They say that Alaska and Yukon, in common with Illinois, have two seasons – Winter and Roadworks. The extreme cold plays havoc with the road surfaces, so when the weather improves it is a race against time to fix up as much as possible before temperatures drop again.
A lot of the roads are in great shape – but some not so much. I guess we are lucky that most are paved but when you get mile after mile of carved up roads and rain, it gets a little slippery.
The good news is that we have the bikes to deal with it, even if they are fairly heavily laden. They got properly muddy though. So much so that the border crossing guards could barely read our plates ;-).
So – we’ve run into quite a few sections of roadworks – which on the whole are not a great deal of fun on motorbikes. We see quite a few signs like this:
Encouraging – no?
The worst roadwork issues are either:
– a combination of carved up road and rain- it looks like milkshake but it feels like riding on greased ice.
– or deep gravel (particularly surprise deep gravel – take note British Columbia)
Both have had us standing up on our pegs like good adventure riders (when you are standing it’s easier to control the bike when it’s not necessarily pointing where you want…).
Still it is an ADVENTURE right? I should be inspired by all the flaggers on many longer stretches of roadworks – who operate the STOP/ SLOW signs and coordinate with a pilot car. They are without exception extremely friendly and remarkably cheerful despite standing around in rather a lot of weather all day…
