Courtesy of www.SladeRide.com
(Gallery & FAQs at bottom of post)
Home time.
I’ve spent a couple of months thinking about it.
And now, I’m back in the UK, with my bike
(Charles).
For now at least I feel like I’ve done enough.
I set out alone from the Arctic Ocean coast of
Alaska at the end of May 2009, 250 miles
inside the Arctic Circle, unsure if I could
make it through the first day, let alone keep
going for …
6 months and 5,150 miles or …
… the equivalent of cycling the length of Africa from Cairo, Egypt to Cape Town, South Africa.
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Villa Grove, CO, USA - Alpenglow abounds
Courtesy of www.SladeRide.com
(Gallery at bottom of post)
“Wait here while I get the spear I used to kill him!” he says, running off to his van.
Its almost pitch black, its below zero, I’m at the otherwise deserted far-end of a campsite in a remote Colorado valley and John, half-Irish, half-Sioux has just gone to his ‘RV’ (a converted UPS truck in which he lives year-round) to get said weapon.
“And I put one end on the ground like this and the dagger-end up like this and then, HE RAN! He ran onto the blade and I twisted and I twisted and held him down until he stopped fighting. I had no choice.”
John is a Vietnam Vet, ex-Special Forces, a ‘tunnel-rat’, Mossad-trained in hand-to-hand combat. In the months following the war he, in his own words became dangerously unstable after so much, well, I think you get the picture. Again in his own words he was saved from the brink through taking a job from his father, as a cowboy spending months on end with a herd of cattle or flock of sheep, living wild up in the Colorado mountains.
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Filed in: Admin, Alaska South, Travel | admin | November 23, 2009 | Comments (3)
Tags: 100 mile days, Alamosa, Bailey, Buena Vista, byron & linda, Carlsbad, Castanos, Clines Corner, Coahuila, Colorado, Cuidad Acuna, Del Rio, Fairplay, Fort Stockton, joe & toni, Langtry, Mexico, Mina, Monterrey, Morelos, New Mexico, Nueva Rosita, Nuevo Leon, Ojo Caliente, Orla, Pecos, putnams, Roswell, Sanderson, Santa Fe, sean, stanley, Texas, UK, Vaughn, wild boar
Yes, I am 5 years old, taking pictures from the plane to LA (oooh look, you can see the curve of the earth!)
Courtesy of www.SladeRide.com
(Gallery at bottom of post)
“Where’s my gin!” we’d mockingly imagine her adding after she’d ordered us to “Keep left on highway 270″ in her slurred, robotised voice. I’m driving, near Denver with Jeff, a long time friend from Milwaukee and we’ve just switched on the GPS unit that came with his hire car – we decided we got a bit of a dud since the unit’s ‘voice’ always seemed distorted at first but improved later (after she’d had some gin, we teased).
(on later occasions ’she’ would go completely silent despite frequent and complex intersections as a result of which we’d joke that she’d ‘gone for a bit of a lie down’ not before telling us “you know where your going, just look at the pictures”)
Not since June had I taken any real break from the cycling – aside from a few days here and there at campsites – so I was very much looking forward to 10 days off the bike in Denver with Ethan, April, Gage, Elise, Jeff and Catey, relaxing, catching-up and exploring the more far-flung bits of Colorado. Just prior to this I’d found myself slightly ahead of schedule so took the opportunity to visit (for the first time in 10 years) David and family for a few days in Westlake Village near LA, CA, taking advantage of cheap flights from Denver.
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Filed in: Admin, Alaska South, Travel | admin | October 18, 2009 | Comments (2)
Tags: April, Beach, biking, California, Catey, Colorado, David, Denver, Elise, Ethan, Francesca, Gage, Jeff, LA, Liz, Rocky Mountain National Park, sea, Westlake Village
Grand Teton Nat Pk, WY, USA - The 'snapped-off branch in question' aka 'the culprit' deftly decorated with a small wad of my hair from the injury (I sawed the branch off afterwards, sorry US Federal Government)
Courtesy of www.SladeRide.com
(Gallery at bottom of post & 2 videos below)
I value the top of my bonce, my head, my noggin, my tete, my skull, my scalp.
