Going downhill fast

I’m putting 2012 down as the Year of Intense Descents.

First, there was the fog-shrouded puckerfest on Thompson Pass during the Fireweed 400. In October came the Furnace Creek 508, another bit of ultra-distance craziness for which I somehow got talked into being Leonard’s crew chief. 

The 508 is one of the world’s toughest ultra-distance bike races because it has more than 35,000 feet of elevation gain, crosses 10 mountain passes, and runs through the Mojave Desert and Death Valley on its way from the start line north of Los Angeles to the finish line in Twentynine Palms, Calif. 

It’s 508 miles long, with a cutoff time of 48 hours. 

Leonard at Valley Wells, before shit got real.

The best thing I can say about ultras is that they give you focus. Real life mostly disappears as crew members become consumed with taking care of their rider and meeting critical needs like eating, finding gasoline and ice, or finding the necessary facilities when the racer or a crew member badly needs to drop a load.

For me, the real world completely disappeared at night. Soon after we met up in California, Leonard requested that I do all nighttime driving of the crew van. I’ve followed him down quite a few descents both on bikes and in cars, so I generally know what he’s about to do, and why he’s going to do it. 

Because I haven’t run over him yet, he seemed to feel reasonably confident that I could stay close and light up the pavement without turning him into a road biscuit.

But there’s a big difference between an autumn night in the 508 and a summer night in Alaska’s Fireweed 400. California gets really dark. And it stays that way for hours and hours. That makes for a very long shift of driving within a few feet of your racer’s wheel. But night is no piece of cake for the rest of the crew, either. Especially first-timers.

We were probably two-thirds of the way down a long mountain pass during the first overnight run when Randy, who was sitting in the passenger seat and had met me only 48 hours earlier, said the first words that had been spoken since we crossed the summit. I was keeping the van’s bumper about 12 feet from Leonard’s wheel, at speeds reaching 40 mph.

“You think you should back off a little bit?” Randy quietly asked.

“Nope,” I replied. “This is good.”

The van got quiet again, and stayed that way until the descent was over. 

Sometime about 24 hours later, I still hadn’t slept and was following Leonard as he dropped down a gentle, miles-long descent toward the last checkpoint town before the finish in Twentynine Palms. I slowly swerved from side to side in the highway lane, touching the shoulder on the right, then drifting left and putting the tires on the center line. 

I knew it must look strange, and the concentration required wasn’t as intense as the previous night, so I explained to Randy that I was trying to keep Leonard from riding into his own shadow, and trying to help him see the smoothest, safest line on a stretch of sketchy pavement. 

The race started at 6 a.m. Saturday. Sometime about 2 a.m. Monday, we rolled into the hotel parking lot that was the finish line. Once we got Leonard settled in his room, Randy and I shared one last surreal drive together: to an all-night drive-through selling big, shitty burritos.

They tasted incredibly good. They were like dessert after a main course of insanity.

Deliver us from evil

Southcentral Alaska has become the place where fun goes to die.
 
I love this state. But Jesus Fiddle-playing Christ on a Pogo Stick, this winter is turning into a big, soggy shit sandwich. At one point this weekend, the National Weather Service forecast for Anchorage include an avalanche warning, a freezing-rain advisory, a flood watch, and a strong-winds advisory. All at the same freakin’ time.



Bike riders, skiers, ice skaters and even kids with sleds have been trying to salvage this nearly snow-free season and, as usual, fat bikers have generally been the ones managing to have a good time. But that pretty much came to an end at the moment captured in today’s photo.

I joined Julie for a ride on Saturday. With some caution, we were able to enjoy some singletrack, and I had even mentioned a couple of times how I enjoy riding in light, freezing rain. (I shit you not. I actually do.)

Then the light drizzle turned into full-on, balls-out rain. And it was landing on icy trails. Jules and I watched conditions deteriorate by the minute. We resorted to walking our bikes up slight inclines because the trail was like grease. We could barely find enough traction to stand up.

