| Author | Message | ||
     Captain_lou |
Took a 2009 XT for a 100 mi ride today. Loved it. I plan on purchasing an XT and riding to Alaska. One concern I have is if a tire had to be replaced or repaired in a remote area. Most bikes can be equipped with a center stand but I don't see any way to mount a center stand on an XT because of the muffler location. I was originally planning on doing the trip on a GS but the XT is liter and has less things to go wrong. The XT has all the power of a GS and runs every bit as smooth. I own a BMW R1200RT so I have knowledge of both bikes. | ||
| Gsilvernale |
I rode to Alaska. Got one flat, hit a spike. Used a plug kit. 10 minutes - done. Stayed true for 600 more miles till I got where it could be replaced. I had "Slime" also, but luckily did not need it. Trying to change a tubeless tire with tire irons is a no-win situation. At least every time I have tried it, I have scarred up my rims. I am not saying it can not be done, but I would not take an extra tire with me, just plan on replacing in Anchorage. I think most of us overpack and overplan for Alaska. | ||
| Captain_lou |
I am doing the trip alone so I am trying to get as much info as possible. I was planning on doing the trip on a BMW 1200 GS. After riding the XT I believe it would be a lot more fun to ride. The XT is liter and and handles more instinctively. How was your ride? Would you have done anything differently? What tires did you run? | ||
| Gsilvernale |
I did not have my Buell yet when I made the trip (last summer). I was on a Kawasaki Zr7S (aircooled 750 - bulletproof) running Bridgestone Battalax. We stayed on pavement for most of the trip. Even though the paved sections that we ran still had about 100 miles of dirt - which was smoother than much of the pavement. Traction was not an issue. Wear will be more of an issue. The roads up there are very hard on tires. Its not really pavement, its called ChipSeal and it will eat a tire up. I had new tires on at the start, and 3500 miles later, when we made Anchorage, they had about 2000 miles left on them. I have gotten up to 9K out of Battalax's before. We rode from South Dakota to Anchorage in 9 days. My son was on a Dakar, which was a much better bike for the trip. Long travel suspension was very important. Thus the Buell should be good. In fact, I bought the Buell with plans to do the trip again. If I was going to do it again, I would only do one thing different: 1 - Get a throttle lock. I had a wrist rocker, but I still wanted to take my right hand off the throttle. Definetly spend the money for one - even if its just a big o-ring that you can roll into the gap between the throttle and the housing. We almost ran out of gas on two occasions. We had 200+ mile range and we pushed it on a couple of occasions. One time we got 212 before we found gas, the other time I don't know how far, but I am glad that the last 30 miles down into Stewart was all downhill. With the Uly, you are going to want to make sure you grab gas more often. There was always gas about every 100 miles - although the Cassiar highway was a little longer between stops. The weather is always a crap shoot. We wanted to go when we would have our best chance of no rain. So we started up on Memorial Day. We basically had 5 hours of rain in 9 days. It was perfect. If you can stay dry, you can stay warm. Also that early in the season, traffic is light so finding hotels was easy. I had 3 different weights of gloves, used middleweight 90% of time - I did not have heated grips. Used Heavyweights about 10% of the time. Never used the lightweights, but they were basically a backup for the middle weights. I had an electric vest - definetly a plus, but I did have enough warm gear so that if the vest died, I still could have made the trip. Of course, the Buell makes a lot of heat, so staying warm on it should be easier. Finally the more time you have the better. we had 19 days, which was too short for up and back - unless you just want to ride and not stop and see stuff. we took an extra 3 days getting there - I originally guessed 6 days, but we took 9. We did stop and see stuff - which is the whole reason for going. So instead of turning around and riding straight back, we sold the bikes up there and flew back, after spending a week seeing southern Alaska. We did not do the Haul road. And we did not try to set any kind of time/distance records. Riding the Cassiar was AWESOME - figure you will only average 45 mph, because of stops, bad roads and wildlife. For more information, see the pictures and route map at the following links: Pictures are at: http://s184.photobucket.com/albums/x147/gsilvernale/Alaska%20Motorcycle%20Trip/ Map is at http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&lr=lang_en& hl=en&msa=0&msid=116823719463427790190.000001137a125fa46198b&ll=71.159391,-126.474609&spn=21.180315,90&z=4&om=1 (Message edited by gsilvernale on August 15, 2008) | ||
| Bigredwood |
Here is a secret for ya Bueller's . . . check out rhinotire.com | ||
| Skinstains |
I need to go on a trip like that ! I need that Uly NOW ! |
