Liberation

Fast racers crank out 50-minute laps on the 24 Hours of Kincaid course. I’m not a fast racer.

Two years ago, during my first 24-hour race, my best lap on the nearly 11-mile course was about 1:07. Last year I pulled off a 1:03. This year I was hoping to crack an hour, but moved my PR to only 1:02, and I nearly knocked myself out trying to go faster.

Then I had a lap that felt perfect. I was shifting well, railing the turns, bombing the descents … and bagged a 1:04. That’s when I came to the liberating realization that I can’t fight fate. Whatever the excuse is—too big, too lazy, too old—I'm just not very fast. Might as well stop thinking about speed and surrender to fun. Besides, I was the token geezer on this year’s four-man team. I can write the whole thing off as a "senior moment," right?

So what if I never clock a 59:59 lap? Never did it before, why worry about it now? Better to just ride fast but fun, and savor the taste of a cold beer afterward. That’s why I started mountain biking in the first place.

Team Megasoreass logged 18 laps this year and had a good time in the process. Rob G. made us a kick-ass team banner, and DaveIT flew a rainbow-colored Italian peace flag that kept our hordes of groupies at bay by making our camp look like a gay-pride festival. Frigid Bits race organizer Carlos Lozano set up camp with us and helped us with everything from bike repairs and bad jokes to middle-of-the-night cheeseburgers (with an assist from Amanda, who made the burger run) and tasty post-race brats.

Here’s the breakdown of my laps:

#1: Le Mans start. Jogged to my bike and was glad to find it still there instead of already on the course under the guy who had parked his white Epic with Egg Beaters only a few feet from mine. Rode in traffic for most of the lap before everybody became completely scattered by the second lap. I think this was the lap on which I recognized fellow bike blogger Bosskat from pictures on his site, and said hello as he passed me. Finished with a modest PR of 1:02 and change.

#2: Went for broke, and nearly ended my race. I figured this was my best chance to beat an hour, because my legs were still fresh. Tried to hop over a log with more speed than I’m accustomed to on that particular obstacle, and apparently slammed my rear wheel into it. At least I think that’s what happened. It all unfolded too fast. Next thing I knew, I was body-slammed into the trail. Punch to the kidneys, hard whack to the back of the helmet. Managed to finish the lap with a piece of plastic flapping from the side of my helmet and my glasses so mangled I looked like a nerd who got his ass kicked on the way home from band practice (which is exactly what I felt like). Somehow, I still clocked a 1:04 and change. Then I started popping ibuprofen and headed to the optical department at Costco for emergency repairs.

#3: Late evening ride. Everything felt great. I was using gears well, nailing turns, yadda, yadda, yadda. Didn’t let myself check the time on my computer until I rounded the turn coming out of Dark Alley to kick down the homestretch. I was at 1:01. Shit. Ended up with a 1:03 or 1:04 and knew that there was no way I could come up with a faster lap.

#4: Overnight lap. This is always the nasty one. Two-thirty in the freakin’ morning. Lots of moose on the trail. Some porcupines. The ground gets damp with dew—slip out of the skinny dirt rut while flying down one of Kincaid's wide x-c ski trails, and that wet grass is slick as snot. I forgot about the clock and set a goal of avoiding injury. Came in feeling good with a lap of 1:15.

#5: All the guys on the team were tired after four laps each. Dave wasn’t eager for me to get back and send him off for his fifth, and I was in no hurry. My hands went numb on the root-covered singletrack and I couldn’t feel my fingers for a few minutes. Couldn’t tell if I was actually braking until I felt the bike slow down, so I got a little worried that the signal from my brain might stop reaching the muscles in my hands. Stopped to eat a Gu before dropping into Big Niagara, then briefly picked up two recreational riders on Mize Loop when they asked if I knew where people race at Kincaid. I yelled at them to follow me, so they got on my wheel and the guy with a southern accent started trying to have a conversation about bikes. I wasn’t feeling chatty, but told them they could pull ahead of me and just follow the flags to stay on course. I pulled into the finish area with a time of a little more than 1:13.

(A couple of minutes later, one of the guys rode up to me and explained they hadn’t realized I was taking part in a 24-hour race when they asked for directions, they just wanted to know about the Tuesday night race series.)

Scott, Dave and Rob, thanks for the good time. It was great racing with you.

Carlos—our “fifth man”—thanks for keepin’ a watchful eye on Team Megasoreass and our bikes all weekend.

And, of course, thanks to Reggi Parks for puttin' this whole circus of pain together one more time. Good job as usual, Reggi.

It's Pete's world

... the rest of us are just riding through it.

