Digital Carnage

Recently, I’ve noticed more friends sharing ah-inspiring pictures from their mountain bike rides. And I do mean ah-inspiring. As in, “Ah, shit! Why did I have to see that?”

My friend Carrie in Wyoming recently got on Facebook and posted this picture of her boyfriend’s fresh stitches, and you can thank me for not posting the photo of the cut before it was sewn up. Seriously. It may not look that big, but I think you could have screamed into that deep crevasse and heard an echo. I mean, you could have dropped shit in there and lost it.

He went riding again the next weekend and did a faceplant, fracturing his orbital socket. Carrie got good pics of that, too, which bolstered my respect for her in a way that I found a little disturbing.

Earlier this summer, one of my nephews posted photos of a buddy’s forearm, which got slashed open so wide that it looked like the Grand Canyon of Gore. I couldn’t stand to look at it. So I went back to it several times and averted my eyes. When I showed the picture to my wife and one of her fellow nurses, they curiously moved their faces closer to the screen and calmly said, “Yup. That looks like bone all right.”

Not that many years ago, you could go on a group ride and there wouldn’t be a camera in anyone’s pack. Today, you get three or more riders and it’s likely that at least one will be carrying a digital point-and-shoot. (If I’m in the group, you can pretty much count on it.)

On the upside, you’ll sometimes end up with a photo that makes you look good. On the downside, your crashes—and the resulting carnage—might be shared with the world. Or at least your little social-network sliver of it.

Ride carefully. Try to keep your insides from showing.

But if they do make an appearance, could you turn toward the good light and hold still? This will take only a second ...

Mr. Skin

Every bike commuter knows the usual suspects along the daily route to work: the “racers” who don’t want to be passed; the people who insist on being halfway through each intersection before the light actually turns green; the people who ride for a week or two at the beginning of each summer and then are never seen again. There’s a variety of bike-commuter stereotypes.

Today, I pay tribute to Mr. Skin.

No, not that Mr. Skin. (In case you missed the movie "Knocked Up," that link is NSFW.) I’m talking about those guys—and it’s pretty much always the male riders—who seem to think a bicycle can’t be ridden without exposed arms and legs. They’re the guys you see cruising to and from work looking underdressed after most of us have started wearing jackets, tights, ear warmers and full-fingered gloves.

When I’m wearing wool socks and have my jacket zipped up, and I’m cursing myself for having left my arm warmers at home, I have a hard time believing the guy in shorts and a T-shirt isn’t freezing his ass off.

Can these guys not afford decent clothing? Are they suffering from the same arrested development that makes high-school kids refuse to wear coats in 5-degree weather? Do these riders have some natural resistance to cold?

Not bloody likely. At 40 degrees, if you’re riding 15 mph, the wind chill makes it feel like 32 degrees. That’s the freezing point of water and, if I recall the details from biology class, water makes up some really freakin’ huge portion of the human body. That means 32 degrees feels cold on exposed skin.

But keep up the tough image, Mr. Skin. Keep flexin’ those exposed muscles as you pedal through the falling leaves in the autumn air. The rest of us will pretend not to see the goosebumps.

But I'm still gonna laugh a little after riding by going the other direction.

Autumnal Sunshine

"I cannot endure to waste anything so precious as
autumnal sunshine by staying in the house."
—Nathaniel Hawthorne

The Hangover

Isn't it strange how some of the hardest rides are the ones we remember as being some of the best? When Leonard and I got back to the car Wednesday evening more than eight hours after we left it, we had run out of tubes, patches and water, and the sky was growing dark.

Most everything—including my legs—was depleted. My back ached and my knees were sore. We needed a hot meal, and we were still facing a 125-mile drive back to Anchorage. Home felt far away. My office, where I needed to be in 12 hours, felt much too near.

