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 27^th 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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I couldn’t have been more wrong when I predicted that Jon would be going through Wiseman in 2-3 days.  He’s done it in one day and almost double the distance again!  Tonight he’s resting outside of Coldfoot, AK on the Southern edge of the Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve.  He is also over the half-way point to Fairbanks where we expect to see him wrestle the site away from me and fill up the gallery with tonnes of pictures.

If you don’t pay close attention to the comments then you probably didn’t see the update from Tommy Cate.  Tommy wrote:

Hey guys -
Visited with Jon on Sunday and Monday (my way up and back to Deadhorse). His spirits were high and he was still feeling great. He was a little distressed that his progress was so slow. The road from Deadhorse is a steady uphill climb to Atigun Pass. That, combined with brutal headwinds, had dropped is speed to an average of about 4.5 MPH. I would add that his progress is also slowed by everyone that wants to stop and visit with the crazy Brit on a bicycle!

Keep up the good work Jon! You’re an inspiration to all of us!

Tommy Cate
(motorcyclist from Kentucky)

Thanks for the update Tommy, we all really appreciate it back home.  This also explains why there was such a push yesterday as he finally hit the down-hill.

Finally, I have changed the Route page for now so that you can accurately see what Jon has done to date.

Jon is now about 172 miles into Alaska now!  He has not had internet communication so he hasn’t been able to send me his latest Route file.  He does have a GPS tracker that you can see on the Where Am I? page.  If you follow that you can see he’s making great progress every day.  He is currently near the bottom of the first major obstacle of the ride.  Take at look at the Where Am I? page and click on Hybrid in the upper right corner of the map.  From there you will notice that he’s on the up-hill path out of the river bottom he’s been following.

In other riding news, it looks like Jon has taken a 7 mile detour around Gailbraith Lake.  After getting to a dead-end, he had to go back the way he came.  We’re looking forward to hearing what really happened Jon!

The next town that Jon is due to go through is Wiseman, AK.  Hopefully he’ll find public internet access there.  At his current pace he should be in Wiseman in 2-3 days.