To the frontier.

I didn't sleep very well that night,not because of the re-occurance of any troubles but because I had spent so much time asleep that I wasn't really that tired.Eventually with a deep,dream filled three hours or so I was up and out on the road before 5am.The great thing about being on the highway at that h

our is that there is pretty much no traffic and you can ride the main road instead of the cracked,gravel strewen shoulder.

That mornings ride was great and even though the skies were still grey and the air was chilling me to the bone my spirits were bright and I was thoroughly enjoying the day.With no real hills of consequence I rolled along the highway passing small hamlets and tiny holiday cabins at regular intervals.I had been led to believe that this ride would be one of solitude and isolation but was surprised just how many townships and small general stores there were along the way.The only problem I had was that after the stunning scenery of the coastal mountain range,this boreal forest area was pretty dull and after a while monotonous.It was a pleasant morning though and with the added bonus of a long gradual downhill I flew into Glennallen before 7:30 am having covered around 55 kilometers and beating the closing weather by minutes.

I did my usual and headed into the local truckstop restaurant,the thing about these Alaskan truckstops is that all seem to be more like nice family restaurants than greasy diners more associated with highway travel.This one was no exception with one glaring difference,the girls who worked there.I don't know what is in the water around these parts but they sure do produce some good looking women in this town,even the girl in the souvenir shop was a looker.Maybe they are all related, who knows and I for one,wasn't complaining as chatting with the local beauties sure made waiting out the storm a lot more bearable.A couple of hours later the storms had passed and it was time to head back out on the road and onto a section on highway know as The Tok Cutoff.I had been warned about the road conditions of this section as the highway was undergoing some serious upgrading and with that meant gravel and delays.

The first 30 kilometers or so were anything but slow though as I cruised along the section of flat highway which joins Valdez in the south to Fairbanks at it's northern end.I wound up the bike on this section and for the first time actually started to feel like I was getting fit and used to riding with the trailer in tow.I managed a couple of long intervals down on my aero-bars and my bike computer told me that I was crusing along at a pace that surprised me somewhat.As I flew down the steepish descent into the small Galkana village and up the other side toward the Gakona Junction where I would turn onto the Tok Cutoff.When I hit the bottom of the descent I looked up and for heavens sake up ahead of me,pushing his bike up the hill, was Jack the guy I had left far behind on the highway three days before.WTF!!!I guess the old tortoise and hare analogy really applied here,how on earth did he get in front of me?

 I said a quick hello as I rode up the hill past him and then stopped to see how he was going.We had a quick visit and after he told me that it was only a couple of miles to the junction I rode on knowing that there was a little village at the junction which meant a chance to have a coffee and a longer chat to see how his trip was coming along.Jack rolled into the village a few minutes later and we hung out for a while chatting away about our different experiences over the last three days.He told me that there was a new development in his trip and that his girlfriend was so worried about him that she was planning to fly up to Whitehorse in the Yukon from California and would be joining him on the road for a while.It seems she missed him and wanted to share a part of his experience.I was very envious of him for that opportunity.It just shows that everyone has their own perceptions of happiness and while I knew Jack thought on me as some kind of  skinny athlete type which he could only dream of being I looked at him and wished I had somene who cared about me enough to call me every day to see how I was and share in my life.To have someone who not only understood and supported a ride like his but to actually have that person want to physically be part of the adventure was something that was just a pipe dream to me and I was very happy for him to have that.He is a lucky guy.

 It is funny how peoples percetions of a person can be so wrong or twisted by what I called,in a previous post,false truths.For so many years most people I know have had the perception that I do all this travelling because I don't want to settle down and commit to one person or place.That can't be further from the truth because that is all I want.I only do this stuff because,over the last few years,I've had no-where or to be more specific had no-one who gave me a reason to stay and be a part of something,until last year that is.Last evening,in fact,I was having a little chat on Facebook with one of the very few friends of mine who are keeping in touch with me on this trip.We discussed some stuff and he mentioned that he would love to see the day when I introduce him to some cute little hippy-traveller type who wanted nothing more than share the world wandering with me.I surprised him,I think,when I told him that I believed this might be my last long trip as I wanted to be part of a community and give something back instead of just wandering.That had been the precisely the plan that was discussed over the last half of last year and all my energy was focussed on that eventuality.Part of that dream ended but things change and shit happens and I now know that I still want that sense of community and if I have to live it without being able to share it with that special someone I guess it won't be the end of the world.

