Crappy stuff sucks

Other than a pair of fenders I used to run on my old commuter bike, I've never owned any gear from Planet Bike. Based on this bottle cage, I'm not sure I ever will.My daughter's best friend had her bike in our garage over the weekend, so I decided to install a new bottle cage to replace the broken one that she's had all season. When I looked closer, I found these weld failures. What the hell are they building these things with? Silly Putty? Chewing gum?If this thing can't handle a 13-year-old kid riding around the neighborhood, how long would it last on a trail? The welds came apart on both sides. Shitty products tick me off.

Want a bottle cage that'll last? Buy a Blackburn Mountain Cage. It's cheap, reasonably light, and damn near indestructible. I've never managed to break one. I have them on at least three bikes, and I've forgotten how old some of them are. The only rig I don't use them on is my road bike, which I felt just had to have carbon-fiber bottle cages.

Because, after all, it's easier for a chunk like me to buy a lighter part than it is to pass on that extra slice of pizza.

Scenes from Kincaid

I drove out to Kincaid Park for a little while
on Saturday night, and walked
to a few good spots on the 24-hour race course
to take some pictures.Then I got together with friends,
ate too much food, drank a little wine
and slept in a nice warm bed.
This morning I woke up to rain
and remembered telling myself
during last year's race that
there was no way we could have
sunny skies again this year.My recliner feels really good
right now. I hope all the racers
are warm in their damp tents
and safe on the slippery roots.

24 hours of pain

It's time again for the 24 Hours of Kincaid.

Noon Saturday to noon Sunday; nearly 2,600 feet of climbing in every 10.5-mile lap; plenty of moose; maybe a bear or two; and an added challenge this year—plenty of pulverized, powdery trail thanks to the heavy equipment that's pillaging and plundering the park. (But hey, disc golfers need another place to wander around stoned, and the Nordic skiers desperately need another freeway for their enormous trail groomers, so who am I to complain?)

Last year, I rode this beast for the third year in a row while muttering profane vows to not enter this year's race. So, I'll go out Saturday night to check on my fellow Clydesdale and former teammate, Rob, who's racing solo this year. And I'll watch all the pained, strained faces rolling through the checkpoint as I feel really good about going home and sleeping as the sufferfest rolls through the night.

Despite the pain of the race, I love being among my own kind. A small part of me might miss being involved in the whole scene. But I'm pretty damned sure that a couple of glasses of wine and the feel of my pillow will clear up that affliction very quickly.

Babe in the Woods

Heather crashes with style.

(OK, maybe not, but at least she
poses after flopping into the dirt.
That should count for something.)

Deep thoughts

I came across The Question the other day. You know, the one that pops up in various forms in questionnaires and discussions among people who ride: How long have you been a bicyclist?

I’m never sure how to answer that question. What makes one a bicyclist, instead of just a person who rides a bike? In the alternative universe of my mind, I have some vague guidelines for what makes me think of someone as a cyclist. My little rules seem to involve some nebulous combination of experience, skill, equipment and whatever else I’m in the mood to include on a given day.

So when I tell someone I’ve been riding for 18 years, I’m counting only the time that has elapsed since I bought my first decent bike as an adult, and then started commuting to work and learning about singletrack on weekends. Somehow, that doesn’t seem right.

What about all the years I spent as a kid getting around my hometown on a bike—riding to school, my dad’s store, friends’ houses, and the city swimming pool every summer afternoon? What about all those boring evenings when I’d tell my mom, “I’m going for a ride,” and then spend an hour or two aimlessly pedaling around after dinner?

What about all the times as a teenager when I climbed to the top of the hill outside town just so I could scream back down it on my old Raleigh 10-speed? (I’m still grateful to my friend Don for never running over me when he’d chase me down to clock my speed on his car’s speedometer.)

Those things should count too, shouldn’t they?

Maybe we’re not really “cyclists” until we start asking ourselves existentialist questions about when we became cyclists.

Or until the first time we pull on a pair of Lycra shorts containing a big gob of chamois butter and then say, "Whoa! What would happen if I farted right now?"

Don't waste sunshine

Dude #1: Sure, it's all summery now, but you know
in six months it's all gonna be snowin' again and shit.

Dude #2: Fuck that.

—Overheard on a PATH train

Show me the money

I think most everyone has a fantasy about what they’d do if they won a big lottery. Mine is to set up a solid fund to carry me through life, then use the rest to establish a charitable fund modeled after The Rex Foundation, so I could give money to all sorts of overlooked causes that interest me.

