Where I live

Date: Dec. 22
Mileage: 3.3
December mileage: 289.4
Temperature upon departure: 27

It seemed like a good night for a solstice ride, but I wasn't out the door until 10:15 p.m. On my way up to the trail my headlight went out and my brakes were slipping under all the new, wet snow. That deflated my resolve just a bit - I was grinding into the soft trail (mostly for naught) and it was dark - really dark. Solstice dark. A good thing to practice - but the headlight I need.

I was happy, though, because my illustrious Sen. Steven's first bid to open oil drilling in ANWR failed in the Senate. It's a mixed happiness because I feel a helpless sort of pity for my state's senior senator. I always picture him bent over some table in Congress, with his rumpled "Incredible Hulk" tie and the creeping great-grandfather sadness of his 80-plus years. He looks so tired and I think he just wants to go out with a bang. That's all he wants. But his bridges to nowhere crusade was just embarrassing. And now there's the band-aid ANWR solution that does little more than add to Alaska's fat coffers (not that I'll see any of that money. All of this revenue comes back as rebates for "real" Alaskans. We newbies get pay the tourism taxes and send our children to substandard schools.) But using ANWR to curb the mounting oil crisis is like trying to make Koolaid with a teaspoon of sugar ... you can make a little Koolaid, but try to spread it around and everyone's only going to end up with a bitter taste in their mouth.

For those who support the issue, all I ask is to consider what good it will actually do. Keep a few million cars on the road for a couple more years? Then what? I've stood on the edges of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge; I've looking toward the sweeping tundra, rolling over an endless horizon; brown, desolate, still clinging to winter in June - and so unspeakably beautiful.

I'll give up my car. I will. Just tell me how to fight for this world's last true places.

Snow and solstice

Five new inches of powder in my front yard and a final daylight loss of 0 minutes, 3 seconds. It only goes uphill from here.

Color and light

Date: Dec. 20
Mileage: 12.3
December mileage: 286.1
Temperature upon departure: 29
Sunrise: 10:05 a.m.
Sunset: 4:04 p.m. (tomorrow, the same)

The light is fading, but tonight I ride.
I ride with a remnant sunset,
and its flecks of cayenne pepper
searing the lavender sky.
Beneath sunset, Mt. Augustine looms
in steam and subdued silhouette,
fighting the twilight for distinction
before the pitch descends
and shadows contract.

I ride with the pitch,
only a dull yellow beam between me and nothing,
only the ice spray glittering like disco glass,
and screaming descents into nothing.
Moose tracks dig empty holes.
Great tussocks roll over snow,
and I bump. I ride.

I ride until there's no distinction between trail and field
until the white opens wide beyond darkness,
until strips of green stretch over the northern horizon.
Could be the apocalypse.
Could be the aurora.
The world is fading,
but tonight I ride.

... Tonight's ride was sponsored by Kevin, a yearround rider of the truest type down in St. Paul, Minn. The bicycle poetry was, well ... OK. I don't usually do poetry. But I felt inspired in that direction this evening because today, one day before solstice and 11 days ahead of my deadline, I surpassed my Susitna fundraising goal and subsequently put a check in the mail. I entered the Susitna 100. I'm in the race. There's no turning back now. And it feels good. Really good. I'd really like to thank everyone who helped me reach this point.

It doesn't end here, of course - not even close. I have a lot of training to do, so I'd like to set forth a new proposal. Between now and Feb. 15, I'll ride two miles for every dollar raised. One mile ($0.50) will be donated to the Lance Armstrong Foundation to support the good fight against cancer. And the other mile ($0.50) will help pay race expenses, including food, lodging and transportation (I'd love to ride my bike the whole way, but the race does begin almost 300 miles from my house.) And from now on, the wimpy roadie miles don't count. Unless, of course, all the snow melts.

Then it's time to rethink my decision to live in southern Alaska.

