Riding to Dawson City
06 July 2018
Goooooooold!
Photos:
As per usual, the lovely weather for the two days I had in Whitehorse gave way to rainy weather overnight, just in time for me to get back on the road. I’m starting to think Canada has it out for me.
Todays ride took me north out of Whitehorse through Carmacks, past Pelly Crossing, and onward to Dawson City. Its mostly nice road, but it gets interesting toward the Dawson City end. There was some construction on the road, bad enough that they felt they needed to make us all wait for a pilot car. It wasn’t too bad, although the road was a little soft which is always a good time on a bike. After that the road just became wavy. The surface was mostly nice, but there were these large rises and falls that I think might have been frost heaves. They were bad enough that someone had left a popup camper on the side of the road with a snapped axle.
Eventually I reached Dawson City, and as usual, the first order of business was to get a campsite. I don’t really do reservations since I don’t really have a schedule, so first-come-first-serve is a way of life for me. In Dawson City, the cheapest place to stay is the provincial campground across the river from the city, and it requires riding a ferry to get there. Upon arriving in Dawson, I rode straight to the ferry, didn’t have to wait, and went straight to the campground. My reward for expedience was a site directly on the river; I grabbed one of the last two left.
The view from my campsite
The other site was taken by a guy I later came to know as Dave. He was also on a motorcycle, a lovely Husqvarna 701. We were both registering for a site, struck up a conversation, and he suggested we grab a steak in town. I wasn’t really looking for something like a steak, and I had a few things to take care of with the bike before I left for the Dempster Highway in the morning, so I took a rain check. Dave was likewise riding the Dempster the next day, so I figured I’d see him later.
After standing up the tent and unloading my gear, I headed back to the ferry for a ride over to scope out oil change opportunities and find dinner. I had intended to change my oil in Whitehorse, but never really got around to it and decided to stretch it just a little farther since it was all highway miles anyway. Well, people have posted on the internet that this bike is brutal to the oil due to the way the transmission is designed. It seems that when the oil is ready to be changed, it loses some of its viscosity, and finds its way into the cylinder, where it gets burnt. This shows up as a light brown residue on my rear fender and a lower oil level in the sight glass. At least thats my current theory, anyway. It had started to consume it on the way up to Dawson, so it was time to change the oil. I pulled up at NAPA, and they had closed 2 hours before, at 5:30. They were the only parts supplier in town, an oil change would have to wait till morning.
I wandered around the dirt streets of Dawson a bit and found Joe’s Wood Fired Pizza. Pizza sounded really good after the cold ride up, so I had the one with all of the pork. They sat me down at the bar which was really neat because I was basically in the kitchen. I could watch the cook prepare pizza, I could watch it cook in the oven, I could watch the bartender make drinks, it was all right there. As a bonus, it was nice and warm.
Lastly it was back to the ferry to shuffle back across the river. Waiting in line when I arrived were two other motorcycles - one guy on a big BMW adventure bike, the other on a cruiser of some sort. They were from Anchorage and were just putting the finishing touches on a weekend of riding. Both bikes were muddy, suggesting they had been on the Dempster. The guy on the cruiser said he was probably going to sell his and get something a little more dirt capable.
Back at camp, I did some digging around the tail end of the bike and found the reason my taillight wasn’t lighting up when the bike was on. The wires had broken inside the insulation, making it look like it was okay when in fact there was no connection. I’m still debating if thats because of the roads, because its a single cylinder engine, or if all of the repairs over the years left that wiring hanging wrong. Its probably all three. At least it was an easy fix; a crimp connector with a little squeeze from a vise grip and it was ready to go again. We’ll see how long it lasts, thats definitely not a forever fix.
Eventually I made it to bed where I discovered that I had setup my tent on a root. Oh well, slept great anyway.
P.S. Here’s a fun take on the ride from the point of view of my left blinker: Timelapse