I like my dirt lightly frosted

Date: Nov. 18
Mileage: 39.6
Hours: 3:15
November mileage: 447.1
Temperature upon departure: 33
Rainfall: 0.05"

Mountain biking conditions were perfect today out in the Mendenhall Valley - maybe a degree or two below freezing, with ice-infused mud and sand hardpacked to crunchy perfection.

Riding along the Mendenhall Lake shoreline is usually like a bad dream - the one where you're pedaling in slow motion, and you crank and struggle, but no matter what you do, you just can't go any faster. Today the sand was frozen as tough and smooth as a gravel road. I became so absorbed in the thrill of amping up to 20 mph on a sandy beach that I forgot I wasn't on an actual trail, and nearly face planted over the sandy berms of slightly-frozen streams, more than once.

The trail riding was just as good. I challenge you to dream up a surface that would be more fun to ride across than paper ice - smashing and crackling and coasting as you draw a shattered line over what is normally the softest of bogs. Especially since I have yet to install my studded tires. Weeee!

My year in Homer conditioned me to regard bald eagles as pets, and that notion hasn't worn off even after 16 months in Juneau. This one was eating a moldy-looking salmon carcass when I marched up to take its photo. This picture isn't even excessively zoomed - this is basically where I was standing. The eagle wouldn't retreat for anything but continued to broadcast its irritation with a piercing stare as it tore away at the black flesh. Eagles remind me so much of cats.

The dead salmon was bigger than the eagle, and still the eagle wouldn't share. So much like cats.

Snow flurries, overcast, light wind ... all in all, an ideal day for cycling (for Juneau, at least.) This seems to be the weather trend for weekends ... Monday through Friday are awful. Saturday and Sunday are amazing. Too bad Saturday and Sunday don't make up my weekend. I tend to think of Sunday as "Tuesday." So this trend that seems to work great for everybody else just means I have to consume large chunks of weekday time to squeeze in beautiful weekend rides, but they're worth it. I think if the weather gods ever came to me to make a bargain, saying, "OK, we'll take away any and all rain in Juneau for four whole months. But to make it so, the temperature will never rise above freezing that entire time," I'd make that deal, and I wouldn't even feel guilty.

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.