Arctic Circle Jerks:In Which Chris and Nate Get Drunk and Ride North, Part 1:L.A. to McLeod Lake, BC

So I'm a motorcycle addict, and I've watched Long Way Round way too many times, so when the film industry went on hiatus this year I decided that I was going to do something retarded and epic on my motorbike. It was time to ride (Dun dun dun!) to the Arctic Circle.

My mom got wind of this, and convinced my best friend Chris to go with me. Had to twist his arm a bunch, I bet.

Because I'm a cheap bastard, I decided that for minimum expenditure and maximum manliness, there would be no hotels on this trip: either we would find someone to take us in for the night, or we would unpack our 32 year old backpacker tent and camp the hell out. Luckily, we discovered Couchsurfing.com, a worldwide community of people kind enough to let travelers crash on their couches for the night, and we started emailing potential hosts immediately.

Chris would be on his 1st gen SV650, an ex-trackbike, with its stiff track suspension and low clipons. He managed to convert it back to the stock tubular bar, and got some saddlebags, a Tom Tom GPS, a "waterproof" duffel bag, and a cheap bar-mount Spitfire windscreen, and ended up getting it to look like this:



I was thinking about also taking my SV, a 2nd gen 650S, but I knew the roads would get nasty up north and I wanted something with a little more fuel, so I went with my DR650SE. For the trip, I went with the same cheap-ass windscreen that Chris got, and found a guy in Orange who used my bike to make a prototype luggage rack and then gave me the first production model, which worked perfectly with my trunk and expandable side bags. I already had an oversized desert tank and some brand new Pirelli Scorpion A/T tires, so I was pretty much good to go:


Seriously, that rack is amazing. It's solid as hell, and symmetrical, which means there's some space under the rack on the left where my tent could sit directly opposite my exhaust. The Sequoia Rack - they've got versions that fit all of the major Japanese dualsports and some KTMs too. Highly recommended.

We decided to leave nothing to chance so we had loads of emergency stuff. First-aid kit, a tire plug kit for Chris, spare tubes front and rear for me with a patch kit just in case, 3 tire irons, and a small Campbell-Hausfield tire compressor with the plastic enclosure removed for compactness and the cig lighter plug converted to an SAE connector, which Chris and I both had attachments for, both directly to the battery and through a switched circuit. Plus, 3 ItzaGasCan 1-gallon collapsible fuel containers, which would supplement the SV's range up in the sticks where fuel stations are far apart.

For emergency food, I had several pounds of custom-mixed trail mix, some bottles of water, and a 70oz Camelbak that would turn out to be an absolute godsend on the road.

We had to get new riding gear for this, as we knew there would be some weather that leather just couldn't deal with. I went with a Fieldsheer Highland II suit, the poor man's Aerostich, at $260. One piece, covered in pockets, waterproof as they come, and makes me look like a fat fighter pilot.

Chris went with the separate textile jacket/pants, also from Fieldsheer, or maybe Firstgear.

Anyhoo, it turns out that Chris could only get 2 weeks off work, so our schedule got tightened up to 16 days - 2 5 day workweeks, and 3 full weekends, to go 7600 miles, more or less. We were going to be hauling ass, at 400-600 miles every day, with a few 600 mile days in a row. On my SV, I once did a trip to Illinois and back and averaged 600-700 miles a day, but the DR's a much slower sort of beast, so we were looking at some pretty frickin' long days. But that's how it goes when you have a real job that requires you to show up regularly, so that's what we would do.

So we left our apartments in LA and met at a gas station in Sylmar to exchange sexual innuendo about each other's moms and make sure we didn't forget anything vital before officially taking off for San Francisco.

This was me and Pam, and Chris with his Suzi, in Sylmar next to a Denny's. I was clean-shaven and Chris had his cleanly trimmed goatee:




First thing forgotten: Chris left his mp3 player at home, so he'd be rollin' with earplugs for the rest of the trip. Bummer, man.

But no time to go back to get it: we were off for San Fran, and this was the route:

Google Maps route, with all our stops




That first day, we spent a lot of time getting stuff set up just right--adjusting our windshields, readjusting out windshields, trying different riding positions, figuring out how to communicate with hand signals:




and refining our techniques for taking pictures of scenery while riding:







Also, my bike hit 20k miles, so we pulled over to celebrate:



and take pictures of my riding gear.
Major crotch reporting for duty!:


So we made it to SF without any issues, and made our way to our old college buddy Ben's place, which has moto parking right across the street. That's Ben's KLR650 on the left:




Here's me next to our parked bikes, looking like I don't know what the F:




Ben led us on our bikes all around the city to show us how much fun a place like SF is for a guy on a bike. For some reason I ended up wearing no gear except my novelty beanie helmet that I brought for emergency passenger purposes, so I looked like a complete douche and was constantly getting crap in my eyes. Never again. Here's a shot of us looking down on the city:




and a better picture of me looking like some kind of tard, with Ben and Chris:

I'm an excellent driver!



Then we went to a super-funky local bar and had beer in weird-shaped bottles, and then I passed out on Ben's futon:




So we hauled ass out of San Fran the next morning, with Ben, who led us over the Golden Gate and then left us and handed navigation over to Chris's GPS.



