Running on diesel

Date: April 16
Mileage: 29.2
April mileage: 355.8
Temperature: 40

My co-worker Brian shot this photo just as we were returning from our respective dinner breaks, about 7 p.m. We had about three inches by the time the sun set, and more slated for tonight. It was a little surreal to watch fluffy piles of new snow shimmer in the 9 p.m. twilight. A collision of seasons. I love it. Anything to lift the landscape out of the monotony of rain, which will surely return tomorrow.

The snow has everyone freaked out right now, and not because there's a few soon-to-melt inches accumulated on the ground. A massive avalanche cut down a series of transmitter towers to Juneau's hydro-power station, and the local utility announced they will be switching to diesel power until they can enter the unstable area and fix the transmitters, likely months. In the meantime, our power rates will be jumping 500 percent. 500 percent! When you look at your monthly power bill for $46.48 and do some simple math, the prospect is downright horrifying.

Meanwhile, I think about those generators pumping out hundreds of thousands of gallons of diesel fuel to feed Juneau's electricity appetite. That forms its own surreal image. The idea of water flowing from the mountains and giving us power is vague enough to be beautiful. But to think about Juneau being hooked to a massive, fuel-sucking generator is disheartening enough to make the smallest power uses seem so wasteful ... the things I like and depend on ... my reading lamps, my refrigerator, my computer. I walk around turning off lights and appliances but I feel like I'm throwing water balloons at a forest fire. A raging forest fire. The kind that sets ablaze everything in its path.

In its path like my housemate (and landlord), who is already on the ledge about selling his condo and will probably take the leap. In its path like my employer, who is already on the ledge about expenses, the largest and most easily expendable of which is its workforce. In its path like the local housing market, which will likely go even further to raise already astronomical rents and tighten already insurmountable no-pet policies to coax any of us who might lose the meager roof over our heads back into living at the Mendenhall Lake Campground. These things have a way of changing lives.

But what can I do besides cut tiny threads of my connections to the grid, maybe go to bed early tonight, maybe turn off my computer?

Tired of hypothermia

Date: April 15
Mileage: 40
April mileage: 326.6
Temperature: 38

In everything I’ve tried in my two winters in Juneau, I just haven’t found a way to stay warm during a long ride when the weather is in the 30s and raining. "Waterproof" clothing is anything but. Wet neoprene lets too much wind through. For a while I thought overdressing was a good strategy, but sweating out the inner layers before the outer ones soak through seems to nix any warmth benefit. I’ve been thinking about a seal-skin parka or a rubber suit, but one is probably pretty unobtainable and the other is very uncomfortable to exercise in. “Basically,” I’ve been trying to tell Geoff, “it’s impossible.”

Even so, I can usually achieve at least three hours of quality cycling before the deep chill slices through my meager barrier (at which point it just keeps cutting.) But that hasn ’t been the case lately. I don’t know if it’s a breakdown in every piece of clothing I own, or if my body is tired, simply tired, of being put through this crap. But I feel like every ride I embark on these days leaves me stiff and shivering, trying to remove soaked clothing with numb fingers as my rewarming skin flares with pain. I’ve had more brushes with uncomfortable cold in April than I ever did in December, January ... even February, when I did my fair share of riding in near-0-degree conditions and saw temperatures of 20 and 30 below. I hate 38 and raining. There, I’ve said it. Hate it.

It’s tough because not only has this recent weather derailed my resolve to amp up my training and keep a strong base through summer, but it’s also causing me to waver on one of my main summer goals - giving up use of my car. I was planning to wean myself slowly. By July I hope to commute every day to work, to the grocery store, to visit my friends, to see movies and plays ... everywhere (with the exception of twice-monthly trips to Costco for much-needed cases of Diet Pepsi and orange juice). I don't really expect to save much money (my car is worth too little to bother selling and I already spend more on bike food than gas). No, I just want to try cycling as a lifestyle - like touring, but with income.

It’s a beautiful dream, but right now I’m having a hard time even getting my summer-of-commuting off the ground. I think about being wet and cold not only once per day, but three times (maybe more). I’ll have to return from my training rides to take a shower, then commute to work, then completely change my clothes, then work for four hours, then eat dinner out of a microwave in the company break room, then work four more hours, then put all my wet and muddy bike clothes back on, then commute home. It’s a hugely daunting prospect to think about doing this every day. It may very well be my greatest challenge yet.

Anyone have a rubber suit they could sell to me?

Awful weather

Here in Juneau, we have to set the "awful" bar on our weather gauge a bit higher than most places. Raining? Windy? Snowing? Cold? Some combination thereof? That's just weather. Torrential downpours? Hurricane-force blasts? Blizzards? That's just interesting weather. The top level on the terrible weather scale is reserved for deep-set grayness that smothers multiple days and even weeks, grayness so thick it seeps down the mountains and into the moods of everyone you meet, and rain that falls continuously for 48, 72, 96 hours. I am not talking about wimpy storms that drizzle for a bit and then retreat behind overcast skies. No, I am talking about water and slush and snain pounding the ground without pause for three days straight.

You know the scale has tipped when people start talking about the weather. People in Juneau don't talk about wet weather for the same reason people in Fairbanks don't say "sure is cold out" and people in Las Vegas don't say "how 'bout that sun today." You don't bother to mention the things that happen most of the time. But when a week goes by without even a break in the clouds, wet weather begins to nervously trickle into conversation. You also know awful has come when you start to see umbrellas around town and it isn't even tourist season. Locals in Juneau don't use umbrellas. It's a symbol of Southeast Alaskan pride, a mark of non-sissiness and grizzled acclimation. Umbrellas are a sure sign of distress, our last act of desperation before we fall to our knees and pray for forgiveness before the apocalypse annihilates us.

Today I went snowshoeing up the Mount Jumbo trail. I wasn't even all the excited about getting out of bed. But even though I am dialing back my bike time, I still recognize the importance of going outside on a regular basis - lest I start to grow mold. At about 1,000 feet the sleet turned to snow, and by 1,800 feet I had entered a canyon in the crush of a full-on, white-out, 50-mph-wind-gusting blizzard. I glanced nervously in the direction of the steep surrounding slopes I couldn't even see and reminded myself that blizzards weren't so bad, but avalanches were really scary. I turned around. As I stumbled away from the storm, I began to rethink my resolve to take it easy this month. "I probably don't even need a break from the bike," I thought. "I probably just need a break from Juneau." Unfortunately, the former is much easier to implement.

Tomorrow's (and Tuesday's, and Wednesday's) forecast calls for a high of 40 and rain. I don't care. I'm going to buy an umbrella.