The best kind of bonk ride

I sought out Sunny Jim Trail primarily because I despise it so. There were a few seconds of weakness as I wavered at the crossing of Skyline Drive with its smooth and flat pavement, less than a mile to my next connector trail on Russian Ridge. And then there was Sunny Jim with its 600 feet of elevation gain in a half mile followed by a teeth-chattering descent. It's a mean, mean fire road, and to top it off, my blood sugar had plummeted off the edge of pleasantness. I had the h'anger. And even though there wasn't a single viable reason why I should take Sunny Jim over Skyline, I promised myself a fruit snack if I could pedal all the way to the crest without keeling over.

Sunny Jim's grades top 20 percent. It's a leg-buster on a good day, but riding it bonked after several thousand feet of climbing in the midst of a five-hour ride is another experience altogether. My legs filled with hot lead and my lungs seared in the sixty-degree air. My head spun but I couldn't dab, couldn't let my feet touch the dirt of sweet relief, no I would not. Every time I passed a trail sign pointing the way to a friendlier piece of singletrack where bikes are not allowed, I sneered at it. "I hate you Sunny Jim. I hate you so much." And then I couldn't breathe, so I couldn't speak, so I hated Sunny Jim in silence, with the fire of a thousand suns.

I mashed past a family of hikers who regarded me with unveiled concern. I was full-on wheezing at that point and I didn't care who could hear my gasps of desperation. Sunny Jim was destroying me, and I couldn't let that happen. Too steep to stand out of the saddle, almost steep enough to tip backward, I leaned into my handlebars and mashed with all of the sputtering power my h'anger could release. By the crest I was so dizzy I could no longer read the hateful trail sign, but I knew what that fluttering brown square meant. My backpack was tossed on the ground before I even got off the bike, and I ripped into the pack like a wolf, extracting all of its guts for the prize at the bottom. I devoured the small pack of fruit snacks in two bites, and ate another without deciding to, even though that was all the fruit snacks I had. (Whoops on forgetting to restock my backpack.)

Sugar rushed into my blood stream as I plummeted down the steep track — instant energy plus endorphins plus exhilaration exploded into a chemical reaction that is my secret solution for a most sublime level of bliss. All of my endurance experiments have taught me tricks for manipulating my physical reactions and emotions to both push through tough times and squeeze the most joy out of my experiences. I admit I suspected Sunny Jim would be fair payment for an incredible second half for the last trail ride I'll likely be able to squeeze in before I leave for Alaska.

I raced around my favorite Russian Ridge trails, taking in views like this. Somewhere in there my 160 calories of fruit snacks burned out. I was too blissed out to notice, but my head did start to feel fuzzy again, my gut noticeably hollow. No matter; it was time to turn toward home via my favorite descent in all of the region, Alpine Road. Alpine Road is actually a segment of trail that I believe was once a logging road, but in a couple of decades of MPOSD jurisdiction has overgrown and washed out to a fast and flowing singletrack that drops steeply into the Portola Valley. On Sunday, the trail was in hero dirt condition. Fuzzy endurance (or in this case, hungry) brain helps break up some of my more useless inhibitions, and I flew down the descent and hugged the tighter turns with a kind of instinctive confidence I can't easily access in stronger physical condition. Yay for stupid fun.

I don't often ride Alpine Road because it dumps me out near the I-280 corridor about fifteen miles from home. It often seems like too big of a busy pavement price to justify the ride. But on Sunday it seemed totally worth it, and I had just enough time to spin the big ring home before dark. However, I managed to take the wrong right turn off of Alpine and started climbing back into the Los Trancos Hills. It seemed not quite right, but I was certain, somehow, that this road connected back up to where I needed to be. I climbed as the road led up steeper and steeper grades, and still I continued climbing. Eventually I felt not well at all and then I hit a dead end. I switched my GPS screen to check my elevation and saw I had reached 1,400 feet. The freeway corridor is at 100 feet. I called Beat.

