I thought Yermo would like this... There's a guy here in Victoria who has been riding up to Alaska every summer for the last 15 years or so. Yeah, up the Dalton Highway to Prudhoe Bay. He's 87 and rides a '72 BMW R60! He used to do the trip in three days, but now it takes him five days. He runs spare throttle and clutch cables next to the real ones so that if one breaks he can easily replace it.

87!? Damn. So he started when he was 72. 5 days? Up and back from Victoria? Damn that's impressive.

Yea, the Dalton ain't all that. You just have to be careful when riding it. That's all. That firetrail in Telluride was much more challenging and probably a road that I should have had a F800GS or similar on. I don't think one of the big ones would have been appropriate for that road ... says the sport touring rider.

I'd like to see pics of him and the bike!

That would make for a good photo, the old man and his old bike. I haven't met him, but I have a friend who owns a local bike shop and he told me about him yesterday. Apparently the old guy rides in old school gear, too, such as rubber boots, which seems rather sensible for that sort of trip.

If I meet him, I'll see if I can get a photo of him.

Hell, invite him to join here if he's up for it. I'd love to hear stories of how he travels.

Who needs a gs? Well, now that I've seen some serious documentation on the Yamaha Tenere, I'm not so sure anybody needs a gs!

The January 2011 MCN has a very favorable write-up.

I meant each way. Five days would be okay, but he was doing how many miles in three days to get up there? About 2,100 or so?

Yea, if I had done the arithmetic I would have realized that.

I'm sure that's a great bike!

The first time I saw a Tenere was in Turkey in '94; a French couple had ridden it from home to central Turkey, where I met them while on a rented Jawa. I remember being quite impressed by it and was disappointed that my rental bike wouldn't allow me to keep up with them, and I can't blame them for not wanting to cruise at my pace (we had gone on a day's outing together). The new one looks great.

Have you seen the Ténéré Expedition Tent?