The Mobius Trip

[dano_89]

ahhhhhhhhhhh just got caught up too your last post.......now I gotta wait

Great RR...

[DR. Rock]

Originally Posted by COUSIN DIRTY

Hello Doc and LDF, I am considering the purchase of a DRZ and i was just curious about the seat you all have on your bikes....Also i was wondering once you retire your bikes what might be your next bike? ...

For the seat issue, strap on the way-back machine and check out post #13 . We've now put over 14,000 miles on the sweet cheeks. They're starting to fray a bit, but like a good pair of blue jeans, they've got plenty of life left.

Regarding the bikes, I think I'd probably go with the WR250R. FI & six gears being the most appealing attributes, but we might have to pack just a wee bit lighter. The suspension is more than adequate, and they've proven to be pretty bullet-proof. When we were shopping bikes, we were looking for used options, and the WR250R was just being released. I wasn't comfortable committing to two of them new at the time with too many unknowns regarding the bike, and how our trips would go. But if the DRZ's ever die, the WR250R will probably get the nod.

[DR. Rock]

we passed some of the scarce farmable, ranchable land this far north.



Yak, yak, yak...



rolling down into the Copper river valley,



the water color was greenish, I presume from the copper?



The road winds past a series of lakes, named 3-mile, 2-mile, 1-mile...



Would have probably been easier if they had just used mile-marker signs and skipped putting in the lakes, but they were pretty.

We hit the Chitina city limits,



and rolled into town. This is a good example of why the intercoms have become indispensable:

[DR. Rock]

to the world's smallest room, at the quaint Chitina Hotel,



in all it's restored glory,



and we had a nice fancy-pants dinner in the restaurant,





while the local ruffians swilled micro-brews at the bar,



and the retirees calculated tips to the 4th digit.

[Questor]

MAG and I are still here Doctor, hanging on your every post.

Thanks for the entertainment.

Q~

[DR. Rock]

I went for a little walk,







Beam me down to the lighthouse mission...







The 9:30pm light wasn't the greatest, but it was nice to just walk around by myself and play photographer, rather than photodocumenter.



It's a meditative way to look at the world, my head gets in a different zone. It's a relaxing way to unwind at the end of the day.





The other two-wheeled vehicle in town:



I checked back in to the hotel,



and closed down the bar with a spot of bourbon.

[DR. Rock]

Originally Posted by Questor

MAG and I are still here Doctor, hanging on your every post.

Thanks for the entertainment.

Q~

Thanks, guys... can't wait to catch up on what's been going on with your adventures!

BTW, Kennecott mines turned out to be particularly photogenic, and I've got almost 600 frames to process. . I don't know how many will be keepers, but it'll be a few days 'till I'm back to writing.

[DR. Rock]

I noticed an alarming bug bite on my leg, and took a picture of it, just in case I had to refer back to what it looked like before my whole leg shriveled up, turned gangrenous, and had to be amputated.



This kind of bullseye target pattern is typical for a Lyme disease tick bite, but I highly doubted there were ticks in Alaska (there aren't and Lyme disease has never been reported from AK for the record). Of course, LDF was highly concerned, and certain that was what it was. Or a bedbug bite.

It never itched, got a little bigger, then ended up fading away in a week or so, probably a spider bite or something. I'm sticking with my original theory that it was a king cobra. That just sounds cool.

(BTW, in all seriousness, if you get a funny looking bite or rash at any time, take a photo as soon as you can, ideally with a ruler or some other size reference in the frame. Two days later, it can be more difficult than you think to remember how it looked and how big it was. It'll be very helpful in making the diagnosis if it turns out to be something serious.)

[DR. Rock]

Click on images below for big versions:

[DR. Rock]

teaser:

[dave6253]

Originally Posted by DR. Rock

(BTW, in all seriousness, if you get a funny looking bite or rash at any time, take a photo as soon as you can, ideally with a ruler or some other size reference in the frame. Two days later, it can be more difficult than you think to remember how it looked and how big it was. It'll be very helpful in making the diagnosis if it turns out to be something serious.)

