Tour de Point

Date: July 9
Mileage: 66.2
July mileage: 256.6
Temperature upon departure: 60

Today I latched onto the Sunday ride of local road cycling club - the "Homer Cosmic Hams." With about nine or ten regular members, they comprise the only club in town - although that's one more club than I thought there was.

Not that I'm all that familiar with club riding, but this group seemed to have a particular tint of good ol' Alaskana. For one, half of the "road" ride was on a pockmarked stretch of gravel that I had previously only dared to ride on my mountain bike. (I rode my road bike today, because I figured these guys knew what they were talking about. My lower arms are still tingling.) For two, most of the members showed up on all manner of Frankenbikes - an old Cannondale mountain bike outfitted with slicks and a strange single front shock, a 1970s green Fuji with a much newer red front fork, etc. And three, after finally getting into a groove in our paceline on the descent into Anchor Point, the guy in front yelled "Espresso stop, half mile!" and everyone fanned out into a breakaway sprint that I haven't seen since the last time I snuck a peak at OLN highlights.

But these guys and one woman - three in or around retirement age - sure could haul. Not that they even cared. Besides the coffee break, there were three or four other stops at the top of hills while we waited for the rear to catch up. I was pulling when we reached the end of the loop and no one even raced in front of me. There never seemed to be even a hint of competition, despite the fact that the group is currently training for the Ride for Life and the MS 150.

But the best parts of riding with this club:
1. Before we left, they made clear that under no circumstances would I be left behind if I didn't keep up.
2. They didn't act surprised when I actually did keep up.
3. They were very tolerant of my total lack of paceline experience, even as I coasted as many as two bike lenghts behind the person in front of me (I know ... the nerve!)
4. The chided me for the state of my helmet, which means
a. They care; and
b. They know what they're talking about.

We rode 28 miles together and it took a nearly 2 1/2 hours. But my bike computer registered an average moving speed of 18 mph, and that's factoring in the gravel and the huge hill climb. These are cyclists who know how to enjoy the ride.

I thought my reputation as a local journalist and somewhat notorious winter cyclist would precede me, but sadly, no one had ever heard of me and most were surprised to learn my true mission - which was to write an article about the local bike club. Interestingly enough, most of them had heard of Geoff, thanks to this article, and his penchant for standing out as the only classic skier during this past winter's very popular nordic ski races.

"Oh, you're that running guy's girlfriend."

Sigh.

So if I ever meet up with these guys again, I'm gonna rock that paceline.

Indecision

Date: July 5, 7 and 8
Mileage: 34.8, 26.4 and 25.5
July mileage: 190.4

Sorry for my absence. I spent a few days wallowing in indecision, like an uncomfortable dreamer locked in a losing fight for consciousness.

It's a strange state of discomfort - never quite in the moment, yet never able to completely let my mind wander. I'd stare vacantly at the back of the cereal box or watch my cat cross the yard and wonder where my mind had been, where it was now, what had I been thinking about before, did I draw any conclusions, what did I want to eat for dinner tonight, would it really be all that unhealthy to eat cold cereal again ... Finally, I'd give up and go for a bike ride.

That's how I did all of my riding this week - just sort of set out without really deciding to. That's the consequence of having a big decision to make. It erodes your ability to even make even the smallest decisions, decisions that are usually unconscious pieces of an everyday routine. One minute, I'd agonize over whether to take out the trash or wait until tomorrow. The next, I'd be spinning my mountain bike down Diamond Ridge and wondering how exactly I got there.

As a result, I generally had no idea where I was going. So I've been frequenting some old winter haunts - places I hadn't even thought to ride since breakup gave way to summer because, well, it just isn't that appealing to ride a full suspension mountain bike on a smooth gravel road when there are so many clear trails and good pavement opened up. But when autopilot kicked in, I'd find myself coasting down roads I'd ridden dozens of times - when they were cold, and barren, and covered in ice.

On Friday evening - before a long insomniactic night of rockabilly at Kharacters and dancing with spit rats who chided me for my "affluence" (because I have a washer and dryer) - I had a rare moment of clarity at the top of Ohlson mountain. I had been really lost in thought for the better part of an hour before. I remember little of the 13 miles that took me there and only vaguely recall the switchbacking climb to the top - mostly in short gasps. But I do remember standing beside a grove of lupine at the summit, emerging from my stupor just long enough to realize how lush and blindingly green everything was - as though I had expected the snow and silence and gray.