And then we passed this boat, and there was much rejoicing:



It was hot as a bastard, so we figured we'd have our first real rest stop, and I parked Pam on the grass, proper dualsport style:



and Chris had some Nutri-Grain bars, or at least lots of chunks of nutri-grain bars:


As it turns out, soft cereal bars don't hold up well to being packed tightly in saddlebags and vibrated to death. Also, the reason why people use M&M's in trail mix is because the hard candy shell keeps them from melting all over the damn place at the first sign of a California afternoon. Note to self.

That extra bulge on my bike is a sleeping bag. Ben hooked us up with 2 kickass 20 degree mummy bags and one of those Thermarest self-inflating sleeping pads, for camping. Most importantly though, that sleeping bag made a sweet lower backrest, and sometimes, when I was really bored, a seat:



So we took off, and conversed for a bit:



We actually did spent quite a lot of time on the road flipping each other the bird and expressing through interpretive dance what we were doing with each other's moms last night, and then clarifying the sordid details verbally when we de-helmeted for gas stops. It's just how we communicate.

There was some more camera experiments, including some face shots in which you can see quite a lot through the faceshield reflections:



and eventually we managed to get some shots of actual scenery. This is not Mount Shasta, but I'm going to pretend that it is, because somehow I managed to not get any actual pictures of Mount Shasta.



Anyhoo, we were excited--we finally crossed our first state border into Oregon, and were going to have our first Couchsurfing experience of the trip. Maybe we'd have a good night's sleep, maybe we'd get axe murdered. Who knows?

So we rolled into Susie's place in Eugene, Oregon late at night after having spent a lot of time dicking around at gas stops. We came bearing gifts of (not expensive) wine, and Susie greeted us with a smile when we rolled in:



Susie Ninjapants does roller derby, and is an adorable, charming girl, and that is a terrible picture of her.

So Susie was chilling on her back porch couch, with Maren, a homeless circus performer who was also crashing her couch that night, and had been there for at least a week or two. This is her:



So we all squeezed onto the couch and shared wine and Thai peanuts into the wee hours of the morning. This is me. I'm drunk, and I don't know what the F:


Then we spent most of the morning doing exactly the same thing, minus the long-gone wine:







Then Chris gave the girls a ride, if you know what I mean:


I mean on his bike, perv.




Not pictured: Me, jealous:




So we set off for our next stop, Vancouver:


Somewhere in Washington, it started getting cold, so we had to stop and suit up for cold weather riding for the first time, which for me involved taking off my entire suit and attaching the liner, which is an entire other quilted suit that velcroes inside the other one, and is warm as damn. Also, a neck warmer. So now I'm a really fat fighter pilot:




And the sun started going down, so we stopped and took some pictures, just because:














This sign that we passed before crossing the border should have read: ATTENTION: FILL UP ON BEER AND GAS NOW BECAUSE THE CANADIANS WILL RAPE YOUR WALLET FOR THEM BOTH:




Note on Oregon: full-serve gas is how that state rolls. I had to practically kick the attendant in the nuts because he didn't want to let me fill up my own bike. Dude. No. I let him operate the credit card machine, and that's it.


So we crossed the border without issue and made it to a friend's place in Burnaby, BC, a suburb of Vancouver, by late evening. We were so tired, we practically walked in the door and passed out, so neither Chris nor I have any pictures of that stop. It's okay though, we stayed with them on our way south too, so it all works out.

First thing the next morning, we went straight to the local Canadian Superstore to buy more clothes. Turns out Chris's gear was woefully inadequate for even a cold Vancouver summer night, so he got a fleece pullover to go under his other stuff, while I sat outside and took pictures of our illegally parked bikes.

"No stopping any time"? Oh, no worries--that's just Canadian for "Motorcycle Parking".



And so we set off. There were mountains:

"Hey Chris! Look! Nature stuff!" "Shut up Nate."







There were heroic poses:



and tomfoolery:





But we finally made it to Goji's place, where we were to couchsurf that night.

Well, sort of.

You see, Goji doesn't actually have a couch. He lives in this other chick's backyard, in a tent. He's a nudist hippie vegan raw-foodist pedal cabbie, who also paints faces and is heavy into laughter yoga.

So here's where we stayed for the night. In our backpacker tent, pitched next to Goji's tent. I didn't notice this before, but there's Goji himself on the porch steps. Luckily it was too cold for him to practicing his nudism properly, so he just wore his Jedi robes or whatever:



So we took off the next morning for Fort Nelson, BC. Also known as the middle of frickin' nowhere. We were definitely in the sticks now, and gas stations were far apart and expensive as F.

So we were around McLeod Lake when we realized that we'd missed the last gas station and were about to run out, or at least Chris was. So we were super relieved to find this station, which wasn't on my map:

Thank God, gas!



Oh wait, cash only? That might be a prob--



oh, F word.



OH NO, WILL OUR HEROES FIND GAS, OR WILL THEY BE EATEN BY CARIBOU AND BEAVERS?

FIND OUT WHEN NATE GETS HIS SHIT TOGETHER AND POSTS AGAIN!



Arctic Circle Jerks part 2: Circle Harder