Desert bird

Giving his wife one more reason to be proud.

Our latest installment in the infamous Finger Series comes courtesy of local shop czar Jon, who did the big flip-off while riding Tucson’s sunny Fantasy Island last month while the rest of us were listening to our studs clattering on icy pavement. Somehow, it feels like we should be giving him the bird.

Spongebob: From Frigid Bits Ice Crit icon to
Fantasy Island fetish, he’s bad. He’s nationwide.

Spongebob, one of the talismans that guard the trail, would surely have raised a finger for the cause as well, if only he’d had some flexible digits.

In a sad first for the Bicycles & Icicles blog, I must publish a correction. Last weekend’s post about the Frigid Bits scavenger hunt referred to a “brownie-chasing Viking chick.” As I was bluntly told at an election-night party, that rider was not a Viking, she was a tampon.

Never mess with a rag when she’s on the gorilla.

This disturbing fact was confirmed by Deb—the woman in the costume—who questioned the volume of my post-ride beer consumption. I was sober, but I have to admit that a Viking typically bears little resemblance to a tampon except in the aftermath of pillaging raid halted by unusually violent resistance.

Catching a brownie in your mouth, in the dark,
is harder than you might think, even when
your entire reason for being is to absorb and consume.

In hindsight, I have no idea how this happened. And I’m still trying to wrap my head around the idea that someone who dresses as a tampon would question the volume of MY drinking, but that’s another story.

Regardless, the entire staff here at B&I World Headquarters (OK, that’s just me) regrets the error and wishes to set the record straight.

(Thanks to Akdeluxe for the Arizona pics, and to Deb for the others.)

The time has come

Ride to your polling place
and vote Tuesday.

But if you vote for McPalin,
this photo's for you:

The Fingers keep coming!
Oscar the Grouch, photographed by Manny

Frigid Bits, Halloween style

Transvestites, beer, a gay bar, temps in the teens, a brownie-chasing Viking chick, and a fleet of bikes marauding through downtown Anchorage on a Friday night. This was a scavenger hunt and burn-barrel party to remember.

It was a farewell event for The Grillmeister, and it came on the heels of a Critical Mass ride that already had a bunch of bike nuts downtown, so the crowd was big—maybe even a record for a Frigid Bits series event. Thirty-four riders took to the streets for the hunt. With more showing up for the grillin' and swillin' we had at least 50 people caught up in this shit.

I'll let the pictures do the talking.

The Grillmeister busts a pre-ride move.

Even Gov. Palin showed up. Sadly, the stress
of campaigning appears to be
diminishing her GILF status.

A lot.

Whenever I visit a gay bar, I like to throw my arm around a guy who shows absolutely no interest in me. (Yes, a gay bar. What, you thought I was joking about the transvestites?)

This looks like the cover shot
for a bizarre album of
gangsta rap from outer space.

A Frigid Bits Halloween is like
Mardi Gras, without the toplessness.

Rumor has it, there was alcohol involved.

Piper? Is that you?
Nothing says class like a trashy woman
who's preggers and drinking PBR.

It's always hard to find when it's cold.

Ooooh, yeah. There's my big boy!
I knew it was in there somewhere.

Goodbye Grillmeister

All four finishers of the first Frigid Bits race—
which was won by the guy who proudly displayed
his pink flamingo trophy. (Nov. 2005)

The end of an era is at hand. It’s time to send Tim “The Grillmeister” Kelly off to a new life in Colorado. Friday night’s scavenger hunt will be his final Frigid Bits event (as an Alaska resident anyway).

The idea of The Grillmeister taking part in his final Frigid Bits is a little hard to comprehend. This guy has been around from the beginning. I didn’t know him for the first season or two, because the only time I could get near him on Goose Lake was when he was lapping me and too busy to chat. I mainly knew him as the fast dude with the goofy cowhide helmet cover.

You can't beat The Grillmeister's meat.

But as the Frigid Bits series evolved and we started hanging around after events to drink beer and cook dead animals, Tim emerged as the guy who was always willing to to schlep his big-ass grill across town, cook everybody’s chow, then stand around in sub-zero weather drinking beer and talking about bikes.

Tim’s a true Bike Guy, in the finest sense. He’s been racing for decades, loves every minute he can get on a bike, still rips the legs off riders half his age, and is happy as hell just hanging out with his fellow bike nerds.

