love the spam kabab's! yes!
precooked bacon is excellent but I had some people think I was crazy for bringing a ziplock of it in bear country. Might want to consider that.
With a Titanium pot you can cook on fires all you want since it has a high melting point. Open fire cooking requires some re-thinking though. We typically bring lots of food we can eat sans cooking (basically cookie dough) and light weight simple meals for the fire - instant potatoes with butter & ramen. Yes not all that healthy but it's light, damn good and filling and you could still eat it all cold if everything sucks. If the weather or wood supply is limited we often fire up and eat a big lunch or early dinner while either there is good wood, or it's not raining etc.. then just have a snack for dinner.  Not being a slave to massive caffeine withdrawal helps with just getting up and going without cooking in the morning - and did I mention cookie dough for breakfast?
I guess in some areas open fires are frowned upon or illegal, but I've never seen the need for the bushbuddy type stoves in AK and they would be bulky for bikepacking.

www.owfinc.com
much, much better prices than seattle fabrics.

the only one's I've used are the sun zuzu's, they are not that great (one bearing, one bushing per side) but haven't failed me yet despite repeated attempts. The mg-1's look nice but you can get zuzu's for like $30.
Stick to your fireblades. For what it's worth I've enjoyed biking in the new patagonia Release and montrail wildwood's (after the death of the 08' hardrock). The release's are pretty low profile, where as the wildwoods are more of a real beefy trail runner.

2.55 weirwolfs, 2.4 schwable racing ralphs, exi's hold their own too.

His Alaska trip this summer was off the charts.

It is super burly, have at it.
It's been the bottom of my "everything" back pack for 3 years and still looks fine.
make sure your scissors are sharp to get through the spectra threads...

I've drunk lots of water from hot springs by necessity. As long as it does not smell like sulfur I guess you're ok. but maybe not. I was / am at least!
Minerals are good for you right?

Thanks, It's good to get the feedback of such individuals with such extensive convenience store experience.
I'll stick to my ziploc of butter and crack.

Single serving no-can spam? can it get any better?

http://www.spamsingles.com/content/

Get the Yak, the llama will be too roomy for you. People that get oversize boats for their size usually find them unstable in spashy water.

Yep easy to learn, take it on some mellow rivers first, learn ferrying and back paddling and generally avoiding hitting anything. Sounds like a good trip. Class III with bikes is pushing it

Deck is your call, if warmth is not an issue then you just need to decide how much whitewater you intend to do.

Funny to see this here... he called me today too, amazingly clear phone call. I'm going to do some research into it.

Just put your water bottles or bladders in the frame bag and store tons more than cages.
If you pack the bottle at the zipper you can still get at it one handed just as fast as a cage.

To the original post - evolutionary influences.. Ultra Racing for sure. also "borrowed" influences from UL backpacking.

and good production level industrial sewing machines are pretty pricey, trust me on that one

yeah Cass is up here, we've been trying to connect for a second time before he heads north.
glad I said 95% sure!

just FYI,
those "odor Proof" bags are pretty worthless, I just had some friends get their food ransacked in the arctic. The only food that was touched was the stuff in the odor bag. Go figure..
maybe they did not have it closed right. but there you have it, field testing...

Chris got this already, but for those interested..
Pat used 32-20 on a 26" surly 1x1 with 44mm snowcats
I used 30-23 on a Karate monkey with 44mm snowcats
Pierre Ostor ss on a pugs, not sure the gearing
Last year John Ross used a pugs with 30-24 (95% sure on that), and Aidian Harding singled it as well, not sure the gearing.
For the Pugs beach trips we've been running granny gears at almost 1:1 so 24-22 nice and low. once you go low you'll never put a higher gear on again! I think 1:1 is pretty ideal for loaded fat tire touring, just don't get on any pavement!

Carl - you are going to get your ass handed to you big time if you talk to Mother Nature like that, oh wait.. that's already happened a few times!

Immense inspiration goes to Roman Dial, Carl Tobin, Paul Adkins, Jon Underwood and a few others. They were the first to pioneer wilderness "Hell biking" in the late 80's and cummulated in the mid 90's with a complete traverse (about 800 miles) of the Alaska Range (National Geographic May 97')

This trip or some variation thereof was first done by Dial, Tobin and Underwood in 88' as evidence was found in the Solo Mountain cabin...


... following in the footsteps a bit and bringing it back to life again with a fresh set of eyes or something like that.

We discovered gravel bar river biking last year on a trip in Denali National park, so we learned a bit there and came back with fatter tires and rims on this one.

lots of good info here.
I think the bottom line is This - Don't be bearanoid. Its fun seeing bears.

For the most part they do not want anything to do with you, after the initial curious stage of an encounter they'll usually run and not look back.
In Alaska hanging food is usually not an option due to small trees or lack there of, so we usually just sleep with it. Would rather have the food and not starve than have it devoured by bear or other critters.
 

Stop thinking about winter Tim...

gearing on my 29er was 30-20, Dylan's 26" had 32-20.
Both were a bit too high.

Pugs would have been too heavy to push, carry and throw.

Thanks guys, it was fun.

Dave,
Dylan's bike was a fixie with an ENO hub, we rode very little downhill so it was no biggie. But I was glad to have mine with a freewheel.
no-deck? he'll have to chime in for that  
Yes AMWC route, unless you're Chuck Comstock..
I'll do it again in a heartbeat sans bicycle.
Scott - how do you embed vimeo on here? I could not get it to work.