Best layover ever

I'm spending this week helping my daughter

move more than 800 miles to Skagway

for a summer job. Needless to say, she's

taking a couple of bikes.

Fortunately, the route to Skagway passes

through Whitehorse, Yukon, which has awesome

trails and great local riders who welcome 

visitors. Riders like Sierra (above) ...

and her husband Tony.

The only thing better than being able 

to ride mountain bikes in Whitehorse is

having local friends with spare beds and 

time for evening rides.

If you've never ridden Whitehorse,
get your ass up here.

The Hard-ass Who Hates Hardtails

Sometimes I worry about the level of idiocy displayed by people in charge of education. And Katharine Pennington, the principal of Kenowa Hills High School in western Michigan set the stupidity bar pretty high this week when she sent more than 60 students home as punishment for a shocking “senior prank.”

They rode bicycles to school.

She said the group ride was dangerous and tied up traffic. (Please, someone, mail her a “We Are Traffic” T-shirt.) Kids who were about to graduate were told they couldn’t participate in a traditional final walk through the school's hallways, and some of them were initially told that they would be banned from graduation ceremonies, although Pennington later retracted that little edict, apparently while cowering under her desk and dodging calls from CNN.

Never mind that the kids had arranged a police escort and many of their parents were lining their route to school. The freakin’ town mayor served them doughnuts! And never mind that this is another example of dictatorial school administrators trying to control students’ lives off school property. Pennington went batshit crazy because … well, who really knows? 

Maybe Pennington never learned to ride a bike. Or maybe she once dated a downhiller. Either experience could ruin a person’s general outlook. It sounds like part of the reason she had her panties in a wad was that she was apparently the only adult in Mayberry who wasn’t in on the plan, and that really pissed her off.

Kudos to the students and their parents for raising holy hell with the local school board over Pennington’s moronic reaction, leading to a letter of apology from Principal Pinhead.

Think

You better think, think about what you're trying to do to me
Yeah, think, let your mind go, let yourself be free
—Aretha Franklin

Everyone wants to let their mind go, and let themselves be free. Hell, that’s one of the reasons I ride a bike, and that's probably true for most of us.

But people need to think.

Like the young mother who stopped her toddler on a tiny bike with training wheels so she could take a phone-camera picture ... just inside a trail tunnel I was entering at a brisk (but very reasonable) speed from a pretty blind corner. I mean sure, the composition of the photo must have been nice, with the light at the end of the tunnel and all that,  but blocking the entire width of the trail wasn’t exactly brilliant thinking.

Ever seen a three-year-old run over by a 200-pound dude on a steel Surly? Neither have I. And I’d like to keep it that way.

Then there were tourists standing all over the trail with their mouths hanging open while fascinated by a passing train. Or the unsupervised little girls swerving from side to side, confused about how they were supposed to let me pass. Teach your children some basic trail guidelines, folks.

Now, lest anyone think I might have curmudgeonly moods, let me say that I actually like busy multi-use trails. Busy trails mean people are exercising, to one degree or another. It means they’re outside instead of watching TV or playing video games. It also means some of them are using the trails to get somewhere, like me. And all those things are good.

But everybody needs to consider other users’ needs, and be aware of how to do a few basic things safely. I’m happy to ride at a safe speed, or brake frequently and wait for chances to pass kids, dog walkers, joggers, or whatever. But I’d like them to not mindlessly block my route, or set up accidents around sharp corners.

After all, I don’t want your kid’s body to knock my front wheel out of true, ya know?

Think.

BTW, it's BTWW

The lead paragraph of this morning's Anchorage Daily News story was perfect for Bike to Work Week:

“Detours, lane closures and lower speed limits lie ahead for Anchorage drivers. Road construction projects are gearing up across the municipality, from Bird to Ninth Avenue.”

As usual, summer will bring headaches and frustration to people stuck behind steering wheels. The rest of us will be traveling smaller side streets, trails and bike paths, avoiding most of the dust, noise and ugly orange barrels of construction zones.

