Bicycles and Icicles

Pedals for the people

2012-01-29T21:57:00.003-09:00

Capital Bikeshare’s 1,100 bikes are nerdy, heavy as hell, stiff as slate and equipped with only a three-speed internal gear. And they're awesome.

They’re awesome because people use them for real transportation. A lot.

After years of reading about bikeshare programs, I spent last week in Washington, D.C., where I finally got to try one. More cities should have programs like this. Especially those lucky enough to have a mild climate and relatively flat terrain.

Washington’s traffic and shortage of parking make traveling by car unappealing, so why bother? The streets and bike lanes are full of cyclists, from hipsters on fixies to commuters and tourists on bikeshare bikes. As a visitor, I could buy a 24-hour membership in the program for seven dollars, then drop bikes—and get new ones for subsequent trips—at 110 locations. Locals can pay $75 for annual memberships.

You can use a bike for free (other than the membership fee) for the first 30 minutes you have it, then pay hourly fees for any extra time. Considering that it seems like a fit rider could get almost much anywhere in central Washington within a half-hour, that’s a pretty decent deal.

I checked out a bike last Tuesday night after a long, evening walk on the National Mall. I hated the idea of walking all the way back to my hotel, and cabs are expensive, so being able to grab a bike and get “home” 15 or 20 minutes was a perfect solution. (By the way, each bike also has flashing lights both front and rear, which comes in handy at a time like this.)

After wrapping up a tiring week at mid-day on Friday, I picked up another bike so I could wander around, and next thing I knew, I was in Georgetown. I decided to drop my bike at one of the self-service stations, then walk to some bike shops and stop for a cold beer. An hour or so later, I retrieved my bike so I could cruise along the Potomac past the Watergate Hotel (where crooks used to operate) and up the National Mall to the U.S. Capitol (where crooks still operate). A little later, I dropped the bike at a station near my hotel, then picked up a bottle of wine and walked to a friend’s house for dinner. Not a bad way to spend an afternoon in a new city.

Something like this probably could never work in Anchorage. Our urban sprawl and small population would make a bikeshare program inefficient. Plus, our weather keeps most of the local population off bikes for about eight months a year.

I would never trade our mountains, snow and long winters for life in D.C., but I am a little jealous of programs like this.

Baggin' it

2012-01-27T04:25:00.001-09:00

This is one of the most detested consumer products anywhere. The disposable plastic bag has a vile reputation — much of it well-deserved — as a wasteful use of resources and a huge source of litter that isn’t just ugly, it’s dangerous to sea creatures and wildlife.

It also comes in damn handy. You can stuff a couple of these puppies inside a bike jersey to block cold wind, or wear them over your socks to keep your toes from freezing. (Don’t forget to trim away the excess material that sticks out of your shoe, lest you blur the lines between frugality and homelessness.)

But my favorite use for these evil little things is moisture protection for my camera. Cold temperatures cause camera batteries to barely function. Often, they’ll completely fail to work until they warm up again. The best solution I have found is to carry my camera against my body to keep it warm. But that subjects the camera to excessive moisture from body heat and sweat. On top of possibly damaging sensitive electronics, this causes the lens to fog up when it is moved from a warm, moist pocket into cold air.

I need a way to keep my camera dry but accessible for quick shots. Discarded grocery bags are perfect. I drop my camera in the bag, roll the bag up around the camera and then stuff it in a jersey pocket under my jacket. As long as my clothing layers allow reasonable access to my inner pocket, I can grab the bag, let it quickly unroll, then snatch out the camera and turn it on.

Once I’m done, it’s only a matter of quickly wrapping the camera again, then stuffing it in my pocket and riding away. Even if I keep it out too long in sub-zero cold and the battery is dying, it will usually be warmed up and ready to go for at least a couple of shots at the next stop.

Green groups encourage us to “reduce, reuse, recycle.” This is one nasty, disposable plastic thing that can be reused in several ways by cyclists, and it's free.

Sharing the fun

2012-01-24T15:50:00.002-09:00

I wouldn't usually endorse
a mapless, helmetless night ride
through central Washington, D.C.,
traffic on a hoopty rental bike.

But sometimes, shit's just
gotta be done.

It slices, it dices

2012-01-19T21:24:00.000-09:00

Over the past few weeks, I’ve often found myself using some cheap doodad that works well and makes life a tiny bit better, and thinking, “Damn, I should blog about this shit.” So, in the interest of sharing my little treasures, each Thursday or Friday for the next few weeks I’m going to feature some little gadget that I’m glad to have.

A couple of years ago, I was killing time before a flight out of Denver, and ended up in one of those hook-and-bullet superstores where guys in camo caps and sleeveless T-shirts sneak away from their wives for some heavy petting with bass boats.

One wouldn’t ordinarily expect to find much of interest for a mountain biker in such a store (and one would be right) but I stumbled across one of my favorite winter-biking accessories for a mere 20 or 25 bucks: a super-light wood saw that stows away in its own handle and makes easy work of clearing small branches and trees from trails.

This little beauty from Gerber has become a standard piece of gear in my frame bag. It’s light enough that I can leave it there all the time, which is good because I’d otherwise forget to take it on post-storm rides. That’s exactly what happened the first year I owned it — every time I needed the freakin’ thing, it was at home in my toolbox.

But last fall, I put it in the bag and vowed to leave it there. It’s satisfying to come across a small blow-down on the trail and be able to cut it up and re-open the route. It’s no chain saw, but it cuts pretty quickly through branches up to about four inches thick. That’s perfect when there’s only a branch across the trail, or a small tree that can’t be moved by hand because it’s still attached at the trunk or wedged between other pieces of vegetation.

This baby is like a Swiss Army knife of portable saws. After a big windstorm last month, there was a big spruce down across Rover’s Run. I couldn’t remove it, but five minutes of cutting was enough to clear some branches and open a route over the tree, which made life a little easier for everyone until someone could get out there with a gas-powered chain saw.

I love an inexpensive tool that works well. Especially when it makes a job easy and allows me to feel good about doing a little quick trail maintenance during a ride. Everybody winter fat-biker should have one of these things.

Hell, it might even be a good idea to carry it all summer, too. You never know when one of your buddies will get a compound fracture in the backcountry and need a field amputation.

Passion, or status symbol?

2012-01-15T19:34:00.002-09:00

I’ve gotta tell ya, it’s been feeling lately like fat bikes have jumped the shark. They’re selling like crazy, but there are only so many hardcore winter riders. I have to wonder if a big-tire bike hasn’t become just a status symbol for many new owners.

Why do I say this? Because this is the kind of winter for which fat bikes were made. Anchorage averages 63 inches of snow per year. Right now, we’re a shade over 90 inches, and it’s only mid-January. Snowstorms have been coming back to back, leaving almost no time for bike traffic to pack the trails into prime condition.

But when conditions are marginal, only a small handful of people are usually seen hitting the trails. And, in most cases, they’re the same devoted riders who have been riding in tough conditions for years. Others seem to be waiting until the singletrack is “groomed” by other riders.

And then there’s the cold. I admit it can be hard to feel motivated when the temps drop below zero, but only the truly addicted know the joy of a frigid, bluebird day like today. Leonard and I rode for a couple of hours in the sunshine today, and passed by Smokejumper trailhead when the temperature was about -15F.

Only two cars were in the parking lot. And it was a beautiful day.

I think owners sometimes need to be reminded that Alaska fat bikes were inspired by cold air and soft trails. They exist so we can ride on days when a lesser bike just won’t cut it. But the full benefit of such bikes is revealed only to those who are willing to work for it.

Jimmy Doogan said it well in the movie A League of Their Own:

“If it was easy, everyone would do it.”

(Photo credit: Today's shot of me was taken by my daughter, Hannah.)

Up an island creek without a pedal

2012-01-08T15:36:00.000-09:00

For Christmas, I received an S&S hard case for transporting my coupled Surly Trucker Deluxe. Actually, the case didn’t arrive in time, so I received a borrowed case from my friends Adam and Jo-Ann, which I filled with my dismembered Trucker just in time for a trip to Hawaii.

Fortunately, I remember meeting Adam on a downtown street last summer and talking about the advantages of traveling with a bike equipped with S&S couplers. Because it’s easy to dodge the airlines’ unconscionably high fees for flying with a bike, as Adam pointed out, you can take a bike on a trip, and not feel terrible if you never get around to riding it.

Yeah, that’s what I’m getting to. My bike never left the case.

I had every intention of using it to get to the beach for snorkeling, leaving our rental car free for my family to drive for other activities. After all, I wasn’t going to Hawaii to ride. I was going so I could play in the ocean and generally thaw out for a week.

But the weather was hotter than I expected, and our condo was several miles up a long hill covered with lava, dead grass and a baking strip of asphalt with little to no shoulder. For a guy who is in slow-cruising, fat-bike mode this time of year, It just wasn’t very inviting. Long highway rides with all the triathletes training on the nearby Ironman bike course didn’t seem like fun, so I started doing the mental math. It didn’t add up.

Without the advantage of a repair stand, it would take about an hour to reassemble the bike – my large frame and super-long fork/steerer tube had required more disassembly than anticipated (the fork had to travel in a separate box) – and there was no convenient storage space for it once it was assembled. Sticking it in the living room was sure to cause problems. Dealing with all that for maybe a couple of quick rides? I just didn’t want to do it.

I’m sure I’ll take heat from a few friends for not riding in Hawaii, but on a vacation that’s not really about biking, I prefer to ride only if the benefits outweigh the hassle. And I don’t want to make myself ride just for the sake of riding. Bike exist to enhance our lives, not to encumber them.

If it ain’t fun, why bother?

A Cuban in Hawaii

2011-12-28T13:14:00.002-09:00

Even Fidel is flipping me off these days.
I think Bicycles & Icicles will be on hiatus
for a few days. Aloha.

Festive Fingers

2011-12-23T07:12:00.000-09:00

Deb and the twins wish you a Merry Christmas.
(The dogs do, too.)

It's a tradition this time of year to send cards with family pictures on them, so what better way to create an official Bicycles & Icicles holiday card than to use a flip-off photo from a member of the dysfunctional family that makes up the regular readership of this blog?

As another year winds down, I'd like to say thanks to everyone who shared a fun ride, contributed to the Fabulous Finger Gallery, or killed time reading this silliness every week.

Whatever you're into this weekend, have a good holiday and safe travels. Especially when you're on two wheels.

Blowin' in the wind

2011-12-19T20:56:00.003-09:00

Sam chucks wood under the watchful eye of Queen Bee
during a ride across Blue Dot last Saturday.

Alaska has gone a little crazy this winter. And not just that Sarah-Palin-loony kind of crazy. More like Lindsay-Lohan-on-a-bender insane. She covers herself with white powder and invites everyone to roll around on it until she goes apeshit and starts trashing the room.

Rain, chinook winds, yadda, yadda, yadda. It’s like a bad case of PMS mixed with cheap whiskey and a short fuse. Over the weekend, Glen Alps recorded a top wind speed of 104 mph. Every side street and parking lot in Anchorage is a hellish slab of ice that’s unsafe for everyone without studs in their tires or spikes in their shoes. And there’s another storm on the way that could push gusts to 90 mph on Tuesday.

And, just to add insult to injury, it’s December and we still have to be alert for a garbage-munching bear that refuses to hibernate.

Fortunately, I haven’t heard of any bear sightings for a few days, local trails have recovered from the meteorological disaster of two weeks ago, and the state’s most recent meltdown didn’t ruin our riding conditions. Saturday was awesome, Sunday was soft but still fun, and Monday was reportedly bomber again. Go get some while the gettin’ is good.

And carry a saw if you can, because when a tree falls in the forest and there’s nobody there to hear it, it still blocks singletrack.

Dollars down the drain

2011-12-14T20:46:00.004-09:00

Alaska snow removal: Plow. Bury. Repeat.

About a dozen years ago, morning commuters in Fairbanks noticed a crew of workers clearing a parking lot with snowblowers. That afternoon, they saw the same workers blowing the same snow to the other side of the same parking lot. This went on for a couple of days while outraged drivers — who didn’t know the parking lot had been rented by a snowblower manufacturer to test its product — were calling City Hall to complain because they thought municipal workers were wasting taxpayer dollars.

Maybe those motorists paid attention because the scene involved a parking lot for cars. Something was going on, because the same basic thing happens in Anchorage all winter, every year, and nobody seems to give a damn. I’m talking about sidewalks and bike paths that city crews clean, and that state crews then bury under snow thrown from adjacent roads. Over and over. Every damned year.

And yes, I find it annoying because I’m a bike commuter, but it goes beyond that. It’s a terrible waste in terms of labor and fuel costs, because the sidewalks and bike paths that do actually get plowed (rather than completely ignored) end up being cleared twice. Eventually.

In the meantime, people who walk, bike, take the bus, etc., are lucky to find clear routes for a couple of hours before they have to spend days post-holing through a moonscape of ice and snow debris that was thrown atop their travel routes and bus stops. At least I can get off my bike one or twice every block, and grumble as I push through 75-yard stretches of snow sludge. I feel worse when I see people running their wheelchairs at the side of a lane of traffic, or people with canes trying to get home with bags of groceries when they can barely reach a bus-stop bench.  

The cause of this problem is simple: The city of Anchorage and the state of Alaska are incapable of coordinating their snowplow schedules to work efficiently.

When this kind of government waste is more visible and affects more people, it sparks outrage. But when it’s in the dark margins beyond the side windows of most peoples’ automotive cocoons, they don’t seem to notice.

Maybe when somebody in a wheelchair gets run down on a dark December day as they roll down an icy street full of cars, we’ll finally be able to get our mayor and our governor — who are both tax-hating, cost-cutting conservatives — to appoint a couple of managers to work together and end this insanity.

But I’m not counting on it.

Guilty pleasures

2011-12-11T20:28:00.000-09:00

Lucas Brunelle might be one of the biggest jackasses you’ll ever see on a road bike (and that’s a huge statement) but damn, does he make some amazing videos. As far as I’m concerned, his Drag Race NYC contains some of the coolest urban racing footage ever caught on a digital memory card. That shit makes me want to jump on a bike and go fast.

His new DVD, Lucas Brunelle: Line of Sight, is undoubtedly just as much fun to watch. Maybe more. But his videos raise troubling questions. In a new interview with Bicycling magazine (yeah, I’m getting a lot of blog mileage out of it -- it’s the first issue I’ve really read in recent months) Brunelle makes it clear he’s not interested in diplomacy. The magazine’s editors asked on Twitter last week if Brunelle is ruining cycling’s image “or just trying to save us?”

In short, Brunelle is a guy who owns a successful company and has the freedom to travel around the world and shoot hair-raising footage of alleycat races. His skills are amazing, but his selfishness appears to be off the charts. He and his buddies terrorize pedestrians and motorists, and they ignore every traffic rule in the book. Whatever your stand on the responsibilities of one’s personal risk-taking, there’s no question they subject strangers to the trauma of being hit by a bike, or having to live with the experience of fatally striking a bicyclist with a car.

Motorists who encounter his crew undoubtedly come away from the experience shaken and pissed off at bicyclists. As someone who tries to set a decent – but far from perfect – example, I find that disturbing. Brunelle wouldn’t care.

In his magazine interview, he lays it out this way: “Fuck bike advocacy. It's the cars that make shit fun. Without cars, we couldn't do skitches off SUVs. We couldn't get bruised and cut up; we couldn't commiserate. I love traffic. It's an evil river, sure, but I love the city streets.”

