Redmond
Rally via Alaska
By Doug Hines
Last December while sitting around the
fireplace with snow and ice covering the ground and nothing to do except read
motorcycle magazines and dream about riding again, I decided I would allocate 2
weeks and make the National BMW rally in Redmond, Oregon this year. As planning progressed and mileage
calculations completed, I quickly saw that I could also see much of Alberta and
British Columbia before attending the rally and incorporated that into my
plans. Then one day I received an email
from Eddie Daniel encouraging me to expand my horizons with a link to a BMW
rally being held in Anchorage, Alaska.
So with Eddie’s encouragement, I decided to add another week to my trip
and go to Alaska as well.
As
I started planning my trip to Alaska I got many conflicting reports on the
Alaska Highway. I was told my most that the Alcan Highway would tear the lower
fairing’s off my bike it had so many potholes. Others said the highway was ok
until you got to the last 500-600 miles.
Keeping in mind the old motto, “It’s not the destination, it’s the ride,
I decided to give it a try and if the roads got that bad I would just turn
around and come back.
I
left Little Rock on July 3rd at 9:30am and headed West to
Albuquerque, NM, Durango, CO, up through Utah and spent the night in Twin
Falls, ID after 2 days of traveling and 1,755 miles. I know this is not the
shortest route but after traveling to Sturgis last year, I knew I had seen all
the cornfields of Nebraska I care to endure and much preferred the Rocky
mountains of Colorado, Utah, Idaho, and Montana. On day #3, I traveled North through the Sawtooth Mtns of Idaho
and along the Salmon River Gorge and made my way up to Whitefish, MT, which is
just South of the Canadian Border. Day #4 was a gorgeous ride through Glacier
National Park in Montana, then up through Banff and Jasper National Parks and
spent the night in Prince George, British Columbia for a 725-mile day that
included much sightseeing. These three
national parks should be added to every bike tourer’s list of must see places.
These Canadian Rockies are fantastic with great scenery, snow capped mountains,
glaciers, wildlife, etc.
I
left Prince George in heavy rain on Day #5 and headed for Dawson Creek, BC,
which is Milepost 0 of the Alaska Highway. The sun finally came out by the time
I reached Dawson Creek where I picked up the Alaska Highway. To put things in
perspective, Dawson Creek is close to 1000 miles from Montana (by the scenic
route) and you are now a little less than 2000 miles from Alaska. Thanks to AeroStitch, I was still dry after
riding 5 hours in heavy rain all morning.
The AeroStitch was feeling good now, because the daily high temps were
around 59-62 degrees with 30-degree mornings which lasted all the way to
Anchorage. Coming across Utah a couple
days earlier with temps in the 110-degree range was quite warm in the
AeroStitch. I spent the night in Ft.
Nelson, BC at a nice motel in which I had completed the last 30 minutes in the
worse thunderstorm I’ve ever rode in.
The Alaska Highway up to this point was great. Although it was 2 lane it
was almost interstate quality with very wide right-a-ways cut on each side of
the road to help see the moose, elk, etc better and hopefully not hit them with
your vehicle.
Day
#6 was from Ft. Nelson, BC to Whitehorse, Yukon for a 625-mile day. Road
conditions became worse but the scenery started picking up. Out of the 625
miles today, about 125 miles was loose gravel or worse. Although, technically
the entire Alaska highway has been paved at one time, due to so much road
construction you find yourself running anything from loose gravel, to muddy
gravel, to loose dirt through the construction areas depending upon what state
the construction crews are in doing the new seal coat on the highway. Most
construction areas are from 1 to 5 miles long with some 25 miles long. The
Alaska Highway is NOT asphalt but it has the appearance of coarse aggregate
asphalt. They put down a base of gravel and soil. Then they coat this with oil and
calcium chloride to make it set up hard, and then they put small loose gravel
on top and let the traffic pound the aggregate into the oil base. Then they
come back and sweep all the loose gravel off and paint the strips on the road
and now you have the Alaska Highway. After today, I was ready to trade my LT
for a GS. My bike looked liked it had been in a mud wrestling contest and lost.