And the weather has only gotten worse since then.

Some riders are turning to the dreaded indoor trainer. Some of us have resorted to drinking more beer and watching our bellies grow. 

Fortunately a tiny, tiny few of us are waiting for the freedom bird. That big, beautiful jet that will soon carry us to warm, sunny Arizona singletrack.

Bring it on. I'd rather take my chances with rattlesnakes and cactus needles.

I reserve ... the right to swerve

Life's too short to color inside the lines.

For years, it has been fun to be an Alaskan out there on the fuzzy edge of a fringe sport. I mean, did any of us really expect fat bikes to catch on in a big way outside frozen places like Alaska and Minnesota?

But huge technological leaps have the masses wanting Fatbacks, Mukluks, Pugsleys and 9:ZERO:7 bikes. Alaska's shops are shipping their frames all over the freakin' place. If you walk into a shop and see a fat bike you like, you'd better buy it or it very well might be gone the next day.

But I was still surprised to learn that so many are people riding fat bikes, IMBA felt the need to come up with a list of "best practices." 

I know IMBA means well, but I'm not so sure I like this "legitimizing" of my beloved winter activity. And I definitely have some problems with rule No. 4: "You are able to safely control your bike and ride in a straight line."

When fresh snow and flask rides are outlawed, only outlaws will ride in fresh snow and carry flasks.

Keep it real

Professional road racing is a sport that should be taken out behind the barn and shot in the head. Liars, cheats and doping scandals have made it a sad, ugly joke.



The latest “big news” is that Lance Armstrong — one of the greatest athletes and biggest assholes to ever throw a leg over a bike — might overturn years of denials by admitting that he doped. He could even provide information that could help USADA with other investigations. 

Once upon a time, I marveled at the vision of “greats” like Marco Pantani and Armstrong as they flew up the classic climbs of Hautacam, Mont Ventoux and Alpe d’Huez. I can’t even enjoy watching that old footage on YouTube anymore. It’s tainted.  Fuck 'em all.

I choose to admire the people who ride for the sheer joy and beauty of moving through the world on a bicycle. The people who spend weeks or months touring with loaded panniers. The people who ride 100 miles and then eat hamburgers and drink beer with their riding buddies. Even the amateurs who know they’ll never win a dime, but who enter races just to test themselves and share the experience with other riders. 

And, most of all, the mountain bikers who know it’s all about the brotherhood and sisterhood of a ride, and who would never pass by a stranger standing beside a disabled bike without asking if he has everything he needs. 

As long as those people are out there turning the pedals, dopers can never steal the real beauty of bicycling.

I've been a slacker the past couple of years, and haven't done a recent end-of-the-year slideshow. But the memories dredged up by this one from 2010 still put a grin on my face.

Happy New Year.

Notsnot

It has come to my attention – painfully, I might add – that many civilians lack a thorough understanding of the beardsicle. Or, as my friend Rio likes to call it, the glacial facial.

I have often winced when people would see a fully developed beardsicle and refer to icy extensions of a mustache as “snotsicles.” I mean, seriously, do they think we ride around the woods lazily letting mucous pour  from our olfactory intakes? Most of us aren't that barbaric.

To comprehend the origin of the large icicles that form on a manly 'stache during winter rides, one must first understand the fundamentals of the beardsicle. You came to the right place, dear readers.

Whilst transporting oneself aboard a modern velocipede, physical exertion commonly results in a significant increase in exhalations from one’s mouth, containing a high content of moisture that rapidly cools as it passes through the air and freezes upon – or just prior to – contact with air-cooled surfaces such as hair and clothing.

As these frozen particles accumulate on cold surfaces, layers of frost are formed, thereby turning facial hair white in a fashion that has, on occasion, been compared to the appearance of a small, humanoid creature that is sometimes rendered in a painted plaster form to decorate a lawn or garden.