Needless to say, I’d also need a slightly bigger house with a large room to serve as Tim’s Personal Bike Shop. It would have to include a comfortable couch, wet bar, some tunes flowing through nice speakers, and enough room for a rich guy’s bike collection.

But I'd still have trouble topping the collection of Brad Duke. He pocketed $85 million a couple of years ago after winning a Powerball jackpot.

So he spent $14,500 on a used car.

And $65,000 on new bicycles.

Ya gotta love a guy who has his priorities straight.

Go, homeboy!

The Great Divide Race starts Friday,
and if I were puttin' money on this one,
I'd be betting on hometown boy
and Paramount wrench Pete Basinger.

Unfortunately, I'm too cheap
to be much of a gambler, and every time
a co-worker has asked me to join a pool
on the Kentucky Derby, I've said I never bet
on anything faster than me.

That means I couldn't bet on Pete
in about four lifetimes. But I'll
be cheering for him all the way.

Rip it up, Pete, and be safe.

Don't let this happen to you

Never go camping without a bike. Because, when you get right down to it, there's not much point to camping unless you have some fun activities to fill your daytime hours so that you can sit around the fire at night and reflect on the day.

I just went camping for a couple of nights and foolishly left all my bikes at home. In a moment of temporary insanity, I decided to try scoring a few domestic credits with my noncyclist wife. The forecast was for cloudy skies anyway, so I just took some binoculars for wildlife viewing, a book for leisure-time reading, and ... no freaking bikes!

The weather turned out to be spectacular. A great nearby trail was still muddy from the spring melt, but I was a only short distance from a great highway ride and didn't even have my road bike.

Those Boy Scouts might be a bunch of homophobic, athiest-hating Christians, but they have one thing figured out:

Be Prepared!

Trailhead thieves suck

I can think of only one solution.

Beatings.

Long, painful beatings
that leave hands too crippled
to ever again wield
a window-smashing hammer.

(No, my car wasn't hit; I'm just
in a mood. But I'll stand by
this position even when
I'm feeling warm and fuzzy again.)

Trails and The Man

A couple of years ago, I spent several days riding the trail system built by Troy Rarick and his friends Fruita, Colo. Except for the fact that I went in the spring and suffered because of my flabby condition and rusty technical skills after a long winter in Anchorage, it was a great trip on wonderful trails. That’s my brother riding one of them in today’s photo.

Hoping to learn more about the creation of such an extensive and fun network, I stopped at Over The Edge and met Troy, and we discussed meeting later in the week so I could pick his brain for tips we could use in Anchorage. Between his busy schedule and all my time riding (and gorging on pasta at the Fruita Brewing Company), we never managed to get together, so I didn’t know until this week that most of Fruita’s trails were built with a wink and nudge rather than with the permission of public land managers.

Trail building presents interesting dilemmas. The permitting process is agonizingly slow and complicated, so the only people who can navigate it are those with some free time, a tolerance for homework, and a shitload of patience. Then there are all the people—even within the same user groups—who can’t agree on how to do things. By the time a trail is built with the blessing of a government agency, the people who pushed it through the process deserve some sort of medal.

I do what I can on the fringes of our local trail-planning scene. But I lack the time and patience to wade through all the red tape, so I have great admiration and gratitude for those who can do it.

Building bandit trails is an understandable temptation. We all love quick gratification. Unfortunately, most people can’t do as good a job as Rarick’s crowd, so I'm generally opposed to any unsanctioned trail work. Given the image problems that mountain bikers have always faced, building a bad trail does lasting damage to more than just the land; it breeds anger and resentment among other user groups. And when the free-ride crowd adds scrap lumber and other elements that offend the eye, it gets even worse.

Where am I going with this? I have no idea. It's just been on my mind this week.

I can tell you one thing, though. I really wish we could get land managers addicted to riding singletrack, because that would probably make the whole process much easier.

Simplicity

I seem to be in something of a technological paradox. My bikes keep getting more expensive and high-tech, while my interest in collecting digital details of my rides seems to be fading fast. Until a couple of years ago, I kept a detailed ride log on a PDA each season. Then I set up a winter bike without a computer and learned to enjoy ignoring cumulative miles.

