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<\/a><\/p>\nOnce Jaime learned that I was originally from Alaska, she told me that she had always wanted to do a road trip on a bike up there. It was the topic of many talks we had at the track and the reason I think that we got to know each other.<\/p>\n
She toured around the Pacific North West a few years ago on her 2012 Tiger, with the original intent to go to Alaska but and had to come back to New Mexico I\u2019m still not clear as to what happened. I know that she has diabetes, with that she has a number related the health issues that go along with it, like RA, she also had to have disc in her neck fused last year, she\u2019s has neuropathy issues, she has an insulin pump that she rides with, there have been a few times that I\u2019ve had to ask her to check her blood sugar while we are at the track, as she wasn\u2019t acting like herself. She has been through all kinds of treatments; I don\u2019t think I would even dream of doing some of the things she does just so she can keep riding, like injections into her eyes\u2026 ick! Never. Not to mention she on some really strict anti-inflammatory diet. I predict that I\u2019ll be dropping some major weight on this trip… Yippee! (I\u2019ve already been working on that) Not to mention she\u2019s older than I am. Yet she still is riding with those health issues, and the challenges that come with a spouse and two kids. I\u2019d say that she\u2019s an amazing woman. One that I\u2019m happy to call my friend, as another friend of mine has said many times\u2026 I\u2019ve gotten to do so many really awesome things, meet so many people, and have great adventures, why? \u2026. \u201cBecause Motorcycles\u201d<\/p>\n
In 2014 I flew home (to Anchorage) to do a fly and ride with my BFF (Lori) from high school. We spent 4 days riding the Denali Hwy and camping. After I came back from that trip and talked about the fun we had. Jaime was more determined that she had to do the trip up there and it had to happen in the next few years, as her health wasn\u2019t getting better and she is worried that she might not be able to do the trip if she waits much longer. Now, anyone who knows me knows that I\u2019m pretty much up for anything to do with two wheels. So she asked me if I might consider doing part of the trip with her.<\/p>\n
After my short ride around Alaska I was game for doing a ride up there. Now not long after I got back from my trip I had a pretty nasty crash on the track where I cracked some ribs, a broke a couple bones in my right ankle, and just about ripped my right thumb off my hand, along with some great bruises the cherry on top was a nice concussion. I had to have surgery on the hand to reattach the ligaments to make my thumb work again, and then just about when the hand was healed I got the pleasure of spending a week in the hospital with a ruptured disk in my neck. Talk about agony! It took a week just to get the pain under enough control so I could lay flat for the MRI. I had to have surgery on my neck to fuse two vertebras in order to fix the ruptured disc in my neck. Thanks to nerve damage from that, I still can\u2019t really feel three fingers on my left hand.<\/p>\n After that crash and a 9 month recovery from all of that I was left wondering how much time I\u2019ve got left to really do all the fun things I really want to do in life. It got me thinking about doing all the really epic trips I have thought about doing. Like a trip riding to Alaska. So now I\u2019ve committed myself to this trip. There was no half way about it. I knew that there was no way I could do it with the street bike I had that time. Since, it wasn\u2019t comfortable after the disk fusion (and at times it was downright painful) for me to ride more than a hundred miles, so I went out and bought a bike just for this trip. Not really, just for this trip, but it was a great excuse to buy the bike I had been lusting after for a couple of years now. Not to mention perfect timing, since Triumph came out with an improved version that took care of a number things I was going to have to modify if I had bought it a year earlier.<\/p>\n Even though the trip was months away, I figured winter was a great time to start working things out. I\u2019m planner of sorts; I don\u2019t like to work out the minor details, just the big picture.<\/p>\n However, I figure for this trip it\u2019s a long time to be on the road, it\u2019s a great number of miles to cover, especially alone or with two women who are okay at working on their bikes. Originally I thought I would be doing most of the trip on my own. Jaime and I had started out planning this together, but she and I both had different things we want the trip to be about. It looked like we will meet up in a couple spots rides some miles together and then go our separate ways.<\/p>\n Well, with life being what it is, \u00e0a messy clusterf*ck, which never goes as you think it is. Jaime ended up with a few family problems now get in the way of her plans. Her mother who\u2019s been suffering from Alzheimer\u2019s had a stroke around the end of March. So she moved her home to let spend her last days with family. Her last days ended up being just over a month. Taking care of a dying family member who is at home is a lot of stress. I ended up having to take her bike, and ride it so that she could get enough miles on it to get the first service done. (It\u2019s rough having to ride someone else\u2019s brand new bike.) She\u2019s been so preoccupied with family that she\u2019s not had any time to prepare for the trip. Luckily she didn\u2019t need to go out and buy all kinds of new stuff like I did.<\/p>\n Jaime\u2019s Tiger, on its break in run up to Antonito, CO. Yes, that\u2019s snow in the background; it was rather chilly in the passes over 9,000 feet. In spite of the cold and the less than clean roads it was a great ride. I of course think my bike is prettier than hers. But don\u2019t let her know I said that.