Alas, warm exhalations from the nose routinely cause a thermodynamic change in frost crystals located directly above the rider’s upper lip, thereby converting a solid to a liquid that is forced by the laws of gravity to flow downward until such time as the flow of cold air once again forces the liquid to return to a solid form known as ice.

This process occurs continuously during physical activity, providing a steady flow of water that adds to the mass of icicles that hang like stalactites from the mustache.

In other words, what some refer to as a snotsicle is simply an icicle. It contains the same water and ice crystals as the rest of the frost that covers a rider’s face, chest and shoulders, and should not be mistaken as nasal mucous.

After all, fat-biking is a sport not of ill-mannered brutes, but of ladies and gentlemen.

Elves

Bridge elves come in various forms. 

Sometimes they help you set fire to the bridges behind you, 

and other times they build new bridges on the trail ahead.

Whatever you celebrate, and wherever you're riding, have a happy holiday. 

And may you have good bridge elves in the year ahead.

Middle Fork, mofos!

Click on the pic for a better view.

Middle Fork Loop is one of the best winter rides in the Anchorage area. On a sunny day in late winter, when the trail conditions are prime, it has all the ingredients for an epic afternoon.

It's reached after a long, sustained climb into Chugach State Park, then runs across the mountains with great views of the Anchorage bowl, Cook Inlet and Mount Susitna. Even Denali, on a good day. And the descent will put a huge, shit-eatin' grin on your face.

The problem is that Chugach State Park's management plan doesn't address mountain biking, and certainly not winter mountain biking, so we're still treated as second-class citizens by park managers. We have to beg, borrow and steal to use some trails.

Fortunately, we have winter access to Middle Fork again with special-use permits issued to fat-bikers this season. (Last year, after two or three seasons of permits, we got the shaft and were shut out of Middle Fork.)

Yes, you have to own a fat bike for this ride. Although trail conditions are sometimes suitable for regular mountain bikes, the special-permit rules specifically require fatties. According to the rules, "A Fat Tire Bike is defined as a self-propelled bicycle created for cycling on soft, unstable surfaces. The tire width is 3.5” or greater and tire pressure is less than 20 pounds per square inch ground pressure."

Get a permit and treat yourself to a ride on this trail. Or get a permit just to show state park people that we're here, we're not going away and we want fair access, regardless of how many Nordic skiers don't like to share.

Send an email to csp@alaska.gov. Give them your name, mailing address and email address, and tell them you're requesting a fat-bike permit for Middle Fork Trail.

That's it. That's all you have to do.

Within a few days, they'll email you a permit that you can print and attach to your bike when riding Middle Fork.

Be nice. Follow their rules and don't shred the trail. Try not to be a dick, no matter how many grumpy skiers scowl at you.

Then maybe, just maybe, Chugach State Park officials will someday learn to accept us as legitimate trail users who don't need a "special permit" to use our park.

Worldwide

 Congratulation for the success!

While I was screwing around and not writing a blog over the past few months, a fresh flip-off photo would still arrive from time to time. My friend Debbie stepped up her latest addition to the Fabulous Finger Gallery by going international with the semi-infamous Bicycles & Icicles "No Waxing Required" sticker.

This sticker has turned up in a lot of places. It has gone to Ho Chi Minh City, and is affixed to the famous summit sign atop Col du Galibier, thanks to my roadie-freak friend Gina. And this past summer, Debbie took a sticker along on her mountain bike tour of Nepal, and made sure it found a home on a store window. Probably in what most of us would call the middle of nowhere.

I like knowing that the silly little sticker I made to subtly flip off bike-hating Nordic snobs is slowly working it's way to odd little corners of the world, and staying there to occasionally make a confused traveler scratch his head and wonder what it means.

Because when you think about it, that's pretty much what this blog does to careless surfers of the Internet.

Let the people ride!

This is a flip-off with feeling.

They see Jules ridin’, they be hatin’.

Seriously, what the hell is wrong with people who are offended by the site of a bicycle? My friend Jules and her hubby the Bike Monkee found this note on their car Saturday after they finished a ride on Eagle River. 

