As always with my trips, I'll do a regular update on how we are getting on so the posts may be a bit irregular.
Anyway, brief details of this years trip are it's a 13 day trip around Alaska on rental bikes which isn't normal for me. As most of you know, I like to ship the bikes out but due to the pandemic and the state of world shipping, it was too risky to do it today.
There will be 10 of us on the trip with me leading it and my mate Bill, who lives up here in Anchorage, is bringing up the rear as chief mechanic just in case.
Hope he has a big toolkit as the bikes are R1200's, R1250's and F850's and you only have to read the 1200 forum to see how totally reliable they are...............
I came out Wednesday with a couple of guys chill out for a couple of days before the off and everyone will be in on Saturday morning. We'll leave at 09.00 on Sunday morning.
Flight over was with Icelandair as they offer a great route to Anchorage via Rekyavic. This knocks about 6 hours flying time off the trip but due to the current issues with travel, they cancelled the direct flights so we had to route through Seattle which made it a long day.
Heathrow T2 was pretty easy and it took about an hour to getting off the Elizabeth line to getting a coffee in departures.
Icelandair are a pretty good airline to be fair and efficient as you would expect. They fly old 757's which are getting a bit long in the tooth but are quiet and comfy. The great advantage of a 757 is there are only about 200 people on board which makes things a bit quicker than getting on and off a 777 or similar.
I managed to get a seat with extra legroom and sat tantalisingly close to the posh seats...............!!
After the worlds most expensive sandwich at Rekyavic airport, the flights all worked well but the transfer in Seattle was a bit tight. Got into Anchorage at about 23-30 local with a delightful 9 hour time difference to find our bags hadn't been loaded on the flight but were coming on the next one which was OK as Alaska Airlines operate an hourly service to Seattle. Bags collected and it was off into the cool night and a welcome bed.
Anyway, brief details of this years trip are it's a 13 day trip around Alaska on rental bikes which isn't normal for me. As most of you know, I like to ship the bikes out but due to the pandemic and the state of world shipping, it was too risky to do it today.
There will be 10 of us on the trip with me leading it and my mate Bill, who lives up here in Anchorage, is bringing up the rear as chief mechanic just in case.
Hope he has a big toolkit as the bikes are R1200's, R1250's and F850's and you only have to read the 1200 forum to see how totally reliable they are...............
I came out Wednesday with a couple of guys chill out for a couple of days before the off and everyone will be in on Saturday morning. We'll leave at 09.00 on Sunday morning.
Flight over was with Icelandair as they offer a great route to Anchorage via Rekyavic. This knocks about 6 hours flying time off the trip but due to the current issues with travel, they cancelled the direct flights so we had to route through Seattle which made it a long day.
Heathrow T2 was pretty easy and it took about an hour to getting off the Elizabeth line to getting a coffee in departures.
Icelandair are a pretty good airline to be fair and efficient as you would expect. They fly old 757's which are getting a bit long in the tooth but are quiet and comfy. The great advantage of a 757 is there are only about 200 people on board which makes things a bit quicker than getting on and off a 777 or similar.
I managed to get a seat with extra legroom and sat tantalisingly close to the posh seats...............!!
After the worlds most expensive sandwich at Rekyavic airport, the flights all worked well but the transfer in Seattle was a bit tight. Got into Anchorage at about 23-30 local with a delightful 9 hour time difference to find our bags hadn't been loaded on the flight but were coming on the next one which was OK as Alaska Airlines operate an hourly service to Seattle. Bags collected and it was off into the cool night and a welcome bed.