Another 24 Hours of Kincaid is in the bag, and this year it belonged to endurance-racing monster and Paramount Cycles wrench Peter Basinger, who not only broke his old course record of 21 laps by winning the solo division with 22 laps of nearly 11 miles each, but did so on a singlespeed. Then he showed up at Guido's for Sunday night's pizza feed and looked normal. He could sit down, stand up, walk around, raise food to his mouth, all that stuff.

I can't even comprehend what he did. It's easiest just to chalk it up to him being some sort of alien.

A big congratulations to fellow bike blogger Jill Homer, who showed up for her first 24-hour event, raced solo and racked up 16 laps. Before climbing into her car to spend five hours getting home, she even walked up to the Team Megasorass compound for a post-race chat.

And a huge thank you to that red-hot babe Mother Nature, who sandwiched a beautiful, sunny weekend between two rounds of rain.

Gimme a vowel, Vanna

Another gem from the municipal sign department.

Next post: A report from the 24-hour race. I'll
write it whenever I can once again lift my hands
to the keyboard and form semi-coherent
sentences.

Better yet, maybe I'll write it
under the influence of painkillers and rum.

The clock is ticking

Hold on to yer butts, kids, 'cause we're gettin' down the nitty gritty in just three more days. No more time for long training rides (not that we did any) or losing weight. The 24 Hours of Kincaid starts in less than 72 hours.

Team Megasorass is on the job. I don't know if we're up for the job, but we're definitely on it. I've been wrapping up my preparations by taking a 10-day vacation. DaveIT has been entertaining guests and drinking beer, which means he actually stepped up the exercise a bit, because hosting visitors is a tad more strenuous than his usual regimen of just drinking beer.

I have no idea what Rob and Scott have been doing, but if they're anything like me and DaveIT, their training programs could probably be described as "not very damned much."

That's OK, because Team Megasorass knows what 24-hour racing is all about: ridin' bikes, hangin' out, and watching all the solo psychos suffer.

And a cool T-shirt, of course.

After weeks of wondering how the race course would be affected by the city's construction of a small freeway disguised as a bike path, Reggi got the final word this week that the bridge over the park road is passable and she can hold the race on the same course she used the past few years.

That's good news for me, because after three summers of riding the damned thing, I've actually learned a few moves and I might suck less than I would on a revised course.

Anyone still thinking about signing up should get busy. Anyone else should stop by between noon Saturday and noon Sunday and say hello.

Bring doughnuts.

Me and the F.P.

Enough of this vacation crap. I need to go home and catch up on sleep. My wife and I are flyin' outta here Tuesday morning and leavin' the kids here for a few extra days.

I dropped the Fat Possum at the bike shop on Sunday so that I could spend today floating down the Salt River on inner tubes with my kids, a small herd of nieces, and my brother-in-law and sister-in-law.

Brady and the rest of the friendly guys at Bicycle Showcase have been awesome. They set me up with a sweet demo bike and were a cool crew to visit with during several visits to the shop. Anybody visiting Arizona for some riding should stop by their shop at Scottsdale Road and Shea Boulevard. Great crew.

My blog had a hit today from somebody searching for a Fat Possum review. Maybe I'll write up some thoughts on the bike in a week or two when I get caught up on things ... and if I survive another 24 Hours of Kincaid.

White cat

Today's installment in our Dumbass Sign of the Week series falls under the category of "Why the hell don't these people ever take down their signs?" This thing has been up since last winter. Sorry dude, your cat is either dead or moved on. Now get past it and clean up the neighborhood.

I mean, what's the big deal with these people? Why can't they get their fat asses out of their cars and walk 10 feet to tear down their old signs? Last month, I finally took down a "Found: Mountain Bike" notice that was taped to a stop sign near my house all freakin' winter.

At least I can still enjoy this lost-cat sign. I still smile when I ride past it because of the memory in conjures up.

Shortly after it was posted last winter, I was driving to work early one morning and my daughter was going with me to hang out for a little while before I took her to school. Everything was covered in snow and ice, there was fresh snow falling and it was still dark as hell at 8 a.m.

We were both still sluggish and riding along without talking until I drove by this sign and my daughter broke the silence by casually saying, "Bad time of year to lose a white cat."

I don't care who ya are, that was funny shit.

Let's call it carbo loading

Back in Phoenix after a coupla days in Las Vegas.
Time to get back on the Possum
and pound out some sunrise miles.
Only a week to go
before the 24 Hours of Kincaid,
and I'm spending the afternoon
sittin' by the pool with a cold beer.

Limbo

Sitting here in limbo,
Waiting for the dice to roll.
Sitting here in limbo,
Got some time to search my soul.

Blasting through northwestern Arizona in a rental car. Jimmy Cliff on the iPod. Saguaro cactuses and Joshua trees flying by outside the windows. Headed for two nights in the world’s largest full-time state fair. Viva Las Vegas.

