500

Date: Jan. 31
Mileage: 40.6
January mileage: 501.3
Temperature upon departure: 11

Well, it's the end of the month. Geoff already pointed out how close I was to 500 miles yesterday, so I had to go for it. Just had to. Why put so much emphasis on an arbitrary number (and, due to some guestimation during one ride, not even an exact number)? Why not 497? 481? I don't know. We're irrationally drawn to even numbers. Anyway, it got me out for a healthy 40-mile ride after work today. Plus, it beats going to see the latest Hillary Duff movie at the singleplex.

It's funny, actually, because I was not feeling good when I first set out in the blowing snow. I got out of work late and then had to spend 20 valuable daylight minutes changing a flat on my back tire (the valve tore. Tube creep is one of the perils of running bicycle tires at low pressure.) Snowfall was light, but there was a fierce headwind out of the east sending drifts everywhere. Plowing through the accumulation made for slow progress. But as I pedaled along, my mood began to improve. So I dropped off the ridge and made my move.

I spent about four hours on the bike today, navigating the unplowed roads, charging through snowcovered trails, and on (rare) occasion, coasting with a strong tailwind down reasonably clear roads. Most of that time was under night skies, and I finally burned out both my head and tail light batteries. But with all this trail riding I've been doing, even averaging 10 mph felt unbelievably fast. I can't wait to feel what it's like to get on a road bike again.

Someone asked me the other day if I could squeeze in some road rides to rack up my mileage. And I thought - roads? What are these roads that you speak of? I'm guessing the person was refering to a dry surface, generally smooth and covered in pavement. Such luxuries do not exist in Alaska in mid-winter. Even plowed highways are almost entirely covered with a thin layer of packed snow and ice, and usually a fair number of snowdrifts, for weeks on end. The gravel roads (of which there are many) might as well be packed snowmobile trails. When it snows, they might as well be an open meadow covered in moose-trampled powder. No one in town even dreams of running their vehicles without studded snow tires. We bikers feel the same way. I did get a few runs in on my road bike during an extended thaw in December, but it's looking like it may be a while before that happens again. For now, roadie sits on the trainer, dejected but probably thankful it doesn't have to incur the frozen abuse my Gary Fisher endures.

Sure, I miss riding my road bike. But, then I have days like today ... pounding through snow drifts on the Spit bike path as freezing spray splashes up from the Bay, facing the blowing blizzard and sucking up subzero windchill. And the best part - I'm feeling kind of good. Maybe even enjoying myself. After all, I think, I have this whole place to myself. I feel toasty in my winter gear anyway. I only have a few more miles to go and I may even get there.

Who needs summer?

Slightly stuck

My first day as one person working two jobs did not go entirely badly. In fact ... it wasn't a whole lot different, if only because Monday is such a long slog even when I'm just one employee. So I can't really fit in much else. Augustine Volcano has spit out enough ash that advisories have now been issued for most of southcentral Alaska. However, we haven't seen any evidence of ashfall in Homer yet. I came home and put in 90 minutes on the bike trainer. I was feeling pretty good about the minor successes of the day, so I cooked up some shrimp tacos and waited for Geoff to get back from his run. And waited. And waited.

He finally came in at about 8:45, coated in frost and grinning. He had held off running all day as he waited for the ash to come. Finally, at about 5 p.m., he got sick of waiting and took off for what he planned to be his longest training run before the Little Su 50K ... while it was 8 degrees outside ... and with the continuing threat of ash fall. And he ran 27 miles. Twenty seven miles! The first thing he asked was whether or not I went biking outside today. "To bad," he said. "You probably could have had 500 miles in January."

Holy cow! Is it already Jan. 30? I am a wimp. I didn't even realize it.

Frozen bikers

Date: Jan. 29
Mileage: 22.3
January mileage: 460.7
Temperature upon departure: -10

Today's ride was sponsored by Shawn in Arizona. Shawn's site has some great pictures of desert places that I miss, especially when the temperature is -10.

Today I did a quick highway ride in the morning, rolling alongside the Matanuska River 11 miles from Palmer and back. But I finally succeeded in impressing my friend Craig with my biking prowess when I told him I rode by "The Butte" (which is about eight miles from his house.) "You rode all the way out there?" he said. He was amazed.

I had to finish up early because I had a lot to do today, but we did make it out to Goose Lake in Anchorage to catch the last few laps of the Frigid Bits race. I met Tim at the end of his 10-mile race, as well as a few of Anchorage's hardcore winter cycling enthusiasts. It was funny to meet so many people that knew "of" me, because of this blog.

But Frigid Bits looked like a fun race - about eight cyclists on the course when we arrived, all spread out across a small lake, tearing around hairpin turns and huffing and puffing through their neoprene masks as they went by. It was especially fun to watch this guy (photo), who raced 15 miles of lake ice on a track bike. He was cruising, too. Look how fast he's going! I couldn't even get the guy in focus, he was going so fast (OK, OK, so that's actually an effect of my camera handling skills and not his speed.) Still, he's cool. The only way I could ever dream of being cooler than him is to show up to the next Frigid Bits race on the yellow banana-seat huffy I rode as a 6-year-old. I wonder if I could get my mom to pull that out from storage.

This seems like the kind of race that could be huge in Alaska in a few years. They definitly have a good start. I actually used to work for the guy who started the whole Lotoja concept (he went to school at Utah State University, liked to play in Jackson, Wyo., and wanted to see if he could bicycle between the two in one day.) So I know it dosen't take much to build a real world-class event if you have to right mix of unique concept, dedicated organizers and a core group of rabid participants. So keep up the good work, guys.