Hitting the road around 7:30am was great as the traffic was really quite light. We got to the visitor center by 8:15, topped off our water bottles, and planned how far we would try to ride. The road is about 90 miles long. The first 16 miles are paved and it's hard-pack gravel the rest of the way. Along the road are a few campground sites, some of which have potable water. We decided we would try to get as far as the Teklanika Campground at mile 29 as it had water. We had to be back by 2:30 to meet up with Patty & Bill before heading off to Fairbanks.
The road climbs up the first 10 miles or so by about 1000 feet in a rolling fashion. The sides of the road were covered in wildflowers, blues, pinks, yellows, and some whites. We aren't sure of all the names, but they were gorgeous nonetheless. To the left is Fireweed, not quite blooming yet but frequently found alongside the roads. The traffic was light and one thing that we noticed right away was how much we could hear the birds chirping and singing that we didn't hear yesterday over the roar of the bus engine. The other thing that was also so apparent was just how vast was the landscape as seen from the seat of a bicycle. The cloud cover was heavier today and we didn't get a view of Denali, but the landscape we did see was awesome!
At the point where the paved road ends, the Park Service has a ranger check point to turn around any private cars that don't have special use permits to continue down the gravel portion of the road.
He looked at our bike and said, "Wow, those sure are skinny tires, have fun!" We headed up the road and the first couple of miles were great as it was really hard packed dirt with very little gravel. In fact, most of the road was in very good shape. The worst sections were where crews had recently regraded the road and used larger gravel that was somewhat loose. At one point Kristina said, "It feels like we are fishtailing." I responded, "That's because we are!" It made the downhills in those sections challenging and kept our overall speed lower. We also hit a patch of washboard road that almost caused my glasses to shake off! It was so incredibly gorgeous being out there on the bike, though, that we were very accepting of the road conditions.
We didn't make it all the way to the Teklanika Campground, since we opted to stop along the way to take pictures or put on jackets since it was less stable to while riding. We turned around at mile 26 or so and headed back. Once back at the van we used the Park Service showers at the Riley Creek Mercantile, then piled back into the van for a 2.5 hour drive to Fairbanks.Since this was our last day to ride, Kristina wanted me to include our overall riding statistics for the trip. We rode the tandem 6 days, for a total of 483 miles with 17,500 feet of climbing. Fastest speed was logged during our ride from Homer to Kenai: 47 mph. We are so glad we made this a riding vacation!
Tomorrow we plan on doing a bit of sightseeing in a Fairbanks with a visit to a migratory bird habitat and a visit to the Museum of the North at the University of Alaska.
Now you are ready for Rt. 66
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