I had to stop once during the day and wash the mud off the wheels to keep them
in balance and from vibrating.
Day
#7 was from Whitehorse to Anchorage, Alaska for a 760-mile day. Scenery is
fantastic with lots of wildlife, beautiful Mtn lakes, glaciers, and swift
running rivers and huge rapids. Some of these rivers made me wish I had my
kayak with me. Some of my info was
right, the further North you go the worse the roads are. I bottomed out the LT
several times and left some of the LT metal on the pavement when hitting the
frost heaves at 70+ mph. To my surprise
there are quite a few bikes on the Alaska Highway but are outnumbered greatly
by the big motorhome RV’s. Unlike, the lower 48 states where 7 out of every 10
bikes you meet are Harley’s, when you get North of Dawson Creek, 7 out of every 10 bikes are BMW’s and the rest are
Gold Wings. I only saw 2 Harley’s up here
the entire trip and one of those was on a tow truck. A gentleman from Ohio was
riding a Sportser from Ohio to Fairbanks when he developed a large oil leak. He
had to be towed 700 miles into the nearest Harley dealer in Whitehorse. I sure
hope he had good tow insurance.
Day
#8 was spent doing a 550-mile sightseeing trip from Anchorage out to Homer and
Seward. The brochures say this is the
most scenic drive in Alaska and I would have to agree because I can’t begin to
describe it with words, you just need to see it. I got back into Anchorage around 3pm and was hoping to get the
BMW dealer to change my oil. The
dealership had more bikes parked out front than I’ve ever seen at a BMW shop.
He was swamped with work and had many bikes waiting to receive parts so they
could get back to the good ole USA. However, he was nice enough to loan me some
cardboard and an oil drain pan and allowed me to change oil in his parking lot.
Also picked up some faceshield screws for my Shoei helmet. The Alaska Highway
vibrated both screws out and the faceshield had fallen off the day before and
as you might guess, these things always happen when it’s raining. I always
carry a spare ¾ helmet with me for emergencies but even on the LT a ¾ helmet
just doesn’t cut it in the rain. I left Anchorage late that afternoon heading
for Oregon in a thunderstorm and thankful for my restored full-face helmet and
then it came a hailstorm. I pulled in a service station for shelter and the
ground was solid white from the hail. I
spent the night in Glenallen, Alaska. Don’t ever get caught here. As most towns
up here, a town consist of a restaurant, gas station, and motel all in one
complex. This place was very pricey and the motel was a long trailer house
looking place with community bathrooms.
Day
#9 was from Glenallen, AK to Whitehorse, Yukon. Just thinking about the 2000
miles I had to go back to Dawson Creek running 100 to 200 miles a day of gravel
made me give a call to see if I could get a ride on the ferry boat. The boat
leaves Skagway, Alaska and goes down the Inside Passage to Washington which is
about a 4-day ride and $750. They were booked up but told me since I was on a
bike, if I would show up at 2:30am (that’s in the morning; however, it’s
daylight 24 hrs a day) two days from now, they would try to put my bike on if
there was any room but I would have to sleep on the ship’s deck. Well, since I
was going to have to waste an extra day to wait and see if I could get on the
boat and I knew I could be back in the lower 48 states from Whitehorse in three
days, I just sucked it up and took off for Oregon back over the same road. One thing about the Alaska Highway, you
don’t need maps or my GPS because you can’t get lost. Guys, there’s one way up
and one way back unless you want to go down through Prince Rupert which has a
stretch of 200 miles of gravel road all under construction.
Day
#10 was a leisurely day of only 431 miles. I stayed at the Liard River Hot
Springs campground in which I was to camp with some other Beemer riders from
Fairbanks I had met the day before. I arrived there at noon and set up camp and
proceeded to explore the area. Beautiful place with an old suspension bridge
over the Liard River, which is the only suspension bridge, left on the highway
that was built in the 1920’s. The campground has two hot springs that were very
relaxing and HOT. Temps ranged from 110 to 120 degrees. My fellow Beemer riders finally showed up at
7pm and was glad that I had secured a campsite since the campground was full by
then.