So, why is it that I stabbed a broken, dagger-like tree branch (still attached to pine in question) into the top of it? Yup. And I wasn’t even riding my bike at the time!
Picture the scene: having just ridden some amazing descents through construction areas on dirt roads, cranking the top gear, grinning wildly at the road crews as they waved me past, having seen the Teton mountains (gorgeous) for the first time, having met and chatted to some lovely people along the route and then not failed to notice a truly enormous proper mountain storm developing overhead, I’m part elated part anxious to get to the campsite quickly and pitch my tent before the maelstrom unleashes its wrath and fury from overhead.
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Filed in: Admin, Alaska South, Travel | admin | September 25, 2009 | Comments (2)
Tags: Centennial, crater lake, Derek, Dubois, Great Divide Basin, Helena, injury, Jackalope, jackson, jenny lake, Lander, Laramie, Montana, Muddy Gap, snow, Snowy Mountains, Tetons, Three Forks, trans-am, USA, wind, Yellowstone
Nr Maligne Lake, Jasper Nat Pk, Alberta, Canada - Alvin gives us a turn...
Courtesy of www.SladeRide.com
(Gallery at bottom of post)
“What do you mean you ‘don’t take tents’? You’re advertised as a campsite and the road signs show a picture of A TENT!!!” say I, incredulous in the least.
“I’m sorry but we don’t take tents, we’ve had some trouble with vandalism from ‘tenters’. There’s a site which does take tents 15 km out of town, I can give you directions.”
I: “I’ve ridden 90 miles to get here on a loaded bicycle, I don’t think I can ride another ‘15k’, can’t you make an exception as it’s just me on my own?”
(by ‘loaded bicycle’ did I mean ‘loaded’ like a gun?)
RV site lady: “I’m sorry there’s nothing I can do.”
Me: “I’m not happy, I’m really not happy, this is not on – you should take down the signs 5 MILES OUT OF TOWN WITH A PICTURE OF A TENT ON THEM!!!”
(in hindsight I realise – thanks Nancy – that at this juncture, with a queue of eager but undoubtedly somewhat embarrassed RV-ers building behind me that I was no doubt compounding the view held by ‘RV site lady’ that tenters were aggressive, surly vandals)
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Filed in: Admin, Alaska South, Travel | admin | August 23, 2009 | Comments (2)
Tags: Alberta, Andrew, Athabasca Falls, Avon, Banff National Park, Beauty Creek, British Columbia, Canada, Cate, Columbia Icefield, Continental Divide, Dawson Creek, Death Race, Drive-train, Eureka, Florida 4, Fort Steele, Grand Cache, Grand Prairie, Hail, Helena, Hinton, Icefields Parkway, Jasper, Kootenay National Park, Lake Louise, Martyn, Matthew, Montana, Nancy, Ovando, Radium Hot Springs, Rick, Sabrina, Seeley Lake, Storm, Swan Lake, Tom, Tyre, USA, Whitefish
Nr Toad River, YT, Canada - Yes, I really really am doing all this riding!
Courtesy of www.SladeRide.com
(Gallery at bottom of post)
PING! PING! WTF!
No, I’m not trying for the UK table tennis team at the next Olympics, nor am I breaking the strings on a guitar (which is sort of like the sound…) but the spokes are breaking on my rear wheel. Just after crossing the Continental Divide in Yukon Territory we notice at camp that I have one (the first…) broken. After Ward’s kind assistance the spoke is repaired and we set off the next morning but then its ping ping ping ping pingety-ping as I break 4 more spokes in the course of 25 miles (again Ward heroically repairs them for me using his 15 years as a bike mechanic!).
