Hauling out the big rig

Date: Jan. 24
Mileage: 25.1
January mileage: 684.8
Hours: 2:15
Temperature upon departure: 23
Snowfall: 11.8" Friday and Saturday

I started taking deep, involuntarily louder breaths with every precarious step up the icy, narrow staircase. My knees begged to just buckle already and my biceps burned, but I couldn't stop now. I had nowhere to go. My palm seared against the top tube of my bicycle, and I tried to climb faster, but I was already feeling faint. I hadn't even planted my final foot on the top stair when I lobbed the ridiculously heavy bike at the porch, letting the rubber bounce a couple times as I caught my breath. I had just climbed two flights of stairs. It would be the hardest thing I had to do all day.

Beyond the trips up the stairs, however, I am becoming more and more accustomed to Pugsley's recent, rapid weight gain. We had a pretty big snowstorm yesterday, and many of my neighbors were out shoveling their driveways. As I puttered by, more than one commented, "That is a big bike." Yes. Yes it is. Gear-laden Pugsley is the SUV of bikes. Obnoxiously obese and a fuel hog at that. But the traction on ice is amazing. I love the effortless downhill speed and the way I can just pulverise hardened blocks of snow into powder. As long as I avert my eyes from the odometer on the uphill climbs, I may be able to stay in denial about Pugsley's weight problem.

I have received some questions lately about why I have decided to go with the gear set-up that I have. The truth is, I may not go with this set-up at all. I am becoming more and more attached to the idea of some designer seatpost and burrito bags by Eric at Epic Designs. The problem is Eric is a one-man show, and a busy one at that, so I can't demand he drop everything for my petty last-minute whims. And the truth is, the stuff-sack set-up isn't terrible. I have the ability position the front sack with all of my clothing to be able to get in and out of it without having to even loosen the straps that lash it to the handlebars. It is not packed very full at all, and compressing it really isn't necessary. But there are still questions about my gear. Keep in mind that I'm a novice, and learning this as I go. But I'll try to answer to the best of my knowledge:

1. Why not go with panniers?
Good question! After all, I own four panniers. They each have handy little pockets to access things in a second. So why would I leave those at home so I can stuff everything in inaccessible compression sacks? Over the years, the use of panniers has become almost nonexistent in snow-bike racing. I can only imagine that enough people have had bad experiences with them to convince the community as a whole to abandon them. I have never actually tried to use them, but I can think of a couple of big disadvantages. One, panniers are not made to lock to the rack. They actually come off rather easily. This could become endlessly annoying in the event of soft, uneven snow where the bike tips over frequently. Imagine losing and having to readjust your bags every few minutes. That would definitely be worse than having to loosen a few frozen straps to get at gear. And two, panniers - especially front panniers - hang really low to the ground. Narrow snowmobile trails usually have tall berms, and scraping bags against both sides of the trail would be a nightmare. Even two simple rear bags may be a bad idea. Part of the reason is weight distribution:

2. Why put all that weight up front?
Snow bikers are fat. We wear a bunch of fat clothing, we ride fat bikes, we carry tons of excess weight in gear that one normally associate more with big-mountain climbers than bicycle racers. We weigh a ton. This weight problem runs counter to the very goal we are trying to achieve: Floating on top of snow. So our best option to weigh a ton and still maximize our ever-elusive floatation is to distribute our fat loads as equally as possible. Since we sit our fat butts on the back of the bike, it makes the most sense to carry as much of our fat gear on the front of the bike as we can. Many of the rigs owned by some of the faster racers look like they're about to tip over out front, but they have almost nothing on back.

3. So why not just get a front rack?
I'd like to, but it's not easy for me here in the land of one-local-bike-shop-that's-closed-for-much-of-the-winter. Everything I try and test has to be bought online, which often means no returns. Trying things I'm not sure about becomes costly. I'm still convinced that lashing my stuff sack to some kind of rack rather than my handlebars won't really achieve much besides having to undo straps from a rack, rather than handlebars. But I am still considering it.

