When In Doubt, More Cowbell

My first enduro race today. 90 miles of singletrack with some fireroad thrown in for good measure at the Cowbell Enduro in Mendocino NF.  Awesome.

learn about "minutes" "tests" "burning check points" "roll charts" "resets" and all that enduro jazz from some good folks.  Big Thanks to Austin for hosting everyone.
stay up till 2 getting bikes dialed in, ya know: rebuilding the engine, installing brake coolers, changing tires & sprockets, etc.  Big Thanks to Adam for letting me ride his bike.
wake up before 7 to overcast sky with snow/rain in forecast

RACE!

Nature threw its best at us: clouds, snow rain, hail...

Course Designers tried too: bike swallowing ruts (drag your handlebars!), roots, hill climbs, descents...

And we'll be back for more!

Arctic Ocean Round Trip, day 1

We wanted to get to the North Slope oil fields, located on the Arctic Ocean.  From Anchorage it is about 2,000 miles round trip.  Half of which is on the Dalton Highway, or North Slope Haul Road, made famous mostly by its awesomeness, but also in popular culture by the ice road truckers.  Since we had a fishing trip to planned for the evening of June 29th in Seward, AK, we had four days to do the round trip.

The only people who normally make this trip are paid to do so.  Paid alot.  We met one trucker who gets $1,200 to haul a single axle truck with propane up.  So a 18 wheeler?  one can only guess...  Of course, the scumbuckets are doing it for free, but we got nearly free tires so its cool.

We left Brad & Emily's in Anchorage after sufficient pizza nutrition and beer hydration.  We drove past Denali again, this time in the sun!  The sky got big as we passed The High One, and large friendly stratus clouds escorted us northward...

Top Gun crazy eyes already?

After we passed Denali, the ominous storm clouds scared away the friendly stratus clouds as we started towards the alley of rain.  The air began to reek of rain and wind, not allowing us time to take shelter.  Before we knew it, we were wet, the temperature plunged and one motorcycle started acting funny.  hmmmm, maybe this isn't a good idea?  nawww, it'll go away.  Onward, scumbuckets!!!!

Mt McKinley, maybe?

We approached Fairbanks the storm clouds left, and the sun began to set.  At 12:47 AM.  June 26th 2010.  Every sunset seems better than the previous.  I can't say anything about the sunrise, because we were usually sleeping by the 3 AM sunrise.  every day, riding a little longer into the morning and sleeping a little later into the afternoon.  Nearly 24 hour sunlight has made schedules obsolete.

We spent the night (or morning, actually) in the University of Alaska - Fairbanks dorm rooms... easy to find, cheap, clean, showers, on a beautiful campus.

first day of North Slope route

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The Best and Worst Day on Denali Highway

We woke with Denali covered by the looming rainstorms.  We quickly packed up camp and started heading towards the Denali Highway.  No breakfast today, the rain immediately commenced and the temperature plummeted.  We rode alongside the pipeline for the first time, and stopped along the way to admire it and wring our drenched socks.  Afterwards we lined our boots with plastic bags.

Arriving in Paxson, AK we were freezing cold, hungry, and out of gas.  The only store in town has a monopoly on everything... although I wouldn't suggest, ordering anything there (in fact I recommend going hungry) or purchasing the most expensive gas we saw on the trip... we did.  Learn from our mistake.

Luckily the Denali Highway's views and great riding quickly erased any memories of Paxson from our minds.

Do stop @ milepost 42 for the Maclaren River Lodge, Mmmmmm Hmmmmmmm.  In fact, go out of your way to stop by there, friendly service and the
best fresh made bread ever.
best warm soup ever.
best hot coffee ever.
basically the best ever.

Mmmmmmm Hmmmmmmm!

@ EOB June 19th

The neatest thing about this day was after we got settled in camp a kid on a bicycle waved at us as he rode by.  The rest of the evening, he rode his bicycle around camp making motor noises, ala "On Any Sunday" introduction.

The day's route: 190 miles

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Finally Alaska?

Time to get a move on, the AK border crossing closes promptly @ 9pm.  Its 7:30pm, and 60 miles to Alaska.  We gotta full tank a-gas, half pack a-smokes, its never getting dark out and we’re wearing helmets.  HIT IT!

But then we get sidelined by the views.

Which means 5 minutes late at the border, therefore… No Entry.  We gotta sleep in Canada again. dang, it woulda been nice to make it, especially because the only campground was 60 miles back, near the Yukon River.  Since the scumbucket motto is never go back, we find a wide spot alongside the road.

Also, time crunch that we were on to pass that hitchhiker and make the border, we forgot to fill the water bottles up.  We only have about a half-liter of water between the two of us for the night.  On the Top-of-the-World Hwy, there is no water because the whole road is on a ridge.  All our food is the dehydrated variety, except the few packets of Indian food that Mama Z set with!!!  Curry, whiskey and a side of mosquitoes it is.

the evening's route: 106 km


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and then there were three. and more repairs.

After a week of scumbucketry, the real world was swooning to Matt.  We tried to help him resist, but the lure of the sirens was too great to overcome, either that or paying his bills.  We may never know.  We mourned his return to society in true scumbucket style.

and continued the repairs.. blown out tires and an unbalanced gyroscope on the hover bike.  thankfully, we had a half empty can of tire shine and some unopened brand name mouth wash to chase down the greek sandwich.

Hoverbike!!!!!!!!

After solving my blown rear tire and Mike’s two unbalanced tires, we were ready to move north from Telkwa, BC of course in the rain again.  Mike had to stop and get a replacement bolt, and conveniently there was a brewery next to the motorcycle shop.  At the Plan B Brewery in Smithers, BC. Harper and I met a couple cool local ladies who recommended a stop at a local bakery in Hazelton, BC.  The best cinnamon rolls ever.  It was here that the level of civility would be at its peak, we would only get further away into the bush each day, causing our standards to sink 5% further into scumbucketry each additional day.

Scumbuckt Repairs, the 3 R's

Replace

Remove

Recycle?

On the Road

Leaving Glacier National Park ,USA

...and Matt's off!

Harpoon

They let us into Canada, eh? Glacier National Park in BC, it was a beautiful place to run out of gas.  By the time we got to town it was dark, so we went to the first place we saw.  Some un-kindly RVer-park propertier wanted to charge us $80 to tent camp for one night, I don't think they wanted scumbuckets there.

Hey! Hey! the Gang's All Here

Fast forward 6 months.  Two has grown to four, Harper's brother thought we should start a gang, thus the scumbuckets were established.  Neat flags included.  Craigslist-specials, obscure parts bills, last minute repairs, street legal tires, and beer tabs quickly dent the already dull finish of our meager savings.  Mike, Matt and I leave Seattle, and are riding like banshees on overloaded and underpowered bikes towards Glacier Nat'l Park to meet Harper.  We hadn't spoken with him in four days, all we had was a remote location in the middle of Glacier with a rendevous date.  In true scumbucket style, we arrive an hour after Harper, only to find him sitting on the picnic table reading Hemingway.

scumbuckets!!!!!!

In the beginning

It is the dead of winter, and we slipped and hobbled across Washington Ave. into a purveyor of whiskey, beers and such.  Add some drinks, subtract some jobs and the result is a motorcycle trip to Alaska.  Is this really going to happen?

we didn't know at the time that this was going to be the journey...