Yesterday there was a horrible accident as our riders pulled away from Fairbanks on their way to Circle, Alaska. Earlier I sat for breakfast by myself, on a large round table, suitable for twelve.
I began enjoying a great cup of coffee and a plate full of food when in walks an elderly couple. They sit with me and the husband begins to reminisce about owning and riding an Indian. No, not a real one Freddy or Robeeto from Mexico City but, a bike that started out about the same time as Harley Davidson.
If you don’t know; Harley and Indian have been competitors for almost 120 years and both are still the only USA brands. I hand the guy my Yoda card before departing with all my contact information and told him I was now running late for a ride to Circle, Alaska.
Last night I received the following message: Hi Yoda, I hope your ride with friends to Circle was a great one. You remember my wife who told you motorcycles were dangerous? Well, as we were in line waiting to board that cruise ship bus from the Pikes Waterfront Hotel a guy up ahead missed a step and did a face plant on the steps corners, causing a major blood vessel to explode and blood was gushing out everywhere. Guess you were correct when you challenged my old opinionated woman about tour buses being more dangerous than motorcycles. The old geezers tour bus riding days are over and mine have just begun.
When we get back home I’m getting my original Indian restored, call up old riding buddies and take it one day at a time. “Don’t fear dying, fear not living.” Your friend Ed
The first U.S. president to travel abroad while in office to inspect the US Panama canal-building project was Teddy Roosevelt. He’s the one that made the following words synonymous with adventure riding.
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause, who, at the best, knows in the end the triumph of great achievement; and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”
We started off by quickly riding by tour buses gathered around a beautiful section of the Alaskan pipeline. We assumed they all marveled at the technology, American ingenuity and how the nicely painted pipeline still looked great after all these years. NOT. The small sections that we experienced later at fast and faster speeds all looked rusty to us. We compared notes later and came to the conclusion that tourists will fall for anything.
The Christmas store; if you ride a Harley and haven’t made it to here then you really haven’t ridden to the last frontier yet. Sturgis rally where most posers trailer their bikes to doesn’t count.
And yesterday when we finally all arrived to the end of the road up ahead we saw nothing but the mighty Yukon River. Everyone before us said don’t you go by that tree, you need to piss in the yukon. Apparently it’s tradition and so we did.
The midnight sun brings nearly 24 hours of daylight. And this year log yam’s during breakup caused record flooding taking out most of the town with it. And of course the roads however, we’re wild and crazy guys and we love a little bit of rough terrain. Probably non more so than Flying Brian. A name given to him by Angie, going back as far as high school. True. Several of our riders road motorcycles during their high school years together and today they are more successful because of it than ever.
More to follow later. I’m running late again.
Trawlercat Chronicles 