I'm not here right now

The sick is starting to loosen its grip, but it still has me grounded just as the weather took a turn for the warm (hit 40 degrees for the first time since ... December!). Three days off the saddle may be the longest I've gone without a ride since ... December. Sugar looks so dejected right now - tires deflated to 20 psi, the front wheel still detached after being carted home from Caribou Lake, and coated with the trail grime of the ages because I haven't mustered up enough respect to drag him out on top of my feet-deep snowpack with a garden hose. At least he's not wired to the life support of a magnetic trainer like Roadie is (which I haven't ridden any actual distance since ... December.)

Today was a day full of monotonous tasks and the inevitable zoning out that these tasks cause. Do you ever experience this? One minute I'll be copying and pasting articles into html, washing the dishes or - heaven forbid - driving. Then, suddenly I'll find myself slipping into a lucid daydream. These daydreams are always anchored in very real but rarely extraordinary moments buried deep in my memory - swimming across the glass waters of an Eastern Texas lake, or pedaling a rolling plateau beside the San Rafael Swell. These wisps of past moments float through so convincingly that I get entirely caught up in reliving - to the point where falling back into reality is more than a little disconcerting (and often followed by the realization that I just held the space key down for several column inches.)

Maybe this means I'm crazy. I don't know. I do know that it probably means data entry is not the job for me. But I must say, I really enjoy these boredom-inspired visits back to places long buried in the illusion of the past. Today I revisited this sunrise, the distant glow that stripped away an unending night, and it felt as warm and as welcoming this morning as it did when it was more than just a photograph, an involuntary firing of synapses and a distant sigh.

First day of sick

I am officially annoyed. It's bad enough to get sick at the beginning of the week, when I can't take any time off from work, so I have to spend the day listening to others complain about my infectious nature while a vice grip slowly tightens around my chest and head. But yesterday, while rummaging around my medicine cabinet, I discovered the leftover antibiotics from last year's bout with bronchitis - dated March 23, 2005. Kinda eerie to think that my germs keep a schedule almost as reliable as Christmas.

And it's annoying because every year I manage to skirt through cold and flu season without so much as a sniffle, only to pick up some utterly derailing - and often undiagnosable - bout of gunk at the end of March. This seems to happen to a lot of people, who mostly blame the change of seasons as a culprit for the massive failure of otherwise iron-clad immune systems. I used to accept this theory as fact, but now I have my suspicions. Last year, I lived in Idaho, where late March means night temperatures still drop below freezing. Now I live in Alaska, where late March means I still have five feet of snow piled up in my front yard. It's hard to believe that any part of my physiology could be fooled into thinking the seasons are changing, let alone be affected enough by it to give up the good fight.

I may never know the cause of my illness. But I do know that I feel crappy, and that's just annoying.

The only bright spot today may be that - regardless of any actual semblence of spring I may be experiencing - the Vernal Equinox has passed. Which means (to my friends in the lower 48), that we have surpassed 12 hours of direct sun and are now gaining daylight at a much faster clip than you. You are now officially on the darker side of the planet. So ... cough cough ... there.

You learn something new

Date: March 19
Mileage: 8.0
March mileage: 200.5
Temperature upon departure: 26

At the end of the first of many long, empty straightaways that traverse the frozen bog to Caribou Lake, I accidentally swerved off the trail and spun around just in time to see Geoff throw his bike - quite literally - down on the snow and begin walking toward me. It was four miles and a little over an hour into our ride, and he had "had it." "This is ridiculous," he said. "I'm putting in five times the effort of walking to go walking speed."

He makes a good point. Plenty of new snow and warming temps made for soft, punchy riding - on the precipice of rideable, but in my opinion - not too fargone yet. Still, there could be no laboring under any delusion today that cycling was the most efficient form of travel for the conditions. As Geoff pointed out, there's walking. There's skiing. Heck, one of those low-riding "big wheel" tricycles would probably fare better. His point was inarguable. We turned around.

As we rode back, he noticed that his bike had sliced much deeper trenches in the trail than mine. It didn't seem possible. We both ride the practically the same model of bike (Gary Fisher Sugar.) We both have the exact same tire setup. We were both running our pressure at 20 psi. We even weigh close to the same (he has 10 pounds on me.) But I tried out his bike, and sure enough, it was like riding a hot knife across a stick of butter. Every pedal stroke was literally a hard mash to get out of a hole.

