Sometimes the journey doesn鈥檛 go as planned.

It happened to me during a summer bicycle tour in the Yukon, when my bike broke down.

I was on a solo trip from Whitehorse to Dawson City and then north to Inuvik, Northwest Territories. Shortly before the trip, I had taken my bike in for servicing. I also had tools and parts in case I needed to make an emergency repair along the way. Everything was set.

But then, after a couple of days of rain on the Dempster Highway, something went wrong. The mud on this loose-surface highway wreaked havoc on my rear wheel and worked its way into the rear hub. Eventually, the bike was no longer functional.

This was one of the few bike problems I couldn鈥檛 fix.

I had cycled almost 1,000 kilometres since leaving Whitehorse and now I was stuck with a non-functional bike with almost 400 kilometres ahead of me before I could get a flight back home. There was no bus service along this highway, and vehicles passed by perhaps once or twice an hour.

This is the worst bicycling mishap I have experienced.

In the past, I can鈥檛 remember too many issues beyond an occasional flat tire. This was a lot more serious, and it was on a quiet highway, close to the Arcitc Circle.

Still, the trip worked out.

When my bike broke down, I was probably 10 to 20 kilometres from Eagle Plains, the halfway point on the Dempster Highway. There鈥檚 a hotel, restaurant, bar, gas station and campground at Eagle Plains. There was a mechanic on duty, and the next day, he and I tried to do a fix of the wheel. We managed a temporary fix, but it wouldn鈥檛 hold for a day of fully-loaded cycle touring, let alone the four days I had left.

Without a reliable bike, I needed another solution. The next morning, I asked around at the hotel and restaurant if anyone was heading north and had room for me and my bike. Four German tourists offered to take me as their passenger.

The ride took five to six hours. We spent the time enjoying some scenic stops along the way and listening to Johnny Cash songs, sung in German, as well as other country music while we were on the road. (The Johnny Cash songs were genuine. In the 1950s, when he was serving in the military, he was stationed in West Germany and he recorded some songs in German.)

Fortunately, these tourists were fluent in English, while my German language skills left a lot to be desired. Communication wasn鈥檛 a problem.

The drive from Eagle Plains to Inuvik wasn鈥檛 part of the plan when I was preparing for the bike trip, but it turned out to be one of the highlights of my time in the Arctic that year.

Over the years, I鈥檝e learned to do a lot of planning and make contingencies for a bicycle tour, just in case something goes wrong. I take the same approach with other plans, just in case things don鈥檛 work out. And despite my best efforts, there are times the unexpected happens and even the backup plan doesn鈥檛 work out.

But then, some of the best adventures are the ones that aren鈥檛 planned.

Life is good, even if it sometimes involves a car ride with Johnny Cash songs sung in German as the soundtrack, rather than a bike ride along an Arctic highway.

John Arendt is the editor of the Summerland Review.