This actually is post 500

It's a bit of a scary number when I think about it ... think about all of the productive things I could have been doing in all of the time I've spent typing on my blog.

Unfortunately, I don't really have anything interesting to write for post No. 500. After more than a week of pain-free riding, I have the Yukon loop on my mind again. I am still trying to work out my days out of the office to determine whether I can leave Aug. 15 or Aug. 22, but either way, it is coming up a lot closer than I am probably ready for.

One thing a blog is really good for is organizing thoughts. I have been putting together a gear list for the bike tour, and am trying to go as light as possible with the gear I have available. I am planning for temperatures ranging from 40-70 degrees, at least one rainstorm long enough to soak me to the bone, possible snow at the passes, and only two legitimate food stops in 360 miles. I am not planning to put anything on my back - at all - but rather stuff everything into a trunk bag, a frame bag, and a handlebar bag. Here's what I have in mind. I'd love to hear some input: Things I've forgotten ... things I should leave behind.

Black Diamond winter bivy sack
Synthetic 30-degree sleeping bag
Thermarest 3/4 sleeping pad
One headlight
One helmet light
Extra batteries
Red blinky
Multitool
Patch kit, tube, tire levers, lube
Small first aid kit
Pump
Lightweight socks
Bike gloves
Neoprene socks
Neoprene gloves
Lycra tights
Long-sleeve shirt
Extra shirt
Water-resistant pants
PVC jacket
Sunglasses
Aleve, Claritin and Alka Selzer
Iodine tablets
1 day of food
24-ounce water bottle equipped with water filter
Two regular 24-ounce water bottles

... Suggestions?

Travelogged

A picture of the Brakeless Wonder at Lower Russian Lake, taken Friday night.

Date: Aug. 6
Mileage: 25.1
July mileage: 128.4
Temperature upon departure: 56
Inches of rain today: 0.24"

Until yesterday, I was almost definite in my decision to fly out to Anchorage during the first weekend of September to ride the Soggy Bottom 100. My only hesitation had been the expense, which I could minimize pretty easily thanks to airline miles and my willingness to work extra hours. But now, I am almost definitely thinking I will not do it. Because, really, why should I pay so much and work so hard just for another opportunity to suffer?

And I am not talking about the cycling. The cycling is the easy part. I am talking about the flying, and the taxis, and the renting and/or borrowing of a bike, and all of the other headaches that go along with transporting myself anywhere that isn't Juneau. It just isn't worth it. Sunday morning reminded me of that.

Geoff and I made the mistake of letting a friend who is not known for his mastery of details make a taxi reservation for us. We had to leave at 6:15 a.m. to catch a 7:50 a.m. flight out of Anchorage, from a cabin that did not have its own address, an Internet connection or a phone. In any given year, there are 364 incidents that make me happy I don't own a cell phone, but there is always one that convinces me it's time to break down and sign up for a plan. Sunday morning was that day.

So the cab didn't show up at 6:15. By 6:25, Geoff had begun to use his power of deduction to figure out that our friend had probably given the company the address number of the house were waiting in front of, but the name of an intersecting street - which meant that the driver was probably more than three miles away. We had to get to a pay phone fast, so I suggested using our friend's car (she was out of town.) Geoff urged me to make the trip, because he was still in pain from his race. I got in, drove a half mile down the road, realized I had forgotten to look at the right street name, and put the car in reverse. It stalled and wouldn't start again.

When it comes to stress, I usually cope great with large blows. It's always the compounding layers of little disasters that cripple my ability to rationalize. I went into full-on panic mode, leaving the car in the middle of the street while I sprinted back toward the cabin. I had completely snapped - hyperventilation, sobbing, the whole package. Geoff to his credit made a solid effort to hobble quickly to the car, managed to get it started, and took off to look for a phone. I sat down on our bags and came to terms with the fact that we were going to miss our flight, the next one was at least eight hours away, and I was going to be late or miss the shift at work that I promised to return for under penalty of beheading.

