Imagine starting your day by driving 70 miles out into the Alaskan wilderness to the town of Chicken, sitting down at a warm little cafe, eating a freshly made cinammon bun, and engaging this guy wearing a cowboy hat and a leather vest in a detailed 20 minute conversation on the crisis in the world oil market. He was a refugee from the oil business in North Dakota, and had set up as a gold miner out here in Alaska. Said it was going so so, which must mean just great, because he lived year round in this lost village at the top of the world mining gold. And he wasn't the only one.   

There is really only one way to get to Dawson City from Tok . You leave the Tanana valley, climb up 4,000 feet to a plateau and make your way Southwest until you reach the Yukon valley. When you drop down, you find yourself at Dawson City, capital of the Klondike Gold Rush a hundred and fifteen years ago. Its only 190 miles, but its way up high. Narrow roads, deep valleys, rapid weather changes. They call it the Top of the World. Half way along one crosses the border into Canada.  

I had taken this route before, and suffered from having a bike that didn't like gravel roads. This time, in the hubris of riding a good bike, I wasted three hours going north along a beautiful but lonely road to Eagle, also on the Yukon, but in Alaska. I never got there. I saw the rain coming and turned around. But the rain still caught me close to Dawson, and I had an hour of slippery clay riding to endure before getting to town.