Savoring sunset

What to do with a gimpy knee day? A friend of a friend is in town from D.C., and we have been trying to help her along the fast track tour of everything Juneau. Wednesday night it was dancing at The Alaskan with the rockabilly sounds and Janet Jackson costumes of the Glorious Youth Parade. After the show, several dozen spectators poured into the street with donated hula-hoops, swiveling the after hours away in some kind of strange Alaska-flavored luau. Today we promised her a good hike, but she is too gimpy herself (with a sprained ankle) to do much walking. She stayed in town, but the two Geoffs and I still went. Today we hit Sheep Creek trail, another new one for me.

I discovered the trail is actually a delicious stretch of grass-covered singletrack, hidden deep in a beautiful highland meadow. The only catch? Getting a bike up there would require a gruelling 3/4-mile hike-a-bike that really redefines hike-a-bike (meaning, you'd probably have to put the bike on your back as you scrambled up near-vertical stretches of root-covered trail.) But for the dearth of smooth trail in Juneau, it may actually be worth it. I pondered the effort as we walked, slowly, without time limits, fitness goals or even a destination.

We took our D.C. visitor out to North Douglas tonight to roast up the salmon she caught in Ketchikan, accompanied by feta-and-olive pasta salad, blueberry-and-melon fruit salad, veggie burgers, basil-roasted peppers and onions, cous cous and apple pie (what could be more American then apple pie on the beach in July?) As the sun began to slip behind the horizon, a bald eagle coasted by, clasping a large, still-flopping salmon in its talons. We explained to our guest how rare her particular Juneau experience really was, with its nearly-dry weather, quirky bar music, crazy hula hoopers and quiet sunsets that bathed the beach in pink light. "It really doesn't get much better than this," we said.

It just kept getting better.

Cut my ride short

Date: July 26
Mileage: 99.4
July mileage: 792.9
Temperature upon departure: 54
Inches of rain today: 0.01"

I'm feeling a little bummed right now. It's the kind of creeping guilt I usually feel when I intend to get up and do something active first thing in the morning, but instead muddle around for several hours with back issues of the New Yorker and handfuls of Honey Nut Cheerios. It's the kind of remorse I feel when I realize I just watched an entire sunset from the narrow screen of a digital camera viewfinder. It curls the edges of my memory until the only image I see are the bold-type words, "Could Have." It's regret. Not the way I usually feel after bashing out nearly 100 miles.

I had big plans today. Twelve hours of big plans, and lasted through about half that. The regret comes from the fact that I had everything in line. I was feeling strong, and eating well, and finding plenty of water despite having only one water bottle - meaning I wasn't wearing a pack, which meant I wasn't having shoulder issues, which meant I shouldn't have had any excuse not to hit every dead end in Juneau. Except ... except for those pangs. I knew them well once, but then I mastered them. I mastered them and then I ignored them. But as the miles wore on, they began to slice deeper. I was rounding an arbitrary point near mile 80 when I finally decided that there was no longer reason to ignore. There is sometimes much to be gained by being stubborn, but rarely anything to gain by being stupid.

So I am back to second-guessing my knee again. It makes sense that the inflammation would creep back. My saddle time has skyrocketed. I am basically reliving January. I was never under the delusion that I was a healed person, but I did believe I was finally in a position to ride it out. And I probably am in a good position to ride it out ... under a more conservative set of limitations. But that's what has me bummed out right now ... not the idea of longterm or possibly permanent injury, but the reality of limitations.

I did lots of icing tonight, and Aleve, and actually feel quite healthy right now. The rest of my fitness is falling together pretty well, but I can't really ignore the return of angry knee. It was very minor today compared to past bouts, but the fact that it's the first in a while has me suddenly rethinking, well, everything. Not a real fun place to be.

A need a day or so of rest and a couple of good rides before I do anything drastic. There may just be an element of having had a bad day rather than a full-on regression. Still, I don't want to go back. To injury, or to moderation.

Seriously, why?

Date: July 25
Mileage: 15.1
July mileage: 693.5
Temperature upon departure: 65
Inches of rain today: 0.01"

Despite the cycling nature of this blog, I was not going to post about the Tour de France because well, I don’t watch the Tour de France. But I do read newspapers. And after yet another day of being inundated by dopers in the headlines, I have to say ... sad. Just sad.

