Thursday, March 13, 2008

Spring: When good trails go bad

Spurred by the nice evening sunlight that came with last weekend's changing of the clocks, I decided to take one more stab at a ride on the coastal flats tonight. I should have stabbed that route with a fork, 'cause it's pretty much done.

Spring is a hard time to be a bike rider in Alaska. Everything is either iced over, slushy, or covered in water—and most rides offer a combination of all three. It's hard to figure out which devours more of your time: bike maintenance, or washing your grunge-covered clothes.

A final trip down to the deteriorating ice of the Anchorage Coastal Wildlife Refuge is becoming a spring rite for me. Catch it when it's good and hard, and it's a hoot to ride. Get there after it fades, and you don't know whether to mourn the demise of a good winter ride, or celebrate the fact that summer rides are now at least a still-dim light at the end of a dark tunnel.

Oh, well. Could be worse. I'm pretty sure I had a better evening than Eliot Spitzer.

For everyone in Anchorage, remember that Friday means it's time for Sage Cohen's slide show about her six-month bike trip across Asia. Get to the BP Energy Center by 7 p.m., throw a decent donation into the Singletrack Advocates fish bowl, and then sit back and enjoy the show.

Go ahead, rest your legs. You'll need 'em to ride all the new singletrack we're going to build.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

as gramps used to say "boy, why are you riding in the wet without fenders?" The laundry sure is a lot less messy since I started listening to the old guy.

Tim said...

I was hoping to find better ice!

I use fenders for commuting. Or I will, when I finally get to commute again.

Snakebite said...

"Could be worse. I'm pretty sure I had a better evening than Eliot Spitzer."

Depends on which evening you're talking about. ;-)