Now I have this fancy, GPS-enabled bike computer and I'm finding that, more often than not, I'm either not bothering to use it, or ignoring the ride data after I get home. I sat down tonight and uploaded profiles of four rides, but couldn't remember three of them well enough to give them a description or title, so I just deleted them. The only one I salvaged was last weekend's ride with Ken, which is shown here.

I'm not even bothering to reset the mileage on the (relatively) old-school Cat Eye bike computer that's still mounted on my mountain bike. Basically, I have no idea how many miles I've ridden so far this year. And I don't really care.

It's way more fun to simply enjoy the feel of a fast, hard-leaning curve on my road bike or a fast, swooping descent on my trail bike. As long as I'm spending enough time on my bikes to be happy, and my gut isn't not spilling over my belt too much, I really don't give a damn how far I've ridden this year.

I'll keep tracking miles or ride profiles when I'm in the mood, or if there's a good reason to collect the data. Otherwise, I'll just continue to find myself looking down at the empty handlebar mount where my computer should be as I think to myself, "Oops, I forgot the computer again.

"Wow, this bike is fun to ride."

Irony

I was driving down Johns Road on Thursday night to pick up my daughter from her friend’s house when I saw a guy pedaling north on what looked like an entry-level mountain bike.

He was moving fairly slow and looked like a recreational rider on an evening cruise. His slacks and collared shirt certainly weren’t designed for performance on a bike. His stem rose at a steep angle so he could sit up straight and comfortable, which was the perfect position for him to ride with one hand as he held two fingers to his lips and pulled a good long drag off his cigarette.

And he was wearing a helmet.

A helmet. While smoking a cigarette.

Three feet

If you really must apply makeup
while driving to work, at least
make it something productive.

Thanks to the folks in Sioux Falls
for posting this great PSA.

Oh, and if you happen to be
a mountain biker in Anchorage
and you haven't already received
four e-mails warning you about it,
be careful in the area near the
ski jumps. There's a big brown bear
there that might not be friendly.

Safety is Sexy

I might not be the most appropriate advocate for helmet use. I sometimes ride with a friend who assesses brain injuries, and she has accused me of being a few tacos shy of a combination plate.

Still, I've bounced my head off everything from Moab slickrock to Anchorage ice enough times to believe in the benefits of encasing one's skull in reinforced Styrofoam. So I was pretty jazzed when a packet of stickers arrived from the folks at the Safety is Sexy Campaign in Washington, D.C. (My Alaska friends may now commence ta askin' fer 'em as long as supplies last.)

Helmets work. And these stickers are cool. Check out the site and fire off an e-mail to request some stickers. They're free, but it's a nonprofit operation, so it wouldn't hurt to send a few bucks to help them cover the cost.

Survived

Business travel is inhumane. I don't know how some people do it regularly. First, there’s the sadistically cramped space in coach class. Then there are the shitty in-flight snacks. A couple of nights ago, I was handed one that was so small that if I hadn’t already said I’d take the peanuts, I’d have thought the flight attendant was offering me a condom. Excuse me? Fifteen peanuts are supposed to keep me alive from Atlanta to Seattle?

And, of course, there are all the hours spent in conference rooms, dinners and receptions, interrupted only by quick trips back to a hotel room and brief glimpses of the exercise facility that there’s never time to use.

But by far the worst torture was to be facing a row of windows Monday night as I was talking to a colleague during a large conference dinner and a pack of cyclists rolled down the street. I don’t remember what we were discussing at the time. All I know is that my mouth was moving, sound was coming out, and I was staring over this person’s shoulder and through the windows as if Pamela Anderson were standing there naked and pressing the twins against the glass.

I would have cut off an arm to trade places and be out there riding. Not my arm, of course, but someone else’s for sure.

Now I’m home, there’s a long weekend in front of me, and the trails are open.

Butt, meet saddle. Saddle, butt.

Let the fun begin.

Goats, and I'm gone

My brother and his wife are traveling in Iowa this week, and doing some rides along the way. Because being a smartass is somewhat of a family trait, he felt compelled to provide his own version of the moose photos I posted a couple of days ago. His caption: "Moose, schmoose. We got goats!"

As much as I hate to leave my regular blog visitors with a photo of Iowa goats, Bicycles & Icicles is being suspended for a few days. There are visitors to entertain, a graduation to attend, and then a business trip to endure. I'll be spouting off about bike stuff again sometime around Memorial Day weekend.

Ya'll come back now, ya here?