Every year I consider not mentioning Bike to Work Week on this blog, because it feels like preaching to the choir. The people who come here are already two-wheeled converts. And I get frustrated every year by seeing a flood of bike commuters for five days, then watching their numbers plummet the following Monday.

But I support this national event, because I’m a believer. I’ve proselytized for years about the benefits of bike commuting. And even if most newbies who try it don’t stick with bike commuting, converting even a tiny number is a step in the right direction.

So we should all keep taking the message to the unsaved who question why we pedal to get places. Stories about construction delays and gas prices are like lessons in sin that we can take to the pulpit.

The next time a friend, neighbor or co-worker complains about getting stuck in traffic or running up a credit-card balance at the gas pump, don’t be shy about telling them you don’t really know what it’s like to deal with that every week, because you get along just fine while leaving your car in the driveway most days.

I don't think that riding to work for a day or a week will ever change as many minds as regular, happy people on bikes will. Go ride, and share the fun.

Eklutna weekend

Sometimes you just need to get out of town.

So on Friday night, I left with Jules and the Bike Monkee

to spend two nights in a cabin, 

and to goof around outside.

Saturday's ride was cold and wet, with

a mix of rain and snow.

 The trail wasn't always great, but we had

a hugely fun day, even after we ditched

our bikes in the woods and continued

on foot over our snow-covered route.

That night, during our post-ride drinking, 

the sun came out in an amazing way.

That's when Julie observed that such moments

are why you don't want for perfect weather 

to go outside. You just go out, she said, 

and hope the weather changes in your favor.

Truer words were never spoken.

Crawlin'

There is no better way to spend a Friday night

than hanging out with bike friends.

 You can play in traffic on your way to bars ...

ride in the dark without a light ...

 and flip off your friends.  A lot.

Party hard. Ride home.

The future of bike commuting

Nathan and his Novara Bonita

The cool thing about being asked to profile Anchorage riders for the Bicycle Commuters of Anchorage website is that I get to meet some amazing people. 

The latest is Nathan, a 12-year-old sixth-grader who bought his own studded tires this winter so he could ride his bike to school every day. I'm postponing the silly blog post I had planned for today — which is Bike to School Day — so that anyone who lands here will go read about a kid who will give you hope.

“There’s just not too many Nathans out there," his school librarian told me.

I think she's right. But that's too bad. Because we need more Nathans.

Spring stupidity

Every. Damn. Year.

Seriously, people, will we ever evolve beyond the need to annually beg, berate, cajole, harass, remind and otherwise tell morons to stay off the trails until they’re dry enough to ride without damaging them? These idiots who shred soft trails embarrass me as a mountain biker.

I hadn’t given it much thought this year until my friend Ryan posted this online:

“"Please, please, please stay off muddy, wet trails! I just ran into some mountain bikers trenching the new STA trails. They are NOT ready to sustain traffic at this point! There is still lots of snow out there and wet muddy sections are plentiful. You all know how hard everyone worked to hand finish these trails, let's not trash them now.”

It’s common knowledge that April and May are muddy months in Anchorage. It should be common knowledge -- or at least easy to figure out -- that riding soft, muddy trails causes damage.

Only two things could explain why the damage keeps happening: ignorance and/or selfishness. The latter is unforgivable and should be repaid with a gnarly endo that ends with a top tube to the offending rider’s crotch.

The former requires the rest of us to educate our fellow riders. If you see anyone riding soft trails, or hear them telling stories about a recent ride, please talk to them and set them straight.

Be calm and polite. People tell me that’s effective.

Please. Do it for those of us who can’t. I just don’t think I could manage calm and polite with these douche bags right now.

Gadgets

Bike riders love our gadgets. But sometimes it feels like we have too many. In recent years, I’ve stripped the handlebar-mounted computers off all my bikes that didn’t truly need for navigating long rides. I stopped tracking my annual mileage. I quickly tired of the GPS doodad I received as a gift. And I’ve never been interested in heart-rate monitors or wattage meters, which would mostly be expensive ways of measuring how much I suck.

