Back to the lake

Everybody always talks about the hazards of riding an indoor trainer: boredom, and ... well, I guess everybody just talks about the boredom. They never warn you about the dangers of having a teenager with a collection of DVDs you can dip into for workout sessions. Kids watch some weird shit these days. Trust me on this.

Speaking of weird shit, it's time for news of another Frigid Bits race. This Saturday, race time 7 p.m. and it's a combination trail ride and lake criterium. Racers will leave Goose Lake and ride the Tour of Anchorage Trail to View Point, then turn left on Moose Meadow to Rover's Run before turning back north to return to the lake for six laps on the crit course.

Racers can use more than one bike, and wheel swaps are allowed. Just knowing that Carlos is making wheel swaps on option tells us what, class?

Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

Yeah, that's right, Ferris. It has the potential to be a shit sandwich if trail conditions are soft. But there's gonna be a tailgate party afterward. Beer, cooked animals and bullshit by the ton. What else could you want on a Saturday night?

Non-critical Mass

It was time for a slow and unfocused ride
with no destination.
That's often the best kind.
So five of us met
at Westchester Lagoon and rode south
until a stubborn moose forced us
to change our plan. Well, he would have ...
if we'd had a plan.So we turned around and rode downtown.
We rode past Adam's office
and found him working late, so we flashed our lights
through his window until we got his attention
and he came out to say hello.We rode out to the city boat launch near Ship Creek.
Then we rode up Ship Creek.

With no paddle.But only a short distance, because we didn't want
to get caught up Ship Creek ... well, you know. We shot the shit. We ate Maura's mint-and-chocolate cookies.Life is good. Cookies are good. Bike rides are good.

Cold. Or maybe not.

My sister-in-law e-mailed me some photos from Phoenix the other day: The fountain that pours water into her swimming pool had a little ice on it because the temperature had dropped to 24 degrees. She said she was wearing multiple layers of pants and shirts in the house.

She was probably exaggerating a little about the layers but, knowing her, not much.

So, naturally, I took this picture of myself after riding to work at 7 degrees and fired it back at her.

I often read about winter cyclists and participants of other outdoor sports conditioning themselves to the cold. Thickening their blood, all that stuff.

I’ve always been suspicious of the idea that we can truly condition our bodies to cold. I mean, what physiological changes could we provoke that would make water-based tissue more comfortable in freezing temperatures? I think it has more to do with gaining experience at layering and preparing for the weather.

And making a mental adjustment, of course.

I used to live about a mile from my sister-in-law. I can remember 30 degrees feeling like an arctic blast. I remember thinking it was dramatic when the dog’s water bowl froze over. Not froze, just froze over. As in a layer of ice one-eighth of an inch thick. Leave a dog’s bowl in my back yard today, and tomorrow morning you’ll have an ice cube.

The more time I spend riding in winter, the better 18 degrees feels. It’s perfect for keeping trails firm, yet warm enough to stay comfortable on the bike.

I think it's just a matter of getting out there and learning to live with it. Refusing to accept that winter means reading bike magazines on the couch for six months. Recognizing that winter passes more quickly when you learn to have a little fun with it.

Thanks for stopping by. Now log off and go for a ride.

Warning: Low fuel

Now that much of the recent snow has been plowed, I finally resumed riding to work yesterday. I had potato soup for lunch, if you’re curious.

Oh, and before I forget to mention it, potato soup apparently sucks as fuel. By the time I got home at the end of the day, I was creeping slowly along the trail, trying to avoid the big, ugly bonk that was threatening to crash down and temporarily ruin my life.

I'm the King of Bonk. I could bonk riding across the street. Come to think of it, I probably have. There should be a town named Bonk, and at its center should be a bronze statue of me hunched over the handlebar of a bike, with a facial expression that looks like I just finished giving birth to something with antlers.

When the bottom drops out, I fall faster than Saddam's half-brother. And we all know what happened when he got to end of his rope: rrrrrrip, splat, thud.

Well, OK, two thuds. Whatever. It wasn't pretty.

I once bonked at the halfway point of a 28-mile, out-and-back trail ride in New Mexico. I was alone, with no food, and the only way back to my car was 14 miles of up-and-down desert terrain. Every inch felt like a death march. I wanted to scream, sob and call out for my mommy, but I was afraid it would tip off the buzzards and they'd commence ta circlin' like they do in old cowboy movies.