Tonight, there’s a small pile of filthy clothes in my garage floor, right next to the Camelbak full of food wrappers and miscellaneous trash. Cleaning it up will, as usual, be simultaneously disgusting and fun. The aftermath of a good ride is like that of a good party. You might use a long stick to pick up a malodorous pair of pants, but you’ll smile at the memory of what happened to them.

Sometimes, it’s tempting to swear I’ll never return to a trail that ripped my legs off and beat me over the head with them, but that’s like crawling out of bed on Sunday morning and vowing to never drink again.

A few days later, the bottle will be opened again. That stuff just tastes too damn good.

The Best of Fall

Clear, sun-filled skies in the middle of September mean it’s time for a ride along the shore of Eklutna Lake. It’s a 26-mile roundtrip with about 30 feet of almost-a-little-technical terrain, and not a single hard climb.

But it’s a ideal spot for an mellow cruise in beautiful country just outside Anchorage, even if you happen to be riding with people who seem to take just a little too much pleasure in flipping you off every chance they get.

The forecast looks good for the second straight week.

Play hooky.

The Golden Rule

I try to not let irritating things stick in my craw and drive me nuts. Really, I do. But sometimes, jackassery haunts me.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve found myself in several conversations about riders in this year’s Soggy Bottom 100 who tossed their energy-gel wrappers on the trail. Not on a closed course with a cleanup crew, but in a freakin’ national forest.

There’s never a good reason for throwing your trash on the ground while passing over a trail on public land. Only a dick would do such a thing. So if the offending rider or riders—I’m really hoping it wasn’t more than one or two—happens to be reading this blog, yeah dude, I’m callin’ you a dick. Very specifically you. You make mountain bikers look bad.

Some riders take themselves way too seriously. I mean really, what did you think, you were in some sort of major event with a staff of people who would come along behind you and pick up your shit?

It ain’t the Tour de France. It’s a grassroots event on beautiful public land, against other local riders. I don’t care what kind of bike you ride, what kind of kit you wear, how elite you think you are, or whether you pay some coach to make you a few seconds faster so that you can occasionally beat the same friends you race every stinking week. Tossing your wrappers on the trail is a shitty and childish thing to do.

In the future, try to follow The Golden Rule: Don’t be a dick.

Sunshine and Glassholes

At last. After weeks—OK, months—of cloudy weather, a high-pressure system has finally parked its fat ass over Southcentral Alaska. That means the skies are nearly cloudless. Even the temperatures are unusually warm for September.

It also means that everyone's scrambling for some fun in the sun, so every convertible has its top down, every patch of grass seems to have people relaxing on it, and bike junkies are rushing to squeeze in their final rides of the year in shorts and fingerless gloves.

I spent four hours riding today, then gulped down some food and took a quick shower so I could head back outside with my daughter. There's just no gettin' enough of this stuff when you know that freezing rain is only a few weeks away.

Unfortunately, I've noticed that the glassholes have been busy the past couple of weeks. Today's pic is from my friend Amber, who had yesterday's road ride interrupted by a debris field of broken glass.

I'd like to take every drunk dumbass who breaks bottles on bike paths, strip 'em naked and make them roll around in that shit until the pavement is shiny and red.

Stuff that works

I don’t usually “review” gear on this blog, but I've been in one of those spells when solid products have really impressed me.

For my commuter tires, I’ve actually been impressed for about three summers now. I can't find it on the manufacturer's website, so I assume the Bontrager Satellite Plus is out of production, and that sucks the big one because these tires are The Shit.

Seriously, I don’t know if I’ve ever had a flat with these suckers, but if I have, I can’t remember when it was. That’s amazing for a commuter tire that rolls over glass, sharp rocks and other roadside debris just about every damned day. This is as close to bombproof as any tire I’ve ever seen.

Last spring, I spruced up my mountain bike with several new parts/components, and then spent the summer smiling every time I rode it. Here’s the stuff that kept me happy despite a summer of mediocre weather ...

