Pay it forward

Date: Aug. 27
Mileage: 10.5
August mileage: 635.4
Temperature: 55

When I was in Huntington Beach last week, a group of So-Cal cyclists were kind enough to guide me on a tour of the coast so I didn't "go home and complain that L.A. is nothing but smog and too many roads with nowhere to ride." Today I had the opportunity to pay their kindness forward by guiding a Juneau visitor on a mountain bike ride so he didn't go home and complain that Juneau is nothing but rain and only one road that doesn't even go anywhere.

Steve is a software engineer from Denver and has already been in town for several weeks taking helicopter rides to the tops of mountains and installing wind towers. So, already his position is enviable, but he wanted to do some cycling on top of that. He's a self-professed "roadie," so I took him to the Juneau trail that in my opinion best works to convert any roadie to mountain biking (in that it's easy, fast and stunningly gorgeous) - the Herbert Glacier Trail. We had a fast, fun ride through the woods and a little techy mud'n'rocks at the end just to make it an adventure. I led us astray over the glacier moraine and we both ended up knee-deep in runny quicksand. Steve was really good-humored about the whole fiasco, even as we bushwhacked through thick alders to avoid what I called "dying" by becoming inescapably stuck in quicksand.

Always nice to meet another passionate cyclist; and Herbert Glacier via vehicle access is a great way to spend a day off (without the car, it's a 75-mile round trip ride). Right now I'm trying to psych myself up for some long slow distance, my specialty, and make it interesting by taking a tour of the hills.