Time to ride

It has been all mountain bikes, all the time since I put away my road bike after the Fireweed, and anyone crazy enough to occasionally check this blog might recognize that my neglect is a sure sign of a good summer.

Heather just can't get enough of her bikes.

Who has time to blog when the weather's warm and the trails are dry? Hell, I haven't had much time to think of many blog topics, much less write them. Anchorage trails, Crescent Lake and Resurrection Pass have all been getting my attention, with Lost Lake and a couple more on my to-do list.

Last weekend, friends and I were in Hope for the annual sufferfest known as the Soggy Bottom, which lured Moab's coolest fifth-grade teacher -- Pete Basinger -- back to Alaska for a visit. 

Pete goes hunting for some mayhem.

I chatted with Pete after his sub-11-hour finish, when he looked relaxed and unmarred despite a hard crash. He chronicled the whole thing over on his blog, which is actually up to date. Go check it out.

90 percent mental, half physical

Now that a few days—and a couple of “recovery rides” have passed—the Fireweed 200 is starting to seem like a fuzzy, demented memory. My body feels normal again, and I’m riding my mountain bike on singletrack, which is why I got into this sport in the first place. Road riding? What’s that?


 

Heather and I re-enter the wind tunnel.

But I keep seeing this picture that my friend Julie shot during the race, and it brings things back.

Heather and I were rolling back onto the Richardson Highway after a break. We had about 150 miles behind us. The headwinds were beating us to a pulp. And there, in the mountains, was a huge blanket of fog draped over Thompson Pass (in the upper-right portion of this photo). That’s where we were going, and pretty much everything about that portion of ride was already a big bucket of suckage. That high, looming fog reminded us that things were going to get worse before they got better.

Most of my epic rides have been in the mountains, where quitting isn’t an option. If you want the pain to end, you have to get your ass to the trailhead. But I’ve never really been sure what keeps a road rider going when the suffering gets bad and he could simply say, “This isn’t fun. This is stupid. Fuck it.”

People have told me that it’s all mental, and I guess it is. For months, I kept reminding myself that the Fireweed was going to hurt, and there would be times when I’d question the point of continuing. I knew that if I’d quit, the feeling of failure would have haunted me all winter. So I didn’t allow it to be an option. There was no doubt that we’d get to Valdez if we could just cowboy up and keep riding.

It hurt, and we suffered in those headwinds. But in a weird way, sitting here in the comfort of this chair, it doesn’t seem like it was that bad.

But that could just be the wine talking because, as Leonard said this week, “That ride was a head-windy bitch.”

Thanks

Ken and Julie rock the SAG wagon.

The Fireweed 200 ain't easy. Rough pavement and hard climbs beat up your body. Brutal headwinds punish your muscles and your morale. Huge, nasty, wheel-grabbing cracks in the asphalt never let you relax. But a good crew can keep you going with calories, electrolytes, painkillers and encouraging humor.

This year's event is history, and I'm sure I'll have another blog post or two as I sort through the memories, but for now I'll just say thanks to the crew that helped Heather and I keep pedaling when the shit hit the fan. (And it was a big fan, that blew hard.)

Ken is the guy who lives with the mixed blessing of being married to Heather. It's a mixed blessing because he's lucky to be married to her, but he also has to occasionally put up with her agreeing to do silly shit like this with me. 

Julie is the kind person and tough athlete who happens to be one of our best friends. She didn't have to be there on Saturday. But she was, and I was very grateful.

Until a person has experienced endurance events from both the saddle of a bike and the seat of a support car, it's hard to fully appreciate the importance of a good crew, and how hard they work. They do selfless work, tolerate racers' mood swings, and put in long hours to help friends reach the finish line. They are indispensable.

Saturday was a damn hard day. These two are a big reason Heather and I got through the longest ride of our lives.

On the road again

Teamwork.