Sharin' the trail

Although I always enjoy seeing them, I don't usually bother to stop and view our local moose, much less photograph them. Typically, I just take a second to appreciate seeing wildlife as I keep moving. But these young twins caught my attention during a ride Monday afternoon.

For one thing, I don't usually see four moose at the same time, but these twins were right beside the Coastal Trail, and their mom was only a few yards away. Another mature moose was about 50 yards away on the other side of the trail. I have visitors in town and, like most tourists, they want to see moose. So I stopped to snap a few pics for them, and left when the twins crossed the paved trail and the cow started glaring at me.

I framed the shots through the main triangle of my road bike because A) I thought doing so would make a nice composition and provide some indication of how close the moose were, and B) it was a chance to get my bike in the shot, and I'm sort of a geek when it comes to shit like that.

My sister-in-law looked at these shots and thought I was crazy enough to try hiding behind my bike. I told her that if there were any hiding to be done, I would have hidden my bike behind me, to shield it with my body in the event of a charge.

That thing wasn't cheap, you know.

How crazy does she think I am?

Brain bucket

The next time someone tries
to tell you that helmets
don't really make you safer,
tell them about Ryan Lipscomb.

Then tell them they're full of shit.

Thanks, Mom

"At least you can quit a bike race."
—Connie Carpenter Phinney comparing
childbirth to bike racing

Park it and ride

I realize that promoting Bike to Work Day on a bike blog is like trying to sell Bibles to missionaries, but what the hell, I believe in it. I won't be riding to work next Wednesday, but that's only because I'm taking the week off. I'll be doing something even better: biking somewhere that's not work.

If you had forgotten that Bike to Work Day was coming up, get ready to share the bike rack with a couple of those once-a-year types. This is your chance to start a conversation and tell them how you ride to work all the time and how easy and fun it is to do. Who knows? With a little encouragement, maybe they can be converted.

Come to think of it, maybe I am selling Bibles to missionaries. Saddle up, Brother Jed.

Even the Municipality of Anchorage—the capital of four-wheel drive—is getting behind it. Click on over to the muni website for all sorts of information.

And if anyone needs more motivation, I read a news article a few days ago that said gas will soon be headed toward four bucks a gallon.

GPiSsed

My mother-in-law is visiting right now, and she asked if I’ve been using the Garmin Edge 205 she sent me for Christmas. I told her I don’t fully understand all the things it can do, because I mostly use it just to put squiggly lines on Google Earth photos so that I can see where I've ridden.

This image of Potter Valley Road is a good example. The road is very popular with local cyclists who climb it—often several times in a single session—for springtime workouts. I’ve been riding it quite a bit this year, so one night a couple of weeks ago, I reset the 205 at the bottom of the hill and then stopped it at the end of the pavement so I could get all the pertinent numbers on the climb.

I can gasp my way up this climb in a little less than 14 minutes (way slower than the people who actually race up it). It is 1.89 miles from the bottom to the top, which involves 621 feet of elevation gain. The grades run as steep as 11 percent. I know this because I was dumb enough to include that information among the fields of data displayed on the screen.

I’m still not sure if there is any good reason to know, at the moment one is grinding up an 11-percent grade, that the hill is actually that steep. It can sort of make a person want to head-butt his bike computer with his helmet. I don’t dare try this, of course, because in my oxygen-deprived state I’d be more likely to slam into my stem and suffer disfiguring facial trauma.

But it sure makes a neat squiggly line on the satellite photo, though, doesn’t it?

Damn, I'm havin' fun

For the first time in the 10 years I've lived in Alaska, I'm not feeling impatient for the trails to dry out. Oh, I'm eager to break out my Epic and hit some singletrack, but I know that day is coming, and I'm having enough fun that I don't mind waiting.

Mountain bikers have been complaining on the local Internet forum that they need dirt, and that they're tired of riding pavement. Some of them are asking for tips on where to find a dry trail.

Here's a tip: This is Alaska and it's early May. There isn't a dry trail. Be patient.

Dr. Tim prescribes a dose of road bike. Take liberally as needed. Symptoms of impatience should subside within 24 hours. Side effects may include increased weariness, premature seasonal fitness and excessive smiling.

Call me a damned roadie if ya want. I just like to think I'm a bicyclist. Any bike that fits the season is good. A month from now, I'll be grinning from ear to ear as I enjoy the plush feel of a full-suspension mountain bike. But for now, I'm happy to savor the speed of skinny tires and freakishly light frame.

