Good Trip to KS, met a great dealer in Calgary
Well, I lived through the seventh trip across the Alcan Highway on a bike. It seems to me the road is better every year. I had the wife on back of the X and the daughter had one of her college roommates (Liz) on back of her 1100 shadow. We had a good trip and the weather was great. The girls saw lots of new things and I rode a couple of new roads for the first time that turned out to be great. Highway 40 south from Grand Prairie to Jasper was a really scenic ride, the Chief Joseph Highway from Yellowstone to Cody was good and my favorite was the ride on 14 from Greybull to Sheridan WY. I had always taken the southern route through Ten Sleep to Buffalo, but 14 is even better. The girls seemed to think Banff, Deadwood and the Badlands were the most fun places to visit. We had a little trouble due to my ignorance/impatience when we were at Teslin. We had stopped for supper and Shelly’s bike wouldn’t start. I found the battery cable loose. After tightening it up and trying to push start the bike a local feller drug out his super duper battery charger. I thought we could get away with charging the battery a few minutes then unhooking the charger before turning on the switch, not so! The bike started, but an hour down the road it died. I cut the cord from my 12 volt compressor and charged her battery from my bike and pulled the fuse to her headlight. We found that it would run about a half day after a 20 minute charge. We made it all the way down to Calgary before the battery was not holding much charge anymore. I found a motorcycle shop just off highway 2 on the south side of Calgary. Dave the shop manager was a great guy, but didn’t have a new stator in stock. He called every Honda dealer between Calgary and Great Falls and no one had it. He offered to let us spend the night at his house while a stator was shipped in the next afternoon. The kids told me there was a bike just like Shelly’s on the show room floor. I asked Dave about it and he agreed to pull the stator from it and get us on the road. We were on our way south again about noon. I got the bill and was surprised to find they didn’t charge me for removing the stator from their motorcycle or installing the new one when it came in. Dave says he always tries to give people who are traveling a break. If anyone has trouble or needs service I can highly recommend GW Cycle World LTD at 1020 Meridian Road it is easy to find just east of 2 and a block or so south of 16 (two main roads in Canada). They advertise having the largest selection of accessories in the country and I believe them. I still think the Toad river area of the Alcan Highway is the best part of the trip.
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Yes, I did see that episode of Larry the Cable Guy.