Yes, I said ON Eagle River. They were riding on ice and snow. You couldn’t even make an argument that they were causing trail erosion or damage because, come spring, the “trail” will cease to exist when it melts and flows downstream. And they were riding fat bikes, not Kawasakis, so they weren’t making noise.

Some grumpy bastard just didn’t like the sight of two people on bicycles. So he had to try to piss on their good time by arrogantly leaving a note to say the trail isn’t open to bikes until snowmachines are allowed to run on it. Yeah, snowmachines. Much of the winter, the river is open to screaming, exhaust-belching machines. And this bastard is worried a couple of bicycles.

I haven’t bothered to look up the law cited in the note, nor do I plan to do so. But I’d be willing to bet that the logic behind the rule – if there is any – would be related to safety. When public officials determine the ice is thick enough to support snowmachines, it’s obviously strong enough to support bicycles. So that’s an easy, no-risk time to say, “Yep, you can ride your bike on the river now.”

But people routinely spend time on frozen lakes and rivers before the ice gets super thick. The grouch who scribbled his note was probably doing the same thing. My guess is that he didn’t give a rat’s ass about whether Julie and Monkee were in danger. I think he just wanted the place to himself. Maybe he even saw his method of travel, whether it was on foot, skis or snowshoes, to be more “pure.”

Screw that guy.

A fat bike on snow is about as close as you can get to a zero-impact vehicle. And anybody you see riding one is probably going to be one of the nicest people you’ll meet on the trail.

To hell with the haters. You could never please them anyway.

Go ride your bikes and be happy.

Well, shit. Here we go again.

"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro."

— Hunter S. Thompson 

Last summer, I put this pile of bike-related bullshit on indefinite hiatus. I thought it might even be permanent. But in recent weeks I've found myself wanting to tell some stories and share some photos. Hell, I even have some additions to the Fabulous Finger Gallery that got stashed in the dust bin after Bicycles & Icicles went dark.

In short, I sort of miss writing the damned thing. Some people have asked me why I stopped, and a couple have encouraged me to start again. My only reason for quitting was that inspiration had faded, and I felt like the blog was getting stale and boring. With a (hopefully) great season of fat-biking ahead, excitement and inspiration are returning.

So in the next few weeks, after organizing my thoughts and wrapping my mind around doing this again, you can expect to see new posts, and some new flip-offs from faraway places.

Come along for the ride. If we're lucky, the going will get weird.

-30-

I started this blog about this time of year in 2005. Call it the seven year itch, but I think I’ve had enough. I no longer feel the inspiration to write it, and I haven’t had as much time lately to give it attention. Maybe I’ll feel compelled to resurrect it at some point in the future. Maybe not.

It has been a hoot to play with this medium. I’ve entertained myself, I’ve gotten in hot water on occasion, and I’ve even made some new friends. I’ve had quite a few people give me the finger over it, too. Thanks to those of you who stopped for a look.

Sarah

At the finish line.

One of the secrets to finishing an ultra-distance bicycle race is to have a good crew in the support car. A natural place for a rider to look for such people is among his or her friends who ride bikes, because they’re likely to be supportive of such a crazy idea and, hopefully, will have some understanding of what’s required to reach the finish line.

But not necessarily.

Part of the reason I agreed to crew in the Fireweed 400 for the second time this year is that I had a good partner who agreed months in advance to help get the job done.

And she doesn’t even own a bicycle, much less race one.

Two years ago, Sarah Alban was a magazine intern spending her first summer in Alaska. She made two mistakes: 1) seeming to be up for new adventures, and 2) having a supervisor who was desperate to find the second half of a two person crew.

I felt a little guilty about conning Sarah into the job, but every time I tried to recruit one of my bike-riding friends, they would start mumbling and develop a sudden need to stare at their shoes.