After that, a lot of little things went wrong - and enough little things went right - to really bring the cycle of torture full circle. The car stalled a half dozen times. The closest phone was two miles away. The new cab driver dispatched to us came fast, despite the fact we were in a middle-of-nowhere part of town. There was a huge backup at the baggage check-in. I found a newly opened line. The security line snaked out the door. An earlier baggage mishap had made about a dozen other people really late, so the security people created a fast-track line that we were able to sneak into. We made it through security two minutes before our scheduled flight departure, convinced the doors had been closed. We sprinted and sprinted and I was amazed how quickly Geoff found his legs. Luckily, that earlier baggage mishap also delayed the flight, and the gate employees ushered us inside. I sat in that cramped seat with my heart racing at maximum capacity, sucking recycled air and vowing never to leave Juneau again.

Then today, I bought another plane ticket - a two-stop flight to Utah in late September - because that was always part of the plan. However, it did made me feel a little sick. I like the idea of riding the Resurrection Pass gauntlet in a month, but I don't think I can handle two more airport trips. I don't have to stomach for it.

Slow lane

Date: Aug. 2, 3 and 4
Mileage: 21.1, 16, 43
August mileage: 103.3

Every time I take a trip away from my walled-in little seaside town, I leave thinking my weekend is going to be relaxing and centering and return with new understanding of the stressful, sprawling nature of the outside world.

At the same time, "out there" is where the adventure and exhilaration is. Exactly a year has passed since I packed up my Prism and drove away from the Kenai Peninsula. Even though I didn't even stay a full year on the Kenai, and I haven't been back in a full year, there is something about meandering along the narrow corridor of the Turnagain Arm that feels like coming home.

I was able to spend a lot of time, relatively, riding during the 16-hour period I had between arrival and the end of Geoff's race. I borrowed a bike from Pete B., a Raleigh hardtail that has the same frame as my former Snaux Bike and actually belongs to Pete's little sister - who had no idea her bike was being lent away (let alone the abuse it was about to endure.) Geoff and I set up camp at 8 p.m. Friday and I went to explore the Russian River area. The upper trail was so overgrown that I couldn't even see it beneath a sea of grass and fireweed. Most of the ride consisted of bouncing over boulders with my eyes clamped shut as blistering stalks of cow parsnip whipped my face. I rode until nearly 11 p.m. - a luxury of late daylight that is long gone in Juneau.

Geoff and I were up at the crack of 5 a.m. to gear up for his 50-mile assault of Resurrection Pass. As he tied his running shoes, he said something about lacing them so tight that he wouldn't be able to take off his shoes at the end of the race. "Oh, don't worry, I'll be able to untie them for you," I said. "I'll meet you there. " After all, I had a bike, and he was on foot. The advantage was clearly mine.

About 20 runners took off at the 6 a.m. starting line. I took down camp and ate a leisurely breakfast, then hit the trail at 7 a.m. I thought that even with a fairly meandering but determined pace, the 44-mile ride would take me five hours, tops, and no way - no way - could Geoff run that trail plus a 6-mile spur in just six hours. Predictable last words.

The morning was very Juneau-esque, with mountain-smothering clouds allowing little doubt about the wetness they were about to unleash. But the trail was as amazing as I remembered it, with rocky singletrack hugging the shorelines of lakes and working its way slowly above treeline. I began to catch up to runners about 10 miles in, always remembering to yell "You don't need to stop for me! Don't stop for me!" After all, I knew (but could scarcely comprehend) what they were trying to do. They were racing and I was a tourist. I could wait until there was space to ride around.

The rain hit hard and fast at the pass, but a tailwind propelled me along and I could not have been happier. The climb was effortless in 2.5 hours; I was feeling great and had 25 miles of downhill to look forward to. I was singing old-school Offspring lyrics at the top of my lungs for all the bears to hear, and set into the descent feeling that I could do no wrong. What could go wrong? Predictable last words.

It must have happened slowly, with little flecks of rubber flaking away as I rode along. I didn't even notice the slow breakdown in stopping power as the muddy trail ate up all of my concentration. I didn't even realize anything was wrong until I approached a tight corner of a particularly steep descent, pressed down on the brakes, and nothing happened. Nothing at all. I throttled them for all my life was worth and the wheels only continued to accelerate toward what I was certain was death by head-on collision with a tree. I shut my eyes, clenched my teeth, and pitched my body sideways.