Brunelle might be the kind of guy I’d like to meet over a beer. But I don’t know if I’d want to stay for a second round.

Maybe that’s why it pisses me off to really enjoy watching his insane videos.

Can't touch the Snatchsquatch

2011-12-10T23:58:00.001-09:00

Over the past few days, I’ve read 25 comments on my post about naming bikes. I have found, through my unscientific survey, that women tend to name their bikes more often than men do. But that’s not all.

 My good friend Julie calls her bikes names like “piece of shit” and “bastard child,” but that’s mainly when she’s working on them.

Sierra, over in Whitehorse, gives her bikes names like Snatchsquatch, Dick Van Byke and Contessa Von Awesome.

I’m still not sure about the merits of naming bicycles, but I’ve learned one thing: Women are a lot better at it. 

Naming your baby

2011-12-07T22:31:00.000-09:00

I was eating some pasta and flipping through the new issue of Bicycling magazine today when I came across a fun feature on things to love about cycling. They nailed quite a few, like the sound of everyone’s derailleurs shifting when the pack crests a hill, the satisfaction of getting down in the drops and grinding through a headwind, and learning to appreciate the beauty of frame scratches and paint wear.

But there was one thing to which I couldn’t relate: naming a bicycle. I’ve never been interested in doing that.

Don’t get me wrong. I love my bikes. I get attached to them. Probably too much. I’ve ridden some for years past the point at which I would have benefited from switching to newer technology. But at the end of the day, they’re machines. Fascinating, beautiful machines that are engineering marvels, but still just machines. I don’t assign animate qualities to them, and the idea of naming them seems rather silly.

After all, they come with names that I use to refer to them around the house or with friends. Epic. Fatback. Trucker. Road bike. (OK, that last one is a bit dull, but TCR C1 is just too much of a mouthful.) Giving them new names seems unnecessary.

Is this a gender-based thing? Most people I know who have named their bikes are women. Maybe the men do it, but are shy about admitting it.

So I’m asking those of you who read this blog: Do you name your bikes, and why or why not? I’m truly curious. So leave a comment if you have a spare minute, and identify yourself as male or female, if you don’t mind.

Naming bikes, yes or no?

Discuss.

Attitude adjustment

2011-12-04T21:39:00.005-09:00

Alaskans have a saying: There is no bad weather, only bad gear. There’s a lot of truth in that.

But a bad attitude can be worse than sketchy weather. Knowing that the forecast looked grim and our sweet winter trails were about to get nuked, I forced myself out for a ride Saturday afternoon. Rain was falling as I drove to the trailhead, and roads were already getting wicked slick. I thought about turning around and heading home before things got worse.

Moose Meadow, Saturday afternoon.

When I reached the parking lot, I stuck my arm out of the window to test the rain-to-sleet ratio. My legs were tired from a week of commuting, and I knew I was looking for an excuse to bail out and go home. The rain seemed to be turning to sleet, so I grumpily pulled out my Fatback, strapped on a helmet and decided to ride for 10 or 15 minutes just to check the conditions.

Despite the shitty-looking weather, riding conditions were awesome. I pedaled slow and easy because of my tired legs, but I hit favorite trails like Thread the Needle and Brown Bear, enjoying the flow and watching most of the precipitation bounce off the sleeves of my jacket.

It was one of those rides that leave me wondering why I ever considered not getting out. Two hours after I started, I got back to my car with a wet jacket, an ice-covered bike and a smile on my face.

I drove home slowly on ice-covered streets, and then spent Saturday night and all day Sunday watching Mother Nature wreak havoc on what had been a really nice Alaska winter. Warm rain and hurricane-force winds kicked the crap out of Anchorage. Who knows how many trees have fallen across the trails, or how much overflow has ruined stream crossings that only recently hardened up?

  I damn near didn’t ride Saturday. Now that I don’t know when conditions will improve, I’m really glad I did.

Trucked up

2011-11-29T20:28:00.005-09:00

I'm lucky I saw it coming. The driver of the big semi to my left was eager to make his right turn from C Street onto westbound Tudor Road. He kept inching forward, waiting for northbound cars to lose their green arrow so he could take both lanes to round the corner.

He knew I was there. He had waved at me less than a minute earlier as I crossed in front of him before stopping on the bike path/sidewalk at the corner so I could get a green light to proceed south beside C Street at the end of the work day. I was standing at the spot where a fellow bike commuter was killed seven months ago.

Many days at this intersection, the light changes and motorists wave me across Tudor before they make their turn. A lot of Anchorage drivers are nicer than their reputation would indicate. Not this guy. He hit the gas as the light turned green to make sure I wouldn’t delay him for five seconds. Annoying, but not uncommon.

What was unusual was what came behind him. He was pulling a road train. Three trailers. “Seriously?” I thought to myself. “Three trailers? In Midtown? At rush hour?” Fortunately, I knew that each trailer would tend get closer to where I was standing, so I watched them closely.

Within a few seconds, it was time for evasive action. I yanked my front wheel into the air, pivoted my bike and dragged it a couple of steps just before the third trailer came off the road and rolled across the spot where the front half of my bike had been.   Not to be dramatic, but that kind of shit kills people, you know? A couple of years ago, another Anchorage truck driver pulled his trailer over a corner sidewalk, and didn’t even know what had happened until he found parts of a pedestrian wrapped around his rear axle. They used dental records to identify the body.

And this trucker knew I was there on the sidewalk. He knew he was pulling a goddamn parade of trailers. He knew he had only two lanes of Tudor to work with as he dragged that monstrosity around the corner.

But he had to go first when the light turned green and the “walk” signal lit up.

Maybe he was in a hurry. Maybe he just didn’t give a shit. Maybe he thought it would be funny to watch in the mirror as I scrambled out of the way.

But what if I hadn’t?

Like I said before, some drivers get a bad rap. Others earn it.

Never let your guard down.

Wax-free in Ho Chi Minh City

2011-11-27T11:47:00.003-09:00

What does a Bicycles & Icicles “No Waxing Required” sticker and a can of Spam have in common?   They both get carried around the world for vacation photos.

OK, so maybe Spam went more places when everyone in Alaska wanted his pic in the slideshow at Mr. Whitekeys’ Fly By Night Club, but these snow bike stickers are doing some traveling. This fall, Gina slapped one on the famous road sign marking the top of the Col du Galibier in France, and then this little gem popped up on Facebook a couple of days ago.

My man Tony slapped a sticker on a Cyclo—or Vietnamese bike taxi—in Ho Chi Minh City before taking his friend Heather for a ride. Very nice.

Tony is one of Alaska’s devoted fat-bike riders, and a long-time Frigid Bits veteran who is baking in the Southeast Asian sun while the rest of us freeze our bits off during a cold snap here in Anchorage.  

After last night’s ride, which had no burn barrel, riders were too cold to enjoy more than one beer before heading home to thaw out. Tony, meanwhile, was getting sunburned while riding a rental bike.  

I know this because he posted to Facebook from Phu Quoc.   

And I’ll just leave it there, because if I think too much about how to pronounce Phu Quoc, this post would surely go places it shouldn’t.

Frigid Bits: White Night No. 1

2011-11-25T20:23:00.005-09:00

Speedway singletrack, Friday afternoon.
(Black Friday shopping is for suckers.)

The second Frigid Bits ride of the winter is about to get under way, suckas! What Rio calls the Spin and Grin ride will start at 7:30 on Saturday night from Hillside Trailhead on Abbott Road. This is the ride for the fun hogs who just want to goof around in the dark, ride fat bikes, and maybe take a few nips from their flasks. The speed demons will leave at 8, but who cares about them, right?

The route of the fun ride will be determined during an informal recon mission on Saturday afternoon. The "Quickie" route for the fast people is described in the Alaska forum on mtbr. You'll need a helmet, a good light, a fat bike and the ability to ride it in still-a-tad-soft conditions.

If you're a Frigid Bits veteran, you know the drill. If you're not, and you have questions, drop me an email. Bringing post-ride food and beverages is always a good idea. Come to think of it, bringing during-the-ride beverages is always a damn good idea.

Drink up, Buttercup!

Sunday services

2011-11-21T20:55:00.001-09:00

Fabulous Fingersicles at -25 in Talkeetna

To everyone who got up offa that thing last week and started riding the Hillside singletrack, nice job. After a stressful week, I need to attend Sunday services at the Church of Bike, and holy crap, the trails were sweet. Thanks to some extra effort by guys like my friend Carl, even some of the "secret" trails such as Sith (shown at right) were full of tight, twisty goodness

Fortunately, we’re getting more snow tonight. Unfortunately, this storm could dump another six inches just before the holiday weekend, so we’re all going to have to get out there and groom the trails all over again. I promise to do my part.  

The sanest way to deal with the retail hell of “Black Friday” is to stock up several days' worth of essentials now, stuff yourself on Thursday, then hit the trails on Friday while avoiding any building that contains a cash register. (Except for bars that serve post-ride beers.) 

Thanks to Queen Bee and her “training camp” crew for today’s new entry into the Fabulous Finger Gallery. They spent more than four hours riding in temps down to -25F up by Talkeetna on Saturday. Stopping for a flip-off shot in such conditions is admirable, even if they couldn’t feel their hands well enough to be sure which fingers they were using.

Check back later this week for a possible update on a Frigid Bits event that just might be brewing for Saturday night. And in the mean time, have a fun and fattening Thanksgiving.

Get up offa that thing

2011-11-15T21:20:00.001-09:00

The body of an alien in Area 51.

John Prine was right—it’s a big ol’ goofy world. Anchorage finally has enough snow to kick off fat-biking season, and my friend Deb the Crazy Cat Lady is sending me flip-off photos from trails where the weather is so warm, she can still smile after failing to make it through a stream.

She made it into the Fabulous Finger Gallery—again—but we get the last laugh, because she’s down there wearing shorts and riding in the woods where men are banjo-playing men, and the canoeists are nervous. Meanwhile, those of us in Alaska may be wearing a few extra layers, but the snowy trails are gettin’ sweet.

The only question is, where the hell is everybody? It seems like you can’t swing one of Deb’s dead cats in this town without hitting somebody who recently bought a fat bike, but the singletrack is shaping up slowly after snowstorms, because few people seem to be venturing out.

What the shit, people? The main advantage to having so many snow bikers in Anchorage is that when more of us hit the trails, they get buffed out faster. Hell, a few years ago it took at least a week for trails to get decent after a significant snow dump. The past couple of winters, while snow bikes were flying off the shelves like ugly underwear in Salt Lake City, the trails got so much fat-tire traffic they were routinely in great shape only a couple of days after a storm.

Are you having trouble accepting the arrival of winter? Are you spending your weekends watching football? Did you take up knitting? Have you been too busy watching that bitch Nancy Grace do drunken cow imitations on Dancing With the Stars?

OK, if it’s that last thing, do whatever you want. I have no use for you. Otherwise, dust off your fat bikes and go outside. It’s a big ol’ snowy world, and you're missing it.

Forked Up

2011-11-11T13:29:00.000-09:00

Middle Fork Trail: Riding it is now a crime.

An open letter to Chugach State Park administrators:

For the past few winters, I have obtained a special-use permit for winter bicycling in the park, and I have complied with all related rules. As a matter of fact, I sometimes defended the use of the permits when debating with friends who felt it was unfair that winter riders were required to obtain and carry the permits when no other user groups were subjected to that burden.

Let’s work within the system, I told my friends. Let’s show park officials that winter mountain bikers can play by the rules, build relationships with land managers, and obtain full access as a user group. Apparently, I was being played for a sucker.

After several winters of demonstrating that winter cycling is virtually a zero-impact recreational activity (especially considering that current “fat bike” technology uses extra-large tires that minimize the imprint of tire tracks on snow) this year’s permit would limit our access to two trails.

Two trails. In the third-largest state park in the nation. A park of nearly half a million acres. Two.

Seriously?

Your e-mail announcing this year’s permits states that, “Your cooperation allows us to continue studying and supporting winter cycling.” Really? You consider this to be support for winter cycling? A more accurate statement might be, “Your cooperation allows us to continue delaying and discriminating against winter cycling.”

Why have cyclists been stripped of access to Middle Fork Trail, a favorite of winter bike riders that is perfectly suitable for this recreational use, thanks to it being routinely windblown with a hard-packed surface? And what, exactly, are you studying? I would sincerely like to know.

Winter mountain bikers are not second-class citizens and, frankly, many of us are tired of being treated as though we are. We own the park, too. We are Alaska residents and tax-paying citizens who have a right to use Chugach State Park for clean, healthy, low-impact recreation.

I will not be obtaining a special-use permit for winter cycling in the park this year. The permit system no longer has any legitimacy.

Bicycles and beardsicles

2011-11-09T21:08:00.001-09:00

Jordy and me on Rover's Run, Tuesday night.
Photo by Julie

Beardsicle season is officially back. And while that can be entertaining, I wasn’t particularly thrilled to get ice cream headache while riding past the Campbell Creek Science Center on Tuesday night.

I mean, seriously, -7F in November? What the shit, people? How cold is it going to be when the usual early January cold snap hits?  

Still, it’s nice to be out on the fat bikes, hitting trails I haven’t touched in months. It would be even nicer if more people were out helping groom the singletrack with fatties. Most of Speedway was untouched before we hit it, and that was two days after the weekend snowstorm. With more snow coming tomorrow, things might be sketchy for a few days.

In other good news related to singletrack, as I write this post, Janice “Queen Bee” Tower is at a ceremony to receive a YWCA “Woman of Achievement” award. As any local cyclist can tell you, nobody does more for bicyclists and her community than Janice.

From coaching Mighty Bikes to raising money and working the public process for the construction of new singletrack to helping write municipal ordinances for bicycle safety, Janice is a force of nature who doesn’t usually get the recognition she deserves. So congratulations to Queen Bee for a well-deserved award.

And thanks to Diane Holmes, Lisa Holzapfel and Holly Spoth-Torres for the nomination and letters of support that led to the award.

Long live the Queen!

I got pantsed

2011-11-06T21:42:00.004-09:00

This year’s Soggy Bottom 100 made a couple of things very clear. 1) Bears are scarier in the dark, and 2) my rain pants were trashed. Those suckers became so waterlogged, they were about as useful as a pair of cotton jeans.

So when the folks at Appalachian Outdoors contacted me a couple of weeks later to ask if I might be interested in reviewing any of their gear, I checked out their site and homed in on a pair of North Face Venture rain paints that I picked up at a discounted price.

My requirements for rain pants are pretty simple. I want something breathable that will keep me reasonably dry, stand up to some muddy abuse, block wind and, ideally, have a few venting options. I also like the price to be low, because I’m reasonably frugal or a cheapskate, depending on who you talk to.

At 89 bucks, I kept my expectations modest. I know you get what you pay for, and I’m not the kind of guy who buys high-tech, $300 pants. Still, North Face seems to have come up with the basics I need, and the pants are reasonably breathable. The HyVent ripstop nylon is not as nice as some other materials I’ve used, but I can generally manage to avoid working up too much of a sweat in it, especially when I use the pants for their main purpose for much of the year: shedding snow and blocking wind on winter rides and snowshoe hikes

I got the side-zip version of the pants, which should be nice for Alaska’s dry, snowy conditions. Opening the side vents to stay cool in a warm rain might not work out so well, but that’s not a situation I have to deal with. During a windy, snowy hike fairly high up in the Chugach Range, I kept the side zippers up and felt no draft, which makes me optimistic about the Venture’s prospects as a snow-biking pant -- despite the lack of articulated knees.

