Did I Say "Overblown"?

I take it back. The reports of how difficult the Haul Road (the Dalton) is are accurate--the ride back to Fairbanks from Deadhorse (Prudhoe Bay) beat me up pretty bad. It was tricky on the way up for sure, but nothing like the ride back.

The ride started out great, it was sunny, and I felt much more confident at first with my newly acquired riding skills gained on the way up. Then it started to rain. And then I hit some soft, rocky gravel and dumped the bike. It was humiliating to say the least, as this happened in front of a guy driving a road grader. But he was cool and helped me right my 700 lb motorcycle, which would be very difficult for me to do by myself, in spite of my legs, huge and powerful. I also held up a couple trucks getting all this sorted out. I had learned earlier that the truckers on the haul road hate motorcyclists already, so my awareness of this made holding them up all the more uncomfortable.

Being humbled, I rode much more slowly and deliberately in the rain through this hellish stretch of soft gravel mixed with large rocks, which lasted about 5 long miles.


It continued to rain and then I hit a really long stretch of hard packed dirt that was slippery as snot in the rain. The rain and mud caked in the radiator and the bike started overheating. I tried cleaning it off by scraping the wet mud with sticks but it didn't really work, so the only alternative was to ride until the bike got hot, then park and wait for it to cool off, which would take 5-10 minutes. I went through this cycle about 5 times before I finally found some water to wash it off more thoroughly. That did the trick and I made it back to Fairbanks after 400+ miles of this, but not until 2 am.


One cool part of the ride was that around midnight I got to see a near full moon rise in the funky Alaskan twilight. Of course I didn't take any pictures because I was cold, wet, hungry, afraid the bike would fall apart and I'd get eaten by bears, and pretty pissed off in general. In fact a bear did cross my path about 50 ft away. Wish I had a picture.


So today I finally got the FJR to a car wash bay and thoroughly cleaned the radiator and the rest of the bike. I also power washed my boots and legs to get the mud out. It made me feel funny, sensations I didn't understand.

And now, I' hanging at a Mc Donald's since they have wifi.