The K12 is no longer a mere "LT", but a "CLT" - "Combat Luxury Touring"... Northern Canada and Alaska roads are tough. The K(C)LT did amazingly well. It ran flawlessly, and took some amazing abuse w/ no complaint. Ferinstance, running at full boogie into some 5-inch deep, 20-inch wide pothole, that got me bouncing up to the full extension+ of my legs... Ouch. And not once, but, er, a few times (I'm a slow learner - if I even get around to learning.) I didn’t really want to look too closely at the rims before getting home (kinda afraid to :-) but the tires kept holding air, so I kept pushing on... And even if there are no potholes, the surface is very often lousy w/ frost-heave : those are "wrinkles" in the blacktop, sometimes a few inches high, often running lengthwise w/ the road, but often also criss-crossing it. They can be murder as they catch your tires, and make the bike wander a bit (best case) or crash (well, I guess that would be worst case) The KLT handled those OK The Ohlins is a pleasure and helped tremendously the handling (of course, my old shock had leaked and had become a pogo stick, so I might be prejudiced!)

Mileage between fillups varied from 30+ mpg (when I really was in a hurry) to 48 mpg (riding 30 to 40 mph in those construction zone really helped! but even riding up and down in the mountains, I got anywhere from 40 to 45 mpg, which I find pretty darn good.) And the bike ran w/out a hiccup when I had to fill up w/ regular quite a few times. Check out a list of waypoints for gas stations up North.

My rear tire seems quite worn. I'll have to check my mileage, but I don't think I got much more than 8 or 9000 miles out of that ME880, which sucks. The front is also shot, quite badly cupped. I'll have to check how many miles are on that one, but it's been on for a while. The throttle is getting very tight, which is a sign of impending doom, I understand (cable is prone to break after a while - which was NOT a comforting thought out in the boonies :-) That's about it so far (besides the 3 bolts that hold the seat that shook loose - result of my handy work when putting the bike together and not torqueing those too hard :-) (oh, and many accessories did shake loose on the washboards, gravel or hardtop! Thank You duct tape.)

Northern BC, YT and AK are amazing, my eyes are still full of wonderful scenery. I want to go back, and actually take the time to enjoy it :-) Despite the roads, and the skeeters :-) Highly recommended.

Has anybody seen a tape of the construction of the Alcan Highway that I saw playing in a tourist shop? The first person to officially run what was to become the highway, before it was constructed, did it in a dog sleigh. When he arrived in Seattle, he fitted wheels to the sleigh, and leather booties to his dogs, and mushed on to a Universal Expo in Chicago, I believe, as a promotional stint. But the next people to run it did it... on motorcycles! That was in the 30es, I believe. There was no road whatsoever, just pack trails, if that. They had to cut down trees to get down river banks and across smallish river: one for the bike, one to walk next to it :-) For the bigger ones, they built raft w/ tarps they had w/ them, on a frame of right handy saplings by the river, and floated across. Took 'em, like 4 or 5 months. Dunno how they did for gas, but I imagine that there were enough trade posts or whatever to get supplies. Quite amazing. If anybody knows more about this, I'd love to know where to find the info...

Re duct tape: I ran out! I had brought one of those space-saving flat rolls that I had found in some auto store, and it wasn't quite enough :-) Oh well, that's easy enough to find on the road.

Modifications to the bike? Well, I'd take my R100GS :-) Just kidding, the K12CLT is really a great bike, and unless you plan on going to Prudhoe bay (~400 miles of unpaved Haul Road...) or up or down the Cassiar highway (unpaved as well) it's quite fine. I would just go around and make sure that all the bolts and screws are good and tight, I suppose! And on my bike, I'd have to find a better location for my Streetpilot III: on the shelf above the dash, it prevents the windscreen from going down all the way, which can be a hindrance a) in crappy weather when you want to get it all the way down so that you can see the road surface without having to look through a piece of plastic full of mud and raindrops b) when riding on unpaved road, where you're trying to spot that loose gravel ready to eat your front wheel close to you.

Don't be afraid to stand up on the pegs to bring the center of gravity down, steady on the throttle, and if you loose it, it's actually better to give it a bit of gas to bring the rear wheel back under control... That's the theory, and it works. OK, I've never done it, but I always pack big ass plastic wire ties, to fasten around the tires and maybe regain a bit of traction in _really_ extreme cases: I do hope I _never_ have to test the practicality of that trick, though...)

Make sure you have a Stop&Go tire plug kit, or something similar, plus an electric pump and a bunch of big CO2 canisters as backup: 2 guys got flats. I was lucky, I guess, but I do run a pretty high tire pressure, which might have helped also when running into potholes.

