In defense of music

Date: March 19
Mileage: 28.0
March mileage: 222.5
Temperature: 35

Geoff and I both set out for separate rides today (different departure times, different goals), but we both returned home at the same time. He seemed to be in a grumpy mood, said something about awful weather, but I couldn't figure out what his problem was. I hosed the slush off my Pugsley and the grit off my clothing, poured the standing water out of my shoes, regaled Geoff with the tale of the white-out blizzard I encountered at Eaglecrest (“You couldn’t tell the sky from the road”), sloshed into the shower and doubled over in pain as the hot water hit my frozen feet like hydrofloric acid. Then it kind of occured to me ... that sure was a crappy ride.

But for some reason, I was in a good mood. It was hard to discern why. Here I am, no training goal in mind, resting period, putting in all this junk mileage, and still happily heading out into the crappiest crap Juneau has to offer. Couldn’t I just sit back with a cup of tea and “Desert Solitaire?” Why am I still riding my bike? What is my problem?

There can only be one explanation, I think ... I really like to listen to my iPod.

For most of this month, my mind has been flooded with the kind of subdued introspection and memory-heavy thought patterns that music so beautifully accompanies. There will always be debate about how safe it is to wear headphones on a bicycle, and I don’t disagree. But when I am wending around an otherwise-deserted trail or churning along a wide road shoulder, I relish in the way music allows me to feel like I’m moving not only through space, but through time as well.

I lean on the white noise of my iPod shuffle for other reasons during most of my "epic" rides and races, but I always walk away with one song, one special song, that for me is forever linked to the pain and passion of the trail. Months, years later, I will hear these songs and instantly travel back through the mental landscape of those moments. I don’t actually choose these songs. They sort of just happen in the seredipitous way only a random-shuffle mp3 player can dictate. But I cherish them.

2006 Susitna 100: Before this race, I had never owned an iPod and never trained with music. But a number of people recommended that I not go into a potentially 24-hour-long race with nothing to sooth my mental agony. So I took a little FM radio. I didn’t switch it on until about 20 hours into the race. The only station it picked up was some horrible Top 40 drone out of Anchorage. Slightly better than static. I listened to it indifferently until the soft snow on the trail caught my wheel for the 100th time and tossed me into a drift. As I laid in the snow staring up at the sharp steaks of raindrops illuminated by my headlamp, “D.A.R.E.” by the Gorillaz came on. It was the first time I had ever heard that song. It was so surreal, so appropriate for that moment. I’ll never forget it.

Soggy Bottom 100: By then, I owned an iPod. I had it plugged into my car stereo as I drove from Homer to Hope. As I passed through Ninilchik, I came upon the scene of an accident where a little boy on a bike had been hit by a car. There were several people on scene but no emergency vehicles. The boy’s limp limbs were sprawled out on the pavement. His bike lay in a twisted heap in the shoulder. The people around him appeared to be talking to him, so I kept on going. But I was wracked with all of this guilt and grief. Regina Spektor’s “Consequence of Sounds” was playing. I went on to ride the whole race without music until I started to bonk at the top of Resurrection Pass in the last 25 miles. “Consequence of Sounds” was the first song to play. I kneeled down on the trail for a short time and let my grief seep through.

2007 Susitna 100: I cheated and switched on my iPod (low volume) right at the beginning of the race. Sufjan Stevens’ “Chicago” was the first thing out of the gate. It was a strange, mellow offset to the frenzy as I swerved through strings of skiers on the narrow dog track while other cyclists nudged by me. "Chicago" stuck with me as the one song I remember listening to during the race.

Golden Circle: I loaded up two separate mP3 players going into this 48-hour tour. By then, I was deeply iPod dependent. I burned the first one out during the first 10-hour block and spent the next day listening to nothing, suffering and sweating and swearing as I plowed into 120 miles of headwind on the AlCan Highway. I went to bed that night convinced that I was not cut out for multiday endurance cycling, because common sense told me that once you start to feel bad, it can only get worse. I suffered through the first 30 miles the next day, but then slowly, inexplicably, started to come around. By the late morning I had traveled 100 miles, nearly all of it over steep climbs and descents as I ascended the Coastal Mountains, and I felt great. Better than great. I had nearly reached my goal of cycling 370 miles in 48 hours, and inexplicably felt like I could turn around and do it all over again. And just as I crested White Pass Summit and rolled by the sign saying “Welcome to the United States,” I was listening to Sufjan Stevens’ “Sister.”

