in the rain.

A short time later, we stopped to refuel at an exceptionally nice lodge on the shores of Muncho Lake. As I topped off the tanks, I briefly reconsidered my decision to ride despite the rain and cold. We had the ability to trailer the bike, but I really wanted to ride all the way to Seattle, so I turned up the power on the heated grips a notch, and pointed the Strom eastward again.

Five minutes later, concerns about the weather were the last thing on my mind. I chuckled to myself as I grabbed a fistful of throttle at yet another "60kph" advisory hairpin turn overlooking Muncho Lake. I found that I could easily maintain the advisory speed limit -- in miles per hour, rather than the posted kilometers per hour.

Despite the rain, I was having the time of my life. The road itself was pure joy, dancing around the natural contours of the lake and the mountainside that rose from the shore, and Muncho Lake itself was stunning, with a blue-green tint unlike any other lake I have ever seen. I found myself imagining I was back in northern Japan, where I spent most of my adolescent and pre-teen years; the shoreline vaguely resembled stretches of the coast of Honshu near Aomori -- to this day, one of my favorite places on earth.

For 30 miles or so, the road weaved and twisted back upon itself, slowly, imperceptibly, gaining elevation, as the temperature, just as imperceptibly, dropped. Finally, having left the bliss of Muncho Lake Provincial Park far behind, I found myself entering Stone Mountain Provincial Park, and I realized with a start that I was thoroughly chilled to the bone, despite my wool base layer, full leathers, rain suit over the leathers and heated grips. My ankles and wrists were growing stiff with the cold, and I was no longer enjoying the ride. I began searching for a pull-out where I could flag my wife down and heat some water for coffee or tea to restore my core body temperature. Finally, near the summit, I spied a rest stop, and steered the Strom off the side of the road. Looking around, I realized that the parking area I had pulled into might be difficult for her to drive out of again, since she was maneuvering a 26 foot RV and pulling a ten foot utility trailer. Fortunately, on the other side of the road was a large, open, paved lot that she could easily fit into. I turned on my four-way flashers, then pointed her to the lot across the road as approached.

She didn't stop.

Furious -- and bordering on the early stages of hypothermia -- I punched the hazard light switch, stomped on the shift lever to drop into first gear, savagely wrenched the throttle to WFO and rocketed off down the road after my family. We continued down the highway, me fuming, my wife blissfully unaware, until we reached Fort Nelson. After making up, and establishing a better method of communicating in areas without cellular coverage :) (she thought I was waving her past, rather than pointing her to a better place to stop), we continued on to Fort St. John, firmly convinced that both the more southerly latitude and lower elevation meant that the worst was behind us.

Silly, silly me.

Watching both the gas gauge and the GPS slowly unwind, I foolishly decided not to fuel up as we drove past Sikanni Chief campground, the only fuel stop I knew of between Ft. Nelson and Ft. St. John. A few miles down the road, I began to realize that I would be running on empty by the time we arrived; strong enough headwinds or steep enough hills, of which there are plenty on this stretch of road, could mean the difference between riding into town or pushing the bike. We had five gallons of extra gas on the trailer, but I didn't know how much range the RV had, nor how much gas my wife still had in her tank, so I began searching in earnest for gas stations.

I finally found one on a hill, overlooking a set of ominous looking clouds giving birth to a gorgeous, intense rainbow. Unfortunately, the gas station was closed...as was the next one, and the one after that. Finally, we found an open gas station at Pink Mountain RV park. After topping off both vehicles, my wife asked if I minded if she started out while I went inside to pay. I agreed, since it was easy enough for me to catch up to her. In fact, I frequently found myself slowing to wait for her when the road grew either twisty or hilly, as the RV simply couldn't pace the bike on such roads. I had a good laugh when the poor cashier in the service station did a double take at the motorcyclist buying roughly twenty gallons of gasoline ("Yes, my motorcycle has long-range tanks," I teased, before explaining that I was also paying for the gas in my wife's RV). Finally, I raced off after my wife, hoping to catch up with her soon, as I really didn't like the look of the dissipating thunderstorm to the east. I soon found myself hunched over the gas tank, as the miles quickly ticked off on the odometer.

