Ski by day, ride by Northern Lights

Date: Dec. 14
Mileage: 25.0
December mileage: 190.1
Temperature upon departure: 30

The afternoon is for skiing at Eagle Beach. The thick crust of old snow holds the sticks to the newly-dusted track, so all there is to do is stab, glide, stab glide, stab. The movement becomes a little tedious after three 2.5-mile loops around a state park, even as distant storms bleed splashes of black over the sky. Geoff seems to think otherwise, especially when he has finally found the perfect wax combination for his Rossignol classics. I ride some No-wax No-names, at about half the speed, and I consider it a triumph if I do not fall flat on my back (Atop a snowshoe-stomped ice patch, I was not so victorious today.)But we move and glide, taste the sweet rot of birch leaves that have somehow escaped the suffocation of snow, and I guess there are Zen moments in here somewhere, somewhere between the boredom and the terror.

We head home in the 2:30 p.m. twilight, and by 3:45 the sky is dark quilt of clouds patched with star-speckled squares of the night sky. I have hardly noticed how early it becomes dark because I work evenings. So the act of settling out for a night bike ride before rush hour traffic has even hit the streets is an unexpected thrill. My LED light illuminates the snow on the shoulder. In the flat light I have no concept of the ruts and ridges, and therefore no obstacles to dodge. I realize I am riding much faster and smoother than I have since the onset of winter. So I burn hard - and sweat hard, because I dressed for a crisp night chill even though 30 degrees is still 30 degrees no matter how dark it is. Quickly, I pedal beyond the subdivisions and the car lot, beyond the mailboxes and the trailer park, out to the old homesteads and cabins, the modified boats, the scattered Christmas lights blinking into the lonely wilderness - until civilization is behind be, and all that's ahead is the end of the road. And so I go there, and don't even notice the sky behind me clearing dramatically, until I turn around.

It is, simply, a moment of instant confusion and awe, the kind in which I'm off my bike and bounding through the knee-deep snow before I even take the time to process what I'm seeing. Across the channel, just beyond the moonlit mountains, I watch sharp streaks of white light slash deep, defined lines through the starry sky. And just to the north are the shimmering green waves that are so unmistakable and yet so elusive - the Aurora Borealis. I have lived in Alaska 15 months now, and never in this state - either by providence or bad luck - have I seen an Aurora so well-defined, even as this one sparkles and fades beyond a patchwork of clouds. And I don't know what to think about it, so I just stand there on the beach, up to my thighs in snow, while red blinky flashes unintentional holiday cheer - and everything becomes so breathlessly inadequate against the cold fusion tearing up the night sky.

And I don't know what to say, so I say "Thank you."

Caught tagging

Date: Dec. 12
Mileage: 18.0
December mileage: 165.1
Temperature upon departure: 34

I spend a lot of time blogging, but nearly as much as I'd like (And I realize that's as ridiculous as saying "I don't watch as much TV as I should.") So usually I miss out when people "tag" me. ("Tagging" happens when bloggers ply each other with requests for inane information in a joint effort to fill up the slower days). Since I had a fairly uneventful ride this morning, I'm going to indulge in my first "tag:" Six random and mildly interesting things you may not already know about me:

1. My favorite (solid) food is cold cereal. Any kind. It’s true.

2. I am a job hopper. Since 1995, I have worked as a piano tutor, a Wendy’s front line slave (we were sandwich artists before sandwich artists were cool), a grocery bagger, a bagel baker, a 1-hour photo processor, a retail lackey, a custom framer, a reporter, an editorial cartoonist, a graphic artist, a community news editor, a prepress operator, a copy editor, a freelance writer, a production editor, a Webmaster, an ad designer, and finally, my current job - the person the Juneau Empire conned into working weekends. Oh, and I’ve been unemployed a bunch of times in there, too.

3. With the exception of one ill-fated rental ride on the Slickrock Trail, I did not mountain bike (or ride a bicycle at all, for that matter) until Summer 2002.

4. I have walked on the Arctic Ocean. It was frozen at the time.

5. When I was a kid, I did not want to grow up to be a journalist. I wanted to be an engineer.

6. In June 1996, my friend and I were at a radio promo event when a strange guy wearing a spiked dog collar challenged us to race him and his "friends" on the Slick Track (you know, where you drive tiny cars around a tire-lined course.) The guy turned out to be the drummer for Everclear. The "friends" were the rest of the band. And I won.

And now, since I'm a sucker for comments, I'm just going to ask you. Tell me something interesting.

Snaux bike's first snow ride

Date: Dec. 9 and 10
Total mileage: 31.0
December mileage: 147.1
Temperature upon departure: 32

Just a few blocks from my house is the Dan Moller Trail, a high-traffic route that winds its way about 4 miles up to a backcountry cabin. It's a decent climb and the trail is washboarded by heavy snowmobile use (both not the most ideal conditions for a snow bike). But it is well-traveled and will probably be one of the most consistently rideable trails throughout the winter. And, like I said, it begins only a few blocks from my house. Perfect.

Snow conditions today were about crappy as they get. All of the rain that fell last week is still seeping through the rotten snow, which is too warm to refreeze. So the trail is covered with grayish mush the consistency of a Slurpee, stirred up by snowmobile tracks. Riding on this stuff is sort of like a race against quicksand, where steering consists solely of trying to keep the front tire ahead of the fishtailing back tire. Where you end up - that's up to the snow.

And, needless to say, my snow riding is a little rusty. I headed up the icy roads in the morning with my tires at 20 psi, and quickly deflated them to about 10 or 11 psi at the trail. (At this pressure, almost all of the tire's 2.2 inches of rubber flatten against the trail. That's nearly the width of a cross-country ski.) The ride up consisted mostly of pedaling short stretches, losing control of the bike, bailing out, and walking short stretches. I found some success in trying to line the snowmobile ski tracks, but they were harder to stick to than a wet wooden plank - and veering off the ski tracks nearly always sent me into the thigh-deep drifts just off the trail.

I was tentative about the ride at first, but once I realized that falling in the soft snow doesn't hurt, I found myself riding much better - losing control less often and successfully staying afloat on much longer stretches of trail. The ride down was wild. Snaux bike swerved erratically over waves of rolling bumps. But, unafraid of the inevitable bailout, I tucked in and worked on shimmying the handlebars to straighten my line without overcorrecting. Sometimes the bike just shot off the trail and I went for a swim. But, overall, I felt like I had an encouraging amount of control given the snow conditions and my summer-long hiatus from riding on any deep snow-packed trail. Some of this might be early-season overconfidence. But some might be in the performance of this new bike. I'm pretty excited about it.