Thursday, June 27, 2019
It’s the next to last cycling day of our trip. We left our overnight stay at the Tangle
River Inn, drove seven miles east on the Denali Highway to our starting point
(which started with over four miles of fast downhill). We continued east to Paxson (which was our
ending point yesterday), then turned south on the Richardson Highway. A left turn on the “Tok Cut Off” brought us
to the Gakona Lodge, a roadhouse that has been in business since 1904. The day represented nearly 72 miles, except
for the two riders who decided to rack up the seven “bonus miles” between the Tangle
River Inn and the rest of the group’s starting location, and yours truly who got
a flat about two miles from the Gakona Lodge destination.
But this post will not focus too much on the ride, but
rather give some overview of what the past five days have meant. Alaskabike, a local company in Anchorage that
is essentially a family run company, shows its riders the “real” Alaska. Except in Fairbanks, where we stayed in the
hotel built by Holland America Lines for its passengers who have come north to
see some of Alaska, our overnight stays have been mainly at small lodges or
cabins. We’ve eaten in very good local
restaurants that Bill and Greg Rowland who run the company, have discovered in
their years of living in Alaska and running Alaskabike.
Unlike some of the larger companies who operate bike tours
in Alaska, Alaskabike keeps its tours
small (no more than 13 people), and includes everything (I have not opened my
wallet since arriving in Anchorage five nights ago, except for some cold
medicine. And to find that cold
medicine, Greg Rowland drove me to a local IGA market in Delta Junction willingly).
Typically breakfast is at 8:00 a.m. either at the place we’re
staying or we’ll drive to a nearby restaurant.
We then start out either on our bikes, or in the van to the starting
place for the ride. We normally will be
on the bikes sometime around 9:30 a.m. One
of the two Alaskabike guides rides in the van to set up water and snack stops
or lunch stops, and the other guide bikes somewhere behind the rearmost rider
so that there is always someone to take care of problems that might arise (such
as my flat tire).
Some days we’ve had great scenery that looks like what you
would expect on an Alaska postcard.
Today, after some of that Alaska scenery we spent the afternoon riding
on the two-lane Richardson Highway that could have been a rural road anywhere
in the Eastern United States. But this
was really one of the few times on the trip where the scenery has not left me “oohing
and ahhhing.”
Unfortunately, no moose sightings all week. We’ve got one more chance tomorrow on our 53
mile ride to Valdez. Speaking of
wildlife sightings, another interesting thing is the lack of animal “roadkill”
on the two highways we’ve ridden. And
there’s also something of a lack of cars.
It’s not unusual to go five minutes or more with no vehicles passing
by. And when one comes by, it’s more
likely than a car to be a pickup truck, mobile home, tanker truck, or a car
pulling a boat, camper or other outdoor activity item. Alaska is clearly an outdoors state.
Tomorrow I’ll have the details of the final day of
riding. Here is the data from today’s
ride, followed by a few pictures.
Bruce
Today’s data:
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| The morning view from the Denali Highway |
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| What's left of the abandoned town of Paxson |
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| Tracey gets a water and snack stop set up. |
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| Lot's of isolated dwelling around the state. |
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| The "Tok Cut Off", the road to Gakona Lodge |
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| Or if you keep going you'll reach the Canadian border. |
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| The view of the Chitina River where my day ended thanks to a flat! |
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