A long way to go

Leonardo on Paper Plate.
2.19.12

I was watching sunlight on the Kenai mountains yesterday, and thinking about the massive amount of snow in the high country. That’s when it hit me that we might not be riding over passes until July. Hell, I’ve walked across big snow patches on Resurrection and Devil’s passes as late as Fourth of July weekend, and that was after winters milder than this one.

It’s been a big snow year in Southcentral Alaska. Anchorage averages 63 inches per winter, and we’re over 100 inches so far this season. That’ll mean wet, sloppy conditions for road biking this spring. And unless we get a couple of months of freakishly warm, dry weather, we can pretty much forget an early taste of riding Anchorage dirt on Memorial Day weekend. We’ll be lucky if the Hillside trails are dry enough for the traditional June 1 opening.

Right now, singletrack conditions might be the best we’ll see for the next four months. March is usually the greatest snow-bike riding of the year, and we’re primed for a great month as long as Mother Nature doesn’t hit us with a bunch of nasty, late-winter storms.

I plan to savor the conditions while I can, because the snow trails will be fading in a few weeks, and we’re still a hell of a long way from summer singletrack.

Respect your elders

There were a bunch of impressive performances from Alaska mountain bikers this weekend, but I’m going to mention my favorites first. This is my blog, and I can see the headlights of 50 coming at me through the tunnel of life, so forgive me for being most impressed by my friends who have already rounded that corner.

Janice Tower—second place in the women’s solo division at 24 Hours in Old Pueblo. And that was no age-division ranking. She slayed the entire field except for one other rider. We all expect this kind of thing from Janice because she has a long record of doing it. But it blows me away how she keeps doing it. I was at her 50th birthday party what, four months ago? She’s still faster than most of us have ever been, and will be for a long time.

Mark Davis—eighth place in the men’s solo division of 24 Hours in Old Pueblo. I know he’s fast because he can rip my legs off on a recreational ride, but I don’t usually even think of Mark as a racer because he doesn’t enter that many events. But when he does, he really moves. And he’s got an extra year on Janice. Finishing in the top 10 in Tucson? Badass.

Mike Morganson—just finished his, what, 15th Susitna 100? Some day, that race should start presenting an annual tenacity award, and it should have Mike’s face on it.

And congratulations to the rest of the Backcountry Bicycles team that went to Tucson for 24 Hours in Old Pueblo this year. In addition to Janice and Mark’s great races, Tony Berberich claimed fourth place in the men’s solo division, and Pete Basinger took seventh in the men’s singlespeed race. Backcountry’s women’s relay team placed fourth, and the Backcountry riders earned a special mention at the awards ceremony for their impressive trail etiquette.

Congratulations, all of you. Have a good sleep.

Tool in a tube

Nothing attracts attention like a brightly lit rear end.

I don’t care much Alaskans love duct tape. This stuff is 10 times better. Epoxy mix has been a standard item on my workbench for years. You can fix damn near anything with this stuff.

I always scoff when someone suggests using “super glue,” which is useless. I’ve tried it dozens of times when trying to fix broken toys, plastic bike parts, ceramic mug handles and all other stuff to which the manufacturers claim it will stick.

It’s like some cruel joke to make you hold a freshly glued thingamabob in place until you think it’s safe to let go, only to watch it stick to the sweat on your fingers instead of the thing to which you were attaching it.

Super glue is shit. But epoxy is The Shit. Especially the easy-to-use version that comes in twin tubes that work like a syringe. You pull off the cap, squeeze out two same-size globs of goo (one the glue, one the hardener), mix ’em, and then slather it on and stick two things together. Within a few hours, they’ll be permanent partners. Especially if you prepared the surfaces properly.

My latest epoxy project was born when I dropped my old quick-release Topeak trunk rack onto a concrete floor and destroyed the integrated reflector. I had a NiteRider Trailfazer light that I found on a trail a couple of years ago, so I knew they were meant to be together.

The first epoxy job was sloppy and careless, but it still worked fine for a couple of weeks until my daughter borrowed the rack and knocked the light around while loading her bike into her car. It fell off, but I recognized my mistake.

To make sure the new repair held permanently, I drilled a few tiny holes at odd angles in the connecting surfaces to give the epoxy some anchor points, then mixed up a new batch, slapped on a generous amount and pressed the light to the rack firmly to force the gooey stuff into all the nooks and crannies. By morning, the rack was ready for the ride to work. If that sucker ever comes off, it’ll be in pieces.

I love repairs like this. I dramatically improved the rear visibility of my bike while recycling a good (and free) light that was otherwise useless because I didn’t have the original mount, and the whole thing took less than 10 minutes.

