That morning after doing some math I determined my bike had 100 000 miles on it, a major feat for any vehicle, more so for an air cooled V-Twin. This was my 16th year of ownership so I was averaging about 10 000 km a year. I guess you could say I was a pretty enthusiastic motorcycle enthusiast! I had done annual maintenance on her every summer in preparation of a bike trip.



One year I also zero timed the chassis, which involved a complete disassemble of the bike and the replacement of every worn part. That was in the days before mortgages and RRSP savings when all my disposable income was dedicated to the bike.

Leaving Dawson City, YK the first thing on the agenda was the crossing of the mighty Yukon River on a small car ferry, it think it held maybe 6 passenger vehicles in 2 rows, plus me up front. The trip took less than 10 minutes and was free of charge. Part of the then PM Diefenbaker's plan to minimize the cost of the Canadian part of the Alaska Highway by not building bridges instead operating car ferries.

I continued on the Alaska Highway and crossed the US border into Alaska. I don't recall much about the border crossing, I couldn't imagine it being a big station. I vaguely remember it being on a gravel road. I haven't driven the Alaska Highway since this trip but back in 2004 there were still large stretches that hadn't been paved.



Riding on a motorcycle on gravel can be a challenge and it took me some time to get comfortable doing so. A street bike, especially one modeled after a 'chopper' with a stretched front end can be pretty loosey goosey on gravel. I knew at that time that the James Dalton hwy was not paved, so I took these undeveloped stretches as opportunities to hone my dirt driving skills.

Trudy, had pretty limited range. The gas tank held 13 litres, the primary 10L of which was accessed from a spout just above the bottom of the tank and the reserve 3L from the very bottom. When you would start to run out of the primary fuel you'd hafta reach down and turn a petcock 180 degrees to start the pickup from the lower spout. It was a crude, yet effective way of signalling the rider they were almost out of gas. The bike does not have a gas gauge, I would track mileage on my trip odometer.

If you forgot to reset the petcock position to the 'main' position from 'reserve' when you filled up you'd get a nasty surprise the next time the motor started to splutter and you reached down to switch to reserve only to find you were already there! That happened to me a couple of times early in my ownership of the bike.

Once when in for maintenance the bike shop mixed up the 2 lines so main went to reserve and vice versa. What this meant was that the 'main' setting was pulling from the bottom spout, so when it was time to switch to 'reserve' there was nothing there. Sadly this happened while I was on a date and at the moment riding down Groat Road far from a gas station! My date was not impressed!

13L (primary/reserve combined) yielded me an absolute range of 180 km under straight highway riding conditions. By comparison my Rocket today holds 23L and has a range of about 400 km. On the Intruder you got used to stopping for gas frequently, and constantly doing fuel range math when sighting mileage signs. Didn't want to get stranded in the middle of nowhere!

By this point in the trip I had also used the gas out of my jerry cans to make them lighter, I coulda left a splash in each can for emergencies, but I wasn't that smart.

That dismal range is what created the stopping for the night Trifecta: Liquor/Motel/Gas in close proximity, as you'd wanna leave town each day gas tank brimming.

So that was a pretty long pre-amble to the next part of the story which was that I was getting low on fuel as I crossed the border and thusly as I rolled into Boundary some time later deep into reserve I knew I was on fumes. I circled the front area twice looking for the pumps and finally spotted them up on a hill some distance away. Odd location, but beggars can't be choosers! I rolled up to the pump to find it looking a little home made, with plywood coverings painted green with house paint, and a matching pump handle.

I filled my tank, and then walked down to the cabin to pay for my gas with a credit card. When I got to the cashier he asked me what kind of bike I had, I told him, then he said; 'I ain't never heard of no diesel motorbike before!'. ****, I had filled my bike with diesel! Contrary to popular belief it would not damage the engine, but it simply wouldn't have started.



He agreed to help me and went to find a hose to siphon my tank dry, which I did, swallowing a big mouthful in the process. Then I removed screws in the bottom of each carburetor to drain them, and ran some gas which he brought to me in a jerry can through the tank and carbs . Once everything was buttoned back up it took about 5 minutes of cranking to get her started and she ran a little rough for the first few minutes. I rode it down to the back of the cabin where the pumps were, and filled her with hi test.

While in the store the first time I saw a sign by the cash register that said 'Cash Only' and I only had Canadian dollars on me at the time, I figured I'd cross that bridge when I came to it. As it turned out he was a super nice guy and took only 20 Canadian dollars from me. The next time I stopped an hour later I noticed I had failed to return his Allen wrench kit, so it all evened out. He also gave me some gratis mouthwash as my mouthful of diesel lingered on.

I struggled with my camera remote control the whole trip so I ended up recording alot of stuff after a thought I'd stopped, sometimes with hilarious results.

Eventually I found some pavement, and then the first of many forest fires I would be part of during this trip. Initially it was a novel experience, but that quickly wore off. I say over and over on my videos that I hope to drive out of the smoke, but I never did. Actually I was driving towards smoke and fire much more. We'll call this ominous foreshadowing!

The day ended in Tok, AK where I had some Heineken Dark, aggressively scratched my ear on camera and then made up some lame excuse about why I only drove 300ish kms.