But I’ve remained addicted to carrying a cell phone. It can be valuable in the event of an emergency, and the built-in camera can be handy if I’m not carrying a real camera.

Then one night last week, I pedaled away from my house and, out of habit, patted my pocket to make sure my iPhone was onboard. It wasn’t. The memory of it on the table while I ate a sandwich made me start to turn around, but then I stopped myself.

When did cell phones become mandatory? I happily rode thousands of miles before those things became a ubiquitous piece of gear that humans take just about everywhere but the shower.

As I rolled down the street, I realized I was riding only a couple of miles to a brief appointment and there was no real need to have the phone in my pocket, so I didn’t go back for it. Blowing it off was actually sort of a thrill, and that’s kind of sad.

Simplicity is beautiful thing. And it often makes a bike ride more fun.

Back on the Blog

This here pimple on the ass of the Internet has been quiet while I’ve attended to more pressing matters, but it’s time to get back to business, even if it’s monkey business. 

Hell, my last post about riding in Alaska involved fat bikes on snow, and now I’m riding to work on my Trucker Deluxe without even needing studded tires. That means it’s been awhile. 

After moving across town, I’m figuring out which boxes contain things like my gloves, water bottles and bike parts, and I’m learning new routes to work. Losing old routines is disorienting, but it can be a good thing, too. Fresh starts are energizing. Summer’s coming up, and it’s time to start riding my ass off. 

I’ll see you out there. 

And here, too.

Beach Monkee

Anchorage is in the throes of breakup. (That's what most people refer to as "spring.")

Snow is melting everywhere, and gradually exposing more and more mud and thawing dog shit. But does the Bike Monkee show solidarity and suffer through it with the rest of us? Noooooooooo.

He and Jules ran off to become beach bums and rub it in by sending me a flip-off pic from Edisto Beach, S.C., for the Fabulous Finger Gallery.

At least he wore that stylish hat!

Gettin' high on the Chugach

Darcy and Ryan keep the freak flag flying.

The winter trails are cooking off in the sun and warm, daytime temps, so this is probably the last fat-bike finger flip of the season. Fortunately, it comes from a paceline of Fatback riders rolling down Wolverine on Sunday, because that's a nice way to close out a winter of snow riding.

Even if I did have to pedal my fat ass uphill for two hours to get all the way up there.

A few intrepid folks are already dusting off the road bikes and starting to riding with an extra 100 pounds of tire pressure. I have to admit, I've caught myself leering at the plastic bike a little more often recently.

My first major road outings are probably three weeks away, and that's assuming I survive a move across town and the completion of a major project at work.

I always sort of dread the end of fat season, but I'm starting to feel the need for speed.

Blame game

Some people to have a one-size-fits-all solution to problems: Blame a mountain biker.

Over the past couple of weeks, I started noticing that small branches were being cut from spruce trees along nearly all the trails north of Campbell Airstrip Road. Someone appeared to be trimming the lower branches and leaving them atop the snow beneath the trees.

It struck me as odd, because it looked like someone had done a lot of work with no apparent benefit, but I was too busy enjoying my rides to give the issue much thought. Until, that is, I learned that people have been calling the superintendent of Far North Bicentennial Park and blaming mountain bikers for the freelance pruning.

Seriously? Mountain bikers? Why not skiers? Or hikers? And what about horseback riders? Or dog owners who don’t pick up their mutts’ turds? Any of us could choose our least favorite user group and make random accusations when something like this happens. And any of them would make an equal amount of sense. Or have an equal lack of it.

But most of us don’t. Unless we’ve witnessed something, or see a cause for suspicion, we scratch our heads, wonder what happened, and wait for someone official to figure it out. That’s normal.

Right now, for instance, I have a personal bias that makes me think I could predict which user group is the source of those calls blaming bikers for the tree trimming. But I don’t have any way of knowing, so I’m not going to point fingers.

But whoever it is, they’re pissing me off a lot more than the vigilante tree surgeon.

Speedway rocks Spenard

Nobody's gonna be topping this any time soon.