My biggest complaint is the lack of waistband adjustment. I always err on the side of ordering clothes a bit too large, and that definitely happened with these pants. Appalachian’s page says the pants have a draw string, but mine don’t. The only adjustment option is a velcro tab on each side, and that provides a pretty limited range for customizing the fit. Hence, my pants are so baggy I end up daydreaming about suspenders, which aren’t terribly practical -- especially for pants with no front opening. And that’s another feature North Face should consider. If you need to take a wiz beside the trail, you’ve got to pull these things down quite a bit. Not fun or convenient in bad weather.

I’m still wondering how these things will hold up over a winter of fat-biking, but we’ll see. Overall, this seems like a nice pair of rain paints for less than a hundred bucks, but make sure you buy the right size.

As for the question of whether these things could survive a Soggy Bottom with conditions as horrendous as what we had this year, well, I hope I never find out.

Hey, let's meet at ...

2011-11-03T21:36:00.000-08:00

This woman—let's call her Sally—is a smokejumper.

Sally the Smokejumper. That would make a nice title for a children's book.

Smokejumpers are highly trained firefighters who travel all over the United States to jump out of airplanes and parachute into remote areas to provide the initial attack on wildfires that are difficult to access from the ground.

The smokejumper program began in 1939, and the first fire jump was made in 1940 on Idaho's Nez Perce National Forest. In 1981, the first woman smokejumper in the nation successfully completed the training program in Idaho. Man or woman, smokejumpers are badasses in the world of wildland firefighting.

Why, you may ask, is the subject of today’s post? Because by the time my friend Julie gets this to this fourth paragraph, she will (hopefully) have so much time thinking about smokejumpers that she will be able to end her years-long struggle to remember the name of the trailhead where we routinely meet for winter trail rides.

Then she won’t have to close her ride-planning e-mails with, “6:30? Stumpbumper? jumper? smoker? I forget what that trailhead is called.”

What the hell. I can try, right? If this doesn't work, I might just adopt one of her names for the trailhead.

Stumpbumper does sort of have a nice ring to it.

Happy Halloween

2011-10-30T21:22:00.001-08:00

A good barometer of a Frigid Bits event is how many of the pictures should never be put online. By that standard, this year’s Halloween ride was another great one that will be talked about for a long time.

They might not look it here,
but poodles are freakin' dangerous.

Bikes were ridden, drinks were drank, a little token blood was spilled, drag queens were befriended, and things were seen that can never be unseen. My “team” even managed to check a few things off our scavenger-hunt list before we pretty much forgot about it until we left the final bar and rolled back to the burn barrel long after everyone else was well into the beer.

  And then things got a little weird.  

I’ve got the photos to prove it, but you’re just gonna have to trust me on this.

This qualifies as harassment. Being
attacked by a viscious dog is no laughing matter.
Even if it was a standard poodle.
Those bastards are huge.

Thank you Rio, for organizing the antics , and Debbie, for being there in spirit. Your spirit is enormous, and gave many people a lot of pleasure in a single night.

It'll be 99% fun

2011-10-28T15:30:00.001-08:00

My friend Debbie went shopping for a new ride.

Being one of those socially conscious types,

she found herself feeling a little guilty about

treating herself to bike that’s better

than many people can afford.

I told her to shut up, man up,

and buy the damned thing,

because she deserves it.

I love it when people listen to good advice.

Unleash the freaks

2011-10-25T21:48:00.007-08:00

Holy crap, it’s time for the madness to begin again. Over the past couple of years, the Frigid Bits Halloween Scavenger Hunt Ride has been one of the highlights of autumn. You’d be hard pressed to find a better party on two wheels.  

Where else are you going to find a free event that involves beer, partial nudity and a bunch of costumed bike riders marauding through downtown Anchorage (not necessarily in that order)? Hell, a couple of years ago, there was a flurry of Monday morning phone calls just to tally up the carnage.

You know the old saying, “It’s only funny until someone gets hurt, then it’s hilarious?” There has never been a better real-life example. Shit, I still laugh at memories of that night.   

The big event returns this Saturday, so clear your calendar to make sure you’re there by 8 p.m. Meet at the east end of Westchester Lagoon in the parking lot located between Minnesota Drive and the one-way road that connects Spenard Road to Minnesota. Plan a costume, get some friends for a team, and bring a digital camera to collect proof of your scavenger-hunt targets. Helmets and lights are required.

The theme for the costume gala is fairy tales as they appear in the mind of Thirstywork. If you don’t know him, just dream up something weird. After the second or third beer, nobody gives a damn what you’re wearing anyway.

Friends in the darkness

2011-10-23T20:42:00.001-08:00

The ring of my cell phone interrupted my Friday morning commute. I was instantly annoyed, but the rarity of a call at 7:30 a.m. made me pull over to see if it was important. “Hello?” I answered.

“Oh, OK,” was all that my friend Claire said after hearing my voice.

She had heard on a radio traffic report that a bike rider was down and an ambulance was on the way. It wasn’t along my route to work, but she knows I sometimes stray widely off course to run errands. She wanted to know that I wasn’t the person lying on the pavement in the dark.

I tucked my phone in my pocket and resumed pedaling as I ran through a mental checklist of friends who might be riding in the area of the accident. It wasn’t far from the home of a co-worker who sometimes pedals to work, and I found myself hoping she’d be at the office when I arrived.

Bike commuting is a lonelier activity this time of year. Cold and darkness has thinned the herd, so fewer morning riders are out there, and they’re harder to see. Some are hidden by darkness, while others become faceless beams of bright, blinding light when two riders meet on a path. It’s harder to make eye contact and feel connections.

As we ride across dark cities behind our little beams of light, it’s nice to have reminders that we’re not really alone.

15

2011-10-18T20:31:00.002-08:00

Chugach Range from Westchester Lagoon. 10.18.11

Fifteen years ago, I was looking for a new job when an old college professor I stayed in touch with encouraged me to apply for a spot at the Los Angeles Times. We had a mutual acquaintance -- a fellow editor I had once worked with for a year or two -- who was on staff there and looking to make a hire. In other words, I had an “in” at a big-name paper.

My old professor was caught a bit off guard when I told him I wasn’t interested. Not in the Times, not in L.A., not in Southern California. I didn’t give a rat’s ass about a “career move” if it meant living in a hot, smoggy, overcrowded shit hole. Life’s too short.

Instead, I managed to get a job in a town so funky, even its residents make fun of its dark winters, its shabby architecture and its obsession with duct tape and the Subaru wagons it holds together. It may have been a questionable career move, but it was one of the best life moves I’ve ever made.

The view in this quickie iPhone photo reminded me how lucky I am to have just marked the 15th anniversary of the move from my once beloved Santa Fe to this goofy town I plan to never leave. I get to see (and dodge) big critters on many rides; I don’t have to choke on fumes unless I’m riding too close to the burrito eater in front of me; and there’s a fun and growing bike culture full of cool people.

Best of all, I get to ride home while looking at views like this one.

Happy anniversary, Alaska.

Generation FU

2011-10-14T19:56:00.001-08:00

What do you do if you're a bike rider who wants a spot in the Fabulous Finger Gallery but you happen to be chronologically challenged and have parents who don't want your face plastered on the interwebs next to your middle finger?

Well, you find a way. Ya do whatcha gotta do. You improvise and overcome. That's what's all about.

In other words, you find a way to flip the bird anonymously.

That's what this fine example of America's youth did on Missouri's Katy Trail earlier today. I expect more from her in the future, but for now her public image will remain intact. After all, one should probably be old enough to have a driver's license before openly joining the denizens of this dark corner of the Internet.

Know, young Mystery Girl, that we are proud of you. While the lost members of your generation are wasting their youth trolling malls and flipping the joysticks of video game systems, you're outside riding mountain bikes and flipping the bird at your elders. Good job.

We know who really owns the future.

Fancher's Furnace

2011-10-11T21:09:00.005-08:00

Leonard pedals through Death Valley.
(Photos courtesy of Mike Morganson)

A 508-mile bike ride is beyond my comprehension. That’s why this post will be short. I can’t write much about what I don’t understand. (Although some readers of this blog would say I do so on a regular basis.)

But congratulations to Leonard Fancher. The dude just finished the Furnace Creek 508 in 40 hours, 59 minutes, 29 seconds. I mean, seriously. Holy shitballs. That’s a freakishly demented, long distance, and the race came about three months after Leonard took third in the Fireweed 400.

Good job, Leonard. And congrats to Leonard’s dad and Mike Morganson for serving as his crew. I learned last year that the job of crewing is a tough one, but a rider can’t go that far without solid support. All three of you earned some cold beer and deep sleep for the next few nights.

I’m curious to hear what kind of twisted idea Leonard will come up with for his race schedule next year.

Fall fingers

2011-10-08T15:00:00.000-08:00

It's time for another installment of Fabulous Finger Gallery Fotos from people who are flying around with their bikes and having way more fun than I am. Damn them. I don't get a bike trip this fall. Fortunately, there's a plan simmering on the back burner for next year. Meanwhile, I'm living vicariously through friends with vacation time and air miles.

Our first new photo comes from Gina and Tony, who did the Big Flip-off atop Col du Galibier. That's the classic Tour de France climb where skinny people ride in thin air and slap Bicycles & Icicles stickers on the famous summit sign before giving the finger to the guy who was kind enough to send a sticker and give their vacation a purpose.

Without that sticker assignment, the whole thing would have simply been shallow, two-wheeled hedonism with no more meaning than a one night stand with a solid "10." You're freakin' welcome, Gina.

Next we have Rose and her crew, who are doing what October was made for—riding mountain bikes in southern Utah. There is only one thing that can lure me to that Mormon-infested state, and that's sunny, high-desert singletrack. That shit's so fun, I get a little bitter whenever I see pics of someone enjoying a vacation there while I watch leaves fall in Anchorage.

At least they sent a flip-off photo to take the edge off my jealousy. Thanks to Lori, Bev, Rose, Fixie Dave Nice and, of course, Dan, who managed to take the photo and still get his own finger in it. (That's what she said.)

Go ahead and soak up that sun, Rose, but remember: Tans are temporary. Winters seem to last forever.

Fresh Dirt

2011-10-06T21:41:00.002-08:00

Leonard enjoys some fresh Kincaid singletrack
while training for this weekend's
Furnace Creek 508. Good luck, Leonard!

The new trails at Kincaid Park are opening bit by bit as the hand-finishing is wrapped up and sections become ready to ride. I've been checking them out over the past couple of weeks, and they're a hoot. I've never been a big fan of the trails at Kincaid Park, but that's changing. Finally, Kincaid isn't just the domain of Nordic skiers. Mountain bikers have a little slice, and it's sweet.

There's another work party from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. this Sunday, so go sling some dirt if you can. I haven't been very active in trail projects this year, but I've shown up for a couple of recent work parties, and it felt satisfying to know I helped at least a little bit. I hope to be there again this weekend.

To everyone who has worked on these trails—especially those of you who showed up regularly and picked up slack for the rest of us—thanks for your work. You've done a wonderful thing.

And a special thanks are due to the leaders of the project: Janice, the undisputed Queen Bee of Anchorage singletrack; Ryan, who saw lines where none existed, and worked hard to make them a reality; and Lee, the man for whom "L Train" is already named.

The world has long asked for a better mousetrap, but you guys found a way to build a better Toilet Bowl. And the rest of us are grateful.

Inglourious

2011-10-03T13:15:00.001-08:00

If only we could unleash Lt. Aldo Raine on this basterd.

I recently wrote a post about finding a swastika defacing a concrete wall on the Chester Creek Trail. Yesterday, I found three more along the Campbell Creek Trail near Old Seward Highway. Graffiti is vandalism, pure and simple. But this is taking it to a new level of disgusting.

Instead of just wishing someone would catch this prick and shove a can of spray paint up his ass, I’d like to see old Aldo whip out that huge knife of his and do a little carving on the racist’s brainless head.

It sucks to be left with no option but to call the city and ask them to send someone out to cover this garbage with fresh paint. Unfortunately, that’s what we’ve got, folks. If you see this happening in Anchorage, report it to Graffiti Busters at 343-4663.

But if you happen to find the piece of shit who’s doing this, and you go all Aldo Raine on his sorry ass, you’ll get no complaint from me.

Conflicted

2011-09-28T22:33:00.001-08:00

I spent 20 years hoping that I was setting a good example for my children by being a bike commuter.

Be careful what you wish for.

My daughter has a job and takes classes at several locations, so my wife and I have made sure she has a reliable, fuel-efficient car. But she routinely leaves it in the driveway and pedals one of her three bikes to work and school. I think that's awesome. Like me, she likes exercise and hates putting gas in a vehicle.

But being the father of a young woman can really test a guy’s commitment to bike commuting. A strange mix of pride and fear flow through me when she talks about riding home at night because, while I love having a kid who would rather turn bike pedals than mash a gas pedal, I know women face extra and unfair dangers. And that pisses me off.

It’s sick and wrong that half the human population has to worry about being preyed upon by the other half. It’s sick and wrong that families have to worry about their daughters, wives and girlfriends. And if I described what I’d like to do to every depraved scumbag who would assault a woman, my ideas might sound sick and wrong to some people, too.

I want my daughter to live a life free of unreasonable fear. I don’t want to be a “helicopter" parent who smothers his kid by being overprotective. So I’m trying to find ways to make it all work.

With darkness falling earlier every day, I’m rearranging my plans when I can, to ensure that I can meet her after class. We get to share the ride home together, and I can rest a little easier knowing she’s not alone.

But it’s a shame that I have to do it out of fear, instead of just out of love.

Col du Galibier

2011-09-25T22:14:00.001-08:00

Bam. We made it.

When amateur cyclists from around the world reach the top of Col du Galibier, they celebrate by slapping their favorite stickers on the sign that marks the top of the 2,645-meter pass that is often the highest point of the Tour de France, which first crossed this pass in 1911.

So when my friend Gina announced she was loading up her bike and jetting off to ride some of the most famous climbs in the world, we knew what had to be done.

Yeah, baby. The official sticker of this blog can now be found on the summit where where Coppi, Merckx, Pantani and Gina all had great days.

Sure, the “No Waxing Required” sticker originated to help fat-bikers thumb their noses at the snobbish Nordic skiers who don’t like sharing Anchorage’s winter trails but, hey, we don’t discriminate against the skinny-tire crowd. All bikes are good bikes as long as they’re ridden by people with personalities and good attitudes, so we’re proud to be represented at the top of a famous road climb in the Alps.

Big thanks to Gina for carrying a sticker halfway around the world, getting it to the summit, and accomplishing the mission.

Gina, you are a fine American. You make us proud.

Money well spent

2011-09-22T22:33:00.002-08:00

My morning commute was interrupted by a swastika.

I was riding to work when I dropped down the bike path along A Street and turned west on the Chester Creek Trail, then there it was—the most vile symbol in human history—painted under the words "We're Back" on a concrete wall. Someone armed with a can of spray paint and a shred of decency had attempted to cover it with the red circle and slash forming the international “banned” symbol.

I stopped to snap a photo with my phone, so that I could email it to the municipal maintenance department. I thought maybe they would make it a priority to paint over that mess before the end of the day.

When I got to C Street, I saw a city maintenance truck and flagged it down so I could report the graffiti to the driver. But he already knew about it. “That’s where I’m headed,” he said.

I looked at my watch. It was 7:52 a.m. on Thursday morning. The sun was barely coming up, and most businesses weren’t open for the day, but that guy was already there with a bucket of paint. Many morning bike commuters would never have to see the vandalism done by some asshole.

