Harassed

Date: April 23
Mileage: 63
April mileage: 364
Temperature upon departure: 36

I'm not a big fan of biking on the Sterling Highway anytime, but I've noticed that the further north I ride, the deeper the twilight-zone factor is. It's a strange land of driven unemployment; of rows of single-wide trailers that serve simultaneously as day-care centers/ kennels/ charter offices/ tourist lodging and summer coffee shops; of inexplicable architecture and fake flowers planted in the snow.

So when a white minivan blew by me today blaring its horn, I wasn't surprised. This highway has a wide shoulder with a rumble-strip buffer, so traffic isn't usually very threatening. I nearly had it out of my mind when several minutes later, a startlingly similar van approached from the oncoming lane and swerved toward me, blaring its horn and swerving back into its own lane. My heart was racing against the surge of adrenaline and rage, but I stayed the course on the highway. I just couldn't believe that this van would turn around and come at me again.

No sooner had I thought it when I heard that high-pitched horn blast from behind. Everything around me turned red. I mashed into the pedals and began sprinting as I heard wheels hit the rumble strip, slowing down, no more than a few dozen yards behind me. I pulled further right until I was practically bouncing through the weeds, now 10 feet from the lane itself, just as this van pulled up beside me. A woman who at quick glance looked to be about my age rolled down the passenger-side window and screamed at me. No words, just screamed - "Ahhhhhh." The van was straddling the rumble strip, rolling at my pace only a few feet away. I could have reached out and punched the woman in her ugly face, and I'd be lying if I said there isn't a part of me that savors the thought. But I knew for my own safety that all I could do was look ahead as if no part of me noticed, and pedal against the tide of boiling blood. Finally, after an eternal second, the white minivan pulled away and headed down the road.

That is the exact point where I turned around and pedaled the way I came. I had not quite reached my destination. I was 31.5 miles from home.

The minivan did not come back, but it took quite a while before I calmed down and started thinking other thoughts besides a vengeance-tainted resolve to hunt that minivan down and cut the brake line. Why is that if someone pulls a gun on you, you can call the police? But if someone harasses you with a two-ton minivan filled with adults who are probably driving drunk at noon, your only recourse is the pull off the road and hide in a bush, or put up with it. Next time I ride the Sterling north of Anchor Point, I'm bringing my bear mace. And not because I'm afraid of bears.

Herd mentality

Date: April 21
Mileage: 31
April mileage: 301
Temperature upon departure: 38

During the past week, I have come to learn that there actually are other recreational road riders in Homer besides myself. They seem to be enthusiasts - meaning they're sporting no visible cotton on their bodies and riding bicycles that most likely weren't manufactured in China. However, like me, they always seem to be traveling solo. Scattered. Alone.

It's still too early in the season to know for sure, but it seems that there's no bicycle organization in my town. No bike club. There wasn't even a bike shop until very recently. Today I was thinking about organizing all of the lonely pedalers I've encountered into some sort of cohesive group - if nothing else, to find occasional reprieve from the near-constant wind on the Spit.

But as soon as I thought of it, logistics and doubt began to creep in. For one, I live in a terrible place to start a road bike club because I live in a terrible place to road bike. There's a 17-mile loop of bike paths and light-traffic roads that can be enjoyable, but that's about it. We have the Sterling Highway going north (the only artery in and out of town.) We have East End Road going east (narrow, winding ridge road used mostly by crazy Russians with large trucks and a tendency to drive 60 mph.) We have short stretches of neighborhood pavement with potholes that could swallow a Subaru. And the rest is gravel. Lots and lots of gravel. It's dismal, really.

And then I have my whole herd complex. I am exactly the wrong person to organize group rides, if only because I am terrified of riding in groups. I have clusterphobia. Those who occasionally scroll down through this blog probably saw my gaping knee road rash a few weeks back (still healing.) I sustained that in a crash with the one person I was riding with. Put me in the middle of a peloton amping up to 30 mph, and I am likely to cause a pileup of catastrophic proportions.

Cast that aside, and I still have the whole politics of a bike club to deal with. I still remember a "friendly" road ride I showed up for a few years back, a 30-mile jaunt down a board-flat stretch of the I-80 frontage road near Salt Lake City. I arrived on my Trek 6500, knobby tires running at about 30 psi, and I was wearing - tsk tsk - a T-shirt. The pack dropped me before I even had a chance to learn anyone's name. I was stuck in the back with an older gentleman who rode beside me as I puffed along and lectured me on the values of good gear and regular training. I know he meant well, but about 12 miles into the ride, I had had quite enough. As we approached a muddy four-wheeler trail heading off toward the Salt Lake, I said "I think I'll check this out," and bounced away from Mr. Bike Snob and the distant peloton. After that, I always saw group riders as the "Cool Kids Club" that I was definitely not a part of.

Who knows, though. The sheer lack of pavement in my town means I am probably going to pass my fellow riders more than occasionally. Maybe the group thing will just happen naturally, like rogue ducks joining a V-line. I just probably won't be the rider out front. Probably best if I'm not in the middle, either, for the safety of others. Put me in the back, and I'll probably end up where I started - alone, but happy.

Just for the halibut

Today I was finally indoctrinated into tourism side of Homer, which is known far and wide as the "Halibut Fishing Capitol of the World." (Note the addition of the word "Fishing" to that motto. If you just want to eat a halibut around here, you still have to dish out $12 a pound.) I hooked up with the Chamber of Commerce crew to tag some "little guys" for the annual halibut derby. After we tagged the requisite number of fish, they let us catch a couple of our own.

Compared to the rest of the boat, I had an awful morning. I caught three cod, had four incidents of snagging other peoples' lines, and then nothing - for hours. I just stood out there in the wind and blowing snow, wielding a fishing pole that weighs as much as my road bike and practically tap dancing to maintain an on-board (as opposed to overboard) position in the rising swells. I had taken two Dramamines to ward of seasickness but wound up feeling pitched and druggy instead. After a while it was hard not to ask myself - "and this is fun, why?"

At about noon, I was reeling up what I was certain was another cod, and I was thinking about the Popeye forearm muscles I could build if I did this kind of fishing everyday, when my first flatfish finally surfaced. No sooner had I reeled him in the boat and dropped my line back down when I felt another familiar tap-tap-tap. Second halibut, within seconds. And just like that, I was done. Four hours of nothing. Eight minutes of fishing. Done.

But there is a certain satisfaction, a feeling of warmth and independence, in pulling up your very own "little guy" - one that will net you a cool 10 pounds of moist, melt-in-your-mouth fillets. It makes the whole morning of mindlessly bouncing a four-pound sinker with frozen fingers seem entertaining - even exhilarating. In this way, fishing can be a lot like bicycling. Or mountaineering. Or hitting yourself repeatedly in the head with a hammer. It doesn't feel good until you stop.