Breakuping is hard to do

Date: April 3
Mileage: 30.1
April mileage: 60.1
Temperature: 41

I wasted a fair amount of time this morning moping around the house, gazing at my Karate Monkey and randomly making little adjustments on the bike. I felt like a kid who just received a brand new snowboard for her birthday ... in July. A coveted new toy and nowhere to ride it.

Every spring, every community in Alaska must endure the awkward transition known as "Breakup." Breakup is like the period between Christmastime Academy Award contenders and summer blockbusters when every movie you see feels like a barely-constitutional alternative to waterboarding. Or like the horrible year in junior high when even the cutest kids get braces and pimples and walk around looking like they've been slapped with a fugly stick. Basically, Breakup is when all the ice begins to melt and everything gets really sloppy. Winter activities become unappealing because the snowpack turns to messy slush, and summer activities are still impossible because everything is covered in messy slush. Nobody in Alaska really likes spring much. I don't really mind it, most of the time. I appreciate the longer daylight, and 41 and raining beats 31 and snaining any day ... and I think, if we Southeast Alaskans are really honest with ourselves, it's basically Breakup here year-round. But even I have days when I feel the walls closing in; this is the time of year I impulse-buy stuff. This is the time of year I mope.

I dragged myself out the door, finally, with a resolve to go for a hike. I stupidly picked the East Glacier Trail loop, which has a ton of stairs, reasoning that I could take the stairs up and the switchbacks down. But with all the newly-thawed waterfalls gushing over the trail, there was more steep, wet ice than I could deal with. I took a hard fall right on my back before I decided the trail was too treacherous to climb any higher. Then I had to inch my way down endless flights of ice-slicked stairs.

I tried to salvage the afternoon by going for a bike ride. But I had spent so much time cleaning my new bike after yesterday's ride ... I couldn't bear taking her out in the slop again. So I grabbed my creaky old Roadie, which I don't really bother to clean anymore, and rode grumpily along the glass-strewn gravel still coating the North Douglas Highway. I hit the headwind on the way home and tried to crank out some intervals, but my heart wasn't in it. I need something to train for.

Thursday nights are basically my "Saturday night," but Geoff is now only weeks away from his trip south, and is pinching pennies with surprising zeal. So we can't really go out any more unless I'm buying. He made this lasagna by mixing a can of tomato soup and tomato paste, then pouring it over flat noodles with a thin layer of peppers and a little Parmesan cheese. It was tasty ... but a little hobo dinner-esque (and totally my fault ... I was supposed to go shopping.) We watched this horrible quasi-musical movie on DVD (amazing the dregs of filmmaking that can be dredged up on Netflix.) The whole thing was funny, actually ... just an off day.

How many more months until winter?

It's a Monkey!

Date: April 2
Mileage: 31
April mileage: 31
Temperature: 39

My Karate Monkey is done! Strange how these things come to pass. It wasn't even a month ago that I was happy as could be with my Gary Fisher. How does a person shift from "I need a new bottom bracket," to, "eh, what the heck, I'll just buy a whole brand new bike"? Very quickly, very easily, I'm afraid. Combined with all my winter-riding expenses, my bank account is now hemorrhaging money at an alarming rate. But since when do I care about money? Give me shiny goodness!

A close-up shot of the Reba fork. It has a pop-lock, which I like since I do so much pavement riding just to access trails. And when it's not locked out, it's oh-so-buttery smooth. You can't even tell you're bouncing up and down.

And here's the drivetrain. Nothing to really brag about, but it is notable in that it's brand new. When I built up Pugsley last fall, nearly everything I stuck on it besides the frame came secondhand. With the Monkey, just about everything is factory new. Those platform pedals are a multiple-crash-deformed relic from the Snaux Bike days. The Ergon grips were Sugar's. The seat, seatpost and fenders belong to Geoff. (I still have to acquire my own.) But, beyond that, this is the newest bike I've owned since my touring bike circa 2004.

I guess my chosen build of the Karate Monkey is a little strange. I took a perfectly good, rigid, single-speed-ready steel frame and slapped a bunch of bling on it. I'm not ashamed. People with knees like mine aren't lining up to own single speeds, and I'm not against suspension. I just didn't think I required full suspension anymore. I don't think I'll even miss the bouncy on back.

Geoff was actually the first person to ride the bike. It's fitting, since he was the one who actually completed the build (I know better than to touch most of that stuff unless it's a dire repair emergency. As a mechanic, I'm a bike's worst nightmare.)

I spent a short three hours this morning test-riding my new Monkey. I think most cyclists get a pretty strong sense of their bike's "personality" during the first ride. Despite the big wheels and burly frame, I was sensing a "female" vibe from this bike ... sensitive, but with a high pain threshold. Since Karate Monkey is kind of a mouthful, I think I'll call her "Kim." (I know, I know, but when have I ever been all that creative with bike names?)

Most of our ride today was on wet pavement, but I did try her out in all the terrain available in Juneau in April:

Kim in snow (Like a hot knife in butter.)

Kim on the beach (Like a dull knife in butter.)

Kim in mud. (Ahh, just right.)

I like Kim. I think she and I stand to become good friends. Even now, when I'm with Kim, I can close my eyes and imagine a world where there's no job to keep, no cats to feed, no rent to pay; a world where the trails don't fade out and the road doesn't end; a world where I can lift my head up, and just ride.

Out with the old

Date: March 31
Mileage: 30.1
March mileage: 636.3
Temperature: 38

My Gary Fisher Sugar sold on Sunday. I went to my local bike shop to pick up a shipping box, realized they were closed on Mondays, and drove around back to dig one out of the rubbish pile. (I was disappointed to discover that there was no Orbea in that box. Just tattered packaging materials.) Tomorrow I will box Sugar up ship him off to his new home in the frozen land of Minnesota (where I'm sure he will feel right at home.) Tonight is our last night together.

I wanted to take him out for one last ride, but I didn't want to tarnish the scouring I gave his drivetrain or risk damaging a part of a bike that no longer belongs to me. I felt a tinge of regret when I realized I couldn't remember our last ride together. Since I discovered he needed a new bottom bracket, he's sat idle - and sometimes in pieces - in my front room. There was never a grand send-off, never a tearful goodbye. I like to joke about being in love with my bikes, but when I'm honest with myself, does it really matter? Can I really be so emotionally attached to aluminum and steel? Well, yeah. Yeah I can.

When I think about Sugar, I think about years (three years!) and miles (thousands!) during which that aluminum and steel carved its way into who I am and how I see the world. When I think about Sugar, I think about myself as a fearful novice coasting the gravel rollers of the Idaho Falls hillsides. I think about gaining more confidence on the steep singletrack of Millcreek Canyon in Utah. I think about honing my exploratory skills on the elaborate web of trails beyond my new home in Homer, Alaska. I think about discovering my endurance on the soft slush beyond the Susitna River. I think about perfecting my technical moves as I repeatedly circled the same loop during the 24 Hours of Kincaid. I think about realizing the power of unconditional joy as I kneeled into the dirt, nearly cashed out, at the top of Resurrection Pass. When I think about Sugar, I think about growth. I think about change. I think about loss.

But the truth is, this is good for me. It's good to make a clean break. The fact is, Sugar is still a good bike and deserves to be ridden, deserves to be thrashed, deserves to be ground into the dust he was destined to become. No bike deserves to rot amid the cobwebs and asbestos in an apartment basement. Every mountain bike deserves a dignified death by steady abuse, if not a brilliant flash-out in a blaze of glory. If I'm not the one to levy that abuse, if I've moved on, then I have to let him go.

It does help that I have something to distract me ...

Hoo boy!