May Day, May Day

This bleak photo, which was taken from my back porch at the very recent time of 9:55 p.m. AST May 1, really fails to capture the tiny flecks of horizontal snow whipping across the yard. And thus I, who did everything I could do to make winter my friend, am officially depressed.

On the plus side, the Internet has yeilded some great information about training for 24-hour bicycle races. Most recommend finding a mileage to shoot for, and shape my training accordingly. Unlike my last long race, in which I was just working to finish, I think I will go into the 24 Hours of Kincaid with a little more ambition. Because I'm banking more on my ability to remain in slow motion for long spans of time more than any actual speed, I think I'm going to shoot for 150 miles, or about 13 laps. It's impossible for me to really guestimate possible mileage because I don't know anything about the course. I may end up actually completing way less, but I think it's good to aim high.

Now the only thing I need to do is come up with some formula that will translate road-bike training into trail miles (which, as this picture shows, are impossible to ride at the present.) I could ride my mountain bike on gravel roads, but it's still not the same. I think I'm just going to ride my bike, a lot, and hope for the best.

Hill day

Date: April 30
Mileage: 75
April mileage: 568
Temperature upon departure: 40

Had a strange moment of de-ja-vu that inadvertently lead to yet another roadie crash.

Ok, Ok, the truth is, I'm just a sadly predictable klutz. But the timing was interesting nonetheless.

Today was a "hill day" - three big climbs with elevation changes between 1,000 and 1,500 feet in 2-5 miles, buffered by plenty of rollers. I spent most of the day listening to new music that I downloaded on my iPod yesterday. As I crested to highest point of the day - elev. 1,500 feet - the music switched over to a song I had heard only once before, a song implanted in such a surreal region of my memory that up until today I thought it was a dream. Turns out it's "DARE" by the Gorillaz.

Before I even registered the music, the memory came flooding back - midnight programming on the one radio station I could pick up on my little AM/FM, droning with Top 40 pop broken by frequent, jarring static. I was pedaling my mountain bike across Flathorn Lake during the Susitna 100. I had lost the trail the moment I hit the maze of snowmobile tracks steaking across the ice, but I was following a distant light that I knew had to be the next checkpoint. Its yellow glow flickered in the deep ink darkness, broken by its own static as drizzling rain slowly turned to snow. I got off my bike to negotiate patches of soft snow when I stepped directly into a shin-deep puddle of overflow. The change in terrain startled me so much that I lost my footing and, in catching myself, shoved my bike onto its side in the slush. I remember just standing there, looking at the fallen bike and listening to radio static. Then, just as I moved to pick the bike up, an eerie voice began to climb out of the hole. It started almost indistinguishable from the white noise, but began to gain almost disconcerting clarity against the darkness and snow ... "Jump with the moon and move it; Jump back and forth. It feels like you would let yourself work it out."

Today, the same surreal notes came on my iPod just as I was rounding a corner to begin my descent back to sea level. I hit a patch of loose gravel, swerved out of control, and ended up laying my bike down after I had slowed to about 8 or 10 mph. I sat up on the pavement and rocked back and forth as I waited for the blind streaks of pain to stop shooting through my left hip. "Wait," I thought ... "I know this song."

" ... It's DARE ..."

I think it's time admit that I have a road bike coordination problem. But, for now, I'm blaming involuntary flashbacks. Or self-fulfilling prophecy. Either way, roadie, again, came out impressively unscathed.

Tomorrow is May 1, which means it's no longer legal for me to ride - or drive - around with studded tires. I have to get my car changed first. Geoff and I spent a half hour excavating my summer tires from a snowbank. It was like looking for buried treasure, digging through six feet of condensed snow, hitting small trees, logs, and finally ... yeah! tires.

I'm going to wait another couple of weeks to change over my mountain bike tires. I'm still holding out for another day of perfect concrete snow.

Oh yeah ... don't forget to vote Buckwheat for President.

We are not unique snowflakes

Date: April 29
Mileage: 16
April mileage: 493
Temperature upon departure: 43

Today I read an amusing editorial in the Anchorage Daily News, addressing the grand delusion of many Alaskans - that we are unique, special, not like other Americans. Set apart by latitude and buffered by a rather large foreign country, I guess it would be difficult not to feel separate-but-equal.

But ever since I moved here, I've been more than a little bugged by the sense of entitlement at large. The state pays people just to live here, and still people whine about a 3 percent sales tax, they whine about paying for education, they whine about pesky federal mandates like wildlife refuge designations, but then beg the federal government for more road money. Alaska seems to have a serious case of youngest child syndrome, which of course bugs me because I come from an oldest child background. I'm the one who had to deal with a 10 p.m. curfew and had to begin working at age 11 to support my teenage lifestyle. So I can't stand to see an entire state act like the family princess, crying about the unfairness of a midnight curfew while Daddy doles out another 20 for a trip to the mall. You get my point, don't you?

So it gives me great joy to see someone tell Alaskans that they are, in fact, not unique and special snowflakes. While there is a small percentage of the population, mostly Native, who still live a subsistence lifestyle in remote villages, most of us are middle-aged, white-collar, suburban working stiffs with 2.3 cars and a lifestyle dominated by climate-controlled buildings. The only difference between us and some guy in Cleveland is that we can go skiing on glaciers in our backyards or drive to the closest body of water and catch a king salmon. But how many of us actually do?

Sure, there's a definite distinct culture in Alaska. The scenery is beyond amazing. The history is certainly on the interesting side. Latitude gives us the whole daylight thing and, economically speaking, we still have youth on our side. But does that give us a mandate to demand respect from the lower 48 while we cry to Daddy because Big Brother wouldn't give us bridge money? I may be an older child, an outsider looking in and looking out again, but I don't think so.