On commuting

Date: Dec. 17
Mileage: 7
Hours: 35 min. (plus two hours gym)
December mileage: 413.9
Temperature upon departure: 30
Snowfall: 2"

I rode my bike to work today.

Contrary to my aspirations, I rarely bike commute to work. I use my bike for nearly everything else. If fact, going to work is one of the few situations in which I use my car these days. There are a few reasons for this. One, it makes it much easier to show up at the office looking “presentable.” Two, driving allows me to go home during my dinner break, which is about the only time I see Geoff during the workweek. Three, my commute is short - 7 miles round trip - which makes it more difficult for me to get motivated about suiting up after I’ve already taken a shower following my regular training ride, packing something clean to wear, packing myself something to eat for dinner and riding to work, just to save two gallons of gas per week (which is how much gas I use if I drive back and forth to my office twice each day.) Four, all of these excuses prove that, at heart, I'm a lazy person.

But I do have aspirations to become a regular commuter, especially during the winter, when my bikes become the better-suited vehicles for most road conditions (I drive a 12-year-old, front-wheel-drive Geo Prism.) So every so often, I give it a go. Today I packed for my dinner a banana, an orange and an apple sliced up into a fruit salad, as well as Wheat Thins, a can of V8 and a roll of Sweet Tarts. After packing a pair of dress shoes (I don’t currently have a pair stored at the office), I didn’t have enough room in my Camelbak for clothing, so I just dressed in a button-down shirt and pair of slacks - all cotton - and threw my rain gear over the top.

All of the preparation had me running later than I intended. Luckily, the road conditions were nearly perfect for commuting - about an inch of new snow, all nicely packed by passing traffic. The bike path was a mess - here in Juneau, bike paths don’t get plowed - but my route on the bike path is mercifully short. If it had been warmer out, I would have been subject to the standard slush shower that coats everything I’m wearing in gray goo (and yes, I do have fenders on my mountain bike.) But today I arrived at work fairly clean.

A few observations about commuting:

• The commute itself only takes about eight more minutes than the drive, but the preparations and cleaning up at the office seem to take about 20 minutes to a half hour extra.
• Is it possible for bus drivers to be more oblivious to me when I’m commuting? How do they know?
• Wearing my waterproof PVC rain gear, I sweat a fair amount even on a short 3.5-mile ride, and I probably should make more of an effort to carry my work clothing separately.
• As much as I abuse my bikes when I’m using them, I don’t like having to store them outside for any length of time.
• My bike lock had rusted shut when I went to use it today. I’m a little worried about wrenching it back open before I head home tonight.
• I’m not thrilled about the food I quickly packed for dinner, but I don’t have a choice in the matter because I work out in an industrial wasteland devoid of restaurants.
• Gas is getting expensive, but last I checked (and I don’t check often, because I only buy gas about once every six weeks), two gallons of gas still cost less than $7. Saving $7 a week is more a matter of principle than a matter of economy. So I need to work on bulking up my principles until they trump the little inconveniences.

People who bicycle commute to work every day of the year have my highest respect. They belong on the upper tier of cyclist groups; they belong at the top ... just above, of course, winter endurance cyclists.

Trapped

Date: Dec. 16
Mileage: 31.1
Hours: 2:45
December mileage: 406.9
Temperature upon departure: 35
Precipitation: .03"

I did quite a bit of Internet research tonight regarding my travel/training options for this winter, and I've drawn the conclusion that I am officially trapped in Juneau until Feb. 21, 2008. People who advocate building a road that connects Juneau with the real world said the state ferry system was useless, but I didn't know they meant it. I even agreed to work Christmas and New Years just to cash in on a four-day weekend in early January, only to discover I might find one boat to Skagway during that period, but I wouldn't be able to return until sometime in 2010.

I briefly considered a flight to Fairbanks, but for what it would cost, I'd probably be better off buying some wool base layers and a pair of waterproof pants that don't have duct-tape patches across the backside. It's a bit frustrating because I had this whole "cold-weather" cycling trip planned since I started training in October, and now I know it's not going to happen. I probably should have researched it earlier, but I just assumed there would be a boat for me when I needed one. (It appears the Marine Highway all but shuts down during the winter.)

Geoff has insinuated before that he can feel Juneau's isolation closing in on him like a cold fist. Sometimes I feel it, too.

But I had a good ride today. Conditions were really icy, but I rode as hard as I felt my lungs could manage in the cold wind. I was able to keep my speed mostly above 15 mph, except on short stretches of bike paths that were covered in several inches of clumpy debris from plowed roads; I also brought my average speed down quite a bit once I attempted trail riding at the glacier, where I did a lot of 2.5 mph walking. It felt good to put in a sustained hard effort. I died a little toward the end, after not drinking enough because my water bottle had become completely coated in disgusting gray goo, and not eating enough because I hadn't brought anything with me to eat. But when I pulled up to the house with my lungs still searing and my legs pumping hot lead, I could almost taste the success of a hard ride well executed, and I knew it was going to be a good day.

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.