The first thing I landed on was my camera, which was floating in the standing water inside my coat pocket (by the way, it still works. Olympus=amazing.) Raleigh and I skidded to a fairly smooth stop along in a spiny patch of raspberry bushes. After I stopped writhing from the shock of impact, I marvelled - as I usually do - about coming out of a crash relatively unscathed. I tightened the brake cables as far as they'd go, but the damage had been done. I began the ride (unknowingly) with misaligned brake pads and the muddy trail had worn them clean off - I was basically pressing metal onto slimy, wet metal.

After that, my ride was essentially a lot of downhill hike-a-bikes with occasional slow-coasting riding, using my right foot - and sometimes both feet - as a brake. About three miles from the end, the trail became more crowded with day hikers. I gave up riding completely, lest I risk killing someone besides myself. By then, the brake levers did absolutely nothing to slow the bike. It was the same as riding with both calipers undone. I spent much of those three miles walking with a woman who had already decided to drop out of the 100-mile race. She had already pounded out 88 miles and looked amazingly cool and composed. "It's only 12 more," I urged, but I had no understanding. "I'm not taking another step I don't have to," she said.

I arrived at the 38-mile checkpoint at 12:30 p.m., dripping rainwater from every pore and sporting a solid head-to-toe coat of dark mud. "What time did Geoff Roes come through here?" I asked. A man checked his board and said, "10:30." I just gaped at him as another woman, having looked me up and and down and probably remembering me from the starting line said, "Why? Did you think you were going to catch him?"

The last six miles of the ride were completely miserable - all on a gravel road that was just downhill-sloped enough to make my 7 mph scootering of the bike stressful; my shoes were being torn to shreds and my body temperature plummeted from a combination of complete saturation and a solid lack of movement. I had no choice but to get off the bike and jog, every minute knowing that not only was I not going to watch Geoff finish his race, but that he was probably already eating hot soup and enjoying dry clothing and shelter at that exact moment.

Luckily, seeing Geoff at the finish line ended my sorry excuses for self pity. He was eating hot soup, and looking really perky, and walking almost normally for someone who just shattered yet another course record, running 50 miles in about 6 hours, 10 minutes. Fifty miles. Six hours. With no bike. Just him. It made me feel like I should turn straight around and pilot that broken bike back up and over the pass, if for no other reason than to feel just a little bit of that glow, the glow that surrounds the satisfaction of having done something really hard - even if not well.

It continues to amaze me how quickly Geoff has taken charge of all of this endurance madness. I think this Resurrection Pass 50 race is the first time I've realized that he may have a shot, a real shot, at competing among the top echelon of ultra-endurance runners (even if he does do something silly like devote a lot of time to biking next year.) It's exciting to me. And scary, too.

Geoff wrote his race report here.

Bad days on a bike

Date: Aug. 1
Mileage: 23.2
July mileage: 23.2
Temperature upon departure: 54
Inches of rain today: 0.01"

I have a getaway weekend coming up. I’m planning on recreational mountain biking, camping, and visiting friends in the city. I could really use a getaway about now. I feel like I’ve been wallowing in the trenches for entirely too long.

The corporate bosses are in town this week, and we’ve been informed to keep those trenches pristine. As everyone knows, all that extra effort is usually a magnet for mud. When life starts to get tough at work, I feel lucky that I have my cycling experiences to help me keep things in perspective. Because the worst days at work are in no way as bad as the worst days on a bike.

Wait ... that’s not how it’s supposed to happen, is it? Aren’t the best days at work - thus, by default, all days at work - supposed to be worse than the worst days on a bike? I don't know who started that rumor, but I have to respectfully but full-heartedly disagree. I’ve had a few days on the bike that have brought me to my knees, hollowed out my soul and left the shell of my body crumpled and useless. I take comfort in the idea that my employers - even the corporate guys - would have to reach way beyond inherent evil to achieve that level of demoralization.