Everybody seems to be talking these days about deficits, taxes, budget reductions and service cuts. Not just at the national level, but here in Anchorage, too. Mayor Dan Sullivan hates taxes like the rest of us hate saddle sores, and he’s happy to slash payroll and municipal services to avoid asking people to pay a few more bucks for them.

The question is, where does this stop? We have fewer firemen and fewer cops than we used to, and those of us who use parks and public spaces have spent years watching the results of “deferred maintenance.” (That’s a fancy name for all those wheel-eating pavement cracks on bike paths all over town.)

I’m not sure what the answer is, but I’ll tell you one thing. I was happy to have a municipal employee out there covering that swastika so quickly, and so early.

If that costs me a couple of extra bucks a year, I’ll gladly pay it.

The Path

2011-09-19T21:40:00.000-08:00

I don’t keep track of many ride-related numbers anymore, but some just make me smile. Like 16.33, for instance.

Last Friday afternoon, I needed to meet my wife at a cookout with her students and co-workers. As I climbed on a bike and rolled away from my office at the end of the day, I started calculating the safest route, and then realized I had almost completely overlooked an obvious one that would get me where I needed to go via bike paths equipped with tunnels and overpasses to avoid interactions with street traffic.

Despite a last-minute change that moved the location of the cookout, I managed to ride from the first park to the second via more bike paths.

After eating a hot dog and hanging out for a little while, I climbed back on the bike and headed home while wondering when I would finally have to pause at a light or stop sign. It finally happened where Campbell Creek Trail crosses Dowling Road. By that point, I had ridden 16.33 miles from my downtown office to the east side of Anchorage, back through Midtown and nearly to South Anchorage without crossing an intersection or having to stop for a single light or sign.

A couple of miles later, I had to wait for a red light at Dimond Boulevard, then it was a nonstop cruise the final two or three miles home. I had managed to cruise across a huge part of the city with no traffic hassles, and almost no exposure to motorized vehicles. For most of the 28.6-mile ride, I was pedaling in woods, beside streams, or through public parks.

Anchorage is far from being well-planned or architecturally interesting, but it has character. And these paved paths—built in the 1980s when the state was so fat with oil-boom money that even an Alaska politician would pour money into bike paths—are a big part of what makes it a fun, livable city.

Unfortunately, there are plenty of elected officials (and people who would like to be elected officials) who see bike paths as tax-wasting indulgences that shouldn’t be provided by local government. Every election season, I want to kick at least one of them in the nuts.

Instead, I just vote against them. But it’s not as satisfying.

Hoops 'n' Pedals

2011-09-16T08:17:00.003-08:00

All summer long, tourists rented bicycles from a little shop in front of the Copper Whale Inn in downtown Anchorage. Most of them never noticed the custom hoops leaning against the bike shed. They just wanted to sign their forms, hand over their money and hit the Tony Knowles Coastal Trail in hopes of seeing a gin-you-wine Alaska moose.

But late in the afternoon on sunny days, as the rental business slowed down, drivers who found themselves stopped at the nearby traffic light were treated to a fun distraction as Seina—a grad student who spent her summer putting people on bikes—filled her free time by spinning her hula hoops on the sidewalk.

The show was always impressive to those of us who have no idea how she pulls off some of those moves, and I think it was a bright spot at the end of the workday for a lot of tired people.

Seina's gone now. She's back in school. And the corner in front of the Copper Whale is a little boring.

Ruined

2011-09-07T21:24:00.004-08:00

I understand road rage.

And I blame my bicycles, because years of bike commuting have ruined me.

I’ve come to believe that a traffic light turning green means I get to go. Immediately. That my trip home at the end of the day should be fun and relieve stress. That at least part of my commute should pass through some woods and beside a creek, instead of just across a sea of asphalt.

Everyone talks about how bike commuting is good for you, but they never talk about its unhealthy side effect: a bitter hatred of sometimes finding oneself stuck in a car at rush hour.

An occasional day of driving to work doesn’t seem like a rest day; it just pisses me off. Knowing that a driver could kill me while talking on a cell phone and eating a snack is annoying. But having that same driver trap me for an extra cycle of a red light inspires thoughts of violence, or, as I like to think of it, justifiable homicide.

Back when I worked in newsrooms—havens of jaded cynics who regularly engage in crude, insensitive humor—my co-workers and I used to joke that years in the trenches had made us all unemployable in the mainstream world.

Bicycling has had its own, similar effect. I always have trouble re-joining the mainstream rush-hour crowd, with all its cars and pickups. I might look like the rest of them, but I’m not normal.

I hope I never will be.

Blistered fingers

2011-09-02T07:00:00.001-08:00

When Queen Bee sent this fabulous finger foto from Kincaid Park, I was afraid these hardworking trailbuilders were flipping me off for not showing up to help work on the new singletrack. I've been too busy and distracted to show up even once, and that's shameful.

Fortunately, she said the sentiment was directed more toward a poacher or two who have ridden the trails before they were ready for tire treads, an act that's even more shameful. I'd be happy to add my own finger for any poachers who screw up trails that are under construction.

But to all the crews who have put in hours on the trails this summer, I offer a huge thank you. You're the people who make great new trails possible, and I hear nothing but promising descriptions of what has been happening at Kincaid all summer.

If you've swung a Pulaski or dragged a McLeod through the dirt even once this summer, pour yourself a cold beer and feel good about it.

Leonardo

2011-08-31T20:55:00.003-08:00

Despite knowing it was named after my goofball friend Leonard, I’ve always had respect for the Soggy Bottom’s Leonardo Award and the riders who receive it.

Each year, Carlos—the Soggiest event organizer I know—gives the Leonardo to someone who guts out a tough ride, overcomes obstacles, or shows admirable determination in pursuit of his or her goal.

The award was inspired by Leonard's infamous ride in the early days of the Soggy Bottom, when he suffered immensely and passed out beside the trail a few times, but refused to quit. He finished despite taking more than 24 hours to do so.

During last weekend’s post-Soggy Bottom party at the Snow Goose Restaurant, Leonard himself presented the 2011 Leonardo award to Oscar The Grouch and me for voluntarily pedaling into hellish conditions for our drenched, bear-infested, course-sweeping ride.

Carlos had flasks engraved for the occasion, which was very classy. Thanks, Carlos.

Given the caliber of riders who line up at the start every year, it’s a humbling thing to be given any award related to the Soggy Bottom. Others rode farther and suffered more. Oscar and I just went out and did the job we promised to do. The same kind of job others have done for us.

Any mountain biker who has benefited from the efforts of volunteers should take a turn pitching in from time to time. You don’t do that kind of stuff because you expect recognition for it. Hearing the word “thanks” and maybe being handed a cold beer at the end of the day is about all you expect, and that’s the way it should be.

But when people think you’ve given a lot, and choose to recognize you for it, that feels pretty good. And it says something about them, too.

Bottoms up.

J.T. Brown

2011-08-28T20:47:00.005-08:00

This funky little store on Prince of Wales Island once saved a trip for me.

POW is in Southeast Alaska’s Tongass National Forest. Years ago, my friend Sue and I rode a ferry to the island for a five-day bike tour through the forests and clearcuts between old logging communities and fishing towns.

When I realized in the town of Craig that my rear sidewalls were going tits up, I thought I might have to find a house with a bike outside and talk the owner into selling me a used tire. But then I spotted J.T. Brown, the general store near an old dock.

This is the kind of store where you’re far more likely to encounter a grizzled commercial fisherman than bicyclist, but back in those days, there was a glowing “TREK” dealer sign in the front window. I was relieved to go in and find a good-enough tire to carry me through the trip. As I mounted it on the rim a few minutes later, a local character walked out of the store and happily said, “Welcome to Craig!”

The whole experience left me with fond memories of the place, so when I was back on the island last week, I walked down to see if J.T. Brown was still in business.

The Trek sign was gone, and there wasn’t a complete bike to be found in the store, but there were wheels hanging from the ceiling, and tires crammed under shelves of fishing gear. Zip-Loc bags of new brake pads and QR skewers hung from pegs on the wall, and a whole bucket of seatposts sat next to a dusty hummingbird feeder beneath the spare tubes.

Most bike junkies can’t imagine living in a place without a real bike shop, but stores like J.T. Brown are as good as it gets in a lot of remote places. Many towns aren’t even lucky enough to have such a bare-minimum store.

If you live on POW these days and you need a new bike, you bring it back with you from a trip to the mainland, or have it flown in by floatplane. On Friday, I helped unload a brand-new bike from the old de Havilland Beaver that was bringing in the mail and a few passengers before hauling me and four other people back to Ketchikan.

When that bike starts wearing out, I suspect its owner will head down to the store and search for parts among the fishing gear, paper towels and canned food.

And he can be sure that the person who rings up his purchase will never be a fixie-riding hipster.

Great Beaver Shot

2011-08-22T21:41:00.002-08:00

Bicycles & Icicles is known (among a small, elite crowd) for many things but, on a global scale, this blog might be best known for its beaver shots.

Every day, lonely men (and maybe a few women who know how to work on their own pickups, if ya know what I mean) arrive here after Googling “beaver shots.” I aim to make sure they’re never disappointed. Because what higher calling could a guy have than to bait lost souls with beaver shots and then deliver them to the Holy Church of the Bicycle for their salvation?

So feast your eyes, ladies and gentlemen, on the latest beaver to get wet and prove itself on the pages of this blog: Oscar’s Beaver. His Soggy Bottom Beaver. And because it’s Oscar’s, one might even call it Spanish Beaver. Mmm, spicy!

I took this shot a few hours before The Grouch and I got the Beaver wet and gave it a pounding in some of the wettest, most slippery conditions imaginable. No matter what we threw at it, this beaver held on tight and kept Oscar upright for hours. It was an amazing performance.

Afterward, Oscar said he thought it was the best Beaver he’d ever had. (Personally, I think it was the first Beaver he’d ever gotten. I’m just glad he liked it, because I think he paid quite a bit for it.)

I don’t usually endorse things, but if you’re looking for something that can really perform when things get wet and slippery, this Beaver just might be the one to satisfy your needs.

An Open Letter

2011-08-20T17:30:00.002-08:00

To all the mountain bikers who enjoy riding the new trails at Kincaid Park:

Stop.

Being.

Douche bags.

The new singletrack isn’t open yet, and you know it. That’s why it’s blocked by bright orange fencing and signs that say, “TRAIL CLOSED.”

Other mountain bikers—people with the energy and passion to do things that benefit everyone—have poured months of work into raising money, getting permits and planning a new network of trails. Still more mountain bikers have shown up and invested their muscle and sweat to hand-finish the trails. These people put you (and me) to shame.

All they ask in return is a modicum of respect, and that you have a little more patience than a two-year-old. If you had done the homework they have, you would understand that freshly built trails need time to set up properly before being ridden. You’re being asked to do only one thing: wait.

At least one gutless weasel hiding behind his new alias on a bike forum has complained that trail construction is affecting his access to trails he has “ridden for years.” Boo fucking hoo.

(By the way, “Turner Guy,” are we really supposed to believe you just created the account for your first post? It’s hard to believe any member of the Turner cult who has ridden for years in Anchorage just joined the mtbr forum. It seems far more likely you didn’t even have the balls to rant about your vandalism under an established user name.)

Hear’s a news flash, ace. It’s not your private fucking park. It’s a public place, where legitimate projects sometimes cause temporary disruptions for recreational users. Shit happens.

You and your ilk need to grow the hell up. Stop being vandals, and stop pissing on the work of other people.

Sincerely,

Tim

Or, better yet ...

2011-08-19T09:31:00.001-08:00

... you could stop painting

graffiti on the bike path.

There are no words (except go full screen)

2011-08-15T21:21:00.000-08:00

Happy Finger Friday

2011-08-12T06:00:00.000-08:00

It has been a busy week at Bicycles & Icicles, but what better way to end it than with two new entries in the Fabulous Finger Gallery? And fine additions they are.

The first comes from the guy Anchorage riders know as “Super Al” Mitchell (right) and his buddy Kim Kittredge during their 500-mile ride across Iowa in this summer’s 39th edition of the Register’s Annual Bicycle Ride Across Iowa. Most people refer to it as RAGBRAI. Super Al calls it “a frat party for grown-ups on bikes.”

Thanks for the pic, Al. Double thanks for shooting it before you ate corn on the cob through that mustache! And it should go without saying that we're also grateful you didn't show us what you did to earn those Mardi Gras beads.

Our second shot comes from Acadia National Park in Maine, and a repeat offender in the rogue’s gallery of finger flippers—my nephew Brendon, from Kansas City. I believe when we last saw Brendon, he was risking disciplinary measures by posing for flip-off pictures during a school trip to China. (Don’t blame me, I think he gets it from his mother’s side.)

Brendon heads off to college next week so I’ll be counting on a creative new shot from campus this fall. Good luck, Brendon. Have a great freshman year.

As for the rest of you hosers, have a great weekend. To help yourself remember how good you feel, just remember: you’re not riding the Soggy Bottom!

Midnight Madness

2011-08-09T20:53:00.001-08:00

Midnight in the middle of nowhere is not the time and place to learn that fresh bear prints on a wet trail appear to glow when illuminated by the light on a bicycle helmet.

As a matter of fact, I could have been quite happy to grow old without learning such a thing.

Oscar and I had just convinced ourselves we were nearing the Hope end of the Resurrection Trail when I rounded a turn and the prints lit up like paw-shaped lights against the dark, brown surface of the muddy trail. I probably could have found a less jarring way to announce my discovery than loudly blurting out, “bear on the trail!” which led Oscar to momentarily think the damned thing was standing right in front of me. For all I knew, it might have been.

This is the fun of riding sweep in the Soggy Bottom 100. You get to leave in the rain about 7 p.m. to do a 40-mile trail ride over two mountain passes that are swept by rain and cold wind. You slog through quagmires of mud and splash through multiple pools of frigid, hub-deep water. Then, after hours of negotiating slippery rocks and roots, and slick-as-snot, off-camber mud surfaces, you find yourself in the dark, surrounded by thick vegetation containing a very live bear. And just to spice things up, there’s a stream nearby and rain is falling, so sound doesn’t carry worth a damn.

At this point, it is permissible to ask yourself, “How in the blue fuck did I end up here?” At least, that’s what I did.

Not wanting to surprise the bear and spark a defensive attack by approaching too quickly, Oscar and I dismounted and started walking our bikes while yelling, “HEY BEAR!” at the top of our lungs. Unfortunately, bears are smart enough to recognize the benefits of walking on a trail, so the one that had passed by only minutes earlier was in no hurry to re-enter the brush on both sides of us. We eventually got back on our bikes and rode slowly, shouting everything we could think of to alert the bear to our approach.

This went on for a freakin’ mile. Every time the prints disappeared, I’d start to yell over my shoulder to Oscar, “No prints, I think we’re good to … SHIT! More!” And not one of them bore the imprint of a bike tire. Believe me, I was looking. The critter ahead of us had walked the trail right after the riders ahead of us had passed through.

At last, the prints disappeared for good. This was when Oscar kindly reminded me that now we had no idea where the bear had gone, so we again cranked up the volume on our nonsensical shouting. After a few hundred yards, I began to relax. But tension doesn’t fade quickly after experience like that. We had already spent hours on alert for bears before the intense 15- to 20-minute period of knowing we were following one at fairly close range.

So when a snowshoe hare bolted from the dark directly into my path, I spontaneously unleashed my best, loudest warrior cry of, “GYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!” Which scared the shit out of both the hare and Oscar.

I suppose you could call it a scream, but I like to think it was a manly scream.