4. So what will you do when it's 15 below and you want the down coat that's in the bottom of your stuff sack?
I'll just have to stop, undo a strap, pull clothing out of the sack and then stuff it back in. Honestly, if it's 15 below or lower, I may end up wearing just about everything I have in that sack anyway. The stuff that I want to be accessible all the time (like food and mittens) will be in easily accessible places like my frame bag and poggies. I'm really not too worried about the minor inconvenience of a stuff sack.

5. Why not use bungee cords?
Frozen straps can be worked loose. Bungee cords that are frozen in a stretched position, on the other hand, are useless.

6. Why not drag a sled?
I have never, never heard anything good about snow cyclists using sleds. And a few have tried. Rolling resistance is really bad on snow to begin with. Add some 4-inch tires, and it gets even worse. Add a sled, and I'm amazed the friction doesn't pull people backward. Sleds also have a habit of tipping over. Geoff thinks he may have devised the perfect sled this year, but during last year's Susitna 100, his sled tipped over at least a dozen times. If this happens while you're running, you'll notice it and correct the problem. If it happens on a bike, you may or may not notice for a while. Backtracking to retrieve lost gear does not sound like my idea of a fun adventure.

So there you go. Have any more questions? Just ask!

12 hours and a hard fall

Date: Jan. 24
Mileage: 109.5
January mileage: 659.7
Hours: 12:15
Temperature upon arrival: 21 (forgot to check what it was when I left.)
Precipitation: 0"

I think I am really starting to get this all-day-on-a-bike thing dialed in. I finish the ride, eat a good meal, and almost instantly begin to feel fresh and halfway recovered. I almost feel as though I spent the day at work, not riding my bike. Almost. Except for the issue of the road rash on my elbow, and the dent in my hip. Well, it's not a dent, really; it's more like a lopsided purple goose egg. Either way, it's sure to become a solid streak of soreness before tomorrow. These long rides just wouldn't be the same without small disasters.

I finally peeled myself away from my warm house at 8:15 a.m. and headed directly for the Mendenhall Valley trails. The snow is really set up solid right now ... footprints, ice-covered roots and all. It's a bumpy ride. I wanted to test out the loaded-down bike on some technical stuff. The set-up actually did really well. The big handlebar bag doesn't affect the handling at all. The sheer girth of the bike actually makes it pretty fun to pilot on singletrack - like driving a monster truck over smashed cars. At Dredge Lake, I also met the only person I spoke with all day long, a man named Harry who just happened to write a response to my "Romeo the Wolf" story on NPR. Small place, this city.

While the bike handled well, continuing forward movement was another story. I am thinking about renaming Pugsley "Fat Lard." I'm fairly certain, after adding a camelback to the mix, that together we topped 200 pounds today. I was a little afraid to take him out on the ice for fear we'd go crashing through. I spent most of the day fighting the bizarre gusts of north wind, which in open areas blew at a sustained 25 mph. Even on long flat straightaways like the lake, I found myself saying things like "Well, 9 mph isn't so bad." And then it was 8. And then 7. Despite (or maybe because of) my slowness, I felt strong all day.

I headed out the road because the valley trails are only fun for so long. Snow conditions on the highway were hard and fast, but that infuriating north wind was not helping my cause. I was coasting down a long hill at Mile 38 Glacier Highway (mile 63 on my odometer) when an unexpected cross-wind gust caught me from the side and kicked the whole bike sideways. In my surprise, I over-steered toward the gust and planted my front wheel directly in a deep ice rut. An instant later, the rubber caught the edge of the rut and slammed me on the ice-covered road. It happened so quickly that I didn't even pull my arms out of my pogies. I just went down, hard. Hard enough that the impact swallowed up every last decibel of ambient noise until all I could hear was that quiet little voice of dread. It said, "There goes my hip."