The guy’s got passion:

Who wants a tan?

He built the famous—and probably the world’s only—1,500-watt bicycle headlights, and rode 10 laps on Goose Lake while towing the 50-pound generator it took to power the crazy things.

Real men wear boxers. On the outside.

He won the coveted lingerie jaune in a race last year, and still proudly wears those flippin’ Spongebob boxer shorts all over town. I’m pretty sure he’s the only guy to ever walk into the crowded Pioneer Bar and order a beer while wearing his boxer shorts over tights.

At the 2008 Soggy Bottom finish line.

When I met him on the trail during this year’s Soggy Bottom 100, he was miles ahead, speeding north as I slogged my way south toward the checkpoint in Cooper Landing, and Tim damn near took a disastrous header because he was yelling my name and trying to give me a high-speed high five as we passed going opposite directions.

To me, that was a great example of why mountain bikers will always be cooler than roadies—a fast guy at the front can be happy to see and cheer for a friend who’s suffering off the back.

Guys like The Grillmeister make the local bike scene a better place. The Frigid Bits series won’t be the same without him.

It’s gonna be weird to pull into the parking lot on Saturday nights and not see that cowhide helmet cover.

Back to the real world

I've been stuck in Southern California
without a bike for a few days, watching
groups of up to 20 riders whir by my hotel
in their club-ride packs. That stung.

I even envied this guy on his Townie.

Now I'm back and itchin'
to get back out on frozen trails.

(Not that my trip was all bad. There's no better place
to be than a SoCal beach when you
crank up "Californication" on an iPod.)

Think snow

Speedway Singletrack, Saturday afternoon

With temps in the neighborhood of 20 degrees,
the trails are firm and fun. They're also gettin'
a tad icy, so watch your cornering, folks.

And keep your fingers crossed
for a little more powder. I have a feeling
it's going to be a fun winter.

Scene from a ride home

I've been thinking that maybe I should start
assigning pretentious titles and numbers
to my photos, like some artists do with paintings.
You know, lend a little weight to these
silly things I photograph while out riding a bike.

I think I'll call this one ...

Stoplights Suck, No. 1

It's part of a series from my "commute period."

Bi*cy*cle

noun
A vehicle composed of two wheels held in a frame, one behind the other, propelled by pedals and steered with a handlebar attached to the front frame.

Maybe this definition should be printed, and then stapled to the foreheads of people who insist on trying to sell their motorcycles in the "bicycles" category of Craigslist.

Just a thought.

And on the subject of people who just don't get it, a survey in the United Kingdom has found that a majority of women won't ride to work because they're worried about being sweaty when they arrive. A significant number are worried about "helmet hair."

Ladies, please. Get over it.

First of all, if you dress properly and ride at a moderate pace, you don't have to be very sweaty when you get to work. And if you can't keep helmet hair under control, your hairstyle might be too complicated. Simplify. Women who ride to work are hot.

Petra on "Today"

I still see hits on this blog from people around the country searching for an update on Petra Davis. She and Pete Basinger were interviewed on the Today show this morning. They both looked and sounded great, for a couple of Alaska mountain bikers stuck in New York City. (It's sort of hard to imagine Pete surrounded by so much pavement.) Here's a link to the story and video.

Once ya go fat ...

you'll never go back.

Sunday's group ride on fat bikes was my
favorite kind—laid back, with a nice mix
of familiar riders and new faces. The trails
were firm, fast and fun (except for all the
blowdowns that still need some chain-saw work).

It felt good to be back out on
the Pugsley, riding on snow.

I only wish I could have gotten the shot
of Rio pouring creek water from his boot.

Fight the ninjas

(Yehuda Moon is always worth a read.)

I was cruising through a thin fog this morning (Is there anything more fun than riding in fog?) when a dark silhouette appeared ahead of me, illuminated by the portable lights at a nearby construction site. It was the dreaded Bike Ninja.

Bike ninjas are those riders who are too cheap or stubborn to use lights, making them more dangerous to everyone—motorists, cyclists, even themselves. On routes with plenty of ambient light sources, they’re little more than an annoyance to other riders, but in really dark areas, they’re a freakin’ menace. Most of us who have spent any time commuting know the shock of seeing another rider suddenly appearing in our headlight beam as we swerve to avoid a head-on collision.