As a member of the nonviewing general public, I am probably not qualified to comment. I've actually never followed the tour because I don’t find much personal entertainment in it. I tend to identify more closely with dog mushers and adventure racers than I do with skinny Europeans all hopped up on other peoples’ blood. I do admire fast pedaling as much as the next cyclist. But ... if the pros are all dirty, if they’re really all dirty (and why would I, a member of the nonviewing general public, have any reason to believe they’re not?) ... then what’s the point? Why not build a bunch of cycling robots and watch them do their thing? Since cycling is a competition of humans, doesn't it make more sense to watch humans?

That’s actually one of my favorite things about riding in the summer ... the cyclist watching is so much richer and more diverse. I wasn’t going to ride today because I wanted to rest up my knee as much as possible before the weekend. But a rare sunny morning demanded I at least make an appearance outside. I went for a quick ride out to Thane - just an hour out and back. As I coasted to a stop at the turnaround, I met an older man - maybe 70-ish - who was standing next to a rusty contraption of a road bike and snacking on a miniature bag of Doritos. He was wearing a pair of Docker-type shorts and I noticed he had knee braces, just like me. I asked him if he lived in Juneau. “No,” he said. “I’m from Seattle. My daughter lives here, in Auke Bay.”

“Really?” I said. “Auke Bay?” (Auke Bay is about 17 miles from where we were standing.)

“Yup,” he said. “When she needs me out of her hair, I go for a little ride.”

With that, he dug back into his bag of Doritios, and I turned around to make the half-hour trip home, thinking how lucky I am to be involved in a sport with no shortage of heroes.

Happy Pioneer Day

Date: July 24
Mileage: 35.4
July mileage: 678.4
Temperature upon departure: 58
Inches of rain today: 0.02"

That's right. Pioneer Day. In most states, people couldn't even tell you the specific dates on which their respective state holidays fall (isn't Alaska Day in October sometime?) But in Utah, July 24 is second only to Christmas.

Everyone comes out of the woodwork to celebrate the day, 160 years ago today, that Brigham Young and his motley band of American dissidents trudged over a mountain pass, looked out across the cracked-mud valley surrounding a giant dead lake, and said, "Well, I'm sure no one's going to kick us out of this place." (A quote later aesthetically revised to "This is the place," which looked better on T-shirts.) Thus, Salt Lake City was born.

Among that crew were my great-great-and-so-forth-grandparents. I've always been proud of my Mormon pioneer heritage. I like to believe that the same adventuring spirit and irrational zeal that would drive someone to schlep a handcart across the Great Plains lives on in me. So I thought about them today as I was churning the pedals up to Eaglecrest ... about how painful it would be to ride on wooden wheels ... about the insane audacity of carrying things like furniture and pianos across the wilderness ... about how the pioneer children sang as they walked ... and walked ... and walked.

I like that no matter how artificially hard I make my life, I will never live up to their standard. They shredded everything they had in their lives to hit a dusty trail to nowhere. There, in an America before pavement, they experienced a world of extreme suffering and extreme beauty that I will never know. But I like to think that they passed the torch on to me, and that here, on the relatively-well-traveled Alaska frontier, I can blaze my own path to the future.

Is there enough?

Date: July 22
Mileage: 43.3
July mileage: 643.0
Temperature upon departure: 61
Inches of rain today: .87"

I had a good session at the gym today - some heavy lifting and hard maximum-heart-rate intervals on the elliptical machine. Just 90 minutes and I feel sore. Always a good sign.

I am trying to weigh some knee fears against a desire to "peak" this week. What am a trying to peak for? Nothing, really. A long weekend. A vacation. A road ride in August. It will probably be the hardest single ride I've attempted to date.

I want to be in good shape for this thing because I don't think I'll be able to fake it. I want to ride the broken loop between Haines and Skagway in a 48-hour "overnight" ride. It's about 360 miles of rough pavement and stretches of gravel, mostly in northern Canada. I believe that the sketchy road conditions, remoteness of the area and climbing will make it more akin to a smooth mountain bike ride - sorta like parts of the Great Divide route.

