Nine hours in photos

Date: Dec. 20
Mileage: 68.4
Hours: 9:00
December mileage: 507.7
Temperature upon departure: 19
Snowfall: 2"

So I hijacked the one-hour-one-photo idea again, because it can be difficult to come out of a nine-hour ride and write anything intelligent about it. Especially a ride like today's. It was relentless. Lots of trail riding on foot-packed (or unpacked) singletrack, lots of climbing and technical descents, lots of fighting loose powder and tweaking all the muscles I've failed to build. The kind of ride that makes you earn every single inch. Snow fell for most of the day. They recorded two inches near my house, but six or more fell out in the Valley, where I spent most of the day. This was probably the toughest single "non-race" ride I've done this year, and I include in that assessment any segment of my 48-hour, 370-mile trek around the Golden Circle. 68 miles in nine hours. This is my reality.

8 a.m., West Juneau. Hitting the road before dawn. Today was the day before the shortest day of the year.

9 a.m., Sandy Beach. I did a few laps around the trails to warm up for all the snow I hoped to plow over today. Sunrise's failure to make an appearance was a disappointment. I realized the day would end up toward the stormy side of the forecast.

10 a.m., Perseverance Trail. Climbing 20-degree pitches over peoples' footprints really helped this trail live up to its name. I hoped to go all the way to the end, but about halfway up I hit this massive landslide that completely blocks the trail. I scouted for a bit out of curiosity and could find no way around it, and it doesn't look like anyone has tried. Seems like a small disaster for the most popular trail in town.

11 a.m., Salmon Creek. Another tough climb. I'm already beginning to feel it, and the day isn't even half over.

Noon, Mendenhall Lake. I sought refuge beneath an iceberg to eat my lunch. Snow was coming down hard. The lake was a fun place to ride ... about eight inches of unpacked powder over a smooth-as-glass surface. It put up a lot of resistance without being too technical. I did a few laps but didn't make any tight turns. No studs. Oh yeah.

1 p.m., West Glacier Trail. I only saw a single set of footprints in the snow that weren't mine. There were a lot of low-lying branches that kept whipping the top of my helmet, and one actually pulled me off my bike. It was crash one of three today.

2 p.m., Dredge Lake. Lots of fun riding through here. It looks like a different place beneath snow ... more closed in and tighter, like an ice maze. I began to feel like the clueless mouse trying to escape. Crash two of three came when I failed to properly negotiate a minefield of clumpy ice hidden beneath the snow.

3 p.m., Montana Creek. My fatigue really started to set in and I was maneuvering terribly at this point. The trail is as wide as a road - in fact, it is a road that's closed to full-sized vehicles. And I was all over it, fishtailing and swerving and jumping the faint canyons created by snowmobile skis. It was a mess. After crash number three, washing out my rear tire, I decided I should probably spend the rest of the ride on roads and bike paths. As it was, with six inches of new snow and a bit of sand in the shoulders, even the pavement riding was strenuous and slippery.

4 p.m., somewhere in the Mendenhall Valley with my genius water system. So I mentioned yesterday that I wasn't going to carry a Camelbak. I got a new nozzle to replace the one I lost. Unlike the old one, this nozzle doesn't freeze too quickly ... but only because it leaks so much water, which then freezes like armor across any clothing it soaks. So today I filled up three water bottles and stuck one inside my coat and two in my handlebar poggies (the warmest places I could think of), figuring that if my water froze, I'd never be that far from a source (given that I was spending the whole day covering the meager winter trail system of Juneau proper.) The handlebar water stayed as toasty as my fingers ... I swear it was almost warm when I went to drink it after eight hours. The water inside my coat froze to slurpee-like consistency and the nozzle froze shut. I realize that while poggie water works wonderfully at 20 degrees, it's probably less wonderful at minus 20. I do still plan to get this Camelbak thing figured out.

6 p.m., El Sombraro. I forgot to take a 5 p.m. picture, so instead I'm ending with my friend Brian's 47th birthday bash at a Mexican restaurant. I gorged on beans, rice and a huge burrito and as well as most of Brian's birthday dessert. It pays to sit next to the birthday boy. Happy Birthday, Brian!

Another great day for a ride

Date: Dec. 19
Mileage: 10.3
Hours: 2:00
December mileage: 439.3
Temperature upon departure: 16
Snowfall: 0"

I was supposed to go to the gym this morning. I've had a hard time getting in my twice-weekly weight lifting as it is, and I told myself I wasn't going to neglect it any longer. But when I woke up this morning to the blaze of blue sky and hints of sun on the horizon for the first time in, well, it seems like weeks - I had to get out. I decided I would go for a hike. And as long as I'm hiking, I might as well take my bike for a walk.