Lots of time to remember what I miss about the desert and hate about life in the frying pan known as Phoenix.

Coming back is always sweet. Desert mountains, the smell of sage. Heat on my skin, the cool water of a backyard pool with a cold beer nearby. Dark nights with stars, and warmth. Lots of people wearing very little clothing, and many of them actually capable of pulling off the look.

Still, I miss cool, uncrowded forests and loamy trails that aren’t full of flesh-shredding rocks.

A Dead Fish and a Fat Possum

So I go out for a little trail ride Thursday night and run into Rick Shaw of Ready to Race while I’m rollin’ down Rover’s Run. A little later, we meet again and start chattin’ with Rio over on Gasline, and Rick finds out I’m headed for Arizona without a bike. He drops a couple of e-mails and—badda big, badda boom—Brady Gay at Bicycle Showcase in Scottsdale is hooking me up with Gary Fisher’s new all-mountain ride.

Some smoked salmon and cold Alaskan Amber found their way to the shop, and there’s a Fat Possum XT in my sister-in-law’s laundry room. Looks like I won’t be spending my vacation drinkin’ margaritas and gettin’ fat. Well, at least not the latter.

That's OK. I can sweat out all the toxins. We fly out of Anchorage in 50-degree weather, and by Saturday afternoon we’re sizzling in 102-degree heat.

So much for sleeping late on vacation. Tomorrow I plan to ride between 7 and 9 a.m. just to survive.

Hmm. How long ya think a 40 oz. Camelback is gonna last in this stuff?

School of Jack

Sports Illustrated: What do you consider
your greatest athletic achievement?

Jack Black: One time I rode my bike 16 miles.

Open fo bidness

Thanks to the efforts of a bunch of folks, Brown Bear Trail is finished and ready to ride. It's pretty technical and still has a few sections that need to be refined, but there are some great challenges, nice flow and a way-cool wooden ramp.

Best of all, it's the first trail in town that was designed and built by and for mountain bikers, and will help show other local user groups what kind of trail features mountain bikers enjoy.

If you're in Anchorage and need details on how to find the trail, drop me an e-mail—the link's on the right-hand side of this page.

If you like the trail, consider investing some of your time and/or money to help Singletrack Advocates, the group that made this happen. I'll be glad to tell you how to get involved, and donations are always appreciated.

Singletrack Advocates
PO Box 240574
Anchorage, AK 99524

Pass the pepper spray, please

Heads up if you’re riding in the area of the Campbell Creek Bridge / Homestead and Viewpoint trail intersection during the next day or two.

I received an alert this afternoon from folks at Parks & Rec saying a runner pushing her kid in a jogging stroller was charged there yesterday afternoon by a large black bear with three cubs. The bear charged twice to a range of about five feet. Yeah. Five feet. That’ll pucker ya right up.

Land managers are putting up signs and trying to determine whether the sow’s just passing through, or hanging around.

Is the sky falling yet?

Dang. Here we are, halfway through 6/6/06 and the shit hasn’t hit the fan. The world hasn’t ended, and Satan’s a no-show, that pussy. I guess that means I have to keep updating my blog.

My little slice of the bike world is quiet this week. I’m squeezing in rides where I can, doing some work on my Epic and prepping for a trip to Arizona. Gotta get the trail bike dialed in now, because I’ll be traveling until four days before the 24-hour race, and the Epic’s been hurting lately—noisy disc brakes, shifting problems, yadda, yadda, yadda.

I think I've got all the problems fixed except for a little tweaking of the front brake after I pick up a batch of shims. I want everything running perfectly for the race so that everyone will know my lap times aren’t my bike’s fault, I just suck.

The latest Dumbass Sign of the Week comes to us courtesy of the Municipality of Anchorage. This labeled bike route from Klatt to “O’Mally” Road is a block from O’Malley Centre and two blocks from O’Malley Road. Maybe that’s too far to drive to look up the spelling.

(Thanks to Michael at BikeBlog for the cool Tom Waits video link.)

Sniff

Last winter my friend Sue gave me a T-shirt that says, “I love the smell of a bike shop.” The smell of my bike shop—a.k.a. my garage—is the aroma of citronella.

Some people think citronella stinks. They don’t work on mountain bikes in an Anchorage garage during summer.

Citronella smells like a flower. A big, beautiful, mosquito-free flower. I like to light a big candle and let it smoke up the garage before I start working.

I finally recognized the beauty of this stuff a few years ago during a trip with Sue. We pedaled round-trip between Chitina and McCarthy, and the mosquitoes were relentless. They’d suck blood right through the backs of our gloves while we were riding.