It's time to do this thing. Road bikes have been devouring the summer while my Fireweed partner Heather and I have prepared for the 200-mile event this Saturday. But the training rides are done and it's time to git down to bidness. 

One more long day in the saddle, which should be made easier with the great crew of her hubby Ken and our friend Julie, then it'll be all mountain bikes, all the time for the rest of the season. I might not see a 23c again until next April. 

There are two things I expect in this ride: Good times, and bad times. And as my ultra-distance-freak friend Leonard has often pointed out, neither one will last. Good times come, and they go. Bad times come, and they go, too. 

The best we can hope for is that Heather will be strong when I'm weak, I'll be strong when she's weak, and we'll both arrive in Valdez tired but safe. At the end of the day, it's all about the ride, and the cold beer after the finish. 

See you in Valdez, muthafuckas.

Lessons from the road

The final long training ride is done. Heather and I spent Saturday riding 162 miles to make sure we’re ready for the Fireweed 200. We’re there. H rode like a high-octane machine, and two days after a hard effort, I’m tired but feeling no pain.

Now it’s time to taper. What better opportunity to share the lessons I’ve learned from this experience (so far)?

• Long-distance riding is a great escape from reality. There’s a beautiful freedom in having nothing to do but ride and eat for hours at a time.
• A person can get REALLY hungry two days after a really long ride.
• All bike shorts are not created equal.
• There is such a thing as too much chamois cream.
• Use a metric assload of chamois cream anyway.
• Flats suck. (I already knew this. I just like repeating it.)
• The food in Hope, Alaska, is pretty good, but it tastes better when you ride there to get it.
• It’s fun to drink gin and tonics in the bar car on the Alaska Railroad train from Seward to Anchorage. (I assumed this. I just liked confirming it.)
• Good riding partners are always important, but even more important after 100 miles. If you can end a marathon day with a friend who lapses into giddy laughter at the sheer insanity of it all, you’re doing it right.
• I’m doing it right.
• It’s highly entertaining to watch the reaction of “normal” people when you meet them at a roadside rest area, a restaurant, etc., and they ask how far you’re riding ... and you tell them.
• I miss trail time, and plan to get dirty again very soon. I love bikes in all forms, but I’ll always be a mountain biker above all else.

Let's do this thing. See you in Valdez.

Sunny summer fingers

The Bike Monkee and Joe hang with da ladies at Devil's Pass cabin.

Tomorrow will be another long day on the bike for a pre-Fireweed training session, so I'm keeping today's blog update simple. Besides, we haven't had a new entry in the FFG in ... well, who knows how long it has been?

Too freakin' long, that's how long. 

If you happen to be on the road between Anchorage and Hope on Saturday, and you see a couple of tired riders looking like they could really use some hamburgers, give us a wave. Whether you use your whole hand or just one finger is up to you.

Long live long rides.

Heather lets me know how she feels about this Fireweed 200 bullshit.

Miles to go before she sleeps

Flounder, you can't spend your whole life worrying about your mistakes! 
You fucked up ... you trusted us!
—Otter, "Animal House" 

With 100 miles behind her, Heather finishes a climb outside Seward.

About a year and a half ago, my friend Heather fucked up. After drinking a lot of wine, she trusted me. When she woke up the next morning, I'm pretty sure she was filled with self-loathing.

Because the previous night, she had agreed to ride the Fireweed 200 with me this year. 

Heather realizes what she has done.

In her entire life, she had never ridden 100 miles in a day. And I had spent years saying there is never a valid reason to ride more than 100 miles at a time. But in the dark recesses of my twisted mind, something wanted to ride 200.

Correction: Something wanted to have ridden 200 miles in a day.

Now we're three weeks out from this year's Fireweed. Heather has been following a structured training program since January. I've been following my usual "ride my ass off and see what happens" training program. Her husband, Ken, has surely been muttering unpleasant things about both of us under his breath, and regretting the fact he didn't step in and stop me as I talked her into this shit while he was stretched out on the floor six feet away. 