Being a bike ninja is selfish and dangerous, and there's really no excuse for it. For about $12 at a Fred Meyer supermarket, anyone can buy a pair of flashing be-seen lights. Last winter, they were charging $6 for a red, blinkin’ butt light, and the same price for a white light you could tape or zip-tie to a handlebar. And these aren’t the crappy, single-LED things that are often given away as promotional freebies. These thins have multiple LEDs and bright flashing sequences.

If you’ve been running in stealth mode, stop by the store and grab a couple. Please.

They’re far cheaper than medical bills.

Lance might not approve

I could never get into the yellow wristband thing. I know the cause was noble, but it felt too much like a fad. Still, I ended up with a few because occasionally a co-worker would buy an extra one for the Office Bike Guy.

So when I rolled up a spare tube the other day and was trying to figure out how to keep it from flopping around in my commuter bag, I happened to remember that there was still a Livestrong bracelet in my desk.

And ya know what? That thing made a freakin’ perfect tube wrap! It was just stretchy enough, and it’s made of fairly thick silicone so it’s not prone to dry rotting like a rubber band. Hell, I could use five or six more of these things just to wrangle the spare tubes on my workbench.

Millions of these things have been sold, but how often do you see anybody wearing one these days? They’re just lying around in glove boxes and junk drawers, waiting for second lives. I say it's time to yank those puppies out of storage and put 'em to work.

Besides, what better way to raise awareness of cancer, recycling and flat tires all at the same time?

99

Today is a time to celebrate. We have finally entered double digits in the number of days left in the Bush presidency. It’s been a long time coming.

But it’s also a day to remember a lost opportunity. For the first time, we had a president who liked to spend his free time mountain biking . But he didn’t do a damned thing for us. Didn’t lift a finger to further our cause. No funding for new trails. No defense of our rights to access of public lands. Nothin’. A big, fat zero. To be fair, I doubt he knows there are millions of other people who love mountain biking. I mean, he took up the sport after becoming president, and he lives in a high-security bubble. I’m pretty damned sure he’s not going to learn about the rest of us by reading.

I once saw something from IMBA about how we need mountain bikers on municipal committees and in state legislatures, Congress, etc., to give us a louder voice and greater legitimacy in the public eye. To have a mountain biking president should be the ultimate way to advance our cause but, with Bush, it has only inspired frequent jabs from Maureen Dowd at the New York Times, who likes to point out that when this or that major event occurred, the president was "out riding his bike" instead of doing his job.

Considering how he wrecked everything else he touched, we should probably be glad he made no attempt to help mountain bikers. With his record, any effort to help would probably have been a nail in the sport's coffin.

But I’ve often found myself how different things would be today if Dubya hadn’t become our first court-appointed president despite the majority of Americans voting for Al Gore in 2000. Or what if so many voters hadn’t been in a coma four years ago, and we’d elected John Kerry, the guy who rode a custom Serotta Ottrott? Now there was a guy with brains and good taste in bikes.

I wouldn’t expect any president to make bicycling a big priority when it comes to domestic policy, but a little effort to encourage bike commuting, or trail building, or something, would help.

After all the presidents we’ve had who liked golf, jogging, tennis, etc., it would have been nice if the first one to enjoy mountain biking could have enhanced the sport’s image, instead of making it the butt of jokes.

Vote for Obama. And let's send him a bike.

Bike people are better

I’ve heard a lot of people say customer service is extinct. It’s often hard to disagree. When I had to deal with the Sears appliance repair people last week, I came close to throwing my phone on the floor and stomping the shit out of it while wishing I could do the same thing to several people I’d spoken with that day.

Fortunately, the bike industry seems to have a lot of cool people who stand behind their products. When my sidewall failed on a three-year-old Nokian Extreme studded tire last spring, I sent photos to the manufacturer and waited for a response like, “Ooooh. Sucks to be you. It’s out of warranty.” But that didn’t happen.

Instead, some dude in Finland asked me for a code number on the tire, and then told me it was still under warranty. He asked for my address, shrink-wrapped a new tire in thick plastic, slapped international shipping labels all over it, and mailed it directly from the factory.

