A Day's Ride From a Bolt

A few days ago, I discovered that the vibration from riding 3000 miles apparently worked loose one of my foot peg bolts. I reached down with my foot to rest it on the peg and found it dangling, upside down, swinging on the 1 remaining bolt. I caught this in the middle of our ride from Dawson Creek to Muncho Lake. I made it work for the ride. The morning after camping at Muncho Lake, I inspected it further to realize I needed a new bolt.

To give you an idea of where we were, Muncho Lake has campsites, and a hotel/restaurant. The facility is powered by a diesel generator that burns some 10,000 gallons a month to provide the electricity. Food is shipped in twice a week from a city 600 miles away. They said that a sack of flower costs 60% more by the time it gets there (it really helped us appreciate the delicious, and expensive, meal we had in their restaurant).

Anyway, I realized that I was at least a full day's ride from anywhere that would sell me a single bolt. Luckily it wasn't too critical a bolt.

And thank you, Whitehorse (our next camp), for having a hardware store.

Muncho lake is also where my bike fell over. All the weight makes it hard to lean the bike over, because it sits low and the kickstand is so long. So I have to make sure I park on an angle. I parked next to the gas pump on a subtle angle that barely kept my bike from teetering over. Well I didn't think about it until after this incident, but I realized that my bike gains and loses 30 lbs every day... in fuel. So I filled up, walked inside to pay, and when I came back out, there was my bike, on the ground, right side luggage busted off.

My best theory is that the extra 18 lbs or so I put in the bike made it lower more, but the shock slowed it enough for me to walk inside before it got low enough to fall over. We bandaged the luggage latch (what broke), and went on our way. I realized how lucky we were for it to fall like it did. Our bikes were on opposite sides of the fuel pump. My dad was facing his bike, and without acute hearing he didn't reailze it had fallen until he turned around and saw it. Hide our bikes been next to each other, mine could have knocked him and his KLR to the ground, pinning him in between before he realized what was going on. I made it a point to not park too close anymore.

We were still a day's ride from any kind of hardware necessary for a good fix... but a pipe clamp and duct tape worked so well that I'm still using it.

 

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End of Day 4

Today was quite a day. It started out with me getting stuck in an outhouse. It has a wooden lock outside to keep the door shut, and a hook inside to lock it when in use. I guess I shut the door too hard, and when finished, I couldn't escape. This is a problem, because I typically hold my breath when using these things, and I was out of air. My dad was only a few yards away, facing the other direction, and can't hear. So my shouts were not of much use. I was first tempted to just force the door with a kick, busting the latch... But at our camp this was the only outhouse of 4 that could be used because of similar busted things. So I climbed up the walls and slid out of the air holes at the top (dark triangle in the photo). But not until after having to take a few breaths of putrid air.

Getting groceries for camp can be a challenge. Because I have no idea what all these Canadian big box brands are. I would be helpless without my limited supply of phone data that i have been rationing so I don't blow past my Canadian data plan cap (125 MB). Otherwise I would probably spend hours walking into every big looking store hoping they had hot dogs and cans of chili.

 

And we started the famed Alaskan Highway today!

 

Here's what the 11 PM sun looks like in Fort St. John, BC, Canada (over our campfire).

And it kind of looks like we are halfway there!

 

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"New" headlight

Well it's dark now. And my only remaining light stopped working. I got a bulb earlier to fix my first-to-break aux light, but I discovered the housing had abandoned ship somewhere in Kentucky. So 10 minutes, some duct tape, and...

Voila! New, manually operated weak-sauce headlight.

Made it

Literally, within 30 seconds of kick-off. And oh how good it feels to be in some A/C and just STAND HERE.

Out of gas at Elizabethtown

Just outside of Elizabethtown, Danny gave me the perfect motorcycle handbook signs for "pull over soon", "I need gas."

A mile away from the gas station... His bike stopped going. Empty. For me, this was exciting. As it gave me an opportunity to use the siphon I brought for just this situation. I gave him a pint or so, and we basically rolled down a hill and into the gas station. And what do you know. It's closed.

No worries, he made it down the street to an open one. And we got to see some firemen douse a car that was on fire.

 

BWW

Today our quest is to get to Buffalo Wild Wings in Paducah, KY by 3:30 to watch the Sporting KC game. Based on our previous days' averages, we MIGHT make it.

We shall see.

The Palace

Maybe bringing a mansion to sleep in contributed to my bike's elephantiasis.