Assuming bones are broken is always my first reaction to a big fall. It's strange, because I've never actually broken a bone. I guess I just assume that nothing unbroken could possibly hurt that much. I just laid there, right in the road, for quite a long time, seeing nothing but red and white sparkles and chanting "ice is hard ... ice is hard." The pain eventually subsided and I stumbled to my feet to inspect the damage to my bike (the truth is, whenever I take a big fall, I could care less what happens to my bike. I am in pain here.) I noticed the left pedal was dented in pretty severely (not like that matters. Tally one point for platform pedals.) But amazingly, my whole gear setup survived intact. The impact didn't even loosen a strap. (Tally one point for crashproof gearbags.) The red blinkie attached to my seat stays also broke off. I wouldn't learn this until it got dark.

This is the spot where I learned the red blinkie had broken off my frame. I have a spare, but it can only attach to my camelback, which meant I had to leave my camelback outside my coat, which of course meant my hose froze in about 30 minutes (I swear, I blow and blow the water out until my face turns blue.) My hip was really sore and this made me grumpy for most of two hours. I mean, this ride was hard enough before the throbbing hip. But as that pain wore off, I began to feel much better. The wind died down (of course, this just had to happen when it would have finally been a tailwind.) The stars came out. The night felt cool and calm. I had a baggie full of Triscuits - this black pepper flavored kind, which at home I find somewhat revolting but after double-digit hours on a bicycle, there's nothing better. Life was good.

Elections and a heavy bike

Well, I finally have the bike set up for my big ride tomorrow. I'm not going to camp out tomorrow night. I just wanted to strap all of my gear to my bike and see if it's even feasable and/or functional to navigate the beast. While this version is more reality-based than any of my previous set-ups, I still don't think I'm very close to the finished product. That truth became frustratingly clear as I grunted and wrestled with my handlebar straps just to create a few extra millimeters of clearence. There's no way I'll acheive that kind of leverage when it's 10 below. Especially considering those straps likely will be frozen to plywood consistency. Plus, all the straps are annoying. There's got to be a better way.

It won't matter for tomorrow, though. The weather will be relatively warm - high 20s - and all this gear will serve mainly as dead weight. I ended up packing clothing, bivy and sleeping pad in the handlebar bag; sleeping bag, pot and stove on the back rack; and food, fuel and batteries in the frame bag. (The big black flap out front is one of the pogies.) I thought the food part was going to be tricky. My cupboards have been stripped bare in anticipation of my upcoming move. I didn't even know what I could pack in place of food, but then this evening I seridipitously received a care package from Dick B. in St. Louis, who has been mailing Trader Joes treasures to help with my training. I pulled up out the calculator and added up the caloric value of all the contents in the box: 15,600. Sounds like three days worth of food to me! Into the frame bag they went. (Thanks, Dick!)

Usually, it's better not to know these things, but I just couldn't help myself. I dragged the bathroom scale outside, picked up my bike, and tentively climbed on. The damage: 65 pounds. And that's not including water, bike pump, first aid kit, GPS, and some other things I've probabaly forgotten. Ouch.

On a, ahem, "lighter" note, I found out via Fat Cyclist that my blog was nominated in the 2008 Bloggies in the "Best Sports Blog" category. The bad news, I found out, is that I'm competing directly with Mr. Fat Cyclist himself. I'm torn on this one. On one hand, it's an honor to be nominated (and to those who took the time, thank you.) I'd be lying if I didn't say I wanted to win. On the other hand, I look at the glossy, soulless sheen of a pro blog like Deadspin, and I think "I don't want to be the one to split the cyclist vote." I feel a little bit like John Edwards. Facing crushing defeats in state after state after state, he's cozied up closer to Obama in hopes that a little shine will rub off, maybe in the form of running-mate status or a spot in the Obama administration. If I throw my endorsement to the more popular candidate - Fat Cyclist - then at least I can be comfortable in my convictions: It's better for a bike blog to win than for a Republican to win. So go vote!

Wait a minute ... did I just compare myself to John Edwards? Sad.

At least I have a 12-hour ride with a 65-pound bike to look forward to tomorrow. Better than waiting to be soundly defeated in Florida.