When you have a tube of epoxy sittin’ around, it’s almost worth breaking stuff just so you can fix it.

What it's all about

The best days on a bike aren’t about speed. They’re about the ride, the scenery, the freedom and the people. So today, I went riding with one of my favorite people—my daughter, Hannah. And I told her to ride whatever speed she liked.

She hasn’t logged a ton of miles lately, so when she said she was up for riding the 50K route in the Winter City 30K/50K Randonnée, I wasn’t sure she’d have that kind of distance in her legs. We made contingency plans for bail-out points. I offered shortcuts, because we weren’t bothering to have our cards signed at controls anyway. We were just out to ride.

She declined the shortcuts, stuck to the course, and held her pace all the way to the finish with nearly two hours to spare before the time cutoff. She made me proud. Some kids could have finished faster, but none of them showed up. And I doubt that the average 17-year-old would have finished at all. Besides, it ain’t about the speed. It’s about the ride. And I got to ride all day with Hannah, which is a damn good way to spend a Sunday.

Big thanks to Kevin and Alaska Randonneurs, who put on this event as a fundraiser for Bicycle Commuters of Anchorage, and to all the volunteers, especially the folks at Point Woronzof with their steaming baked potatoes and hot chocolate.

And thanks to Bicycles & Icicles reader Soren, who inspired this post three years ago, and then introduced himself and bought me a post-ride beer at the Peanut Farm this afternoon. It was good to hear that Soren recently treated himself to a Salsa Mukluk so he no longer has to commute on that studded singlespeed.

Nobody cares that you singlespeed, Soren. But we do care that you found the beauty of fatness. Welcome to the corpulent club.

Increase your odds

The recent theft of The Old Bag’s beloved Long Haul Trucker has kept bike theft on my mind over the past couple of days. Everyone wants to maximize their chances of recovering a pinched bike, so I’m going to share a couple of tricks that I’ve learned from others. The likelihood of ever finding your stolen bike is slim, but there are a couple of quick—and free—things you can do that might improve the odds slightly.

Because your bike could someday be taken to a shop for repairs, it should be identifiable in a way that isn’t obvious. Remember that the cretin who took it might actually be smart enough to remove distinctive features like an unusual saddle, stickers, or odd-looking bar tape.

With a regular Sharpie, you can deliver a secret message to any mechanic who removes the fork from the frame. This is most convenient to do when building a bike or replacing a headset. On the part of the steerer tube that resides in the head tube of your frame, use a Sharpie to write your name and phone number under a message that says something like, “This bike might be stolen. Please call …” You can accomplish the same thing with a sticker printed from a home label maker, which is what I did on the fork shown in today’s photo. (Don’t forget to remove this message if you ever sell the bike.)

Another quick method is to remove the faceplate from your stem, and then tuck a written note with your name and phone number inside the stem’s hollow body. A business card works great. This location might be less likely to attract a mechanic’s attention, but it has the advantage if being more accessible to bike owners who aren’t comfortable removing a fork. It also offers quick access if you’re ever lucky enough to find your bike and need a fast way to prove to a cop that it’s yours.

I once read about a guy who confronted the thief who had his bike, and refused to let him leave with it before police arrived. When an officer asked the owner if he was carrying a receipt to prove ownership, he said no, but explained that with his hex wrench and 60 seconds, he could show that his business card was hidden in the stem. The cop was convinced, and the thief was shit outta luck.

The best preventive measure, of course, is to buy a damn good bike lock and use it properly. Don’t kid yourself. Once a bike is stolen, it’s probably gone forever. But some bike-theft stories have happy endings.

Do everything you can to increase the chances of recovering your bike. That way, at least you won’t be haunted by thoughts of what you should have done.

Big Fat Fun & A Stolen Bike Alert

During a good summer, I rack up a lot of miles driving down to the Kenai Peninsula for great trail rides. But in winter, I rarely leave Anchorage unless I’m on a jet leaving the state. By February, I usually start itching for a weekend road trip, and the Homer Cycling Club is providing a great excuse.

I just registered for the Big Fat Bike Festival that will be held down at the end of the road later this month. There’ll be rides, an art show, demos, an obstacle course and—if I know anything about mountain bikers—a few beers will be consumed around the bonfire.

Happily, I was nudged into this idea by my teenage daughter, who thinks the whole thing sounds like a hoot. (Well, except for the beer-drinking part.)

I’m looking forward to resuming the ritual of loading my 4Runner with bikes, clothes and snacks, and rolling out of town for the sole purpose of bike fun. By the time we reach the end of February, Alaska riders on the cusp of the best fat-biking month of the year. March brings more sunlight, better temperatures and some of the best trail conditions of the year. The Big Fat Bike Festival should be a great way to kick it off.