Days
#11,12, and 13 were spent leisurely traveling back to the state of Washington.
I almost turned the big walrus LT over once going through one construction
area. They had a motorgrader getting the base coat ready for the oil and had a
wind row of loose gravel about 9 inches high in which I had to cross over. I
had my flip helmet up so I could smoke a cigarette while traveling so slow
through all the construction so when I approached the wind row, I stood up on
the pegs and across I went not having a clue how the bike would handle. It
started sliding all over the place and the bump made my flip helmet fall down
and now I couldn’t see a thing. I did have enough presence of mind to keep the
throttle on while sliding around and finally got the beast under control. I think I recall reading somewhere in the
instructions, “do not ride with this helmet in the flipped up position”. I had to cross 3 more of these wind rows
before getting back to civilization but all three times, I stopped and waited
for the grader to smooth the wind row down before crossing. Day #12 and #13
were spent entirely riding in the rain but still beautiful country. As you can
guess, the Alcan highway vibrated out one of main screws that holds the flip
mechanism on my Shoei on the return trip, thus causing me to ride all 2 days in
the rain with the ¾ helmet again.
The
Canadians and the Yukon people are fantastic. They are all very friendly,
helpful, and intelligent. I was impressed, you could actually go into a
restaurant or convenience store and the people working there could actually add
2 plus 2 and would go out of their way to be helpful. Canada is a bargain. The prices for meals and lodging are about
the same dollar amount as in the states; however, your $1 is worth $1.50 in
Canada. Also if you make the trip up
here, save your motel and purchase receipts and Canada will refund all the GST
taxes collected while in Canada. I think I collected about $45 dollars at the
border.
Days
#14,15, and 16 were spent riding in Washington and Oregon and arriving at the
rally site in Redmond at the end of day #16.
I did every mountain pass there is to do in Washington. I crossed the
Cascades 4 times in which it was always raining on the West Side and arid on
the East Side. The northern Cascades of
Washington were as scenic country as anything I saw on the entire trip. Went
through the old western town of Winthrop during the forest fire that killed 4
firefighters. Or maybe I should say the environmental wacko’s killed. Can you
believe the fire fighters died because the environmentalist wouldn’t let them
pick up water out of the river because they MIGHT pick up a salmon out of the
river while getting the water? Give me a break, salmon aren’t even an
endangered species. The best I recall I can buy them any day of the week at
Kroger’s. But it’s not politically correct to hold environmentalist
responsible. I’ll quit venting. I saw Mt. Rainier, Mt. St. Helens, Columbia
River Gorge, Mt. Hood, and the 3 Sisters before arriving at the rally. The construction roads of Alaska were not
the scariest part of the trip. They wind surf on the Columbia River because of
the 40-50 mph winds blowing up the Gorge. Well when you cross over the River
the bridge has iron grates that allows your wheels to kind of wallow around
especially if the front tire is riding in a different groove than the rear.
Couple this with a 45-mph cross wind blowing at the same time and you have a
scary situation on a bike. By the way,
a big thanks to Cascade BMW in Seattle. I stopped there to pick up some screws
to restore my Shoei but they didn’t have any in stock; however, they were nice
enough to take two screws out of brand new helmet on display and hand them to
me with no charge and said “have a good trip, will see you at the rally.”
Day
#17 & 18 was spent at the rally site. This has to be one of the best rally
sites in the USA. Big buildings for the
vendors, paved roads (no dust), lush grass to camp on and pretty good food,
especially the 4-H booth. They had fully furnished bike wash racks and oil
change booths of which I helped my self to both. I thought the LT would never
look the same but cleaned up pretty good except for a few rock nicks. At the
rally I ran into Harlan Brown on his new RT, Rod Kilduff, and Ken Fisher from
the Naturally Beemers group. Harlan and I went to look for Charlie Bishop who
was there but couldn’t locate him. I went to several excellent seminars of
which I really enjoyed the one on New Zealand travel since I plan on going
there in the upcoming year. In addition, I enjoyed the seminar on the Ironbutt
Rally put on by the guy who won the last rally riding an LT and covered 13,500
miles in 11 days. On Saturday, Day #19 I decided I had set still long enough
and left the rally site around 10:am. I thought I would give the Arkansas riders
a better chance to win the new R1150RT. I headed for California to see Crater
Lake, the Redwoods, Lassen Volcanic National Park, and Yosemite National Park.
