Inuvik Northwest Territory ?

ST-venture

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I put my first set of Heidenau K60 tires on in Whitehorse in 2012 for my NWT, Yukon and Alaska trip. I got such great mileage out of them that they are all I ran until last fall when I put a set of Michelin Anakee III for a 3000 mile street trip to NM,TX and AZ.
I have around 40K miles on the bike with the K60's.
The Heidenau K60's are a great 50/50 tire but have less traction on wet pavement then I would like. I usually get around 10-12K mile out of the rear and 15-17K miles out of the front.
I believe they are made in Germany.
 

Pterodactyl

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Cycledude said:
Interesting, thanks for the information, seems like most Tenere owners run any brand of tires they happen to use including stock tires over inflated by 3-4 pounds even though Yamaha has their 33 front 36 rear recommendation clearly printed under the seat. Do u happen to know where Heidenau tires are made ?
Ja, Deutschland.
 

Checkswrecks

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528Hz

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I have used Mitas and heidenau. Great tires. I ran E07 dakars on the dempster. Performed well, knobs would have been better ofcourse in how muddy it can get.
Testing out Shinko 804/805 nowadays. My friend ran them on F800 and was very impressed. They are 60/40 knobies and he got about 7K out of the rear tire between dirt and mostly slab. There are also a couple of great reviews here and there on the net on them regarding turns and wet traction. But the sure way to know is alway to DIY. They are 4 ply tires
Lastly, for those who appreciate a good deal, for the price of a set heidenau tires or mitas, you can get 2 sets of shinkos 804/805. One of the reasons may be that shinko is made in korea, and there is more stuff shipped here from korea, then from europe and labor is cheaper in korea. ::003::
 

Cycledude

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Thanks everyone for the tire info ! I guess tires for trip to Inuvik isn't going to be an easy decision , well at least I still have over a year to decide !
 

snakebitten

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I like to learn from my elders.

eemsreno has been to Alaska on the S10 more than once. (and on other bikes too)

I'd probably get my advice from that old geezer.
 

Zepfan

Inuvik to Darien. Dream to ride, ride for ADV.
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I was headed up The Haul Road, AK and met another overlander out on the Steese Hwy near Circle. I was planning on making the run up to Prudo.
This guy told me about the Dempster outside of Dawson (after Chicken and Top of the World). I was super glad I took his advise to skip The Haul Road.

Five days, Road started out super wet and muddy but excellent traction. Once out of the bottom section, 100k the rockier road was dry and good.
Beautiful remote scenery! Amazing you could drive for hours at 45 or so and not come across ANY other vehicle. I made room for a HUGE Sow Griz and her cub by turning around. Took 45 minutes she kept coming towards me, finally went off the road to a ? favorite berry patch.
Before the grade up to Eagle I spied a cool eddies back current in a bend of the river and broke out my telescopic rod. I was frigg'in nailing Greyling. Caught 14 in a hour and was keeping them alive in my head net.
I separated the juiciest 2, let the rest swim free and cooked em up on the highway.
Got drunk at Eagle, had some strong Canadian beer. and camped just up the road at a little secluded reservoir. Over looked a beautiful tundra valley. Ride on the river ferries, Ft. McPherson was cool and
stopping at the Delta Observation platform and reading about the tempering effects of the delta allowing for growth of the highest forest in the world to grow, verry cool.
Inuvik is really nice. I was very amused at the prices for everything. $14. for a 6pack of Molson, $2.00 extra if you want it cold at the state store. $35. for a small pizza, thankful it was good! $3.5L gas.
Maybe the best ride ever but Costa Rica was really amazing also. I swapped my K60 for TKC's in Fairbanks and glad I did. The K60's truly suck in wet. (imo) I was on a Vstrom back then.

I just read in this thread that there's a road to take you to Beufort sea,Tuktoyaktuk, REALLY wish I had known about that. Was it open in '12?
 

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Checkswrecks

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Zepfan - Sounds like a great ride.


Cycledude - I picked up the 5L Longhaul clone of the Rotopax for the KTM and it's worked fine for less money. Comes with the mount. They also have a smaller 3L:
 

Cycledude

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Checkswrecks said:
Zepfan - Sounds like a great ride.


Cycledude - I picked up the 5L Longhaul clone of the Rotopax for the KTM and it's worked fine for less money. Comes with the mount. They also have a smaller 3L:
Where did u mount it ? If I buy something for the Tenere I’m hoping it could be mounted where the passenger seat normally is without causing a big hump that would make it difficult to carry extra gear strapped to the passenger hand grips like I normally do on long trips.
 

