Pay it forward

Date: Aug. 27
Mileage: 10.5
August mileage: 635.4
Temperature: 55

When I was in Huntington Beach last week, a group of So-Cal cyclists were kind enough to guide me on a tour of the coast so I didn't "go home and complain that L.A. is nothing but smog and too many roads with nowhere to ride." Today I had the opportunity to pay their kindness forward by guiding a Juneau visitor on a mountain bike ride so he didn't go home and complain that Juneau is nothing but rain and only one road that doesn't even go anywhere.

Steve is a software engineer from Denver and has already been in town for several weeks taking helicopter rides to the tops of mountains and installing wind towers. So, already his position is enviable, but he wanted to do some cycling on top of that. He's a self-professed "roadie," so I took him to the Juneau trail that in my opinion best works to convert any roadie to mountain biking (in that it's easy, fast and stunningly gorgeous) - the Herbert Glacier Trail. We had a fast, fun ride through the woods and a little techy mud'n'rocks at the end just to make it an adventure. I led us astray over the glacier moraine and we both ended up knee-deep in runny quicksand. Steve was really good-humored about the whole fiasco, even as we bushwhacked through thick alders to avoid what I called "dying" by becoming inescapably stuck in quicksand.

Always nice to meet another passionate cyclist; and Herbert Glacier via vehicle access is a great way to spend a day off (without the car, it's a 75-mile round trip ride). Right now I'm trying to psych myself up for some long slow distance, my specialty, and make it interesting by taking a tour of the hills.

The fallacy of water resistance

Date: Aug. 26
Mileage: 61.2
August mileage: 624.9
Temperature: 51

The argument about what clothing barrier will best protect a cyclist from falling precipitation while simultaneously rejecting inner condensation will go on until the end of time. I say such a garment does not exist. "A rain jacket can't keep out all rain and let out all sweat," Geoff told me once. "It goes against the laws of physics." Now, I haven't taken a physics class since I was in 11th grade. But I have owned a lot of rain jackets ... gortex, polyester, nylon, PVC. The driest by far has been the PVC - sure, it doesn't breathe, so it builds up a lot of inside moisture. But it's a tropical kind of moisture, warm and humid, and just a little bit damp - it's not the kind of frigid soaking I get once my other rain jackets give up the ghost and I'm left alone in the weather.

I feel strongly about this issue so today I actually set out to blog about it. Today's subject: My Pearl Izumi Vagabond jacket. I won this jacket in the 24 Hours of Light. It's a great jacket, actually - it has zip-off sleeves, fits well, retails for about $100. And, in its defense, it is not made for extreme weather. But today did not feature extreme weather. It was rainy and windy - normal weather.

This jacket was brand new on June 28. It has never been washed (I know ... ew). Here we have a picture about five minutes into the ride. See those glistening beads of water? That means the Vagabond is doing what it's supposed to, keeping the rain out. All is well, right. Right?

But here we have the jacket about 1:45 into the ride. Where did all the shimmery droplets go? Could it be that they've bounced clean off? Or maybe the jacket developed an invisible force field to further repel the raindrops that are still falling from the sky. Or is it possible, just possible, that the rain has soaked through?

Let's check ... roll up the sleeve. Yup, my base layer is soaked, at least as far as my elbow. Could it really be an inordinate amount of forearm sweat? At 50 degrees? Or could it be that my fairly new, $100 rain jacket is (gasp) letting in the rain?

Come to think of it, I am feeling pretty soaked. Once this jacket gets pretty wet, it's no longer very wind resistant either, and I can feel the chilled breeze moving through. Luckily, I carry back-ups in my trunk bag ... Polar Fleece. It's not water resistant in the least, but at least it's still warm even when it's wet.

