Repairs

Date: Jan. 3
Mileage: 9.5
January mileage: 36.4
Temperature upon departure: 27

Good ride tonight ... less punchy because I made more of an effort to avoid the moose tracks, with snow so dry and clean that distant sparkles off my LED headlamp mirrored the pepper starlight in the night sky. It almost made up the massive computer meltdown at work today. As our missed deadline faded further and further into the past, we scrambled for solutions with an impatient pre-press operator bearing down from afar. I tell ya, I was this close to pulling out a typewriter, some glue and an exacto knife, and giving up on the whole computerized scandal of it all. But I guess that's the great peril of the digital age, isn't it? The more independence we gain from workaday labors, the more dependent we become on machines we can't begin to understand.

Me? I'm learning to fix my bike - one of the simplest machines available in the modern age. I need to master basic repairs as these longer, more remote rides become more common. Even simple things like changing cables or swapping out the chain frustrate and confuse me. I need to go through each step in slow succession, like a child learning to count to 10. Even then, my attention span usually prevents me from learning after only one demonstration. I have no talent for this stuff. I think this may be why hiking was my first and probably is still my favorite form of outdoor recreation. All you need is a good pair of shoes - and my early forays into the mountains are a testament that you don't even necessarily need that. All this gear just weighs me down. I am learning to live with it ... I do love cycling. And a bicycle, by definition of the sport, is a rather necessary piece of gear. If I want to ride a mountain bike 50 miles into the inhospitable Alaskan wilderness, I'm going to have to learn to fix the thing. But that doesn't mean my mechanical mental block isn't going to fight me every step of the way.

Food fight

Date: Jan. 2
Mileage: 8.7
January mileage: 26.9
Temperature upon departure: 25

Today I did an hour on the trainer and then went out for a punchy but exhilarating 8-mile night ride on the ski trails around my house. I have to admit, I'm going to be a little bummed when winter ends and all the good trail riding around here melts into the sog and bog of summer. I'm going to have to take up sea kayaking because the biking's gonna be bad :-)

Homer's infamous Eagle Lady restarted her annual bald eagle feeding frenzy recently. The population that consisted of a few dozen resident eagles is quickly growing to a few hundred. And while her well-meaning eagle baiting brings amazing photographic opportunities to the masses, I'm a bit torn on the issue of blatantly habituating wild animals. If you leave your garbage out where bears can get to it, you'll be fined - but somehow artificially supporting a nationally protected raptor is legal. The Eagle Lady claims the eagles wouldn't survive without her selfless charity. But they were doing just fine before she moved here - wintering in other places around Alaska, where they could still ride the thermal drafts over coastal mountains and hunt for their food. Now they all congregate in Homer and fight for scraps.

Wildlife officials say Homer's shorebird populations have suffered since the eagles started coming here in droves. My co-worker swears that his little Yorkie puppy was carried away by an eagle. He followed the Yorkie's tracks until they just ended in an untouched field of snow, specked only by a few drops of blood. It seemed as though if his dog was lifted up by the Rapture (or raptor). In the end, eagle baiting just isn't natural. But it's a touchy subject in this town. I'd be interested to hear what nonlocals think about bald eagle baiting.

Happy New Year

Date: Jan. 1
Mileage: 18.2
January mileage: 18.2
Temperature upon departure: 32

Happy New Year to everyone! My celebration took a turn for the worse at the Edible Arts extravaganza when an all-too-tempting sushi dress (pictured) turned my night into an Edible Arts-born illness. I still sucked it up and waited out midnight while hunched over a table at Duggan's Pub, watching The Whipsaws and writhing in pain. Let this be a lesson - never eat perishable art; and don't sit in a smoky pub with sharp pains tearing at your intestines just because it's New Year's Eve. Once I got all of the sushi out of my system, though, I felt a lot better. I did a fairly relaxed ride along East End Road today and went home and took a nap.

I read a couple of year-end reviews in other blogs and enjoyed them. It inspired me to do one of my own. Here are Jill's memorable moments of 2005:

January: I learn to airboard ... a fancy sort of inflatable tobaggan with hard plastic edges to give its rider the illusion of control while she's careening down a narrow, tree-lined slope head first.

February: I discover Body Pump, and gain muscle definition in my arms for the first time in ... ever (and it's gone now.)

March: Nothing rings a bell. But early in April, I learned to draft off a herd of bison while bicycling in Yellowstone National Park.

April: I canoe down the Dirty Devil River, inspiring the best article I wrote for the Idaho Falls Post Register.

May: I go headlong over the handlebars during a mud ride in the Oquirrh Mountains, tearing some vital muscles in my left leg and walking like a rusty robot for the next four weeks. (I also earned the nickname "Gimpy McStiff," which followed me through the day I left town.)

June: I go on a crazy fun trip down the San Juan River with the Roberts family, full of stimulating conversations that led me to read three Jared Diamond books over the summer.

July: I discover the wonders of Lava Hot Springs, where I learned some real swim strokes and over the course of several weekends became a decent beach volleyball player.

August: I spend the month of my 26th birthday doing at least one thing that scares me each week: jumping off the 15-meter platform at Lava Hot Springs; hiking to the top of Mt. Borah; rock climbing in Little Cottonwood Canyon; rafting down the Snake River; applying for a job in Alaska.

September: I accept a job and move to Alaska.

October: I fly to Utah and hike across the Grand Canyon with my Dad and friends. Then I fly home to get my first real taste of Alaska winter, with a pre-Halloween snowstorm that dumped nearly a foot of powder.

November: I start this blog, thereby avoiding the necessity of buying a better TV for the long winter ahead.

December: I buy studded mountain bike tires, discover the wonders of winter cycling and register for the Susitna 100 race. Crazy training ensues.

That's my 2005. How was your year?