Bedroom view, 9:38 p.m.

Date: April 13
Mileage: 23
April mileage: 121
Temperature upon departure: 27 (morning)
On the iPod: "History of a Boring Town" ~ Less Than Jake

Today's was a rough and windy ride. After I arrived at home, I tore off my helmet and balaclava, but my face still felt warm. The day was by no means warm, and neither was the house. Could it be? I walked toward a mirror. Red tint ... darkened freckles ... well, what do you know? The year's first sunburn.

It's like a rite of passage, a mark of my arrival into spring. I still associate the annual ritual with a sunburn I sustained almost exactly 10 years ago. I remember the date because it was tax day, April 15, 1996. My best friend and I walked out of our third period English class and kept on going. We were both car-less at the time and completely without a reason to leave school, but I remember that the sun was blazing overhead and it had to be at least 85 degrees out. Spring fever beckoned and we walked like zombies toward it ... just walked ... for hours. We must have covered nine or ten miles before we finally made our way home. When I walked in the door, my mom took one look at me and turned a shade of red that I had never seen before. That is, until I looked down and realized my arms resembled radioactive lobsters. Nearly every inch of exposed skin was a glowing marquee that said "I didn't go to class at all today." That year, I was punished twice.

This year's burn is decidedly subdued. More like a sunkiss, a spot of faint color in the narrow slit between the middle of my forehead and the tip of my nose. That's the year's first sunburn, Alaska style. I'll take it.

Holy bike gear Batman

Date: April 12
Mileage: 21
April mileage: 98
Temperature upon departure: 40
On the iPod: "We Are Nowhere, And It's Now" ~ Bright Eyes

eBay is an amazing thing. It brings the world's biggest garage sale to your doorstep, and whether you're a resident of New York or Alaska or Kalamazoo, it's yours for the taking if you want it enough.

Today Geoff stumbled across a listing for a huge lot of mountain bike gear. Absolutely mammoth. We're talking more gear than most ever dream of owning in their lifetimes, and then some. The seller is a chick who recently retired from racing, and she is unloading all of her stuff in one lump package. Her auction doesn't even list everything she is selling. It includes (and of course is not limited to):

* 10 different pairs of biking gloves
* 18 3/4 pairs of biking pants (don't ask me what the 3/4 implies)
* 20 pairs of shorts
* "Soooooo many tops" (her words)
* 3 vests
* 9+ jackets
* 9 half-tanks (what's a half-tank?)
* 10 hats
* 50+ pairs of socks
* and enough random maintenance stuff to get any century-a-day rider through the next decade.

It's excess in its most blatant form, thrown at the World Wide Web At Large for a starting bid of just $600. I gave it some serious thought. I mean it. There's a good chance this girl, a former racer, is smaller than I am. But I'm 130 pounds myself, so the difference is probably negligible enough that most of it would fit me, especially since some of the sizes are listed as "medium." But what in the world would I do with 18 3/4 pairs of cycling pants? Currently, I don't even own one pair. It's funny, actually. When it comes to consumer products, I inherited from my dad a kind of blanket practicality that borders on indifference. My current cycling repertoire (that is, my clothing that actually qualifies in the category of strictly cycling gear) includes:

* 3 pairs of well-worn bike shorts (well-worn in that every single pair went with me on a cross-country tour two and a half years ago, and I still have yet to buy new shorts)
* 2 long-sleeve bike jerseys, both generic
* 3 short-sleeve bike jerseys, also generic
* one pair short padded gloves
* one pair full padded gloves
* one helmet

Wow. That may actually be it. I don't even own clipless pedals, for crying out loud. I'm a sad case. Hopeless, as my mom would sometimes say when she tried to take me shopping. Not that I wouldn't like to own stuff. I really do appreciate the edge or comfort a really good piece of quality gear can provide. And I have been really diligent lately about buying stuff ... warm stuff ... stuff I needed to keep me alive.

But then this auction came along, and it was going to bring it all to me - more stuff than I could ever dream of using, and all I had to do was click a button. Alas, the auction ended this evening without meeting the reserve, so I'll never know how close I came. However ... she may relist. How much do you think a lifetime supply of cycling jerseys would be worth?

Crunchy goodness

Date: April 11
Mileage: 24
April mileage: 77
Temperature upon departure: 32
On the iPod: "The Plan" ~ Built to Spill

Boy was I grumpy when I set out on my bike ride today. It started out as a sunny day and deteriorated quickly. By the time I left work, it was blowing snow. On top of that, I forgot my ski goggles. I guided my bike through the white static while trying to look anywhere but forward. The present came to me in a cinematic flicker of involuntary blinking. I was annoyed, but I wanted to take others' good advice about getting back on the bike, because I've already had plenty of days off.

Amazingly, about seven miles into the ride, I began to loosen up. The knot of irritation released in bursts of energy. I embraced my blindness and accepted that I was moving by shapes and sounds. And I began to think that maybe I'm not tired of cycling. Maybe I'm just tired of winter.

On the way home, I rode beside an open field of smooth snow. I don't know why I pulled my bike over a six-foot snowbank to reach it. The snow conditions are changing so quickly that I could have encountered anything. I could have sunk up to my hips in ice shards or collapsed into a hollowed-out slush puddle. But what I found was hardpack so solid that I barely left footprints as I walked. That's when I knew I had arrived.

The rumbling crunch of studs hitting hardpack snow is a beautiful sound. I zigzagged through the field because I had nowhere to go and no place to be. I was as free as the bald eagles that I scared from their perches. They circled through a swirl of falling snow and landed a hundred yards ahead, and still I rode toward them ... a directionless pursuit. I dropped into a gully and began to follow a stream bed, pedaling hard enough to feel the cold wind burn in my lungs and the enduring thrill of weaving around bushes and trees ... create-your-own-singletrack. The snow was soft enough in spots that the occasional posthole had serious consequences (think brake check). But I was amazed how easily I could decide where I wanted to be and just float there. I was a rider without a trail, with no need for a trail. The world was my trail.

And I began to think that maybe I'm not tired of winter. Maybe I just have the wrong ideas about spring.