Rain was falling steadily the day I brought my 1995 Honda Shadow VT 1100 to the shipping terminal in Lowell, Mass., for its cross-country trip to Seattle. Not ideal riding conditions, but you’ve got to play the cards life deals you. As I bundled up to hit the road I tried to put a positive spin on it: Maybe if it rained now, there’d be less of it during my journey back home from Alaska across Canada.
Looking back, this was absurdly wishful thinking… Speaking to my parents from the Last Frontier, they asked how the riding was going. “It’s been raining at least every other day,” I replied. They suggested not riding in the rain. “I’d still be in Seattle,” I deadpanned.
A friend would later describe my trip as a comedy of errors, and she was more than half right. During the planning phase, I looked at British Columbia on a map and thought: “That looks about as tall as Pennsylvania is wide… Might take six hours to cross into the Yukon.” Thank god for a gut check and Google maps!
Understandably, some of you must be thinking I rolled out of bed and into the saddle for the first time that very morning, but this isn’t quite the case. I’d spent a decade travelling New England and the Canadian Maritimes on my trusty – and at this point, not yet rusty – two-wheeled steed as a moto-journalist, contributing travel articles and gear reviews to a number of magazines, and eventually relaunching a biking title from the ‘80s.
And despite the sound of it, this trip had been in the planning stage for years. Ever since reading Ron Ayres’ “Against the Wind: A Rider’s Account of the Incredible Iron Butt Rally,” I wanted to cross off the last two states on my tour of America. I’d originally thought about riding to Alaska from Bozeman, Montana, then shipping my bike back home, but a college roommate who lived in Seattle called me in January to invite me out, and a few months later I learned my consultancy gig would soon be ending.
With the summer to myself, it seemed prudent to strike while the iron was hot, so Alaska-bound I was… I had a loose itinerary and no real plan, and figured I’d be back in Boston by the end of October at the latest. After two years of 50-60+ hour weeks, I was ready to recharge my batteries and this trip seemed like the perfect way to do it.
And since I’d be in the neighborhood, I figured I might as well visit all the Canadian provinces for good measure. After all, an opportunity like this doesn’t come along every day and this was one gift (iron) horse I wasn’t going to look in the mouth.
Robert, a buddy who’d accompanied me on several trips around New England and was once rewarded with waking up to a frost-covered motorcycle in the White Mountains for his efforts, offered to follow me in his car so I wouldn’t have to take the train back to Boston once I was bike-less. It wasn’t until we got to Mill City and I saw my bike strapped to its shipping crate that I really felt I was going to miss it. In the grand scheme of things, this was a blip considering how inseparable we’d be for the next ten weeks, but I’d had so much fun on that thing, knowing I wouldn’t be able to ride for a while was sinking in and it was a bummer… a necessary evil. And me without my camera for a farewell pic!
Back home, I packed up my helmet, boots and riding gear for their trip to Seattle; read “The Longest Ride” by Emilio Scotto; and at the recommendation of friends, watched Ewan McGregor and Charlie Borman’s “Long Way Round” and “Long Way Down.” Other than this and a thorough pre-trip gear check – including many things I hoped I wouldn’t need: fix-a-flat kits, a first-aid kit and bear spray among them – I couldn’t fathom what else I could do to prepare for the journey ahead. After all, I had an estimated three months of riding ahead of me… How hard could it be?