And they know how to draft. When I hear somebody describe a bad experience as “a bite in the ass,” I sometimes think that the phrase must have originated with someone who experienced a swarm of mosquitoes in a holding pattern right behind his butt while the little bastards took turns tapping his cheeks through the Lycra.

The day we rode back to Chitina was 61 miles of dusty, washboard gravel road, and we were loaded with gear in Sue’s panniers and my BOB trailer.

We stopped at a little lakeside place where travelers who drive the road can buy a cold drink and get their flat tires repaired. A couple of guys with rubber-stained hands sat outside in the shade and read a newspaper while we walked into their tiny shop to grab some chocolate bars and frosty Cokes. They had a bunch of mosquito coils burning in the place, and it reeked of the smoke.

It was heavenly.

I started burning citronella in my garage after that trip. From May until September, those candles are as important as anything in my toolbox.

I've found that it’s much easier to repack bearings when I'm comfortable and relaxed instead of half-insane and slapping my forehead with greasy fingers.

We bid you goodnight

Rest in peace, Vince.

Help wanted

Singletrack Advocates last year created Anchorage’s first singletrack trail designed and built by and for mountain bikers. It’s unlike any other trail in the Anchorage Bowl, and has some really nice flow and technical challenges. But it needs a few final touches.

Tomorrow is National Trails Day and STA’s goal is to complete what we left unfinished last fall after we ran out of good weather and sunlight after many weeknights and Saturdays swinging Pulaskis.

I have to miss this one because of prior commitments, but if you have some time to contribute, here are the details from crew chief Christopher Souser. Give a few hours, then feel good riding Brown Bear Trail the rest of the summer:

“Just a friendly reminder that tomorrow June 3rd is National Trails day and we really want to have a strong showing so we can complete Brown Bear and officially call the trail ‘done.’

“The Anchorage Daily News will also be out there so it will be a great opportunity to show that mountain bikers show out in force for maintaining and creating local trails.

“So please show up, even if you can only give us an hour or two. Even if you can't do 'heavy manual labor' we will have work for you.

“Meet up at the east side of the Hilltop Parking Lot at 8 a.m., or 8:15 at the woodchip pile on the Gasline. We will be working until at least noon and want to make the most out of the four to five hours we have to work on the trail.

“Bring gloves, a wheel barrow, Pulaski, a shovel, a pick, McLeod, or an old backpack that you wouldn't mind hauling a few rocks in.

“WE REALLY REALLY need someone to bring a large chain saw!

“A few of us will be out there a little before 7 a.m., so you can show up early too if you wish to help.”

Signs of trouble

Bike commuting is hazardous for a guy like me. And I’m not just talking about the dangers of cars, moose, unleashed dogs and the distraction of cruiser bikes bearing well-stuffed spaghetti-strap tank tops on hot summer days. (Don't laugh. That last one is going to get me killed one of these days.)

No, my problem is that I'm an editor, so I can't help noticing bad signs. Street signs, business signs and all the others. That's why I photographed the sign in my previous post. As Adam pointed out, it's redundant. It also happens to be placed next to a bridge on a public street. Doesn't that make us all authorized?

Fortunately, the sign in today's photo actually amuses me because of the apparent lack of imagination behind it. I see it on my way home from work as I cross a street that enters a new subdivision.

I assume that someone just thought it made sense to name the entryway “Entry Way.”

But signs with dumb names are entertaining. Other signs are annoying, even depressing. America is full of people who can’t spell and who have no idea of how to use punctuation—especially the apostrophe. Don’t believe me? Go the grocery store and see if the folks in the produce department have any “banana’s” or “apple’s” on sale.

I bet they do.

I sometimes enjoy ignored signs. My route home also takes me beside Taku Lake, where there's a sign that says, "NO SWIMMING."

It comes in quite handy. People park their bikes against it while they swim.

For several months, I’ve been making mental notes of signs with misspelled words, dumb messages, confusing content, etc., and I’m going to try to photograph as many as I can this summer. I'll try to post one per week and see how long my supply lasts.

Are you authorized?

Uh, can I please ride across the bridge?
(Photo taken during ride up -- well actually,
on the way down -- Potter Valley Road.
I didn't ask permission.)

Work all day, ride trails all evening. Busy, busy, busy. I'm having trouble finding time to write about all my deep mountain-bike thoughts.

Naaaaaah. I'm just screwin' with ya.

I don't have any deep mountain-bike thoughts.

But I did ride trails all evening, and that's all the depth I need this time of year.

The Hillside trails are sweet.

Get 'em while they're hot.

Yo, yield the trail!

