Riding north, my trip on a KTM 990 Adventure to Yukon and Alaska

September 7, 2022

In the last week of August 2015 I drove my KTM 990 Adventure from San Francisco, California to Yukon and Alaska solo. I stopped in Stewart British Columbia, Haines Alaska, continued to Whitehorse and Dalton Yukon, and crossed the border at Poker Creek. I detoured, backtracked, and discovered. Adding to the adventure, I sustained some minor front suspension system damage, froze my tail off, and met some incredible people. On part of the return trip, I opted for the Alaska Marine Highway. Some pictures and a few interesting things I learned follow.

Camping #

RV parks were welcoming and affordable locations. You have a flat spot for your tent, good access to a restroom with shower, and often a small store with a snack and soda selection. Your park cohabitants are often curious about the bike and will chat you up as long as you want.

State and national parks can vary. I encountered a handful in Alaska that would not allow any tent camping due to black bears actively looking for soap berries in the area. Many other parks had no such restriction.

Logging areas and related trails are a bad idea in my opinion. While there is plenty of access, the risk is too great. Loggers have enough to worry about without smashing you with their giant equipment.

Stop when you can. Twice I opted to search for a better spot and ended up finding a location well into the dark. Misty atmosphere in the dark and on rough road surfaces isn’t enjoyable. You exert a lot of energy paying attention to everything, so you can arrive safely, and then set up your tent in the dark. Both times it worked out, but it was not enjoyable.

Motorcycle shops #

• Stewart, BC
• Haines, AK
• Whitehorse, YT
• Dawson City, YT

The trip to Fairbanks is ~3,400 miles (ca. 5,472 km) on a map with the above stops. That doesn’t include detours and other locations. Given the odd size of the rear tire on a KTM 990 and the time of year I was leaving, when many places are close to shutting down for the season, I opted to carry a spare. I stopped in two motorcycle shops on my trip and one did have a tire which would have covered my need. Carrying the tire was not a problem for the bike. It did present an annoyance when I wanted to access the saddlebag. I would not carry one again, even with knobbies that wear quickly.

I was doing some spirited riding towards Chicken, AK. Dirt roads with plenty of opportunity to really lean into the KTM’s throttle and let the bike be the gyroscope that it can be. The suspension was in full use that day. My impassioned riding managed to work grit from the dirt roads into the front fork seals. Something felt off when my front wheel came down and the fork compressed and rebounded, the action not being as dampened as usual.

Inspecting the fork in Chicken, I saw fork oil dripping down the fork tubes. I was able to work much of the grit out of the seals and stop most of the leaking by sliding a business card between the seals, the tubes, and actuating the forks. Some BMW riders stopped to laugh at my situation and state that riders with knobbies were dumb. The issue was solved for the moment, but the impact to the fork action was obvious. A shop in Fairbanks inspected the fork and said my seals had some damage and that there was no chance of getting any fork seals or related parts in any reasonable amount of time. That knowledge was liberating in that there was no point in hanging around for a better fix. I opted for their option of heavier oil in the forks and a better clean job on the seals. While a technician worked on the bike, another member of the crew took the time to show me the bikes and quads they raced on frozen lakes. My journey continued, and I had the suspension worked over by Superplush in San Francisco on my return.

Local knowledge #

Local knowledge has been invaluable in my sailing. Some things just are not on maps or weather reports; new sandbars, anchorages that are fouled with debris from hurricanes, local phenomenon. This trip was the start of my appreciation for local knowledge.

I was heading north, not yet to Yukon. The light rain was threatening heavier action and there was a long stretch of gravel and broken road ahead of me. Given the sparse gas stations and conditions ahead, I stopped at a diner to refuel the KTM and myself. Upon sitting, a fellow traveler, I’d guess her 70s, asked to join me for lunch. We chatted about her VW van, the dog she was traveling with, her home back in B.C., and her eight months on the road. It was a fun and mildly awkward time.

