Cool! I'm in a book!

An interesting thing arrived in the mail today: "The Bicycle Book: Wit, Wisdom & Wanderings," recently released by Jim Joyce of the Bike Exchange Web site. It's a whole book dedicated to bicycle essays and cartoons, written by various people who contributed to the Web site over the years. One of those essays happens to be mine.

It's been a trip back in time reading it again, because I always write so autobiographically. This is an essay I wrote in early 2004 - nearly four years ago - when I lived in a $300-a-month studio apartment in Tooele, Utah - an apartment that didn't even have a working refrigerator - and I spent my days dreaming about ways to support myself by becoming a freelance writer/graphic designer. I also spent my days riding over and around the Oquirrh Mountains on my first road bike, because my Trek 6500 was out of commission and wasn't very interested in mountain bikes at the time anyway. The essay starts out, "I have always thought of myself as a cycle 'tourist,' someone who uses a bicycle as a means of travel, escape and relaxation."

There's nothing in the essay about snow, or Alaska, or the virtues of fat tires. It's funny to realize how much I've changed since my early incarnations as a cyclist ... and also how much I've stayed the same. Because even though I don't travel much any more, and even though I can only escape as far as 40.4 miles from my home, and even though I can't even remember what relaxing on a bicycle is like, I still remain a "tourist." It's just that, as a tourist, I see the world very differently now.

Anyway, it was fun to see it published after all these years. I chopped off the whole introduction and posted it on my blog more than a year ago - "Of Dogs and Cyclists" - mostly because I liked the tone and thought I'd never see print. It's one of the few scrapes at subtle humor I've ever attempted (I really can't write humor. It's truly a shame.) Now it's in a book. Cool!

I read through quite a bit of the rest of the book at the gym today. It's a light read and a lot of fun. It's peppered with cartoons, a few of which made me laugh out loud. I already signed my life away to appear in this book and don't monetarily benefit from its sales, but I still recommend it as a worthwhile purchase. With Christmas approaching and stockings waiting for quirky little gifts, this book would make a good present for all of the cyclists on your list. We cyclists aren't too picky. We like just about anything and everything about bicycles, and this book definitely fits that description. You can order it here.

Six hours of wind

Date: Nov. 16
Mileage: 77.8
Hours: 6:00
November mileage: 407.5
Temperature upon departure: 40
Rainfall: 0.56"

The morning weather forecast can say a lot of things I don't like to hear, but just about the worst is "Wind Advisory." Especially when such advisories are followed by specifics: "East winds at 35 mph, gusting 45-55 mph." Ga!

Because of work scheduling conflicts that revolve around other people's Thanksgiving plans, Friday was my only day off this week. So it was the only day I had to squeeze in a weekly "long" ride, which I've been trying to bump up by an hour since the beginning of the month. First week was four; then there were five. Today called for six. And a wind advisory. An east wind, which is a cross-wind both ways (the single long road here in Juneau runs north-south.) Oh, and there was a 100 percent chance of rain. And temps in the high 30s. Ga!

So I left in the morning with a somewhat shaky resolve, convinced I was going to be miserable and determined to hate this ride. It's just that I need these long hours in the saddle. If they're hard, well, deep down, I know that's good for me. Riding into a 45 mph wind? Yeah, good for me too. You know what else is good for me? Wheat Thins! I don't eat crackers often anymore, and had nearly forgotten how tasty those little beige squares are. Those were one of three really good decisions I made today. Another good decision was to break out the new PVC rain jacket I just bought because my old one finally shredded into two pieces (The new one proved, as most brand new jackets do, to be completely waterproof.) The last good decision was to strap my handlebar mitts (i.e. pogies) to my road bike. They looked completely ridiculous, like huge floppy dog ears hanging over a wisp of a front tire. But they kept my hands dry, which kept my hands warm, which kept me happy. I stuffed my ziplock baggie of Wheat Thins inside the pogies. Any time a big gust of wind hit, or I was pelted in the face with a blast of rain, or something else happened that made me feel the tinges of grumpiness creeping in, I stuffed a few morsels of salty carbohydrate goodness in my mouth. And surprisingly, I began to feel better.