On Friday, Heather and I both took the day off and rode 122 miles to Seward. Now she tells me that we have to spend next Saturday riding 160 miles from Anchorage to Hope and back.

Last night, after the wine was poured, a laptop was opened and we both became official entrants in the 200.

And the weird part is, I think we're actually ready to do this thing.

Or at least I sure as shit hope we are. 

Spring break = Party time on fat bikes

Aitidal, Rahmah, Nadhrah and Syamim (foreground) take a break
on the trail with Jordy, Heather and Emilie.

One of the things I love about mountain biking is the way it brings people together in both expected and unexpected ways. I met most of my closest friends because of bikes. I’ve met all sorts of riders from various states and countries because of bikes and this silly blog.

That’s what led Nadhrah Kadir to send me an email a few weeks go when she needed help finding fat-bike rentals for her spring break trip to Alaska. Nadhrah and her friends are from Malaysia and attending universities scattered around the United States. For their vacation, they wanted the full Alaska experience, including a bike ride.

Because it wouldn’t be right to let someone come all this way only to ride the Tony Knowles Coastal Trail, I set up an evening ride that included some singletrack.

They might have gotten a little more than they bargained for, but they were all smiling (and uninjured) at the end, which is all that matters to me when taking newbies out for their first ride. Nadhrah told me it was the best experience she had in Alaska, which still makes me smile.

Fat bikes put grins on faces, regardless of where the faces are from. And how else would four young Malaysian women end up spending an evening with a curmudgeonly mountain biker and his friends in Alaska?

One world.

Roll over it with fat tires.

Desert Finger

The woman who started it all is still keeping the Fabulous Finger Gallery alive. Nice job, H.

After five fun days of riding through my old stompin' grounds of Arizona, I think I'll need a day or three to sort it all out before sharing the stories. Meanwhile, I'll just thank the crazies who made it fun and memorable:

Julie. One of my regular

riding partners for years, 

and wife of ...

 The equipment-bashing Bike Monkee.

Harter, a recovering Midwesterner

and all-around good guy ...

despite being a recovering Midwesterner.

Huber, who makes great blowfish faces

and damn fine meals.

Heather, who bruises more easily

(and more frequently) than any other human on Earth.

Thanks, Arizona.

See you next time.

Riding with Cholla

Once it attaches to you, it doesn't let go.

chol·la
noun: any of several spiny treelike cacti belonging to the genus Opuntia, especially O. fulgida  of the southwestern U.S. and Mexico, having knobby outgrowths and yellow spines.

Dave rode up to our group as we prepared to roll out of Dreamy Draw Recreation Area in the Phoenix Mountains Preserve. He was riding alone and looking for partners, so he asked where we were headed and then said he’d ride along with us. Partnering up with strangers at at trailhead isn’t unusual, but I noticed that he didn’t ask if it was OK. He simply said said he’d tag along.

He was a middle-aged guy wearing body armor, and I’ve generally found body armor to be a bad sign. A lot of people seem to change when they put it on. And they don’t change for the better.

As the ride began, he asked where we were from, somewhat tactlessly questioned our route choice, and told us how we could have done it a “better” way. I did this ride regularly 20 years ago, and I didn’t really give a rat’s ass what he thought, but I tried to let it go.

As the miles passed, this hyperactive guy started wearing on my nerves. And I wasn’t the only one. During a brief stop, Heather informed me that the Bike Monkee had decided this guy’s nickname was “Cholla.” Monkee was naming him after the nasty “jumping cactus” that attaches itself to hapless victims and is difficult to remove.

A little while later, I tapped the brakes to give myself time to choose a line over a jagged section of exposed rock, and I heard Cholla’s wheels lock up close behind me. He obviously was following too closely, and was very close to slamming into me. Then he shot by on my right, a risky move on sketchy trail.



I was pissed. And I didn’t fly thousands of miles to be pissed off while riding with my friends. 