Checkswrecks

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On the KTM 690 luggage plate, not on the Tenere. I replaced the U bolts with regular c'sunk screws and locknuts.


On the Tenere, I'd mount a piece of flat plate to the rear seat pan and bolt it to that with big fender washers underneath the pan. Could use metal or a HDPE kitchen cutting board.
 

Cycledude

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Well for the first time ever I took the passenger seat off to see how much room might actually be under there, well there’s another aluminum cover under the seat that would need to be removed to get the extra clearance for a 1.3 gallon RotopaX and still be able to strap luggage down back there, in order to get that cover off both passenger grab handles would have to be removed, seems like to much monkeying around and money to haul a little extra extra gas that most likely would never be needed, I should probably just forget about it. But I will be removing just the passenger seat before the next big trip , that alone should make strapping stuff down back there a little easier.
 

SparrowHawkxx

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When I got my bike the first thing I did was to replace the Luggage rack with an Altrider rack so I could mount a back rest for my wife. Our tail bag also sits on the luggage rack and has a pocket that slides over the back rest. I plan to do the Dalton and possibly the Dempster highway. My wife will not be going on this trip but I plan to keep the tail bag and paniers as we normally travel and then add camping gear and containers for extra fuel in the passenger area.

I had gotten the 1 gal RotopaX (9.5 x 13.5 x 3 inches) a while back but had not come up with a good way to carry it yet. When I saw this post I started thinking about it again so I will share what I came up with.

I think maybe what you saw under the seat is the plastic Pillion rack (or Additional carrier as the owner’s manual calls it on page 4-28). The Pillion rack and the Luggage rack (Standard carrier) appear to be made of the same plastic material and both carry the warning of “Do not exceed the carrier capacity of 5 kg (11 lb).

No need to remove the Pillion rack or the grab bars to mount the Rotopax just remove the Pillion seat. You will then see 4 rubber pads on top of the rack that match up with 4 landing points on the bottom of the Pillion seat to carry the load. The pillion rack is rated at 11 lb, however the load of the passenger is on these 4 rubber pads which obviously have a greater carrying capacity.
Picture1 shows a ¾” piece of plywood sitting between the 4 rubber pads so you can see them.

The first thing I tried was to lay the 1 gal RotopaX (9.5 x 13.5 x 3 inches) on the rubber pads with the 13.5” going from the luggage rack to the front seat. The problem with that was it overlapped the seat about 1 inch.

The next thing I tried was to turn it so the 13.5” went between the grab bars. It was a bit too narrow between the grab bars to fit but the grab bars angle out slightly, so the higher you raise the RotopaX the more clearance you have between the bars.
Next thing I tried was putting a ½ in thick board on top of the rubber pads to raise the RotopaX. Still too narrow.

I raised it more by switching to a ¾” piece of plywood and it just fit with no extra clearance. As you place the RotopaX down on the board the vertical section of the grab bars will fit in the cut outs at the center of the RotoPax. It just fits in one place. You could use a thicker board to give you more clearance but there is no need to.
Picture2 shows the position of the RotopaX.

I cut a ¾” piece of plywood to fit then coated it with an exterior sealant. I used some 5/8 inch tubular webbing and the Luggage strap holder (page 4-29 in the owner’s manual) to secure the RotopaX.
Picture3 shows the routing of the webbing and the finished plywood platform.

Picture4 shows how I tied a loop on one end of the webbing, threaded the webbing through the cutouts in the RotopaX, ran the loose end through the loop, cinched it tight and put a couple of half hitches on it to secure it.

I put my plastic ground cloth on top of the RotopaX and my Wolfman small, 33 L, dry bag on next.

Picture5 shows how I ran a 56” loop strap with a plastic quick release buckle through the front slots on the side of the Altrider Luggage Rack, around the dry bag and through the plastic loops on the dry bag on each side.

I thought I was going to need to get the Altrider Pillion Luggage Rack for this, but at this point I could not come up with a reason why I would need it.

I thought the red RotopaX was too conspicuous and thought it would be good to cover it up. I had an old liner for a mesh jacket so my wife cut it up and made a pouch that I could put the RotopaX in. Since it was now in a bag, the straps had to be rerouted over the cutouts on the RotopaX instead of going through the cutouts. That worked just as well.
Picture6 shows the RotopaX in the pouch with the webbing routed over the cutouts. The angles worked great so the straps do not slide off.


If you need to carry more than 1 gallon:
I also have a 30 oz MSR bottle in a Wolfman Bottle Holster strapped to the side of my Altrider Luggage Rack. It is not much but adds about 10 miles to your distance.

