July 16
44 miles (plus 3 in a pilot car)
2900 feet elevation gain
Leaving the comforts of town behind is always a challenge, and we took advantage of the hotel as long as possible before reluctantly heading back outside around 10:30.
The ride across town was pleasant along the bike trails, and soon enough we were on the Parks Highway, climbing our way amidst the speeding traffic. We both complained a bit that we weren’t in the mood for climbing, but we knew we were just sad to be leaving the comforts of town behind.
Halfway between Fairbanks and Nenana lies Skinny Dick’s Halfway Inn, a bar with a raunchy sense of humor owned by some Arizona snowbirds. We stopped in for a soda and a hot dog and a short break, chatted with a few locals and headed back on our way. The climbing eased up in the afternoon and we were surprised to come upon another section of road work with a pilot car. Another friendly driver took us across a short section of what looked like unpleasant riding. After the pilot car, we got a bit of rain and started looking for a place to set up camp. We passed a rest area with picnic tables and stopped to cook dinner, and decided to camp in the trees nearby after utilizing the picnic tables to eat some green chile mac and cheese for dinner.
Finally having bug spray is basically life changing. We’ve got both DEET and Picaridin. The mosquitos still swarm, but now we can actually keep them from landing on our exposed skin and biting the shit out of us (mostly me). Setting up camp was a normal experience instead of a mad dash, and only about 5 got into the tent with us. Apparently there are 35 species of mosquito in Alaska!
My brother requested an update on how the bikes are doing. So far, we’ve had no flat tires and no major issues with the bikes. They’ve held up well in the mud. I’m not in love with my saddle, but trying to tweak with positioning and see how it goes. There’s probably more to report about other gear. Paul’s water bag sprung a leak, which we held with tenacious tape well enough until we replaced it in Fairbanks. The sleeping pad sprung a leak on Paul’s side, and was fortunately easy to patch. I returned my REI sun sleeves because the stitching was coming unraveled, so I got a different brand. And we both have Garmin bike computers that love to give us completely different information about climbs. Our InReach map is not syncing properly and needs some troubleshooting. And we broke a tent stake, but we have an extra. Overall, these are all minor issues.