This Memorial Day weekend
was the way Memorial Day weekend
is supposed to be. Warm, sunny weather,
an old friend visiting from out of state,
cooked animals on the grill, a few cold beers,
a couple of rides, a couple of uncooked animals
blocking the trail, and time to shoot the shit
after today's trail ride.

Not much time to blog, though.

Uh oh

The rubber broke on my noodle.

Beat me, whip me, make me pedal

Carlos “Mr. Frigid Bits” Lozano just e-mailed me this elevation profile of his Soggy Bottom 100 race course. As far as I’m concerned, this is where sanity goes to die.

The Resurrection Pass Trail between Hope and Cooper Landing is an awesome ride in either direction. It’s one of my all-time favorites. But both ways in a day, with a side trip down and back up Devil’s Pass Trail? And the fickle mood of Alaska's weather? Mmm, no thanks.

Here’s how to ride Resurrection Pass: Leave a car at the Hope end. Head north from Cooper Landing. Ride the whole, what, 40+ miles of singletrack? Drink a cold beer from the cooler you wisely left in the vehicle. Drive into Hope, stop at Tito’s and order a hamburger the size of a go-kart wheel. Wash it down with a Coke on ice.

Now you’ve had an epic ride and a good meal, and no part of your body is in excruciating pain. You can drive home and sleep.

But if you won’t listen to me, if you have some masochistic thing goin’ on and you really need pain, head over to Carlos’ site and download a registration form, you freak. He’ll take care of ya and make it as much fun as it can be, under the circumstances.

But he might make you call him “Master Carlos.”

Blast from the past

The term "classic" is often overused. But I came
across a true classic this week
when I passed George Dube slowly cruising
the Campbell Creek bike trail on this baby.

A 1952 Schwinn Packard.
Original. As in original paint, original parts.
This thing is museum quality.

Fortunately for George,
it's not collecting dust in a museum.
It sits in his living room until
we have a beautiful day.
Then it gets taken out for a cruise.

Nothing wrong with museums.
But a bike like this deserves
to be ridden
from time to time.
It isn't some lifeless meteorite
meant to sit on a shelf.
It's a bike, dammit.

And it's a bike that George
obviously appreciates and loves.
He can tell you its history
and describe its unique features
like an experienced tour guide,
right down to the day
the bike was manufactured.

March 23, 1952.

Trail filler

It finally happened. I got on my bike after work last night and I was overdressed. Tights, full-fingered gloves, long-sleeve jersey. It was too much. A warm, sunny day in Anchorage. Who knew?

It’s about freakin’ time, that's all I can say.

The bike trail along Campbell Creek almost could have qualified as crowded. Kids on after-school rides, commuters; it was nice to see a little traffic of the non-motorized variety. Hell, it felt so good that I barely got mad at the dog walker who was standing 30 feet from her hairy beast because she was using one of those damned retractable leashes with the barely visible cord. I nearly hit the stupid thing.

According to the reports I’m hearing, a few Anchorage trails are ready for riding and the others are getting close. Maybe Team Megasorass can get in a group ride on the 24-hour course this week.

Any locals looking for some action this weekend (and really, who isn’t looking for some action every weekend?) should check out Rio’s latest evil plot, the Crusty Bits Good Time Trial. The 18-mile course is a secret, any bike with two wheels is allowed, there’s a time bonus for costumes, bonuses for ugliest bike and heaviest bike, and every rider must have a one-gallon freezer bag with his or her name on it.

I don’t think I want to know what’s gonna happen with those bags.

I’ll be busy with out-of-state guests this weekend, so I have to miss the festivities. Hopefully, someone will get some incriminating shots of DaveIT for me to post on the blog.

To get in on the race, meet up at 7 p.m. Saturday at the Trail Watch building next to Westchester Lagoon.

Squiggle sucks

I'm 33 miles into a ride Sunday when the rear tire on my old Stumpjumper suddenly squiggles to the left as I roll through an intersection. Puncture. Only three blocks from my house. No damn way am I wrestling a slick off the rim without the benefit of a repair stand when I'm only three blocks from home. And yeah, I just made up the word "squiggle."

I walked it home. Can't even remember the last time I did that. When I see people pushing bikes with flat tires I always think they're fools for not carrying what they need to make the repair. I guess it was my turn to let others think the same of me, 'cause when I did the math it came down to having a repaired tire in 12 to 15 minutes, or leftover chicken and a cold Coke in 10. The food won.

Until that damned glass shard got to my tube, it was a hell of a nice ride. I'm feeling unusually strong for this time of year. I think the little bit of Pilates I did this spring is paying off. The lower back is feeling good and I have more power on climbs. And when a Clydesdale feels good on climbs, you know there's something weird goin' on.