I asked if she had any knowledge of the road ahead, the direction she had come from, and she did. She mentioned that ~20 miles (ca. 32 km) ahead that I would see three large puddles with what looked like small red soccer cones in the middle of the puddles. She said to steer wide, as those were not soccer cones, rather they were full-size construction cones in holes deep enough to swallow my KTM’s frontend. About 20 miles ahead, I saw the top of those full-size cones and steered wide. Passing the apparent puddles, you could see the tops of full-size cones, and there was no doubt that these puddles were holes that could consume the frontend of a bike without issue.

Fuel #

My KTM would get between 125 miles (ca. 201 km) to 180 miles (ca. 290 km) on a full tank(s)¹ depending on how aggressive I rode and the road itself. Fuel mileage drops on gravel versus super slab. This range does not include the fuel from the red tanks in the pictures.

I came close to running out once, including the fuel from both my spare tanks. Riding in Northern California on the KTM had prepared me some for the disparate nature of gas stations in parts of Yukon and Alaska. Northern California had me filling up at the first gas station past the half way fuel mark for two reasons. Very intermittent cell phone coverage and the distances between gas stations.

The time I almost ran out of gas was in Canada. The issue with running out of gas was not specifically due to lack of gas stations. I located a gas station that had no personnel. The pumps were on, and I had a chip card, no problem. Until the pump asked for a PIN, which my American chip card did not have. No keypad interactions would skip the PIN requirement. The next station I got to was closed, but I made it to the third.

I had two devices for plotting gas station stops. A Garmin handheld, mounted to my handlebars, and a phone with Google Maps. I’m fairly certain I had offline maps saved, but I’m not positive. I regularly compared the two, and the Garmin was significantly more accurate on which stations were open versus closed. By open, I mean for business period as well as the hours. I would have run out of gas without the Garmin. This is not a plug for Garmin, rather it is a plug for a dedicated device that does not require an internet connection and has paid maps that are not crowdsourced.

It is wet #

It rained a lot when I went. My outer layers were waterproof, but they were not a dry suit. With enough time, wind (speed), and drainage (back of helmet down neck) water still gets into your liners, socks, the inside of your gloves. Some things you have spares for, like socks, but eventually, they all can get wet. These items are not going to dry overnight when camping. Keep in mind, it is freaking cold.

At one point on the adventure, there was a large amount of traffic. Vehicles were not moving. The only time the vehicles ahead moved was when someone was turning around. I was on the bike, stopped in pouring rain and cold weather. Rain dripping down my helmet inside my suit, my visor continually fogging up, causing me to have to open the visor. There was nowhere to stop and pitch a tent or escape the rain. Backtracking was out of the question for fuel and lodging concerns, with nothing behind me at reasonable distance.

After some time, I managed to reach the only motel in the area and secure a room. The attendant at the hotel said there had been a major accident in the mountain pass ahead and that it would not be cleared until morning. The room I rented was reserved for someone stuck on the other side of the pass. I do hope they were able to find a place to rest as well. The parking lot filled up that night with people who had nowhere else to stop.

In the room, I cranked the heat and pulled out the motel contraption that you put your luggage on. I hung every piece of clothing I could on that contraption and my paracord, rigging both over the room wall heater, and dried everything I could. My clothes drying, and my body warmed from a shower, I relaxed and dined on some motel vending machine ramen that I made in the room coffee pot. Luckily, I’ve loved cheap packaged ramen since I was a child.

Wet gear would continue to be an issue, but not to the extreme of that moment. The biggest issue would be my gloves and my grip heaters. My grip heaters, which made riding with light gauntlets in Northern California winters a pleasure, simply could not penetrate the thick riding gloves and deal with September temperatures in Yukon and Alaska. The thick gloves were almost always moist and cold inside. My fingers were wrecked after about two weeks. The skin turned dark, and my dexterity was low. Towards the end of my adventure, the skin on my fingers became very flaky and continually came off. During the late part of my trip, several fingers had lost any feeling, only providing occasional sensations of pins and needles. It took 6+ months for the feeling to return and the sensations to subside.

