Getting my road legs back

I basically just shot this silly photo to illustrate that, despite my retro-grouch pretensions, I am capable of wearing full-body spandex and clipless pedal shoes.

Date: July 15 and 16
Mileage: 42.2 and 53.8
July mileage: 391.3

I spent the last two months exclusively riding my mountain bike. I did so because: a. I was spending a lot of time on trails; b. I was training for a mountain bike race; c. My road bike was in poor, poor condition. Now that a. The trails are soaking up water again; b. I feel like I am killing time while I wait for a good weather window so I can go nuts on the hiking season; c. My road bike has been upgraded to poor condition ... it seemed like a good time to tempo-ride on pavement.

The 30-mile ride along Douglas Highway and back has taken me as long as three and a half hours to pound out. Those rides were among my most exhausting - rolling the balloon tires through six inches of unplowed snow into some ungodly cold windchill. In the summer, on a good day, those same miles are nearly effortless. The way to inject effort into them is to crank up the speed - something I'm not good at focusing on for any length of time because I too easily slip into daydreams and find myself riding on autopilot (my autopilot is slow.) But when I noticed a light wind and strong-feeling legs Tuesday morning, I thought I should try to crank out a faster-than-normal pace. Those tiny (28 mm) tires coasted over the tarmac, and after I crested above Douglas City, I was able to keep the speed over 20 mph for most of the eight miles to the Eaglecrest cutoff. After that, I fell off my pace a few times while daydreaming, and dropped a bit more climbing the last hill and then turning to face the wind ... but when I rolled home the odometer still clocked an 18.2 mph average. I was back in an hour and a half. Certainly not blazing fast by roadie standards, but not a bad start. I began to have crazy ambitions about time-trialing the route and establishing a standard that I can laugh at longingly as I launch back into my three-and-a-half-hour slogs this winter. But before I get any ideas about road time-trialing, I should probably think about getting a bike with some drop handlebars ... one that doesn't have a rear rack ... or fenders ... or fork-mounted bottle cages ... and weighs less than 28 pounds.

But I still felt good about the Douglas ride, so I set out today for more road riding out to the Valley. I made a few stops so my average speed wasn't as high, but I did take a lot of silly pleasure in leapfrogging a single city bus for most of the 12 miles between Auke Bay and downtown. Every time I passed it, I would look up at the windows and try to catch the eye of one of the bored passengers trapped inside. I hoped they see me and think, "Wow, this bus is so slow that even a person on a bike can stay ahead of it. Maybe I should ride my bike to town next time." Yes, I do have a rich daydream world.

White silence

Date: July 14
Mileage: 8.1
July mileage: 295.3

When I woke up to rescue my drenched and crying black cat from the windowsill, I knew today was not going to be my lucky day. The sky was washed in liquid gray and clouds had crept down almost to sea level. The weather instantly drowned ambitions to wake up early and climb up Blackerby Ridge. Who wants to climb into soggy, foggy nothingness? I went back to sleep.

Later, some hours later, I woke up, again, groggy from too much sleep, and tried to reassess my morning plans. It seemed another damp bike ride was in order, but I could not get excited about it. When I'm in bike mode, the weather doesn't bother me as much. But lately, all I want to do is climb, higher, and it seems every day the weather hangs over my ambitions like a gray curtain.

But it's summer, short summer, and its briefness nags at me. I have so much I want to do and such a short time to do it, I might as well work on getting in shape so I can take full advantage should a good weather window ever open. The hike to Gold Ridge seemed good because it's short and well-defined and nearly impossible to get lost, even in the thickest, soupiest fog. As I rode my bike across the bridge, I saw four cruise ships moored at the dock. Not as bad as seven - but four ships definitely promised a traffic jam near mid-mountain, where the Mount Roberts Tram releases hundreds of tourists who tend to straddle the trail with cameras and generally block forward motion. Still not deterred, I pedaled up to the trailhead and set my watch. I wanted to reach the tram in a half hour.

I still can't run up this thing, but I can maintain a brisk, 4-mph pace. Even still, my heart pounded and my thoughts zoomed in on the rhythmic steps. I hardly noticed that the fireweed had started to come out, the blueberry bushes glistened with dew and the cow parsnip was nearly shoulder-high. This short summer is streamrolling by me, and I have to hike as hard as I can to keep up with it.

After two miles of seeing nobody, the trail above the tram, as expected, was packed. I try to be as courteous as possible but I often feel like I'm swimming upstream amid a swarm of lethargic salmon. So I weaved and expressed my apologies for cutting through and sometimes heard the funniest questions. One woman who did not seem to want to cross a snow field asked me if her feet would get wet. Another man said, probably to himself, that the wildflowers here weren't nearly as good as the flowers in Montana. Then, as the trail wound higher and the clouds really started to settle in, another man asked me if I thought the view would be any better at the top. "I really doubt it," I said. He seemed to waver in that spot, uncertain whether he should turn around. The view-seeking tourists thinned out. I charged higher.