A little while later, we caught up to the last two riders on the course, and the four of us pedaled into Hope together feeling hungry, tired, cold and relieved. And I can tell you one thing for sure: There have been few nights in my life when I was happier to see the glow of a town’s lights coming into view.

Beyond Soggy

2011-08-07T21:03:00.003-08:00

Now I understand what she meant.

Three years ago, I stood in the dark street in front of Hope’s Seaview Bar just after midnight and and listened to my friend and relay team partner Julie say, “That was the most fucked-up thing I’ve ever done!”

She was talking about riding the third leg of the annual Soggy Bottom 100, and the long, dark descent into Hope from Resurrection Pass. It's a trail that's full of roots, rocks and bears.

Last night, I rode the same leg as part of a two-man team that swept the course. Oscar the Grouch and I left Devil’s Pass trailhead in a steady rain just before 7 p.m. A number of riders—many of whom had just abandoned the course—were reporting rain, strong winds and cold temperatures in the high country that we would pass through during an approximately 40-mile trail ride.

The Soggy Bottom lived up to its torturous reputation. Devil’s and Resurrection passes were brutally cold, wet and windy. The rocks were slippery, the mud and roots were greasy, and the trail was full of deep, gooey sucker holes and cold, standing water that nearly reached our hubs. The riding conditions were some of the worst imaginable, and following fresh bear tracks at midnight made us seriously question the sanity of what we were doing.

By the time Oscar and I rolled into Hope with the last two riders just a few feet of us at 1 a.m., I had thought of Julie’s statement many times.

Carlos, the event organizer, led us inside to warm up, and Jordy grabbed us a couple of beers. Carlos handed us our Soggy Bottom volunteer stem caps. I’m not sure I’ve ever been happier to reach the end of a ride.

I’ll post a story or two from this experience as I sort it all out in the next few days. For now, I’ll just say congratulations to every man and woman who had the balls to line up for the start of this madness.

And thanks to Oscar the Grouch for sharing the six-hour ride to sweep the course, and for his good company and humor during one of the must fucked-up things I’ve ever done.

Fatback Revolution

2011-08-03T21:37:00.004-08:00

Check out this new trailer for a film starring my friend Greg's Fatback bicycles. They're amazing, and they'll go damned near anywhere, as you'll see in the flick. Hell, if you look closely enough, you'll even catch a glimpse of Greg's mug in the trailer.

Speaking of Fatbacks going anywhere, I'm starting to feel half-tempted to take mine to the Kenai Peninsula this weekend for the Soggy Bottom 100. I'm on a team riding sweep on the final leg of the event, from Devil's Pass trailhead to the Seaview Bar in Hope. A week of rain pretty much guarantees the trail will be what we all like to call a "bucket of suckage."

It ain't gonna be pretty, folks. There will be suffering. Wet, muddy, painful suffering. And that'll just be me! Imagine what the soloists will endure while riding the whole insane enchilada.

Me, Oscar the Grouch and Leonard—and maybe Pam—will leave the trailhead about 6:30 p.m. and head up into the high country before working our way back down to the seaside Seaview while making sure no stragglers get left in the wilderness all night. If the bears, rain and mud don't get us, I know for sure what will—the cold beer I plan to drink to help me warm back up.

The entire thing makes no sense to me, except for one thing: There's nothing like a weekend in the little village of Hope when it's full of most of my favorite mountain bikers.

See ya in hell, everybody!

Morning snacks and the kicking of ass

2011-07-31T21:34:00.002-08:00

I recently got a new job so that I could finally get a snack at one of these things.

Volunteers have been setting up bike-commuter aid stations at various locations around town on the last Friday of each month, but my old route to work never allowed me to get in on the action. Hell, I don't even drink coffee, but I like that they're doing this, so I wanted my free piece of bread, dammit!

Last week was hellishly busy for me, so I was ready for a relaxing start to my Friday morning. I left home a little early so I could stop to chat with my friend Mike, who works for REI and was manning a commuter station with Bill and Sheryl from Chain Reaction bike shop.

After hanging out for a few minutes, I pedaled up Elmore Road to another station near the Alaska Native Medical Center, where a violin-playing cyclist provided some music to go with the free bagels and fruit.

To everyone who gets up early to serve coffee and snacks, and to every business that provides coffee and food, thank you. It's things like this that help make bike commuting a little more fun and inviting to a wider array of people, and that's a great thing.

In other news, if you follow my Twitter feed, you probably saw this video last week. Or maybe you saw it linked from numerous other sites after the bike world went nuts for the woman in San Francisco who flattened a thief as he tried to ride away on a bike he had just snatched from a rack at her workplace. Her boss at WCG, Stephen Yoon, sent me a link to the video a few days ago, and he is rightly proud of the brave woman who works for him as a designer.

I'm in awe of her badassery, and glad she's OK. Stephen said a security guard confronted the thief moments later, and was threatened with a knife.

Way to make the most of the element of surprise, Mystery Kick-ass Woman!

The Devil's in the Details

2011-07-24T21:49:00.000-08:00

Oscar near Devil's Pass

There’s nothing like an overdue to trail ride to improve my outlook on life, so Saturday was a good day. Oscar the Grouch and I motored down to the Kenai Peninsula and then pedaled up to Devil’s Pass. My original plan was to ride all the way to Cooper Landing, but a one-way ride with the resulting car shuttle didn’t hold much appeal with only two riders, and the rest of our group chose to stay home and vaccum the rugs, or grout the tub, or some such shit.

That’s OK. By the time we finished the 10-mile climb and then tacked on an extra mile or two on the Resurrection Pass trail, I was satisfied, and my legs were feeling cooked after my biggest week of bike commuting in years. Aiming the front wheel downhill and enjoying the descent didn’t bother me at all.

The weather was dry and the ride was sweet. And when we got back to town, the tub grouters made me dinner, and we shot the shit over wine for a few hours.

In other news, today we have a fine new entry into the Fabulous Finger Gallery, courtesy of Dann and his buddy Matt, who flipped the bird during the recent OWL ride, a fund-raiser event in Omaha. Dann said 2,000 riders lit up their bikes and rolled through town for 16 miles. Sounds like a hoot. (Sorry, I couldn’t resist.) Thanks for the pic, Dann.

And in a sad bit of news, several teenage hikers taking part in a NOLS course were attacked and mauled by a brown bear in the wilderness northeast of Talkeetna this weekend. Two of them suffered life-threatening injuries. Keep ’em in your thoughts and wish them a full recovery.

When stuff like this happens, it doesn’t matter who is a hiker, runner or mountain biker. All of us who find our fun in Alaska’s woods and backcountry face the same danger. It could happen to any of us.

May they heal quickly, and grow old with a story to tell.

Ass-kickin' her way to the podium

2011-07-20T21:32:00.000-08:00

Petra "The Apple" Davis in Sun Valley.
(Photo courtesy of Darcy "The Tree" Davis)

I was about to sit down and post another photo to the Fabulous Finger Gallery, but tonight Bicycles & Icicles will briefly suspend one-finger salutes to give a full salute to homegirl Petra Davis, who took third place in the Super D at this week's USA National Cycling Championship in Sun Valley, Idaho.

Her mom, Darcy, said Petra dropped 2,500 vertical feet in about 25 minutes on a six-mile course with a "super sketchy" surface. Gutsy.

But don't assume she's just a ballsy downhiller. She placed seventh in last October's Division II cross-country event at the Collegiate Mountain Bike National Championships in Truckee, Calif., while racing as a freshman for Montana State University-Bozeman. (I'd like to say I don't know where she gets it, but her parents have ripped my legs off on too many rides.)

Good work, Petra.

The long-haul lesson

2011-07-18T21:27:00.001-08:00

If there’s one thing I’ve learned after a week of commuting on the new Long Haul Trucker, it’s that rising out of the saddle to hammer on this bike is like taking a nun to an orgy. If there’s a point, nobody knows what it is.

The folks at Surly knew what they were doing when they named this thing. It's a truck on two wheels. It’ll haul a load and go all day, but it’ll also pound some humility into anyone who was fooled by carbon fiber into thinking they could scoot up hills with a fair amount of speed.

When a hill appears in front of this bike, you learn to gear down and take your time. It climbs just fine, but it does it on its own time.

Riding this bike makes me think about doing a little touring, but for now I’m just enjoying my new, longer commute, and feeling grateful for the miles and saddle time, because this summer just can’t seem to get off the ground as a mountain bike season.

It’s July 18, and I’ve ridden on the Kenai Peninsula only once, and that was about a month ago when a bunch of us headed down for a day in the middle of June to ride Johnson Pass before the cow parsnip could take it over.

Since then, I’ve been tied up with settling into the new job, building a new bike, and dealing with all the usual distractions of daily life. I can’t really say that sucks, but it definitely sucks to see the season slipping through my fingers when I haven’t touched my favorite summer trails like Lost Lake, Devil’s Pass or Crescent Lake.

It didn’t help, of course, that my fork crapped out at the beginning of July and had to be sent down to Push Industries for a rebuild. The wear and tear turned out to be bad enough that the old fork wasn’t worth the repair costs, so the guys at Push made me a good deal on a new fork that I installed last Thursday night.

It’s high time this situation was remedied. This weekend is going to involve a ride over Devil’s Pass, if I have anything to say about it.

Fireweed Dominance

2011-07-12T21:45:00.002-08:00

Leonard "Steel is Real" Fancher flips a Fireweed finger.

Damn, I have to say something nice about this guy. It pains me, but he earned it. My friend Leonard Fancher, who I crewed for in last year's Fireweed 400, returned to the race this year and not only placed third in the solo division, but finished in 28 hours, 12 minutes, which is about 3 hours faster than last year's time.

Leave it to Leonard to make sure the crew got back in time for plenty of sleep in the year I wasn't available to help. Nice work, Fancher! I'd be pretty pissed right now if you hadn't made time for a new entry in the Fabulous Finger Gallery.

Leonard's strong finish (on his trusty steel Waterford, no less) secured the top three spots for Backcountry Bicycles, with Erik Christensen finishing first, and Kristin Wolf taking second. And that's not second in the women's division, that's just flat-out second place with no asterisks or qualifiers.

That also made it a happy day for Janice at Tower Coaching, who trained all three racers.

Erik, Kristin and Leonard, you're all crazy. But amazing. Congratulations.

Come Monday, Vol. 2

2011-07-10T22:16:00.001-08:00

In my last post, I swore I'd finish building my new bike and ride it to work Monday morning. Then I remembered I have to boogie from the office straight to the Whale Fat Follies immediately after work. Combine that with the thought of locking a brand-new bike in the heart of Spenard for several hours at night, and it just ain't gonna happen.

That's OK. I finished the build and took the Trucker out for a couple of shakedown cruises this weekend, so it'll good to go come Tuesday morning. I rode it for about 90 minutes this afternoon to check for problems, and the only one I came up with was a tendency to reach for my brake levers every time I want to shift gears. It's gonna take a little time to get used to bar-end shifters.

It's always fun to put a new ride together, especially when it's a bike with some eccentricities. The steerer tube on the fork, for instance, was long enough to be used for a prosthetic leg. My new crown-race tool wouldn't work because it capped out nearly three inches above the crown. (Fortunately, I still have my old homemade crown-race driver, which is a steel tube with open ends.) Then there were the bar-end shifters, which just felt weird to install. And cable couplers for the rear brake and both derailleur cables.

Yeah, lots of funky stuff. Not to mention a head tube that makes the front of the frame look like it was built for an NBA center.

The result is a bike with some character, like all versions of the Long Haul Trucker. I think it's a good bike for Alaska. It's durable, strong, and a little goofy looking.

Sort of like the bicycle version of a moose.

Come Monday

2011-07-06T22:29:00.000-08:00

My new bike is suffering from constructus interruptus. Too much stuff going on right now. New job, house projects, upcoming visitors, yadda, yadda, yadda. As someone's grandpa used to say, I'm busier than a one-legged man at an ass-kickin' contest.

It's all good stuff, in the long run, but every night I come home hoping to finish the new Trucker Deluxe build, and every night I get tied up with other projects. All the new rig needs now is cables, brakes, shifters, and finishing touches like bar tape and cutting of the steerer tube.

I don't like looking at a half-built bike unless I'm about to finish the second half. At this rate, I probably won't tear into the final stages until Friday night.

So I'm clinging to the line from that great old Jimmy Buffett song (and yes, if you go back far enough, he wrote some great songs): "Come Monday, it'll be all right."

Come Monday, I plan to be riding that Trucker to work.

Happy Bird-flippin' Fourth

2011-07-04T04:00:00.001-08:00

Happy Fourth of July, courtesy of Amber, Rose

and Carey, who celebrated their freedom
to let their Fabulous Fingers fly
on rainy Resurrection Pass.

Damn fine work, ladies.
You make me proud to be an American.

Downtown bikes

2011-06-30T19:49:00.001-08:00

I took a picture yesterday that made me happy. I had walked a couple of blocks from my new office—which comes with the new job that has kept me too busy to blog for the past few days—to try a little sandwich shop in downtown Anchorage.

After I downed my pastrami and made a tiny dent in some work-related reading, I stepped out on the sidewalk an noticed a bunch of parking meters covered full of locked-up bicycles. I've spent little weekday time downtown over the past eight years, and during my first week back in the neighborhood, I've noticed a lot more bike commuters than I used to see.

But this was a sweet thing to witness. A long string of bicycles, and all sorts of people coming and going from nearby shops while wearing or carrying bike helmets. I like this change. And I think I'm going to like being downtown again.

Best of all, after three days of driving to work while learning a new routine, I rejoined the ranks of bike commuters this morning.

LHT WTF?

2011-06-25T21:46:00.001-08:00

Admittedly, this Long Haul Trucker was built for a tall person, and that rack is waaaay down there, but seriously? This is how the dude locks his bike?

It’s almost enough to make a guy want to take the bike for a few hours, if there was a way to find the owner and return it after he promised himself to never repeat such a mistake.

Poorly locked bikes always amaze me. I once saw a kid’s bike at my daughter’s school with a cheap cable running through the rack and around the seatpost ... with more than enough slack cable to simply pull it off around the saddle.

In college, I was walking out of the student union one day when I heard a young woman exclaim to her friend, “Where’s my bike?! I left it right here!” When the friend asked if she had locked it, she replied, “YES!”

The problem was, she was standing in the middle of a half-acre of featureless, bike-rack-free concrete. She was one of many students who routinely ran a cable lock through the front wheel and through the frame, then assumed no thief would simply pick up the bike and carry it away.

Although bikes are stolen here every day, Anchorage has never seemed like a city where serious bike thieves prowl. I suspect many thefts are crimes of opportunity.

Slow down and double-check your lock before walking away. Don’t give thieves an opportunity.

Something fishy's goin' on

2011-06-22T22:43:00.000-08:00

We have another fresh photo for the Fabulous Finger Gallery, courtesy of Alaska Bike Girl. That's her on the right, smiling at the prospect of chowin' down on that big king salmon, which she and her friends caught last weekend while the rest of us were out riding singletrack.

Personally, I think pedaling over Johnson Pass was more fun than splashing around in the frigid waters of lower Cook Inlet that day but, come winter, Rose will still be eating a big, tasty stash of fish.

Great weekend

2011-06-19T20:06:00.000-08:00

I finally got out Saturday for the first big mountain-bike ride of summer, and was reminded of A) how beautiful the scenery is on Johnson Pass Trail, and B) what crappy shape I'm in this year. Fortunately, my friends let me set the pace and cruise easy all day.