So, my conclusion: Most rain jackets are good for 20, maybe 30 wet rides before they start breaking down. I've tried that spray-on waterproofing before, but mostly found it to be pretty short lived and not really worth the cost. The best plan when the weather is dipping into the 40s and raining: Stay warm. Wool is warm but heavy. Polar fleece is better. But PVC is best, and I usually return to it when I've come to the painful acceptance my latest "water-resistant breatheable" rain jacket just wasn't made for real rain.

If you go out in the rain, you're going to get wet. Accept it. I have.

Double the pain

Date: Aug. 25
Mileage: 27.5
August mileage: 563.7
Temperature: 50

I climbed the Eaglecrest road today, from the Mendenhall Wetlands (sea level) to the end of the new construction (high!). Twice. Doing two-minute intervals. Into a 20 mph headwind. Through a relentless downpour. I learned many valuable new things:

* It's impossible to recover from an interval on a climb.
* So eventually the interval and recovery periods look and feel more and more alike, which is impossible not to get frustrated about.
* At 40 mph, it is possible for raindrops to cause one's lips to bleed.
* Turning around to climb again at the bottom of a long descent really takes the edge off the hypothermia.
* I know the idea of hill repeats is to climb hard, turn around, and recover on the downhill, but I just can't face those frigid descents more than twice.
* Yet another expensive "water resistant" rain jacket has had the water resistance beaten right out of it. It was a nice two months, though.
* I need to purchase a pair of swim goggles. Any recommendations?
* I think we have reached the season of neoprene.
* I had no idea I had it in me to self-inflict such levels of agony.

I actually left the house today hoping to ride that road three times, but man, I'm going to have to get out of the house a lot earlier to achieve that. As it was, the double-back nearly broke me - it was one of those rides that left my heart rate still pounding more than an hour after I stopped. I managed 14 miles and 3,200 vertical feet of solid climbing, plus 14 miles of horrible downhill, in about 2:45. I had some good speed in my early sprints, but it got to the point where the granny gear was making an appearance during recovery periods on nearly level pavement. I feel really good about this ride because I know I gave it everything I had. That I managed it in just about the worst weather imaginable makes it doubly satisfying.

Call me a masochist, but I really feel like I've achieved something when I press as hard as I can against the struggle and come out feeling stronger. It's much better than the dough-girl feeling I have after I sit at my computer all day sipping Pepsi, even when I'm doing something most would consider "productive," like working or writing. Right now I can feel this edge starting to develop, in the form of achy leg muscles, and that's a good thing. It means I really am venturing outside my comfort zone. I had planned to take an easy day Tuesday, but I had forgotten it's the day of the primary election - which means I have the opportunity to go in late to work, but also have to expect I'll be at the office well into the small hours of Wednesday morning. So Wednesday will need to be the short day - and tomorrow will be perfect for that long tempo ride. I think I'm going to pump up the tires on the touring bike and go for speed. Call me a masochist, but I'm excited.

If it ain't raining, we ain't training

Date: Aug. 24
Mileage: 50.3
August mileage: 536.2
Temperature: 52

Hunter down in Ketchikan (where it really rains) told me about this old Army saying, and I've decided to make it my motto for the upcoming fall. My goal for the next couple of weeks at least is to rapidly increase my time and effort on the bike ... mostly to see how it makes me feel and assess where my endurance is after two months of pretty lax base training. (And yes, if it makes me feel awful, I will dial it back.) Increasing time and effort to me means more miles and purposeful climbing at a tempo pace (and tempo pace to me means sustainable, but just barely.) So yesterday and today it was three and a half and three hours, respectively, of near-hurt (and sometimes outright hurt), with one beautifully restful stop each day for photos. Tomorrow I plan to do some hill repeats, Tuesday go easy, Wednesday ride another three-hour tempo, and Thursday do something long. On Friday I'll step back and see how I feel. I think it's a worthy experiment to see what kind of cycling condition I'm in - not that I have any reason to believe I'm in great shape, but I hope my muscles have good memory.