A short distance later, I stopped in a shady spot and told Jules and the Bike Monkee that I thought we should give Cholla the boot. That’s when I learned that he had buzzed Monkee with a risky move, too.



Cholla had ridden ahead, but quickly returned to find us. I told him we were going to let him ride on ahead without us.

 “Oh, you guys are doing great,” he replied.



So I explained that he wasn’t doing great, and that we weren’t going to ride with him anymore. It was time to leave, and we’d let him have a head start so we wouldn’t see him again.

It was the right move. The rest of the ride was relaxed and fun, and the usual dynamic of our group returned. I’ve long believed that the No. 1 rule to mountain biking (and life) is quite simple:



Life’s too short to ride with assholes.

Home sweet home

Heather and Gina outside Girdwood on Saturday.

I love being passed by passenger trains while riding to Girdwood on a perfect summer day. The windows are filled with tourists who spent big money to come to Alaska and look around. Some have waited their whole lives for this.

And they’re diggin’ the same killer scenery my friends and I ride by all summer long. Every year.

I like how they unintentionally remind me that in a week or two, they’ll all be back in Barstow, Topeka, Tokyo or whatever. But we’ll still be here.

Wax-free in Ho Chi Minh City

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.

No More Mr. Nice Guy

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.

Self-medicating

Worshiping at the house of the Sunday-morning flip-off.
Breakfast at Luce's Lodge last weekend.

My friend Heather accuses me of being full of shit when I blame my irritability on a lack of singletrack. Don't listen to her. This is a woman talks more trash (to me, anyway) than most pro wrestlers. She isn't sensitive to my needs.

My riding routine has been unsteady for weeks. By Tuesday night, I was about ready to rip doors off the kitchen cabinets over minor irritations while making dinner. That's a sure sign that I need to drop everything and go for a ride, so I announced that on Wednesday evening I would be occupied elsewhere.

When you've gotta go, you've gotta go.

A couple of winters ago, I was renting a bike in Wellington, New Zealand, so that I could get out for a couple of hours of sanity-restoring exercise. The shop guy recognized my symptoms. "You really need a ride, don't you?" he said. "I completely understand."

A few minutes later, he sent me out the door without taking a dime of my money for a deposit. He didn't even ask for my name or a credit card number. He simply handed me a bike, and told me to knock on the back door if I got back after the shop had closed for the day. He knew I could have pedaled away and never returned. He also knew I wouldn't.

After only a few minutes, that guy in a bike shop diagnosed my affliction with as much accuracy as any doctor ever could. Not everyone could have done that.

Fortunately, we bike junkies are pretty good at treating ourselves.

"Special" Olympics

I would have helped Heather in this situation
on Blue Dot last Saturday. Really.
But Julie's words echoed in my head,
and I was afraid I might get punched.
Besides, I had pictures to take.

That ice looks fairly thick,
and the water isn't deep this time of year.

I knew she'd recover gracefully. It was
like watching a fine gymnast nail the dismount.

Now it's up to you, the judges,
to score her performance.
Does she deserve a spot on the medal stand
for her routine on the uneven parallel bars
of the Blue Dot bridge?

I'd say it was a 9.4.

Don't piss her off

Blue Dot, Summer 2008

I don't understand why my pictures from Blue Dot always cause my friend Jeff over at Bike Carson to question my sense of chivalry. When I first posted this picture of Maura and Heather crossing the treacherous Blue Dot bridge over Campbell Creek a couple of years ago, he posted a comment that suggested I might consider a good photo to be of more importance than my friends' safety.

Blue Dot, Yesterday Afternoon

And after I Facebooked this new picture of Julie crossing the same bridge on Saturday, he posted a similar comment under it. But Jeff lives in Nevada, so there's something he doesn't know about the people I ride with.