I didn't realize it in the growing dusk, but the dark visor on my helmet was becoming increasingly obscured by the spray kicked up from the traffic ahead of me. Finally, I noticed an odd looking patch of road ahead. "Is that concrete?" I wondered. "Are they doing construction here?" Then I realized the magnitude of my error. Not concrete, rather the road was coated with a sheet of hail that had melted and compacted to form rime ice.

Did I mention that I was riding at...ummm...perhaps a slightly higher speed than was wise on wet roads, near dusk, in the vicinity of a thundertorm? Okay, maybe I was riding at a pace that would have been, ahem, brisk even under perfect weather conditions.

The bike did a little dance underneath me, slid off of the ice into the ruts that four-wheeled traffic had carved in the ice, then regained its composure and continued down the road as if nothing had happened. Needless to say, I slacked off the pace a bit (okay, a lot!), and caught up with my wife around the next bend. I flashed her a thumb's up as I passed her at a very sedate, very conservative 45 MPH, and we continued on -- slowly -- until a very long, very tiring, very stressful day four ended roughly an hour later in a crowded RV park in Charlie Lake, just outside of Ft. St. John.

For the second day in a row, I awoke to the tick-tick-ticking of rain on the ceiling of the RV. As I got dressed and sucked down a cup of instant coffee, the rain slackened off, then quit entirely. Nonetheless, remembering the cold, miserable ride of the day before, I pulled the rain gear over my leathers as we headed west out of Charlie Lake towards Chetwynd. Just a few miles out of Charlie Lake, we entered some of the steepest grades of the trip, as the highway wove around the mountains near the Fraser River. I wondered about the story behind a multitude of signs protesting a proposed dam; I wasn't certain, but if I understood some of the signs correctly, the dam would (or at least could) result in many of the farms becoming submerged under ten to fifteen feet of water. I silently wished the farmers luck in their battle to save their homes, and continued on my way.

After several hours, and gas stops at numerous small Canadian towns -- including one stop where I dropped my helmet and broke the clear visor >:( -- we pulled into the outskirts of Quesnel, where we stopped for the night at 10 Mile Lake Provincial Park, one of my favorite stops of the trip. After spending three out of the four nights so far on the road in RV parks, the quiet and peace of the Canadian Provincial park on night five was a nice change of pace.

Before leaving Anchorage, I had spent quite a while on Google Maps and the Alaska Milepost trying to plot the route for the last leg. However, I was a little confused by the route near Cache Creek. The course I ended up plotting turned off of 97 shortly before reaching Cache Creek, and followed 99 to Lillooet, then turned onto 12 until reaching Lytton. When we reached the intersection of 97 and 99, I pulled over to discuss the route with my wife, and we decided that this was indeed the route we wanted to take. From the comfort of my sofa two months later, I can honestly say that I am very glad we followed this route. This was, by far, the highlight of the whole trip. CA-99 wound and twisted as it followed a mountain valley, slowly increasing in elevation. From the vegetation, I could tell we were entering a more arid part of Canada, even though a gorgeous river twisted through the valley floor next to the highway. Soon, the valley floor widened, as did the river, emptying into a long, narrow, sinuous lake. It was all I could do to keep my eyes on the road, entranced by the beauty of the valley. Before long, lake became river once again, and the road, already as much fun as a motorcyclist could hope for began to tie itself in knots. My speed dropped from 55 MPH to 35 MPH, and the grin I wore threatened to split my face in two. The highway climbed into the mountains like an asphalt serpent, coiling back upon itself. I soon found myself behind a BMW GS, two-up and loaded with gear. They were traveling a little slower than I would have been, but honestly -- and surprisingly -- I didn't care. I was so enthralled with the high desert beauty around me, that for once in my life, I didn't want to race at top speed.

I was in motorcycle heaven.

Finally, spying a pull-out over an exceptionally beautiful point high above the river, I stopped to snap a couple of photos:



Soon enough, it was time to leave, and after taking one wrong turn (the route didn't actually pass through Lillooet, but rather continues past the turn-off, on the opposite side of the river from town), we continued on to Lytton. CA-12 to Lytton, however, climbed up into the mountains, and very obviously didn't see much traffic. At one point, the road narrowed to a single lane over a steep cliff with no guard rails between the asphalt and the drop-off. It wasn't a problem for me on the bike, but caused my wife in the RV some concern when she encountered a Jeep Grand Cherokee coming the other way (she nicknamed the road "the donkey trail," in reference to the narrow, winding trails descending into the Grand Canyon).

