Changing Tires in the Yukon and other fun stuff
Taylor walked in around 4 in the afternoon and after some discussion we packed up and hit the road around 5 pm, maybe later. Our plan was to ride most of the night and truck on down to Key West, FL. Our sleep schedules were now considerably off from one another. Neither of us managed a tire change late on a Saturday afternoon on Labor Day weekend. Not that it should be a surprise.

[Paul Taylor, left and the author south of Coldfoot, AK. At this point we were returning to
Fairbanks early morning.]

I washed my bike off in the hotel parking lot as best I could, and changed headlight bulbs only to discover that the bulbs had blown out and I was back to brights - again. This time however, I had 65’s instead of 100’s in, so I’d be pissing oncoming traffic off about 20% less than before. We checked each other’s tires out before hopping on the bikes; both sets seemed to have reasonable tread. Good enough, I thought, to squeeze a modest 2,000+ miles and make it until Tuesday when I was sure to find a tire somewhere along the way. I was right, but I was wrong.

We headed out from Fairbanks. It was sunny and nice with clouds approaching. Along the way I believe we passed the future Buffalo Mann, Chuck Pickett and a few others.


As darkness fell it started to rain, of course. Having no windscreen means I’m getting slapped around pretty good in the wet. We pulled in for gas in Tok and to make some cold/rain clothing change. It was sure to be a long, damp evening. A few minutes and in pulled Hoogeveen.

We were knocking down hot dogs and other important ldfood and bs’ing a little. Taylor and I bid adieu and headed back into the wet riding until we made the Yukon Territory crossing and grabbed a room in the early hours.

We ate breakfast early and I had the best blueberry pancakes I’ve had since the Miss Brunswick Diner, in ummmmm Brunswick, ME. Now that’s a statement.

Generally the way we rode as a combo was, 'I be the wabbit.' This part of the Yukon was rather dull and ordinary with gray skies so I just hauled....
Cutting through Kluane National Park in the morning hours was quite spectacular as the lake was smooth as glass and skies were clear. We came up behind a grizzly bear trucking down the middle of the road. This fella was a hoot. Clearly on a mission, he was not about to get off the road until he got to where he was going. Every now and then he’d stop and turn around, make sure we were far enough behind to suit his comfort zone, and then just kept on trucking. We had a good laugh. He finally met his goal, so I wicked it up and headed on through to Whitehorse and beyond. We were well past Whitehorse when we stopped for gas. A guy on a brand new Goldwing from Texas was in for gas as well. I filled up and went in to pay. Paul Taylor walked in and said. “Man, you are really going to hate what I have to tell you.” “Like what?” And I hate a conversation that starts out this way just in general. “Like you have no, as in you have NO tread on your rear tire." So out we went to look at it. “Shit, I thought it felt a little odd (I’m laughing)." The rear was naked to the core.

I went back and talked to the clerk in the station. She said the only tire place was 142 miles, give or take, back to Whitehorse, and it was Sunday and Monday was a holiday, and they were closed anyway, and, and, and. But there was a place 25 miles down the road that fixed trucks and tires and the owner’s son had a sportbike. So she ended up calling the guy and he said he’d see if his son’s friends had any bikes or tires they’d give up. So off I went another twenty five miles on thread, the theory being whether I’m screwed standing here or screwed standing down there what’s the difference? I’m\ still in the middle of nowhere and I’m screwed. The guy on the Goldwing said he’d follow me and do what he could in case the tire blew before I got there. I asked him if he had a vacuum cleaner. He didn’t quite catch the humor. Taylor was paying for his gas and he’d continue on to Key West solo.

When I reached the station, my rear wheel made a scraping noise so I stopped at the top of the drive by the road and took a look. A couple ball bearings dropped out of the wheel onto the ground. Gee that sucked, I trashed a bearing too.

I pulled into the station and introduced myself. Naturally I was on fire to make anything round with rubber on it work. I asked him about his son’s bike and would he sell his rear tire?
[Writer’s note: Although this bike is a Triumph Tiger, I have Dymag racing wheels mounted on it for shits and giggles. It also means I’m tubeless and can fit any sport tire on the rear, i.e. 180/55/17. Thus improving my odds in the tire department.]

The guy was a classic, sitting at his little diner table in a T-shirt and beard watching NASCAR. I introduced myself said I was the guy who needed the tire and did he get a hold of his son? He looked up and said “No” and turned back around to NASCAR. This was not the response I needed right now. So I started badgering him. No friends had tires? “No.” How bad was his sons tire? “”To the core.” Where’s his son? So the ‘kid’, actually probably in his 20’s and big, came out. He was equally as talkative.
However having sold motorcycles in a previous incarnarion I had this dude's number. “What have you got.” “Honda 600fi” he responds. So I launch into the difference in throttle response, bla, bla and the kid warms up and maybe I’m getting somewhere. I want this kid’s tire, his friend’s tire, anybody’s tire. I at least get him to come outside and look at my bike.
I have no prospects for a tire right now without a minimum of two days wait. I’m just standing there thinking oh shit...... This crap happened in ‘99 with a throttle cable." Ah butt sometimes you get to bite the bear. Just then I turned around and pulling in to the gas station are a guy and a girl in a Dodge truck pulling a trailer, and on the trailer is a bike. I can’t really tell what kind because it’s stripped mostly to the frame. While he gets out to get some gas I walked over to the bike and looked at the tire, a 17”. I’m in! I notice then it’s an ST 1100. The tire isn’t new but it definitely has a couple thousand miles left on it. This, at the minimum, is more than my tire has left in it.