A Mosko Moto 4L pouch is also good to carry containers and is easy to strap on somewhere. It will carry two 1L MSR or Primus style fuel bottles, for a half-gallon of extra carrying capacity.
It will also hold a Fuel Friend 2L plastic fuel bottle.
https://www.revzilla.com/motorcycle/sw-motech-auxiliary-fluid-bottle
It also accommodates a 2L MSR dromedary (or other hydration bag), and has a special opening for the hydration nozzle.
 

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Cycledude

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Well I used a eBay 15% off coupon to order a one gallon Rotopax, plan is to pretty much copy Sparrowhawkxx’s mounting method in the passenger seat position, hopefully I will never need the extra gas but it’s a lot better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it. Over the years I have been lucky enough to help out quite a few motorcyclists with extra gas, with the Rotopax onboard it should be even easier. THANKS again SparrowHawkxx for your very detailed write up and the pictures !

I also bought a set of Mitas Dakar tires a couple weeks ago to use for the Tuktoyaktuk trip.

After reading about the Cyclops bulb failures I should probably also order a set of spare replacement bulbs for the trip.
 

Cycledude

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One of my Cyclops bulbs is showing signs of burning out, the kit was purchased two years ago and has been used for only 10,000 miles, so today I called the place I had bought them from Rocky Mountain ATV&MC, because my bulbs are over one year old I will be paying $112.03 for a new set delivered.

Supposedly these Cyclops LED bulbs are rated for 30,000 hours which would be about 1,500,000 miles, I really like the extra light output but the 10,000 mile bulb life really sucks.
 

gv550

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I went to Tuktoyaktuk last month, arrived June 17. I used Mitas E07 Dakar tires and they are still on the bike 18,000 kms later and appear to have another 5k remaining, and no flats. I used Shock Sox and had no fork leaks. I had a 1 gal Rotopax of extra fuel and never needed it. Carried extra spokes and never needed them. I had bug spray and bug net and never needed either. I rode alone, without SPOT, without Sat phone, no bear spray, and carried no food. Hell of a ride, just do it!
 

Cycledude

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gv550 said:
I went to Tuktoyaktuk last month, arrived June 17. I used Mitas E07 Dakar tires and they are still on the bike 18,000 kms later and appear to have another 5k remaining, and no flats. I used Shock Sox and had no fork leaks. I had a 1 gal Rotopax of extra fuel and never needed it. Carried extra spokes and never needed them. I had bug spray and bug net and never needed either. I rode alone, without SPOT, without Sat phone, no bear spray, and carried no food. Hell of a ride, just do it!
Gv550 thanks for your reply, hopefully our trip will go as well as yours.
One of our riders bought one of those tracking things from Garmin last week.
I Installed a new Yuasa YTZ 14s a few days ago even though my original battery still load tested perfectly fine, it does seem to crank a little better with the 20 extra CCA.
Rocky Mountain told me the replacement LEDs they were sending were exactly the same as my old ones but they are not, the new ones are significantly brighter and also have a inline plug the old ones didn’t have and that big plug made them quite a bit more difficult to install and get the covers back on, but after a long time futzing around I finally got it right. I’ve heard of quite a few folks loosing a cover or two and to me it seems like most likely the covers were not installed properly, my covers were very difficult to get rite but once they are properly locked in it’s easy to tell because you can turn them back and forth slightly pretty easily . I recommend test installing the covers without the bulbs and other hardware first that will make it much easier to understand how the covers feel when properly locked in.
 

Cycledude

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Well yesterday I rode the wing 200 miles for breakfast with about 7 other riders and to possibly buy a used jacket and pants from one of them to use for the Tuktoyaktuk trip, well turned out his gear was to small. So after breakfast I rode about 20 miles to a Cycle Gear store, I had seen online they had a $400 jacket on sale for $200, well that store was out of stock on that jacket but they said they could ship one to my house for free what size do you want ? Well my experience with motorcycle gear is sizing is all over the place so I would prefer not to just guess on the size and windup paying to send it back, so the guy says here try on this jacket it fits the same it’s just a slightly different style, so I try on the extra large and it’s to small and they don’t have double extra large in stock and despite what he had said about the 2 slightly different styles fitting the same I had my doubts. So there is another Cycle Gear store 65 miles away and I ask him to call them to find out if they have the jacket I’m looking for in stock and in what sizes, well turns out they had a bunch of them so I took a ride over there and bought one in size XL that seems to fit me very well, sure was glad I didn’t have a XXL shipped to my house !
https://www.cyclegear.com/gear/bilt-explorer-adventure-waterproof-jacket Guess I will find out how well I actually like it on the Tuktoyaktuk trip. I put 550 miles on the wing yesterday and wow it’s waaaaay easier than the Tenere !!
 
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