advice/opinions - long distance trip

[Tad Gralewski]

Thought I'd throw this out there while I'm at it. In July, myself and two friends, all on KLR650s, took a month-long trip from Chicago to Alaska and back. I still haven't found the words to describe the trip, and I hope I never do. We hit all the talked about roads - the Dempster, The Dalton, The Campbell, yadda yadda yadda. Each of them was unbelievable in their own way. We disagree on our favorites - they liked the Dalton, and I liked the Dempster best. I have a ton of pictures of the trip on my web site at http://tad.gralewski.com if anyone is interested in seeing them and reading the day-by-day synopsis of the journey. Enjoy! Tad

[adamavis]

Very cool! I guess you guys know the true meaning of "shrinkage" now --- In DSN_klr650@yahoogroups.com, "Tad Gralewski" wrote:

> Thought I'd throw this out there while I'm at it. > > In July, myself and two friends, all on KLR650s, took a month-long > trip from Chicago to Alaska and back. I still haven't found the > words to describe the trip, and I hope I never do. > > We hit all the talked about roads - the Dempster, The Dalton, The > Campbell, yadda yadda yadda. Each of them was unbelievable in

their

> own way. We disagree on our favorites - they liked the Dalton, and

I

> liked the Dempster best. > > I have a ton of pictures of the trip on my web site at > http://tad.gralewski.com if anyone is interested in seeing them and > reading the day-by-day synopsis of the journey. Enjoy! > > Tad

[Thor Lancelot Simon]

On Fri, Sep 05, 2003 at 09:48:39PM -0000, Judson D. Jones wrote:

> I'll second the advice from Arden and Lujo, and add the following: > > On the road, keep your speeds moderate, especially in a > headwind. My bike seems happiest around 5000 rpm, however I > am geared. Cruising at a more relaxed pace should allow you to > cover more miles in a day with less fatigue: better fuel mileage, > and less fatigue from the wind.

I'm not so sure about that. My two best days this spring were 700 and 800 miles -- both days, I did long sections at 90+ MPH. One thing you definitely want to watch out for, though, is that the KLR seems to burn oil any time you get above 6,000 RPM. Expect to need to add a few ounces with every tank if you spend any significant amount of time above 80MPH. Thor