Given all things equal, we couldn't figure out the discrepancy. It wasn't until about a mile later that he said - "You know, you're riding really low."

See, I have a rear shock with a slow leak. I filled it up right before my Susitna race, but not since. It's leaked down to almost no pressure - slowly enough that I didn't notice. But now when I ride, the shock is bottomed out, which pushes the entire frame down so the majority of my weight hovers over the space between the pedals. Geoff, on the other hand, has a fully functioning rear shock, which leaves most of his weight is on his rear tire - hence the knifing. Who knew?

We let most of the air out of his shock, but by then had already made new plans to go on a snowshoe hike closer to home - which we did, though I think that took more wind out of me than the two hours of sweating-as-hard-as-I-could-just-to-break-5 mph riding. Maybe it's because that 8-mile ride was all I really had in me today.

Every time I go trail riding, I learn something new about the ways in which gear really does make or break a cyclist on snow.

Geoff said, "You know what's the worst thing about snow biking? No matter how much effort I put in, I still go the same pace. Pretty soon I'm killing myself just to keep going 4 mph."

Then he said, "That's probably why you like it so much."

Like these pictures?

Date: March 17
Mileage: 18.6
March mileage: 192.5
Temperature upon departure: 9 (morning temp)
On the iPod: "Sunshine Highway" ~ Dropkick Murphys

For some reason Blogger isn't letting me upload my photos, so I'm reposting an old November favorite. That's OK, because all the pictures I took during yesterday's commute are muddled by nasty grayness and funk that has settled in for the weekend (you know the type - flurries, 50 mph wind gusts, whiteouts of blowing snow). That - and staying out late on St. Patrick's Day - kept me lazy and grounded for most of today.

So I made a "First Winter in Alaska" screensaver. I never realized I how many pictures I have. It's obnoxious, really, considering my extremely amateurish photography equipment and the fact that nearly every snapshot was taken in the small radius of my hometown. But the screensaver was entertaining - especially when I added music. And more than anything on this blog, people seem to like my pictures (more a statement of where I live than any photographic skill of my own.) So I had this crazy idea.

I'd like to work toward upcoming ultrabike events, including (but not limited to) the possibilities of Fireweed 200, 24 hours of Kincaid, Soggy Bottom 100, the 2007 Susitna 100 and (the more outside chance of) a future Iditarod Invitational. Since I did the 2006 Susitna 100 on the wings of blogging friends, I'm taking another swing at it.

My new "Help Jill realize her ultrabiking dreams" proposal includes an offer of exclusive Alaska wildlife and winter imagery, captured in a rotating screensaver and a slideshow set to music. Both include more than 200 frosty images - some which have appeared on this blog, some which are new and unpublished - packaged in instantly downloadable .exe files that should work on any PC. I'll mail out a CD to anyone who might like to donate a few bucks (at least enough to cover postage) to my new crazy bike ventures ... just make sure to indicate the address you want it sent to.

As always, I ride miles for dollars, so there's always the promise of future cycling misadventures.

And if you're turned off by my shameless solicitation, just ignore this post. This photo/bike/frostbite blog will always be free.

Flirting with hypothermia

Date: March 16
Mileage: 20.5
March mileage: 173.9
Temperature upon departure: 13
On the iPod: "Landed" ~ Ben Folds

I left work today wearing a kind of hybrid setup I use for commuting - jeans and long johns, cotton T-shirt, two fleece layers and my waterproof shell. The temperature in town was probably in the high teens. It was 5:15 p.m. I started up the long East Hill climb and overheated almost immediately. It wasn't just extra sweat - it was a serious concern for me. Enough so that I stopped at the first turnout I saw, stripped down to only my T-shirt and shell, removed my outer mittens, ripped off my balaclava and continued up the hill.

I was feeling good at the top, so I continued east to the summit of Skyline and hit the snowmobile trails. I tried some less-traveled trails today, so I was working hard - doing a lot of postholing, occasionally falling over, just like old times. Pretty soon it was 6:30, with the sun drifting low on the horizon. The entire hill fell into shadow. I sweated my way to the main trail and began to pedal downhill.

The snow was set up even nicer today than yesterday, and pretty soon I was flying - bouncing off hardened drifts, knifing through softer snow with crafty maneuvering, coasting over patches of glare ice. I noticed my unmittened hands were starting to hurt a little, but I didn't think much of it. I'd put my mittens on when I got to the bottom of the hill.