My younger brother has the same problem. If he forgets to eat regularly during a long ride and his gas tank drains, it happens quickly and he just enters survival mode. He says the tendency to bonk hard seems to be a family trait. One of our sisters does it, too.

Maybe I should sue Mom. I'm bald, slow and hungry. Where the hell are all the good genes? Oh, wait. I remember: They went to the other sons. The good-looking ones. With hair.

Raubgee goes over the hill

Husband.

Father.

Designer of the not-quite-world-famous
Team Megasorass logo.

Bike-racin' funhog.

Reigning champion of the
Frigid Bits costumed division.

And now ... 30-year-old.

Happy Birthday, Rob.

Around the bend*

I was doing the newspaper's crossword puzzle today when I needed two more letters to complete G _ _ P E, a five-letter word for "Get excited."

Being, well, me, I was pretty sure the word had to be "GROPE," but the R and O didn't work for the other words in which they'd need to fit, so I had to keep trying until I figured out the solution to the clue was "GO APE."

Some people might be feel a little weird about trying to put "grope" in a crossword puzzle. I'm not one of those people. If we're discussing excitement, I'm happy that I think of groping before I think of apes.

All this sort of reminds me of that old joke about the guy who finds himself seated next to the Pope on an airline flight. The Pope is struggling with a crossword puzzle, so he says to the guy, "Pardon me, do you happen to know a four-letter word sometimes used to refer to a woman, and is spelled '_ U N T'?"

The guy nervously thinks for a minute and then replies, "Uh, how about 'AUNT?'"

"Shit!" says the Pope. "Got an eraser?"


* There is a slight possibility that I need to get off the trainer and go for a ride outside very soon.

Total, total, total providence!

Don't let the albino shape-shifting
lizard bitches get you down.

Watch this totally hilarious, bike-related scene
from A Scanner Darkly instead.

Bang bang, pedal pedal

I think my routes to work are finally rideable again, but how would I know? I have two nights in a row of trail-related meetings, and riding to them isn’t practical this week so I’m a prisoner of my car. Then again, the temperature this morning was -14, so I wasn’t really complaining about the blast of warm air shooting from my 4-Runner’s dashboard.

After gorging on food for three months, I always make January the start of my annual cycle of shedding some weight and building at least a little bit of fitness. (Not that anyone who rides with me six months from now will be able to tell.) So I’m cranking out hours on the indoor trainer, a great way to catch up on cheesy action/disaster movies.

I’ve never been a movie snob. Yeah, I like something that makes me think, but only when I have an evening to sit down and really watch the flick … er, excuse me, the film.

When I'm on the trainer, I just want to watch a lot of shit get wiped out by natural disasters or blown up by people who carry fancy guns and drive backward while shooting bad guys through their windshields.

Because, let’s be honest, we all pedal a little faster during chase scenes.

Random winter photo

Storm clouds over the Anchorage Coastal Wildlife Refuge.
1/5/07

Portrait of a really, really tall guy

My friend Adam didn't seem to think it was a healthy sign a few days ago when I started posting pictures of naked guys wearing snorkels.* Adam is one of those glass-is-half-full people. He believes we should embrace the three feet or so of snow that has fallen on Anchorage over the past couple of weeks, and that we should get outside and enjoy activities other than bicycling.

He's right, of course. But I still get a tad grumpy when I have to drive to work because my bike route is a quagmire of deep, chewed-up snow. I'm not just sitting around in the dark shootin' holes in my front door, though. I've been doing quite a bit of snowshoeing this winter, and with all this deep powder I can tell myself that I'll be stronger on the bike this summer because of all time I'm spending breaking new trail. Snowshoes or no snowshoes, when you're sinking to your upper thighs and still making forward progress, you're gettin' a workout.

This afternoon I trekked out to one of my favorite local areas, the Anchorage Coastal Wildlife Refuge. I followed some moose trails through tangled alder for a while, then took a straight shot toward the shore of Turnagain Arm and the barren coastal plain where frequent wind sweeps through and keeps the snow from getting too deep. The sun was at its usual low position for a January afternoon, and I took this picture of my waving shadow about 2:30.

