Video blog: April snow biking

This may be my best video blog post yet. Seriously. I think I'll submit it to Cannes.

Music is "Read My Mind" by The Killers. Enjoy.


Snow biking - a great way to avoid doing taxes from Jill Homer on Vimeo.

Pondering platforms

Date: April 13
Mileage: 36.3
April mileage: 462
Temperature upon departure: 39

Ever since I removed the Look pedals from my road bike to accommodate my obnoxiously big overboots, I feel like I have finally been set free. I don't have clipless pedals on my snow bike. I don't have them on my mountain bike. And now that I am officially clipless free, I'm free to do anything I want - wear an obnoxiously big overboot over comfortable running shoes and/or sandals, place my foot anywhere that suits me, and pedal down the road.

I admit that I never became all that attached to my clipless pedals. I just didn't understand them. In most long-distance riding, emphasis is placed on relieving your pressure points. Use lots of different hand positions. Stand up and sit down in the saddle. And yet, people feel perfectly comfortable having their foot locked in one small place for hours at a time. I don't. Sometimes I ride with my heel resting on the platform. Sometimes I push down with my toes. Sometimes I even ride the proper way. The truth is, I move my feet all over the pedals, usually intentionally, as a way to relieve knee pain and foot numbness and generally just mix it up.

I won't even go into how much I hate cycling shoes. Yes, I know they make shoes that you can technically walk in. But those shoes are made by cycling companies, who don't seem to understand the first thing about walking. Their shoes start out uncomfortable and quickly deteriorate to shreds while the cleats are ground down to useless nubbins.

Then, what do you do if the pedals, heaven forbid, get unworkably clogged with mud or ice? Really, what do you do?

But the truth is, I've been thinking about converting my mountain bike to clipless for all the bikepacking I'm going to be doing this summer. I'll give clipless advocates the truths they hold dear - that clipless pedals do give the rider a power advantage (I happen to believe it's pretty marginal, at least it my case.) And, in extreme technical mountain biking, where accidentally slipping off the pedals at an inopportune moment could send a rider headlong off a cliff, clipless pedals can save lives (I've never come close to attempting this kind of extreme technical riding.) Still, while I'm willing to accept the advantages of attaching myself to a bike, I'm having a hard time overcoming the disadvantages.

How can I get the power advantage of clipless pedals while still maintaining my ability to relieve joint pressure by moving my foot around? I know they make platform/clipless hybrids, but those seem pretty spotty to me. And what about those horrible shoes? I don't simply want shoes that will work for walking in and out of stores. I want shoes that I can use to hike across the Grand Canyon, 25 miles with 7,000 feet of climbing, carrying a bike and gear on my back. I'm not saying I'm actually going to do this ... but I wouldn't mind having shoes that could handle it.

I really believe that platform pedals with Power Grips are the answer for me. Am I crazy?

Are there any other former platform pedal die-hards who managed to make the conversion and never looked back? I'm open to suggestions.

First hike

Date: April 11
Mileage: 34.2
April mileage: 425.7
Temperature upon departure: 43

I finished out my monthlong membership at the gym on Friday, rode for a couple hours Saturday and got this idea in my head that I really wanted to go for a hike today. I haven't hiked since before the frostbite incident. I still have a lot of soreness in my toes and they haven't taken all that kindly to shoes yet, but I've survived a few "hike-a-bikes" OK, so I thought a bikeless hike would work fine. I even brought my hobble sticks (some people call them trekking poles. I only tend to use them when I'm injured, so they have that association for me.)

The snow on Douglas Island is in great shape right now ... too soft for biking and too wet and condensed for skiing, but just right for snowshoeing. I worked hard going up the mountain because I wanted to cover a lot of terrain and hiking, after all this time spent almost exclusively biking, felt strangely slow. Even with just a single polypro layer on, I was dressed way too warm for a partly sunny Easter Sunday, and I was soon shedding a steady stream of sweat all over the snow. I could hear songbirds chirping. It's the first day this year that I can honestly say felt like spring.

But it didn't look like spring. Above treeline, I found myself traversing a naked ridge through rolling clouds. I had this sensation of snowblindness, scanning for the contrast of white on white until I had to shut my eyes, because I couldn't see. It's a disorienting condition, and somewhat scary when I was trying to stay in the center of the wide ridgeline to reduce my presense in possible avalanche zones. I couldn't tell whether I was walking on flat terrain or about to step off a cliff into a white void. Then, just like that, the cloud would roll away and I could see many dozens of miles into the distance with sharp clarity. It got to the point where I would just stop walking when a cloud rolled through, and continue forward when blue sky returned, knowing it would be fairly easy and safe to follow my own tracks back whenever I finally turned around.

When I finally did turn around, the skies were really clearing up and I had been walking for a long time. I still felt great, but I hadn't really planned for the fact that steep downhill hiking in shoes happens to put a lot of pressure on toes. After about a half mile I was in quite a bit of pain, leaning hard on the hobble sticks and limping slowly down the mountain. A couple of snowmobiles passed me and I resisted the urge to hitch a ride. I knew I was going to be fine. This pain isn't really a cause of long-term nerve damage; it's more of an effect. I'm already feeling much better - but it did take what felt like an eternity to wrap up that hike.

It's funny how when you are concentrating on your mP3 player to take your mind off a painful task at hand, all of the words in all of the songs seem written just for you. I think I've found my new theme song for the time being - "Extraordinary Machine" by Fiona Apple:

I certainly haven't been shopping for any new shoes;
And I certainly haven't been spreading myself around.
I still only travel by foot, and by foot it's a slow climb,
But I'm good at being uncomfortable,
So I can't stop changing all the time.

I notice that my opponent is always on the go;
And won't go slow, so as not to focus, and I notice
He'll hitch a ride with any guide,
As long as they go fast from whence he came;
But he's no good at being uncomfortable,
so he can't stop staying exactly the same.

If there was a better way to go then it would find me.
I can't help it, the road just rolls out behind me.
Be kind to me, or treat me mean ...
I'll make the most of it, I'm an extraordinary machine.