Doc, Can we just post our bug bite photos here for a diagnosis?

[leftystrat62]

Originally Posted by DR. Rock

levels out, and now we've got to find a road. We're still about 80 miles from Alturas, and I was a little stressed.

If we couldn't make this go through, it was going to be another major reroute, and time set-back, not to mention we were going to have to retrace some of the most technical riding we'd ever done on a Mobius trip.

The coolest part in retrospect was that we were both in a "we can do this" adventure-mode. The one thing I really wasn't worrying about was LDF's ability to ride this terrain, and it struck me soon after we emerged from this quagmire that at the top of that hill she had somehow graduated as an adventure rider.

There was a day, when she couldn't ride the terrain, was afraid of breaking down, of getting lost, being too remote, of having to retrace, not willing to forge ahead, and now here we were, on nasty terrain, risking breakdowns, almost lost, remote as all get-out, and we were slogging through it shoulder to shoulder, not me pushing... we were still in her comfort zone (and barely in mine).

At this point in our travels, we've been tested. We've gotten lost, we've crashed, we've broken down, we've been remote, we've ridden over our heads, we've had to retrace, and reroute, and... and at the end of the day we get through it. Somehow it works out.

Here as well, once we got back to where the line on the GPS was, we struggled for several minutes, and rode around in circles into the woods at the edge of an open area to match that line with something on the ground that looked like a trail.

But we did.

Here's the area and our path on Topo2008:



Here's the same area on GoogleEarth with the "roads" marked:



and unmarked... if you squint, you can see the trail.



Less than 3 miles in about an hour... now THAT's adventure riding!

Since reading your thread,I've been very interested in how you've mapped out your route. Do these 3 pics basically explain how you find your trails? I can faintly make out the trail viewed through google earth,but wonder if that's as much detail that you see ,and trust that that's enough to plot it into your gps? If this is the case it must have taken you tons of hours to plot out each leg of your journey.

[SlowRide13]

Originally Posted by dave6253

Doc, Can we just post our bug bite photos here for a diagnosis?

Excellent idea!!! And I have this wierd growth... stand by for pix.

[DR. Rock]

Originally Posted by leftystrat62

...Do these 3 pics basically explain how you find your trails? I can faintly make out the trail viewed through google earth,but wonder if that's as much detail that you see ,and trust that that's enough to plot it into your gps?

For the sections that I routed, yep. For reference material, I use other people's ride reports, local intel (posting questions on the regional forums), maps, atlases, various digital gps maps, and most importantly GoogleEarth. The more you do it, and then correlate what you saw in 2-D with reality, the better you become at anticipating which will be the "good" roads and trails for a DS bike.

For the TAT, I just routed the line that Sam had traced on the maps he sends you. That and a little help from others who have ridden it. Lot's 'o discussion on whether to and how to transfer the info into a gps.

Once we got to the Cassiar Highway in BC, there were so few roads that routing becomes a non-issue... you can draw a detailed map of every road you need to know from mid-BC on up to the Arctic circle on the back of a napkin.

Originally Posted by leftystrat62

If this is the case it must have taken you tons of hours to plot out each leg of your journey.

That would be a resounding "yes" for the lower-48 non-TAT sections. Hours and hours. But it's NOT a chore. It's done off-season, in bits and pieces. Over time, I imprint my brain with the general lay of the land through which we'll be traveling. Then, when we meet an obstacle on the trail, I'm able to intuitively assess the various go-around options. Additionally, while I'm formulating the route, i begin to get curious about the history of the area, as well as the flora and geology of the terrain, and generally start to get psyched to get back out on the next Mobius leg.

[DR. Rock]

Originally Posted by dave6253

Doc, Can we just post our bug bite photos here for a diagnosis?

Trust me on this one... you do NOT want me to be your doctor.