A couple of weeks ago, my daughter was inflating the tires on her Rockhopper when the handle assembly on my old Topeak Twister floor pump broke loose and came completely out of the pump. The thing is nine or 10 years old, so I figured it was probably a goner but I really wanted to repair it. I hate throwing stuff in a landfill before it’s time, and somehow it just feels good to keep old stuff working. Besides, I’ve always thought something as simple and serviceable as a floor pump should last damn near forever.

It’s a first-generation digital model, and the old disk assembly that held the O-ring had finally fatigued and snapped off. The head of the disk unit was held in place by a crimp in the bottom of the handle shaft, so it looked like a cheap assembly method that was never designed to be repairable. I momentarily thought about throwing it away, but the idea of trashing the whole pump over a cheap piece of plastic seemed like a waste.

I got on Topeak's website and filed a note with a digital photo of the broken part. After exchanging a couple of messages to nail down the pump model, the Topeak guys mailed me a new, better-built handle assembly with an adapter to make it compatible with the old pump. No haggling, no hassle. I was impressed.

When I installed the new handle a couple of nights ago, everything worked flawlessly, and the pump is probably good for a few more years.

It’s a beautiful thing when someone’s willing to provide quick service and a free part for a product that’s years beyond its warranty period.

Stabilize this

While the folks in Congress were mortgaging our future last week, they stuffed the Big Bailout Bill with all manner of special provisions they called “sweeteners,” as in, “You want my vote, ol' boy, you’re gonna sweeten the pot by attaching my pet project to this here big-ass boondoggle. 'Cause when things go tits-up anyway, all that's gonna matter is how much money I got for my district.”

None of these so-called sweeteners had any business being attached to legislation that was allegedly designed to save us all from an economic meltdown and financial ruin, but the suits did manage to squeeze a few positive things into the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008. One of them was “Sec. 211. Transportation fringe benefit to bicycle commuters.”

In a nutshell, this thing provides money that will allow employers to reimburse bike commuters up to $240 per year “for reasonable expenses incurred by the employee during such calendar year for the purchase of a bicycle and bicycle improvements, repair, and storage, if such bicycle is regularly used for travel between the employee’s residence and place of employment.”

That sounds like a pretty cool thing, but—brace yourself for a shock here—there’s a catch. You can’t just apply to the government and get a check. Your employer would first have to work with the government (and we all know how easy that is) to develop a reimbursement plan. Then the Big Boss Man could pay you, but then he’d have to ask the government to reimburse him.

Which is OK, I guess, if your employer is sufficiently enthusiastic about alternative transportation and willing to wade through some red tape. Personally, I’m not holding my breath. I don’t know about you, but the corporation that owns my office ain’t exactly progressive on things like this, and I just can't see our payroll or HR people being willing to take on extra paperwork.

A few years ago, when we were preparing to move into a new building that was being remodeled for us, we suggested spending a miniscule portion of the overall budget on a couple of showers so that bike commuters and lunchtime runners could enjoy healthy lifestyles and clean up before going to their desks.

I don’t want to say they laughed at us, but from the corporate reaction, you’d think we had asked for free tequila and strippers every Friday afternoon. Hell, I considered it a success when I managed to ensure that an old steel bike rack would stay inside the building after it was left behind by the previous building owners.

There are plenty of employers willing to spend a little effort to help bike commuters. If you work for one, start talking to them about the provision in the bailout bill. Try to get some cash in your pocket.

It’ll be the best use of money tied to this whole mess.

Gettin' ready for snow

Other than a ride that ended with a flat on Friday afternoon as I stood in a mixture of snow and rain trying unsuccessfully to inflate a bad spare tube, I haven't managed to spend any time on a bike this weekend. I was busy hanging out with my man Buckwheat, who doesn't get to Anchorage often.

We ate some good food, had some good laughs, and did a little truck shopping because on the way up here from Skagway, he managed to drive his Toyota Tundra up ass end of a bull moose.

I did, however, manage to get the studded Nokians on the commuter tonight, just in time for a forecast that calls for snow and temperatures in the 20s and low 30s.

That's it, kids. Our three weeks of autumn have come to an end.

How do they do it?

My view from the bike path
during this morning's ride to work.

Most bike commuters—me included—are always raving about the benefits of riding to work. We act as if there isn’t a downside, but there is: It freakin’ ruins you for the days when you have to drive.