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Filed in: Alaska South, Travel | admin | July 29, 2009 | Comments (3)
Tags: Adam, Alaskan Highway, Alcan, British Columbia, Canada, Continental Divide, Dawson Creek, Fort Nelson, Fort St John, Jacky, Mile 0, Pink Mountain, Ranchiera Lodge, rim, Steamboat, Tim, Toad River, Ward, Watson Lake, wheel, Whitehorse, Yukon
Kluane Lake, YT, Canada - RV, biker & cyclists heaven
Courtesy of www.SladeRide.com…
(Gallery at bottom of post)
Prologue – Peru, September 2005, Jon Slade ‘blog e-mail’ to home…
Firstly, an overlooked incident from the time of my last missive, whilst on mountaineering “manoeuvres” (no Jon, you are not and never have been in the army, Cub Scouts yes) in the Peruvian Andes. We’d been warned about thefts in our particular valley (Ishinca) and on the basis that we made up the only two tents in the whole area had become particularly vigilent, or so we thought.
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Filed in: Alaska South, Travel | admin | July 12, 2009 | Comments (3)
Tags: Adam, Alaska, Beaver Creek, border, Burwash Landing, Canada, Cottonwood RV, Fairbanks, Heat, Jacky, Kluane, Lion, Moose, North Pole, Rain, Tim, USA, Ward, Whitehorse, Yukon
Seward Glacier Cruise - ITS A HUMPBACK WHALE!
Courtesy of www.SladeRide.com…
(Gallery at bottom of post)
With my legs somewhat rested, bike (Charles) stored in Fairbanks (thanks John) I set off in the middle of June for a 2 week driving tour of Southern Alaska a friend from Liverpool / New Jersey, Lee. A CAR! NO PEDALLING!
To give you an idea of the sheer vastness that is Alaska, we cover 2000 miles…and only see maybe an eighth of the country! But it was a great 2 weeks (thanks Lee) and needed after the previous 2 of hard cycling.
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Filed in: Alaska South, Travel | admin | June 27, 2009 | Comments (2)
Tags: Alaska, Anchroage, Bear, car, Caribou, Denali, Exit, fjord, Galcier, Glacier, Glenn Highway, Harding, Homer, Hope, Icefield, kayak, Lee, Lynx, Moose, nightlife, Nikolaevsk, Seward, Valdez, whale
Ooh look at 'im with 'is arty stuff - who does 'e think 'e is? David bleedin' Bailey?!
Courtesy of www.SladeRide.com…
(Video approx half way down & Gallery at bottom of post)
So, the 27th of May 2009, a hotel room in Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, USA on the Arctic Ocean Coast, 250 miles INSIDE the Arctic Circle, 240 miles south by mostly dirt road to the next Service Station (Coldfoot) and potential re-supply. Between here and there is the ‘North Slope’ of Arctic tundra, the 4,700 foot Atigun Pass, snow-bound and avalanche prone. Oh, and some bears. And after those 240 miles services are sporadic for the next 260. And I’m GOING TO DO IT BY BICYCLE! Alone. WHAT!?
The bike, Charles, is in a box and needs to be rebuilt by me in the hotel room. I’ll need to wild camp on the tundra / mountains / valleys, carry 2 weeks worth of food. At this time of year (spring) temperatures can still go below -10c. And then there are the infamous arctic winds.
If there is such a thing as being ‘out of ones comfort zone’ then I know for an absolute fact that I’m out of it about 10 times over. I think the phrase is ‘I’m bricking it’. I can’t remember when I was last so, well, scared.
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Filed in: Alaska South, Travel | admin | June 11, 2009 | Comments (8)
Tags: Alaska, Atigun Pass, Brooks Range, Coldfoot, Fairbanks, Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve, Jon, Prudhoe Bay, Start, Wiseman
Courtesy of www.SladeRide.com…
Well, phew, I’m here, Alaska. Fairbanks. Check out ‘Where am I‘ option at Sladeride.com to see my latest location (uses a GPS tracker thingy seeing as I’m a bit of a wayward child and need to be monitored!). I fly to Prudhoe Bay (‘the top’) with the bike on the 27th…
Leaving the UK was of course hard and … Read more »
