Lonely out here

Date: Jan. 18
Mileage: 79.0
January mileage: 489.4
Temperature upon departure: 33

Here in Juneau, we have a long, dead-end road that shoots out about 30 miles north of the last outpost of the population center and doesn't really go anywhere. We call it "Out the Road." I have personally spoken to residents who have lived here ten or more years and have never been to the end of it. And I'm guessing that there are very, very few who have ever ventured out that way on a random Thursday in January.

Today I rode "Out the Road." The last vehicle I saw turned off near mile marker 22. Beyond there, I went 15 more miles one way through a heavy snowstorm without seeing a single sign of life. Not a car. Not a snowmobile. Not a barking dog. Not even a raven. All I had was the increasingly snow-choked road and miles and miles of white silence. I loved it.

I had plans to ride all the way out to the end and take a triumphant self-portrait in front of the "END" sign. That sign stands near mile marker 40. But between miles 36 and 37, I noticed the snow depth on the road had exceeded five inches and snow was still coming down hard. Even atop a paved road, five inches of snow means you have to earn every mile and earn it well. I was riding at about 8 mph at that point and working extra hard for less and less distance. Riding to the end of the road would have meant an extra hour back to the point where I was, and I was becoming concerned that the snow would become so deep it may not even be rideable soon. And 40 miles is a long, long way to walk. (Unpacked snow depth would probably have to be in excess of 9 inches to become unrideable on a road, but it was coming down hard. In retrospect, I still feel it was a valid concern.)

So I turned around, just over 3 miles shy of my goal. I have still never ridden all the way out to the end of the road from my home. Someday. Some other, 85-mile day. When the miles aren't quite as hard-earned.

Overall, it was a pretty tough ride and of course I didn't eat enough. The last 10 miles, when I was back in the city, there was a 25-mph headwind whipping up the road, dark had descended and the temperature had bumped up to an extremely soggy 35, were especially difficult. For a while, I was having that full-body nauseated sensation where it feels as though my body is trying to reject itself. I saw an open, half-filled cup of ranch sauce on the road and had a more-than-fleeting urge to eat it, even though I still had a granola bar in my pack. (I think this is the reaction of long physical exertion. Our minds start to reject reason and react solely on instinct.) When Geoff did his 30-mile run, he tore open a pack of sport beans and dropped most of them on the road, then actually stopped to pick them up before thinking better of it. These reactions sound so repulsive now, but they seem perfectly normal when you're in the depths of your tunnel, mind completely closed to everything but the faint light at the end.

Now that I'm at home with plenty of ice cream and veggie lasagna in me, I'm feeling much more normal. I'm a little disappointed. I was kind of looking forward to floating around in that cloud for the rest of the evening. In all, my ride was just less than 80 miles. It took me a hair over eight hours. I dressed well, but wet is wet. I was never able to stop for longer than two minutes. I ate three granola bars and three fruit leathers, for a total of about 600 calories. I'm pretty proud that I actually made myself eat that much - but it wasn't nearly enough, especially considering that lunch was supposed to fall somewhere in there. One of these days I will learn how to eat while bicycling. And one of these days I will return from a ride without pruney toes, but neither is likely to happen very soon.

Just like Christmas

Date: Jan. 17
Mileage: 38.0
January mileage: 410.4
Temperature upon departure: 32

I don't really mind being a job hopper, most of the time. Sure, I always misplace a lot of my possessions in the annual uprooting. And sure, I've been working for entry-level pay since I was 15. But the worst part about my constant freshman employee status is the way I get every single holiday dumped on me. I was the only one in my entire department to work Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Year's Eve and New Year's Day. And what do I get in return? Random days off, three weeks later. I didn't get to choose them. So today, Jan. 17, was Christmas Day to me. Hooray.

I predictably used my extra day off to go for a bike ride. I told Geoff I was going to do my regular two-hour ride, but then I stayed out for three and a half hours. I didn't have a great reason. I'm going to try and ride 7-8 hours tomorrow, so I probably would have been better off keeping it short. Most of the paths and shoulders were buried so the going was slow. And the weather wasn't particularly great. Not even particularly tolerable, really ... it snowed about three inches while I was out, wet snowflakes roughly the size of maple leaves. I wore my goggles until the moisture froze in vision-obscuring droplets. Then I just had to take those flake daggers right in the eyes. And I wasn't even feeling particularly strong. Just sort of ... normal. Biking is just want I do now, when I'm not sleeping or working. And since I had neither waiting for me when I got home, I just ... biked.

I am still making attempts at having a life, though. Geoff and I went with friends tonight to see "Raven Odyssey," the local theater production - the legend of "Raven" as told through a multitude of Native Alaskan and Siberian anecdotes. It was entertaining and culturally enlightening. So there. So it's not all bikes all the time ... except for when I came straight home and spent 30 minutes thoughtfully putting together clothing and a care package for tomorrow. Who am I really kidding? And what of Jan. 18? Boxing Day, I guess. I hope to kick some ***.

Downhill's the hard part

Date: Jan. 16
Mileage: 8.0
January mileage: 372.4
Temperature upon departure: 32

I did some trail riding today. Three inches of new power. Soft-packed stuff underneath. Snow coming down hard. Decent elevation gain. Lotsa walking. Eight miles in two hours. It's been a while since I've done such a physically demanding, technically challenging ride. My calves are still burning. Good stuff, those mountain snowmobile trails.

This one was dramatically rutted. Some of the moguls were taller than my wheels. Geoff explained to me how snowmobilers make these bumps - by intermittently gunning and then releasing their throttle rather than just giving it even gas like normal drivers. It seems a little selfish to me, especially on a multiuse trail - but what can you do? Interestingly, they were a little easier to ride up and over on moderate inclines than they were on flat stretches. I think forced momentum makes all the difference.

Eventually, the trail became too steep to ride at all uphill. Wearing only my winter boots and no snowshoes, I was postholing up to my shins with nearly every step. I believed there was no way Snaux Bike would be able to handle anything that soft. But when it came time to turn around, it seemed worth a try.

Snaux Bike not only handled it, it left me in its powder-blasted wake. We dipped and swerved down the slope, shooting off the trail here, placing a foot down there, never letting up the forward momentum. It was amazingly fun, and terrifying, and a little bit painful. I made one big mistake - after noticing a singletrack snowshoe trail out of the corner of my eye, I shot right off the main trail without even stopping to scout it. I made it about 50 yards down before planting my front wheel to its hubs in the soft snow. I lurched forward and tumbled over the handlebars, but not before taking a blunt blow of the stem right to the crotch. The pain was metallic, enough to send me into a fetal position on top of the trail before I even processed what had happened. I can't even imagine what that would feel like if I were male. I guess I'd probably still be on that trail, writhing in pain, mourning for the children I'd never have.

Despite a few setbacks, snowmobile biking is great and I recommend it highly to anyone who enjoys challenging, but not impossible, technical downhill. The consistency and depth of snow varies from inch to inch, making that kind of trailriding a lot like coasting down a muddy doubletrack littered with invisible rocks and roots. The joy is in getting the guesswork right. And the soft, snowy landings numb the pain of poor choices. Unless you get a little too intimate with your stem. Then I don't know what can save you.