Spent one night in Chester, California after touring Lassen Park and got the
last motel room in town. All they had was a 2-bedroom suite with living room
and fireplace for a bargain of $188 plus tax. I was tired and didn’t want to
camp so I took it. It was very nice on the inside but really looked like a dump
on the outside with old wrecked cars, antique travel trailer, broken down
fences lying around the yard. I was told to drive down the gravel road to get
to it but when I saw all that loose gravel I started to turn around and go in
the back way. However, I said, “man, after what I’ve traveled over, this can’t
be any worse.” Well that loose gravel turned out to be loose washed rock about
8 inches deep and the big walrus just laid down in it. When 900+ lbs. starts over, all you can do
is get out of the way. Was my first time to drop the LT and it looked sad just
laying there on it’s side and my ego looked even worse. I belong to the K1200LT Internet group
riders and there is many post about guys dropping their bike. Many talk about
being vertically challenged with only 31-inch inseams. I have wrote back
saying, just get over it, I’m 5’6” with a 26 ½” inseam and I’ve got over 20,000
miles on LT’s and have never dropped it. Their response was to keep riding,
you’ll drop it – it’s not if – it’s just when. They were right. I’ve practice
picking the beast up out in my yard on the grass and have found for some
reason, I could easily pick it up if it fell on the left side but could not
pick it up if it fell on the right side. Guess which side it fell on – the
right. Bruising my ego even more, I walked to the motel bar and got two big
guys to come to my assistance and got the bike upright. Luckily, the gravel
being loose had some give to it and I didn’t have one scratch on the bike.
Day
#20 was spent touring Yosemite Park and what a day. This place is a must see.
I’ve never seen so much massive rock outcrops and mountains in my life with
several hundred feet waterfalls.
On
Day #21 I left the West Side of Yosemite and headed for the long scenic route
back to Arkansas through Nevada, Utah, Arizona, Colorado, and home. This route
was 2112 miles long. While at the Ironbutt Rally seminar the speaker inspired
me to see what it was like to do some Ironbutt riding. He stated that he could
average 60 mph day in and day out while stopping for gas, to eat, and sleep. I
wanted to see if I was capable of doing this for two days, so I reset my GPS
that keeps up with average mph including all stops and took off. I did 1110
miles in the first 20 hours, which gave me an average overall speed of 55.5 mph
but after sleeping for 4 hours at a roadside park that quickly fell to an
average of 50.4 mph. I averaged 60.5 the first 12 hours but started falling
after that. I found out quickly that there is no way I could average 60 mph
every day for 11 days and that these guys have something I don’t. I finished the trip the next day with a
1002-mile day to arrive in Little Rock. I was only stopped once on the trip for
speeding in Nevada by a good-looking lady sheriff. After she found out I had
been to Alaska and back without any other tickets she said she didn’t want to
be the one to ruin my trip and didn’t give me a ticket – just slow it down. I
said, “Yes, mam.”
In summary, if you make a trip to
Alaska, be sure you get the Milepost Book, which gives you all the info you
will need for travel in Canada and Alaska. The trustworthy BMW K1200LT made all 14,098 miles without one
problem. I only lost one of my PIAA 1100X lights due to rocks on the Alaska
Highway and vibrated one screw loose on my bike. My Shoei helmet didn’t fair as
well. It’s nice to have a bike that’s this dependable because often times you
are over a 1000 miles from the nearest BMW dealer. Also luckily, I had no flat tires. This caused me to worry more
than the bike breaking down. Along the Alaska Highway, sometimes I would run a
hundred miles with no place to pull over if you had a flat tire. I guess you
would have to find a RV to block one lane of traffic with flashers on while you
fixed the tire if you had a flat. I was gone for 22 days and traveled 20 days
for an average of 742 miles/day. My average mpg was around 46 mpg and usually
would run an indicated 80-mph (actually 74 mph) or less depending upon the
conditions. I would generally leave at 5am in the morning and pull into a motel
around 5 -7pm in the afternoon for a motel.