Yesterday morning, my daughter realized at the last minute that something she needed for school was in my wife’s car, which was several miles away in the parking garage of the hospital where she works. Now, I try to be a nice, understanding father. I have a great kid and she rarely causes this kind of disruption. But few things piss me off like an unplanned and unwanted drive from South Anchorage to Midtown at rush hour on a weekday morning.

The problem is, when you’re addicted to fresh air, exercise and bike paths, it’s painful to dive back into the inefficiency of crawling through a stream of brake lights. It’s downright infuriating.

I’ve said for years that I understand road rage. Hell, I understand parking lot rage. I wanted to scream like a maniac and put the gas pedal to the floor just to get out of the clogged maze of the school parking lot after dropping my daughter at the front door. Meanwhile, the lucky kids were rolling up, throwing locks around their bikes and walking inside as dozens of parents idled their cars in a stop-and-go procession toward the street.

What I don’t understand is how car people can sit in their vehicles and get angry at bicyclists riding to work.

Yesterday I sat in my car, looked at people on bikes and felt overcome with envy.

Bailing out my sanity

So I’m talkin’ to a co-worker the other day after she gets back from a trip. And I’m all, “Hey, like, how was Chicago?”

And she’s all, “It was 85 and humid.”

Then I’m all, like, “Really? OMG!”

Ya see, sometimes I tend to forget that autumn doesn’t start in mid-September for everyone. Up here in Palinistan, we Alaskans are so busy watching those pesky Russians from our front porches that we just don’t have time to keep up with things like the Bush Doctrine or seasonal changes in the Lower 48.

Hell, I can barely keep up with my shopping, and I have an important wedding gift to purchase! (I’m pretty sure I’m just going to wrap up a box of condoms with a big ol’ bow.)

Anyway, it’s been getting nippy in the morning for several weeks now, and the snow on the Chugach Peaks won’t be going anywhere until next spring. I finally rode to work again this morning after a week of being sick, and I saw ice forming on puddles.

But that’s OK. Birch leaves are pretty when they turn yellow and start drifting down. And we can all use a little beauty right now. After all, we still have several weeks to go before this insufferable presidential race ends. In the meantime, eight years of Dubya has run us off an economic cliff, and the people who are supposed to save our skin are standing around arguing over how to properly tie a noose in the rope they’re thinking about throwing to us.

So I don’t know about you, but I’m happy to turn off the news, pedal out of the driveway and listen to the crunch of leaves.

Few things are as comforting as the sound of rolling bicycle tires.

R.I.P.

Paul Newman was the coolest guy
to ever pedal a safety bike
with a pretty girl sittin' on the top tube.

Soggy Slide Show

Nice production, Crank Addict!

Got nuthin'

Until this head cold clears up
and I'm back on the bikes,
I won't have much to post,
so it's random picture time.

Someone who parks outside
Philippe's really knows how
to mount a spare tire with style.

Ed's big adventure

Ed Witterholt has done some funny things on bikes. I first met Ed when we served together on an advisory committee for the Trail Watch program. We did a couple of trail patrols together, and I remember him being proud of an old road bike he bought for $10. After making few repairs, he happily rode it on a regular basis.

He once showed up at a Frigid Bits winter race on Goose Lake, and rode a fixed-gear road bike with no studs and no brakes. I still can't figure out how he stayed upright. Then last year, his young daughter wanted to ride the Fireweed 50, so Ed rigged up a tandem with toe clips attached to pink blocks he had put on the pedals, and they went and did the race. A friend of mine complained for months about being passed by "the little girl with the pink blocks."

Ed's latest adventure is moving to Colorado. But instead of jumping on a plane or driving the family car, he left last week to pedal from Anchorage to Denver. Thanks to his very cool and indulgent wife, he has five weeks to live on his bike. Tara's not only supportive of the idea, she's also documenting the whole thing on a blog as she gets updates from the road.

Here's hoping the truckers, weather and road conditions cooperate all the way down the Alaska Highway. Have a great trip, Ed.

Travelin' baiku

Days without my bikes.
Week of bad, unhealthy food.
Need exercise. NOW!

It's only water

I'm visiting a small town in a rainforest this week. Moss grows everywhere, low clouds drape over the mountains and mist frequently fills the air. But moisture isn't used as an excuse.

