| One Man...One Cylinder...to the Arctic! |
Why ride a single cylinder motorcycle, alone, to the Arctic Circle?
Well, I thought, why not?
This website recounts my solo motorcycle trip from California to the Arctic Circle in Alaska on a Kawasaki KLR 650 single cylinder motorcycle. In the three years I spent preparing for this trip I read every motorcycle travel report I could find on the Internet, and spent countless hours studying every available option for gear and bike modifications. I am indebted to the many other motorcyclists who made this trip before me and posted accounts of their experiences online, particularly Mike Larkin, Stu Heaslet, Dr. Greg Frazier and the many contributors to the DSN_KLR650 Yahoo group. And a special note of thanks to the inimitable Whizmo and Gizmo for showing us all that motorcycle trip reports can be genuinely funny and interesting even to non-motorcyclists.
The full photo journal account of the trip is posted, broken into segments covering the ride up to the Circle and back. The photos are in chronological order and some of the humor is sequential, so for best results click on the first photo in each page of thumbnails and then use the "Next" button to follow along with the trip.
The tech section detailing the gear I took and the modifications I made to the bike is complete. I recount what worked, what didn't, and what sort-of-kind-of worked. I hope my experiences may prove to be of some small value to those of you planning your own arctic adventure.
Long solo motorcycle journeys are intensely personal events, but there is a commonality of experience we share as human beings, and so I hope that something in my tale will resonate within you. My personal journey was filled with joy, wonderment, fear, self-doubt, irony, absurdity, laughter, danger, loneliness, discomfort, and awe. It was a spiritual journey as much as a physical journey...and physically it was more than 7,000 miles long.
All photos are unretouched, the colors are as they were seen. And yes, many Canadian lakes really are that amazing blue-green color.
Some readers have suggested that the text which accompanies the trip photos may be the product of a twisted sense of humor...perhaps even evidence of a slightly unhinged mind. Well, yes, and your point would be? I assure you, dear reader, that all text is based on truth, in whole or in part. I'll leave it to you to decide which parts are "true" and which "imagined". As the events unfolded I was not always certain myself!
Product reviews are the honest-to-God truth as I see it, YMMV.
Motorcycle gear is too important to joke about. ;)
Thanks for dropping in, and I hope you enjoy the ride.
Please feel free to drop me a line with your comments, reflections or questions.
Bob Gott
Fresno, California
Questions or comments? Email me at: arcticride@hotmail.com
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|