Bright spots

Today I learned through the reporter grapevine that a prowler was lurking around the building I work in one week ago Sunday. He hauled in several gallons of gasoline and set them down in strategic spots throughout the halls. After successfully shutting off the sprinkler system and making away with a fair amount of merchandise from a hardware store, the would-be arsonist fled for unknown reasons and left everything behind. My initial thought upon learning how close my employer-issued iMac came to being an friedMac was "Joy to the world, the school burned down." But then I remembered that losing my job might be a bad thing, even on a Monday in the midst of the holiday slew.

But I successfully made it through at least one day; three more to go. Such is life. I came home after enough hours in the cement box to fill in two healthy shifts. I rode the trainer for an hour so I could watch "Arrested Development." (Yes, I do get nearly four channels on my analog, antennaed television.) Then Geoff, our neighbor Jen and I enjoyed a lavish Indian feast. If there's anything Geoff has down pat, it's Indian food. I knew I moved to Alaska for a reason.

It's funny how even the most dreaded days can turn out surprisingly well ... or at least seem so in retrospect to the alternative. I avoided being a victim of arson and even arrived home in time to watch the only show I care to watch on TV. And before you ask, 'who in the world watches 'Arrested Development' anyway?,' I have this to say: There are dozens of us! Dozens!

Oh, I'm stressed

Date: Dec. 18
Mileage: 43
December mileage: 273.8
Temperature upon departure: 39

Today's ride was sponsored in part by my good friend, Jen, who is currently freezing her ski tips off in Alta, Utah. Jen is the bomb. This picture of a "b'eagle" kick'n it atop Salty Dawg also is for her. Go B'Alaska!

I get the sense from some of the e-mails and comments I get that many believe I live a charmed life up here in the not-so-frozen north. And I do, really - the scenery, the strange encounters, the wildlife, the biking. I love it and that's what I write about. But I still have my desk-jockey alter ego to contend with, and she is having a hard time sitting out this Sunday, knowing that when Monday comes there will be so, so much to do.

I don't typically get the Sunday blues, but this week before Christmas is going to be tough. The phrase "I'm going to be so busy this week" is pretty vague, and doesn't really get to the heart of what most of us do in our off (i.e. non-biking) time.

I'm a journalist ... a small-town journalist. I work for a weekly community newspaper. Weeklies are nearly universal in their penchant of hiring ridiculously small staffs to multitask (i.e. stumble) through each issue, and I was hired to multitask that multitasking. I sometimes write in my blog about my work as an arts and entertainment reporter. Despite the fact that I usually write between 3 and 5 articles a week, reporting is only a small part of what I actually do. What makes my job a job is my work as a production editor. I am the person who each week takes a random jumble of ads, photos and haphazardly-written stories, throws them on a computer, shakes them around a bit, and hopes beyond hope that a coherent and even well-designed newspaper comes out. Sometimes, I find a nice flow. But most weeks, I feel like I am staring down a 5,000-piece puzzle with a 2 p.m. Tuesday deadline.

It's especially hard this week because my boss has been laying on a beach in Hawaii for three weeks, and the staff shortage has finally caught up to us. The reporters already don't turn in their stories until the 13th hour, so on Friday afternoon they piled on me a couple of sickly-sweet holiday stories that I need to interview for (and write!) tomorrow. Why can't I start on them until tomorrow? Because the people I need to interview are busy enjoying their holiday, and won't be available until then. So, basically, tomorrow will be like trying to put together a 5,000-piece puzzle while talking on the phone, scribbling madly on a notepad and piecing together a couple of 600-word articles. Then on Tuesday I'm supposed to edit it all. Well, if a four-letter-word is accidentally dropped into the copy somewhere and makes it to press, don't blame me. (I'm just kidding, Carey! I don't think my boss reads my blog ... but you can't be to careful.

OK. I'm done ranting. But everyone needs a chance to vent once in a while. One of the reasons I went on a 43-mile bike ride today was to work out some of that anxiety. I think I'm feeling better now. I usually am able to deal pretty well with stress. In this profession, you really have to be. No matter what size of publication we work at, journalists live and die by deadlines, low salaries and public scrutiny. So most of us become either a.) a person who actually thrives in stress situations and becomes more productive (or crazy) in the process. Or, b.) a person who dies of multiple ulcerations of the stomach at 41. Every once in a while I worry I might become that second person. Then I remember - "oh yeah. I'm signing up to ride 100 miles over ice on my bicycle, by choice." That makes me feel much better.