2008 Iditarod Trail Invitational: I bought a AAA battery-powered mP3 player that I was only able to load 88 songs on, got sick of them on the Yentna River, and really didn’t listen to music all that much over the course of the next four days. But on the last day of the race I pulled out my iPod Shuffle as a treat. I didn’t think the embedded battery would last longer than two hours in that kind of cold. But the iPod kept plugging along, just like me. And when I was really zoned into the wind-drifted slog, I became fixated on The Wrens’ “Happy.” Not even sure exactly why. “Happy” is breakup song ... a good song for such a moment ... but I was obsessed. I just kept listening to it over and over again, pulling my hands out of my mittens and exposing my poor bare fingers to the minus 50 windchills just to hit the “back” button. Toward the end of my loop I had learned all the words and started to sing along, obnoxiously, to no one but the trail itself ... “Are you happy now? Got what you want? I wanted you. But I’M OVER THAT NOW.”

It was great fun.

March already

Date: March 18
Mileage: 19.3
March mileage: 194.5
Temperature: 37

I stopped for a break at the edge of Sheep Creek, uncomfortably aware of the passing of time.

Strange that it's not only already March; it's nearly April. I have been thinking a lot lately about Bill and Kathi on the Iditarod trail, fighting their way the last hundred miles or so to Nome. I connected with them only briefly during my own Iditarod tour, but I feel like I have a lot of emotional currency invested in their success. Fresh off what I viewed as an epic adventure, Bill, Kathi and I shared the couches around a warm fire in McGrath. We guzzled hot cups of evening coffee and told our trail stories as we fondled Bill's sweet "hand-me-down" Snoots bike. I was just so glad to be done with the race, and Bill and Kathi were so excited to get going again. I've never seen so much enthusiasm. I love the adventure, but it became apparent to me that they live the adventure. And I just can't fathom that our warm Saturday evening together was 18 days ago - 18 days ago - and they're still out there - still out there - locked in their epic battle.

"Crossing the sea ice in a storm with blowing and drifting snow and with no visibility has been the toughest section of trail for me. Last night I couldn't tell what was up or down or left or right where the horizon was or where the ground right in front of my feet was."

Kathi posted this from Koyuk after a 28-hour struggle to cross 30 miles of open sea ice - open sea ice - in a wind-driven blizzard. In all of the history of this race, no woman has ever cycled the Iditarod Trail all the way to Nome. If (and when!) Kathi gets there, she'll be the first. I have a hard time understanding just how difficult this endeavour really is, let alone describing it. Since I returned from McGrath, I have had friends ask me, "What's next ... Nome?" No, no, no, no. It just doesn't work that way. You don't just return from a first-time jaunt across the easy third of the trail and say, "OK. Now I go to Nome!" No. It takes a truly hardy soul to complete such an expedition. It's like comparing a climb on Mount Rainier to an ascent of Mount Everest. Both are hard. Both are dangerous. Both can even see the same harsh conditions. But one is accessible to most everyone who truly wants it. The other is nearly impossible to all but the few. Is a trip to Nome potentially even more difficult than a trip up Mount Everest? It's hard to say. Jose Diego Estebanez, a walker who is fighting through intense pain to bring up the rear of the race, has supposedly done both. I hope to ask him someday.

That said, there are still adventures within my reach. As April creeps closer, so does the date when Geoff plans to leave Juneau for his grand summer of adventure down south, the flagstone of which is the Great Divide Race in June. I'm insanely jealous of his summer plans, and lately have spent too much time wondering what exactly is holding me back from taking flight myself. My job, of course, is a crucial part of the equation. Without employment in one of the few appealing positions in town, I'm likely to be coaxed into moving to some place where it's hot six months of the year and crowded year-round: Some place that's not Alaska. That would be tragic. So I hold onto my anchor.

