Day 18-20: Haul Road prep

Denali, AK >> Fairbanks, AK
380 miles ridden/8.5 hours

Pretty uneventful ride from Denali National Park to Fairbanks. The campground I’m staying at is run by a Russian ex-pat and, as I found out later in the night, is adjacent to a carnival fairground. While the sun being up nearly 24 hours a day doesn’t bother me, the loop of organ music and assorted noise from the Ferris wheel, midway attractions and other rides is something else entirely.

A moose forages for food in an Alaska river.
A moose forages for food in an Alaska river
The moon as seen through the trees surrounding my campsite in Fairbanks, Alaska.
The moon as seen through the trees surrounding my campsite in Fairbanks, Alaska

The next day I explored downtown Fairbanks, Alaska’s second-largest city. Attractions high on my list were the University of Alaska’s Museum of the North and The Outpost, where I stocked up on sparkplugs and other necessities as well as “the farthest north” Harley-Davidson t-shirts for friends. As in the Yukon, shops up here can’t afford to carry only one brand of motorcycle, so you find metric and American bikes under one roof, making for convenient supply shopping.

Next on the list was the post office so I could ship these souvenirs back home before heading to the Arctic Circle. In the parking lot I noticed that nearly every car had what appeared to be an extension cord sticking out of its grill, something I’d never seen in the Lower 48. As one Alaskan informed me, it gets so cold in the winter that the oil in a car’s engine will freeze if the motor’s not running, so people plug these cords into parking lot outlets to keep their oil pans heated. Otherwise, engines all over Alaska would seize whenever someone started their car in the winter.

This campground in Fairbanks, Alaska, was the base of operations for my motorcycle adventure along the Dalton Highway to the Arctic Circle.
This campground in Fairbanks, Alaska, was the base of operations for my motorcycle adventure along the Dalton Highway to the Arctic Circle

As shocking as this revelation was, I was even more astounded to see a sticker on the door leading out of the post office bearing the instructions: “Push to operate.” Mind you, this was not for a button to automatically open the door for someone in a wheelchair/on crutches/whose hands were full, etc. No, this was telling people who had already made it into the building how to use a door!

I tried to imagine the days before this sticker had been placed in its current location… Were people standing in the lobby unsure how to reach the world outside? Did they forget how they accessed the building? Did going to the post office somehow magically erase Alaskan’s memories of how doors functioned? Or was it like the Gary Larson cartoon that showed a (prospective?) student trying to gain access to the Midvale School for the Gifted pushing against a door marked “PULL”? I was completely bewildered. Luckily, I managed to make my escape. Otherwise, I’d be writing chapters of this blog from zip code 99701…

Back at the campground, I was checking the weather report more often than a day trader watches stocks. Tomorrow I’m getting new tires so I’m best suited to tackle the dreaded Dalton Highway the day after; I’ve heard that tow trucks charge $5/mile there and back to pick up stranded motorists, so I figure the cost of new skins is a more than reasonable hedge. Hopefully the weather will cooperate so I can make my run to the Arctic Circle.

Since it was still light out – never an issue this far north where the sun never dips below the horizon in the summer – I decided to venture out to Chena Hot Springs to see how they compared to Takhini’s. Something of a coin toss, although the food available at the Yukon facility was much better. I couldn’t help but find it odd that the waiter asked me how I wanted my burger prepared (medium), then brought out a well-done one, citing a health code that required all red meat be cooked that way. Why bother with the formality then? Even as a courtesy, it seemed peculiar…

One thing I’ve noticed during my stint motoring around Alaska: people love to drive slowly… A combination of locals and tourists on the roads, 90% of people drive below the speed limit and the other 10% can’t get where they’re going fast enough! Based on my experience, 100% of the time the former will be ahead of you and the latter riding up your tailpipe, despite being able to see the car ahead. If the speed limit is 40mph, the car in front will be going anywhere from 20-35mph; meanwhile, the car behind you will try to run you over. And if you try to pass, the car in the lead will naturally speed up to prevent you from doing so. Very territorial of being in pole position, I suppose…

At one point, the driver in front of me came to a stop to let a cyclist headed in the opposite direction pass on a two-lane road with a 35mph speed limit. (Other than the three of us, there were no other vehicles in sight.) I assumed this was indicative of how many bicycle-related accidents there are… After all, the “175 moose killed since July 1” sign outside of Kenai and the “225 moose killed this year” sign in Palmer manage to track collisions with large animals, so the number of cyclists causing automobile fatalities must occur at a rate too fast to tally.

On my third day in Fairbanks, following the advice I’d gotten from the St. Louis rider I’d encountered two weeks ago, I connected with the father/son team running a bike maintenance/repair operation out of their house. There were two people ahead of me in line – the driveway – so I pulled up a lawn chair and waited my turn.

Good work, nice guys. They’re efficient and had the new tires on in no time. We chatted about my travels and their business while they worked, and at one point the conversation seemed to take a weird turn as the father kept scolding me about my pipes, turn signals, etc. which may not have been 100% DOT compliant.

My 1995 Honda Shadow VT1100 motorcycle getting new skins for the trip up Alaska's Dalton Highway to the Arctic Circle
My 1995 Honda Shadow VT1100 motorcycle getting new skins for the trip up Alaska’s Dalton Highway to the Arctic Circle

He mentioned a number of times that Alaska State Troopers could confiscate any property that wasn’t up to code… He talked at length about airplanes, boats, and cars, and mentioned they’d have no trouble taking my bike and auctioning it off to the highest bidder. It was an odd tack; I couldn’t tell if he was trying to shake me down or what. It left me feeling a little uneasy. After all, it’s not as if I could replace my pipes on a whim and I’d already ridden my bike across a broad swath of Alaska without incident. Plus, it’s not like I was planning on staying after I’d made my trek to the Arctic Circle… 

Dan (the son) suggested taking the road to Valdez, a 6-hour, one-way detour that represented some of the most scenic riding the state had to offer. Quite a claim; I’ll have to consider it.