So what’s my worst day ever on a bike? It would be hard for me to draw that line, since it’s been a long time since I’ve had a really bad one. But the bad days have always the ones I would have least expected. In that regard, I would probably have to label Day 6 of my 2003 cross-country bicycle tour the worst ever.

Geoff and I were 300 miles into our trip and pedaling through northwestern Colorado. After six days of a crash course in getting back into shape, we were finally settling into our groove and thinking nothing of pounding out a 60-mile day along a remote and treeless stretch of U.S. Highway 20. That was also the day I realized that I am, in fact, intensely allergic to the sun. The 95-degree, searing blue-sky day did nothing to mitigate the sun rash that was spreading across my skin despite multiple layers of SPF 45. When I ran out of water mid-afternoon, the only place we found any at all was from a rusty pump at an abandoned rest stop near the top of the pass. That water was at least 16 percent gasoline.

It was at that rest stop that I adamantly advocated giving up for the day. Geoff talked me out of it by insisting that it was “only about 10 more miles” (it was 24) and “late enough that the headwind will die down soon” (it picked up intensely) and “downhill the whole way.”

That was the biggest lie of all. Beyond the pass, the road crawled over a series of steep sand hills that rippled across the landscape at a rate of about one per mile. We would climb about 300 feet in a half mile, then drop as much, and then do it all over again. I was close to tears by the second hill, completely ignorant to the fact that I had more than a dozen more to go. After that, everything was whimpers and dust. Several times I stopped at the crest of a hill, looked at the new wall of pavement in front of me, and contemplated setting up my tent for the night right there in the highway right-of-way. But the relentless sun and lack of drinkable water urged me to seek shade. I had but one option. Had I a gun, the second option would have seemed preferable.

The heat, the headwinds and the hills make it easy to quantify why I was hating my life so much at that moment. What’s harder to describe is exactly how hard I really fell. It was full-on despair, justified or not, combined with a fair amount of rage. A construction crew was working on the road up one hill. I hated them - really hated them - as though, in my irrational mind, my depression was their fault for putting that hill there.

When we arrived in Maybell that night, I was nearly broken. Luckily, I was also still prone to emotional eating, and I let a giant plate of fried chicken and refill after refill of Pepsi perk me right up. Then I got right back on the bike the next day, no worse for the wear. Still, not enough has happened in the four years since to dull the acute pain of that ride. It haunts me.

When bicycling hurts, it can hurt bad. But the beautiful side to that truth is that the pendulum swings both ways. For every shot of pain and despair there are equal parts awe and exaltation. The emotions make even the most breakneck aspects of office employment seem flatlined in comparison. It’s an extreme perspective, and one I hope to keep.

Slow to warm up

Date: July 31
Mileage: 42.5
July mileage: 874.6
Temperature upon departure: 55
Inches of rain today: 0.03"
July rainfall: 7.28"

It has been a few weeks since I have been able to attack the first miles of the morning with anything more than little whimpers. And I am not just talking about the first five or six miles. I am talking 20 miles - sometimes 25 - before I feel anything more than the dead weight of sluggish pedaling. But if I wake up early enough, and I don't have too many errands to run, and I actually have the time to surpass that magic number ... just like that, my legs break through that lead shell. They begin to spin faster, stronger and ready to hammer to my destination - which, by that point, is usually home.

I've heard of this happening to people who train the way I have been ... putting in long miles and slow-burn climbs without much focus on sprinting or strength training. Slow warm-ups may or may not be the price of endurance building, but they're an interesting experience nonetheless. I was several miles into the return ride today, pumping tar and wondering how deep I was going to have to dig just to get home, when the window finally opened up. I was amazed by all of the energy I discovered there, and took advantage of my new found weightlessness to really grind out the final 20 miles. I was flying, even into the wind, hammering, hammering, and thinking about all of the extra chores I was going to have time to accomplish before work now that I was moving at warp speed.