Race Face Deus crankset: I picked up the 2009 model at a huge savings last winter, and my only regret is that I didn’t install it before last fall’s trip to Moab and Fruita. I spent that week listening to a creaky bottom bracket, but since installing the new components, the bike has been running as smooth as butter.

WTB Weirwolf tires: I’ve run WTB tires in the past, but had been loyal to Specialized Roll-X Pros for about five years. The Weirwolf is just as easy to put on and take off the rim, but it sheds mud like an oiled-up stripper, and corners like a dream. I haven’t leaned into turns like this in years.

Ergon GX1 grips: The most comfortable grips I’ve ever used. I bought the full-size model, then hack-sawed it down to match the width of my hand and provide easy access to my Gripshifts. Perfect match.

Avid BB7 brakes: You’ll never get three or more mountain bikers to agree on the “best” anything, but the BB7 comes close, at least in the category of mechanical disc brakes. It might be the most beloved brake among Alaska riders who love it for its simplicity and year-round reliability. It installs and sets up easier than anything out there, and works flawlessly under terrible conditions. I’ve run this brake on my Pugsley for about four years, and I don’t know why I didn’t switch to it on my Specialized Epic much earlier.

My six-year-old Shimano hydraulics always dealt me fits when I tried to eliminate rotor rub, and hydraulics always present the risk of having to space out the pads if you accidentally squeeze the brake lever when a wheel is off the bike. I installed BB7s in July, and have loved them every time I’ve grabbed the levers. They give me all the stopping power and modulation I need, with none of the hassles of hydraulics. My only complaint is that newer models of the Speed Dial 7 levers look and feel pretty cheesy. Fortunately, I had an earlier model of the same levers on my commuter, so I moved them to the Epic and put the new levers on the V-brake-equipped beater bike.

The latest upgrade to my Epic is a new wheelset built with Hadley hubs and Industry Nine rims. I’m still getting used to them, but the wheels feel sweet and I’m told the hubs are super easy to overhaul, so next summer will be the real test.

And that’s just one more little thought to carry me through the coming winter.

Waggin' 'em in Wyoming

Today's addition to the Phabulous Phinger Gallery comes from my brother Matt, left, and Tim Kelly, aka the Frigid Bits Grill Meister. They met up for a ride a few days ago in Curt Gowdy State Park outside, Laramie, Wyoming.

Yeah, that's right. There's really is a state park named after the famous sportscaster. And it has some damn nice singletrack. I sampled a little of it last July, and hope to ride some more next time I'm in that area.

Thanks to Matt and Tim for keeping the finger drive alive.

Only in Anchorage

Where else could a bike trail end before it starts?

(Brought to you by the traffic engineers
who gave us the C Street roundabout.)

Give it a rest

Last week, The New York Times published a story about people depriving their brains of downtime by filling every spare moment with e-mails, phone calls and electronic games.

The story cited a University of Michigan study that found people learn better after a walk in nature than they do after walking through an urban environment. The Times story suggested a radical idea for a woman who was interviewed while multitasking with her iPod, iPhone and a a high-def TV as she exercised at the gym: Perhaps, the story suggested, her head would be clearer if she went for a run outside, without all the gadgets.

Downtime allows the brain to process experiences and turn them into long-term memories, according an assistant professor at the University of California, San Francisco. When your brain is constantly stimulated, the learning process is disrupted. He might has well have said, “mountain biking makes you smarter.”

What baffles me is why we still need to be told things that so obviously fit under the category of “No shit, Sherlock.” Why do we seem to forget that simply playing outside is more relaxing than staring at a screen?

It doesn’t matter if a person likes to ski, hike, run or—like you and me—take solace in the meditative benefits of singletrack. You’re better off if you unplug for a few hours and get out in the woods.

I think that’s one of the reasons I like to take it slow and enjoy the ride. Pedaling fast is fine, but half the fun of a mountain bike ride is swapping tales at the trailhead or during water breaks along way. What’s the rush? All the bullshit of daily life will still be waiting when the ride ends.