The coastal terrain is fairly gentle, and the maritime climate is relatively warm. People wearing jeans and fleece jackets cruise home from work on bikes with fenders and rainproof panniers. Senior citizens with gray hair pedal up hills without getting off to walk.

Yesterday, a 50-something man in rubber boots and a camo hunting jacket was riding downtown when a friend saw him and said, "Taken to riding your bike, huh?"

"Yup," he replied.

"Well, it's cheaper," the friend said with a smile.

"It's exercise, too," Camo Man said as he continued rolling down the street.

It was a beautiful thing to see.

Make mine dirt

Sixteen years ago, a neighbor and I loaded up our bikes in Santa Fe and drove down for a day of riding at Sandia Peak ski area outside Albuquerque, N.M. Sandia was one of the earliest ski facilities to experiment with the idea of hauling mountain bikers up so that they could ride down, and we were intrigued enough to check it out.

They kept it simple in those days. No modified terrain or stunts, just metal hooks on chairs to haul your bike, and singletrack all the way to the bottom. It wasn’t bad, I guess, but it was unsatisfying. My two most vivid memories of the day are the strange guilt of unearned descents, and locking up my brakes after rounding a turn to find five beginners in gym shorts and tennis shoes standing with their bikes in the middle of the trail, where they had stopped to chat.

Nowadays, downhill ski areas love the idea of sucking summertime dollars from mountain bikers’ wallets by luring them to “bike parks” where they can purchase lift tickets and ride long-travel DH rigs over gap jumps and all sorts of wooden contrivances that the "parks" pass off as trails.

Just south of Anchorage, our very own Alyeska Resort is dipping its toes into those waters with two new trails that are probably the start of something bigger. For now, you still have to ride uphill (for free) to access the goods, but lift tickets probably aren’t far behind.

Last Saturday, I met Jules (who shot the pic with this post) and the BikeMonkee for a ride out of Girdwood, and we warmed up my making a run down Blueberry Pancake. It’s tame enough to ride on XC bikes, but full of tight, technical switchbacks and covered with wooden ramps and bridges that roll up and down, twist from side to side, and lead into banked turns. Where steep grades and wet wood combine, the lumber is covered with chickenwire to provide a grippy braking surface. So much for nature.

Just like Sandia back in ’92, it was an interesting experiment. But, for me, our ride didn’t really start until we were outside town riding over rocks and churning through mudholes. That’s what brought me to mountain biking in the first place: gettin’ out into the boonies, and exploring new trails with friends and the freedom to choose our own lines on the map.

I’m glad there are more people than ever interested in building trails for mountain bikers, and it’s good that folks with an aversion to climbing have someplace to go with their body armor and 40-pound beast bikes. But I’ll skip the lumberyard rides and lift lines, thanks. Besides, I already get my fill of being herded like a sheep every time I go to the airport.

I’ll stick with the backcountry, where I get to suffer up a mountain before riding down it, and the only crowd consists of my smart-ass friends with their scratched-up, non-armored shins. If I want to ride on wood, I’ll just look for some exposed roots.

Spider Fingers

The latest installment of The Finger Chronicles

comes to us from Spider Fest 2008,
a mountain bike festival outside
Liberty, Mo., where riders remove
spider webs from the forest by
plowing through them with their faces ...

while wearing kinky body armor.

(Is it just me, or does this guy give
you flashbacks to that dungeon scene
in "Pulp Fiction?")

That's my nephew front and center
in this shot. He's obviously being
led astray by his wayward father.

Speaking of my brother, he said that
if he'd had a more powerful flash,
he could have captured another
50 riders eagerly flippin' The Bird.

Thank you, kinky Spider Festers!

Enough Suckage

A few years back, I stopped tracking my annual mileage. My bike computers were freezing up in cold weather anyway, so I decided to spend a winter without one. It felt good to enjoy a bike without pursing week and monthly distance goals.

Since then, I’ve used computers to monitor the distances of individual rides, but I’ve purposely avoided tracking my accumulated mileage by season or year. In some ways, it has been liberating.

But it has also made me slower and weaker.

Looking back at this Summer of Suckage, it isn’t hard to figure out where the problem lies. I’ve spent too much time simply enjoying the feel of pedaling. Too much time taking the short routes. Too many rides enjoying a chat near the back of a group. Too many post-ride, barely earned beers. In other words, I’ve been lazy. And it's making me soft.