Then we ate pizza and drank beer. And that right there, boys and girls, is what you call a kick-ass Saturday.

Fortunately for me, I'm a dad, which means I got a little schwag on Father's Day. My sweet daughter Hannah gave me a flask with a water bottle cage she had reshaped to carry it. And what accessory do you think will be the first to get bolted to the frame of my new Long Haul Trucker?

Oh, yeah. This one's getting a prime spot on my new ride.

Downhill D-bags

2011-06-14T21:07:00.003-08:00

I hate it when bike riders piss me off as much as Nordic skiers do. I also hate that our sport has fragmented into distinct groups, one of which seems to attract more than its share of self-absorbed douche bags.

Yeah, I’m talking about you, downhill punks. It’s hard enough to respect coasters who do nothing but shuttle uphill in pickups, but when you behave like assholes, I simply abandon any pretense of respecting you.

I know some downhillers are nice people. I’ve know one or two of them. But for every good one, there seems to be 25 pricks. They’re the ones who bomb two-way singletrack, endangering anyone pedaling uphill.

They’re the ones who skid into every corner, shredding every trail they touch.

They’re the ones who do nothing to help build and maintain trails.

They’re the ones who strut around with the cocky attitudes of teenage brats desperate to impress chicks.

They’re the ones who cop an ugly attitude when a real mountain biker tries to have a civil conversation about controlling speed and respecting the safety of uphill riders.

They’re the ones who would probably never read this blog. But to all of them I have only one thing to say: Screw you.

Quote of the Week

2011-06-13T06:48:00.002-08:00

"Had my first long bike ride - wow! It was like flying!
Like flying while getting punched in the vagina!"

—Sarah Silverman, via Twitter

Steel is Real

2011-06-08T22:05:00.001-08:00

The Great Singlespeed Experiment is coming to an end. I recently posted my thoughts about riding to work on a singlespeed, and stated that if my commute were to get any longer, the first thing I’d do is install gears on my old Stumpjumper.

I knew at the time that a longer commute was a possibility. Now that it’s becoming a reality when I move to a new job later this month, I’ve decided to retire the beloved 15-year-old Stumpy and its bombproof M2 frame, and replace it with a 3-in-1 ride.

Surly’s new Trucker Deluxe—which won’t be released until about the first of July—is equipped with S&S couplers and will 1.) make a faster, more comfortable bike for my 20-mile roundtrip commute; 2.) eliminate my desire to buy a Bike Friday to avoid airline baggage-fee extortion and still get exercise during short, nonbiking vacations and business trips; 3.) accommodate tires up to 2.1” wide, meaning I won’t to keep an extra bike around for icy conditions.

There’s even the fourth benefit of giving me a touring and brevet bike in case I someday manager to get off my ice and actually do a tour or brevet. And because the Trucker Deluxe comes only in a 26-inch-wheel version, I can save money by cannibalizing wheels, brakes, fenders, etc., from my existing bike and spare-parts box.

It’s gonna be one bad mother trucker.

Dumped in Dyea

2011-06-07T20:20:00.003-08:00

Dyea, Alaska, 6.4.2011

Broken bicycles, old busted chains
With rusted handle bars, out in the rain
Somebody must have an orphanage for
All these things that nobody wants any more

—"Broken Bicycles"
by Tom Waits

Re-cyclist

2011-06-03T14:07:00.001-08:00

Recycling isn’t just the right thing to do. In Southeast Alaska, it can help keep you dry while riding to work. I spotted this homemade fender on a bike sitting just outside the Juneau airport a few days ago, and it was a fun reminder of the kind do-it-yourself ingenuity I often see on battered bikes in this part of the state.

I think this stuff is more common here because A) new accessories can be hard to come by in the small towns and many islands scattered across the state’s panhandle, and B) the summer workers who flood in here each year live as cheaply as possible and often have only fleeting, three-month relationships with battered bikes that are either sold or abandoned when it’s time to head south again.

The result is bikes that are used to get from Point A to Point B with a minimum of expense and frills. There’s a nice purity in that.

It doesn’t appear that the guy who rides this bike felt any need to spend $30 on a fancy fender. He might not have even drank the cocktail mix or eaten the fruit that provided his raw materials, but he certainly spent the time to do a neat job on his homemade rig. And that makes it a beautiful thing.

And so it begins

2011-05-30T19:26:00.000-08:00

I'm gonna miss Jules and her Monkee Man this summer.

Summer is officially under way, and my unplanned hiatus from blogging appears to be over. There’s been no action on the blog for 10 days or so, because real life kept getting in the way. Then an extended holiday weekend got in the way. Sunny weather and a few vacation days are not conducive to pissing away time on the laptop.

For once, I loved those pessimistic weathermen being wrong. Memorial Day weekend was as warm and sunny as the weather can get in Southcentral Alaska, so I squeezed in a trail ride on Friday before my sister and brother-in-law arrived for a brief visit, then the three of us got out for a nice cruise on Sunday morning before I joined friends for another trail ride and then met up with everyone for food and beer on the sunny deck at Midnight Sun Brewing Company.

And that shit, my friends, is what a good Sunday is made of.

May it last all summer.

Anyone Can

2011-05-20T00:01:00.000-08:00

Always read Frazz. It'll make you a better person.

For Bike to Work Day, I’m getting my car back.

Last August, I wrote about my daughter’s need for a car to get to her various classes and appointments during the school year. Riding the bus or commuting by bike were not options because of her difficult schedules, multiple locations, materials for her various classes, not to mention winter weather. I’m a winter commuter, but it wasn’t realistic for her.

I wasn’t ready to blow the bucks on another car, so I gave her mine for the school year, and committed to riding to work every day. On days when I truly needed to drive for at least part of a day, she and I made it work by taking turns dropping each other wherever we needed to be. I think I’ve driven to work less than five times since the end of August.

The school year just ended. And you know what? It has been easy. I haven’t missed the option of bailing out and driving to work.

Sure, I had a couple of advantages and caught some breaks. We didn’t have a snowstorm big enough to stop a fat bike; I had a studded bike ready when things got icy; my commute is short; and I dodged any nasty cold or flu that would have made riding in nasty weather unbearable. (Of course, the riding probably played a big role in keeping me healthy.)

And, though it might have been inconvenient, I had access to a car if I truly needed it. As I pointed out last August, owning a car can be a good thing, because riding to work is more fun when it’s a choice, not a necessity.

Other than owning a couple of good bikes that are specifically designed or set up for the task, there is nothing special about me as a year-round bike commuter. I’m just a 48-year-old guy who sits at a desk and needs to lose 20 pounds. If I can ride every day, most people could, if they tried.

If you’re pedaling to work today, don’t make this the only day of the year that you do it. Bike to Work Day isn’t about the free coffee at an aid station, or the T-shirt you might score for being part of a team at your office. Those are just nice perks. It’s really about learning that you can leave your car at home and be just fine.

Make it a habit. Everyone will benefit. Most of all, you.

Ride to work. While you still can.

2011-05-17T20:12:00.004-08:00

People I would never invite to dinner have been telling us for weeks that the world will end this Saturday, so I guess Friday’s official Bike to Work Day is more important than ever. Get your ass on a bike, because if the nutjobs are right, this could be your last chance.

Friday is the day most of us will find our commuting routes busier than ever, but don’t you worry your pretty little heads. Most of the bikes you see that day will be safely stowed back in their garages come Monday morning, and you’ll have the bike paths to yourself again.

I make fun of Bike to Work Day every year because I know that most of the participants won’t ride to work more than a handful of days each year. But that doesn’t mean I don’t support the idea. If anyone who tries bike commuting that day decides to stick with it, that’ll be progress. I would be thrilled to see 20 riders on my commuting route every morning instead of the two I see now.

Bike to Work Day is a good thing, and Bicycle Commuters of Anchorage—a great group—is celebrating it by organizing the BCA Bacon Station on the Chester Creek trail at East Chester Park, east of the tunnel under the Seward Highway. Spenard Roadhouse will cook the bacon, Raven’s Brew Coffee will brew the coffee and Great Harvest Bread will bake the cookies.

If, like me, you don’t pass anywhere near that station while riding to work, there are more options for getting a free cup of coffee or a light snack during Friday’s morning commute. Thanks to Dawn at BCA for providing the following information:

Chain Reaction Cycles will be at it again with the station located on Elmore at the Elmore/Abbott intersection. Their station will be sponsored by House of Bread.

CRW Engineering Group and DOWL HKM will put aside their rivalry for one day—and one day only—to offer a joint venture replenishment station for Bike to Workers. Stop by the northeastern corner of Tudor Road and C Street (in front of the big red fish) for treats and prizes.

South Central and ANTHC will again have a station outside of the ANTHC building (near Elmore & Tudor).

Thompson & Co. Public Relations will be providing goodies and coffee from Kaladi Brothers Coffee at 9th Avenue and E Street. The Anchorage Downtown Partnership will be there with raffle drawings for dining certificates at downtown restaurants.

For those who fear they may get sweaty, all the Alaska Club locations are offering free showers to anyone who brings in their bike helmet on Friday.

Those free showers could be especially handy for sinners who are sweating bullets about Saturday.

Road Train to Texas

2011-05-15T21:54:00.001-08:00

Keith the Ham
Photo by Tony A.

Riding out toward Chugiak today, I noticed a guy taking a break beside the bike path. It’s hard to miss a guy pulling two BOB trailers at once. A few minutes later, he caught up to our group after we took a snack stop.

His rig was a spectacle: A Rivendell Atlantis towing two trailers, one of which had a somewhat large, flexible solar panel draped over its load. This was a long-haul set-up. A very heavy long-haul set-up, from what I could tell. I pedaled beside him for a minute to ask where he was headed with this huge load. The answer? Fairbanks ... then Texas, where he said he hopes to arrive about five months from now.

I needed to start catching up to Carl and Oscar, and the road traffic was too loud for more questions, so I didn’t ask about the solar panel. Probably for a cell phone, I figured.

Yeah, not so much.

Turns out, my friend Tony had run into this guy, Keith, as he was passing through Anchorage earlier in the day, so Tony got more information. The dude’s traveling with a ham radio, for crap’s sake. And there might be a laptop in there, for all I know. So, what the hell, if you’re driving up the Alaska Highway this summer, you can try to give him a call on the radio. (Or you can stop and hand him a cold beer if you see him laboring up a big-ass climb with his road train.)

You can follow Keith’s progress via his blog, and check out his radio set up by going here, and searching for "KE1THR."

Keith, may the road be kind, and the hills gentle. I hope to read five months from now that you’ve put down the kickstands on those trailers in Brownsville. And if I do, I'll know it's you because, before today, I've never seen anyone who used so many trailers he actually needed kickstands on them.

It's only a bike ride

2011-05-10T22:27:00.002-08:00

I don’t follow road racing much these days, but Wouter Weylandt’s fatal crash occupied my thoughts for much of the day on Monday. The death of a cyclist always strikes a chord, but when it happens in a major pro race to a young athlete, the resulting media coverage can be riveting.

The details come more quickly, the rider’s personal life is splashed all over the Internet (to know that Weylandt’s girlfriend is expecting their first child in September made me wince) and, of course, there’s video.

I’m not ashamed to say I searched websites for footage of Weylandt’s crash. Some people may consider that distasteful, but I didn’t have a morbid desire to watch a young man die; I just wanted to understand how he could. I wanted to know what happened. I wanted to learn from it because I ride bicycles, too.

It’s the same reason I scour news reports for details after bear maulings. I want to know what happened—and why—because I ride in bear country all summer long. Learning from someone else’s experience might make me a little bit safer.

Conflicting stories have made it hard to understand the exact circumstance’s of Weylandt’s crash. I’m still not clear on whether he went over a stone wall and fell a significant distance, or simply clipped the wall with a pedal and hit the pavement hard because of his speed. What I do know is that his death makes me question why recreational riders like me are willing to indulge in the thrill of high-speed descents.

I prefer to not think about the consequences of a crash at 45 or 50 mph. I just like to go fast. And for guys like me, going downhill is the only way we’ll come anywhere near experiencing what a pro feels on a bike in the mountains. I really don’t want to stop doing it.

But things can turn to shit, and they can turn to shit fast.

I’ve always liked to think that, for guys like me, there was nothing at stake during a ride except the stories to be told over a post-ride beer. But there’s a lot more on the line.

Maybe tapping the brake levers a little more often wouldn’t be a bad idea.

Fat-bike karma can run over your Dogma

2011-05-08T22:13:00.003-08:00

This bike makes my pants wanna get up and dance. Seriously. I want to straddle that sucker like other aging schlubs like me want to drive a Lamborghini with a Playmate in the passenger seat. If I could afford a midlife-crisis road bike, the Pinarello Dogma would probably be on my short list of hot things that are faster than I deserve.

But I call bullshit on the ad campaign Pinarello is using to market this lust-worthy machine.

They're calling it "the world's first asymmetric bicycle." What the hell?

I guess they've never heard of the Wildfire Fatbike, or its better-known clone, the Surly Pugsley. You want asymmetry? Try having your seat stays drop about two-thirds of the way to the axle before detouring a couple of inches to the right.

Fatbikes might be the chubby chicks who never got invited to the prom, but they were proudly letting one side hang differently than the other for years before Pinarello started flashing its lopside Italian D cups.

Desert Rats

2011-05-03T21:41:00.002-08:00

Shortly after I posted last week's addition to the Fabulous Finger Gallery, I received the following message via e-mail from a Bicycles & Icicles reader named Tomasz Studziński:

"Don't you forget about guys out of Eastern Europe. Flip off procedure far away from home. Syrian Desert. Right on time."

In the annals of serial flinger flipping, I have never looked at my inbox to find a photo attached to the words "Syrian Desert." Nor have I ever seen two guys in more dire need of some fat bikes and a snowy stretch of singletrack on which to cool off.

Tomasz and his friends took this photo during a trip that started and ended in Adana, Turkey, and passed through Syria and Lebanon. They got the shot on their third day of pedaling straight ahead while crossing the desert.

They might not have felt like it at the time, but that's pretty badass, in my book.

Strong work, gentlemen.

Chill out and wait

2011-04-29T21:52:00.003-08:00

Springtime in Alaska means many things, but you can always count on two: muddy trails, and dickheads who think it’s OK to ride on them.

Overnight temps have only recently started staying above the freezing point. There’s still snow scattered all over the place, and it’s melting. Unfortunately, not everyone understood what the science teacher was talking about when he explained the whole solid/liquid/gas thing.

Here’s a basic primer you can share with any morons you know who are rutting trails weeks before anyone should be riding on them:

Water vapor (gas) in the atmosphere eventually cools and coalesces into droplets (liquid) or, in winter, flakes of snow (solid) and falls to earth. When the liquid form falls as rain, it is absorbed into soil and—if absorbed in sufficient quantities—converts dry soil into a substance commonly referred to as mud, which is quite soft, and even fluid in extreme cases. Mud is especially prone to erosion and changes in the appearance and shape of its surface.

When snow (a solid, remember) falls and accumulates on the ground during winter, it routinely retains its solid form over long periods. As ambient temperatures rise, the snow melts into water (liquid), which is absorbed into the soil with the same results as described above.

To reduce damage and maintenance to areas of soil that have been modified for human use, hereby referred to as “trails,” it is recommended that recreational pursuits that might cause long-term harm to temporarily soft surfaces be postponed until the liquid in the soil evaporates into the surrounding air, thereby returning to gas form and beginning the cycle anew, and leaving the soil in a firm state. In regions above a latitude of 60 degrees N , this generally results in delayed gratification until approximately the beginning of June or, in some fortunate areas, the beginning of May.