You can even hurry home and blog about it.

Three on three

Cruising down the South Fork Rim Trail late Tuesday evening, Jules, the Bike Monkee and I were making a lot of noise while trying to avoid a bear encounter.

Still, I can’t say it came as a huge surprise to have one anyway. As bear turf goes, that’s a pretty busy neighborhood.

I rounded a corner and saw the Monkee pulling himself off the ground up at the next curve, then backing up slowly as he held his arms out, trying to look as large as possible.

“Bear?” I asked quickly as I stopped my bike.

“Yeah, “ he said, still looking around the corner. “Three.”

I pulled a canister of pepper spray from the bottle cage on my bike, and took a few steps toward him, which was enough to give me a view around the vegetation next to the bike he had ditched while avoiding a near-collision and the resulting bear charge. The view was a tad unnerving—a few feet from his bike stood a couple of one- or two-year-old cubs and the ass end of a brown bear sow that was starting to move her offspring into the woods. They crunched through the brush to our right for a couple of minutes as we considered how to retrieve Monkee’s bike and get the hell out of there.

That was the second time in about five weeks that I’ve been close enough to a grizzly to pull out the spray and take off the safety clip.

I often think that Alaska mountain bikers are relaxed enough to ride here only because we convince ourselves there isn’t a bear around the next corner.

But sometimes, there is.

And that’s when a can of Counter Assault is worth its weight in gold.

Going (mostly) car-free

Most parents dread the day a child turns 16 and gets a driver’s license. We fear for their safety, and shudder at the thought of car insurance premiums that double—or worse—overnight. For many families, a new driver in the house also means there will be an extra car in the driveway.

Not at my house.

My daughter recently started her junior year of high school as a licensed driver. Because her schedule includes a mix of online courses, a night class at a local college, and two classes at her local school, the only realistic option is for her to drive each day.

A few months ago, my wife started trolling craigslist for used vehicles, but buying another reliable car is outside my financial comfort zone at the moment. I’m among those American workers who managed to keep my job, but lost annual pay raises, my company’s 401(k) match, and a significant portion of my old salary. My pay stubs look about like they did when my daughter was 10.

Fortunately, I have a sturdy commuter bike with fenders for wet weather, and I own studded bike tires for icy days, and a fat bike for snowy ones. So, instead of paying interest on a used-car loan, I’m handing over the keys to my 4Runner each morning, and giving up the option of driving to work. And I’m kind of looking forward to doing this for the foreseeable future.

I’ve always told my kids that it’s easy to love bike commuting when you choose to do it. Pedaling into freezing rain is more tolerable if you know you didn’t have to. But there’s also something nice about cutting options and stepping to a higher level of commitment.

Besides, she leaves some cool mix CDs in the car stereo.

Drive to Work Day

This morning I faced my twice-yearly car commute from South Anchorage to Midtown during the morning “rush hour.” That’s another way of saying I had a dental appointment.

Traffic on the Seward Highway was lighter than usual—so light that I arrived a few minutes early and managed to read a few pages of a Vonnegut novel before going inside.

The whole thing reminded me of how smoothly automobile traffic can flow when fewer cars are on the road. And it inspired a daydream of a wonderful alternative to Bike to Work Day, Critical Mass rides and other forms of pro-bicycle activism:

Wouldn’t it be nice if so many people rode bikes to work that we’d have to choose one day a year when we would all drive just to clog the roads and remind society of how ugly the world would be without bike commuters?

Gettin' the job done

I’ve long believed that wet weather is just part of living in Alaska, and that whining about it is for the weak. Therefore, dear reader, you are hereby on notice that nothing in this post is to be misconstrued as whining, but Jesus Christ on a pogo stick, this is getting ridiculous.

When consecutive days of rain hit the 28-day mark, we broke a record that had stood for 59 years.