Holy crap, this thing is fun.

Bike thieves suck

I love a happy ending.

Brendon hits the dirt

Mountain biking. It must run in the family. This is a shot
of my nephew riding in Moab last month. The photo
was taken by his dad (and my little brother),
and appears on the VeloNews website.

Misadventure? Yeah, I've done that

One of the drawbacks to spending so much time riding bikes—and blogging about riding bikes, not to mention having a job and family—is that I find myself wishing I had more time to read books. It used to be that I'd read a lot during winter, and then pretty much abandon all hope of completing anything longer than a magazine article during the summer. Then I got a Pugsley and even winter reading became a challenge.

Then there's the little issue of the fact that much of what I read is about bikes. I'm almost starting to feel guilty about my ever-narrowing focus.

I said almost.

Lately, in addition to the usual pile of bike rags and National Geographic magazines that are piled up beside my favorite chair, I've been reading Cycling's Greatest Misadventures, a collection of nonfiction essays edited by Erich Schweikher. Paul Diamond, the publisher at Casagrande Press sent me an advance copy a few weeks ago.

Although most of the stories in the book are written by authors I've never heard of—Schweikher selected the 27 stories out of submissions professional journalists, former pro racers and everyday schmoes like you and me—this is the kind of reading that fits easily with a busy ride schedule and/or a short attention span. That's the beauty of essay collections: you can read one or two at a sitting, then ignore the book for days or weeks before picking up where you left off.

There's good stuff in here, even though some it may leave mental images you could live without, such as former racer Austin King's tale of the Kleedkamer, or changing room, where European pros get naked and then hang ... er, stand around and chat while waiting to powder up and put on their racing kits.

King's story was amusing, but I was once a guest at a gym where all the old guys up in the executive locker room sat around naked on vinyl chairs while they read the Wall Street Journal, and I didn't need a reminder.

There's also a story on the Buffalo Soldier Bicycle Corps that should erase anyone's need to whine about hardships on their last multi-state tour. And if you ever entertained romantic notions about working as a guide on cross-continent bike tours, Heather Andersen's tale of difficult clients and dealing with fatal accidents on two back-to-back tours should make it a little easier to endure your day job.

The only thing weird about this book is the concept of compiling a collection of essays in which so many things go wrong. There's even a section of crash photos. Considering that the target audience is obviously cyclists, I guess they're appealing to our darker side. Sort of reminds me of those books about grizzly attacks. I guess those stories might be a real hoot if you live in Iowa. Living and riding in Alaska, I don't really need constant reminders of what very large bears might to do me.

Still, anyone who rides singletrack knows that mountain bikers tend to spend more time harassing our friends about their crashes than we do asking if they're OK, so maybe this is a brilliant marketing strategy.

Who knows? All I care about is having some good stuff to read ... if I ever turn off the laptop.

Speedy Sunday

(Updated to include link for online viewing of Urban Cyclist)

What a great bike day. Maura and I joined the ABC ride from Anchorage to the Alyeska ski resort area in Girdwood. I rode from my house to meet up with the group, and bagged a little over 69 miles in 4 hours, 11 minutes of riding time, not to mention a tasty bowl of soup at the turnaround point.

Then I came home to find out that Jeff Guerrero and company had finished the debut edition of a new 'zine called Urban Cyclist. You can check out the first issue by downloading your free copy in .pdf format, or view it online here.

Of course, I learned that the issue was online when I logged on to the local mountain-bike forum and saw Dave's thread called "Mr. Woody poses nude for a new magazine." As if any of you needed that disturbing image in your brain.

But if you read very closely, you just might see someone you know.

But he won't be nekkid.

Manning Up

After I designated last Sunday as Poetry Day at Bicycles & Icicles, Adam slapped me around via e-mail:

“A lot of folks think that one of the nice things about progressive living in the 21st century is that a man can write poetry and still be a man. I call those folks hippies and losers. Seriously, did you not expect to catch shit for writing a poem? I mean jeez.”

I pointed out that I didn’t write the poem, I just linked to it because I’m a sensitive guy in touch with my feelings.

I can cry, you know.

But in the interest of manning up and maintaining editorial balance, I’m designating today “Man Day” at Bicycles & Icicles by posting a pic of a hot babe with a bicycle, and sharing something that Adam says is a good man poem:

There once was a old hooker from Perth
Who had an extremely wide girth
When she rode her bicycle She got a nice tickle
So she pedaled for all she was worth!