So far, these harder sessions have been less enjoyable while I'm riding, but they've left me feeling upbeat and energetic the rest of the day - more so than I have been during the work afternoon in a long time. It may just be that I still have a little California sunshine left in my blood, but even that's wearing off quickly in the latest rain deluge, which is not likely to let up anytime soon. It is, after all, nearly September. I can't expect to see the sun again in any kind of standard capacity until November (and no, sucker holes do not count).

Which makes any goals for longer, harder bicycle training sessions even more difficult. Bad enough to head out on a bike knowing you're facing three hours of self-inflicted pain. Worse yet if the slate-colored clouds have dropped to sea level and sharp daggers of rain are stinging every square inch of exposed skin. I don't even care about being wet and cold anymore, but I still have sunburns on my face, and those raindrops hurt.

More than a test of my fitness, this will be the ultimate test of my motivation. But I chanted Hunter's Army motto a couple of times this morning, and I have to admit, it did make me feel better. If it ain't raining, I ain't training ... because if it ain't raining, I'll likely be out on a leisurely hike, or otherwise doing something enjoyable to soak of every second of sun I've earned.

Eric's Lost Coast

Date: Aug. 22 and 23
Mileage: 14.7 and 46.0
August mileage: 485.9

I met Eric Parsons in April 2007, shortly after I posted an online forum message seeking a miracle-working knee doctor in Anchorage. I didn't find a doctor, but I did find a similarly injured, similarly minded cyclist living in Anchorage. We met up while I was in the city during a journalism convention. We limped around town and trails in the Chugach Mountains and commiserated. He told me he injured his right knee during the 2005 Iditarod Invitational and was still struggling to recover two years later. I told him I was unhealthily obsessed with that very race but didn't think my right knee, still locked up after two months of recovery following the Susitna 100, would ever be up to the challenge. I thought I could see a little bit of my future in his past, and it was cathartic to have a new friend who understood the psychological struggles related to long-term injuries. So after I returned to Juneau, we kept in touch.

The more I came to know Eric, the more I questioned whether he was crazy or just extremely, adventurously brave. He made regular multiday, solo mountaineering trips involving technical climbs when his knee was too sore to ride a bicycle. He attempted to paddle his tiny packraft through the fast-flowing ice of the Knik Arm, in January. He quit a cushy state engineering job and opened up a home-based bike bag business called Epic Designs. Then he got knee surgery and after that he really went nuts, with route-pioneering, bike-and-raft combo trips that pressed deep into Alaska's trailless wilderness.

Eric's latest adventure is a bicycle expedition along 300 or so miles of Alaska's Lost Coast, from Yakutat to Cordova. The route, undeveloped and remote, involves strenuous and slow coastal riding, bushwhacking, river crossings, glacier traverses, rafting through ice-clogged open water, the Gulf of Alaska's legendary storms, wind, rain, cold, etc., etc., etc. People have walked and kayaked this section of coast before, but no one has ever attempted it with a bicycle. Last Tuesday, Eric and his friend, Dylan, left Yakutat on their Surly Pugsleys loaded with Alpacka rafts, paddles, camping gear and what I assume must be a lot of butter, and set out into the wild to do something no one has ever done before - ride the Lost Coast. Last I heard from them, two days after they left, they were camped at the base of the "violent calving face of the Hubbard Glacier" and trying to figure out how to get across it. That's just the first of many, many obstacles, some of which may not even be surmountable ... but at this point in time, there's only one way to find out.

Eric is carrying a satellite phone on the trip, which he expected would take two to three weeks, and plans to call in with what he promised would be infrequent updates. I volunteered to post them on his Lost Coast Expedition blog (I know, after this and the Great Divide Race, I should start advertising my services as an adventure blogger.) I wanted to be a part of it because I think what Eric is doing is a truly pioneering experiment in just how far a mountain bike can go. Just as ultraendurance races such as the Great Divide Race and the Iditarod are starting to gain glimmers of recognition from the general public, cyclists like Eric are taking distance mountain biking to a whole new level - off the trails, off the maps, off the charts. Eric admitted this expedition has a high chance of failure - and in my opinion, that's a sure sign of the rare-in-modern-times opportunity to blaze new territory.

