Hideous downbursts of rain should have ruined the ride, but the 990 Adventure and I have the groove on. That’s largely owing to a new rear tire, a complete lack of enforcement from Whitehorse to Dawson in the Yukon Territories, and the good graces of Jim from Tourism Yukon who’s offered to carry the luggage in a support vehicle. So much for going “solo”, but damn the bike feels so good I couldn’t give a toss.

Is it incongruous that the friendliest, most helpful, warm, and kind dealership experience has required me to travel well over 2500km to Whitehorse, YT? Whitehorse Honda is the local KTM dealer, and frankly I’ve never had a dealership this genuine and helpful. Period. Full stop.

I should have just camped.  The Belvedere Hotel has one of the few licensed lounges in Watson Lake, making it the hot spot.  Having a room overlooking the parking lot was good for the bike’s …

Camping wasn’t horrible. The salvation from H.O.T. (Hell’s Own Tent) was an MEC sleeping bag and ground mat. Despite developing a bad list overnight, the H.O.T. did keep the mosquitoes out. No mean feat, at one point at night I woke up from a dream wondering why there was group of sportbikes running the highway at night. Only to realize the sound was masses of mosquitoes bumping against the mesh.

At Kismet, the junction of highways 16 and 37, I have a moment of doubt and nearly turn back.  There’s no strong game plan here, just an urge to press northwards.  The sign here in …

It’s a moment ripped from Northern Exposure, walking into the Wells Hotel for breakfast everyone already seems to know who the guy on the “big orange bike” is and where he’s come from. More mysteriously they have a fair idea where I’m heading.

Here’s an early birthday gift, somewhere behind me is a Honda Accord with all the KTM’s overstuffed luggage and then some. Admittedly having a well-used front-wheel drive as a sag wagon diminishes the adventure a of riding from Wildwood to Barkerville, BC the “back way”, but it’s giving me a taste of what this bike can really do. Oh, dear gawd, it’s bloody dirt-road ambrosia with a chaser of complete hoonery thrown in.

Tyax Lodge, outside of Gold Bridge, B.C., feels deserted.  A fabulous location, picturesque to the point of overload, Tyax should be bustling at the seams with tourists.  Instead it’s quiet to the point of being …

In the history of slow starts this has been epic. Hannibal had an easier time wrestling up some elephants and infantry, than my getting out on the road the past few days. Yet, sitting here at Tyax lodge I’m hard pressed to be more satisfied with the first day of “North: The KTM Summer of Adventure”.

Will the marine layer ever relent?
Into Crescent City the “jumps” have been lengthened to the 1098S’ maximum safe range, 120 miles, out of necessity.  In response, my body is betraying me.    That’s making it …

I’ve made navigational errors before, tons of them, but this one feels profound.  The fog is so dense I can hardly make out the cat’s eye reflectors on the road in the 1098S’s projectors and …

L.A. … The 1098S slices northwards on the 405 out of Irvine between columns of traffic trudging forwards like workers in Fritz Lang’s Metropolis.  Even with the Ventura luggage, I’m the widest thing on the …

“They took my Allen keys from my at security,” on the phone photographer Kevin Miklossy sounds disgusted, “you need a 6mm and a 3mm.  Does the Ducati toolkit have them?”
I laugh, “You’re joking right.”
The 1098S …

Sitting long, low and sepia-lit in the evening sun at Alice’s on Skyline Road the 1098S projects sensuality and anticipation of acceleration so pure it borders on erotic; needing only to shed vestigial street fitments …

 We’ve left the heat of the Vermillion Canyons behind and as we begin our final approach to our destination periodic bolts of lightning streak downwards to the Arizona desert floor.  This is a storm, a …

It runs under the salt like electricity, but the GT1000’s tires can’t insulate me from this current.  We’re on one of North America’s temples of speed, the Bonneville Salt Flats, which, damp in spots, is …

We’ve cut the day short and landed in West Wendover, Nevada.  I use “we” in a sweeping sense as I’ve come down ill and the GT1000 and I have been riding in the support vehicle …