The fog becomes interesting when it gets so thick that you can look down and your feet are obscured. It bunches and flows, so sometimes windows open up to points thousands of feet below, and sometimes you can't even see around the next bend. Fog makes the mountain a different world, even as dreamlike as the world above treeline is, fog takes that dream and cloaks it in colorblindness. It has no smell and no sound; it mutes the tourist chatter and masks the inferior flowers. It dampens the air to the point of equilibrium and covers every feature in papery flatness. It's a world without senses - a white silence. As I kicked my way up toward Gastineau Peak, the noise from my steps in the snow was shattering against that silence. So I stopped for the few short minutes I had left, to soak in my view of nothing.

In my memory I knew there was a real view out there, sweeping along the ridgelines, touching the ice field and Admiralty and Douglas Islands, dropping into the city and along the Channel some 3,200 feet down. And I knew that just on the other side of this curtain there were stark snowfields and spiny little tundra plants and stacked boulders. But today at the top there was only the white silence, and I can't believe I nearly missed it.

Great Divide dreams

Date: July 13
Mileage: 45.8
July mileage: 287.2

Well, Jenn Hopkins hit the Mexican border early this morning, making her the seventh and last finisher of this year's Great Divide Race. Given that this English singlespeeder who I had never heard of before last month is my new hero, I was really happy to hear she finished. But, like all endings, the news was bittersweet. This means no more call-ins, no more blog to update, no more racers to worry about and times to track. The Great Divide Race has been a huge part of my life this summer. Even beyond Geoff preparing for and competing in this year's race, which would have kept me glued to the updates in and of itself, I became intimately involved through the blog. Listening to the daily messages and attempting to transcribe them made me feel like I was right there on the sidelines, watching the racers struggle and succeed even as I went about my normal life thousands of miles away. It was great, really great, and I wanted to say thanks to Pete for letting me be involved, and also thanks to the racers for participating in the grand drama. There is a reason I no longer watch TV. Reality has forever ruined it for me.

It was hard when Geoff dropped out of the race. But the effort put in by the remaining racers, the heart and the grit, actually did help temper the disappointment - for Geoff as well as myself. I have to admit that when Pete first sent me the list of starters for the 2008 race - Geoff, Carl, Fred, a couple of previously unsuccessful GDR veterans and a bunch of people I had never heard of - I didn't expect much from this year's race. So it was even more exciting to watch John Nobile break the course record; for Carl, Rainer and Simon to pull in under 20 days; for Fred to tackle the granddaddy of the Mountain West's ultraendurance races, pretty much all of which he's finished; for Noah to finish on his second attempt and for Jenn to finish at all, given all the hardships she pushed through. A good year for sure.

And a good field - despite the recent division of Great Divide racing. Like many, I too was originally disappointed when I first learned about the creation of the Tour Divide. I feared a squabbling end to the Great Divide Race and bitter feelings remaining for most involved. But, as it turned out, both races worked out beautifully. Both attracted strong fields and both developed their own voices, their own compelling stories and inspiring efforts as the races progressed. One one hand, it's strange to divide what is really a small, small community. On the other hand, this year proved that there's not only room for two events in Great Divide racing, there may even be a need. Tour Divide has its passion and sense of community. Great Divide Race has its history and competitive spirit. Together, they coaxed more people to race this crazy route than ever before. I like to think of it as similar to the American League and the National League in baseball - separate but equal.

That said, my heart is with the Great Divide Race, and I really hope to see it survive. I noticed on the Web site there is already a "2009" stamped on the start date, so it looks like someone is thinking of giving it a go next year. This is great news for me, because it helps set some framework around my most audacious dreams, which simmer well on the backburner but tend to not stop once they start boiling over. Would I ever toe the line? Hard to say. I didn't think Geoff would actually do it when he announced his plans in June 2007, and look where we are today. I'm still not sure I'd even want to toe the line, though. Dave Harris put my conflicting feelings about the race well: "Every year I get excited for the first week of it, and then I see how much nearly everyone breaks down and it doesn’t look so attractive." The Great Divide Race does seem an impossible thing to do without digging a deep physical and financial deficit. That said, the best life experiences demand enormous debts - look at college.

Would I even stand a chance of finishing the Great Divide Race? Hard to say. Twenty-four days is a more-than-reasonable cutoff, accessible to most who are reasonably prepared, mentally determined and don't hit too many strokes of bad luck. I love the idea of riding fast as I can, pushing as hard as I can, out there alone - because no matter how many people show up at the starting line, you are in this race alone. But I also like the idea of touring with friends, soaking up companionship and scenery as the days loll by. Two very different approaches - both rewarding in their own ways. I'm still not sure which is right for me.

What I do know is this route has rendered its way into my dreams, stretching over my day-to-day thoughts like the distant horizon of the Great Divide Basin. I should see it because it's my country. I should see it because it's beautiful. I should see it because it's frightening. I should see it because it's humbling. I should see it because it's already a part of me. I should see it because otherwise it will haunt me. I should see it. Someday.