About five minutes later, I stopped at the reservoir and moved to take off my pack, but my entire body was stiff and reluctant to turn. That's when I realized that I was cold. Not just cold. Really cold. Probably colder than I've been yet this winter. Shivers were starting to set in. I pulled my mittens and fleece layers out of my pack and hurried to put them on. But the numbness already had its icy grip around me.

I had three more miles to ride home, most of it climbing, and I thought I'd recover pretty quickly. My body did warm up enough to return my reflexes to normal, but the shivering became more pronounced, more violent, and pretty soon my jaw was chattering involuntarily. My head was swimming, probably because I was really rushing through the last big climb. But the lactic acid and lung burn didn't matter much to me at the time. I needed to get inside, and I needed to fast.

By the time I got home I was starting to feel a little better - probably thanks to the sprinting, but I was still immersed in the kind of chill that feels like it will never go away. I shook my hands and jumped up and down for a while to bring the blood circulation back the the extremities it had long since given up on. Have you ever experienced that itchy, painful sensation that comes of warming up frozen fingers? Have you ever experienced that in your entire body?

And all I could think was - wow - I really should know better than this by now. I should have put my layers back on the moment I crested East Hill. And I should wear my normal winter clothes, and just bring a change of clothes to wear at work rather than combining the two. But this it what comes of letting your guard down. I have to remember that even though the sun is riding high, and even though the date's on the downhill side of March, the winter is still very much alive, and the cold is still very real.

Back to the trail

Date: March 15
Mileage: 15.2
March mileage: 153.4
Temperature upon departure: 19
On the iPod: "Cry Freedom" ~ Dave Matthews

The trails are finally setting up again enough to be rideable. It's not warmth that's causing this, but sunlight, so there's still plenty of powder. The skiers have monopolized almost all of the established trails near my house, so I still have to keep my distance. But I'm starting to learn that there's just about nowhere in Alaska a snowmobile won't go. And I'm right behind them, knifing over the glistening trails and dreaming of a time - not too far away now - when massive snow dumps will no longer be a concern. What snowpack we have will melt slowly in the increasing glare of daylight sun, then settle and harden during the freeze of night. Do you know what that means? The wilderness I call home will soon be blanketed - blanketed! - by rideable snow. Hardpacked, glistening, absolutely boundless snow. No trails needed. I'm so excited. And here these Alaskans are telling me that April is the worst month of the year for outdoor fun. How could that even be true?

Floppy mining

I remember reading a survey a while back that said more than 50 percent of Americans view themselves as writers in some capacity. I'm sure now, in the era of blogging, that number is probably closer to 98 percent, or equal to the literacy rate - whichever is higher. I, too, went through a period when I fancied becoming the kind of writer who has a near-constant harried expression and pencils in my hair. I call this period college. That phase is usually one of those things most people grow away from, like 2 a.m. pizza runs and long dialogs consisting entirely of Nietzsche quotes. So I didn't give much thought to fiction writing after I sloughed off that pre-graduate glow. Until tonight.

I have a laptop on the verge of meltdown, so I spent the better part of the evening moving files onto another computer. This laptop is so old that I have to use floppies to complete the task. Remember floppies? They have enough storage to hold about one fifth of a Green Day mp3? Yeah. It was a tiresome task. But while cleaning out my old floppies to make room for new files, I discovered the Word Perfect remnants of my long-lost novel.

That's right. I, too, am among the 98 percent of Americans who have one of those things stashed away. What it actually is - for the most part - is a remnant of my post-college state of confusion, otherwise known as the year 2000. I worked part-time in a frame shop. I studied for the LSAT. I dabbled in short fiction.

I guess I shouldn't say short. I ran the ancient document through a word processor and discovered it's actually more than 65,000 words. Wow. No wonder I didn't get better LSAT scores. (Then again, how long would this blog be if I measured it in words? I guess I'll always find ways to waste time.) But that's my point. There's a fair amount of time in my "book," a respectable number of words, and it's all just rotting away on a disk so beyond obsolete it might as well by papyrus. Seems a shame - letting all that go to waste. I was just thinking about compiling the thing, pdf-ing it eBook-style and posting it online. What do you think? Could there possibly be any interest? ...

(If so, maybe I'll post a plot breakdown as soon as I can read some of it and jog my memory. But - here's the disclaimer - I wrote it in my pre-cycling days, so there's probably not much two-wheeled adventure anywhere in the text. Oh well.)