Alaskin Titty Bar Tour 2008- Prudhoe Bay Edition

[Italiaphile]

The cute little doggie at Swift River took a natural shine to me...

[IB Mike]

Day 6 starts with a little bug-scrubbing (or is he giving Happy Girl a tickle?)



Then we headed off towards Whitehorse so the Hardly Ableson rider in the group could hit the local dealership to drop $60 on a t-shirt



We find the dealership, and cracked up when we notice there is only another BMW and a KLR in the parking lot.



The fella checking out the bike was driving the maroon pickup in the background. He had a Marine front plate, and a U.S. Border Patrol hat on his dash, I asked him if he served in the Border Patrol after the Marines. He said, no, I'm from Phoenix, and that is my Home Depot hat. After seeing my puzzled look, he explained that in Phoenix you can't pull into a hardware store, or stop on a street corner without being approached by "day laborers" of questionalbe citizenship. He said for some reason, after he put the hat there, they no longer approach his vehicle!



And then we're off again



The mountains up that way are amazing... never got tired of looking at them!

[IB Mike]

Tim, who was tired of the lack of action so far on the trip, tried to wine & dine a little wild gal









I was laughing too hard to get a shot when one of his Gerbing gloves fell off the seat onto the ground, and the coyote headed towards it... I could just picture Tim chasing it across the field trying to get his glove back.

Another funny story... those small cheese wheels Tim was feeding it came out of a bag he had stashed inside his spare wheel. A couple hours earlier, Mikey was riding behind him and saw something jump out of the wheel, followed it as it bounced off the ground and come up and bean him straght in the helmet sheild!

[IB Mike]

And FINALLY, we arrive in the "real" Alaska!





Another clear cut border shot...



We stopped at the first gas station inside the border, which was under construction... and I picked up an f-ing nail in my rear tire
Luckily I was paying attention and noticed something wasn't right... pressure was at 12 pounds when I stopped to check it.
Time to break out the tire plugger & compressor



Mikey giving a tire plugging lesson



Then we were off to Tok, where we planned on stopping for the night. Our plan was to change tires in Fairbanks; I knew that would be pushing it with the plugged tire, but figured I'd just take it easy and pay attention to my handling.

Day 6 ends in Tok @ 2200... still light!

[IB Mike]

The hotel also had a souvenier shop and sold gold nugget jewlery. There was a cool picture on the wall of a giant gold nugget. The nice lady who owned the store proceeded to tell us the story of the nugget. Her husband, a gold miner, found it in 1983, weighing an AMAZING 5.1 POUNDS!
They were offered $250,000 for it in '84, but chose not to sell it. I think she said it was the 8th largest nuggest ever found in the state then, and is #11 (or was it 14?) now.
And then... much to all our surprise, she asks if we'd like to hold it!



It was very surpisingly heavy... pretty damn cool!
I just hope she is a pretty good judge of people! I'd hate for her to crack the safe for the wrong folks.

As much as we hated to leave that nugget behind, we headed north again...

The mountains in the distance made it pretty hard to forget we were in Alaska, but our first "Holy shit, we are IN Alaska!!!" moment came when we came upon the Robertson River. Out of the blue, we come to this river still covered in snow/ice. It was pretty cool!

[IB Mike]

I think I made it 150 miles on that tire plug before I noticed something wasn't right again. Sure enough, the plug tore and was losing air again. We were 150 miles from our next stop for the night, so while I knew it'd be another stretch to plug it and get all the way there, especially since there wasn't much tread left on the tire, the option of trying to install the new tire in the hot sun at a rest stop sounded much worse, so we plugged it again and pressed on.





All right, time to let the other fellas catch up with their side of the story... hope y'all are enjoying the pics!

[GB]

it keeps getting better

[Hooksta]

Originally Posted by WTF-OVER

What kind of bag is this on your back seat?

[bpeckm]

Originally Posted by IB Mike

Tim, who was tired of the lack of action so far on the trip, tried to wine & dine a little wild gal









I was laughing too hard to get a shot when one of his Gerbing gloves fell off the seat onto the ground, and the coyote headed towards it... I could just picture Tim chasing it across the field trying to get his glove back.

Another funny story... those small cheese wheels Tim was feeding it came out of a bag he had stashed inside his spare wheel. A couple hours earlier, Mikey was riding behind him and saw something jump out of the wheel, followed it as it bounced off the ground and come up and bean him straght in the helmet sheild!

OMG>>>the tears are rolling... too much...the writing almost makes up for the anticipation of the tt's........

[southforkspeedster]

How do those bikes handle with the tourance on the back and the TKC on the front

[tedder]

you know that when you use StopNGo style plugs that you are supposed to cut them off flush, right? I mean, it looks like the reason you had to repatch was because you didn't cut off the "tail" of the plug when you were done.

[IB Mike]

Originally Posted by southforkspeedster

How do those bikes handle with the tourance on the back and the TKC on the front

I thought it would make a difference, having never ridden on knobbys before... WTF did his first, and said you couldn't really even tell there was a different tire on the front. So I did mine also, before I made my trip to Death Valley for the n00b ralley.

I will say that I could REALLY tell the difference when I put the rear on! The biggest difference is in cornering... on "regular" tires, you feel some resistance as you get further over on the tire... but on the knobbys, it will just keep on leaning... it was pretty cool, once I gained confidence in them.

Starting with the TKC on the front worked because they get 10K+ miles on them, so they would make the entire 6,500 mile trip and more. Knowing the rear would get less than 1/2 that distance, we swapped them out in Fairbanks to be able to get the rest of the way home. At just under 4,000 miles on all three of the BMWs, they were pretty much toast when we got home!

[IB Mike]

Originally Posted by Hooksta

What kind of bag is this on your back seat?

I don't know what brand of bag he had, but it is actually some sort of leather roll bag he uses on his Hardly, with the rain cover on it. Seemed to work pretty good for him.

Speaking of back seat bags, I use the T-Bags Backseater bag. I got it when I had my wing and love it... and as luck would have it, it fits pretty good on the back seat of the GS. It stays pretty dry (but I still use waterproof bags inside), has outside pockets for easy asscess to "stuff," and is pretty easy to get on & off. Not a cheap option, but if you find a good deal on one, they are pretty handy.

[IB Mike]

Originally Posted by tedder

you know that when you use StopNGo style plugs that you are supposed to cut them off flush, right? I mean, it looks like the reason you had to repatch was because you didn't cut off the "tail" of the plug when you were done.

Yes, on the first one he didn't cut it all the way flush, so we figured that is why it tore... but we made sure and did it the second time... and to get ahead of the story, this one craps out after 120 miles... 3 miles before the hotel we were headed for, so we just "coasted" in.

[Italiaphile]

This coyote seemed to really enjoy cheese balls and junk food.







I think Mikey was happy to see the last of Big Dogs cheese balls gone. Earlier one had come loose while going down the road and hit him squarely in the gourd.