If this cold weather continues and the winds can thin the snow on the plain, there will be some great riding out there near the ice plates.

For now, I'll just have to enjoy the snow and (occasional) sunshine.

*I can't wait to see the Google search hits I get from having those words on the ol' blog.

Keepin' it real

I was taking a break from running my snowblower (again) when I came across this cartoon on Martino's site about the same time my younger brother and I were having an e-mail exchange about this great essay in The New York Times.

My brother is a physician who feel that too many people today are being overmedicated, and too often told they have this or that "syndrome" instead of being told to change their lifestyles and take more responsibility for their own health.

Before returning to private practice, he used to teach at a medical school where he forbade his residents and students from using the term "metabolic syndrome," which he considers to be a bullshit diagnosis.

He made them call it "fat, with side effects."

Enough snow!

I'd like a large sunny day with a side order
of firm trail. Hold the mud, please.

Oh, and a large Coke.

Vive le Frigid Bits!

I was stuck on the indoor trainer all weekend.
Had my bike prepped and ready to go
for Saturday's race, but left it home
after four inches of snow fell at my house

in the last three hours or so before race time.Turns out, the course got only an inch of snow
after Carlos cleared it earlier in the day,

so conditions were way better than I thought.I missed out on racing, but I took some photos
and shot the shit with other folks during the race,
which had some heated competition
and a fair number of gnarly wipeouts.

And the post-race tailgate party was a classic.
Bikes. Falling snow. Beer. Burgers. Brats. Cool people.
Where else can you party in the snow at night
when it's 10 degrees?

Long live the Frigid Bits.

Busted

I once worked with a guy who had gone through a bad spell in his life. His wife had split, he was nearly broke, and using drugs that didn’t enhance his judgment much. So despite being an educated guy who was well read and pretty intelligent (for the most part) he decided to rob a bank and then ride away on his bicycle.

Now, as much as I love bicycles, I’ve never considered them viable getaway vehicles for bank jobs. And when you’re 6-foot-8, weigh close to 300 pounds and have a face that scares small children, a 10-speed sure as hell isn’t going to improve your chances of escape. Especially when its rider is whacked out of his mind on illicit chemicals. Poor ol’ Fish didn’t get very far.

Fortunately, his contrition and the circumstances of his life were considered, so he didn’t spend too much time in the Graybar Hotel before returning to life as a productive—albeit occasionally stoned—citizen.

Why am I telling you this story? Hell, I don’t know. I just remembered it while reading about a guy named Michael Paul Hammonds, who robbed a bank in Paris, Texas, using a shitty old pickup as a getaway vehicle. A customer in the bank jumped on his bike and followed the truck long enough to get the license plate number, enabling the cops to find Hammonds and bust him a few hours later. (The story's a little more than halfway down that page.)

It’s not every day that a guy on a bike gets to be the hero.

Sadly, ol’ Stick-em-up Hammonds apparently didn’t get his life back together like Fish. When I Googled him, I found this story about shot in the knees with a 20-gauge when he approached a guy’s house while running from the police.

Capped in the knees. Damn. That’s gonna leave a mark.

Thanks for stoppin' by. Happy New Year.

Don't get perforated

Which is scarier?The prickly headed dude from Hellbound Hellraiser?
Or AKBubba's kinky S&M tires?

Come find out for yourself this Saturday at the final Frigid Bits race of 2006. Ten laps on Goose Lake, each one a mile long with 40 turns. Carlos has widened the turns for more passing opportunities, ribbed them for your pleasure and ... oops, I wasn't supposed to mention that last part, but I can tell you he has altered the course to eliminate the heinous sand section except for the first and final laps.

There'll be a tailgate session afterward, so toss some beer and dead animals in your car before heading to the Goose.

Race time is 7 p.m. Sign up begins at 6:30.

Just don't wipe out in front of AKBubba. Unless you're into that kinky stuff.

Buried alive

Between this new snow and all the food I've been eatin', there's not much bike news these days. I've been stuffin' my face, ridin' the trainer a bit, and walkin' around on snow shoes a lot just to get out of the house and have a little fun. Hell, the photo with this post was taken before the snow really even got started. The storm was still flexing its muscles that day. It hadn't started kickin' ass yet. We've had, what, two and a half feet over the past few days?