I used to think Pilates was just a workout fad for bored housewives with boob jobs and Lexus SUVs. I was young and naive. That shit works. I can't figure out why else I'd be feelin' this good in May. Next time I'm in the shop, I've gotta thank Rose for gettin' me to try it.

Today's picture? That's the family quiver (most of it, anyway) stashed in the house during Saturday's yard sale. My wife didn't think it would be wise to advertise to a bunch of bargain-hunting strangers that we keep a small fleet of mountain bikes in the garage. I couldn't argue with that logic, so we moved 'em inside.

Middle of the weekend

I spent the day helping my wife with a garage sale. She gets the urge to do one about every 10 or 15 years, and that's plenty. I even managed to sell one old Zefal pump and a pair of crappy studded bike tires. There's not much demand for old frame pumps, used knobbies and dusty old toe clips.

Sunday should get me some bike time. Until then, I'm just postin' a photo I've been meaning to use for a few days. I forget where I found this shot of a Marine in Iraq, but what the hell, let's call it soldier-appreciation day here at Bicycles and Icicles.

Yeah, I support the troops. I want to give them a competent boss. Let's impeach the bastard and bring 'em home. Let's get this Marine out of the sand and put him on a real bike and some loamy singletrack where nobody's trying to kill him.

Speaking of troops: Shelby, if you're still checking the blog during your deployment, drop me an e-mail and let me know how you're doing. Send a photo if you can. I'll post the info so we'll have an update on a fellow Frigid Bits rider. Get back before the snow flies so we can hit some trails.

I'm outta here. Thanks for stoppin' in.

Bad cop, no doughnut

I was pleased—briefly—when I opened this morning’s Anchorage Daily News and found a prominent article on Bike To Work Day. But, as with so many things involving the Daily News, my joy was short-lived.

This time, it wasn't entirely the newspaper’s fault. What was disturbing was the experience recounted by the woman in the photo that accompanied the story. Judy Abrahams lives on the Hillside and rides more than 20 miles each way during her commute, so someone at the ADN apparently decided she'd be a good person to describe riding in Anchorage.

As she was riding up Northwood Drive with a reporter, a police officer pulled up beside her, honked his horn and pointed to the sidewalk, indicating that she should be on it. She said it looked like the same cop who did the same thing the previous day.

Now, I’m just some guy who likes bikes, but I ride part of the same route Abrahams rides and I’ve bothered to read the municipal ordinance regarding bicycles, so I happen to know that Abrahams was not only on a route where it's safe to ride on the street, she was riding completely within the law.

The ordinance is very easy to read, and it’s readily available. You can download a PDF file right here. (Just click on "Municipal Bike Law.") It’s a good document to be familiar with if you ride a bike in Anchorage.

It’s an even better document to be familiar with if you’re authorized to write tickets for traffic violations.

Life as a bike commuter is hard enough with bad drivers. We don't need ignorant cops, too.

Team Megasorass hits the road

Every great cycling team has a spring training camp.
Team Megasorass is no exception. We did our first
team ride up Potter Valley Road
last night. Here are the rest of the guys
who make up the team for this year's
24 Hours of Kincaid.

Scott, veteran of Team Toe Tags,
24 Hours of Kincaid, 2004

Robbo, token Valley guy
and the costume king
of the Frigid Bits crit series.
(And yes, he was wearing sandals
at 45 degrees.)

DaveIT, all-around bike hound
and singlespeed king
of the Frigid Bits crit series.

If you're in this year's 24 Hours of Kincaid
but you're not on this team, well, you're
just screwed.

Oh, you might beat us.
But you're still screwed.

Growing older but not up

A few days ago, I filled out a questionnaire that was distributed to members of my high-school graduating class. It has been 25 years since most of us went our separate ways, and this is a way for people to catch up with one another’s activities.

It also provides an opportunity for people to boast about brilliant children, wildly successful careers and ambitious goals.

When asked about my goals for the next few years, I wrote, “I still want to learn to ride a wheelie.”

Am I lazy?

Or just satisfied?

Maybe a little bit of both.

After all, I did take the lazy approach on that answer. It would have taken too long to list all the places I’d like to ride my bike in the next 10 years, so I just listed one goal and called it good.

Or maybe I’m just defective in some male-chromosome way. Watching sports on TV bores me, and I’d rather slash my wrists than take up golf. Men in their 40s are supposed to love that shit.

No thanks.

I’ll stick with nice bikes and funny shorts.

Giddyup

My younger brother has been visiting
my older brother in Wyoming,
where they saw a new way
to transport bikes.

Happy Mother's Day

Amsterdam, 1953

Buckwheat rides again!

Owooooooh! When it comes to helpin' out a guy in need, there's a bunch of people out there who just know how to kick a little ass.