"I'm running late," I told him. "But it's because I'm lost. Can you tell me if, um, let's see, if Los Trancos Road connects back up with Page Mill?"

Beat looked up my location and informed me that I was essentially riding into a spiderweb of dead-end roads. "Are you sure this doesn't connect with Page Mill?" I insisted. "I left Alpine Road like a half hour ago and then I climbed a thousand feet. I don't want to go back."

He insisted that even if I found a magical connector trail that was not on the map, Page Mill would eventually lead me to nearly the same spot as Alpine Road, and I'd still have about the same distance to ride home. All of these complex concepts were just confusing me. I didn't have the energy to argue but I wasn't all that disappointed either. I launched into my accidental road descent that was actually a lot of fun. 36 mph.

I had to strap on my headlight and red blinky to pedal home but that was okay, too. The setting sun washed the sky in pink light and I felt peaceful and content, like I could keep pedaling forever, fruit snacks or none. 

Typical week

Beat and I are getting down to the wire with our Alaska preparations. We both have our gear strewn all over the house. Even though Beat is gearing up for a 1,000-mile expedition, I definitely have more stuff than him since I need gear for winter bike touring and bike commuting and overnight sled trips and racing. I'm fretting over how I can cull it down without leaving something crucial behind, and even then doubt I'll have room for anything else. Guess I'll have to wear the same jeans and T-shirt for a month.

All of this flurry makes me feel like I won't have much else to write about until we get there. But if you haven't read this yet, I urge you to check out a profile I wrote about Tim Hewitt (link here), who's preparing to make his seventh trek to Nome, this time completely unsupported. In his own matter-of-fact way, Tim once talked me out of making a very bad decision. But then he effectively talked Beat into signing up for Nome, which could be considered a bad decision. So I guess in the grand scheme of the universe it all evens out. Regardless of his bad influence on Beat, Tim is a compelling athlete with an incredible story. I appreciate him taking the time to answer my questions.

Beyond the gear explosion, this has been a typical week for me with writing projects and afternoon exercise. It's actually been a few years since I've bothered to keep a quantified record of my workouts. I carry a Garmin for most of my trail runs and maybe half of my bike rides, mostly because the GPS keeps me on pace or allows me to track a route. But I rarely plug these numbers into any kind of log or add them together. However, this week I actually did some comprehensive Garmin'ing, and since it represents a typical week for me, I thought I'd compile the stats:

Monday: Road bike ride, 18.1 miles, 2,577 feet of climbing. 1:27
Tuesday: Trail run, 6.5 miles, 983 feet of climbing. 1:04
Wednesday: Fat bike ride, 24.1 miles, 3,392 feet of climbing. 2:33
Thursday: Trail run, 8 miles, 1,645 feet of climbing. 1:22
Friday: Road bike ride, 18.3 miles, 2,563 feet of climbing. 1:31
Saturday: Trail run, 12.2 miles, 2,178 feet of climbing. 2:08

Total: 60.5 miles cycling, 26.7 miles running, 13,338 feet of climbing, 9:05 total time.

Of course this is only six days of the week. Most weeks contain at least one longer (four-plus-hour) adventure, usually a mountain bike ride but occasionally a 50K trail race. (Training runs longer than 15 miles are a rarity for me. Usually if I have that much time to play outside I'd rather be cycling.) Also, I rarely take rest days, unless I'm either too busy to get outside, injured or sick, or —somewhat rarely — feel like I need the recovery. Limited rest days have been part of my workout habits since I took up daily outdoor activity back in 2005. And it's a reflection of my motivations.