I did score some cool bike stuff for Christmas, though. A comfy new Terry Fly saddle with titanium rails to go on my new TCR C1; a damn fine T-shirt from River City Bicycles (thanks, Sue); and a Garmin 205 bike computer/GPS thingamabob. I'm still scratching my head over how to use it, but it'll help pimp out my main bikes next summer (thanks to the fact it came with two bike mounts and accepts two bike profiles) and give me a new gadget to play with.

Damn, maybe it'll look so flashy on my stems that it'll keep a few people from noticing the winter flab hangin' over the top of my shorts.

Naaaaah, that ain't gonna happen. They'll see the flab.

The final Frigid Bits race of 2006 returns to Goose Lake this Saturday night. My next post will include all the details.

In the mean time, I'll be eating something. Carry on about your business.

Happy Holidays

Steve, a guy who rides to work from my neighborhood,
riding his old GT home in four inches of new snow.

Merry Christmas to all who ride.
May Santa bring you lots of exotic bike bits.

Solstice ride update

It's too deep out there. We're switching to snowshoes. E-mail me if you want details as they're worked out.

Tagged

I’ve been tagged by The Old Bag, my favorite Minnesota bike babe. So I’m supposed to post five things about myself that readers of this blog might not know. Brace yourselves, my darlings, for I am a deep pool of undiscovered wonders.

1. I don’t want to work. I just want to bang on the drum all day.

2. Sometimes I say to myself, “This is not my beautiful house. This is not my beautiful wife.” And sometimes I ask myself, “How did I get here?”

3. I shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die.

4. I saw Mommy kissin’ Santa Claus.

5. I think I’ll just let the mystery be.

Missing mountain bikers

All last winter—and much of the past 18 months or so—I’ve traded morning waves with three guys who ride together along my route to work. Sometimes it was only one of them. Sometimes two. But often, all three. It was always fun to see their headlamps coming toward me in the winter darkness and to have a second or two of friendly interaction with some other riders.

This past summer, I finally had a chance to say hello when I found two of them changing a flat near the Fred Meyer store on Dimond Boulevard. I crossed the street and introduced myself and asked where they ride each day. They were friendly guys and said they had always wondered what my story was, and what had happened to me on the days when they didn’t see me. The same things I wondered about them.

That’s one of the cool things about bike commuting. Strangers riding in the opposite direction on a regular basis become a fixture in your day. When they’re not there, you wonder if they’re OK, especially if the absence lasts awhile. Did the friendly woman’s bike break down? Is the old man sick? Did the young guy change jobs or move away?

Now my three friendly guys are missing. I haven’t seen them in weeks. Not even their tracks in the snow. Did their morning routine of meeting for the commute fall apart? Have they changed their route? I have no idea.

But I miss seeing those headlamps coming through the darkness.

Solstice with soul

We’re entering the darkest depths, folks. Thursday will have only 5 hours, 26 minutes and 54 seconds of daylight. If you can call it daylight when it comes through the thick layer of clouds that will probably be parked over Anchorage like one of those big-ass, doomsday alien ships in Independence Day.

But the beauty is in the details, because Thursday is the winter solstice, which means it’ll be as dark as it’s gonna get. On Friday, we gain 6 seconds and begin the glorious, light-gaining march to summer. If that’s not a reason to celebrate, what is? And could there possibly be a better way to celebrate than doing something silly on a bike?

That was a trick question. We all know there’s no better way to celebrate than to do something silly on a bike.

So Thursday will be the day of the first Silly Solstice Ride. And you should be there, because who knows if there will ever be another? By next year, the whole organization could fall victim to bankruptcy, fraud, embezzlement scandals and indictments.

If you’re reading this blog, you’re invited. So charge your lights and blow the dust off your bike if you’ve been too lazy to ride so far this winter. Hell, you don’t even need studded tires because the trail is groomed snow—knobbies will get the job done.

The ride will begin at 7 p.m. by Trailwatch Headquarters (the old police substation) at Westchester Lagoon, and head south on the Coastal Trail toward Kincaid Park. We’ll ride south for an hour or so, with all the wine and chocolate breaks we deem necessary, then stop and enjoy the view for a few minutes before turning around and heading back toward the lagoon.

This will be a slow-paced social ride. Anyone attempting a breakaway will be chased down, stripped of their pants and forced to ride back with one hand while trying to protect their goodies with the other.