Besides the rally, I only camped out 1 night in the Yukon and yes they
have many biting insects. Finding gas
and motels along the Alaska Highway was no problem; however, you need to plan
where you want to spend the night because the towns are widely spaced. If you
camp, there is no problem because there is more campgrounds than motels. You can find gas every 100 miles although
sometimes it’s just a log cabin with an antique gas pump out front in the yard.
I spent approximately $2,000 of which about $1,200 was for motels so it is not
a costly trip if you decide to camp the entire trip. I’ve always wanted to do the Alaska Highway and thanks to the
polite prodding of Eddie Daniel, I can now say I’ve done it. However, if I ever
want to go to Alaska again, I think it will be in my airplane.
HILLBILLY
RALLY
By Harlan
Brown
Fred Counts went to the Hillbilly Rally
the weekend of Sept. 15-16, so I tagged along with him, and I mean tagged
along! I was like a shirttail flapping in the breeze trying to keep-up with
him. We left Friday morning after breakfast. We went up Hwy. 65 to Clinton then
west on Hwy. 16 to Hwy. 23. Hwy. 16 is where the fun started. If you want to ride the curves and don’t
necessarily need to smell the roses.
then Fred’s your man. I won’t say what our maximum speed was, but areas
of my tires contacted pavement that hadn’t contacted it before. Hwy. 23 we headed up to Eureaka Springs and over to
Bentonville and stopped at Jerry’s to kick some tires. After, we went on up
Hwy. 71 to Pineville, Mo. to the rally site.
We got there about 4:00 p.m. Frank and
Debbie Floyd and Otto Ising were already there. Then Gary and Denise
Longley and Eddie and Jackie Daniels and their two boys arrived. Together, we
had about 10 or 12 club members in attendance.
Friday night hot dogs were served and we all had a good time around the
fire. Saturday Fred and I made a little ride across Hwy. 90 and back down to
Bentonville and harassed Jerry and Doyle some more. After we got back, the club
served stew and then handed out door prizes and awards. Again, Saturday night
we had a good time around the fire; although it was a little warmer, Sunday
morning there wasn’t even any dew on my tent. We got up Sunday morning, got a
couple of cups of coffee in us and got loaded up by about 9:00. We came back
almost the same route we went up, except at a slightly slower pace. Fred and I
swapped rides for a while; I’m really warming up to those GS’s, if they only
came with a step ladder.------ That’s it for now.
Northwest
Arkansas News
By Gwen Rakes
Bentonville BMW August Ride
We were blessed with two inches of rain
on Saturday 11th of August, and Sunday morning was cool and cloudy
when fourteen bikes and twenty people gathered at Bentonville BMW for our
monthly ride at 7:30 am. We rode east
through Pea Ridge, along Gain Ridge Road to Gateway taking side roads to Indian
Creek and across Beaver Dam into Eureka Springs. The hills were shrouded in
mist, and with everything so green, after quite a lot of rain this summer in
the NW part of the state, and all the lilies it looked like Scotland. We took 21 north out of Berryville, stopping
for breakfast just outside Blue Eye. 86
east started our route home, then 39 north through Shell Knob to 76 then south
on M, then E to Roaring River State Park, 112 back to Washburn and 62
home. The clouds stayed most of the
morning so the temperature was quite pleasant.
The September ride will return to the 9:30 am departure time but I will
be unable to send a report as I will be in Ireland. See you when I get back.
A
Four Wheeled Tour of Ireland
By Gwen Rakes
May
the road rise to meet you,
May
the wind be at your back,
May
the sunshine warm your face,
The
rains fall soft upon your fields
And
until we meet again,
May
God hold you in the palm of his hand.