And as crazy as I think Eric is, I still like to believe I can see pieces of my future in his past.

Happy at home

Date: Aug. 19 and 21
Mileage: 52.4 and 44.3
August mileage: 425.2

I was working my way through one of many cattle shoots at LAX early this morning when a man behind me pointed to gray mass hovering over the airport outside the window and asked "is that smog or fog?"

"It looks like fog to me," I said. Then the woman in front of me turned around and said, "Oh no, that's smog." I just glanced out the window again at the cloud, somewhat amused that, regardless of what it actually was, I was in a place where it's hard to tell the difference.

And with that, I left California after what feels like a short lifetime but was actually just a long week of fun in the sun.


My cute family on the Matterhorn. My 26-year-old sister, Lisa (not pictured), was deeply traumatized by this ride when she was 4 years old. So the mechanized abominable snowman has made its way into family lore, and the ride is now a fam favorite.

So after my mom informed me they had purchased Disneyland tickets for the whole fam-damily, I did not admit to her that I was not excited about going ... especially on my birthday, especially when I had acquired a perfectly good if flat-prone bicycle that, despite the fact I ride all the time, I really just wanted to take out for a long day of exploring. But my mom loves Disneyland. Don't get me wrong ... I loved it too, as a kid. But my adult paradigm started to run against that grain and now I feel uncomfortable around all of the excess and crowds, who, as my dad quoted from an article, "single-handedly prove that the American economy is doing just fine when all of these people are paying so much money just to amuse themselves." Disneyland really plays up that "When You Wish Upon A Star" theme, which I think could serve as a thinly veiled slogan for the most toxic edge of the American Dream - that we should have everything we want handed to us out of thin air. That said, I'm certainly not a poster child for eschewing all over-consumption, and I can enjoy excess with the best of them.

After an ill-advised trip down Splash Mountain, my sisters get a small taste of what it's like to be a cyclist in Juneau.

Plus, Disneyland is just so nostalgic. It took me a while to get over the hump of herding myself through masses of humanity and exhausting my energy reserves by standing in long lines, but I finally hit my stride and started to really appreciate the time I could spend with my two sisters, who I never see anymore, and just enjoy the oddball way in which two 50-somethings and their three grown, childless offspring can enjoy a warm day of youthful amusement.

I don't know about the "Happiest Birthday on Earth." The crowdedest, maybe.

Thursday was a much more even day. I crawled out of bed early and rode my borrowed bike up the coastal highway to Long Beach, only to discover that the coastal highway through Long Beach is a high-traffic commercial zone that veers pretty far inland. Live and learn. We took a surfing lesson in the afternoon, where I learned how to get thoroughly battered in small waves by something that is considerably heavier than a boogie board. I was finally hitting my stride and nearly standing up on the board when the lesson ended two hours later. I'll likely never try it again - it's too hard for me to work through my irrational fear of moving water just to get out there in the first place. But, as my sister Sara said, at least we can knock "Try surfing" off our bucket list.

Oh yes, I took a picture of the picture.

I flew back into Juneau at 2 p.m. Friday. As usual, the city was obscured between a predictable but almost comforting blanket of fog. I was sleepy and mentally exhausted from 10 hours of airline transit, but I couldn't wait to suit up over my sun-blistered lips and unusually tan face and head out for a ride in the rain. I couldn't decide where to go. Muddy Perseverance? Sloppy Eaglecrest? Soggy trip to the glacier? They all sounded so appealing, and I feel like I haven't been here in weeks. I'm sure that feeling will wear off soon, but for now I will head out an enjoy it. In the same way I warmed up to Disneyland, these first few post-vacation rides in Juneau may prove my theory - that novelty and nostalgia are the perfect combination.

29

Today's my birthday.

I'm going to Disneyland.

It's true. Hope I live.