And because it’s the darkest day of the year, we’ll brighten that sucker up with as many lights as possible. Headlamps, blinkin’ butt lights, glow sticks, disco balls, strobe lights, whatever ya got.

Fire 'em up, folks. Only six months to go until we’re ridin' on dirt again.

Uranus is unusual

Really. It says so right there on the sign. And it glows in the dark, thanks to the chem light Carlos put on it.

Saturday night’s Snaux Bro race was held under ideal conditions. The temp was around 18 degrees, the trail was hard and smooth and my flask was full of wine. Well, it was until AKdeluxe saw me sipping from it and then bummed a few hits.

The singletrack sections in the woods around Earthquake Park added some spice. Good thing Carlos warned us about the wooden bridge. What was that, about 10 inches wide? Good thing I was following Manny so I could see when it was time to dismount and walk across the gap.

And thanks to some of the Uranus division riders apparently overshooting the turnaround, I managed to finish in fourth place. Fourth out of eight, I think. Hell, for me and my old winter commuter bike, that’s about as good as it gets.

Put your foot up his ... socks

It’s a good thing I can remind myself every time I see this picture that mountain biking is the most fun thing you can do with your clothes on, because otherwise, having to share a sport with the Dipshit in Chief would be really annoying.

I mean, c’mon, we’re not even gettin’ any benefit out of it. We actually have a mountain biker in the Oval Office, but do we ever see him wearing an IMBA T-shirt or promoting singletrack on public lands? When this dumbass hears someone say “IMBA,” this moron probably thinks they’re talking about a foreign woman who works on the White House maid detail.

Well, if we have to put up with pictures of him riding a bike, we can at least take comfort in knowing we wear cooler socks. If we’re wearing “Impeach Bush” socks, that is.

I ordered a pair a couple of years ago and have worn them proudly. Then, a few days ago, I got an e-mail from the people who sell them at Dol Active Wear. They weren’t looking for a plug on the blog—they don’t even know about the blog—they were just reminding former customers that they’re still there, and still selling the socks.

They’re good folks. So good they actually sell these bad boys on the honor system. Remember it? You tell 'em how many pairs you need and they mail your socks right away. They trust you to mail a check to cover the bill. (They also use PayPal.)

As Dolores told me in an e-mail when I placed my order, it’s not really about the money. It’s about the message.

Besides, if you can't trust a fellow cyclist, who can you trust?

Well, OK, I can think of one we can’t trust but … oh, hell, just order some socks.

Lookin' for Uranus

Ever try to find Uranus in the dark? It can be a little tricky.

This Saturday's race—called the "Frigid Bits: Snaux Bro!"—will start at Goose Lake and go to the Kincaid Chalet via the Chester Creek and Coastal trails, with maybe a little singletrack in the area around Earthquake Park, then return to the lake. That's about a 26-mile roundtrip, the longest race of this winter's series.

For a little less butt-pounding adventure, there will be a shorter option of turning around at Uranus on the Coastal Trail. You know, Uranus? The information board that's part of the solar-system information signs installed by some do-gooder Eagle Scout a couple of years ago?

So be prepared. When co-workers starting asking on Friday what you're planning for the weekend, you give 'em a little laugh and say, "I'm racing to Uranus! Care to join me?"

Race time is 7 p.m., so show up a little early for registration and all that stuff.

Mother%*&@!rs of Invention

Singlespeed in Interior Alaska
around the turn of the 20th century.

I was reading the new issue of Bike magazine a couple of days ago when I saw a photo caption identifying Gary Fisher's original clunker as “the bike that started it all.”

Now, I really hate to sound like a geezer but I do anyway, so I’ll carry on. Anybody who’s been a mountain biker for 15 to 20 years, like I have, has seen this sort of thing a hundred times. “The first mountain bike.” “The inventor of the mountain bike.” “The guy who ‘started it all.’”

These things are always attached to photos or stories about Tom Ritchey, Gary Fisher, Joe Breeze, et. al. And it’s always bullshit. The caption in Bike magazine should be more along the lines of, “the bike first ridden by a guy who decided to sell a bunch of 'em by branding himself as the inventor of the mountain bike.”

No offense to all those guys and their marketing prowess, but they no more invented the mountain bike than George Foreman invented the grill.