I walk back around and start in, introducing myself and pointing to my bike with the shredded tire. “Have you ever heard of the Ironbutt?,” I ask. He says yes, he’s dreamed about being able to ride in it some day. So I said. “How would your tire like to be in it right now?” So he said sure, anything. “You want me to take it off right now, you want the rim too?" I said no, you have shaft drive I have chain drive, I just need the tire. I notice Taylor has pulled in and sees the bike on the trailer, we chat and he wishes me luck and heads out for Key West. He mentions I should just go to Sunnyside or straight back to Madison. Fat chance.

The ST guy pulled the truck over by the ‘garage’ (I’m talking barn, really) and starts looking for 2x4’s to jack his bike up enough on the trailer to get the tire off. I go back and try and get the owner and his son off their asses and away from NASCAR long enough to see if they have something to pop the beads on the rims. This takes forever. I finally succeed and the son comes out, the father comes out, the grandfather comes out, and the neighbor with a broken arm comes out. I get them hustling and they finally mention they have an old tire bead breaker. This is a long bar with a slide arm on it about 4 feet long. You stick it by the rim and pound on it to break the bead. You can imagine my thoughts about sticking a magnesium wheel under this monster of inexact science.
The ST1100 guy takes a crack at breaking the bead on his tire and has no success. So grandpa says, “You do it like this” and shazam, breaks the bead. I love amazing stuff. This was amazing stuff.
My Tiger has no center stand so we prop the bike up on 2x6’s and one guy stands on each side of the bike and keeps it from falling over. As we take the wheel off it’s obvious that I have to find a set of bearings or it won’t go back together. But hey, they fix stuff here! So junior, grandpa and I wander around in this mess and grandpa actually finds one to fit the rim. I gotta tell you, I rode down into the whole thing thinking I need some magic. I got magic. Next we break the bead on the Dymag and I’m trying not to look because I’m going to throw up if I hear anything make a ‘tink’ kind of sound. Grandpa pops the bead and my new best ST1100 friend pops the rest of it off while I attempt to pull the entire guts out of my rim. The old bearing has more or less melted to the rim, so we have to gently try and pop/pound it out. I’m starting to not have fun. All this is taking place in the gravel in the driveway of the gas/truck/tire station on a Sunday afternoon in the middle of interrupting - god forbid - NASCAR.

Amazingly we get all this together, his tire fits, I stuff the Dymag full of a five year old can of ‘Fix a Flat’ because the rim is clearly bent in a few places and I don’t want it to leak. I have no rear brake to speak of, the pads were, well...there were no pads.

[My tyre changing crew somewhere in the Yukon. The guy kneeling owned the tire I bought off his ST1100 literally on the spot.]

In talking to the guy and his new wife, they were moving to Kodiak, Alaska where he was going to work on a boat. He was thrilled he could help me since his ST had been trashed in an accident in California. I gave him $100 for the tire which was mostly gonzo anyway. In the middle of all this, Chuck Pickett on his old Goldwing pulls in to see what is going on, evaluates the situation, notes I a have monkey shit for brake pads and decides he needs to say a prayer for my safety. Now Chuck is a religious man and I thank him for it, but I gotta tell you I’m standing in the Yukon in the middle of nowhere with a true collection of characters around me and I now have a big guy with a beard and a motorcycle helmet raising his hands in the air to God and saying a prayer out loud for my safety in the parking lot while all around watch astounded. Me too! And it’s me this is all going down for. Pickett hops on his bike and takes off in a flash. I turn around to everyone in the zoo with mouths agape, and just say, “He’s religious.” The ‘kid’ who’s twenty something says “He rides that in the Ironbutt?” Me: “Do you haveanother can of ‘Fix a Flat’?” Grandpa: “I tallied your bill but I figured it out in Canadian instead of American. Cash right?” Me: “It is now.” The ST guy’s wife: “You gotta get out of here, don’t talk to us, go.” Me: “Women are smarter than men. I gotta ....... pee first.”

Eventually..... I pay the station guy $76 for his mechanic on duty. Even though my ST buddy, myself and grandpa were, in fact, the mechanics. The son, the father and the one armed man donated exactly one socket from his socket wrench and ‘Fix a Flat’ to the occasion. At this point I’ve probably lost several hours screwing around with this, most of the time wasted hauling them away from NASCAR to find specific tools and stuff only to have to track them down for something else.

I take the bike out and slam on what brakes I have left. No problems, so I wick it up and just boogie toward Key West via Watson Lake. I spend a good hour laughing in my helmet.

In Watson Lake I gas up and run into Pickett on his Goldwing again. He had been talking to another biker (Joe Zulaski it turns out) who had just pulled out. I gassed up, sucked down a chocolate milk and a Powerbar, and told the Tiger to just run for a couple more days and I’d leave it alone. My fuel mileage, however,was reaching the range of officially being horrible. I had serious time to make up and needed every minute to count but I’m windsucking fuel like there’s no tomorow. I decided I would ride late into the night, grab three hours instead of four - that way, over the next several nights, I could work myself back up within range of where I should be on the map by now. All was uneventful riding, except my suspension was getting boat-like in bumpy territory. I pulled up to a construction zone and a long line of cars and trucks. I immediately passed all the stopped traffic and went to the front of the line. There I saw a guy standing next to his ST1100 - Joe Zulaski.

On to Part III