300 ish maybe. The first couple of days will probably be 500 mile days just to get out of California. Straight up the I-5 until we hit San Fransico. We were planning on being back around Aug 1st, but that might not be followed. We will go as far in a day as we want to.
500 miles a day will take you there and back in 20 days. Isit alreadyplanned out? If yes can i see the route?
Our plan is to take how ever long we want to take it. We are definitely not doing 500 miles a day. I have some it it planned out, but I keep changing it. We just changed out plans to do some dirt in Washington and maybe some dirt in colorado on the way back. Only time we will be doing that many miles is from here to washington. Here is the basic route To Alaska Up the 5 until San Fran, then go to the 101 and go through the redwood. In Oregon make way over to Crater lake. Head up the 5 and at the Oregon, washington border head inland a bit and start the Butler Maps Stevenson to Packword section http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nN6c3gCQu3M Then head inland to Seatle, Vancouver, Whistler, Then head up to Alaska and hit hyder on the way up (basically only 2 routes into Alaska). Still not sure if we are going to hit the Pennisula first or go straight up to Prudhoe Bay. Back To Cali When we exit Alaska we will do Demspter Highway. Take the longer way back by going further into Canada and coming down into Wyoming. Hit Glacier NP, Yellowstone. Either then head straight back or do some dirt roads in Colorado.
Havnt done much dirt riding lately. Been busy with school. Just bought new glasses. We will bring contacts on the trip but dont want to wear them. So we bought from zennioptical. Just got them today and we like them. Also bought a SAE to USB to charge our phones from the bike. 30 bucks, but its better than wiring up to the battery again. The thing can also be easier transferred between each bike. Bought 2 more rok straps to tie down our trunks and as a precaution. Both of us are trying to get through school and plan a bunch of family events before the trip. I am now looking for a way to get tires changed out in Alaska. Going to switch out the tires before we leave to Shinko 705s and find a place to ship to in Alaska some Kenda 270s. The sheepskin person charges $150 a set for 270s, but we can save 100 bucks (2 days in gas) by finding someone to ship to. We (me) can change out the tires ourselves. Might just do her though.
If you want to. You can always order tire from Alaska Leather. Then pick it up from there. Your more than welcome to ship your tirees to my place. I can hold em till u get here. I'm in Anhorage .
I added you on facebook. I might take you up on that. I will probably also ship a 2 chains and rear sprockets. Ill contact you closer to the time.
Sounds great. Just as long as u know Im in Anchorage, shipped it down . And it'll be ready for u then.
Yep :) http://advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=841673 Natalie and I are going to the Death Valley Noob Rally next weekend. This is our spring break. This is going to be our last longer camping trip before Alaska.
Death Valley Noob Rally was great! Started off on Last Riders noob thursday night ride. This was a learning experience. It was tough, and had horrible habits. We got some advice such as standing up, but we were never comfortable doing this. Finally Jimmy said to rotate the handlebars up and it made a world of difference for friday and saturday. We did our own thing friday and saturday after getting some good trail tips. We did chloride cliffs and titus canyon. Saturday we did hunter mountain, and racetrack. We were able to do 40mph pretty comfortably on the rought gravel road. Standing up sure makes a world of difference. Headed home sunday for easter stuff.
Been following this thread, was supposed to go to AK this year but the knee surgery took that off the list. I was the SAR coordinator for the N00B rally, I was the one in the white 4x4 driving around DV instead of riding.... You will want to get more seat time off road, there is a lot of good local stuff Cahon pass and such that will allow you to improve your off road skills with the bikes unloaded now while you have time. PM me (I am in Glendora close to you) if you are interested and I can show you some of the easy loops you can ride without breaking the bank.
Got full motorcross clothes for 50 bucks. (Jersey, pants, gloves). Also got new riding pants which are waterproof, but I am still going to wear external rain gear.
So this weekend we went back to Hungry Valley outside of LA. It was interesting, to say the least. We planned to go over to a friends house to change his tires to more knobbish friday morning. He got called into work so we decided to leave without him. We headed out for the 100 mile ride. Got to the park and decided to do some offroading with all of our gear on the bike. It wasnt very fun. I can't stand up stand up comfortably. The windscreen prevents me from rotating the handlebars forward and gets in the way if I go up a hill. I decided to scratch off the serious off road riding in Washington and Colorado for our Alaska trip. So we then go and set up camp in Circle Canyon Campground. We go for a short ride and then head back to cook some lunch. We then head out on another ride. This is my new dirt bike gear. We had a couple crashes/drops on the trip. This one was a steep uphill and we thought it was going to keep going up but it didnt and had to make a sharp right down a hill. Natalie was a bit surprised by it. I was going up a steep hill and made the mistake of going up in 2nd (using highway gearing). I started to sputter so I downshifted to first. This threw off my balance completely and I went out of control before coming to a stop here. We got back to camp and Natalie managed to tip the bike over the kickstand. Her bike is lowered but the kickstand is still the stock height so this is actually hard to do. Started drinking beers with this as our view. Our friends showed up. These are the ones who actually have jobs. They set up camp and we changed our the tires of the 800gs. The bike count is 3 1st gen KLR650s 1 Tiger 800xc 1 800gs We drank and then went to sleep. Well, I didnt sleep at all. 50mph gusts, sand, and sand ending up in the sleeping bag made me probably get 1 hour of sleep. I got out of the tent at dawn a bit pissed off and tired. We decided to ride into town because it was to windy to use our stoves to make coffee/oatmeal. We ended up at Denny's. After some food, coffee and the ride back to camp, we were all rejuvenated. Went on a nice look around Hungry Valley. We were going to stay another night, but decided to head back home around 5pm. Got a good nights sleep that night!
So I just changed out the tires on my bike. Using Shinko 705s to get up there and probably Kenda 270s once up there. The Shinkos were tough to put on because they were the tubeless type. Manged to get them on and find that the valve stem was crooked and had to remount them. Also started to tear my bike apart to clean the air filter and check my wire armoring results. Thinking of doing a valve check also. (I did one 2500 miles ago). Before I took the bike apart I did a local day ride with some dirt bikes. Did some fun single track. This bike is great until it gets a bit out of balance. I managed to slam into the side of the cliff a couple times. Also had a crash near the end. I can get through the tough parts, but when I start to relax after the hard stuff is when I crash. I was getting tired. Actually I started getting tired when we turned around on a slanted fire road. I went to the right of the fireroad and when I was starting to turn my bike slipped into neutral and I realized to late. I dropped it with the top of the bike downhill. It was a pain to pick up. So anyways, we are doing finals in the next 3 weeks and then another 3 weeks until we leave. We picked up another ride who is for sure coming with us up to Alaska. On that note, off to study relativity, and electromagnetism for the test this week. I hate electromagnetism.
Ok, so after trying to figure the tire stuff out we have a full plan. We have 2 sets of Shinko 705 tires. We are shipping some Kenda 270s up to alaska to use on the dirt roads. We have a set of half used Kenda 270s on the bikes now. We are going to use the half used Kenda 270s and run them until they are worn out. We should get 2-3k miles out of them. We will strap the new Shinko 705s to the rear of the bikes and then change them out probably in Canada somewhere. That should work perfect and give us more than enough mileage on our tires. If not then I budgeted in a rear tire purchase 2x. This is our finals week of school. We are will be officially done with community college and transferring to Cal State Fullerton next semester. Im majoring in Mechanical Engineering and natalie is doing Illustration. After finals week we have a baby shower and a wedding to attend. If it wasnt for that then we would leave next weekend. We have been mountain biking lately. Make me wish that some of these trailed allowed for dirt bikes. I hate pedaling up hills.