It could have been a violating some sort of workplace law regarding interns, but since I had hired her and hadn’t bother to look up any rules, I went for it. “How would you like to see some more of Alaska?” I asked. “Would you like to visit Valdez?”

Then I stared at my shoes and quietly mumbled, “… for a few minutes, in the dark, before turning around?”

She took the bait, and I was happy to just have a live person to fill the other seat and meet the race’s two-person-crew requirement. I didn’t know she’d throw herself into the job and work her ass off for my friend Leonard, a racer she had just met, expecting nothing in return but a long stretch of sleep-deprivation.

Four hundred miles later, we both had learned how hard, exhausting and gratifying it could be to do the behind-the-scenes work that helps a bike rider accomplish something most people could never do. And I had learned to not underestimate the tired young woman sitting next to me as we drove across the finish line at Sheep Mountain Lodge.

This year, Sarah flew 4,000 miles from the East Coast to do it all again. She made sandwiches, mixed energy drinks, took driving shifts, guzzled caffeine and graciously endured what other friends wouldn’t … 30 hours in a car with me.

And when it was all over, she pulled a bottle of rum from her backpack so we toast Leonard’s success.

I think the next time Leonard and I have time for a beer together, we should do a toast to Sarah. Because that poor girl is completely insane. And I’m pretty sure we’re both grateful for that.

A repair guide for the masses

When was the last time you bought a book that interacted with your iPhone?

Bicycle books hit the market all the time and, on occasion, I’m asked to review one on this blog. And some good ones come along, but many follow the same old formula. Someone rides across a country or around the world, and chronicles the “adventure.” Or someone writes a new guidebook or repair manual. A lot of them are perfectly good books, but few are fresh and fun.

The Bike-Owner’s Handbook is the first book I’ve seen in years that I would actually buy as a gift.

A woman with the great name of Ziggy Hanaor e-mailed me from London a couple of months ago to offer a copy of this new release from Cicada Books, but I wasn’t interested until I looked at Cicada’s website and became intrigued by the design and content.

This is a cool little 112-page book that will never replace Leonard Zinn’s comprehensive guides to road and mountain bike repair, but that’s OK, because it doesn’t have to. Some people don’t own a headset press or wheel-truing stand. They just want to know how to fix a flat tire, adjust a brake, or tighten a headset.

And they don’t necessarily want to wade through a bunch of technical lingo to get the information they need. Author Peter Drinkell eases into things with simple explanations and hand-drawn illustrations, with an occasional photo thrown in just for decoration.

Some people have simple questions, such as: What do you call this part of a wheel? What’s the difference between a Presta valve or a Schraeder? How do I take my freakin’ wheel off and put it back on? Can I look this stuff up in a book that doesn’t weigh as much as the Detroit Yellow Pages, or leave me scratching my head in confusion? And, better yet, could you print a bar code on some pages so I can scan it with my smartphone and be taken directly to videos that will show me how to do certain jobs?

Yeah. That’s what I said. This book directs you to videos you can watch on your phone while working on your bike. That’s a brilliant use of smartphone technology to make a printed product dramatically more useful. It also makes this book -- which sells for about 10 British pounds, or about 10 bucks at amazon.com -- a better bargain.

This is exactly the kind of book I’d give to a new bike owner, or someone who has gotten tired of feeling helpless and is ready to start getting their hands dirty, but wants a simple guide that’s easy and fun to use.

“We wanted to create a handbook that was accessible to people like me, basically,” Ziggy told me in an email after I asked what inspired this book. “I ride my bike to work, and it's my primary means of transport, but I am not a particularly technical person, and when things go wrong, I end up spending lots of money on things that I can sense are quite basic.

"Pete had the idea for the book, and when I looked into the competition, all the manuals we found were either way too technical or just really badly presented. Also, there's such a cool aesthetic to bikes generally and to the cycling community, and we wanted to reflect that in the overall packaging of the book.”

Newbies who use The Bike-Owner’s Handbook might get hooked on doing their own repairs, and eventually outgrow this guide, but I’d be willing to bet they’ll keep it on their shelves for sentimental reasons. They're going to appreciate the book that got them started.