It really surprised me - not because the view was beautiful (although it was) but because my expectations of it deviated so drastically from the obvious. It's July, I thought, and I'm in Alaska, and I've been here 10 months, and I've never taken the time to really look at a devil's club blossom, and it's already July. Suddenly, everything around me had a thrilling sort of novelty.

Sometimes I become so mired in the miles, the routine, that I fail to notice my world changing all around me. Such is the root of all indecision.

I think I'm goin crazy

Date: July 3 and 4
Mileage: 14.4 and 32.6
July mileage: 103.7
Temperature upon departure: 62

This is a picture of me in 2003 - frou-frou pajama pants tucked into my socks, a ski jacket complete with dangling ski tags wrapped around my waist, struggling to keep my Trek 6500 vertical on smooth doubletrack (look - my eyes are closed and I'm about to go off the trail!). Sigh.

I still use that same stupid helmet, but in many other ways, I have made huge leaps and bounds in the sport of mountain biking in the past three years. I've never had much confidence in my technical skills, nor have I had any reason to have much confidence in my technical skills - but I really surprised myself with my maneuverability around the 24 hours of Kincaid loop. Today, before the fourth of July festivities began, I set out to test myself on the Homestead Trail singletrack. Four miles of roots, switchbacks, milkweed canyons so tall and narrow that I couldn't see the trail at all, grass that brushed my forehead, narrow planks over swamp, and enough blind curves to keep my butt cheeks nice and puckered during the entire hour I spent exploring out there. But I came out of the forest feeling full of Independence.

I also spent the better part of the morning reading up on the Great Divide Race, having just discovered that fellow blogger Cellarrat not only participated in this year's race, but also was the racer who had his bicycle tragically stolen mid-race. He's always had encouraging things to say about the silly stuff I do Up in Alaska, and connecting his name and face to the event has made it all the more real for me.

That's a bad thing.

Because, of course, I had to go and dig up a "before" picture. That might as well be a picture of me straddling a Huffy with training wheels or lugging around 100 extra pounds. Because I understand its context, it just screams to me, "look how far you've come."

And then I begin to wonder what I could do in three more years,
And then you'll be 30.

Given the time to train, research, purchase, prepare,
Why don't you get a haircut and get a real job?

Given more endurance events that will allow me to understand my limits,
And who didn't sign up for the Fireweed 200 because they thought it would be too far to drive?

And with every chainring stab and bloody knee, whittle away at my fragility
Doesn't matter; you're still a 'fraidy cat.

That maybe,
Not a chance

Just maybe,
Remember, you're the kid who never climbed the rope in gym.

I could ride the Great Divide.
Geez, you do one 24-hour race, and suddenly you think you're Trish Stevenson.

It's such a long shot.

But these dreams have a way of setting themselves in motion.

In your head

Date: July 2
Mileage: 50.4
July mileage: 66.7
Temperature upon departure: 55
A reporter asked Geoff an interesting question the other day that I had never thought much about before - when you're out running or biking solo for four or eight or 24 hours, what do you think about? A lot of people would like to believe that the act of engaging in intense physical activity will lead them to life affirmations or ponderings on the human condition. But really, as Geoff answered, it's no different that driving or sitting alone in a coffee shop. What does a person think about when forced to spend four hours by themselves? Mostly, the random and the mundane.

People who know me know that I like to mark random and mundane anniversaries, and sometimes I spend the solo time on my bike dreaming them up. Today I did a three-hour ride that was intermittently chilled with headwinds and sweaty while tailwinds held the air stagnant as I climbed a couple of long hills. But I also realized today that July 2, 2006, marks nine years since the incident that remains my closest brush with death by outdoor adventure.

I coaxed my boyfriend at the time to hike with me up the Pfeiferhorn, an Alps-like pinnacle that towers above the Salt Lake valley. He was, for the most part, terrified of mountaineering in general but wasn't about to let his 17-year-old girlfriend out-man him, so he followed me tentatively as we traversed a knife ridge and scrambled up the scree-lined face of a mountain so steep that from a half-mile away it looks like a sheer cliff. Everything was going textbook well, and he was pretty buzzed by the time we began to work our way down. I thought for sure that I had him converted.

