[Terrytaylor] Alaska

[Terry Taylor]

Hi y'all 
I believe that Alaska is not my favorite place to tour and I think some of that sentiment has to do with the age of the tourer. To be


a successful bicyclist in AK requires that one embrace a certain willingness to risk. That
I also believe has a direct correlation to age. I am much less willing to risk if losing is rewarded by pain. Young people see the reward as worth the risk.  I think of my two sons and think of their approach to risk and reward. Mark always threw caution to the winds and went for the reward. As he has gotten older he has decided to be more cautious. Where once he loved to ride his motorcycle down the freeway standing on the seat arms out and going in and out of the zipper, he now at 56years of age is content to seat in the passenger seat and not being able to reach the handlebars leans to pull out to pass and lean to return to his lane. Steve was a pilot in the Air Force and and was constantly taught to be safe and eliminate risk. Although he has been called on the carpet a few times for taking liberties with his aircraft. He is very talented on a motorcycle and went to Sturgess a couple of years ago and entered a full week of motorcycle skills competition, the winner to be declared the" Ultimate Biker" the reward a new Harley. He won the bike, again risk versus reward. 
I will admit I did som risky events when I was younger that I am unwilling to do now. 
I also believe that younger people will bounce back up and as one gets older the bounce is gone and may be replaced with a less than rewarding reward. 
So when I talked to young people at two bike shops inAnchorage ,when I told them my experience with AK road riding. I was informed that "these are the roads we have to ride on so we ride on them."
 The tense moments arrive when riding on these two lanes with no shoulder and the roads are crowded with motorhomes many of them rentals by people who looked at a half hour video and sent out on the very same road I am riding and they are looking at the very beautiful scenery and even once a while the road I get very nervous. 
My ride north toward Fairbanks had a good shoulder much of the time. I got to Willows and it had a campground but it was too soon,I like to ride about 50 miles then camp. I got to the Talkeetna turn off and stopped at a store. I was tired it had been 60 miles and no campground. I sat on a bench to rest there was an old guy sitting there and after a few moments of silence I asked him if he lives here in AK  He said all his life and he was a genuine Sowerdough. He said no more so I asked him just what is a Sowerdough? He told me he was Sower on Alaska and didn't have the Dough to leave. I sat there a few more minutes hoping he had some more nuggets of wisdom but he said no more so I got some food in the store and left still looking for a campground as I don't want to go off in the woods to set up camp. I found a campground at 80 miles. I was very sore in many places. I have discovered that as I get older I seem to be losing what ever it is that pads the sit bones when on the bike. When I road across the US in "76" I wore swimming suits as I didn't like the tan lines I got with the cycling shorts and had a hard leather saddle and suffered no pain. Now I know that 80 miles is over my comfort zone by about 30 miles. Now you 100 mile a day riders please remember that I am not riding your 16 lb bike but more like 90 lb bike. 
The campground had a sign on the board announcing that there is a wounded bear in the area and to be aware. Well that's fine I will be sure to keep my tent zipped up tight!
Next morning I continued north but found I had not recovered from the day before and that includes my aches and especially where the bottom meets the bike seat. I went less than 25 miles and there was a forest service campground the next one would be a hundred miles down the road. I find that if I had any say on the distance between campgrounds, it should be exactly 50 miles. 
I set up camp and again called my favorite sag wagon , brother Tom and asked him if he was in the neighborhood could he possibly stop by and give me a ride?
He said he would stop by tomorrow and I said that would be fine. 
This is getting too long I will try to send it as I have been having difficulties send my emails
Hope this goes as I don't want to do it all over 
TerryT 
Sent from my iPhone