But sometimes, especially when I am reclined on the shore of Sheep Creek watching a storm of seagulls swirl over my head, I dream up schemes to hold onto my anchor and still take flight. Last summer, one of our photographers spent the entire summer in Norway. The newspaper hired out an intern who meshed well with everyone, took beautiful photographs and happily worked for slave wages. And the company still hired our main photographer back at the end of the season. Everybody won.

And then I got to thinking ... I have a public space on the World Wide Web. There's always the off chance I could capture the attention of an aspiring journalist college student who may be looking for a grand adventure in Juneau, Alaska. Maybe I could open their eyes to the exciting world of page design and copy editing. And then I could talk my employers into hiring an intern for a few weeks this summer ... six or eight ... while I jet off for my unpaid leave of absence.

Of course I don't have any authority to approve such a transaction. It probably involves plenty of red tape with both my company and the sponsoring university. But I could at least open up my powers of persuasion. Are you familiar with QuarkXPress, Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator? Do you own an Associated Press Stylebook and browse it occasionally? Does your worst nightmare involve seeing the misspelled word "grammer" in print? Does your dream job involve working nights and weekends? E-mail me at jillhomer66@hotmail.com and we can scheme together! I could even sublet my room while I'm away. You don't mind caring for four cats, do you?

Hey ... it's worth a shot.

Sunday morning, coming down

Date: March 16
Mileage: 29.3
March mileage: 175.2
Temperature: 33

The sleet storm was reaching balaclava-piercing velocity as I turned off Douglas Highway into the dark shelter of the Rainforest Trail. A stick-thin strip of gravel snaked through the imposing crowd of Douglas fir trees, cutting an unforgiving line that was half covered in slippery snow. My entire worldview narrowed to the switchback that was immediately in front of me, and then the next, and then the next, as I wend my way downhill to the sea.

Sometimes I am grateful for difficult trails, maneuvers so near the limit of my ability that they clamp down on every corner of my mind. All I see is here and now. All I do is everything I can to not crash. The descending thoughts that tracked me to this point - the letdown beyond the big event, the settling emotions, the questions of what am I doing? Where am I going? Why am I still here? - everything stalls just outside the tunnel. I function as a machine with little room for rationalization, humming a song I just discovered but hardly know ...

"We're living in a strange time, working for a strange goal, we're turning flesh and body into soul."

My bike shot out of the woods and fishtailed wildly across a pile of broken shells before gaining purchase on the sand. The wheels rolled easier and I settled back into the sinking sensation that had latched onto my mood. I wondered what I would be thinking about if I had never finished the race to McGrath. What would I be thinking about if I had never started it? For so long I had this goal, this driving goal, that cast a thick curtain over everything else. Now I no longer have the goal. The curtain's up and there doesn't seem to be much behind it. Just the sand beneath my bike, the sleet above my head, and this story, this memory that fades a little more, disappears a little more, every day. And I miss it. Already.

It's inevitable that every big high requires a return to equilibrium. A post-race downer. It's normal. But sometimes I am grateful for harsh headwind and deep slush and driving sleet to pound on me all the way home, so I can put my head down and spin my legs to the precipice of pain and think only of wind and slush and burning legs. As I approached Douglas, the accumulating slush had become so deep that I had a hard time keeping my rear wheel rolling in a straight line. My goggles had become so full of water that I felt like I was looking through Coke-bottle glasses; the distorted road appeared to be a least 15 feet below me, and shrinking. I had the iPod blaring because I was wet and chilled and so beyond enjoying this ride, so over it, when I passed the scene of an accident. Red and blue lights swirled. A tow truck was hauling an SUV out of a ditch across the street. Cops milled about and I thought I saw one give me a dirty look. It was difficult to tell through my wet goggle fun-house vision. "This can't be safe," I thought. But the moody side of me wasn't about to change that.

When I arrived at home, Geoff was sitting at the table. I thought about telling him I was sad. But he spoke first. "I nearly died today," he said.

"What? What do you mean?" I asked.

