Alaska Biking Day 4

Today we bicycled 79 miles along the ALCAN Highway. ALCAN is short for Alaskan - Canada, and the ALCAN Highway connects Delta Junction, where we stayed last night, to Dawson Creek British Columbia. I took this photo where we crossed the Robertson River on our way to Tok. The cloud formation was really remarkable, mirroring the river below it.

We started the day by driving about 20 miles out of Delta Junction down the ALCAN Highway. The weather was the nicest it has been for the start of a ride, about 60 degrees with patches of sun. The only bit of extra clothing I wore were some arm warmers, sleeves that I can put on or take off to effectively switch between having a short sleeve or long sleeve shirt.

I liked this view of this bridge and the foothills behind. Riding to Tok, we are traveling southeast towards Canada, approaching but staying north of the Alaskan Mountain Range.

This bridge turned out to be rather interesting since the decking of the bridge are wood planks. I do not think I have ever seen a bridge this long with wood planking. Usually, they have been short bridges in New England, often covered bridges. It was very smooth to ride on.

Here is a photo of my bike with the view from the bridge. I have been carrying my big camera in the back bag on my bike in case I see any interesting wildlife. Thus far, I have only brought it out a couple of times to photograph some birds for identification purposes.

Just after the bridge, I rode over something that sliced a 1/2” gash in my tire. Fortunately, this occurred perhaps a quarter mile from where Greg had parked the support van for our first rest stop. The gash was sufficient that the tire itself needed to be replaced. Greg grabbed a new tire and inner tube for me, and I replaced my destroyed tire and was back on my way.

This was the first day when the weather got colder as the day progressed. By the time I left lunch midway through the ride, I had put on my long fingered gloves and a windbreaker. The weather was still nice, but the temperature had dropped to the mid 50s, the sun was behind clouds, and the air was damper.

Here is another photo from the Robertson Bridge, this time looking south rather than north. This cloud was really quite amazing. I feel that the photo does not quite capture how distinct it was.

This is Greg in the foreground. He runs Alaska Bike which was founded by his father over 30 years ago. Behind, Chris is heading off for the next segment of our ride. This is Chris’s 17th tour with Alaska Bike. As Chris says, some people have vacation houses, I have Alaska Bike.

As we made our way to Tok, we slowly passed the east end of the Alaskan Range to our south.

To the north were only small foothills. Tomorrow we head southeast to Glennallen. Yesterday, we rode into Delta Junction on the Richardson Highway. Continuing south on it would have gone directly to Glennallen travelling through a pass in the Alaskan Range. Instead by going southeast to Tok the southwest to Glennallen, we will have gone around the eastern edge of the range.