Preparations Begin!

My husband and I are planning to ride our motorcycles to Prudhoe Bay the weekend of July 11! For anyone not familiar with the route, we will ride the Dalton Highway, otherwise known as the haul road, about 500 miles on gravel from Fairbanks to Deadhorse. The last 250 miles are completely isolated, with no services of any kind. It will be by far the most challenging ride for us to date.

So how are we preparing? The first step was to replace our street tires with TKC 80's. My husband has already made that change on his bike; we'll pick up the tires and do the switch on my bike this afternoon. It will be my first time riding this bike on knobbies, so I'm excited to see how it will change how the bike handles.

We are also going to replace the right front fork seal on my bike. It has begun leaking, and we want everything to be 100% when we are on the Dalton. We'll be putting the panniers back on Bobby's bike, and I'm going to ride with just my top case and my tank bag. Since we are staying in motels in Coldfoot and in Deadhorse we don't need to carry as many supplies.

I spent today reading everything I could find about the road, and feel like I'm mentally prepared. As we make more plans, I'll keep them posted here so anyone else planning a motorcycle trip up the Dalton Highway can follow along! I'll also post pictures as I get them.