And Geoff recounted his own morning. How he was returning from a long run, a mile from the house and more than ready to just be home, when he glanced over his shoulder. It was a random move, he said, just a mindless gesture, but what it yielded him was a direct view of the sideways SUV careening down the icy street at 40 mph. It had crossed the center line and was quietly skidding directly into his path. Out of instinct or pure serendipity, he hopped sideways over the snow berm and sprinted into the woods. "I ran toward the big trees," he said. "I didn't stop until I heard the crash." In those few seconds, the vehicle swooped across his footprints, jumped the ditch, plowed over the small trees and slammed into a big one. Geoff was standing 10 feet away. (Geoff recounts the experience here.)

In the end, Geoff and the driver both walked away. He had already processed his experience enough to be able to laugh about it by the time I came home ("We were both listening to the same NPR program.") But I was a little shaken. My head flooded with new questions, better questions ... What if that hadn't been simply a close call? What if Geoff hadn't glanced over his shoulder at exactly that moment? What if it had happened?

I am grateful because I still have everything to look forward to. And sometimes, I'm lucky enough to realize it.

Cost of fuel

Date: March 15
Mileage: 43.4
March mileage: 145.9
Temperature: 28

Let me preface this post by saying that sometimes I like to play the devil's advocate - even on issues I strongly agree with, such as bicycle commuting. I can think of dozens of reasons why bicycle commuting is a great transportation choice - fresh air, good exercise, lots of fun, cutting down on fossil fuel use, reducing global warming impact, reduce traffic congestion, good for the environment, good for the soul, etc. ... But it seems one of the most popular arguments people make in favor of bicycle commuting is to "save money on fuel." Especially these days, with oil hitting $110 a barrel and rapidly climbing. Still, gasoline remains relatively cheap here in America. Personally, I drive way too much because it's "easy." So, selfishly, I wouldn't mind if gas jumped to $10 a gallon and forced me to give up my crutch ... although I wouldn't want to impose that kind of burden on people who depend more directly on fuel than I do. After all, not everyone is physically capable of riding a bicycle.

But yes, gas is cheap. I know it's approaching $4 a gallon. Gas is still cheap. And today I wondered if people took the time to crunch the numbers, how much money on "fuel" are we, as cyclists, really saving?

I had a little too much free time on my hands at work this evening, so I started scribbling figures on a sheet. I woke this morning to beautiful weather - bright, clear and cold. Geoff and I set out for a mellow road ride, cycling 43 miles in about three hours. Based on a table I found on Dave Moulton's blog, a 155-pound cyclist traveling at 15 mph burns about 31 calories a mile. Since I weigh closer to 125, I arbitrarily cut that number to 27. So in theory, I burned 1,161 calories in the ride. But the temperature was below freezing and Geoff and I both underdressed and consequently shivered through most of it (I blame the sunshine ... it made it look like it was 70 degrees outside). So I feel justified in rounding the caloric output up to 1,300 to factor in necessary heat energy and wind resistance.

How much does 1,300 calories cost? Well, let's take another subjective example: What I ate for breakfast and lunch (This is the embarrassing part where I reveal how much I eat.) For breakfast I had three cups of Honey Nut Cherrios, two cups skim milk and 6 oz. orange juice. That nets me about 700 calories and $2.68 in grocery costs. For a mid-ride snack, I ate a Clif Bar - 250 calories for $1.50. For lunch, I had a turkey sandwich - 4 oz. turkey, two slices of bread, 2 tsp. sun-dried tomatoes and mustard for 400 calories and a $2.50 grocery bill. What I land on is 1,350 calories for $6.68.

So how much does it cost me to drive my car 43 miles? Well, I drive a small sedan that I paid for with cash eight years ago. It used to get 40 miles to the gallon, but only musters about 30 these days. It needs a new clutch, but I have yet to put any money in repairs beyond general
maintenance and tires since I purchased it, so I essentially haven't shelled out a dime just to own this car in eight years. I pay about $0.85 a day to insure it. Gas in Juneau right now costs $3.50 a gallon. To drive my car 43 miles would cost me $5.01 in gas and $0.85 in insurance that I pay either way. Total: $5.86. A little cheaper than riding, no?