Riding fat bikes beside the ocean, enjoying some beautiful scenery, meeting new people and hanging out with my daughter. Doesn’t get much better than that.

I hate to wrap this up on a sad note, but if you happen to be among the Bicycles & Icicles readers who live in the Twin Cities region, please watch for a Long Haul Trucker that was stolen from my friend and fellow blogger The Old Bag on Sunday afternoon during a run to the grocery store in St. Louis Park. It’s fairly distinctive with a black frame, blue rims and blue bar tape. The full description is right here.

Like all of us, TOB loves her bikes. Those of us who know how much it stings to lose a sweet ride to some thieving scumbag can understand how she feels right now.

I know it’s a long shot, but wouldn’t it be sweet if someone in Minnesota spotted this bike and it found its way home?

Keep your eyes peeled, folks. Please.

"BB" stands for Black and Beautiful*

I generally believe that if bike equipment is working well, the rider shouldn’t be consciously aware of it. You should be able to enjoy the flow of a trail with your mind free of mechanical distractions.

That’s why I love Avid’s BB7 brakes. I can forget they exist. But I like these mechanical disc brakes so much that I often remember to appreciate them as I squeeze the levers. I even bought a pair to replace the hydraulic brakes on my Specialized Epic, prompting an outburst of laughter from a mechanic at the shop where my daughter works. I was undeterred. These little buggers are awesome.

These brakes are everything a good bike part should be: Inexpensive, reliable as hell, a breeze to install, easy to maintain, and nearly perfect at doing the job they were designed to do. From what I can tell, they’re on more fat bikes in Alaska than any other brake because they work well through brutal winters, and they’re on a hell of a lot of summer trail bikes, too.

I’m told that BB7s aren’t a great choice for downhilling, but I don’t care because I think downhilling is lazy and silly, so I don’t do it. And I don’t huck off anything because that’s a good way to break expensive stuff. Like bones.

But I still manage to ride XC descents at fairly high speed, and I’ve never found a cross-country ride that these brakes can’t handle. I can modulate my braking to scrub off a little speed before a turn, or grab fistfuls of brake to stop quickly if shit gets real.

Best of all, there’s no futzing around with bleeding lines or spilling messy fluids, and if someone unloading bikes at a trailhead accidentally squeezes a brake lever when the front wheel is out of the fork, there’s no need to waste precious ride time digging out a tool to open up the pads. These brakes work, and they’re simple. Simplicity is a beautiful thing. It’s part of what riding a bike is all about.

*Yeah, I know it really stands for ball bearing, but this ain't Mountain Bike Action, OK?

Pedals for the people

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Baggin' it

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sharing the fun

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

But sometimes, shit's just
gotta be done.

It slices, it dices

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Passion, or status symbol?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Up an island creek without a pedal

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

If it ain’t fun, why bother?

A Cuban in Hawaii

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

Festive Fingers

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

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

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

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

Blowin' in the wind

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dollars down the drain

Alaska snow removal: Plow. Bury. Repeat.

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

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

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

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



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

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

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

But I’m not counting on it.

Guilty pleasures

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Can't touch the Snatchsquatch

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


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

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

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


Naming your baby

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

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

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

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

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

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

Naming bikes, yes or no?

Discuss.

Attitude adjustment

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

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

Moose Meadow, Saturday afternoon.

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

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

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

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



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

Trucked up

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

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

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

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

Within a few seconds, it was time for evasive action. I yanked my front wheel into the air, pivoted my bike and dragged it a couple of steps just before the third trailer came off the road and rolled across the spot where the front half of my bike had been.

 Not to be dramatic, but that kind of shit kills people, you know? A couple of years ago, another Anchorage truck driver pulled his trailer over a corner sidewalk, and didn’t even know what had happened until he found parts of a pedestrian wrapped around his rear axle. They used dental records to identify the body.

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

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

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

But what if I hadn’t?

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

Never let your guard down.

Wax-free in Ho Chi Minh City

What does a Bicycles & Icicles “No Waxing Required” sticker and a can of Spam have in common? 

They both get carried around the world for vacation photos.

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

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

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



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



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



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

Frigid Bits: White Night No. 1

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

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

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

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

Drink up, Buttercup!

Sunday services

Fabulous Fingersicles at -25 in Talkeetna

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

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



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


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

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

Get up offa that thing

The body of an alien in Area 51.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Forked Up

Middle Fork Trail: Riding it is now a crime.

An open letter to Chugach State Park administrators:

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

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

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

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

Seriously?

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

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

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

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

Bicycles and beardsicles

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

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

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



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

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

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

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

Long live the Queen!

I got pantsed

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hey, let's meet at ...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Stumpbumper does sort of have a nice ring to it.