Day 4 The King of the road

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Distance driven today: 427 miles / 687 km

Cumulative distance driven: 1,419 miles / 2,284 km

Today’s trip: Liard River, British Columbia, Canada to Fort St. John, British Columbia, Canada

Hours of riding in sub-freezing temperature: 3



The morning ride started with a realization that, overnight the temperature had dropped significantly. Riding southbound from Liard River, I found myself stopping several times to put on more clothing layers to protect myself against the piercing cold. With temperatures around freezing, the wind chill effect when driving at 60 mph (100km/h) can be *very* significant. By the time I got to the Summit Pass, by milepost 393, the temperature had dropped below freezing, and light snow started falling! Luckily, the snow did not stick on the road.

After stopping at the glacial blue, and freezing cold, Muncho Lake, I had to turn up the handle bar heater to the second and highest mode. Thank you BWM and German engineering, for having built in powerful heating in the handle bars, and for providing not one, but two heating modes to keep my gloved hands warm. Though this morning, I would not have minded if the BMW engineers had put in a third, extra warm heating mode in the handle bars! The chilling morning experience also gave me a good idea of what’s to come once we reach central and southern Patagonia in Argentina by mid-August, which will be in the middle of winter in the Southern hemisphere.

Judging by the title of today’s post, you may think that I am referring to myself as the “kind of the road”. But I am not even close to that status. I simply don’t have enough adventure riding experience under by belt, not enough miles clocked on my odometer, and I am not even close to triple digits when it comes to counting the number of countries I have ridden in. In fact, if there is any rider that deserves to be called adventure motorcyclist king of the road, that person would be Helge Pedersen. Norwegian by birth, and since many years a resident of my hometown Seattle, Helge is the true king when it comes to adventure motorcycle riding. For over 30 years now, he has been riding across all corners of the globe with his motorcycle, and has more adventure riding experience than anybody. I have multiple had the privilege to hear Helge talk about his riding adventures at our local Seattle BMW dealership. Not only does he have a ton of stories to tell, but he is also a great story teller and an even better photographer. That is who the true king of the road is, as far as I am concerned. Helge is my motorcycling hero, and role model.

However, that it is not Helge I am referring to today when I mention the king of the road. Instead, it is the black moose that stepped out on the road, in front of my morning ride. Even though this moose may not seem big in the video (yes, I was filming at the time) that I managed to capture (go to 0:14 and watch the right side of the road to see the moose), it truly felt like it was the king of the road.

After a quick stop of Fort Nelson, the weather got significantly warmer, and the landscape changed. From having been big granite slabs along the mountains in the morning, the landscape turned into soft rolling forested hills. And then the sun come out and warmed my frozen hands. What a joy!

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