Two weeks ago, my man Buckwheat called me from the road in British Columbia and mentioned that his borrowed bike was stolen during his walk/bike/canoe trip from Florida to the Bering Sea. I asked people to help pitch in to pay off the cost for him. Some of you sent in your money. Others had pledged a bunch more. Beth Bragg agreed to write a column about it in the Anchorage Daily News. Word got around, and then some.

Sockeye Cycles in Haines wrote off the loaner bike as a donation to Buckwheat's effort to raise money for the clinic in Skagway. Everybody who gave money told me they wanted it to be forwarded to the clinic fund. Those who had pledged money were either encouraged to send their donations to the clinic, or indicated they were helping Buckwheat in other ways.

And the folks in Fort St. John, B.C.? They weren't too thrilled to be known as the town where a good guy got ripped off, so city officials issued a proclamation in support of Buckwheat's cause, and bought the man a new Kona!

The local radio station called 100.1 Moose FM sent a guy out on the Alaska Highway to present the bike and interview Skagway's finest. Read Buckwheat's tale of the whole affair, and then listen to the interview to hear a very happy man, and to hear the real reason you're paying so much for gasoline these days.

Thanks to everyone who made all of this happen over the past two weeks. Somewhere out there on a highway in the Yukon Territory, I know Buckwheat's howlin' and smilin' every time he thinks about it.

It’s a sign from the (mtb) gods!

When your 12-year-old daughter finds you kneeling on the kitchen floor with a camera at 6:30 in the morning, you can consider it a “teaching moment.”

I chose to teach my daughter about miracles.

You know, like the face of Jesus in a tortilla, or the Virgin Mary that appears in a stain on the wall after you drop a glass of merlot on a hardwood floor.

I’m an atheist, so I don’t experience such miracles. (Although I do spill wine, on occasion.) I see amazing symbols from a different source.

And lo, there it was this morning as I rinsed my cereal bowl at the kitchen sink …

The Santa Cruz logo in a scuff mark on the floor!

Artist’s depiction.

Natural occurrence.

Yeah, that's what I thought. Spooky.

My daughter was immediately concerned about hordes of the mountain-biking faithful making their way to our door in hopes of kneeling before this scuff mark and witnessing it with their very own eyes.

“Damn good thinking, kid,” I told her. “We’d better get ready.”

I’m having Rent-A-Cans set up in the driveway tomorrow.

Bring your own beer.

Tea at the Green Welly

Occasionally, I'll hear someone whining about how e-mail, instant-messaging, blogs and the Internet in general are destroying human communication. What a load of crap. Yeah, maybe they're beating spelling, grammar and punctuation to a bloody pulp, but you've gotta love the way they bring people together in a way that older technologies never could.

I've communicated with distant relatives, old classmates and bicyclists around the world thanks to the ease of firing off a quick e-mail. People I haven't seen in years (if ever) have tracked me down via the Internet and gotten in touch, which they probably never would have done without the speed and convenience of technology.

I used to think blogs were for geeks until I realized how much writing one—and reading others—keeps me in touch with a much wider circle of cyclists. Maybe blogs are still for geeks, but we're bike geeks dammit, and that makes it OK. Instead of being isolated up here on the winter ice and summer singletrack of the frigid north, I know what's going on with bike messengers in New York City, singlespeeders in D.C., and what the local crowd is up to in Minneapolis, which must have more blogging bikers per capita than any other American city.

I was thinking about this as I read my latest e-mail from Stephen Grant, a rider in Scotland who reads this blog and stays in touch from time to time. I've never ridden in Scotland but I enjoyed taking a little vicarious vacation through his descriptions of his recent "400 Permie" tour:

"I stopped for sustenance, breaking into a gel. ... Thats legalised EPO to you, and got a decent kick out of it to take me away from the shelter of the loch on up to Dalmally for my tea. Dalmally wasn't expecting me and had shut!! Bass. Well, there's always the Green Welly in Tyndrum ..."

Now that's good stuff.

In Alaska we might have post-ride beer at a place called Moose's Tooth. In Scotland, they stop for tea at Green Welly in Tyndrum. And we all get to swap stories about it.

That's pretty freakin' cool.

Keep 'em coming, Stephen.

Did I just say it felt like spring?

Mmm, maybe not so much.
Shit, I hate Mondays.

Rollin'

I've actually managed to ride a bike three days in a row, with a couple more days to come. Damn, this could start to feel like spring. I added some miles to Friday's commute thanks to leaving a few minutes early in the morning, and then pedaled out at lunch time for Chinese food.

On Saturday I rode past Potter Marsh and then up Potter Valley Road to put some hills in my legs. It didn't even suck. I managed to keep breakfast on board and stopped to snap this photo about halfway down during the descent.