During the month of April, you should grow the hell up and keep your selfish ass off the trails until they’re really dry. Until you do, I will keep hoping for a big stick (solid) to get flipped through your spokes, resulting in a crash that causes a flow of blood (liquid) from your sorry ass.

Between a rock and a ...

2011-04-26T21:49:00.004-08:00

Trivia question: What do I have in common with Lance Armstrong? Seven Tour de France victories? Nope. Dated Sheryl Crow? Nope. One nut? Nope. Admired by millions? Hell no. Hated by ... nevermind, I'll stop there.

The only thing I have in common with the winningest soon-to-be-(possibly)-indicted cyclist in the history of the world's greatest bike race is being flipped off by people all over the world. Hell, I bet I could even top Armstrong in the category of being flipped off in more countries than I've actually visited.

(Click the pic to see the larger version in all its glory.)

The latest, greatest addition to the World-famous Fabulous Finger Gallery is a stellar showing of disrespectful digits from a whole gaggle of mountaineers who were led into this mess by my friend Harter. That's him on the ground out front, during the crew's rock-climbing trip in Penticton, British Columbia.

Even with some conscientious objectors in the crowd, they managed to get 27 people to let it rip, and that's damn impressive. In fact, I think it's a flippin' record! This is the best mass flip-off since that international incident at Refugio Monte Bianco back in '09.

If you'll excuse me a minute, I think I have something in my eye.

Good job, Harter. And thank you, Bellingham climbers!

(Note: For those of you who are new to the Finger Gallery, don't forget to keep clicking "Older Posts" when you get to the bottom of the screen, because this thing has become a monster.)

We don't get to know why

2011-04-24T21:36:00.001-08:00

The word finally came on Friday. The motorist who struck and killed William Curry in Midtown three weeks ago will not face charges.

According to news reports, police interviewed the driver and eyewitnesses who said Curry was riding against traffic in the roadway and steered into the car’s path as he crossed against a red light when the driver was turning right on a green. Whether it was a factor in the collision is unknown, but police said he was also wearing “an iPhone headset,” which is against the law.

Some riders were frustrated, and have questioned the use of Curry’s GPS data in the investigation, saying—correctly—that the margin of error is too great for a GPS to determine whether Curry was on the sidewalk or in the street. The story I read gave no indication of whether police used the GPS data to determine anything more than his direction of travel. It could have been witnesses who convinced police that he was in the roadway.

My initial reaction on Friday was disappointment. When a cyclist dies, I want someone to pay. I want to know the police did a fair and thorough investigation. So I re-read the news story a couple of times. Was the investigation solid? I can’t say for sure. But I see nothing to indicate it wasn’t. It looks like Curry made a fatal mistake.

So why do those of us who commute on bikes often think we’d feel better if we knew a bicyclist died because the motorist did something wrong?

How would it be better if the driver had been drunk, malicious, or sending text messages instead of watching the road? Is that supposed to make us feel better?

Maybe it’s because we want to make sense of tragedy. Maybe we look for martyrs. Maybe a little part of each of us hopes that, if it ever happens to us, it won’t be for no reason.

Maybe we don’t want to think we could make the same mistake.

I’ve made that kind of error. The kind that could have killed me. I’ve found myself in the path of fast-moving cars after I misjudged speed or blew a judgment call because I was in a hurry and thinking about my arrival more than my survival. So far, I’ve always been lucky enough to accelerate fast and find an escape route. Some day, I might not.

If a motorist ever takes me out for the wrong reason, I hope the police nail him. But I’ll never take comfort in knowing a bicyclist died because a car driver made stupid mistakes. Because there’s no comfort in knowing careless, drunk or homicidal motorists are on the road.

It's dangerous enough out there already.

If it's a dream, don't wake me up

2011-04-20T19:50:00.004-08:00

Rolling downhill toward an intersection this morning, I made the usual check over my left shoulder to determine if I would need to stop before crossing the automobile exit chute at the upcoming roundabout. There was a small, white sports car coming up fast. Then a weird thing happened.

He slowed down and waited.

He corked traffic for me and held two cars behind him. And he did it early so that I’d know I had plenty of room. With no eastbound cars coming through from the other side, I was good to go as he returned my “thanks” wave.

I still don’t know what’s going on lately, but I like it. I wrote in December about seeing more consideration from drivers, and I expected the phenomenon to evaporate as we gained light and the weather warmed up. Instead, I’m still seeing a surprising number of people behind the wheel who are being nice to me when I’m on a bike.

Don’t get me wrong. We still have our share of bad—even malicious—motorists on Anchorage streets. I routinely get buzzed by drivers too lazy to move a couple of feet to the left. But I feel encouraged to see so many others anticipating my needs and overtly yielding the right of way, or going out of their way to give me extra space.

Do I dare allow myself to believe it could be a sign of growing acceptance? No doubt a few drivers are operating in a heightened state of awareness after the death of a local bike commuter earlier this month. The friendly behavior could still fade as summer approaches.

I can’t help but wonder if some of those friendly drivers work in offices with bike commuters.

Non-biking co-workers have told me that when they hear of a bike rider getting hurt, they think of me, and hope that I’m OK. I think that’s because the more we ride to work, the more we humanize the image of bike commuters.

Maybe for some people, a figure on a bike is becoming a reminder of a person they know and like. The woman they sit next to in the office, or the guy they went to lunch with yesterday. That can buy a cyclist a little extra space, or a little more patience from the person behind the wheel.

Or maybe I've just been on a lucky streak and I'm grasping at a fantasy.

I guess we have to find glimmers of hope wherever we can.

Noise

2011-04-17T20:24:00.002-08:00

Pedaling home from Friday night’s memorial ride on my trusty, but battered, commuter, a guy followed me briefly after a traffic light, and I almost apologized for the loud clicks coming from my pedal/crank area. Shit, that was annoying. Why do I always forget that the big disadvantage of switching from studs to slicks every spring is that I can suddenly hear all the neglected bike parts?

After squeezing a bunch of grease through the pedal axles, and pulling off the cranks to lube the contact points, I’m hoping Monday’s commute will be quiet. I’ve always believed that a noisy bike indicates a poor upbringing. I may not know which fork to use at a nice restaurant, but I’ll be damned if my chain’s gonna squeak.

Speaking of noise, we’re entering the noise-making season again. My friend Randy took this shot of a black bear with three spring cubs on Rover’s Run three days ago. If you’re managing to get out in the woods during the sloppy spring thaw, remember you’re not alone.

Seagulls and Canada geese have returned, and now the bears are waking up. That can mean only one thing.

Mosquitoes are next.

Ride for William Curry

2011-04-15T23:33:00.001-08:00

Memorial ride organized by
Bicycle Commuters of Anchorage
4-15-2011

An estimated 100 bicyclists pause
for a traffic light while riding
north along C Street.

A memorial "ghost bike" at Tudor Road and C Street,
the intersection where William Curry died.

A tribute at the site,
where William's sister
spoke to the riders.

Let's hope we don't see any more
of these this year.

Thanks to Bicycle Commuters of Anchorage,
the riders, the motorists who offered friendly honks,
and the state trooper who stopped to show support.

Unchained

2011-04-12T20:13:00.002-08:00

Well, my winter riding season ended with a big, fat whimper. I went out Saturday morning to bag one last cruise on some snowy trails, then snapped a chain pin about 20 minutes into the ride. Of course, all my chain tools were on other bikes or my work bench, so I tossed the chain in my frame bag and then walked/coasted back to the car.

Strangely, I didn’t mind that much. It was a nice day for a walk through the woods. Nevertheless, it was an underwhelming way to end the fat-bike season. Damn April.

I’ve never actually tracked it, but I’d be willing to bet that I gain more weight this month than any other time of year. The riding sucks. I usually spend a big part of the month riding only to work and back while waiting for the pavement to become sufficiently dry and (somewhat) clean for decent road biking.

On the bright side, the doldrums give me time to try new things, so I’ve recently started posting on Twitter. I’ve always thought “tweeting” seemed silly but what the hell, I once thought only nerds wrote blogs. (Maybe starting a Twitter account proved me right.)

Anyway, I often come across interesting links or think up wiseass comments that never make their way to this page, so head over to Twitterland and check out @icybikes if you want some more (mostly) bike-related stuff.

It was my friend Anthony’s Twitter feed that alerted me to his nomination of his wife, Sierra, for the Kazlaw Community Mountain Biking Award. Thanks to everyone who voted for her. And if you didn't, click on over and give Sierra some electoral love.

After all, it's not every day you get a chance to vote for someone who won't spend the next four years disappointing you.

William Curry Memorial Ride

2011-04-12T07:00:00.003-08:00

Bicycle Commuters of Anchorage is organizing a memorial ride in William Curry's honor.

The ride will begin at at 5:30 p.m. this Friday from Curry's office at Raspberry and C Street, and proceed to the spot where he was struck and killed by a car a Tudor Road and C Street. If you can't reach the starting point by 5:30, you can join the group at Tudor and C at 6 p.m.

Get out the vote

2011-04-10T21:15:00.001-08:00

Sierra in action. Photo by Anthony DeLorenzo

When was the last time you had a chance to vote for someone who A) wasn’t the lesser of two evils, and B) wasn’t sure to leave you disappointed four years later? Well, here’s your chance.

My Yukoner friend Anthony has nominated his lovely, badass wife, Sierra, for the BC Bike Race, so I’m asking everyone who reads Bicycles & Icicles to click on over here and cast a vote for Sierra van der Meer to win the Kazlaw Community Mountain Biking Award. If she wins, she'll get free entry in the race. Sierra’s a hardcore mountain biker who gives a lot to the Whitehorse bike community, and she deserves the votes. You can read her profile right here.

You can’t lose with a vote like this, because Sierra won’t raise your taxes and she won’t cut your favorite social program. She’ll just go out and put the hurt on some fellow mountain bikers, then keep helping promote mountain biking in Whitehorse. (Which makes her far more fun and productive than anyone in Washington.)

Damn, it’s good to be thinking about mountain biking again. We’re still six or seven weeks away from dry trails in Anchorage, but it’s good just to know it’s coming. It’s been too long since I stood in a hot shower while drinking a cold beer and watching muddy water flow off my shins and down the drain.

The Great SS Experiment

2011-04-07T20:34:00.003-08:00

A couple of years ago, curious about all the passion some people exhibit for singlespeeds, I bought a conversion kit and turned my old commuter into a model of simplicity.

My old Stumpjumper was a great mountain bike its day, but after years on singletrack it had slowly evolved into a stripped-down, fully rigid and fender-equipped town bike, so taking it singlespeed seemed like the next step. Every few months, I still conduct a mental inventory of the pros and cons of having only one gear. For quite a while, I kept thinking that as time passed, singlespeeding might grow on me.

Sorry, derailleur haters, but that hasn’t happened. I even tried taking my SS for a trail ride once. And once was enough.

There is only one advantage to going shifter-free: I get to mostly ignore bike maintenance in the sloppy, wet weather of autumn and spring. Other than some occasional chain lube, I don’t do much of anything to my bike.

But here’s the rub: I wasn’t spending much time on maintenance when my commuter bike had derailleurs. All I had to do was occasionally wipe off some gunk, lube the chain and squirt a drop or two of TriFlow in a few key spots. Maybe install some new cables and housing every couple of years.

For a little extra effort, derailleurs allow me to gear down and pedal through three inches of wet, spring snow without abusing my knees at the end of a long day. They allow me to move a little faster when I’m running late. They help me glide up hills when I’m hauling cargo like a lock, cans of Diet Coke and/or a container of lasagna that I plan to eat for lunch.

Singlespeeders love to brag about spending less time on maintenance, but I’d be willing to bet that, over the course of a year, derailleurs save far more time than they cost. Hell, now I have to disassemble the Surly Singleator and reverse its spring tension if I switch from a 16-tooth summer cog to an 18-tooth winter one, not to mention changing chain length every time I mess with the gearing. I never had to do those things with a derailleur.

The old Stumpjumper will remain a singlespeed for now, because my commute is short and fairly flat, leaving me little motivation to blow a few bucks on a new drivetrain. But if I suddenly found myself facing a longer ride to work, one of the first things I’d do is re-install a full range of gears.

Singlespeeding is still silly.

Rider Down

2011-04-05T18:58:00.003-08:00

What a tragic way to kick off spring.

William Curry was struck and killed by a car at Tudor and C Street last night. He kept a ride log at Endomondo, and his friends told reporters that, when he died, Curry was riding his bike to his girlfriend's house after work.

That’s the map of his final ride at the top of this post. He was about three miles from home, and police said he had taken all the right steps to make himself visible while riding at night.

APD Sgt. Glen Daily told KTUU: "He's got reflective clothing, you may be able to see a flashing unit that bicyclists have, he's got a helmet on, proper equipment -- it might just be an unfortunate series of events."

Curry was just 36 years old.

All the details haven’t come out yet, but the result was what we all know—when car meets bicycle, the bicycle loses.

Be careful out there, people. It’s not enough to be visible. You have to make them see you.

No More Mr. Nice Guy

2011-04-03T21:10:00.006-08:00

Road-bike season is just around the corner, and this year I have decided to try extra hard to avoid getting killed.

Last April, I took a fall that scared everyone who witnessed it. One guy told me that he actually shut his eyes when he thought I was about to get snuffed. I didn't write about it on the blog, because it took awhile to process and I never got around to figuring out how to describe it.

I was on a 100k ride from Anchorage to Girdwood and back, and was used to riding only one other person in the group. (That should always raise a caution flag.) We were on the Seward Highway, also known as the most dangerous highway in Alaska. (That should always raise a caution flag, too.)

One rider was a lot slower than the main group, and I didn’t want her to feel bad for always being off the back, so on the return from Girdwood, I slowed down to ride near her for a while. After a stop that pulled the group back together, I decided to bring up the rear.

We were soon nearing McHugh Creek south of Anchorage when one guy flatted and other riders began pulling to the side of the shoulder to wait. That’s when I made the mistake of passing Miss Slow on her left.

Next thing I knew, she was body-checking me toward the northbound lane of the highway on a sunny Saturday afternoon. When you’re looking at the white line and your brain instantly calculates that the upper half of your body is going to land in the lane of traffic, you have a second or two to think about things.

You think about things like the Seward Highway being the state’s most infamous, and how popular it is with distracted sightseers on sunny days. And you think about how that stretch of the highway has only one lane going each direction and very little room for motorists to swerve around falling cyclists. You also think about the fact your head will soon be directly in the path of tires traveling 60 mph.

That’s not a happy moment.

As soon as I hit the pavement, I knew I needed to get up fast. But there was a woman on my legs, and she was still trying to unclip from her pedals. I couldn’t do anything but wait until she got up or everything went dark.

So I laid there and waited. A couple of other riders soon realized she wasn't moving quickly enough, so they pulled her off me. As I started to get up, I finally did what I'd been afraid to do from the ground—I turned and looked behind me. Two pickups had managed to come to a complete stop to avoid crushing me. (The next time you get pissed off at a bad driver, remember to be grateful for the alert, careful ones.)

We all regrouped for a few minutes as the flat tire was repaired. When we started riding again, I was high on adrenaline and led us into Anchorage with a wide gap. It was several miles before I realized two of my fingers were really hurting. After I pulled off my glove and got a look at my hand, my friend Heather and I split from the group and took a direct route to my house, where we poured some wine and put a bag of ice on my hand. When my wife—a nurse—showed up with pizza, she took one look at my fingers and announced that my wedding ring had to be cut off immediately. Heather’s husband, Ken, did the deed with a pair of wire cutters.

