The Other End of the Road

CUBIC INCHES AND CLARITY IN THE ARCTIC. The world all of a sudden gets clear, translucent and clean at 40 below. Only your own eyes are foggy with the exhaust of two Harley-Davidsons on the ice road, that on milder days as the Mackenzie River flows peacefully into Beaufort Bay. Up there, at Tuktoyaktuk, North West Territories, Canada. This book is a shot at trying to bring home some of the feelingS of riding two Harley-Davidsons in 2008 over ice roads to one of the most northern points on the American continent that can be reached with ROADGOING vehicles. Without getting into a well known situation round here: "Don’t get stuck in Tuk!“

Doing it can be a lot of things, but it isn’t half as dangerous as some people would like you to believe, given a certain amount of planning and preparation. And it wasn’t the first time, that W&W Cycles went out of everyones way to ride roads no one usually cares to call roads.

In 1995 it was the MUD OF NO RETURN. The Panamericana Highway between Panama and Colombia. The Problem: a gap in the road. Not any ole pothole, but the infamous Darien Gap. The attempt to cross 70 miles of trackless jungle on two specially prepared rigid framed Pans and Shovels ended in bottomless mud. In 2005 we went to EAT DUST. We took four vintage Harleys down the gravel Ruta 40 to Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego, to the southernmost beer in the world. And just there, sipping a well earned Beagle beer, the question popped up, how the other end of the road might look like. No one around knew, so we decided to have a look.

Said, done, ridden, frozen, printed. So, get your fireplace going, grab a drink and turn the page. And don’t forget: A BIKER’S WORK IS NEVER DONE. ’Cos the next road is waiting around the corner.