Only things that broke were a) the antenna to the Streetpilot, when the high-zoot 3M hook 'n loop strip lost its grip and the GPS fell on the dash (in Marysville! :-). I bought a remote one at West marine and simply put it between the mapcase and the tankbag, works great! b) the speakers in my helmet :-( (BTW, that's the second set (Airriders) that goes TU on me. It appears that I might have been overdriving them, by cranking the volume too high, to hear w/ my custom molded earplugs - I also suspect that, as the sound volume goes up automatically on the K12LT when you go faster, that might put them over the limit? Mark Reis (who has replaced both sets under warranty, although it appears to be operator error rather than  - thanks, Mark!) suspects the alert tones from the Valentine, that would be overdriving the speaker when the sound is set too high. I suspect that the throttle cable is on its last leg, as it's getting pretty tight, but that's probably normal wear & tear, unfortunately. That's all I've noticed so far. I had the air and fuel filters replaced at the next service after I got back, just to be on the safe side, but the mechanics didn't notice anything suspicious. So, just like any (most) normal touring, leave home w/ a bike in as good a working order as you can get it.

Having one of those Stongard or Xpel films on your headlight is probably a good idea. If you're concerned about the paintjob, you can also get some for the fairing and the bags... Although mine seem to have survived w/out any damage - but I haven't exactly given it the white glove treatment to check. Extra driving lights were actually not critical, as it was daylight a lot up there :-) (but in August, for instance, days already get much shorter, I understand.) Do bring spare bulbs, vibrations probably don't do 'em much good.

If you plan on touring for a few miles, you might want to pack an oil filter and the wrench, if you want to be able to change your oil wherever you are. There are a couple BMW dealers up there, though, so w/ a bit of planning, that should not be a problem. Call ahead if you need to change things like tires, they don't necessarily stock 'em. You can just ship a set to the store ahead of time, if need be :-)

During daytime, there was always enough traffic that I was not worried about getting help if I needed it. Night time (well, on the clock :-) was more quiet in some more remote areas, but again, if you're touring, you don't have to do that, and trucks seem to be running at all hours also, so it's cool. There was enough gas available that our KLTs should not have any problem in the daytime again, specially if you don't try to run 100 mph all the way - which you most likely won't !

Got to keep an eye out for critters, of all sizes and shape. I never had any close call, but other riders did, and I did see a lot of animals, from mice to bison, at any time of day or night. Again, you most likely won't be running warp speeds, so that should help. Some of the roads had very wide tree- and bush-less shoulders which would allow a rider to spot a caribou or a bear from a way back, but many others did have brush or trees almost all the way to the road surface, which makes for a much less safe ride.

CB would have been great, if my headset had worked, to check weather and road conditions with traffic coming the other way. I understand that truckers use channel 19 like down south, and that channel 1 is also well used by RVers. Couldn't vouch for it, though :-)

I love my GPS(s...). Don't really need it up there, 'coz there aren't that many roads to get lost on :-) The maps seem to be off a lot, as position was very often reported off the road, even when I was right on it. Still, nice to have, if for nothing else so that you can switch to km and km/h when/if you're riding through Canada.

It was nice to have a big spray bottle w/ water, and my squeegee, to clean the windshield, finishing off w/ Plexus.

Don't forget your electric vest and rain gear... Even in June, temperatures were down into the mid 40s in the plains, and down to freezing in the mountains at night. Camera and lots of film, or memory for digital cameras. Binoculars. Mosquito repellent and/or mosquito net. And... eye shades, to help go to sleep when it's still light out!!

Also, a bit of a tangent here, it's not uncommon to be able to buy, say, MS Streets & Trips or Map and Go (the only two that I know for sure cover Canada, besides Mapsource offerings, might be others now) for pretty cheap, and w/ a rebate that brings the price down to not much at all. Worth checking out your favorite Cheap Bastard Software & Pawn Shoppe outlet.

A few links I archived, besides The Milepost (most kindly provided by other LDRiders, achooaly), in case you haven't checked those out yet.

Maps:

http://www.hellobc.com/bcescapes/maps/mapsindex.jsp 

http://explorenorth.com/library/akhwy/bl-akhwy-maps.htm 

Info:

http://explorenorth.com/ 

http://www.alcanseek.com/board/ubbcgi/Ultimate.cgi?action=intro  (internet forum)

http://www.alaskaontheweb.com/main.html 

http://www.weatherlook.net/ak.shtml  (weather)

http://www.almanac.com/weather/can.region6.html  (weather - YMMV :-)

http://www.nwttravel.nt.ca/  (NorhtWest Territories)

http://www.alcan-highway.com/ 

http://www.dot.state.ak.us/ 

Trip reports:

http://www.murkworks.net/~erkaneva/trip_write-ups/alaska.html (local (Seattle) GS-riding couple - they actually go lookin' for gravel roads :-)

http://www.danielcohen.org/2alaska/2wheelstoalaska.htm 

http://www.gr8designs.com/Trips/Alaska/links.html 

http://www.airheads.org/contrib/radisson.html 

And the recent '02 Rendez-vous rally webpage has some info, and a few extremely informative and well-written trip reports. http://www.wetcoastirregulars.com/02Rendezvous/default.htm.    :-)

Misc. Tourist info:

http://www.chickenalaska.com/chicken/index.html 

http://www.ilovealaska.com/ 

http://www.north-to-alaska.com/ 

http://www.travelalaska.com/ 

http://www.riverside-house.com/ 

http://www.kenaichamber.org/ 

http://explorenorth.com/library/communities/alaska/hyder.html 

http://alaskan.com/bells/hyder.html 

Jack told us a bit about Alaskan folklore:

Well, I peed in the Yukon river…