I like to focus on "fun" and "forever fitness" and skew my workouts toward activities that let me get outside for small-time adventures most every day, rather than lock myself to a plan that injects variable intervals of pain and recovery. I'm leery of risking my "forever fitness" on high-intensity workouts that carry a higher risk of injury. (This is especially true for running. I'm way more likely to peg it and often do when I'm cycling.) It's fine to want to be the fastest version of yourself, but speed has never interested me enough to pursue it with any passion. What sparks my passion is distance — the ability to travel under my own power over intriguing landscapes. I want to find out just how far I can go, and how efficiently I can run. I'm like the proud owner of a Toyota Prius. I may be puttering along the freeway as others zoom by, but darn it, I'm going to figure out how to get sixty miles per gallon, so I'll still be on the road long after the BMWs and even Subarus have exited for refueling.

I realize there are better ways I could go about building endurance. But my way makes me happy and does seem to establish a solid base that allows me to say, "Multiple strenuous adventures to fill nearly every waking hour I spend in Alaska? Don't mind if I do!" Beyond planning a few different multi-night bike tours, I also registered for another foot race — a 25-miler in Fairbanks. There's a decent chance I'll overdo it in Alaska because I have so much confidence in my endurance right now. I've been there (last spring, actually), and spent more than a month wondering where all of my energy went. But, as they say, if you want to discover how far you can go, you will risk going too far.

In the end, it's all a wonderful excuse to go play outside:

My fat bike history

I'm embarrassed to admit that I haven't ridden the Fatback in several months. Since I'm planning to take this bike to Alaska and ride it many miles to far-away places, I figured I should go for at least a couple of shakedown rides to see what might need replacing or adjusting. The verdict: Definitely must replace the rear Endomorph tire (I feel bad removing a relic when Surly is discontinuing production, but it's as bald as a bowling ball.) Also, new brake pads. The shifter cables could use some adjustment, too.

As I pedaled up Montebello Road toward the ridge, a friendly vineyard farmer (viticulturist?) pulled up beside me in his truck. "What kind of tires are those?" he asked. "Is that one of those fat-tired bikes?"

"It is," I replied. "They're made in Alaska for riding on snow."

"I've heard about them," he said enthusiastically. "But I never thought I'd see one up here. Those bikes must be all over the place now."

I nodded, "Yeah, even in California."

The farmer's comment got me thinking about the growing presence of fat bikes in the Lower 48, and the way many cyclists around here view these bikes as a kind of fad. They started showing up in magazines, they seem quirky and possibly fun, but not really practical. And when you live in a region with little to no proximity to sand or snow, it's true they're not practical. There's no denying I haven't ridden the Fatback for months and hardly missed it. But I'm still a big proponent of fat bikes. If I was forced to use only one bike for all for the riding I do for the rest of my life, I would choose a fat bike. To me, fat bikes have never been trendy or stylish. They're awkward and heavy, but incredibly useful. And I should know, because I was a slow adopter myself.

Now here's something that would be almost unthinkable in the modern era of fat biking — showing up for a hundred-mile winter race in Alaska with a 26" full-suspension mountain bike. This is my set-up on a Gary Fisher Sugar mere minutes before I set out to race the 2006 Susitna 100. I like to go back to this picture from time to time and laugh at myself. Yes, that is a seatpost rack loaded with what must be at least fifteen pounds of cheap synthetic sleeping bag, pad, stove, and a liter of water that I never touched. And yes, those are studded tires — totally useful on soft snow, those are. Strapped to the rear shock is a K-mart handlebar bag filled with Clif Bars and, get this, open hand warmers to keep them "thawed." I don't even remember what the handlebar sack holds, only that it wasn't the dry clothing I badly needed when I became soaked through during a rainstorm that hit near mile 65 of my race. The resulting ankle-deep slush on the trail and chill from being soaking wet at 37 degrees were ... intense. I struggled and shivered and hiked and hiked. Shortly after we met, Beat asked me if I had ever run an ultramarathon. At first I replied no, but later I thought about it and said, "Well I did push my bike for most of the last 35 miles during the 2006 Susitna 100." Totally counts as a first ultramarathon in my book. If I'd had a fat bike, I may have gotten off the river before the rain came.