The mountain bike wasn’t invented. It evolved. Sturdy, fat-tire bikes had been played with at different times in various parts of the world for decades before the Marin County crowd ever tried it. Some of the same magazines that often call those guys the “inventors” of mountain bikes should know better, because they have often published photos of 1940s- and 1950s-era bikes that could almost pass for one of today’s machines, especially now that so many masochists are eschewing derailleurs.

Those beer-fueled baby boomers in Northern California helped shape this sport by driving a major step in its evolution, but it would be a damned shame if their ad campaigns lead newcomers to believe those guys invented it.

Now THIS is a tree

Another cool item from the folks in Morgan Hill.

This is my kind of tree. In fact,
I'd call it a TILF.

Not to be confused with a BRILF.

Thanks to Big Jonny for leading me
to these wonders of the Internet.

Your skills suck (and so do mine)

This kid's so good, he scares me.

Don't try this shit drunk.
But if you do, don't lie
to your wife about it

Steaming winter commuter?

Or damned mountain biker
burning in hell?

(And is there really any difference?)

Last Man Standing

It's Picture Day at Bicycles and Icicles.
Why? Because I like
these shots I took at Saturday's race.Titanium bike. Orange safety-tape helmet vent covers.
Hey, it's Alaska ice biking. Whatever works.

Speaking of whatever works,
fixies with skinny tires don't
in deep sand and snow.

If people at work think my bike fetish is weird,
they should see who I hang out with on weekends.

Gimp with a camera

I did something I'm not used to on Saturday. After injuring my leg during a warm-up lap, I actually exercised the good judgement to scratch from the "Last Man Standing" race at Goose Lake.

I must be getting wiser with age, because a couple of years ago, I would have raced anyway. These days, the prospect of limping for a week is less appealing than riding in a race I have no chance of winning. I had my camera, so I dumped my bike and decided to serve as race photographer.

The sky was clear and the air brisk—somewhere in single digits. As usual, every lap brought racers off the lake and then back onto it by running them over the beach. The beach sand is always the most heinous part of a lap, in my opinion, but mixed with six inches of dry snow it was guaranteed to deal out a dose of misery every time the racers passed through it.

The fixie crowd had to run through that crap like they were in a cyclocross race. Even the guys on regular mountain bikes were fish-tailing through it, and many of them were walking through before the race ended.

By that point, I was sittin' in the snow and shootin' pictures with one hand while I drank a beer with the other.

Pretty good work if you can get it.

Fashion show

And now, a word about my underwear. I rarely wear any and, when I do, it's usually something kinky. No, wait. That wasn't me. It was Pvt. John Winger in "Stripes."

Dang, in 1981 that movie gave me a major crush on P.J. Soles. (Who's your buddy? Who's your friend?) That's one M.P. who could throw me in the brig anytime. But I digress. Again.

Anyway, a few weeks ago, Darron at Outer Sports Long Johns dropped me an e-mail and offered me a set of his company's polypro "Performance Underwear" to try out in return for a link on this blog. Now, personally, I've always thought performance underwear was the kind of stuff you get at Victoria's Secret on a good day, and someplace nice 'n' sleazy on an even better day. But considering where I live and ride all year, I was willing to be open-minded.

Besides, mountain bikers are sluts for free stuff. And, slap my ass and call me Sally, I'm a mountain biker.

So I've been ridin' around in this thoroughly non-kinky underwear, and it's good. I had to look up what they call that thing they do to their seams to make 'em comfortable and strong. Turns out, they're called "flat lock" seams.

Hey, it's long underwear, you know? But it does the job. Polypro wicks moisture, the stuff doesn't shrink and suddenly become something you have to donate to hungry people, and the reinforced seams don't fall apart when you wash your skivvies or yank them on or off your body.

Bottom line is, the stuff is good and Outer Sports reads bike blogs, so check out their site. The stuff they sent me even happens to be on sale right now, so you can save a few bucks if you need new undies.

Who knows? If you e-mail Darron maybe they'll introduce a leopard-print version.

Mmm, nah. Probably not.

Iced up

Damn, the ice-riding stuff just never ends these days. I want to write a blog post about Clif Bars or cactus-needle punctures or why Cannondale gave a $5,000 mountain bike to the Moron in Chief.