And that was last Saturday. It’s still raining.

If it weren’t for my weather-tortured commuter bike and it’s full-coverage fenders, I’d be batshit crazy by now. The trails are a muddy mess, and road biking isn’t all that attractive in rainy weather, but you can always get out for some kind of ride if you have a bike that’s equipped for slop.

Here’s to the townie, the commuter, the Frankenbike, the beater, the whatever-you-want-to-call-it bike that suffers the shit and never lets you down.

You can have a garage full of all the high-zoot carbon and titanium rides you want. None of them are more respectable than the grungy workhorse that gets you to work in the kind of weather that tends to keep the expensive toys inside.

Fancy bikes are a ton of fun, but in times like these, it’s the old, reliable ones that keep us sane.

Saving Sarah

Sarah has spent this summer as an intern in the office where I work. She has also spent it as a bike commuter, riding from downtown to South Anchorage every day on an old Trek mountain bike that wasn’t getting much action in my garage.

After feeling her strength build all summer as she racked up miles, she sampled a little trail in my neighborhood, then wanted more. So, some friends and I took her up Powerline Valley last night. I saw it as a fun way to show her another little piece of Alaska while baiting her into the cult.

She splashed through a bit of water, smiled a lot, and pronounced the downhill section “warped,” but a seriously good time. I even overheard her telling Maura that she was starting to like mountain biking more than running.

I love getting people into mountain biking, but it’s especially rewarding to convert runners.

The way I see it, saving a person from running is like saving a person from the church.

Could there be any higher calling than that?

Soggy Fingers

Last weekend's Soggy Bottom inspired
some fine efforts for the Bicycles & Icicles
Fabulous Finger Gallery:

Strong work by Mark Davis, who was among
the elite group of finishers in an event
in which two-thirds of the solo riders
had to scratch.

And here's a classic from Sean Grady.
It's always fun when someone finds a way
to put a new spin one of these shots.
And yes, that's me walking toward him
when both of us were on the trail
shooting pictures near the
Cooper Landing checkpoint.

Well played, gentlemen.

Epic

This one will be talked about for years. The 2010 edition of the Soggy Bottom 100 tortured a record number of riders with off-the-chart terrible conditions. After a glance at the list of finishers in Hope, I estimated the drop-out rate at 50 percent. Someone told me they thought it was higher.

No one can be blamed for abandoning this beast. People came in covered with mud after multiple crashes on slimy trail. By the time they reached Devil's Pass trailhead, some were in the early stages of hypothermia. Those who cracked included some of the toughest riders in Southcentral Alaska.

Here's to the toughest and fastest in each solo division: Peter and Darcy.

Darcy Davis, first female finisher, riding
out of the first checkpoint at Cooper Landing.

Peter Butt, first male finisher,
savors the finish line in Hope.

The Sog Slog

Call it epic. Call it a bucket of suckage.
Either way, you'll probably be right.

Whatever you call it, this weekend's Soggy Bottom
is looking like a tough one. Rain has been falling
on 109 miles of trail for days now.

Bottoms will be soggy.

Good luck to all the racers.
Chill the beer and let the sufferin' commence!

Rooted

Leonard gets skinny on Speedway.
8.1.10

I've always been a summer guy. I have friends who prefer winter biking to summer biking and, though I get their point, I still like warm days, long hours of sunlight, and the feel of dirt under my tires.

But there are moments when I miss snow. Like when I knock a little dust off my Pugsley by taking it out for a summertime ride.

Or when I ride Speedway singletrack when it's dry.

Those roots will open a can of whupass on a guy. They did it to me on Sunday. There's nothin' like a nasty knot of roots to make you appreciate the smoothing effects of a few inches of snow.

For now, I'll cling to summer as long as I can. And when the snow flies this fall, I'll cheer myself up by remembering how it's burying those wheel-grabbing buggers.