Bad thing, good thing

Bummer: Finding a sidewall failure
in a trail tire purchased
at the end of last season.

Funner: A shiny new warranty replacement
thanks to the Big Red S.

I love the smell of new tires
in the morning.

Tag those buggers

Drivers who park in bike lanes. Can't live with 'em; can't kill 'em.

Unless you're really careful and stash the bodies where they can't be found.

But then there's all the duct tape, shovels and plastic tarp to deal with, and that stuff is a pain in the ass to carry on a bike.

Not to mention that the cargo load on a BOB trailer is about 75 pounds, and most of those lazy bastards weigh nearly three times that much, so disposing of the body can take several trips.

Save yourself time, and just tag those morons with one of these handy fliers that I read about over at Martino's Bike Lane Diary.

Download full-size copies over here.

For Sale

Just for the hell of it, I routinely read the bike listings on craigslist even though I’m not looking to buy anything. It’s a behavior that’s symptomatic of my addiction.

I’m always amused by the odd logic of people selling their bikes, such as those who claim they’ve never ridden a bike that they bought new (why did they buy it?) or the bike they say they’ve ridden once or twice (sadly plausible, in this society).

But I also get a laugh out of the people who clearly overvalue crappy bikes. I especially enjoy all the people trying to sell their dusty Magna and Huffy bikes for $150. I’m not even sure you find one of those bikes selling for that much at Sprawl-Mart, where they’re at least brand-new and freshly assembled by the marginally employable. Maybe those sellers figure that their bikes will look like a good deal among all the thousand-dollar road frames and full-suspension mountain bikes sprinkled around the sale listings.

On Friday, someone posted a reply expressing concern about this ad:

“Selling my SHOGUN 12 speed mountain bike. (I'm 61) I can't ride it anymore. Why pay over $500 for a high-quality bike when you can buy mine for $250. Rack and special seat. Probably has 200 miles. First $250 rides it.”

The person replying to the ad was concerned that some clueless buyer might actually purchase the damned thing. The way I see it, if you’re dumb enough to do that, life’s too short for the rest of us to worry about saving you from yourself.

Personally, I liked the ad. You’ve gotta love that second sentence, which is really quite honest when you read it thoroughly. It roughly translates to: “Why pay over $500 for a high-quality bike when you can buy my shitty one for $250?”

Caveat emptor, baby.

Poetry Sunday at Bicycles and Icicles

"Windy, sunny, and Sunday,
the afternoon of your father's promise,
you will learn to ride your bike"

It's Sunday.
Go read a nice poem about learning
to ride a bike.

Then go out and ride yours.

Crank Brothers Revisited

I sometimes ask myself why I keep writing this blog. Most of the time, I do this because there's nothing to write about, and it feels like the blog has run its course. So far, something has always come along to re-inspire me for a few days. Occasionally, it's remembering that not having anything to write about never stopped me before. Wednesday, it was an e-mail from Andreas in Switzerland.

Andreas reads the blog and knew from my recent rant about wasteful packaging that I use Quattro SL pedals on my road bike, so he had some questions about the pedals, which he's thinking about buying. It’s always cool to hear from someone who finds the blog interesting, especially from so far away.

Hell, I often can’t find anyone in my own house who wants to listen to me, but a guy in Switzerland will read what I have to say. Thanks, Andreas.

Speaking of Crank Brothers, I sent the customer-service folks a link to the earlier blog post, and received the following reply:

“We certainly respect your point and share your concern. Most of our other pedal boxes use recyclable materials, and we are taking steps to improve the Quattro packaging. We will soon phase into using recyclable cardboard for the Quattro, eliminating the plastic case entirely. If you would care to send back the box, we will reuse it.”

I may have my greenie moments, but they’re not acute enough to make me repackage the plastic monstrosity and then haul it to the post office and pay to send it back. By the time I heard from Crank Brothers, I had grumpily chucked the thing.

Nonetheless, it’s good to know that they’ve recognized the problem and are working to change the Quattro box.

A better idea

I was planning a moderately hard solo ride tonight when my almost-13-year-old daughter asked if I had a ride planned. Then she asked if I'd go riding with her.

We did a short, flat ride, and it ended with ice cream.

That works too.

