Getting there

Date: Feb. 8
Mileage: 19.2
February mileage: 160.5
Temperature on departure: 26

Today's ride was sponsored by Andy. I realized that I passed 1,000 miles for my winter "season," which officially began Dec. 1. The total right now: 1,042.9. I've always been a recreational rider, and I think it has probably been a while since I logged 1,000 miles in a two-month span. I especially let myself go last year, when I discovered a cheap gym membership through my employer would allow me to spin myself into pretty good shape without all of the psychological turmoil of wind and heat and mud-soaked trails. My bikes, which together are worth more than my car, spent most of summer 2005 in my apartment gathering dust. What a fool I was.

Outside is where it's at, elements be damned. Doing all this winter riding has reminded me why I started cycling, back when I didn't really care about speed increments or my ghetto booty. I wanted to be entertained. I wanted to be engaged. I wanted rare moments of clarity, and I wanted to work for them. Yes, I lost my way. But I've reformed.

And, if nothing else, I think riding in the snow has really improved my handling skills. Come summer, I expect to be fully charged and ready to tear up the trails on my mountain bike - rather than hedging for more time on the road and choking the brakes down winding single tracks. Today, while riding downhill in the soft, uneven slush, I lost control of my bike twice and managed to ride out of it each time with nary a foot on the ground. I feel so much more confidence. I feel like I have skills. You know, like numchuck skills ... computer hacking skills ...

I need to go find some sweet jumps.

Sloppy, sloppy

Date: Feb. 7
Mileage: 32.2
February mileage: 141.3
Temperature on departure: 24

Today's ride was sponsored by Thomas, and by my beautiful sister Lisa, who has some very exciting "unofficial" news that I'm probably not allowed to publish, but I'm very happy for her nonetheless.

I got out of work just in time for the most beee-utiful day imaginable - that is, there was some semblance of sun outside. So I set out in a very good mood, only to realize very quickly that the price I would pay for the warmth and sunshine was miles and miles and miles of this mess ---> (and, really, this picture does it no justice.)

This point is about a half mile from my house. The going was slow, slippery and precarious, and I was trying to decide whether to return home and ride the trainer for some good, heart-thumping exercise, or stay out and ride in the slop to practice, well, riding in the slop. I chose the slop. And I'm glad I did. Because it was a beee-utiful day; I did get some good practice riding through soft snow and semi-frozen puddles; and I ended up dropping into town, where I had to deal with fierce headwinds and the grueling climb back, so I even got some good exercise.

Since I was planning to do a longish ride after work, I turned down free pizza to eat Mini-Wheats cereal and yogurt for lunch (I usually only do good by conscious nutrition *before* rides. After-ride meals can and often do descend quickly into all-out sugar binges.) So before I took a shower I decided to weigh myself, because I was so proud of myself. But I was more than a little surprised to see it stop on 127. Since I still have tree-trunk legs and I'm always buried in three or four clothing layers anyway, I didn't really notice how slight my upper body has become. My weakling arms are starting to show muscle definition - probably because there's not much else there. My collarbone looks like it's trying to escape from my chest cavity. Even Geoff said my faces looks "thinner."

I thought my publisher was referring to my grumpy demeanor this morning when she looked into my eyes and said "you need pizza!" I fear that if I've actually dropped eight pounds during the past month, what I may have lost is muscle mass, which I probably burn through during my longer rides. It seems unlikely that I actually burned that much fat, since my caloric needs are well fortified, believe me. I don't know. I think that best thing to do about it is not to worry much about it. I feel strong today, and that's what matters.

On a related note, The Old Bag compared me to this guy in a Bicycles and Icicles post dedicated to "real" football players. That's right. Jack Lambert. Um ... thanks. This guy is scary, not to mention about as attractive as the back end of a rhino. But I guess he's tough. I guess he's real. And I hear he rubbed a lot of faces in the grass. So I probably should feel complimented. Even though putting myself in that category of "tough" really is kind of laughable. Right now, there are people in Alaska attempting winter summits of Denali, running their dog sleds in -50 degree wind chills and trying to cross the Bering Straight on skis. What I do is go out for bike rides. But they keep things interesting, and that's what matters to me.

Little tsunami

We had a short-lived tsunami warning this morning. A complete false alarm, but it lasted long enough to send the reporters at my office into a frenzy and release a steady stream of cars into town as they raced to get off the Homer Spit. Little earthquakes, little volcanoes ... does it end? Or do we just learn to live with it, like we learned to live with freezing rain and Kelly Clarkson, letting the threat sink into our lives until we scarcely realize how unnerving it should be?

I'm still haunted by a night Geoff and I spent bicycle camping in a little park in Chester, Illinois. Swirling clouds gathered in the Midwestern sky as blasts of hurricane-force wind tore through the deserted park, ripping down tree limbs and blowing through the rickety public restroom structure - the only building within sight. I sat in a "covered" picnic area, both arms stretched across a Rand McNally map to hold it down, my weather radio turned to high volume against the howling wind. Scratchy reports of tornado warnings (warnings, not watches, meaning tornados were imminent or were already happening) came in for nearby counties. Approaching counties. Then, finally, my county.

I remember being locked in a frozen sort of panic. Where would I go? What would I do? My best effort on a bicycle - even surging adrenaline - might reach oh, 35 mph. Maybe 40 with the wind behind me, although you'd have to knock off another 5 for the panic factor. Either way, not really enough to outrun shrapnel being shot out of a swirling vortex. So there I sat in the vertical rain, subdued by my powerlessness, and wondering how much better off I'd be if I just kept the stupid radio turned off in the first place. After all, the warnings only go as far as you can.

Not that I'm saying it's bad to have a good tsunami warning system in place - it's definitely better to create a little false hysteria than to risk loss of life. But it seems to also be true that we pay for this vigilance with increasing levels of elevated fear, even though the overwhelming majority of us will never encounter a catastrophic natural disaster. Still, some of us will. And I guess awareness is the price we pay for knowledge.