  Jack and I rode on together for a little while and he gave me a bit of a lecture on the history of the road we had now turned on to.He was a wealth of infomation on all things to do with this region and gave me all kinds of advice based on his years on cycle touring the roads between Florida and the Arctic Circle.He is one of those guys that would make for a great night of story telling in front of a warm firplace somehwere in the wilderness.No such luxury here though as within a couple of kilometers of bidding him farewell I hit the first of many long patches of gravel that had become synonymous with this stretch of highway.With my skinny road tyres the gravel road was a nightmare as my front wheel tried to slide out from under me at regular intervals.The base of the gravel was hard-packed but there was a loose cover of gravel on the surface which made the road very tricky.Riding the shoulder was completely out of the question as that is where all the loose gravel had gathered and being an inch or so deep was unrideable.I had no choice but to ride in the main lane and follow the tyre tracks of the vehicles before me.

  For twenty kilometers I struggled along at a snails pace listening intently for the sound of  vehicles coming on fast from behind.The cars weren't much of a problem as they tended to give me space and use the other side of the road to pass but the trucks made no such consessions for my situation and they just barrelled along,pushing me off the nice line and into the deep gravel and the inevitable,undignified, sliding halt.That section seemed to last forever and once through it I was a happy boy but that joy wasn't to last for long as  head the all too familiar sound of a dull rumbling from behind.My trailer tyre was going flat,damn!You would think that it would be my skinny tyres that would cop the worst that the roads could dish out but it was my fat little trailer tyre that has given in but at least it wasn't such a bad situation.I ended up stopping at the precise location that the road crew had set up a stop and slow area and I rolled slowly up to the lollipop lady and went about fixing my tyre.

Normally fixing this type of thing would be an easy process but stupidly I hadn't bought a spare tyre for my trailer so I would have to patch it and remind myself to get one later.The only problem now was that my dual action pump wasn't working.While the pump worked fine for use with the skinny valves of my road bike when I reversed the pump for use on the wider,car type valve,I noticed that the solid piece which is needed to push the pin in the valve was broken and the pump was useless.I talked to the lollipop lady and she radioed the construction camp to see if anyone had a compressor handy but they didn't so there was nothing for it but to turn to the line for vehicles who were waiting for the pilot car and see if anyone had a bike with them.They didn't and nor did any or the several long lines of vehicles that I would canvass over the next two hours.The pilot car driver told me that i should just hitch a ride anyway as the next thirty kilometers or so were pretty bad and that compared to the gravel I had just ridden,the loose dirt of the this coming section would be a nightmare for my skinny tyres.He also told me that he had requested all the bike that morning to get a lift through that long section for safetey reasons as everyone was supposed to be piloted across.Okay,I got the message,I'd hitch a ride.

It actually didn't take that long to find a ride and after another half an hour of eating all the lollipop ladys stash of bluberries I was asked by a nice couple from Saskatchewan if I wanted a ride to Tok some 90 miles away.I said sure and they loaded all my stuff into the back or their old Suburban and we were off,behind the pilot car for a very slow ride on a very rough dirt road.We passed three more sections of dirt and each were rougher and wetter than the last and I was thankfull for the ride as it would have taken a long walk, pushing my bike through those sections to get to Tok in a couple of days let alone that day and that would have been if they let me through with my bike in the first place.

So here I was in the last,or first depending on your point of view,decent town on the Alaskan side of the ALCAN Highway and it definately had that unique frontier feel about it.I felt like a bit of a rest and knew that, as I had to search for a new pump, I was in for a late start the next day so I checked into a motel and used the  time to do some laundry,service my bike yet again (stupid gravel) and catch up with my blog.I realised that I would soon be riding on Canadian roads and with the promise of better and hopefully warmer weather that thought,for some strange reason,made me feel better

I had made painfully slow process in the trip thus far but for what it was worth was enjoying it for the most part.I could take myself to task for not being tougher and pushing through but I don't have much fight left in me these days so I'll trade the daily grind of endless had miles for the fleeting moments of joy that I get when I meet interesting people in new towns.I'm a people person and it seems I'm at my best when in company so maybe that is what I should be focussing on.That and some run and swim training so that I don't completely screw up at Ultraman in a few short weeks time.