Our Life Behind Bars – Father & Son Doing Time in the Northern Frontier (Mile 4439)

Day 20 (July 18, 2013)

Disaster strikes.

Quick stop at the Dempster Highway Sign.
We wish we had time to go.

Yukon Johann's account:
"We were one the flip side and returning home when something bad happened. I crashed the bike just 85 miles South of Dawson City, Yukon on the Klondike Hwy. We were going about 60 miles an hour, we were coming up on a corner, just before it my steering started wobbling slightly, it didn’t seem like much at first, it started to correct itself. I couldn’t have been more wrong though, I must have hit something in the road that made the wobble more violent. The rear wheel swung out to the right and got caught on the soft, gravel shoulder which had quite the steep drop to it. The bike got sucked into the gravel and now both of my wheels were in the dirt with one going all over the place. I didn’t want go down the steep slope (more like a cliff with trees) to my right so I turned the bike over to the left and slid the bike all the way across the road. I remember looking back toward where I came from when the bike spun around and seeing all of the things flying off the bike, the mirror snapping, the right turn signal light breaking off and pieces of my boot being shredded to pieces and being thrown all over the road. The bike spun around a little more, facing the ditch on the side of the road I was sliding into, I remember seeing the ditch. The next thing I saw was the bike flying right over my head, barely missing me. I stood up almost immediately and thought "WOW! i cant believe this just happened." Immediately after I got up someone pulled over to help us, he offered to get all of my gear and put it in his truck and take me to the nurses office. We went to the local nurses office in Dawson City, she told me I was one of the luckiest people to ever come out of a motorcycle crash at that speed and come out walking with only scratches, burns, and bruises. Despite how fast I was going, and what happened, the bike is in really good shape and looks like it can be repaired.

Abut an hour later.. disaster

The bike

Bent handle bar, made it unrideable

Thank to ATGATT (All The Gear All The Time),
Johann escaped with minor injuries.

Both of his boots were shredded, but no damage to his toes

His jacket took some damage.

The padding saved his back

His shirt and pants got ripped and shredded. But, Johann was OK.

That same night, we unpacked everything and looked all of the things my dad would need and set that all aside, and the things he didn't need we packed into my panniers. The following morning we took all the panniers over the airport and got them checked into the flight. we said our good-bye's and departed. I could tell my dad was very sad about what happened, so was I, but I was just really glad that I came out okay and I'm able to tell about what happened.

 

A father's view:

The evening we came back from the Arctic circle and we were back in Fairbanks, Johann mentioned that he experienced some wobble. We discussed this a bit as he said it occurred over an area with severe frost heaves. Unfortunately, I dismissed this discussion to something minor due to the road conditions. In hindsight, should I have been more diligent? I don't know.

I did a bit of research on speed wobble and discussed this with my experienced mechanic here in Seattle. There are many factors that contribute to it. Higher suspension bikes are more susceptible. Load the bikes up for a long trip and throw in a few frost heaves.. who knows... I am in the process of seeing if I can get a steering damper installed. Johann seems to have no fear on getting back on the bike, but I am afraid now.

 

Read the next chapter of the journey... The Long Lonely Ride Home

Our Life Behind Bars – Father & Son Doing Time in the Northern Frontier (Mile 4244 to Mile 4439)

Day 19 (July 17, 2013)

Yukon Johann writes:

The Top of the World Highway was a very wet and slippery ride. My dad was debating on whether we should even go on that highway, or head over to Whitehorse. This all depended on what the weather was going to be like. Well, it was raining lightly and we decided to go on the Top of the World Hwy. The road was ridiculous… during the worst weather, it was all dirt road, and it was like driving on slippery ice the entire way to the Canadian border from Chicken. We hit a very foggy area, so foggy that we could hardly see at all. We were only going about 20 miles an hour through this stretch. Luckily, it only lasted about 10 miles, and then we dropped in elevation again. We made into chicken after about 2 hours of riding on some of the most slippery roads ever. We took a look around the local gift shop, looking for stickers. The lady running the register there was kind enough to give us two free Dust 2 Dawson hats. We headed on down to the main building and campground and grabbed some food to settle us down for the rest of the day until dinner.

Video summary of one tough ride

Arriving at Chicken

Wet, wet, wet.. This was actually some of the best
weather we had on the road that day.

Which way do we go?

Dad, let's go in for a drink :-)

Somebody forgot their hat(s)

Taking care of business

Chicken style

OK, after lunch it was time to head out

We left chicken and made our last stretch to the border as comfortable as possible. The road beyond Chicken was worse. Just about the whole ride to the border, we were fishtailing and using the entire road, looking for the best track. Several miles from the Yukon-Alaska border we came across the road construction. It was even worse. They had scrapped the roadbed down to the muddy surface. The whole road was torn out, and was just pure dirt (more like snot), nothing compact just lumps of slippery mud all over. Add in the rain, and you get extremely slippery, thick mud. Don’t forget the very large “puddles” forming in the middle of the road… I think it would have been safe to call it a pond at that point. Riding through all of that stuff was very difficult, and when thinking of it, I’m completely stunned on how we were both able to get out of all of that without dumping either of the bikes. The border guard told us that they have been picking up bikes for most of the day and were surprised that we didn’t dump or crash our bikes at least once.

Odd town, odd place... We can check this off the bucket list.

The sky opened up and this is what we experienced... hell on two wheels.
There was no turning back now

Mud

More mud

More, mud, mud, mud

Arriving at the border.

Despite the tough going and hard weather, we were in good spirits.
It's all part of the adventure

Poker Creek Alaska.. The most northern border crossing in the United States. Population "2"

We finally made it past the border at Poker Creek and got through no problem at all. The road was much better on the Yukon side. It wasn’t slippery and wasn’t super muddy. It was great to not have to play a game of slip and slide all the way to Dawson City. We made it to Dawson City, got a room at the Downtown Hotel, washed our gear, dried our gear, and made dinner. A very long and strenuous day has finally come to an end, and now it was time to turn in and get ready for the next day’s adventures. Except my dad had this idea to ride to the top of Midnight Dome. He went for a walk around Dawson and the weather and said the weather was getting better. I agreed, and we had a great time up there. The town was in a sort “calm” before the storm mood as the Dawson Music Festival was getting ready to start. We met another GS rider who had a bike identical to my dads, a Red ’09 R1200 GSA. So we all rode together up to the dome. We saw a huge porcupine on the way up. Once at the top, we had the dome all to ourselves. It was serene and quiet. Try as it may, the sun would not peek through the clouds. We got to enjoy a nearly full moon however. After about an hour we went back to the Hotel to turn in for the night. What a long day. As we faded off to sleep we talked about the misery of the day, but you know what, in hindsight it was fun. We were glad we did it and got to experience the worst of the worst possible riding conditions of the entire trip. Better here, than above the arctic circle.

We made it... The road should get better from here on out... or so we were told.

65 miles to Dawson City.
Let's hope they have a warm bed and a hot bath.

Downtown Hotel... Yes.... No bath for our steeds though

Downtown Dawson at 11:30 PM

USS Keno

There be no Deer up here. So they improvise.

A midnight ride up to the Midnight Dome

Yukon River

3 Bikes

One moon

A lone adventure rider

And a father and son team

It was the eve of the Dawson Music Festival....
We had the mountain all to ourselves.
Thanks to the rain

And then there were 2.

GrizzLee loving it... Silence, solitude and wetness

Push it up a little higher son.

Here, let me reach that.

Looking south on the Yukon RIver

Dirty girl

But a great ride.
Another fun day comes to a beautiful end.

Until Next Time...