Granted, it's a lot more fun to stuff my face with Honey Nut Cherrios and pedal through the beautiful clear air of a Saturday morning than it is to inject my car with a gallon and a half of noxious, CO2-spewing liquid. Plus, my calculations don't factor in the original cost of the car, which would be $5,100 divided by however many days there are in eight years. But they also don't factor in the cost of my bike(s), or all the gear I buy so I can ride in cold temperatures.

Again, I'm certainly not arguing against bicycle commuting. I'm just trying to point out that for some people - at least, for myself - cycling has much more value than simple economy. Tell a non-cyclist they should ride their bicycle because they'll save money on fuel, and they're
probably as likely to write that advice off as they would the difference between $6.68 and $5.86. But try telling a non-cyclist they should ride their bicycle because it will change their life. That may be a tougher sell, but in the end, the potential returns are enormous.

My bicycle history

Date: March 13 and 14
Mileage: 22.5 and 31.5
March mileage: 102.5
Temperature: 37 and 35

I dragged out my road bike today - first ride of the year. With an inch of new snow on the ground and temperatures in the mid-30s, it was a risky move. But after taking Pugsley to a few nearby trails yesterday and finding nothing but slush and mud, even a potentially icy road seemed more appealing.

As I hoisted the bicycle out of the basement and up two flights of stairs, I couldn't believe how light it felt. The reality of my road bike is it weighs about 25 or 26 pounds; it is unforgivably heavy for a road bike. But after five months on my fat bikes, it felt like a featherweight. I clipped into my pedals - so strange to feel so trapped. I coasted down the road, hitting 10 mph without even pedaling. When I finally fired my war-worn muscles into the effort, I shot up to 16 mph, 17, 18 ... By the time I crested the hill out of Douglas, spinning hard but well below a dead sprint, I moved beyond 20 mph - speeds my Pugsley rarely sees even on a solid downhill. I can understand why people get so fired up about road biking. It's a good workout, and it's so darn easy.

But today as I pedaled along and thought about the reality of trying to use my road bike for anything serious - say, a 400-mile highway race - it became more and more apparent that I'm not completely happy with my set-up. I'm not surprised. I've had this bike since 2004, and it's been amazingly versatile and reliable for what it is. But it is what it is - a four-year-old, $599 retail, flat-bar "light touring" Ibex Corrida. And I fear I may have outgrown it.

Yesterday an anonymous commenter, probably one of my former roommates in Salt Lake City (Curt?) pointed out how far I've come since my bicycle beginnings, in 2002, when my cycling outings consisted of "tenuously pedaling along through the Avenues, periodically falling over for lack of any sustained biking ability." It's completely true. Six years ago this spring, Geoff and I decided we wanted to prepare for a two-week bicycle tour of Southern Utah. I had only ridden a bicycle a handful of times in the past decade. I borrowed Geoff's rigid mountain bike, which he admitted was probably worth about $20. I had to have him show me how to shift the gears and work the brakes. I had to have him expain to me what the gear shifting accomplished. I felt so wobbly and uncertain on his bike that I would occasionally tip over, on city streets, for no reason. If one of the tires went flat, I would walk to the nearest phone for a rescue call or appeal to passing cyclists to bail me out. Every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday throughout the summer of 2002, I would head out after work to try and gain more cycling experience ahead of our fall bike tour. I refused to let my roommates call it training. I called it "practicing."

As we neared our planned tour, I decided it was time to buy my own bicycle. I purchased from eBay a 2002 Ibex Corrida and paid $300. I considered that a fortune. After the bike came in the mail, I somehow managed to put it together myself, with the exception of somehow getting the derailleur caught in the spokes. Ibex sent me a new derailleur. I went on to put nearly 8,000 miles on that bike, including a 3,200-mile tour across America, before I traded up for a newer model of the same bike in 2004. I realized that since 2002, I have purchased a new bicycle every year. The progression fits in nicely with my growth as a cyclist:

2003: Geoff talks me into purchasing a mountain bike, so I grudgingly peruse eBay and pay $250 for a Trek 6500. The first ride we do is a winter ride on the singletrack of Stansbury Island - steep, exposed and covered in patches of ice. The ride hardens my convictions that I do, in fact, hate mountain biking. This bike would have remained mostly unused throughout my ownership of it had I not dragged it up to Alaska during my road trip in summer 2003, where I rode it to transport myself around towns and train for my upcoming cross-country bicycle tour.

