Bike building

It looks like I may be buying a snow bike! And not just any snow bike - a snow bike in pieces. Pieces that I have to track down, then order, then assemble. It's a terrifying endeavor for someone as technologically challenged as I am. Therefore, I find the prospect very exciting.

The other day Carlos, the proprietor of the Soggy Bottom 100, contacted me about a frame and wheel set being sold by a friend of his in Anchorage. The friend is currently working on the North Slope for two weeks, but if all goes well, I could soon be the owner of a Raleigh M50 DX hardtail frame, a snowcat wheel set with fatty tires and Shimano XT disk hubs, and a Surly fork that "is probably as good looking as (my) couch."

Nice! Frankenbike!

A frame and wheel set does not a bicycle make, but it's definitely a start - and it gives me a chance to customize all the components, right down to burly little parts that will hopefully be up to the continuous freeze and thaw of my southeastern Alaska home. And if the thing actually moves forward when I'm done with it - all the better.

The best part about this potential bike is that it will also work well in the thick, muddy stew that passes for trails around here. It's not a Pugsley - so I won't be carving fresh powder anytime soon - but it should hold up better on snowmobile trails than my Sugar. And - in theory - be a little less like a hot knife in butter on the Susitna 100.

I haven't definitely decided whether or not I'm going to ride the Susitna 100 in February. There's always the issue of expenses, which also now include a fair chunk of change just for travel, along with gear, vacation time, blah blah blah.

Beyond the blahs, there's a larger picture, a worldview that somehow shifted the day I stepped off that windblown trail and staggered toward my new life in Alaska. Racing the Susitna 100 is a rewarding memory, now that seven months have passed and time has mercifully glossed over long stretches of suffering and some initial feelings of failure. What I have left over are ghostly images the seem out of place in any world, especially my world. Sometimes, when I'm stressed and feel a need to go to my "happy place," I find myself reflecting back to the final quarter of the race, after a freak rainstorm turned the trail to soft mush and I had resigned myself to trudging the last 25 miles on foot. I should remember a miserable place - dripping icy water from every layer of clothing, plodding through the wet snow into slow, endless darkness - but I don't. All I remember are the ghost trees, still-life shadows on the snow, the way the air was so quiet even my footsteps seemed far away ... and the finality of it all forced me to slip so deep inside myself that now, just seven months later, I can't remember nine hours passing. I only remember one drawn-out moment of peace.

When that moment comes back to me, I begin to think I would be crazy not to ride the Susitna 100 again. To revisit old experiences. To create new ones. To wield a new snowbike and a season's worth of skills to possibly even competitive level. When I think about it that way - it feels like skipping Christmas (which, unfortunantly, I skipped last year and probably will have to again this year.) All the better reason to sign up.

Just suck it up and ride

The last cruise ship of the season came to town today, and just like that, the whole of downtown's tourist district is shuttering up and moving out. And I wondered, am I ready for the ghost town? And I ready for winter in Juneau?

Gone too are the salmon, the swarms of splashing fish that piled up beneath the dock outside my office window. At least the fishermen still come, snagging the last spawned-out chums (and bless their tenacity). But they, too, will soon be gone.

And gone are my excuses for not riding my bike in the rain, though I've lined them up like soldiers to knock down every morning I wake up to a drench of gray. Yesterday, a record 2.7 inches fell in a typhoon of horizontal drops. It doesn't sound that impressive until I compare it to Salt Lake City's numbers - where 2.7 inches just happens to be the precipitation average for the months of July, August and September combined.

I wore those numbers like a badge as I suited up this morning to go riding, only to change my mind at the last minute and get in my car to drive to the gym. I let the drizzle hitting my windshield justify my decision, until I crossed the bridge and looked groggily out toward the season's last cruise ship. Behind it, where V-shaped mountains plunge into the channel, streams of sunlight tore through breaks in the clouds, peppering the gray water with splotches of turquoise. It was surreal and beautiful and fleeting in every way, especially when I pulled into the gym parking lot and slipped into the mundane world of fluorescent lights and daytime TV.

"You have chosen poorly."

I'm not saying it's not going to happen again ... and again and again. I enjoy going to the gym and I'm a sucker for instant access to a warm shower. But I will try to remember that the worst day on a bicycle is still better than ... well ... just about anything else.

Soda fiend

I have a soda problem.

I know it. I admit it. And still, I'm bugged by the people who call me on it.

I was swilling my latest bucket'o'Diet Pepsi when someone (who I prefer to remain anonymous) waddled up to me and said, "Could you find a faster way to get diabetes?"

I had just seen him chow down about a pound of sweet and sour chicken with white rice, but I couldn't work up a snappy yet marginally polite comeback in time so I just mumbled, "um ... it's diet soda."

"So?" he asked.

"So it doesn't have any sugar."

He looked at me incredulously, so I added, "So it's a good way to get cancer, but not really diabetes."

Then he laughed and patted his stomach and said, "Yeah, I have to cut down myself."

I'm not sure we actually communicated at all during the exchange, but he did leave me feeling dull pangs of shame. I couldn't even enjoy the rest of my soda bucket, with those crisp flashes of ultra-sweetness followed by throat-tingling carbonation in every gulp. No, I actually dumped it out. But two hours later, I was back to craving soda all over again.

Sometimes I try to analyze why I've become such a soda fiend. I used to drink regular Pepsi and Dr. Pepper like they were the elixor of life until I realized they were probably the main reason I was carrying 20 extra pounds. So I switched to diet, and now I'm like an ex-smoker addicted to nicotine patches. In fact, I prefer diet now. I don't think it's the caffeine - I get giddy about Fresca (I mean, who wouldn't?) And I've proven to myself that it's not the sugar. So what is it? Why do I get happiness triggers firing in my synapses every time I think about stopping at a convenience store?

And what, really, do I have to gain by quitting it all? Until I figure that out, I'll probably just keep hoping they one-up that wimpy 64-ounce Super Mega Gulp.