Bicycle tourists usually take the better part of seven days to ride this route. What makes me think I can ride it in 48 hours, including an overnight bivy? I have no idea. I don't even have a convincing explaination. But I do know that my entry in multiday endurance riding is going to require a quick and painful baptism by fire. And I can't think of a better place to dive in. The route is close enough that I can travel there fairly inexpensively, remote enough that I can get a small taste of that extreme, helpless solitude, but traveled enough that I will be able to find help should I have a catastrophic mechanical issue or injury.

Meanwhile, the nature of the broken loop means I have no choice but to pedal myself to point B. There won't be any easy bailouts, and it's always good to beat temptation before it strikes. I will have a chance to test out some of my overnight gear - although I'm not planning on carrying anything too wintry - and I'll also experience finding my own water often in an effort to go as light as possible. I'll experience sleeping in a bivy sack. I'll experience trying to live on Power Bars and gas station food. I think it's going to be fun in that relentless boot camp sense of fun. As Geoff calls it, "teaching yourself things through suffering."

Which doesn't make any sense, when you think about it. What do I possibly have to gain from a recreational hobby that is more difficult and stressful than my "real" life? It's a good question. And I could go into a long spiel about the modern state of humans living in the industrialized world, how the layers of comfort we have added to our life have slowly shielded us from natural joy ... but that's not the real reason. The real reason is that I am always on the lookout for reasons to believe in myself. And after a while, lounging away a weekend in a hot tub stopped doing it for me.

So I scheme and train for this ride that is little more than a "dry run" for the real stuff. Pscychological training. For what? I'm almost frightened to find out.

The fireweed blooms are really starting to come out in full force now. I love fireweed and can't help but stop at nearly every large patch I see to take pictures. Longtime Alaskans say that when the last bloom opens up at the very top of the stock, the end of summer has arrived. I can't help but wonder if that's one of the reasons I'm so enamoured with the flower.

BIG Wheels!

From left to right are my oldest set of wheels to my newest. Notice the progression of girth over time. I am now about as fat as you can get. And I gotta say, it's a lot more fun to gain fat than it is to lose it.

Date: July 21
Mileage: 25.1
July mileage: 599.7
Temperature upon departure: 56
Inches of rain today: .17"

Shortly after I hung up the phone upon learning that Geoff had won his big race this morning, I hauled my touring bike up the stairs only to see a big cardboard box waiting at the top. It had my name on it! I tossed my bike aside and raced down the steps with the package, tearing the tape to shreds with the first knife I found. When I looked inside, I squealed. Out loud. Like a 4-year-old girl at a princess party.

The box held the wheels that I impulse-bought on eBay on the Fourth of July. On July 3, I received an unexpected federal tax return in the mail. The next day, I won the bid for wheels that I had been drooling over for seven days. The final price - exactly 63 cents less than the amount of that check. Large Marge rims with Endomorph tires - the kind they put on Surly Pugsleys and other fat bikes. New snow bike project! Yeah!

They're so cute. Look how small they make Geoff's new 29" rims seem.

Afterward, I took my woefully anorexic road bike out for the planned ride. I was having such a good morning, I pedaled the 25 miles out to North Douglas and back with an average speed of 18.7 miles per hour. By far my best ... and I didn't even have to enter the pain cave once. It was probably the fact that there was almost no wind ... but I like to think it was the big big wheels waiting for me at home.

Now I just need a frame ... a bottom bracket ... a new seat and stem ... Hmmm. I have things to buy, money to make. To eBay!

Geoff won Crow Pass!

Geoff just called me from Eagle River, letting me know that he took first in the Crow Pass Crossing (26-mile wilderness marathon with sketchy technical trail, a climb over a 3,800-foot pass, and a glacier river crossing) with a time of three hours and seven minutes. This is Geoff's demon race, the one he wanted the most, so his winning it is very exciting. He said he lost several minutes during the race when he crossed the path of a mother bear and cub. The cub scurried away while the mother stood just off the trail huffing and grunting. He couldn't pass so he said he took advantage of the situation to "take a quick break and eat a Gu." I think eating a Gu is the last thing I'd do if an angry mama bear was huffing at me, but it's a good illustration of just how focused Geoff gets in these races.

He's taking a quick break and the Eagle River visitor's center, and then he's going to drive back to Hope with Pete and hang out and ride with other mountain bikers from Anchorage during the Bon Ton Roulet. It sounds like a lot of fun. I'm filled with jealousy that I need to channel. I've been waiting around all morning for news. Time to go for a ride.