Day 14

• Tuesday, July 5
• Pink Mountain, BC to Williams Lake, BC
• 540 miles

Day 14 and we manage to find more rain which washes off some of the bugs which is replaced by more grime due to further construction on the Alaska Highway. I must admit that the 3 of us non-motocrossers are finally getting fairly comfortable riding through the mud and gravel with all the practice we’ve gotten on this trip. One thinks that a BMW GS dual sport must be the perfect tool of choice for this kind of riding but we learn from guys who ride them that even their knobby tires need to be deflated a bit to get proper traction from those knobby tires.

We finally reach Mile 0 of the Alaska Highway in Dawson Creek. It’s been quite a ride and unlike other renowned destination roads we’ve ridden on previous trips, none of us are in any hurry to repeat the journey. We’re really glad we did the Northern leg of this trip on the ferry. We stop for a photo session, read the historical markers and then take off into the beauty of Northern British Columbia.

We emerge from the mountains and roll into Prince George, a proper city. I finally pick up a can of fix-a-flat but my two rear tires plugs have been holding just fine. Nevertheless, I’m still nervous about riding on them. We pay a visit to Starbucks, the first we’ve seen on the trip since leaving Washington State, and then go check out the H-D dealer just for grins.

We get to talking about the tire issues and various mitigation options over coffee. If the tire plug kit and portable pump approach didn’t work at any point during the ride through the really remote sections, we would have been facing a serious delay. We’d have to have the bike hauled by flatbed truck to the nearest town that had motorcycle tire tools and assuming that the tire would not be in stock, we’d have to wait for a tire to be shipped to us which could take days. You may remember seeing the spare tire on Nordy’s Super Cub back in the Yukon but we can’t imagine strapping spare front and rear tires on top of our already burdened bikes. We figure we’d have to stockpile spare tires at my house in Seattle and then have them shipped overnight to the closest destination. No matter how you slice it, this trip could really wreak havoc with one’s vacation schedule if serious tire or mechanical issues occurred. We actually have a spare day built into the ride and we were thinking of using it in British Columbia to rest up and sightsee a bit but as our tires and butts are holding up nicely, we elect to continue South toward home.

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