Or something.

Instead, I have more photos from last weekend's Portage Glacier ride. These are the shots I screwed up and had to salvage with a little work on the computer. The quality's still sketchy, but the ride was too amazing to not post them. And before anyone fires off an e-mail accusing us of taking unnecessary risks, let me say that the photo of Melissa standing over her bike while surrounded by broken ice makes conditions look worse than they were. All those cracks had sealed up with about 12 inches of new ice. They look nasty, but they were solid.

Speaking of ice bike news, the week wouldn't be complete without an update on one of Carlos' evil plans. This Saturday he'll be staging a "Last Rider Standing " race on the Frigid Bits course at Goose Lake. Riders can choose between 10 laps and 20 laps, and pit crews are allowed. Personally, I want a crew with a pneumatic impact wrench to make loud, Indy 500-like tire-changing sounds when I pull in after every two or three laps.

The 20-lap riders will start first, and the 10-lappers will start when the 20-lap riders have 10 laps to go. The first four finishers in each division will then have 10 minutes for any necessary bike/body repairs, then compete in a five-lap sprint to determine the winners.

Confused? Not as much as you will be after seven or eight laps, trust me.

Sign-up starts at 2:15 p.m. and racing starts at 3.

Providence E.R. is open 24 hours a day.

Giddy up

Shitty commute.

Giddy commute.

Best ride of the winter (so far)

This one's gonna be hard to top.A month of sub-freezing temperatures and no new snow has frozen Portage Lake hard and smooth. Thanks to a tip from Jon and Rose at Paramount Cycles, I knew the riding conditions were good, so a few of us decided to spend Sunday riding to the face of Portage Glacier and then wandering around on the lake.

The temp was 15 below zero when we started from the parking lot. According to my cheesy little zipper-pull thermometer, it warmed up to -10, then held steady as we spent a couple of hours playing on the ice. What an amazing day. The kind that makes it hard to imagine ever living anywhere else.

Unfortunately, I was so jazzed by all the great scenery, I forgot to check the settings on my camera and all the photos at the glacier came out too dark. I'll have to see if I can brighten them up on the computer.

In the mean time, I bagged a few decent pics on the second half of the ride after Andy and Melissa had to head back to their car because of a committment later in the day. Maura and I did a little exploring among the icebergs (one with a natural tunnel where I threw down my sexy-man pose), ice falls and frost flowers.

Ice rides kicks ass.

Pull my finger

Every winter, I hear comments from people as they pass by when I’m locking up my bike after riding to work in the dark when it’s 5F outside. Some people express admiration for the effort to ride through the winter. Others aren't shy about saying they think I'm crazy.

A few weeks ago, a woman who works in the building walked in the back door just as I finished throwing the lock around my frame. “Your sanity is seriously in question,” she said with a smile.

As she continued to talk about the single-digit temperatures and icy streets, I pulled off a glove and told her to grab my hand. As she wrapped her cold fingers around my toasty ones, she was surprised to find that I was much warmer than she was after spending 20 minutes driving to work.

Cold steering wheels suck. Grab a handlebar.

But you can still pull my finger.

Turkeys

I was driving to a meeting tonight when I heard a reporter from NPR say that 31 million Americans will be hitting the highways this holiday weekend. Airports, of course, will be huge mosh pits of stressed-out travelers.

No thanks. Those crowds can have all the highway carnage and TSA madness. I'm staying right here. I ran by Paramount Cycles and picked up all the holiday supplies I need: a couple of rebuild kits for my reliable, neglected Egg Beater pedals, and a brake-bleed kit so that I can start a long list of winter maintenance on my Epic.

Maybe I'll join the weekend race crowd for some silliness called "The Nutcracker." Two laps around the Goose Lake course, followed by a trail ride to the Hilltop Chalet and back, with two more laps around the lake to end the race. That's about 20 miles of riding in the dark, with expected temperatures from zero to 10 degrees.

I just need to make sure there will be a couple of fun guys to hang with in the back, and some liquor in the equation. Otherwise, we might end up looking like our man AkDeluxe here. Come to think of it, the liquor might make us look exactly like that.

I don't care. I'm not taking any chances, and I'm not doing this race on water alone.

Have a safe one everybody. Pour on some extra gravy.