To be fair, Heather routinely gives me shit about things like shooting pictures when I could be offering her a hand. But the truth is, she just looks for any excuse to give me shit. So when she started in again Saturday night, and I was laughing about similar comments left on my blog, Julie chimed in with the following observation:

"These people don't realize that you ride with women who would hit you if you offered us help."

Keep that in mind the next time you see me use a photo in which a woman looks like she might need assistance.

I don't ride with wimpy chicks.

Digital Divas

Holy friggin' flip-offs, boys and girls, business is booming in the Fabulous Finger Gallery! With three great new photos in my inbox, I figured it's time for an All-finger Day here at Bicycles & Icicles. Before we begin, let's pause for a moment of silence in recognition of the woman who helped start it all nearly three years ago ... my good friend Heather.

Heather's so proud of her role in this fine use of the Internet that I think she lists it on her resume, as well she should. And with that formality behind us, let's get to the goodies:

Today's first shot comes from Miner's Rock in Lake Leatherwood, Arkansas, courtesy of my brother Matt and his Midwestern crew during their recent trip into the Ozarks. Their rides included places like Slaughter Pen Hollow. In other words, you might not want to ask too many questions.

And next we have the first of two pics from the White Rim Trail. This one's courtesy of Mountain Bike Anchorage author Rose Austin, who recently completed her usual fall tour of great riding destinations in the Southwest. Welcome back to the land of ice, Rose.

And last today—but far from least—we have the pleasure of a whole bevy of mountain-biking babes lettin' the birds fly during their White Rim ride. It's Anchorage's own Dirt Divas on tour. Divas, a desert sunset and Fat Tire ale ... damn good combination, if you ask me.

Best of Whitehorse: The Fingers

Last week's trip was another killer week of daily riding on new terrain with a fun group of friends. Of course, I can't shoot pics of friends without gettin' a few birds flipped my way. Here are the best of the week.

Jules sneaks in a last-second bird
before riding out of the frame.

Heather, the woman who started
this madness, lets me know how
she feels about efforts to photograph
her near-death experience on a bluff
above the Yukon River.

Ken, H and Anthony team up
for a late-night photo at our camp
in Whitehorse. The previous tenants
seem to have left a few beer bottles
laying around. We cleaned them up.

Next week, we'll have a previously unpublished
Finger Foto from the one and only akdeluxe,
standing next to France's most windproof outhouse.

Blue Dot paparazzi

The old footbridge over Campbell Creek on the Blue Dot trail could be described—if one were feeling generous—as sketchy.

It’s a rickety, collapsing wooden structure that’s in such bad shape it’s actually less slippery when it’s covered in ice and snow, because water and moss make it a real bitch to cross while wearing hard-sole cycling shoes in summer. When I posted this picture a couple of summers ago, it was, uh ... suggested that perhaps I should have been offering Maura and Heather a hand instead of snapping pics as they risked a cold bath.

And when Jules and I rode Blue Dot on Wednesday night, and I briefly forgot that it was her first time on the trail, it occurred to me to say, “Watch out for the bridge” just as she was about to roll onto it. She stopped right where you see her; next to a wheel-grabbing hole mostly hidden by darkness.

She immediately suspected, of course, that I was waiting with my camera to catch a gnarly crash photo.

I think my reputation among my riding partners might need a little polishing. I would never hurt one intentionally. After all, friends who will hit the trails in freezing fog at -2F don't grow on trees, you know.

Besides, I can always hide in bushes and get nasty crash shots when strangers ride by. And now that Julie mentioned it, that would be a pretty cool shot ...

As good as it gets

An epic vacation is winding down. It's time
to face the tortuous flight home after
seven straight days of riding in some of the
most incredible mountain-biking terrain
in the world: Moab, UT, and Fruita, CO.
I'll sort all this shit out in later posts after I have time
to digest everything. For now, the pics can do the talking.

Harter on the slickrock at Bartlett Wash

Jules descends Porcupine Rim singletrack

The Bike Monkee on Sovereign

Heather on Handcuffs

And Jules sums up the whole experience