It's summer out

Date: Dec. 17
Today's mileage: 32.3
December mileage: 230.8
Top speed: 36 mph
Temperature upon departure: 39

Today's ride was sponsored by Kevin in Wisconsin, and by Eric and Jesse. So much love, so much riding.

Geoff and I dropped off the ridge for a 32-mile loop, squinting against the spray of rain water and grit and watching rogue rays shimmer on the sea. The wind was calm, the water as smooth as glass. And as the sun gained more ground through parting clouds, the summer recreationalists began to emerge from their warm cocoons, blinking against the bright reflection and stumbling into surreal summer wonderland filled with Christmas lights and the gray remnants of melting snow.

It wasn't exceptionally warm today, nor was it exceptionally sunny. But the combined efforts of two weeks of unseasonably warm weather, calm air and a thin but clear window after days of drizzling rain coaxed everybody outside.

We rode along the Spit, drafting a flock of sea birds as they rose from the shoreline - now stripped of all its ice - and coasted lazily toward the sky. The summer recreationalists nodded as we drifted by - the old couple and their swerving mountain bikes; the little dogs with their joggers, bundled up and panting; the roller-skier on skates, planting her poles in the pavement and looking none too happy about it. I saw more cyclists out today than I ever did on any Saturday in September - some looking uncomfortably cold; others looking as if they couldn't believe themselves what they were doing. We just smiled and kept moving. We weren't special today - just part of the flock, two more people who saw a sliver of summer emerge from a six-hour-long day less than a week before solstice. And now I feel so torn. Do I want winter to come back? Do I want global warming to just take this thaw and run with it? Or do I want to just continue no matter what the weather does? So much love, so much riding.

Pedaling backward

Date: Dec. 16
Today's mileage: 21
December mileage: 198.5
Temperature upon departure: 45

Today's ride was sponsored by Moe at The Bike Geek. This outpouring of generosity has inspired me to get in the saddle even on days like today - where I had a lot of writing to do, a *required* Christmas work part at 3 p.m., and an entire of day of yucky warmth and constant rain. (For those riders down south who balk at my complaining about 45-degree temperatures, try to visualize that with a stinging drizzle, sea spray and headwinds approaching northern Nebraska-strength) Ok. You caught me. It's not always brutal cold in coastal Alaska. But most of the time - in the winter at least - most of us here wish it was.

I took my new gloves for a test ride today - kind of an interesting day to do it, what with the warmth and soaking weather. Not really conducive to warm winter gloves, but they held up well in the rain and proved their waterproof abilities. Even the zipper, surprisingly, was impenetrable. But I'm feeling some blogger's remorse for yesterday's post. Sometimes I forget that the things I write in here can directly affect people I know and love. I hope they understand that I think the world of them, and that the story was meant to demonstrate the irony of my connection to those gloves - while Eric and I didn't get along in grade school, we seem to have a lot more in common now. And I feel the need to say - on the record - that my memory of events 20 years ago isn't foolproof. I don't want to say without a doubt that one person made fun of me for throwing baseballs dismal distances when, in fact, in may have been another. And, really, they were very dismal distances and probably deserved some ridicule.

That said, and speaking as a person who is not much of a gearhead, I really think winter bikers should give these gloves a shot. The zipper allows for needed ventilation when sweating is a problem (such as steep hills.) The materials are quick-drying synthetics with leather palms that will withstand long periods of gripping handlebars. And freeing the fingers without removing the glove is a handy feature for those who need to make quick use of their hands without risking long exposure. Here is a link to the contact form if you are having any problems reaching the Web site. And I want to say that hopefully tomorrow I'll come up with a more inspired post. Today I did a rainy bike ride, went to two holiday parties and ate a lot of garlicky foods and sugar. I'm about ready to pass out.