Several times to road curved enough to direct me straight into the wind. Gusts would hit with debilitating force, threatening to push me backwards if I let off the pedals at all. I would clench my teeth and accept my fate without frustration - because the wind wasn't really hindering my goal. My goal was not to "ride 80 miles" or "make it to the end of the road." My goal was to ride for six hours. The wind at times slowed me to a pace only slightly more productive than walking, but the clock was still ticking, and I was still riding, so all was going according to plan.


The wind only grew stronger toward the end of the ride, and I hardened with it. In the last flickers of twilight I felt completely empowered by that stupid wind. I welcomed the gusts and fought them into the darkness; fought them back with bursts of strength that were surprising to discover after six hours in the saddle; fought them back with anger and with glee. The way I feel immediately after a ride like this is tough to describe. I feel a mad rush of energy. I want to write poetry and punch in walls. It's what I imagine the "runner's high" must feel like - pumping endorphins, feeling satisfied and strong. I remember now why I continually seek out these mad conditions. I could obtain just as much fitness benefit - arguably even greater benefit - by riding a stationary bike for six hours in the climate-controlled calmness of my gym. But then I'd never know what it's like to conquer the roughness. And that, for me, makes the whole idea of indoor workouts seem so unfair. Even more so ...



... because no matter how rough it gets out there, it remains beautiful.

Into the morning

Date: Nov. 15
Mileage: 25.1
Hours: 1:45
November mileage: 329.7
Temperature upon departure: 30

I rolled out of bed at 10:17 a.m. Alaska time, after having that reoccurring dream in which I am driving a huge car full of friends into the remote desert at night, and everyone is sleeping, and I want to sleep so badly, too, but I feel this sense of urgency and I just can't stop. I wrapped up my short NPR interview just shy of 4 a.m. and crawled into bed without taking a shower, still coated in sweat and reeling with irrational nervousness about the outcome. I remember next to nothing about the 4 a.m. conversation and am still too nervous to listen to it. (It's funny how afraid I am of the sound of my own voice. When I write I can self-edit, but when I speak, whatever spews out is what is recorded for humanity. I don't like to feel responsible for it.) But ... uh ... I think it went pretty well. I thought it was just going to be a quirky little snippet on the Bryant Park Project, but they put my story and bio on NPR.org! Holy cow! The big time! If you happened to click over to this blog through the NPR page, welcome, esteemed public radio listeners. This blog is both a training and personal journal with the results of an amateur photography hobby mixed in. To get a sense of who I am and why I am so "into" winter cycling, a couple of my favorite posts are this one and this one.

I took advantage of the scheduled early-morning call to squeeze in a midnight ride, my first of the year. Midnight rides are likely going to be the most valuable miles of my training this winter. All of the necessary Iditarod components are there: darkness, loneliness, cold, sleep deprivation. I was coming off a long day when I set out for a 25-mile late-night (early-morning?) ride. On Wednesday morning, I completed my full-body weight-lifting routine, which takes about 60 minutes, plus a 75-minute run on the elliptical trainer, then a 10-hour-long day at work. By the time I ate a snack, suited up, and kissed Geoff good night, it was 12:45 a.m.

It's hard to describe how different cycling at night is compared to the day. With all the cars off the road, and all the house lights turned off, even familiar terrain takes on a wilderness feel. Visibility fluctuates from the whole universe of stars to a foot-wide circle of pavement illuminated by a headlight. Shadows become bears and bogeymen. Time rushes forward as though carried by a dream, or it stops altogether. Miles disappear, or they drag mercilessly. There is no uniformity or familiarity. There is only a subdued sort of awe ... amazement at having the world to yourself, and yet remaining lost in a very small, very personal space.

Temperatures dropped into the 20s and the weather quickly turned to freezing fog. Thick particles of blue ice streamed through my headlight like the light-speed scene in Star Wars. It was all I could see for miles. I had brought my iPod with me but left it off for the first 15 miles. All I could hear was the crackle of my tires on the frost-coated road. For much of the ride I was lulled into near-meditation, thinking nothing and feeling nothing, only to be snapped back occasionally in frantic moments of mild panic and confusion.

Past the Douglas boat launch, long past the end of the North Douglas neighborhoods, far away from the city lights and beyond where a car would ever venture at 2 a.m., I broke out of the fog. The clear sky opened up into a startling menagerie of stars, stars upon stars upon stars, like a bulging sky ready to burst at its seams. It was one of those gasp moments, and because I knew I was alone, completely alone, I turned off both my headlights, and pointed my bike into the direction of quiet darkness, and just rode.