By approximately 5:00 p.m., we stopped for gas in Lytton, and my wife pulled out the travel plan I had created before leaving.

"Mike! Do you realize we still have five hours to Seattle?!?!"

We had already been on the road for six hours, not including a lunch stop, and thought we were no more than an hour or two from our destination for the day. I double checked the trip plan, Google Maps, and the Alaska Milepost, and finally decided that she was right. We were a lot farther from our night's stop than we thought. We hastily departed the gas station in Lytton, and raced towards Abbottsford, B.C., hoping to make up as much time as possible, since the scenic route past Lillooet had cost us a lot of time. We barely noticed the stunning scenery between Lytton and Abbottsford. Boston Bar, Yale, Hope...all of the little towns along the Fraser River passed in a blur, as we raced the setting sun to Seattle.

Reaching Abbottsford, I turned south a little earlier than I intended, crossing the border into Washington at Sumas. Unlike his counterpart at Beaver Creek, the American CBP official was curt, direct and assertive almost to the point of being rude, until the end of the interview.

"So you're with the RV behind you?"

"Yes, sir."

"Why not just trailer the bike and ride with them?"

"I've flown the Al-Can in small airplanes three times, and I've driven it in a car another three times, but I've never ridden it on a bike before," I answered, once again at a bit of a loss to explain why I, like most motorcyclists I know, do what we do.

"And...?"

I shrugged. "Ummm...that's it..."

A broad grin split the CBP agent's face.

"No, how was it?"

I laughed, spying the KLR 650 parked near his booth, and finally catching his drift. "It was awesome," I gushed.

He waved me through with a huge smile, vicariously enjoying the trip seemingly as much as I had. "Have a good one!"

I relaxed, oddly comforted to be back in the U.S. again...until I checked my GPS. It was getting late, almost eight o'clock, and the sun would be setting soon. As I mentioned earlier, I had broken my clear visor in Canada, and was riding with my dark, tinted visor on the helmet. Sunset would be soon, and we still had an hour and a half, maybe even two hours, until we reached Seattle, and even then, we still had to find the RV park where we would be staying. My wife and I wound through the farmlands of Sumas and the surrounding communities, until finally reaching I-5. A half hour later, I watched the sun set over the western horizon, and realized that I would be riding in the dark with my tinted visor, despite my best efforts to reach Seattle before sunset. My step-daughter started school the next morning, so we had to be in Seattle tonight -- stopping short wasn't an option -- so, I gritted my teeth and pressed on in the dark.

Tired, stressed, and unable to see much other than headlights of the vehicles around me, my wife and I raced down I-5 at speeds I'd rather not confess in print, my motorcycle so close to the bumper of the trailer that I knew I'd never stop in time if she slammed on the brakes. However, I didn't dare increase the following distance between us, as my wife had the turn-by-turn directions printed on a sheet of paper in the RV (I thought -- it turns out they had blown out of my daughter's open window before we crossed the border into Washington). Eventually, my wife called my cell phone (plumbed into my helmet with BlueTooth), where I discovered that I couldn't navigate with GPS while on a phone call, as my GPS was Google Navigator on my phone, and the phone call took over the screen. We agreed that I would take the lead, and we would only call when absolutely necessary so that I could still navigate.

The last hour into Seattle is best forgotten. I have never been so anxious to get off a motorcycle. Unable to see in the dark, in an unfamiliar town, following GPS directions to an RV park I have never visited, riding in more traffic than we ever see in Alaska, and exhausted by over thirteen hours on the bike -- when we only expected to spend eight -- we finally pulled into the RV park at 10:30 Sunday night.

My wife, who truthfully does an exceptional job driving the RV, hates to back into parking spaces, and simply refuses to do so when pulling a trailer. As good as she is driving large vehicles, my wife's brain cannot make sense of the way a trailer reacts to steering inputs, so backing a trailer into a parking spot is my job. However, by the time we reached the RV park, I was so fried, I couldn't hardly figure out how to work the latches on my motorcycle boots. Fortunately, the husband of the RV park owner, one of the friendliest and most helpful men I have ever met, walked me through parking the RV and trailer in our spot. Without him, I think I would have simply nosed into the spot. No joke. And with that, after six days on the road, we finally reached Seattle.

Entire photo gallery from this trip here.