We were crab-walking down a boulder outcropping when he made a joke about skiing on the snowfield that plunges down the length of the bowl - about 1,000 feet elevation - into Lower Red Pine Lake. Not understanding that he was entirely kidding, I said "That's a great idea!" Why labor down a mountain when you don't have to? So, equipped with only an old book bag and a plastic zip-lock baggie that had formerly held my lunch, I stepped out onto the snowfield and motioned for Eric to come join me. He stood almost frozen in place as I turned to make what may be the stupidest single motion I have ever made - I placed that zippy neatly on the crusted snow and sat down.

The fraction of a second that my butt had contact with that plastic zippy was the closest I came to any semblance of control. Within another fraction of a second, my body was careening, zippy-free, in a downward spiral toward the lake. The boulder outcropping where Eric stood was mere feet from my path; he swore for months afterward that he saw my head hit a rock. But all I felt was the burn of ice shards against my bare skin. All I saw was a whirpool of blue sky. And all I could think about was a trick I had learned the previous winter - that if I wanted to stop my snowboard, all I had to do was turn sideways. Problem is, I had no idea which direction sideways was.

After several of those eternal seconds, by some miracle clearning all of the thousands of boulders scattered over the snowfield, I planted my feet in a large depression and managed to make them stick. My body still swung around until I was lying sideways, facing up the mountain, squinting at the tiny stick figure of Eric waving from a rock many hundreds of feet above my current position. It took him a full 15 minutes to get down to me, and by that time I had crawled back to the boulder outcropping, stood up, and erupted into fits of laughter. I never saw my book bag - or the zippy - again. I also never convinced Eric to go "peak bagging" with me again. And I have never since, even with an ice ax, tried glissading. Good life lessons - those are the random things I think about while I'm grinding at the pedals.

On the boardwalk

Date: July 1
Mileage: 16.3
July mileage: 16.3
Temperature upon departure: 58

Wow. Until today, if someone had asked me if there were any good mountain biking trails in Homer, I would have scrunched up my nose and told them sure - but if they had anything longer than a three-mile ride in mind, they'd have to wait until January.

When I heard rumors that my ice-biking Mecca - a vast network of snowmobile trails weaving through the muskeg around Caribou Lake - had a rideable summer trail, I was very skeptical. But today Geoff and I decided to drive out there and see for ourselves.

During the winter, the Caribou Lake Trail rolls over ridges on punchy, snow-covered double track and traverses the bogs on fast, smooth ice roads. To my pleasant surprise, in the summer it does pretty much the exact same thing - if you replace snow with rutted dirt and the ice roads with hundreds of rough-cut 2x4s.

Fast and fun - and so completely rideable that you can go all the way to the lake and back without so much as getting your feet wet (unless you're like me, and try to shortcut across a bog only to sink up to your rear derailleur in sludge.) The mosquitoes will keep you moving - but everything else about this trail is like that California Adventure Park at Disney Land - all of the pleasure; none of the effort (OK ... Maybe a little effort).

I'm not even sure who put a trail this sophisticated out at an absolute end-of-the-road, middle-of-nowhere destination. My best guess is local land owners, who use ATVs to transport supplies into their remote cabins. But I think local bike enthusiasts helped. Either way, it rocks. Now, when I meet a person that tells me they're coming down here to catch a halibut or fish for king salmon in a slough, or do whatever people come to Homer to do, I'm going to insist they bring a bicycle. "This trail is pretty much the best thing about Homer," I'll say. And, depending on the day, I might even mean it.

Guilty until proven innocent

There is something seriously wrong with the Tour de France. Really. To dash the hopes of thousands by kicking out your top players mere hours before the event. Barry Bonds is under intense doping scrutiny, and they still let him play. Why? Because he's interesting at it. That's the American way.

I'm not saying I'm an advocate of illegal substance abuse; but what happened to burden of proof? I think casual fans such as myself should toss their cable boxes out the window in protest. Then they should tune into another crazy long bike race where substance abuse is still limited to caffeine, and perhaps the occasional something that a Ninilchik resident would grow in their attic.
The Great Divide Race has been plugging along for just over a week now. Eight racers started the 2,500-mile epic across the Continental Divide trail. I believe five are still in, laboring toward the Mexican border. All the updates are posted on a very thorough blogspot blog. Beats OLN anyday, if you ask me.