The next day we headed to Bushkana which is just east of Cantwell. It would be our last night camping.
The Denali hwy is some of the prettiest sections of road in Alaska. We did have some fun along the way there….
We made it to the camp site without any real drama. Well, except that the cord to my electric vest came disconnected and fell off the bike. Lori saw it dangling and fall so she stopped to grab it. I would have FROZE with out that. She wanted to torture me, so she said she didn’t have if for a while… the lil’ snot, I knew that she did have it…. I saw her stop and grab it.
Since the night before had been so cold we burned most of the wood that Lori had packed on to her bike. So John being the great provider went in search of more wood for us.
It was another great night of campfire cooking, card playing and walking around the river. Lori needs to send me the river pictures…
We all slept in again and then after a leisurely breakfest we headed north to Fairbanks. It was a nice ride, even if it did start off with rain in Cantwell. It was kind of cold then too. I got lucky and it warmed up as we got closer to the park. We made a stop there for lunch, I was SHOCKED at how different and built up the area is. It’s actually kind of sad that they have so much around there.
We continued up to Nenana, were it was finally warm enough to shed all but one of the 6 layers I had on under my gear. We stopped to take a few more pictures along the last short section of the trip before we reached Lori’s house.
I just had to stop here to pick up tasteless gifts for the crew back home…. good thing most racers and bikers have a great sense of humor.
After this pit stop, we had to stop one more time to put gas into Lori’s bike. It almost made it to the house. This is of course where things get exciting…..
As we made the turn off the main roads to the dirt road to her house, I discovered that I didn’t have any front brake!!!! CRAP!!!! I used the rear brake as much as I could so that I could make the turn. Once I knew it was going to make it with out any issue I relaxed. It was a dirt road, I wasn’t going very fast and it was uphill, I was thinking to myself that it would be easy to get the bike stopped and figure out what was up. It was just at that time that the front wheel locked up. The bike skidded for about 10 feet and then we went down.
I get myself up from under the bike, start looking around to make sure I’m not going to get run over by anyone. Just then a red truck turns onto the road, the guy stops and gets out. He asks me if I’m okay. I tell him I’m fine. He askes what happened, I tell him the front brakes locked up. The dude then tells me… “well why didn’t you let go of the brake?” I told him I wasn’t using it when it locked up. The conversations went down hill from there….
Him: “Well, brakes don’t just lock up on their own, ya know.”
Me: I know that, but these did. Can you help me get the bike up?
Him: Sure.
We pick the bike up.
Me: You can let go of it now I’ve got it.
Him: I”m not letting go it’s going to fall over again.
Me: No, it’s fine the side stand is down it’ll rest on that.
Him: No… it’s not it’s going to fall.
Me: Please, just let go of the bike.
Him: Fine, it falls, I told you so.
Me: (As the bike is fine standing there on it’s own. I start looking at the front end…) Hum, well I know what happened now… and see it is possible for the front to lock up on it’s own.
Him: Damn! What did you do to it?!?
Me: Nothing. I don’t know how that happened.
Him: Well, before you move that bike you are going to have to have someone look at it.
About that time Lori is back. She a bit freaked out.. I know that I am and I’m not happy with the Dude…. he just gets worse when she shows up.
Him: You can’t move this bike. What are you going to do? Do you have any ideas about how to get it out of the road?
Lori: We need to get that caliper out of the wheel. Then we can roll it to the side of the road out of the way.
Him: You can’t do that!@
Me: Sure we can.
Him: You two need to have someone look at that bike! Don’t you move that bike! I’ve been riding for 30 years. I know what I’m talking about. You two need to get some help. Don’t you dare move that or try to ride that bike! — there was more but I had stopped listening to him.
Lori: Thank you for your help, we’ve got it from here…….
Lori got I don’t know what out of her bags, and knocked the caliper out of the wheel. I checked it over and aside from broken spokes and the rim being bent a bit. The tire was holding air and the rear brake worked and now that the left caliper had the brake pads mashed to gether the caliper on the right side seemed to be working. So to move the bike I pulled out the bungee cords and rigged it so the caliper was out of the way.
It was at this point I decided to try and ride the bike that last 1/4 mile to the house. I didn’t like the idea of leaving it in someone elses driveway or on the side of the road. I didn’t know how long it would end up being there if I did. The last bit of the ride was fine the bike made it to the house just fine. I was pretty pleased with my fix. Now it was time to get a hold of the rental company and find out what to do…
I have to say this aside they were great. They did all they could to make this right. They brought me a new bike that evening and took this one back. They apologized many times. It turns out the guy who had worked on the bike didn’t tighten the bolts. I’m VERY lucky this happended when it did and not on the highway earlier in the day. It’s pretty safe to say if it had, I’d likely be dead. I escaped with minor injuries, just some rash on my elbow that I got through my jacket, I had some really fantastic brusies on my right foot, hip and outer thigh, as well as the inside of my thigh where the bike landed on me. My wrist was sore again, but that isn’t a surprise since it really hasn’t had much time to heal.
The rest of the trip was really boring after this, so I’m not going to go into details on it. I headed back to Anchorage two days later, I needed an extra day to recover from tthe wreck and from poker that night… oooh, let’s just say that I’m not a fan of bourbon right now… The ride from Fairbanks to Anchorage down the Parks Hwy was pretty and uneventfull. I was really happy overall with the trip, but it was way too short.