For cycling to be really fun, it sometimes has to hurt. I can’t remember the last time my wife or daughter said, “Have a fun ride,” and I replied with, “Not this time.”

I’ve never truly trained in any methodical way, but my best summers have always included a lot of rides that sucked because they were hard by design. I knew before I left the house that I was going to suffer, and that was the point.

I’m going to take a few weeks off this fall after getting an injury repaired, but then it’ll be time to get off my ever-expanding ass. I need to ride longer, harder and smarter. The computer needs to come back out, and the gut needs to go back in. The summer of 2009 shalt not suck.

I recently heard someone say something that made a lot of sense:

It’s time to toughen up, Buttercup.

Fall's comin'

Yellow leaves are falling on the trails. Autumn has begun. It’s time to write off the Summer That Never Was.

It was cold, rainy and cloudy. Bears created havoc. People got grumpy.

On top of that, I never seemed to get into good shape. Coming off a winter of little commuting, I never really found my groove. There were some good rides here and there, but only a few “great” rides, thanks to good trails and fun riding partners. My legs don't deserve much credit.

There’s nothing left to do but hope for a few nice fall rides, prepare the snow bikes for winter, and pray to the bike gods for more sun in ’09.

Surviving

I’ve been reading survival stories for the past week. The solo riders have been sharing their Soggy Bottom tales, which aren’t always pretty. Each year, many riders abandon the course in agony, frustration and/or exhaustion.

Others sit down and watch their leg muscles spasm. Some fight nausea, cramps, or other symptoms of illness. Last weekend, one sat down beside the trail and cried for 20 minutes, then got up and kept riding.

As a relay rider who was happy to see my suffering end at Cooper Landing, I find it hard to understand the appeal of racing the entire course. Besides not having the discipline and time to truly train for a solo attempt, I lack the desire to endure 15 to 17 hours of torture and the days of recovery.

But the consistent message in the stories of solo finishers is that the reward lies not in the ride, but in completing it. My friend akdeluxe said that after one of his finishes, it took him three days to feel happy that he hadn’t quit.

There’s something really sick and twisted in that, but I admire the tenacity of every solo rider. There’s a small part of me that wishes I had that kind of drive. There’s a much bigger part of me that’s glad I don’t.

This year, “ghost riders” were allowed to accompany their friends on the third and final leg to offer moral support and comfort in the dark, final hours of the race. Maybe that’s where my Soggy future lies, if I have one—volunteering to keep a friend company in the House of Pain and Bears.

I like that idea. Because I feel no need to reach the Seaview Bar as a soloist, but I sure enjoy seeing others pull it off.

Migratory birds from Canada

Our bike-riding brethren (and sister)
in the Yukon Territory submitted
a fine flip-off this week.

That's Anthony D. and his crew
from Whitehorse, one of the coolest towns
up in these northern regions, and
a very cool place to be a mountain biker.

Hopefully, I'll get to ride with these clowns
next time I get over that way.
I sampled Whitehorse this summer,
and I will be going back.

Thanks, Yukoners, for a nice addition
to The Finger Fine Art Gallery.

Soggy fingers

Some may have meant it more than others.
(Thanks to Maura for the photo)

The Finger Movement lives on!

Just before the start of Saturday's Soggy Bottom 100, event organizer Carlos Lozano asked the entire field to flip me the bird. Not everyone fit in this photo but, trust me, it was the greatest Mass Flip-off I've ever seen. (And it took some doing to match Jeff's effort earlier this summer.)

Most riders didn't even know why they were flipping me off. I mean, it's not like this is a request one hears every day. When Carlos first told them to turn around and let me have it, they weren't sure what to do. Oscar The Grouch, who was straddling his bike nearby, had to say, "He's serious."

But if anyone knows how to give The Finger, it's bicyclists, so next thing I knew, a new record had been set.

Several times this year, I've mentioned my friend Heather and heard someone reply, "Is that the chick who's always flippin' you off on your blog?"

Now I'm waiting to meet someone who says, "Hey, are you the guy I flipped off in Hope?"

Band-Aids are for wimps

Real men use duct tape.

(Photo lifted from the race winner's page.)