Today it was a cruise up to Cafe Amsterdam in Midtown for the first official Really Important Strategy Meeting of Team Megasorass. Palmeranian Rob couldn't make it, but DaveIT and Scott showed up and finally met face to face. A pint of brew later, I was pedaling back south and DaveIT was cruising home on the stylin' Olympia he brought back from Italy. That sucker's so cool it's hot, somebody should stick a card on it. But after takin' a closer look at the photo, I'd say he sorta locks it funny. What's the deal there, Dave?

Scott took off on something called a Yamaha. Seemed to be one of those motorcycle things. I'm startin' to worry about that boy. But I'm sure I'll stop as soon as we do another ride and he kicks my ass.

Flippin' sweet!

There's a new bike in the family.

It's orange. And it's loved.

And it gets, like, three feet of air.

Wow

Michelle's got a nice rack!

Seriously.

I mean, you could park your bike just by jamming a wheel between those things!

You should see it from all angles.

Drinker with a biking problem

This strange series of events all started on a frozen lake. Some shady character who uses the alias "Rio" organized a race on ice. Some guy showed up in a technicolor dragon jersey and thought the whole thing was a hoot. Some other guy started showin' up dressed like a bear one week and Elmo the next. Now Dragon Boy has drafted my ass into doing another year of the 24 Hours of Kincaid, and Elmo's on the team. Allow me to introduce you to the dragon-jersey guy, a.k.a. DaveIT, founder of Team Megasorass and all-around bad influence.

Led astray by clowns like this, I actually pulled Scott, a teammate from the 2004 race, into the surreal nightmare. Poor dude has no idea what he's in for. The sick thing is, he'll probably like it.

Elmo boy, a.k.a. Snoop Robby Rob, has designed our team mascot (which, lucky reader, you see here) and has publicly confessed to researching sheep anatomy for race-related purposes I'm afraid to contemplate. He's a Palmeranian, which means he lives in the Mad-Zoo Valley, home of Matanuska Thunderfuck and World Capital of the Mobile Home Meth Lab. And he smiles a lot under adverse conditions, which is sort of disturbing.

And to top it all off, Dave has some Air Force job that involves AWACS jets and secret codes. So now every time I'm riding with him when he's on call and his cell phone rings, I get scared and stare at the sky until I realize he's only talking to his wife.

There's a distinct possibility that I'm gettin' too old for this shit.

I'm not gonna tell Scott until after he pays his race fee, but this thing's gettin' weird and we haven't even started yet. If it's this bad now, what will it be like in the woods at 3 a.m. with a pissed-off moose staring me down while I'm runnin' on three packets of Gu and fistful of caffeine tablets?

Buckwheat update

Thanks to a bunch of generous folks, I can once again hang up the "No Soliciting" sign on this blog. The PayPal button is gone. The Buckwheat Bike Fund will be drained as its balance is sent to the appropriate people. If you're still interested in helping Buckwheat's cause, send a tax-deductible donation to the Heartbeat Trail for the Dahl Memorial Clinic, the inspiration for Buckwheat's yearlong trip.

Huge thanks to my fellow bloggers who helped out: Tim, O.B., Jill and last but far from least, Shawn, who said he would do his part and then did even more. And thanks to every reader who pitched in your hard-earned cash. Now I can go back to writing about bikes and the crazy buggers who ride them.

Unfortunately, Buckwheat is in a remote region of Canada and can't be reached on his cell phone, but I know what he'll say when I tell him about all of this: "Owoooooooooh!"

Step high, it's gettin' deeper

When does a "mistake" start to look suspicious?
When it keeps happening.
Can you believe your component makers' ads?

Selling it cheap

When you get right down to it, there are really only a handful of reasons to ride mountain bikes: It’s fun as hell, it's good for you, and it gives you a reason to hang out with the coolest people on the planet.

It should be done only out of love, because few people will ever have the legs and lungs to do it for any other reason. It'll never earn us a living. Most of us buy our own bikes, pay our own race-entry fees and fork over the money when it’s time to replace the shit we break. That’s just how it works.

There are a few amateur riders here and there who manage to bag a sponsorship or two, and good for them. But except for a very tiny number of people who turn it into a job, a sponsorship means little more than some free stuff. Nothin’ wrong with free stuff. I'd love some.

But I wouldn’t get on my knees for it. I wouldn't lie for it. And I wouldn't let a sponsor lie for it.

What’s your integrity worth? What price would you put on dignity?

Would you sell it for a stem? A handlebar?

Probably not. Most likely, you'd quit riding before you'd show up at a start line stripped of what really counts.

When all is said and done, it doesn’t matter if you never win a race in your entire life. The only things that count are the ride and the people you ride with.