A little bit SAD

Date: Dec. 14 and 15
Mileage: 33.4 and 31
Hours: 3:00 and 3:00
December mileage: 375.8
Temperature upon departure: 36 and 35
Precipitation: .54"

I think just about every Alaskan - at least once during the winter - experiences a mild case of Seasonal Affective Disorder. SAD is a depressive condition cause not by cold, but by lack of sunlight. Here in Juneau, we have a more daylight than points north of here, but it is arguable we see even less sunlight. As solstice nears, with the low sun barely scraping above the peaks of Admiralty Island and a thick, thick cloud cover refusing to budge, Juneau appears to be locked in perpetual twilight - like the Arctic Circle, but without the long sunsets.

Darkness takes its toll. I love winter and spend a fair amount of time outside, so SAD has never hit me that hard. But when it does, I know exactly what's happening. I sense it in the morning, when I wake up with an enduring junk fatigue - not the satisfying fatigue that one feels when returning from a long ride, but the empty fatigue one feels after sleeping too long and spending the whole day on the couch. This kind of fatigue is self-perpetuating, I and know this, so I try to force myself to shimmy into all of my bike gear and head out on the long ride I have planned. I hoped for five hours on Friday. I made it nearly three, slogging the entire time, before I had one of those "%$&! this" moments and turned promptly for home, where I proceeded to consume every carbohydrate-laden snack in the house (even chips. I never eat chips.) The evening was filled with false starts and at night my cat decided to start screaming like a murderous banshee (cat screams are very humanlike ... terrifying.) I jolted out of a deep sleep and spent the next several hours in bleary-eyed weariness, staring out the window, waiting for some semblance of light, any light, to appear in the sky.

I had been simmering in moodiness for two hours when Geoff woke up. He blamed my bad mood on training and told me I should take a day off. But I knew sitting around the house watching snow fall and stuffing my face with chips and spoonfuls of jam would only stoke the grump, so I grudgingly suited up and headed out into the ice storm.

The road was covered in new, heavy snow, which made the pedaling slow-going and strenuous. It helped take my mind off carbohydrates and screaming cats, and focus more on my breathing, and the sharp way my quads burned, and the soft drumming of low-volume music on my headphones. I didn't even think that much time had passed when I approached Geoff, who was 10 miles into his weekly long run, looking sopping wet and completely ragged. "That's how I must look, too," I thought.

Later, I veered off the road to the Mendenhall Wetlands, a long mudflat at low tide, thinly blanketed in snow. This kind of terrain is difficult at best, impossible at worst, and I locked into the single-minded pursuit of staying upright amid shallow channels of water, snow-covered clumps of grass, sudden steep banks and pockets of sand so deep it felt as though someone had lassoed my back wheel and was trying to pull me backwards. The landscape was so barren and yet so intricately detailed. My goggles had long since become uselessly wet, and I squinted against the sharp snowflakes, focusing on abstract shapes through my blinking tunnel vision until I lost all concept of where the ground ended and my bike began. Then, suddenly, like a white explosion, a flock of seagulls erupted from the snow right in front of me. I jumped off my bike, completely startled, and paused a moment to let my heart rate slow as the birds swirled and tumbled and settled again on the snow.

And I realized that I felt better.

Riding with sea lions

Date: Dec. 13
Mileage: 55.8
Hours: 5:00
December mileage: 311.4
Temperature upon departure: 38
Rainfall: .45"

My goal for this Thursday and Friday is two back-to-back "medium" rides. Because today was supposed to have the marginally "nicer" weather (more rain than sleet, and less wind), I decided to go out for the harder one today. My hope was to log a lot of elevation by riding up to Eaglecrest and back, again and again, for five hours. That probably sounds pretty boring, but believe me, when the weather is like this, boring is almost a good thing.

After my experience with the Eaglecrest climb on Tuesday, I heavily overdressed for the ride. I figured a little sweat was meaningless in the grand scheme of the layer-soaking slush shower I was facing. It actually worked, but I sure was uncomfortable during the first climb, gazing wistfully at the snow-packed slopes and daydreaming about splashing my overheated face with cold powder. But for the ride down, my clothing was nearly perfect - much better than Tuesday. Unfortunately, the road surface was much, much worse. Everything was either former packed snow that had been rain-glazed into a wet slick of glare ice, or it was gravel-sprinkled slush. From any distance, it was hard to tell which was which. But tires do completely different things in slush than they do on ice, so the threat of losing control of my bike loomed constantly. I had to ride my brakes for five miles, until my hands went completely numb, often moving slower than I had been during the climb and clenching my butt cheeks the entire time. When I finally made it to the bottom, for some reason known only to my slave-driving subconscious, I turned around to do it again.

So I actually made the climb three times. It was a good example of just how short the selective short-term memory of a cyclist can be. All the climbs were a lot of fun, but the descents were treacherous and slow. By the third one, my layers were no longer protecting me from the windchill, so I scrapped the all-day Eaglecrest idea and headed north.

North Douglas was nearly deserted as I pedaled hard across the ice, trying to build up the heat I had lost. Sea birds peppered the calm surface of the channel, and I turned off my iPod so I could hear the surf lapping on the shore. In the distance, I could see dark triangle shapes bobbing in and out of the water. At first I thought they were birds, but they were too big, and then I thought dolphins. But as I moved closer I could see sleek brown bodies rolling through the water like waves. Sea lions. And there must have been a dozen, maybe more, swimming no more than 50 yards from the shore.