The Bike-Owner’s Handbook is distributed by:

D.A.P./Distributed Art Publishers Inc.
155 Sixth Avenue
New York NY 10013
T: 212-627-1999 x 209
F: 212-627-9484
W: www.artbook.com

and ...

Thames and Hudson
181A High Holborn
London WC1V 7QX
T: +44 (0)20 7845 5000
F: +44 (0)20 7845 5050

That's gonna leave a mark

I’ve been riding mountain bikes for nearly 23 years. Like all mountain bikers, I’ve crashed more times than I can count. I’ve had at least two concussions, broken an elbow, punctured my right calf with gear teeth multiple times, pierced my chin with my teeth, and suffered blunt-force trauma that required surgery to repair my inner thigh.

But I’ve never shed a significant amount of blood until this week, when I took a fall on Speedway singletrack. It wasn’t a bad crash. Just a tumble to the left when I locked up on a knot of roots that sent me over an old fallen tree. A small branch had long ago broken off and left a sharp piece of wood that punctured the outside of my quad.

As soon as I sat up and started assessing the damage, I saw a small but steady stream of blood trickling out of my leg. I told Julie, my riding partner, that I was fine, other than a little blood. After I stood up and turned my leg toward her, Julie said, “That’s really bleeding.”

I looked down and saw rivulets of blood running down my calf, then Julie mentioned that we were probably going to need to stop the bleeding. That’s when we inventoried our first-aid supplies.

They consisted of inner tubes, pumps and multi-tools. Great first-aid supplies for a flat tire, but fairly useless for a leg, unless it happens to need a tourniquet.

There was nothing to do but continue riding. I figured that either the bleeding would stop, or I’d cut the ride short and head for home, several miles away. Fortunately, it stopped. I just had and ugly web of blood across the bottom half of one leg.

The pisser was that for two years, on long backcountry rides I’ve carried packages of wipes that contain a blood-clotting agent for small wounds. I got them as a free sample from the manufacturer, and thought it would be cool if one of my friends would cut something open and give us a chance to try those things. The dudes did not abide.

I finally get a bleeder, and where are the blood-clotting wipes?

At home, in my garage.

Fog

Leonard pedals up Thompson Pass
just before midnight.

Of all the bizarre memories that come from crewing for a rider in the Fireweed 400 solo division, it was the fog in this year’s race that is going to haunt me the longest.

Any ultra-distance bike race contains moments of despair, humor, exhaustion, boredom and sometimes even a little excitement, but you hope danger will be kept to a minimum.

As we crept into the late evening hours Friday night, a photographer who was driving up and down the course warned me and crew partner Sarah that visibility was going to diminish as Leonard — the racer we were supporting — approached Worthington Glacier and began the climb up Thompson Pass. Daylight was fading, and the pass was covered in thick fog.

This was already going to be one of the worst parts of a very long race. Leonard was facing a hard climb, and from midnight to 5 a.m., race rules required us to keep him in our headlights as we drove directly behind him to shield him from traffic and help him see the road. Instead of regularly sprinting three or four miles ahead to set up for giving him food, supplements and fluids, we would have to drive slowly in dim light for at least five hours, trying to stay alert while pacing him at close range.

When we arrived near the base of the glacier, Leonard rode into fog and the visibility began dropping. Sarah and I decided to start pacing an hour early because if exhaustion or poor pavement conditions forced him off the shoulder and directly onto the highway, he would be invisible to fast-moving vehicles until they were within feet of his wheel.

Conditions already seemed bad. But shit was about to get real.

As Leonard crested Thompson Pass about midnight, visibility dropped to only a few feet as he steered into the descent. When we were close enough to see him, he was signaling that he wanted us closer for more light, but we were already dangerously close. If we dropped back as little as two or three feet, we would completely lose sight of the tiny red light on the back of his bike.

