Fork Seal

Well my left fork seal is leaking badly. We've seen a lot of dirt and grit and the roads have definitely been working my front suspension for all it's worth, so I shouldn't be surprised.

There's fork oil stains along the left side of my bike, on the forward-facing side of my left pannier, and probably all over the left leg of my riding pants.

I brought a special tool to clean my seals in case of this very thing. But after double checking, it's worse than I thought. The oil is gushing out. I don't plan to take the time for a seal replacement. I cleaned it as best I could. And now I hope it doesn't cause any more serious suspension problems on the way home.

Luckily we only rode 10 miles or so here in Juneau, and have 2 days onboard the marine highway's Matanuska before I have to really start worrying.

Got there. Now, take a break for a week.

Getting to the the cabin (in Anchorage) from Fairbanks seemed like the hardest day's ride yet. It was supposed to be an easy, beautiful, short ride. NOT SO.

This whole trip we've been worried about my chain. It seems to be gaining slack at an inch per day. So every couple days it starts flopping so badly I have to adjust it. It's simple enough to do, but it has me worried about how long my chain will last. And after the off-road Dalton Highway... I can FEEL how bad my chain is. We left Fairbanks for our final stretch to get to the girls, and I decided that I'm going to replace it in anchorage. And 20 miles out of town, that's when the chain breaks. But alas, not my chain, Dad's broke!

This is our first significant problem. And we were just outside cell phone range of Fairbanks. Before we left, when Dad told me he was bringing a spare chain... I thought "wow, overkill." That's a lot of weight for something we won't need. Chains don't break. But then his did. And at this point, having a spare around comforted me since my chain felt os bad. Well, it took some doing, and 1 hour 40 minutes of time, but he got the spare on. And, cautiously, we were on our way.

We quickly caught up to Denali National Park, where Mt. McKinley rests. This would be the beautiful part of our ride. Nope. That's when the rain started. The ice cold rain. We rode through 3 hours of cold rain. The longest rain and coldest we'd felt on our trip so far. McKinley was shrouded in clouds. And ok, it was still beautiful, but my numb fingers didn't allow me to enjoy it much.

The minutes seemed like hours. Finally, just a few turns away from the cabin, and we had to climb a gravel hill that rivaled the most difficult roads we'd been on over the last week. We missed our turn, came around again and found it... And finally, there she was.

I'm elated to be here. Back with Julie, at our cabin overlooking the bay. It looks like it's snowing outside with little pieces of cotton floating around our cabin. It will be a nice week.

"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.

Cracked Radiator

 

Well the radiator is definitely cracked. Its a small crack. But a big problem. A new radiator is $300. Shipping it to KC quickly is another $100. And I don't have time to replace a radiator before Thursday. Luckily, JB Weld is $7.

It's supposed to withstand 600 degrees (F) and 4000 psi of pressure. My step-dad, who knows of such things, said "hmmm," "it MIGHT work," and of course "be careful." I hope it holds.

 

Silly radiator. Coolant doesn't belong on the ground.

I'm leaving for a 1500+ mile road trip to West Virginia in a few days. Without much time next week to pack and prep the bike, I realized I'll need to get everything ready this weekend. So I rode to work today. Not to shakedown the bike or anything (which I thought was solid), but just because I'm getting excited for the trip.

And sure, my bike smelled a little like coolant before I left, but I just assumed it was my garage. Wrong. I got to work today and noticed a casual drip of neon green. It appears to be coming straight from the bottom of the radiator, but it's hard to get a good luck with all the plastics on. Guess my Friday night is now planned.