As I rolled up beside them, one by one they turned their heads toward me, their ghost eyes hovering just above the surface. More triangle-shaped profiles popped out of the water and disappeared just as quickly, and as I coasted along the ice they rolled with me, locking gazes with mine, making water-blowing noises and diving again. Then, suddenly, a small sea lion toward the front of the line knifed half-way out of the water, its sharp nose pointed in the air like a circus seal, and I could actually see its flippers flapping back and forth. I burst out giggling like a little girl. They were playing with me.

"Hey sea lions," I called out. "Catch this!" And with that, I launched into the pedals and rocketed down the ice. I glanced over my shoulder and could still see the group bobbing in and out of the water, still moving forward but completely uninterested in chasing me. I continued pedaling to the end of the road. But when I approached them again on the return ride, the games commenced.

I actually doubled back on the road three or four times, just so I could ride by the sea lions and call out to them and laugh as they turned to me with their hollow, skull-like stares. It was probably completely inappropriate, a harassment of wildlife, but they didn't seem to mind. You know, sea lions actually make pretty good riding partners.

Snow-riding tips

Wet weather has me hitting the weights again. I neglected my gym routine for more than a week, and I can notice a difference even after a short hiatus. Weight-lifting has been an interesting experience for me. It's by far the most controlled aspect of my training, and its also the area where I can best identify real gains and losses. I hate weight lifting with a drudgery that stretches beyond cycling in the sleet, and yet I can't deny its value.

That's about all I have to report on that. I made another article for the NPR blog. I'm not sure when it will be posted, but I hope they don't mind if I republish it here. This week, it's: 10 tips for riding a bicycle on snow:

1. Think surface area: If you’ve ever used snowshoes before, you know that all that mass at the bottom of your feet can mean the difference between coasting atop power or wading knee-deep in it. Snow bikes work they same way. They incorporate wide tires with a flat profile in order to distribute bulk (you) as evenly as possible, allowing for maximum floatation.

2. Fat is the new skinny. As long as there have been bicycles, there have been weight-weenie types trying to shave grams off wheels. Nowadays, it’s not uncommon to see a spoke-free wheel sporting tires as thin as razors. But once you slice into snow, skinny tires might as well be razors. Snow-bikers know that fat means float, and have been developing bicycles to accommodate increasingly larger wheels for years. I predict that not too far in the future, someone will build a bicycle frame with room for motocross tires. Look for it.

3. There is no shame in walking. Cyclists hate to admit when they come to a hill or an obstacle they just can’t conquer. I have seen cyclists blow out their knees and face-plant over logs just to avoid suffering the indignity of getting off the bike and walking. Snow-bikers have no such pretensions. We know that bikes are not ready-made for snow, and vice versa. If snow is too soft, or too deep, or too wet, we simply step off and amble along until we can ride again. We learn to enjoy it, like walking a dog, but without the constant slobbering.

4. When in doubt, let air out. Often, snowy trails are what we would call “marginally ridable.” By letting air out of tires, you can increase the surface area and improve your floatation. Sometimes it means riding on nearly flat tires at a pace a snail wouldn’t envy, but, despite what I said in the previous paragraph, it’s still better than walking.

5. Learn your snow types. It's been said that Eskimos have dozens of different words of snow. Snow bikers also understand the myriad varieties: powder, sugar, corn, hard-pack, sandy, slushy, and so on. Each type comes with its own challenges. But understanding the nature of the white stuff you are trying to ride atop, you can adjust your riding and wheels to meet the conditions.

6. Don't be disappointed when you fail to set a land-speed record. Snow, like sand, puts up a lot of resistance, and snow bikers are not known for their speed. I have often heard accounts of cyclists who said felt like they were careening down a hill, only to look down and see they hadn’t even breached the 10 mph barrier. In snow races, 10 mph is considered fast. 8 mph is average. 6 mph is respectable, and 4 mph isn’t uncommon. When ask to describe the nature of the 2006 Iditarod Invitational, which was plagued by cold temperatures and fresh snow, third-place finisher Jeff Oatley said, “It was about as intense as a 2.5 mph race can be.”

7. All brakes are not created equal. When contemplating what brakes to put on their bikes, cyclists have all kinds of reasons to choose between disc or rim. But snow bikers, who often find their rims coated in a thick layer of ungrippable ice, have the best reason of all: Rim brakes could mean an icy death by gravity. Go with disc.

8. Re-lubricate and be free. There is nothing that will slow down a snow biker faster than having their hubs freeze up, which is always a possibility when the mercury drops below 0. We have to lube up our moving parts with a special low-temperature grease, sold widely in cold regions like Fairbanks and Minnesota.

9. Stay away from moose tracks. Common injures for road cyclists include road rash and head injuries. Mountain bikers have problems with broken collar bones and bad knees. Alaska snow bikers are always being tripped up by the deep, narrow holes moose leave when they walk through the snow. Avoiding these minefields will help curb post-holing injuries like broken ankles.

10. Stay away from dogs. We talk a lot about fear of angry moose, grumpy bears and rabid wolves, but our most likely animal to have a dangerous encounter with remains the sled dog. They approach so quickly and quietly that we sometimes don’t even have time to jump off the trail. A collision can be disastrous - imagine tangled lines, confused canines and a lot of sharp teeth. Add to that an annoyed musher who’s likely packing heat, and you stir up the kind of fear that convinces snow-bikers to give those racing puppies a wide berth.

••••••

Also, from YouTube, we have a treasure from time: A short documentary about the 1988 Iditabike race, back when it was 200 miles and everyone rode on "skinny" tires. I'm going to try to embed part 2. It's worth watching just for the great '80s news-lite soundtrack. To view the three segments, click here:

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

"Bicycles on Snow"