Because it was one of the few times I've had a potentially fatal experience on a bike, I drank more than my share of wine that night. My fingers—which had probably been smashed between my handlebar and the pavement—were swollen for weeks. All this because I failed to recognize that someone in the group was still learning to use clipless pedals.

I like doing things to encourage new riders. We've all been there. And we've all fallen because we were learning to unclip. Being patient and bringing more people into the cult is a good thing. But I think I'll restrict those efforts to singletrack.

I’ll be keeping an eye out for newbies on the road this spring, and I’ll be keeping my distance.

Freeze your keys

2011-03-30T20:40:00.003-08:00

Just in time for gas hitting four bucks a gallon in Anchorage—and much of the ice and slush slowly disappearing—Bicycle Commuters of Anchorage are kicking off their second Freeze My Keys event.

The concept is simple: You freeze your car keys (symbolically, if you’re squeamish about potentially ruining your high-tech keys with all the electronic doodads they put in them these days) and commit to not using a car for the month of April. Or, if that’s not realistic, you can promise to freeze your keys for a couple of hours, days or weeks, and log as many commuter errands or trips on the bicycle as possible.

And because no bike event is complete without some swag, some of Anchorage's small businesses have donated locally produced prizes, which participants can qualify to win by visiting the businesses.

“We are showing Anchorage business owners that catering to bicyclists is good for business and we’re telling Anchorage bicycle commuters to support bike-friendly businesses,” said BCA Vice President Dawn Groth.

Freeze My Keys kicks off this Friday at 5:45 p.m. at Modern Dwellers Chocolate Lounge, 751 E. 36th Ave., and coincides with BCA’s Bike First Friday non-motorized tour of art galleries. Participants are encouraged to ride their bikes, and bring an old unimportant key, which will be symbolically stowed in the deep freeze for April, after members group-pledge to bicycle commute more often for more reasons.

Fastest Man in the White Mountains

2011-03-28T15:01:00.007-08:00

Greg in Hope after
the 2011 Soggy Bottom

Bicycles & Icicles would like to offer a big congratulations to Greg Matyas, owner of Speedway Cycles, who proved—again—that even an old guy with an achy back can be a big-time ass kicker.

Greg won this year's White Mountains 100 with an elapsed time of 10.2 hours. And this came only a few weeks after his third-place finish in the 350-mile Iditarod Trail Invitational.

Congratulations to everyone who finished, including my friends Janice Tower, who took second on the women's bike division; Rachel Steer, who took second in the women's ski division; as well as Brian Garcia and Julie Malingowski for solid finishes. And condolences to Julie, who was derailed by mechanical problems and forced to scratch after a winter of training hard and looking strong.

I guess this means she has to start training for next year.

Muddy mate

2011-03-25T19:53:00.000-08:00

I'd like to thank to my man Ashley, aka lemmiwinks, for providing the latest piece of fine art to grace the Fabulous Finger Gallery. This shot comes from Down Under—lemmi’s home turf of Australia.

As lemmiwinks explained it, he's a “roadie by nature” who was recently given a free GT Outpost Trail steel frame (circa 1990s) that he built up using the parts he had lying around. Then he took it out out and trashed it in a race that raised funds for a rescue helicopter.

Looks a little slippery, eh? Here’s his description:

“As you can see it was wet and muddy. I still had mud in my ears after taking a shower. They called it off after four hours, I got two laps in, my teammate one. We weren't too devastated—the slipperiness was indescribable.

If there’s anything I love more than international submissions to the FFG, it’s mountain bikers with enough good humor to build up old frames and flog themselves against the terra.

Cheers, Ashley.

Sprung

2011-03-20T22:56:00.004-08:00

Darcy on Janice's Jive, 3.20.11

My candle burns at both ends It will not last the night; But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends, It gives a lovely light.: —Edna St. Vincent Millay,; "A Few Figs from Thistles"

People have many ways of determining the beginning of spring. Some people use the official date on the calendar but many of us—especially this far north, where weather often fails to match the "official" season—use personal and eccentric milestones. For those who hate winter, spring arrives when the last snow melts.

I usually call it spring when the Iditarod ends, because that's when the daytime weather is often in the balmy 40s, and the sun is high enough to eliminate the long shadows we've lived with for months. But the real proof of spring, for me, always seems to come at the end of a sunny day. The kind of day that begins with a plan to spend a couple of hours riding before taking on the daunting list of shit that gots to get done ... but really ends after a longer ride, a beer or two, a late dinner and then a flurry of vacuuming, laundry, and hours on the laptop catching up on more shit that gots to get done. (Like blogging at 11 p.m. instead of going to bed, for example .)

Until we start to get a little taste of sunlight-related sleep deprivation, it's still winter. But then we finally crest that hill and begin rolling toward summer, the season marked by rides that keep us out until midnight and make us cringe because we'll be lucky to get five hours of sleep before going to work in the morning.

Spring is finally knocking at the door.

I can feel it now.

Larry

2011-03-14T20:11:00.006-08:00

Hi. I'm Larry, this is my brother Darryl, and this is my other brother Darryl.

I always loved that line on The Newhart Show. I've been thinking about it more often lately, usually after I manage to top a steep climb without spinning out, thanks to the fact I'm in the apparently small group of riders who choose to run Larry tires front and rear, instead of the Larry/Endomorph combo that Surly has recommended since releasing the Larry as a front tire.

I enjoy Surly’s amusing product names. A lot of people know the Pugsley was named for the chubby kid on the old Addams Family television show, and the big Endomorph tire was obviously named for the body type of fat people, but fewer people seem to get the Newhart reference when they see Larry on a bike with two Rolling Darryl rims.

And it pains me that virtually no one on Large Marge rims seems to remember Large Marge, the truck driver from Peewee's Big Adventure, a cinematic masterpiece about a guy on a cross-country odyssey to find his stolen bike.

But aside from their sense of humor, I differ with Surly on the recommended Endomorph/Larry pairing. The Endo was a great tire. It changed winter biking. But the Larry is better in every way, as far as I’m concerned. It not only improves cornering control in the front, it grips better in the back on steep climbs and during braking. The damn thing even steers better on pavement, thanks to a deeper tread pattern with continuous knobs down the center of the tire.

Ever try riding Endos on dry pavement? It's like steering a couple of fat pencil erasers as they smear against asphalt.

I switched to a pair of Larrys last fall while still on my old Pugsley. When I upgraded to a Fatback last month, I stuck with the double-Larry approach and haven't regretted it. Between the better traction of the tires and improved handling of my bike, I feel more secure climbing and cornering on snow than ever before.

Now, if only Surly would make a Kevlar-reinforced road touring tire called the Gilligan.

Or maybe gender-specific, ergonomic saddles. They could call them Wally and Beaver.

March Madness

2011-03-13T21:26:00.004-08:00

Middle Fork, 3.11.11

Some people say that summer is the reason we endure Alaska winters. But in March, spring riding feels like enough of a reason to me.

This is about as good as it gets, especially when the weather stays as sunny as it has for the past couple of weeks. The trails are killer good, the temperatures are perfect, the bears are still asleep and the mosquitoes haven't hatched.

I spent Friday on a leisurely solo tour of the STA trails, Llama and Middle Fork. There's nothing quite as nice as a mid-ride snack when the day's so warm you can just sit in the snow and still enjoy the food and the view.

I even managed to finally get a nice portrait of my new Fatback, freshly equipped with a custom frame bag.

A long ride on Friday, snowshoeing with my daughter on Saturday, and a good ride today. The only thing missing is enough rest.

Sleep deprivation. Yeah, that's a sure sign of spring.

Don't be fooled

2011-03-09T23:07:00.001-09:00

Johnson Pass Trail, 3-5-11

The skinnies are coming out, but I'm not buying into it.

When I pulled into the trailhead parking lot tonight, Leonard and I were armed with fat bikes. A guy I know was there with his SS mountain bike. Then his riding partners pedaled up on their studded rides. They said they've been loving the hard trails lately.

People all over town are loving the warm, sunny weather we've had for the past few days, but I keep scanning the weather forecast, hoping for three or four inches of snow to freshen things up. I'm in no hurry to switch bikes. I've got a new fat bike that I'm lovin', and I don't like getting suckered.

Sure, we're light on snow this year. The spring thaw could be quick. But it's March 9 in a place where I don't move my snowblower to the shed until May 1. April will be warm, muddy and ugly, as it always is. March, however, is dangerous. It wasn't too many years ago that I was clearing three feet of new snow off my driveway on St. Patrick's Day.

This is a false spring. Don't fall for it. Mark my words, March will roar back and kick us in the ass.

It's still winter, and I'm gonna keep riding like it as long as I can.

End of the road

2011-03-06T22:53:00.003-09:00

This photo is what I love about the Fabulous Finger Gallery. Every time I think the movement has quietly died, a gem shows up in my inbox.

Our man Dylan here pedaled from Seattle to where the road ends at the southern tip of Argentina, and then he propped his camera atop his bicycle and flipped me off. That's style!

Dylan missed Anchorage during his trip, and he said Bicycles & Icicles was one of the online escapes that helped him cope with 130-degree heat in Paraguay. It's good to know a few pictures of beardsicles and snowy trails provided a few moments relief along the way.

Dylan, you capped an epic journey with an epic flip-off. Well played, sir. And congratulations on riding all the way to Tierra del Fuego.

No. 5

2011-03-03T12:55:00.004-09:00

Pete rocks a respectable
beardsicle at the Skwentna
Roadhouse checkpoint.
(Photo from Iditarod
Trail Invitational's Facebook gallery.)

The first three racers have reached McGrath in the Iditarod Trail Invitational. Not surprisingly, Pete Basinger won the 350-mile race for the fifth time.

He was dominant from the midpoint of the race, leaving several checkpoints hours ahead of his chasers. He finished in 3 days, 6 hours and 30 minutes, which was less than an hour off his course record.

You’d think that with a record like that, the Daily News could have found a more current photo of Pete for this morning’s edition, instead of publishing that old standby from his historic Dreadlock Period.

Jeff Oatley turned in a fast ride, and narrowed the gap enough to finish only 25 minutes behind Pete. But damn, how about that rookie who took third place?

OK, calling Greg Matyas a rookie is a little weird but, hey, he was a rookie in the ITI even if he has raced bikes for decades. Greg allegedly told people he’d be “touring,” but 3 days, 12 hours and 20 minutes is a damn fast tour, if you ask me.

I think Greg just scoped out his chances and then hauled ass to secure the top three spots for Fatbacks. Whatever his motivation, it was a hell of a ride for an old dude in his 40s. Congrats, Greg.

Speaking of age, here’s a little nugget that sometimes bounces around my brain this time of year when I’m impressed by Pete winning the Invitational:

Long-distance cyclists commonly peak in their 30s.

Pete is only 29.*

Scary, huh?

*The Daily News says he's 30, but I'm going with 29 based on the age he gave me during an interview a few years ago.

Collared

2011-03-01T12:02:00.002-09:00

I voiced my protest to the people at Thomson Components today. They are engaging in behavior up with which I do not wish to put.

I started using Thomson seatposts years ago at the urging of two nephews who were then bike-shop workers. I was tired of feeling kicked in the gonads every time an inferior seatpost clamp or bolt broke, launching the horn of my saddle toward a high-velocity docking with the space capsule of my crotch.

You can spend all the money you want on ergonomic saddles to keep your goodies happy and nocturnally functional, but there’s nothing ergonomic about a bundle of foam, plastic and metal being fired like a missile at your junk. And it only adds insult to injury when you have to ride several miles back to the trailhead while standing up because your saddle is in your Camelbak.

My nephews promised I wouldn’t be able to break anything on a Thomson, so I became a convert. And they were right. Every post I own has been bombproof. So when I built up my new Fatback, Greg over at Speedway persuaded me to go for a matching Thomson stem. Pure sweetness. Those components are light, pretty, and strong as hell.

And now I find out those bastards at Thomson are making seatpost collars. They even just built a quick-release prototype to complement last year’s bolt-on model.

I’m still selling pints of blood for money to send to the credit card company, and now I find out my Thomson cockpit needs one more piece to satisfy my lust.

FML.

Can't top this

2011-02-27T20:04:00.000-09:00

1,003

2011-02-24T20:39:00.003-09:00

While creating a new post a few weeks ago, I noticed I was nearing the 1,000-post mark. I made a mental note to mark the occasion when it came up. Then I forgot.

I noticed a couple of days ago that I had already written number 1,002, so I’m celebrating 1,003! (Insert confetti and applause here.) Who knew this pimple on the ass of the interwebs would last this long? Not me, or I would have been too lazy to start the damned thing.

Writing a blog can be a strange thing. One day you’re amazed to have a dozen readers, and the next thing, you know, there are hundreds. Because of Bicycles & Icicles, I have friends I’ve never met face to face. In a few cases, I’ve actually shared rides and beers with them.

Hell, I even gained my 100th “follower” a week or two ago. Some bloggers have several times that many, because they’re informative, positive and/or inspirational to others. To hell with that. I don’t do warm and fuzzy. I just vent about bike-related stuff. Or annoying stuff that affects bike riders. I rant.

For the most part, this blog remains what it was originally meant to be—an outlet for the crap I want to get off my chest without driving my non-biking wife batshit crazy. She still endures far more bike-related conversation that she ever wanted to hear. (And it sometimes drives her perilously close to batshit crazy.)

Thanks for reading this stuff. And thanks to everyone who ever met me on the road or trail and said, “Love yer blog, man!”

You obviously have too much free time on your hands, but I appreciate you anyway.

Seriously, people?

2011-02-22T20:05:00.006-09:00

Is it really that difficult for the municipality and the state to coordinate snow removal from streets and bike paths? We've been talking about this for years.

It’s simple, folks. Even a dumbass like me can figure it out: Plow the streets first, then the bike paths, because you clearly can’t grasp the concept of not heaping snow on top of already cleared pathways. This one on my commuting route is so moronic, I made a point of carrying a camera today.

Not only did the driver of a road grader put a small mountain of snow directly across a bike path, but he did it at an intersection that’s already among the most dangerous in town. And the bike path was cleared days ago, so no one's coming back to remove this thing.

This kind of crap ensures that bicyclists who are crossing the scary C Street to O’Malley high-speed auto chute have to dismount and lift their bikes over this icy beast. It most cases, such a thing is highly annoying. Here, it adds to the danger of a poorly designed crossing. Any pedestrian with mobility problems is doubly screwed.

I'm startin' to think you guys will never get it.

Badasses All

2011-02-20T21:05:00.002-09:00

This was the weekend of the Susitna 100, which meant I went to a fun party, took a little trail ride, and frequently went online to look for updates on my much tougher friends.

I’m not sure what makes someone want to endure that many hard hours on a bike, but I admire the endurance of those who can do it. So here’s to all the finishers, especially those with whom I’ve shared rides over the past year or so, resulting their pictures residing in my laptop. They're all tough buggers.

Carl Battreall: 16 hours, 9 minutes

Sean Grady: 17 hours, 6 minutes

Next Saturday, Sean will start riding to Nome
in the Iditarod Trail Invitational.

Leonard Fancher: 21 hours, 8 minutes

Mike Morganson: 25 hours, 7 minutes

This was Mike's 14th Susitna 100 finish.

Julie Perilla: 28 hours, 7 minutes

Julie Malingowski: 34 hours, 29 minutes

They've all earned a cold beer and a good night's sleep.