Road trip 2010: VFR750 from Wichita, KS to Deadhorse, AK and back

After last year's trip to Nova Scotia, I started thinking about a longer trip. After scrolling around on Google Maps for a while, I noticed a tiny road heading north through Alaska. Following it, I finally ended up looking at a little town called Deadhorse on the northern coast of Alaska, inside the Arctic Circle. Something about this really interested me, and I thought about making it the destination for my next big ride.

As spring rolled around in 2010, I started thinking seriously about making the trip to Deadhorse. The '95 VFR750 I bought at the end of 2009 had really grown on me, and despite wanting to keep it nice and pristine, I decided I would take it on the trip instead of the Katana, knowing it would probably be a little rough (rougher than I had imagined, as it turned out). I bought some hard cases and made some custom racks to mount them to my VFR750. I had a pair of Pelican 1520s mounted on the sides, and a Storm iM2750 mounted as a rear case. All three cases were removable via locks. This was alright, but I think if I had to do it again I'd use a hard case with a removable liner (inner bag), because the cases got pretty dirty and weren't great for bringing inside my tent. I'd also try to eliminate carrying such a large and heavy top case.

The afternoon of July 20, 2010, I left Wichita, KS and started what ended up being an 11,000 mile roundtrip to Deadhorse, AK and back. Despite a few setbacks, the bike performed admirably and brought me home three weeks later on August 10. I don't know if I'd ride the Dalton Highway again on a street bike, given how much it rains up there. It was tougher than I anticipated, but I'm proud to have done it.

Some lessons learned and/or reinforced...

As with last year's trip, having a GPS makes a big difference. Some people think it restricts you to the main roads, but I think it gives you enough information to try out roads you might not otherwise.

Boots keep your feet warmer than sneakers.

Having a portable compressor and tire patch kit saved me a lot of grief.

Spend more time trying to reduce weight. I was carrying about 160 lbs of luggage on the rear, and it definitely made it tougher to handle the bike. Next time, I will spend extra time paring down my tools to the essentials (e.g. don't thrown in the whole socket set when you won't use most of the sockets).

Use ear plugs. I was actually able to hear after this trip!

If you find yourself falling asleep, pull over and take a nap. A 15-minute nap could save your life!

Don't ride through unknown fields in the dark! (Probably shouldn't be riding through fields in the first place, but especially in the dark).

Mileage and fuel log

Twitter feed for the trip



Copyright (c) 2010 Paul Miner <$firstname.$lastname@gmail.com>