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Saturday, January 21, 2012

I've Got a Motorcycle, Where Can I take It?

I've always dreamed of traveling to Alaska, but never put much thought into how I would get there. Recently, as in the past few years, I had been leaning toward taking a cruise ship, or perhaps the intercoastal ferry, but there are a few problems with that. The first major hurdle is that either method would require me to travel several thousand miles in order to get to the starting point ... not ideal. The second issue is that I would be looking at Alaska from a distance, albeit a relatively close distance, but looking none-the-less. I want to experience getting there as well as being there.

My first motorcycle was a 1970's Yamaha 350, which I purchased in the 70's when I was a teenager. Thank God I'm still alive!  Back in the old days, a motorcycle, flip-flops, a pair of shorts and a tank full of gas was all that was needed in order to hit the road. I'm happy to say that things have changed. I put a fair amount of miles on that bike, but living in Newport, RI, my radius of travel was probably about 10 miles.

Fast forward a few decades and my bikes of choice have been Triumphs and Hondas with a Harley Sporster thrown in along the way, and as of last year, the bike occupying space in my garage was a 1977 GL1000. The common theme has been older bikes, I guess I just like the way they look. Like this old Honda, what a beautiful, one litre, shaft driven sport touring bike. It was the first generation of Honda's Goldwing touring bikes before they knew what the bike would eventually be used for. No fairing, saddlebags, trunk, radio - a stripped down beauty.

1977 GL1000 "naked"

I still had the dream of going to Alaska in the back of my mind, and owned a bike that had a reasonably good chance of providing me with the means to get there and back. So started the process last June of getting the bike ready. Changed the timing belts, head gaskets, rebuilt the carbs, new tires and battery and a ton of other small details. I also bought an old donor bike that had after market touring gear on it and cleaned it all up, painted it and installed it on my bike. And then started thinking .....



1975 GL1000 parts bike

racks for hard bags


1977 GL1000 fully dressed

Last summer, in the garage next to my 1977 Honda was a 2009 Victory Hammer S, and what a sweet bike that was. 1731 v-twin, air cooled and loud cubic inches of get out of my way. It got me to thinking that it sure would be nice to make this 10,000+ mile trip on some modern technology! I would have loved to take the Hammer on the trip, but with the lack of storage, ~10 inch rear tire and very uncomfortable seat (a 3 hour seat at best), it was not the answer.



2009 Victory Hammer


In the end, I kept the Honda and traded the Hammer in for a 2011 Victory Cross Country. It is an excellent compromise and should get me there and back much more comfortably and reliably. The only drawback is that it's not suited to take me all the way to Prudhoe Bay and the Arctic Ocean, due to about 400 miles of iffy gravel roads, but that's cool. Gotta leave something to do later.




2011 Victory Cross Country coming home

2011 Victory Cross Country without trunk

Lots to do and running out of time. Cameras - still and video, GPS and tracking devices, mounting configuration, gear, route planning, etc. It's amazing how fast each weekend gets here when you know you only have until the end of May to get all the prep done. I should get busy on that, but we're having the first snow fall of the year and it looks pretty cool, I think I'll go check it out.