Sarah was driving and struggling to find a position behind Leonard that would allow us to see him without getting so close that we might hit his wheel. Each time he opened a slight gap and disappeared, I would be urgently nagging the ever-patient Sarah to “Move up! Move up! Move up!” until we could again see a red dot in the fog. We could only hope that he wouldn’t tap his brakes as she closed the gap.

We were intensely focused on maintaining some sort of visual contact with Leonard, so there was little time or mental capacity for consciously considering the risk of running over him, but we both knew it was a possibility. Meanwhile, as if we needed an extra dose of anxiety, the amber lights of a large semi came appeared in our mirrors.

Despite all the complaints cyclists have about impatient motorists on the road, I will be forever grateful that within a minute or two, the truck driver appeared to figure out what was happening in front of him and he backed off until we descended far enough to reach better conditions. He could have made our situation drastically more dangerous, but he gave us the space we needed to continue our mostly blind chase down the mountain. 



Hours later, on the way back toward Glenallen, Leonard was stopped for a food break when he asked if we had taken any good photos of the descent. He was baffled when I replied that no, there weren't any pictures.

“We were a little busy trying not to kill you,” I told him.

“Really?” he asked. “Was it that bad?”

All we could do was say, “Yes, it was,” then get him rolling, throw everything back in the car, and head up the road to our next stop. I was consciously trying to forget the pass. Sarah and I still had work to do, and Leonard had a lot of pedal strokes between him and the finish line.

The sun came out on Saturday morning, and with every mile we put behind us, I was happy to be farther away from darkness and fog.

Just before 6 that evening, after an amazing ride, Leonard finished his third straight Fireweed 400. It took 29 hours, 56 minutes and 10 seconds.

Tired

Another year of crewing/racing in the
Fireweed 400 solo division is in the bag.

I'll be writing about it when my fine motor skills
come back enough for me to type.

Devil's playground

The last couple of summers haven't involved enough weekends of trashing bikes, drinking around campfires and sleeping until hunger forces me out of a sleeping bag. I made an effort to correct that this weekend. And damn, it felt good.

Like most people, I've been postponing big rides on the Kenai Peninsula this summer because of the epic winter we just had, and the snow that's still melting out in the high country. That wasn't a bad call.

We must have pushed across eight or 10 snowfields up around Devil's Pass on Saturday. At this rate, I'm not sure all the snow will be gone before this year's Soggy Bottom about a month from now. If I were a Soggy rider, I'd be hoping for a really warm July. Actually, if I were crazy enough to be a Soggy rider, I have no idea what I'd be thinking, because I don't understand those people's minds.

I already have my hands full trying to understand the people I drink with around campfires.

It's a full-time job.

Rover's revenge

Maybe people have become too afraid of the bears, or distracted by new trails across town at Kincaid Park. Whatever the reason, Rover's Run is going back to the weeds and furry animals.

Some bad — even tragic — bear encounters in recent years led to closures and a shady reputation for what used to be one of Anchorage's most heavily used trails. Despite decades of heavy use with no major problems, Rover's Run became a bad neighborhood. Almost overnight, nobody wanted wanted to use it during summer when hungry bears are active and the adjacent creek is loaded with salmon.

Maybe it's for the best. Rover's had been overused. It was getting wide, and the mud holes seemed to get a little deeper each year. Now vegetation is creeping in from the sides and narrowing the trail. And on a nice day recently, there was nary a tire track to be found. Riding it was fun, partially because I had it to myself, and partially because it's starting to feel like a natural singletrack again.

As it narrows, mountain bikers might begin to rediscover it. But if they want to wait another year or two, that's OK with me.

Racing ... to finish my beer

Congratulations to all the racers who survived
this weekend's 24-hour race at Kincaid Park
by dodging moose and enduring Saturday's heat.

Especially the crazy solo riders,
like my man Tony here.

And congratulations to everyone who had the good sense
to drink beer and watch from the sidelines, like I did.

Laziness rocks.