New stuff

Welcome to Bicycles & Icicles, where you will never have to read a damned thing about Don Imus. Because this is a blog about bicycles, and we just don't care about sour old crackpots with eyebrows as long as Howard Hughes' fingernails.

Around here, it's all bikes, all the time. I don't bore you with complaints about my aches and pains, the check I had to write to the IRS, or my extramarital crush on Marisa Tomei.

Hmm. Come to think of it, I could start a separate blog on that last one. It might have a good run until the cease-and-desist orders start showing up.

But I digress.

Anyway, as I was saying, I don't bore you with details of my personal life or other non-bike stuff. Nosiree. I bore you exclusively with my bike-related rants. And I haven't even had time to do that for several days, because I've been busy getting used to my new skinny bike and re-learning about life on the road instead of the trail.

Returning to the road after 18 years of mountain biking is full of little surprises—like the fact that I'm stopping less often to take pictures, or that it's harder to find a place to take a leak. On the trail, you can just step a few feet into the trees. On the road, all the good trees seem to be in someone's yard. That could get awkward.

And I'm learning to use this newfangled contraption called a GPS-enabled bike computer. I've always been happy with a basic, 25-dollar bike computer, but this Garmin Edge 205 showed up at Christmas and offered to do all sorts of things I never knew I wanted or needed. Elevation, calories, speeds, training routes. Although it appeals to my inner geek, most of this crap is lost on me.

In my hands, this is just a fancy little device that tells me how fast I'm going and how far I've ridden, and then, when I get home, shows me the whole ride by drawing a red line on a Googe Earth map.

That doesn't make me any fitter or faster, but it looks pretty cool.

Pure vision, baby

"I tell ya, Sundance, I've got vision

where the rest of the world wears bifocals."

—Butch Cassidy

(From "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,"
one of the greatest movies ever made)

Sometimes I just feel like a gol'darn genius.

Since building my Pugsley with disc brakes a month ago, I've been meaning to find a way to cover the threads of the canti-brake mounts on the frame. (I removed the brake bosses to shave that critical half-ounce off my fat-assed 35-pound bike, don'tcha know.)

So I'm tinkerin' around in the garage tonight, and as I'm getting a couple of other parts out of a little pastic organizer box, I see four rubber plugs that came with some carbon-fiber bottle cages I bought for my road bike over the winter. The manufacturer put the mounting bolts through the cages and then held them in place by putting the rubber plugs on the ends of the bolts.

I kept the little plugs because I figured they might be useful someday. That's just the kind of resourceful, forward-thinking dude I am.

I pulled a plug out of the box, stuck it in one of the Pugsley's brake mounts and, bang! Perfect fit. I even had to twist all the plugs a little bit to work them down in the mounts, so I'm not worry about them falling out.

The beloved Pugs now has that refined, no-detail-overlooked appearance that just screams "class." Plus, I recycled some odd rubber parts and didn't have to buy special threaded brake-mount plugs like I thought I would. The threads on my brake mounts are protected from moisture, and I'm sure to be the envy of all my fat-bike friends, who will be awed by my ingenuity.

I'm so impressed with myself, I need to go be alone for a while.

Talk amongst yourselves.

Tryin' to reason with this insane season

The sloppy streets of spring are a wonderful reminder of one of the benefits of winter riding: patience.

Cyclists who stay inside all winter get antsy this time of year. The anticipation is too much. They have to ride.

Problem is, it's hard to find a stretch of dry pavement that runs more than quarter-mile before running into a few hundred yards of flowing, dirty meltwater. I saw a roadie in my neighborhood on Sunday afternoon as he rolled home on a nice Cannondale covered in muddy goo. Half a block behind him were two more riders on mountain bikes that were as dirty as the stripes up the riders' backs.

After a winter of riding, I'm feeling pretty patient. I can wait out another week or so of spring thaw to spare myself the constant cleaning and maintenance that comes with subjecting a bike to shitty conditions. Good thing, too, because my head was a throbbing ball of pain last week anyway, thanks to a bad cold. I'm just now starting to climb back on the trainer and clear the crud from my lungs.

Michelle, who writes the Chain Driven blog up in the Valley, found a different way to cope with a late spring thaw: whitewater tubing. Talk about frigid bits. Yeah, that'll give 'em a chill.

If the Easter Bunny doesn't show up

... it's probably an unleashed dog's fault.

Beasts are a burden

"Poor people in my experience have mean dogs and know it. Rich people have mean dogs and refuse to believe it."