Speedway Cycles celebrated it's grand re-opening
with a first-rate party on Friday night. It was
a barn burner. Rock bands, cold beer, bike people
filling the shop floor ... damn, it was fun.

Congrats to Greg and his crew on a great new shop,
and for staging one hell of a bash to break in the new place.

Fatties and rock 'n' roll.

Tim and the boys at the bar.

Rad tattoo girl!

Open wide and say "aaaaaaaaaah!"

Greg, the Bike Monkee and Jules
give Spenard some class.

Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee

Stopping chain suck

I love it when I can MacGyver a cheap and effective solution to a problem. I’ve been looking around lately for a device for preventing chain suck, because I’m concerned about damage to my aluminum Fatback frame. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find one locally, and online reviews of several commercially manufactured models were mixed.

With a helpful idea from a sales guy at a big-box hardware store, I came up with this arrangement. I bought a foot of vinyl tubing for 41 cents, then cut a short piece and slit it down one side so I could wrap it around my drive-side chainstay. I clamped it down tight with three zip ties, positioning them so they would help block a chain from entering the space between the bike frame and the front chainrings.

It ain’t the prettiest bike accessory in the world, and it’s certainly not indestructible. But it’s light, it’s cheap, and the combination of zip ties and vinyl should provide a decent buffer for at least a couple of chain-suck incidents.

And if the whole thing gets ruined in the process of protecting my frame, I can install a new one for next to nothing.

Random fat-bike photo of the day

What do you do after flying from McGrath to Anchorage
after finishing the 350-mile Iditarod Trail Invitational?

Well, if you're Sebastiano Favaro, Pavel Richtr,
or women's division winner Ausilia Vistarini,
you throw a leg over your fat bike for the ride to your B&B.

And if you're Pavel, you start the ride while still inside
the terminal. Is it any wonder the Crazy Cat Lady loves him?

Congrats to Pete Basinger for his sixth ITI victory,
and to Paramount wrench Dave Kelley for taking the red lantern
in his rookie year—a brutal year of deep snow
that forced a lot of excellent riders to abandon.

Ride that mofo

Pressing the pause button

Bicycles & Icicles is going to enter a sleepy spell for a few weeks due to real-life responsibilities. Please check back for less-frequent updates until the silliness resumes on a regular basis.

Besides, you should be riding your bike.

Overcoming Homerphobia

Hannah on the Beach

After pulling into Homer last Friday evening, my daughter and I headed to Bishops Beach, where tiki torches were illuminating a snowy obstacle course with stunts made of plywood over huge pieces of driftwood. Darkness was falling, and the bonfire was soon surrounded by my favorite kind of bike riders – the kind that wear fleece and Carhartts, and talk about beer instead of training plans.

Thanks to Hannah, who talked me into this escapade, we were at the first Big Fat Bike Festival, and local riders were thanking us for making the four-and-a-half-hour trip from Anchorage. They were pleased with the response from out-of-towners. At least 40 people had registered for an event put together by a town where, according to one local, snow biking is exploding: She told us there are about fifteen fat bikes in Homer this winter!

Grassroots bike events are the best kind, and this was definitely grassroots. Fun and simple, but well organized.

Fat-bikers on the move

On Saturday morning, 40 bikes and riders were hauled to Anchor Point, where we started a rolling fat-bike party along a 16-mile beach route back to Homer. With sand and saltwater, it was bike abuse for a good cause – fun.

There were fat bikes with panniers and homemade fenders, and riders wearing Xtra-Tufs and backpacks. We rode on the beach at low tide, over and through fields of boulders, and past otters, sea lions and bald eagles. Best of all, nobody was in a hurry. Not anyone within sight of me, anyway. People were just riding because it was a damn good time.

Bumper sticker of the year. (An unofficial
contribution by Carl from Seward.)

Congrats to the Homer Cycling Club for a successful event. Saturday night’s dinner and prize raffles were a hoot, too.

The Big Fat Bike Festival will be on my winter schedule again.