Eventful day into and in Whitehorse

Day 24. July 8. Teslin to Whitehorse, Yukon. Total distance 117 mi. My distance 101 mi.

What a day! Whitehorse is exciting and the restaurant was awesome! Getting here, in my case, was "interesting". I had my first flat tire (on the bike), and both shifter cables went bad.

My flagship photo is us at our historic restaurant in Whitehorse. It's the oldest building in town, and has served as a bakery (early 1900s), a carpentry where they made coffins, a package delivery service, and finally this restaurant. As you can see, the pitchers of beer were flowing!

I was the first driver today, so I began on my bike at 28 miles. Nice riding. Cold. Rode pretty fast with Bert. After the lunch stop at 59 miles, it got interesting for me. I suddenly could not shift between my large and small chain ring in the front. So I flagged down the RV as it passed me, and asked Bert to drive ahead to Rick and ask him to wait for me so he could fix my cable. Which he did, thank you very much.

Here's another shot of our beautiful scenery on our Ride To Alaska, with Derek leading the way:

But that got Rick and me far behind Bob and Derek. At the 75-mi stop, Bob and Derek had already gone on. Bert was waiting for me to begin his ride, while Rick was taking over in the RV. Well, about four miles into this section, I got my first flat tire. Bert was in front of me and didn't realized what had happened behind him. I removed the tiny piece of wire that caused the flat, fixed it, and continued on. But this set me back about 15 minutes. So I "raced" as fast as I could for the final 26 miles so the others would not have to wait TOO long, because we were all planning to go to the Yukon Brewery before they closed at 6 pm.

Well, as I was hammering along as hard as I could, suddenly my OTHER shifter stopped working! So I was left with either a very high gear, or a very low gear to choose from. I kept it in the high gear and hammered along and had to stand up the hills, but this got me VERY tired. By the time I reached Whitehorse with 101 miles, I was totally pooped.

Here's a shot of the Yukon River as I approached Whitehorse (which I took while riding. Couldn't waste time stopping!)

And the others were anxiously awaiting me so we could rush off to the Yukon Brewery, which we did with no time for showers. (Note: Derek rode the entire 117 miles! He didn't plan to, but during the final segment, Rick the RV driver was paying attention to me at the back, and wasn't there to pick him up, so he rode the entire distance.) We did enjoy the brewery store where we bought three 12-packs, then we did a major grocery shopping (two full carts full), got gas, and finally got to an historic restaurant we'd been salivating over all day long. We did have to wait an hour, during which time I could barely stand up since I'd ridden so hard and rushed off without eating anything (so I went back to the RV and had a beer and some chips and felt 100x better).

This picture is a statue dedicated to the gold miners who passed through this town on their way north to Dawson City in the 1890s to about 1920. They took river boats down the Yukon (which flows north, so in one sense it's "up" the Yukon) to where we will reach on our bikes in just two days.

The dinner was incredible! I had salmon with garlic mashed. We all shared three pitchers of the Yukon beer. We finally got back to the campground and settled in at 10:30. And it's still very light outside, of course. So glad to get to visit with Janet and see how her HOT day went. Only 8 more days until she visits in Anchorage! Tomorrow we depart from the Alaska Highway to ride north on the Klondike Hwy to Dawson City.

Okay, that's the briefing. I'm tired, a little drunk, the mosquitoes are biting me as I sit outside the campground office to get better reception. I need to shower and go to bed.