Problem was, I couldn't really afford a fat bike. But I wanted to race the Susitna 100 again, so in late 2006 I cobbled together the parts for a semi-fat mountain bike — an old Raleigh steel frame, a Surly (One-One?) fork, 40mm Snowcat rims, and 2.7" Timberwolf tires. I had to carve off the knobs with a box cutter in order to fit the rear tire in the frame. It was a faux snow bike, so I called it "Snaux Bike." Snaux Bike was marginally better than the full-suspension mountain bike. I shaved five hours off my Susitna 100 finishing time in 2007, but wrecked my knee in the process. To this day I still wonder if the fit of the bike was partly to blame for my injury.

After my knee healed, I got the bug to race the 350-mile version of the Iditarod Trail Invitational, and decided Snaux Bike wasn't going to cut it for that daunting expedition. After two years of dedicated snow biking, it was finally time to buy a real fat bike. In late 2007, there were only a handful of options — Vicious Cycles, the now-gone Wildfire Designs, and the new and exciting Surly Pugsley. In order to keep it within my limited budget, I purchased a set of used Large Marge rims and Endomorph tires on eBay, and scavenged most of the components from Snaux Bike. The frame I bought new, battleship gray and beautiful. It was love at first sight.

Pugsley and I shared many happy miles (and not a small number of not-so-happy miles) as we navigated a whole new world together. The addition of a fat bike in my life opened my eyes to what was possible after two years of riding sub-optimal bikes in all kinds of conditions. Pugsley made all the difference — suddenly I could pedal all kinds of trail conditions I had long accepted as unridable. As they say, once you go fat, you never go back.

In summer 2010, after I'd moved to Missoula, I met Beat. Shortly after he convinced me to run my first non-bike-pushing ultramarathon (although still unofficial, since I was pacing him at the Bear 100), I convinced him to sign up for a fat bike race — the 2011 White Mountains 100 in Fairbanks. If he was going to ride a snow bike race, he reasoned, he would definitely need a snow bike. He bought an aluminum Fatback with a carbon fork that weighed in a full seven pounds lighter than my steel Pugsley. There were many aspects of Beat I found endearing ... sexy, funny, brilliant, crazy ultra-athlete ... but I have to admit that the Fatback purchase really sealed the deal. Any man who's willing to ride fat bikes with me is a keeper. We had a great time training through the winter in Montana. He did go on to opt out of biking the White Mountains 100 so he could run it instead (reasoning that he needed the gear testing session for the Iditarod 350 the following year.) I was perfectly okay with that decision, because it meant I could ride his Fatback in the race.

The Fatback (which we unimaginatively named Fatty) proved to be a wonderful bike. It was light and swift and handled like a mountain bike, rather than the tractor-like handling I'd become accustomed to with Pugsley. My loyalty to Pugsley began to fade when I realized the Fatback was just that much more fun to ride. After I moved away from Montana, and Beat and I no longer had a close-by venue to ride fat bikes together, I adopted Fatty as my own. Truth is, Fatty is still Beat's bike. But I love it as though it's mine.

By early 2012, I started to feel genuine guilt about never riding Pugsley anymore. He just hung from a wall in my apartment in California, which is no life for a bike like Pugsley. As much as I still clung to my sentimentality about this bike, I couldn't relegate it to a wall decoration. I put up a small post on bikepacking.net that the bike was for sale, all but implying that I was hoping for a good home even more than a good offer. I received an e-mail from a guy in Palmer, Alaska, who mentioned in his inquiry that he wanted a fat bike for overnight bike-rafting and beach riding. So Pugsley returned to the region where he belongs, and these are the adventures Pugsley has now. I'm a happy former owner.

Although I've taken Fatty to Alaska twice for the White Mountains 100, this will be his first trip to the place where it all started for me — the Susitna River Valley. I'm hoping to embark on a three-day tour up the Yentna River during the quiet week between the start of the ITI and the Iditarod Dog Sled Race. Hoping it will be a fine start to a wonderful month of Alaska adventures for Fatty and me.