Midnight Madness

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Beyond Soggy

Now I understand what she meant.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Fatback Revolution

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

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

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

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

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

See ya in hell, everybody!

Morning snacks and the kicking of ass

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Devil's in the Details

Oscar near Devil's Pass

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ass-kickin' her way to the podium

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

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

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

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

Good work, Petra.

The long-haul lesson

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Fireweed Dominance

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

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

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

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

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

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

Come Monday, Vol. 2

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

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

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

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

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

Sort of like the bicycle version of a moose.

Come Monday

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

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

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

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

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

Happy Bird-flippin' Fourth

Happy Fourth of July, courtesy of Amber, Rose

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

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

Downtown bikes

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

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

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

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

LHT WTF?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Something fishy's goin' on

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

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

Great weekend

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

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

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

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

Downhill D-bags

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Quote of the Week

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

—Sarah Silverman, via Twitter

Steel is Real

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

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

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

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

It’s gonna be one bad mother trucker.

Dumped in Dyea

Dyea, Alaska, 6.4.2011

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

—"Broken Bicycles"
by Tom Waits

Re-cyclist

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

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

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

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