Then, with about three miles to go, it all came crashing down. Total bonk. That was an interesting experience, too, and an example of what a creature of routine I've become. Geoff and I have a long weekend coming up and, as such, had neglected to buy groceries for a while. So we were out of orange juice and out of milk. I ate a few handfuls of frosted mini-wheats for breakfast and called it good. I didn't give it another thought until about mile 39 of my bike ride, when I went from turbo drive to fumes in about six seconds flat. After that, I just put my head down and slogged my way home with the gas needle flatlined well below the "E." I think if I were a car, I'd be a Toyota Prius. It takes me a while to get going, but once I do, I can burn comfortably at 50 miles per gallon. So comfortably, in fact, that I'll completely forget to buy fuel. Until it's gone. And once it's gone, it's really gone.

So I finished up July as my second highest mileage month ever, behind only January 2007. Although when I consider the time I spent in the saddle, combined with the intensity of the effort it took to rack up 900 miles in January, I feel like my July mileage should probably be counted as something closer to 600. Or even 500. Seems fair. And I agree that mileage isn't the best gage of fitness or strength on a bike, but without a heart-rate monitor or altimeter or GPS unit, it's all I have. And I'm pretty happy with it.

Pugsley is here

Date: July 30
Mileage: 25.1
July mileage: 832.1
Temperature upon departure: 53
Inches of rain today: 0.30"

This frame actually arrived a few days ago. I originally thought I was going to mull it over a while before deciding whether I really wanted a Pugsley or a Wildfire or another beefy bike. But then I found a good deal on a 16" gray model, and I snatched it up quickly because I am not interested in riding anything that's the color of fermented grape Koolaid. However, since it showed up, I seem to be having delayed onset of joy.

There may be two reasons for that. First, a bit of knee relapse has me questioning the wisdom of training all winter long. Second, I started dismantling Snaux Bike to cannibalize some parts and unload others. Yesterday I wrapped up the SnowCat wheels in a box bound for Colorado. Now Snaux Bike is no longer a snow bike. He's just something useless ... broken ... and there's sadness in that. Bringing Pugsley into the house is a bit like having a new boyfriend move in while the old one is still gathering up the pieces of a shattered relationship in hopes of reconciliation. "I'll always love you, but, you know ..."

Still, it's better to move on than always wonder what could have been. I, for one, can't wait to figure out what kind of bottom bracket I should buy so I can slap Pugsley together and take him out for some joyriding on the rocky beaches of Douglas Island. And winter ... don't even get me started on how excited I am for winter.

Urban trailriding

Date: July 29
Mileage: 14.1
July mileage: 807.0
Temperature upon departure: 65
Inches of rain today: 0.04"

Living in Juneau has not done wonders for my progression as a mountain biker. I have finally come to terms with the reality that the best option for workweek trailriding is to tootle around on the Mendenhall Valley trail system. I am the first to admit that I don't mind riding loops, but there is something about weaving a tight grid in a small area that is vaguely ... suffocating. As such, I don't feel compelled to take out the mountain bike nearly as often as I should. So my technical skill-building suffers, therefore my handling suffers, therefore my confidence suffers. Plus, the combination of fairly little elevation gain with root-choked trail means it's nearly impossible to get a good workout on a mountain bike.

But it is fun, just the same. It reminds me of motorcycling with my dad as a small child. He would sling me over the seat of his dirt bike and I would clasp the front of the handlebars, stretching my legs as far as I could away from the searing engine. We took off from our driveway for some nearby subdivision, still lingering that silent, semi-natural state always present before a tsunami of construction blasts through. The open fields were criss-crossed with a tight network of sandy trails, washboarded to teeth-chattering perfection by heavy ATV and BMX use. It was endlessly fun, and right in our backyard, and exhilarating to believe that adventure hovered so close to the mundane. That is a bit what biking in the Mendenhall Valley feels like - I could be tearing into the gut of some mud-soaked root maze, completely unaware of the movie theater that lies a half mile away.

Nearly every time Geoff and I ride here, I come home soaked in mud splatters and a few drops of blood, patches of Devil's Club rash and new insect bites, and a big stupid grin stuck to my face. I really should run the grid more often.