2004: Through my first blog, Ibex catches wind of my big bike trip and my potential to write semi-decent ad copy. The company offers to upgrade my now-well-worn Corrida in exchange for updating their Web site. I spend 60 to 70 hours on the project, and in the end have to revise and rewrite most of it. But a 2004 Ibex Corrida shows up at my door as promised. My friends tease me for getting a "free" bike. The first ride I take it on is the Salt Lake Century.

2005: My $250 Trek 6500 is by now falling apart, but I'm still convinced I'm not a mountain biker. Still, Geoff has strong powers of purchasing persuasion and finds a great eBay deal for me on a women's specific Gary Fisher Sugar. "You'll ride so much better with full suspension," he tells me. I grudgingly shell out $800 for the bike, which I find completely ridiculous. The nearly new bike spends most of the summer sitting in my Idaho Falls apartment. It doesn't start to see any serious mileage until I move up to Homer, Alaska, and inexplicably latch on to the idea of snow biking. And yes, I do find poetic justice in the fact I spent my whole life in the mountain-biking mecca of Utah and never caught on until I moved to Alaska, where, were it not for snow biking and the Kenai Peninsula, mountain biking would essentially not exist.

2006: It becomes more obvious to me that Gary Fisher did not intend the Sugar to be used as a snow bike, and I set out to build a faux fat bike with a used Raleigh mountain bike frame, a pair of SnowCat rims, 2.7" Timberwolf tires with the tread shaved off and a bunch of random eBay parts. I call it "Snaux Bike" and ride it aggressively all season, culminating in the Susitna 100 that shredded my right knee. I sour a bit to the bike after that - not that my injury was the bike's fault, but all that time off did enlighten me to the fact that bike was not enough for everything I wanted to do.

2007: I finally accept my destiny and set out to build a fat bike, which began with an impulse purchase of built wheels and tires in July. I spend almost as much for said wheels ($430) as I did for my first two bicycles combined. I no longer consider this ridiculous. I go on to mull several frame options before purchasing a Surly Pugsley frame and fork and moving on from there, mostly with old Snaux Bike scraps and a few online bargain parts to complete a fairly low-end but perfectly functional (and, in my opinion now, completely bomber) Pugsley.

2008: The best part of this timeline is it further justifies my need to get a new bike this year as well ... but only one. As much as I'd love a new road bike, I feel like a more immediate need is to retire my poor Sugar and pick up a new bomb-proof steel 29er, possibly a Karate Monkey just like Geoff's. Time will tell.

Beach ride

Date: March 12
Mileage: 10
March mileage: 48.5
Temperature: 36

I know I said I would stay off the bike until my post-race fatigue blew over, but when have I been good at avoiding bikes? I finally unpacked Pugsley from his FedEx box this morning. (Oh yes, I did swallow my customer service convictions and take the cheaper and more accessible FedEx Ground option out of Anchorage. Not only did they scan the box upon arrival, they tracked it to the point of redundancy and delivered it to my door three business days later. I wonder if FedEx has flagged my name for extra-careful treatment these days ... or if it's possible, just possible, that the company made actual mistakes when they shipped my bike out of Juneau. Not that FedEx will ever admit that, so I guess I'll never know.)

The tide was ultra-low when I set out, a condition that rarely lines up with my workout window, so I had to take advantage of all that open sand. Instead of my usual ride on slush-covered trails, I veered onto Sandy Beach and began the slow grind south on the only surface that puts up more resistance than snow: low tide quicksand. I had to laugh as my rear wheel slurped and gurgled while I wheezed and sweat for a measly 4.5 mph. There were a hundred easier ways to ride a bicycle in Juneau on a day like today and I gravitated to the hardest one. Post-race lead legs and all. I truly am a lost cause.

