Author Archive | Gareth Morgan

You know how I told you how wonderful it was in the bike shop a couple of days ago. The bike felt strange and heavy and I decided the new fork seals had really changed things. About 50  miles down the road I did the routine chain kick to see how it was holding up […]

Today it has been 115 degrees as we have come south from just above San Fransisco. My face is burnt red from the wind after a few minutes with the visor up. Motorway travel is really hard in these conditions especially as I got a screw in the new rear tyre about 20 km before […]

  One of the features of this ride has been the amazing network of New Zealanders across America that have heard about our journey, have made contact and we have enjoyed catching up with. There are too many to mention here and our programme has not enabled us to meet them all but a huge […]

I’m sitting in the showroom of “Ride West BMW” they provide coffee and snacks and a computer to live your life while you wait. I think I’ve sold a bike for them so I might get a t-shirt for free. Today we are doing rear tyres and an oil change and I am doing my […]

Frankly Alaska’s Inner Passage got a bit boring after 4 days – maybe we were just missing our bikes. But sitting on ferries staring at pine & spruce trees-covered islands ad nauseum is for old folks. The whales were great but it’s such a long way and so much motorcycling is sacrificed that we agreed […]

The show must go on, but our riding companion for the last 4 weeks has departed now to rejoin his family who graciously have sacrificed some of ther US holiday while their dad indulges his passion for motorcycling expeditioning and joined us from Utah to the top of the world at Prudhoe Bay, Alaska. MOD […]

Mod has told you lots about the ride but he hasn’t mentioned that it seems to have taken the role of being a rite of passage to motorcycling manhood for some. When we had finished the slippery mud bath back to Fairbanks and water blasted the bikes so we could recognise them — to the motel […]

There are strange things done ‘neath the midnight sun By the men who moil for gold. The arctic trails have their secret tales That would make your blood run cold. The northern lights have seen queer sights But the queerest they ever did see, Was that night on the marge of Lake LeBarge When I […]

  A pretty restored gold rush town, nestled at the junction of the Klondike and yukon Rivers. WE nearly froze getting here and then the sun came out and I was still basking in a rude state behind glass at 11pm. We are just beyond the 64th parallel and this settlement of 1000 perminant residents […]

  Coming from NZ, it’s difficult to appreciate just how bleak the climate of the northern parts of Canada and Alaska must get. We’re here in the Yukon in their summer and yet fell the chill each time we walk out, even with one or two layers of Icebreaker on. Meanwhile the locals saunter around […]