—Bill Bryson
The Life and Times of Thunderbolt Kid

A couple of weeks ago, I sort of stepped on a dog owner's toes when a bunch of people were arranging a group ride via a web forum, and the dog guy posted a message asking if he and his critter could come along. I pointed out that we'd be riding in an area where leashes are required and I tried to make it clear—as gently as I could, believe it or not—that I think leash laws should be obeyed.

A few days later, the guy started a new thread on the forum, asking for opinions from other mountain bikers. I was pleased to see that a large number of them—some of them quite adamant—shared my view.

Contrary to what several people think, I don't hate dogs. My wife and I once owned one of the coolest dogs that ever lived. I've had friends and relatives with wonderful dogs that I enjoyed. I just happen to think dogs should be enjoyed by those who choose to spend time with them, and that their owners have a responsibility to keep them out of everyone else's way.

I also believe that more dog owners should recognize that they don't really know how their pets will react when surprised by a mountain biker, a jogger, or a noisy child.

That little misconception is the reason I—like several of my friends—have a leg scarred by the teeth of an unleashed dog whose selfish owner chose to live in denial.

That's also why it's so common to pick up the newspaper and read about a dog mauling some old lady or some little kid, and the owner always claims his dog is a gentle little creature, and he never dreamed the little Cujo was capable of such a thing.

Of course, some of those people are just damned liars who knew all along that their hellish beasts were itchin' to kill something, they were just too lazy or uncaring to do anything about it.

Dog owners like to talk about the law's "gray areas." What gray areas? The law doesn't require you to leash your animal if you feel like it. If the law says leash 'em, then leash the buggers.

The trails will be drying out over the next couple of months, so I've started going through my spring checklist: checking my bike's shocks, cleaning the drivetrain, repacking the hubs ... and loading my pepper spray.

Purgatory and Peru

We're smack dab in the middle of springtime purgatory. The roads are covered with an alternating mix of ice, slush, dry pavement and running water. The Hillside trails will soon break down as the snow melts and turns them into goo for a couple of months.

This would be a hard time of year to be a bicyclist in Anchorage if it weren't for knowing this is just a nasty step on the way to summer. And if it weren't for a great distraction in the form of Eric Parsons' slide show, "In Search of the Talking Llama," this Thursday night at the BP Energy Center.

Hearing about Bearbait's winter in South America will probably make guys like me feel inspired and slothful all at the same time.

This stuff's too good to miss.

Lozano's Loons

With another Frigid Bits race season retired
to the annals of history (or maybe infamy),
it's time for a salute to our race czar Carlos,
and some of the other folks
who helped make the race series possible,
helped make the season memorable, and helped build
a stronger community of fun-hog winter cyclists.

First of all, we should all raise a glass to Carlos,
tireless race organizer and keeper of the passion flame.
From scouting trails, to clearing race course,
to counting laps, to rallying the troops on sub-zero nights,
he's the man who puts together the events
that keep bike junkies sane through long Alaska winters.
Thank you, Carlos.

Maura. Her first winter in Alaska,

and she already owns a Snowcat bike and a Pugsley,
and loves the whole damn scene
enough to show up week after week
to help Carlos count everyone's laps
and to tip a couple back
after the riding's done.
I think she's meant to be here.

Greg, aka Thirstywork. The big engine of El Gato,
the Pugsley with a custom orange paint job.
With Greg aboard, that bike always seems
to reach the finish line way ahead of the pack.
Greg's real masterpiece, though, is the the altar
of Anchorage's winter-cycling cult:
the Frigid Bits Burn Barrel.

Tim K., aka The Grillmeister. Nice guy,
fast rider, lover of all things bike,
and cooker of tasty critters on the big-ass grill
he hauls to tailgate parties.
On Saturday night, he showed up with homemade salsa
and then proceeded to make grilled nachos.
Who else would grill nachos

to feed to his friends outdoors at 25F?

The FBBB. Sure, it's an inanimate object,
but it's also our holy grail. Our altar.
Our source of light and heat in the darkness.

Besides, as Carlos would say, that sucker is haaawt!

And last, but far from least, all the riders
who showed up for a race and stayed for a beer—and those
who only showed up for the beer (the latter
are my kind of people). Everyone who shows up
riding a bike on a cold Alaska night
helps cultivate winter-cycling community
and helps us all keep it together
in the dark depths of winter.