But the more normal I feel, the more strange it seems that I have nothing to train for. My plan all along was to complete this super-hard race in February and then head into something of an off-season. But then came Daylight Savings Time, and every day felt a little more like spring. The equinox is on the horizon, and after that, the sprint into summer, sweet summer, when cyclists flood the streets and schedule a slew of fun rides and races. So many races. All of which seem so easy now with the Ultrasport behind me. The 24 Hours of Light? Ha! What's 24 hours? The Fireweed 400? Who cares if I'm slow on the road? I'm pretty much slow everywhere. The Soggy Bottom? Just try and stop me this year. The Great Divide? Don't be an idiot.

And yet I remain without a goal, still trying but somehow unwilling or unable to take it easy. Always in back of mind is a buzzing, as-yet-undeveloped excitement for the future.

With a little souvenir from McGrath to remind me the past is not too far behind ...

Take me back to the start

Date: March 9
Mileage: 23
March mileage: 38.5
Temperature: 34

Every time Geoff and I go for a ride together, he can only listen to the creaks and groans emanating from my bike for a few minutes before he demands I pull over to assess the damage. Today it was a rickety bottom bracket and a rear hub that has become so loose the wheel sways from side to side as it rolls forward. Geoff is always disgusted with the perpetual state of disrepair in my old bikes, especially my mountain bike. And I take full responsibility for their sorry conditions. I put a lot of miles on them on awful trails and awful roads in awful weather. And the only question I ask when gauging my bikes’ fitness is, “Do I think (whatever part is creaking or clanking) will snap in half on me today?” If the answer is no, then it’s time to go.

That said, people like me shouldn’t own old bicycles, just like people who never check the oil and ignore the “check engine” light shouldn’t own old cars (Yes, I also own an old car.) Geoff has spent our first few days in Juneau pimping out his Karate Monkey, and has planted the seeds of 29er dreams in my head. I used to think a 29er was too much bike for me, but Pugsley and his huge tires essentially make him a 29er, and a sometimes-70-pound fat load to boot. My reasoning now is if I can handle Pugsley, I can handle anything.

Right now, though, I’m still just trying to handle cycling. I realize I haven’t given myself that much recovery time since the Iditarod Invitational. But how could I pass up a blue-sky day after a night just cold enough to freeze up the gunk, with Geoff actually ready and willing to join me for a mellow ride out Douglas Highway? We took the pace easy but I still felt heavy and tired with noticeable sharp knee pain toward the end. I may have to take another week or so off the bike. But if the sun comes out again, all bets are off.

Recovery continues elsewhere, including my efforts to re-establish a healthy relationship with food. From the second I recovered my appetite - during the “morning after” in McGrath - I’ve been eating everything in sight. I think I’ve gained two or three pounds back since the race - not that those pounds were all that missed in the first place. It actually would have been kinda cool to keep them off. But I’m so afraid of the spectre of the bonk now that I’ll find myself sprinting to the vending machine at the slightest tinge of hunger pangs. That would have been a great move during the race, but I have to remind myself that pounding M’n Ms at 4 p.m. is not healthy in the real world.

Beyond my semi-broken bikes and semi-broken body, every day I come to a new realization of just how valuable of an experience this race really was for me. One life lesson that comes to mind happened after Bill Merchant caught up to me at Bison Camp and I admitted to him that I had somehow tossed my headlamp during the day. I bit my lip and waited for the lecture about my stupid, boneheaded carelessness. Instead, Bill confided that he took a number of of own spills that morning, and one of those falls had snapped his GPS off its handlebar mount. “It’s lying out there a snow angel somewhere,” he said.

“Oh man, that sucks,” I said, thinking that Bill must have been devastated to lose a $300 gadget, and so early in his race to Nome. He just shrugged. “I didn’t really need it,” he said. “I’m just glad it wasn’t my mittens!” I remember looking at my own $20 pair of mittens and thinking about how carefully I had been guarding them, how much I valued them. Out on the trail, the value of your paltry possessions takes on a whole different meaning. Clothing becomes as valuable as the body parts it protects. Electronic gadgets are heavy luxuries. A hack repair job that keeps a bicycle running is as good as gold. Cash is worthless. And kindness can change the world.

Good lessons. And here I am, a week later, back in the real world, coveting a new bicycle.

Life is a mystery.