Yeah, what I really wanted to do this ride was a dual-sport. I had planned to go with the Tiger as long as I had been planning to do the ride - comfy enough to ride round-trip from SoCal, beefy enough to carry the necessary gear, nimble enough to handle the Dempster.
And then the dollar signs started adding up.
Gettin' hitched...$
Closing my shop for a month to do the trip... $$
The cost of the trip itself...$$$
My hubby off work for a month...$$$$
Sooo, we rode what we had. There were some squirrely times, but neither of us went down or even had any real close calls on the dirt/shale/mud/sand sections. And since our trip consisted of lots of riding aside from the Dempster, we were comfy pretty much the whole trip.
We ran into two other guys who were running all the way to Inuvik on bikes when we were up there. One was on a Funduro, and he pretty well demolished his bike on the way up. Lost control and went off the edge (he only had minor injuries, thank goodness). The second guy was on a TransAlp, and he had a couple of flats on the way up as well. There were a couple guys on Harleys and V-Stars milling around at the bottom few kilometers of the road, and they were having tire issues as well.
Basically, your tires are not going to get away unscathed regardless of what you are riding. Truckers that haul the road bring an entire spare set of WHEELS with them on the ride. My advice if you are considering the ride is, Go For It! There will always be an excuse, or a better bike, or a better time for everyone to go, whatever. Ride a bike you are comfortable with, ride within your limits, and be as prepared as possible (That means lots of sticky strips, a compressor, practice road-side tire changes and learn to use a tire machine if at all possible).
Are there better bikes than the FJR for that ride? Yes. Most of them. But our FJRs performed admirably and we had one heck of a good time.