So it was another day of walk-up, ride-down, just like the handful of skiers I passed. Several inches of new snow and powder-stirring snowmobile use put the trail in considerably worse condition than yesterday. It was hard to gain any traction, uphill or down, and there was lots of fishtailing and lots of meetings with snowmobiles. Everyone was out enjoying the sun. Still, it was worth it just for the views. And it was worth it the hints of sun. Although the canyon spent the duration of my ride in shadow, I could at least vicariously enjoy the orange light streaked across the mountain ridges.

I am preparing right now for my weekly long ride tomorrow. I am going to shoot for nine hours, spending a lot of time on trails. It will give me more opportunity to play with my tire pressure in the cold, which I remembered today is not exactly easy. The uneven nature of trail riding also mimics Iditarod conditions much better than an intense road ride can ... but don't expect big mileage tomorrow. Temperatures should be in the teens to low-20s, and if I'm lucky, at least partly sunny with scattered snow showers. I am going to try to do it sans-Camelbak because I am still having big issues with leaking, even after I replaced the nozzle. Wish me luck!

Downhill freestylin

Date: Dec. 18
Mileage: 15.1
Hours: 2:30
December mileage: 429.0
Temperature upon departure: 25
Snowfall: 1"

I had four miles to lose nearly 2,000 feet of elevation. I was standing thigh-deep in a posthole I accidentally punched through a thick bank of powder. Ahead of me, a faint snowmobile trail rolled across the otherwise pristine snow of a mountain meadow before plummeting over a horizon line into certain oblivion.

If somebody had informed me right then that within 20 minutes I would be back at sea level, spitting gravel off my back wheel and making a turn toward Sandy Beach, I would have never believed them. It had taken me well over an hour just to push to that point, mostly on foot. Despite the hike, I was amazed how much terrain I was able to ride. It was the first time I had taken Pugsley on a real snow ride - not just a ride on a trail covered in snow, but a ride on a trail made of snow. At the trailhead, I deflated the tires to 10 psi and was soon floating over packed powder at a breathless clip (6 mph!). I even caught up to Geoff on his backcountry skis while he was applying his skins to better fight the trail's relentless moguls and icy overflow holes. This was about the spot where the trail took a sharp line upward. The wimpy tread of Pugsley's tires could not find traction on the steep slope, and most of the "riding" I did from that point consisted of spinning and spinning the back wheel over a single, unmoving space until I lost my balance.

I walked nearly two miles before I decided to call it good and return to a place where I could actually ride my bike. As I turned to face the disappearing downhill line, I could feel a warm lump of dread gurgling up from my gut. When did this trail become so steep? I leaned over the handlebars for a better view of what lay beyond the slope's horizon, but I could see only sky. So I took a deep breath, put my boot on one pedal, and kicked off.

Pugsley launched into a gravity-fueled explosion of snow with all the enthusiasm of a puppy that just broke its leash. The rear wheel fishtailed wildly until it found traction in the deep track down the middle of the trail, and together we plummeted. Waves of moguls lifted and dropped us with increasing violence, and I applied the brakes ever-so-gently against a jackhammer of momentum. My butt hung inches above the rear rack. As I shimmied the handlebars I felt like a real DH freerider, half-crashing my rigid bicycle down a mountain without fear - if only because snow forgives so much.

Snow forgives much, but not all. Against the flat light of the darkening sky, I failed to notice the mother of all moguls near an opening in the trees that led to a small meadow. I was braced for a tight turn several yards ahead when the back wheel suddenly dropped into a deep hole with a loud clunk, and then the front wheel shot off the small mountain of snow in front of it. The immediate sensation was a feeling that I was coasting over the softest powder imaginable. In fact, I was flying through the air.

In my initial failure to realize this, I actually stuck the landing ... for a fraction of a second. But the sudden shock of what had just happened led me to inexplicably wrench the handlebars to the left, leading Pugsley into the soft, deep powder of the meadow. Our momentum kept us afloat for another fraction of a second, long enough to begin fishtailing wildly, before the front wheel finally planted itself and threw me into the snow, face first, like an Arctic ostrich.

After I fought my way upright, I turned to see Pugsley completely flipped over. Melting snow dripped off my chin, and I could taste a small amount of blood in my mouth. Pugsley's rear wheel was still spinning, like a wagging tail. I had to laugh, too.

It should be against the law to have this much fun on a Tuesday morning.