<\/p>\n With everything going on Jaime has pretty much now decided that she is just tag along with me. I\u2019m okay with that; bedsides, it\u2019s making my mom feel better. J That way I\u2019m not all by my poor lil\u2019 self, I mean after all, I\u2019m just a helpless little girl… Sigh. Oh Mom. I was actually looking forward to some alone time to do some thinking about my life. pft. On the other hand, maybe, I should do too much of that\u2026 LOL. Things really are just fine the way they are. I couldn\u2019t ask for things to be better, unless of course someone wants to leave me a few million. I\u2019ll take it, then I could do some more racing at different tracks. Or say I find some really hot rich boyfriend along the way, who wants to go with me to the tracks\u2026 pft\u2026<\/p>\n I\u2019m going to see about getting Jaime to join ADV so she can post pictures up as we go along, she\u2019s a photographer, I\u2019m definitely not one, I do like to snap pictures with my phone, but I don\u2019t even own a camera anymore. I\u2019m not count my old 35mm film Minolta camera that I bought after college, which is collecting dusk in a closet. Now I\u2019ve met the two main players, there is Lori. She is supposed to join Jaime and I in Fairbanks. Lori is going to ride from Fairbanks to Deadhorse and back with us and then over to D2D with us. She\u2019s one of my best friends from high school in Alaska. She is also likely the reason I became interested in motorcycles. She started to ride when we were in high school; she stopped and started riding a few times over the years. She started back again the last time when I dragged her kicking and screaming out to ride dirt bikes\u2026. You can see that she hated every second of it. So much so that went out a bought a small bike that similar to that TTR in the truck bed. (XT250). She rode that when we camped along the Denali highway in June 2014. Our hunt for firewood, cuz after living in NM for 20 years I\u2019m no longer able to take the cold and I was freezing. We still had two more nights of camping left, so finding more wood for a fire at night was critical, as you can see we found a stash to haul back to the campsite. She played firewood Tetris for about an hour before I got to snap this picture\u2026 We had wood stuffed in everything that we could. Preparation:<\/b><\/p>\n Route Planning: So I used Furkot to plan out a route. Than imported it to Google Maps to get this:https:\/\/www.google.com\/maps\/d\/edit?…0&authuser=0&mid=1ehoHH1eiTFBC2P25Qthc7l3IQkM<\/a><\/p>\n Total Distance for this route is 11,170 miles with 230 hours of riding. Daily Ave: 287 miles riding 6 hours a day.<\/p>\n The only thing I can say for certain is that it\u2019s a sure bet that we won\u2019t stick to the daily mileage maybe not even the route, but it at least was a place to start. I\u2019m kind of figuring on the earlier days being much longer and higher mileage days, especially while we are in the US. Then we\u2019ll likely slow it down and do more of a stop and smell the roses kind of ride. She and I both have reasons though to be in Anchorage before June 3rd. You can see that this schedule doesn\u2019t let us do that. I have another map that does, roughly the same but we cut out Prince Rupert and ride bit more each day. With the Delorme, it\u2019ll be easy enough for those who want to track us along the way. Jaime has my SPOT3 so her family is going to be tracking her too.<\/p>\n Bikes: \u00e0 We both picked up brand new 2016 Triumph Tiger XCAs. I got mine just before Thanksgiving. Jaime picked hers up toward the end of January, after she sold her 2012 Tiger. We\u2019ve done a number of similar things, to our bikes. The only mods I\u2019ve done to my bike for the trip are:<\/p>\n \u00b7 H&B upper crash bars Gear: \u00e0 I basically had to start from scratch for this trip, dang it\u2019s expensive to live like a hobo. I had some camping gear, but camping out of a truck is really different from camping off the bike. Also the gear that I had used when camping off my bike in the past wasn\u2019t ideal for long trips. Or for cold, windy or wet weather, so there was some upgrading to be done there too. I have an Excel spreadsheet with everything listed out, (See This)<\/a> if anyone is really curious. I\u2019m still not sure if I\u2019ve over or under packed at this point. I\u2019ve been working on how to pack the bike for what seems like months\u2026because it has been months. I like to plan, but I\u2019m also really quick to deviate from my plans. Kind of like figuring out how to pack all the camping gear. I started with that in February, but haven\u2019t finished with the final packing list yet. I\u2019m more a big picture kind of planner\u2026 not a small detail planner.<\/p>\n It starts out like this\u2026 Then gets sorted out to be more like this\u2026.<\/p>\n From top left to bottom right: Mess kit, sleeping bag, maps, towels, Jet boil pot, jet boil, pillow, sleeping pad, jet boil fuel (2), chair, Misc Bag(slime air pump, powerlet to usb, pen light, bug dope, tent repair kit, and para cord) bike lock, and hatchet. (Note: I\u2019ve ditched all but two of those maps now. Decided I didn\u2019t need all of them.) Total weight including the pannier = 34.6 pounds. It\u2019s a bit heavier than I wanted. I\u2019m still figuring out how to shuffle some of it around. The rest of it is almost as heavy, so I\u2019m looking at more than 50lbs of gear from what I\u2019ve weighed out so far. I haven\u2019t weighed the work laptop or tools yet. The tools are the heaviest part, of course.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n That\u2019s just one of three, saddle bags\u2026<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/a>
\n<\/a><\/p>\n I\u2019ll have ya know that wood stayed in place for the 30 mile ride back to the campsite.<\/p>\n<\/a>
\n\u00b7 DSBP Raid Toolbox
\n\u00b7 Laminar Lip windscreen
\n\u00b7 20 mm Fender riser
\n\u00b7 Stash Box Lockable License Plate Storage Box By Twisted Throttle
\n\u00b7 Headlight protector
\n\u00b7 Wiring for electric Vest
\n\u00b7 Fuze Block
\no Hard wired in TomTom Rider 5
\no Hard wired in Delorme Explorer
\n\u00b7 3.5 litre Jerry Flex fuel bladder (attached to side of top box-side toward me so it\u2019s between the top box and the tail bag)
\n\u00b7 Wolfman tail bag
\n\u00b7 We both have Sena 20S comm systems
\n\u00b7 Both bikes have the rear wheels converted over to Tubless by Woody\u2019s Wheels Works.<\/p>\n
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