APRS and cell phones #

There were plenty of places my cell phone worked, but I expected there would be plenty of places where it wouldn’t. I didn’t have an expectation that Yukon would perform significantly better than the 101 in Northern California. Wanting to geek out a bit, I set up an APRS² system. I showed people how to find my location with APRS. The system was tested throughout remote parts of California, and it always worked. Once in Yukon and, Alaska, the low-power radio, limited antenna gain, and mountains proved my test cases to not be useful. I had consecutive days when there were no repeaters in range and certainly no cell coverage. But you don’t know this while you are riding, only the people who care enough to watch know that you are no longer transmitting.

The consensus back home was that my lack of APRS beacons over several days indicated I had been eaten by a bear. An eventual APRS beacon showed this to not be true, or that the bear was a HAM and had absconded with my gear. I did not make that mistake again when I started sailing to remote locations. I brought my HAM gear, but also had a satellite connection. You have to keep the people at home in the loop if you want to keep going on adventures.

Lithium-ion battery #

For questionable reasons, I replaced my dead lead acid battery with a lithium-ion battery early in my KTM life. It was significantly lighter, smaller, and the amps started the bike fast. That is, until I arrived in Yukon.

You wake up in your tent, it’s cold. You get out of your sleeping bag and dress as fast as you can because the cold bites. After dressing, you make your coffee, pack your gear, and get ready to head out for the day, and the bike doesn’t crank. You get that click that you have engaged something, but no action, like a near dead battery. You push your 461 lbs dry weight bike, plus fluids, and gear to a vantage point where you can push start. Now that you are winded and sweating inside your gear, you can get going for the day – if the bike starts. It does. The issue doesn’t repeat itself later in the day when you refuel and stop for food.

The next morning it happens again, only in the morning and not at midday stops. I repeat the entire spectacle. Throughout the day I wondered how this could happen and why there were no issues or slow cranks later in the day.

The KTM’s electrical system is relatively unsophisticated. It does not come with any accessories apart from what is required by DOT and the fuel injection system. When I started adding accessories, such as the APRS system and LED fog lights, I connected them behind SAE³ connectors, which made isolating accessories as simple as unplugging them. That evening, I unplugged all accessories.

On the third day, I attempted to start the bike. Same result, click, but no crank. The KTM’s simple electrical system was unlikely to have any drain and the battery itself was unlikely to discharge overnight unless it was toast, which would likely impair a midday start. To troubleshoot, I plugged in my high amp LEDs and turned them on. The SAE pigtail ran straight to the battery and no ignition was required for their use. No light.

I sipped on my coffee and stared at the lights and the bike. After a few minutes, I noticed the LED lights were not only on, they were getting brighter. The chemical reactions of the battery simply didn’t work when the battery was cold. I should have stayed with the known tech, lead acid. The remainder of the trip was not a problem. Five to ten minutes before leaving, flick on my LEDs and let them start the chemical reactions to warm up the battery, giving enough amps to start the big V-Twin.

Bike size #

Ultimately, take whatever bike you have. People of all age groups have taken everything from scooters to Hayabusas from CONUS⁴ to Yukon and Alaska. The following advice is only relevant if you have an option of bikes.

If staying mostly in hotels or state parks, and doing limited solo off-road, take the big bike. It is nice for those long stretches in Yukon when you can really open it up. The KTM’s torque is a pleasure in any scenario where the risk of dropping the bike is low. If you are about to drop the bike, the torque can save it. When in doubt, go all out (throttle).

If you do plan on camping and doing a lot of off-road where you might drop the bike, consider taking a smaller bike. The KTM is one of the lightest bikes in its class, but it is still a beast to lift after dropping it off-road by yourself. There were sections of off-road that I did not take, simply because I wanted to avoid taking the bags and gear off the bike, so I could lift the bike by myself. Do not take a bike so small that you cannot comfortably sustain 70 MPH. There is a lot of freeway between San Francisco and British Columbia, and the Yukon has massive patches of just road.