The
above is an Irish blessing. It seems to
sum up the general feeling one receives from the people of Ireland; everyone
expressed so much concern for us and all Americans while we were there after
the terrible tragedies here in the USA.
We flew into Shannon and rented a car for our two weeks vacation. We had booked a house for a week at Lahinch
near the Cliffs of Moher, high on a hill overlooking the town and beach. The house cost us $80 each for the week. We
found everything a lot less expensive than the rest of Europe. Food cost us $2.50 - $3.50 for lunch and
evening meals $6 - $7. Bed &
Breakfast (3 courses) $20 each a night.
Ireland
is 200 X 300 miles in size; we stayed in the southern half and traveled over
2,000 miles. We visited all the places
one hears about, Connemara, Dingle Peninsula, Ring of Kerry, The Burren,
Dublin, Galway, Waterford and toured the glass factory, Limerick, Tipperary,
Tralee, Killarney, we drove up into the Knockmealdown Mts., Macgillycuddy’s
Reeks and in the Wicklow Mts. We passed numerous bicycle riders enjoying the
wonderful scenery, maybe Charlie Bishop will ride there one day! I had never been to Ireland before but had
read many stories and seen a lot of pictures, but nothing can describe the
beauty of the country. The vibrant
emerald green of the fields, the flowers in every garden, the towns and
villages with baskets of flowers along every street, the white sandy beaches
tucked between cliffs along the coast, the multi pastel painted houses, each
village competing for the “prettiest Village” award. All the streets were clean with no trash to be seen anywhere. The
road surfaces in the southwest were rough and had a lot of pot holes, but one
did not want to hurry as there were such lovely vistas to see in every
direction.
Ireland
is just starting to recover from poverty, with a lot of high tech. Industry
really booming. The big cities have
bypasses around them, but all are very new and the roads in the east are
definitely better than the southwest.
We toured through numerous ruined Abbeys, Dolmens and Henge Monuments,
mostly off the tourist routes. I prefer the quieter places. We saw a few motorcyclists, but not nearly
as many as one sees in England. At one old mansion house we visited,
Russborough, we were surprised by a rally of old cars and a few motorcycles. I
talked to several of the riders, one on a BMW and several on Matchless, one
gentleman was rebuilding a Dunelt 500cc 2 stroke with Truncate pistons. We
exchanged cards. One of the riders had visited Arkansas a few years ago.
At
New Ross we saw the sailing ship called the Dunbrody that was used to sail
across the Atlantic to bring refugees to the US escaping from the famine of
1845-49. I would not feel safe on Beaver Lake in such a small ship let alone
crossing the Atlantic, especially loaded with so many people.
We only had one wet morning with some
fog; the other days were sunny and mild in the 60’s and 70’s. The road signs were written in Gaelic and
English and the distances in kilometers and miles, but after there were no
signs and we took several wrong turns but we never got lost as every road ended
up somewhere. That is part of the fun
in a small country and that way we also saw a lot of places that we had not
planned to see. The pubs are wonderful
and we often stopped in for a meal or a Guiness or a half-pint of Smithies, and
in the evening there were groups playing Irish music and ballads in every
pub. We were made to feel very welcome. We were able to catch our scheduled flight
back to the USA and arrived safely home.
From
the Editor’s Desk
by Rod Kilduff
Wanted
Newsletter Material: Always
I am still soliciting for newsletter
articles. With this issue I have used
up everything that I have. Send that
article you have always intended to write. Many thanks to those of you; who
have submitted material already. You are allowed to send in more.
Activities
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Beemers
The BMW M/C
Club of Arkansas
BMWMOA CLUB #181
Chartered 2/88
BMWRA CLUB #74
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Steering
Committee
Donnie
Rice....................President
Otto
Ising.................Vice President
Elmer
Sveda.........................Activities
Rod
Kilduff.....Secretary / Treasurer / Newsletter
Annual
Membership Dues:
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correspondence to:
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