While i'm getting my life back together, please look at a fine selection of my photos:

Sunday, June 29, 2008

Inuvik

!! Photo's!! finally i got the opportunity to upload all my photo's on my smugmug account:
http://sanderd.smugmug.com/Alaska2Ushuaia. There are a lot of them...
Inspired by new friends in Dawson i decided to go to Inuvik. Afterall, i'm in the neighberhoud anyway... After Prudhoe bay another challange for man & material.

I was lucky again. The weathergods must love me, blue skies and occasionally a cloud. From Dawson it is a 2 days ride up and two down. Altogether appr. 1500km drive in 4 days without proper tarmac. Halfway is a is a gasstation and Campground. Again, challenging ride, lots of roadworks and thus new, loose gravel. I'v learned that the trick is to stay at about 70km/h and pick your own trail. Oh, and ignore everything the first 30 meter in front of you, not much you can do about it anyway ;-) Getting from 0 to speed and from speed to 0 are the scary bits, so not much pictures ;-) Tiring but fun and a great feeling of accomplishment.














I met a few retired guys driving 1200gs-es up that road. They're FAST! Talked to them and they've been racing all their lives. Awesome guys. Had dinner with them and i was complaining on senior citizens in huge RV's. Turned out one of the guys had actually a 1.5 million$ RV. Oops. Sorry Bud! He retired and sold his own transport company. You see that a lot around here.

On my way up (and down) i meet two couples riding both 2-up on a 1200gs. Respect to those guys. They were on the road for 5 weeks now. Without over-loading their bikes. Speaking of "Light is right". Way Cool.

The roadconditions were worse than prudhoe. Although the road was dry. There were lots of roadworks going on. These stretches have loose and very loose gravel.
The worst part was a 70km stretch between ferries: fresh, very loose gravel. After a days ride quite challanging. Tiring and sometime scary. At some point you get the hang of it though. The trick is to stay abouve 70km/h and pick your own point to look -and thus- drive to. Oh And don't mind the stuff 30 meter in front of your front wheel. To late to do anything with that anyway, so ignore ;-)

The scenery is, as with Prudhoe, breathtaking, except for the last 200km or so. Boring woods with small trees.

There was something of a learning curve there. The way up in 3th and 4th gear, the way down in 4th and 5th. Nice!! :-)