Bears #

RVs

There were a few instances where RV’ers would throw food from their RV for the bears. On one of these instances, said RV’er was on the road in front of me and stopped to do this activity. Which means I had to stop behind them while they threw food from their RV to numerous black bears. I honked my horn with zeal, to which they threw their hands up, annoyed that I potentially could interrupt their family NatGeo moment. The bears weren’t concerned about my horn and more importantly did not appear to care about me. I do not think I could have turned my loaded bike around faster than a bear deciding to sprint at a meat popsicle. The RV’ers must have had enough of my honking, enough pictures, or maybe ran out of food because after a few minutes they proceeded on. The bears didn’t disperse far, but enough for me to comfortably zoom by and go on with my day.

Photography

Some folks were willing to get quite close to bears for pictures on foot. For the most part, the bears didn’t care. It was salmon feeding season for the brown bears, and the salmon bellies were likely a far better snack than Patagonia covered tourist. I opted for a lense with zoom.

Bears were plentiful and seemed to be happy to go about their business. I suspect the only real risk from bears has to do with

• camping and your food
• bears hunting for soap berries by campsites
• bears crossing the road

The Alaska Marine Highway #

A beautiful and relaxing experience. On my trip, I was able to walk into a Ferry Terminal and buy a trip same day for the motorcycle. No state rooms were available, so I stayed under the solarium, an outdoor covered area on the top deck of the ferry. At the time, you had three options for sleeping in the solarium:

• stay in your tent, the crew helps tape it to the deck
• sleeping bag on a chaise lounges
• hang a hammock from the poles

Useful gear #

Throttle lock⁵: I can’t imagine having to hold the throttle for thousands of miles with limited dexterity in the cold. It was nice in the Yukon being able to set the lock, sit back, and relax. Throttle locks effectively clamp the throttle open. Choose your safety factor appropriately.

Paracord: Great to hang items to dry as well as to lift your food from bears. Not all camping sites have bear lockers.

Sheepskin seat cover: Helps with dampen thousands of miles of V-Twin, insulate you for warmth, and gives a good look for the KTM. I looked at some expensive options online and then purchased the following to make my own:

• sailing needle and marine thread
• nylon strap and buckles
• sheepskin from Ikea

Dedicated GPS device with paid maps.

Heated gloves instead of or in addition to heated grips.

Gear to change or repair a tube

• tire irons
• a wrench to remove the wheel
• patches and extra tubes

A center stand is super helpful for wheel and fork work. With a rock or some paracord you can keep the necessary end in the air.

People #

I met some remarkable people on my trip. One at a diner, another keen to tell me everything they knew about pizlers⁶. Another person surprised me when they walked out of the woods with a bag of mushrooms and half drunk, hollering to say hi. The mushroom hunter was keen to tell me their life story, how to forage, and where to sell my foraged goods. Two brothers I met when rain closed out a road for a day in Whitehorse, YT. I rode and camped with them for several days. One spoke fluent Japanese. Another two I met at a saloon; an incredibly talented musician duo⁷ playing like I was back in Tennessee. I was lucky to meet them again days later on the Alaska Ferry.

Every interaction of substance was interesting and fun. No interactions of any type were bad.

Go with someone if you can. From a safety aspect, you may be more adventurous if someone can back you up. Most importantly, it is stunning country, it is worth sharing with someone. I intend to do the trip again.

Summary #

Thank you for taking the time to read this. One request, please don’t take this post as a blueprint for issues you will encounter. Many issues I encountered were issues of my creation. I went late in the year, rode solo, and had some gear failures based on choices I had made. All of those failures were worth it, as this trip gave me the confidence to continue having adventures. If you go, you will see incredible things, meet remarkable people, and have the time of your life, or you might get eaten by a pizler. Go anyway.

Appendix #

1. This model of the KTM 990 had two tanks, one on each side of the chassis. This helped lower the center of gravity and complicate oil changes.
2. http://www.aprs.org/
3. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SAE_Connector.png
4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contiguous_United_States#CONUS_and_OCONUS
5. https://kaoko.com/shop/
6. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grizzly%E2%80%93polar_bear_hybrid
7. http://jessylynnmartens.com/

(c) Michael Bentley 2022

Contents may not be republished without written consent.