Conflicted

Date: Jan. 24 and 25
Mileage: 11 and 42.2
January mileage: 686.7
Temperature upon departure: 16 and 15

Frost had started to form on my sweat-soaked hair as I heaved my bike over a four-foot cliff and stepped gingerly onto ice-coated roots to climb up beside it. I gasped and grunted and pushed the bike's rear wheel forward while I clawed at petrified snow with my bare fingers. I stopped to catch my breath and look up at the trail - a continuing series of steep "steps" just like it. As a hike, the lower portion of the Mount Jumbo trail is a relaxing jaunt through the woods to gain 500 feet in a half mile. Throw in a big, awkward bike, and it becomes quite the grind.

But I knew it was all worth it because at the top of that small climb lay the Mount Jumbo muskeg - a fairly large area of stunted trees and open space that was, for now, covered in the most ideal kind of concrete snow. The kind of snow that's so smooth and icy hard that you don't even need a packed trail to ride your bike. You can go wherever your heart takes you. You can weave through trees, circle up a hill and back down, lock up your brakes and spin donuts. You can do anything you want. The world is your trail.

As I crested the last pitch, I set my bike down at the edge of the muskeg and wavered a second. I took a deep breath. I thought of Ken Kifer. Ken Kifer was a prolific Internet author and career bicycle tourist who was tragically killed by a drunk driver in September 2003. Back in 2002, when I was barely a skilled enough cyclist to keep two tires on the road but aspired to become a long-distance bicycle tourist, I considered Ken Kifer my mentor. I read his extensive site from start to end and e-mailed him for advice, which he was always kind enough to give. One anecdote that particularly resonated with me was an exchange — of which I'm sure he had dozens like it — with a person who questioned how a 50-something-year-old man could afford to devote so much time to traveling by bicycle.

"I've never had much money," Ken replied, "so I've never had much need for it."

The doubter scoffed. "Well, I wish I could ride my bicycle all the time."

To which Ken replied, "Why don't you?"

Ken's words struck deep as I moved to make major changes in my life in 2003 - quit my job, explore Alaska, ride my $300 Ibex bicycle across the country. I wanted to live my life like Ken. I wanted to earn miles, not dollars. I wanted to to accumulate experiences, not stuff. Not because miles and experiences are necessarily superior to dollars and stuff, or even mutually exclusive. But I was enamored with miles and experiences. I did not care about dollars and stuff.

This simple truth creeps back in as Geoff and I discuss our future. We have, for a while now, been formulating our exit strategy to leave Juneau. We wanted to move back to Southcentral Alaska, a more centralized, less-isolated region from which to conduct future adventures. There are, of course, many pros and cons to shifting from Juneau to Anchorage. But it was easy to think about back in September, when the rain never stopped coming and the promise of endless opportunity loomed large around the big city. Then the economy landed in the toilet, the newspaper industry settled even lower, and Geoff and I started to talk about not only leaving Juneau, but going away, for six months or so .... Out ... to briefly let go of our grip on dollars and stuff in the pursuit of miles and experiences.

The more we talked about it, the easier and more appealing it sounded. The terrible economy actually pushed our drive. "I've never had much money," I pictured myself saying to concerned family members, "so I guess I don't have much need for it." I gave notice to my employer some months ago. I thought a long resignation notice would give them the time they needed to make the transition as smooth as possible, and possibly give me a bridge back if I needed it, once my dollars and stuff dry out. Instead, the long notice has given them ample time to try to prevent the exit altogether. My new boss, a driven reformer whose workaholism I respect because I believe work is what he truly loves, told me, "I'll give you an offer you can't refuse." I was offered a raise, which I refused. I was offered a better raise, which I refused. Then my boss came back recently with a promotion - a big one - and a raise - a startling one. I would have to work 60 hours a week under my current salary to earn it. "I'll even give you a month of unpaid leave for your race," he said.

The promotion would be salary pay instead of hourly pay. I strongly suspect my 40-hour workweek would eventually increase, possibly significantly. I would be working days, which wouldn't just put a dent in my current cycling adventure habits. It would put them in a shredder. Except for the brightest months of summer, I would either have to ride a lot in the dark, a lot indoors, or quite a bit less than a lot. Much in my life would change, but many parts, maybe not the best parts, would stay the same.

And yet, I have temptations. I have doubts.

In many ways, I feel like I have been pushing my bike up the Mount Jumbo Trail for several years now. Sweat is frozen to my hair and I'm gasping for air, but through the last row of thick forest I can see that frozen muskeg, smooth and inviting and glistening in the noon sun. Only now I face a choice. I can set out onto the frozen muskeg, ride wherever I want to ride, go wherever I want to go, on seemingly endless but actually finite trails of my own making. Or, I can continue on the same steep forest trail, pushing my bike further up the mountain, with the hope that there is something even better up higher.

I'm fearful because I don't know where I should go.

I'm even more fearful because I think maybe I do.

Happy to be home

Date: Jan. 22 and 23
Mileage: 16 and 100.4
January mileage: 633.5
Temperature upon departure: 11 and 15

We were 30,000 feet over Yakutat after another brutally long, overnight flight from Kona to Honolulu to Anchorage en route to Juneau when the clouds started to clear. I gazed with chest-tightening awe over the ice field below, shimmering pink in the morning sun as glaciers flowed like suspended-motion whitewater rivers around the coastal mountains. My forehead was pressed against the window when a flight attendant came on the intercom and said, "If you're reading a book or looking at a computer, you better put it down and look out the window right now, because it doesn't get any more beautiful than this." I realized that she was right. Hawaii is beautiful; often stunningly beautiful. But it's true when they say there's no place like home.

My total sleep on that endurance flight amounted to about an hour and a half, tops, and I was already seeing double when we arrived in Juneau at 9:30 a.m. We stepped out of the airport for our first taste of outside air since Kona - 10 degrees and sustained 25 mph wind driving the windchill below zero. It felt 80, maybe 90 degrees cooler than the warm breeze over the Pacific the night before. We were still in our Hawaii clothes. "Ga! It got cold again!" I yelped, and ducked quickly into my roommate's car.

But beyond the chill, the day was absolutely beautiful, and I knew that sleep deprivation is one of the skills I have to hone for the ITI. So after we arrived home and unpacked just a bit, I headed out for a bike ride.

My roommate told me the week before, a "Pineapple Express" direct from Hawaii had blasted Alaska with unbelievably warm temperatures. He said the temperature rose to 55 degrees in Juneau, about the same temperature it was in Honolulu the night Geoff ran the HURT 100. The warm temps brought rain on top of the old snow, which had refrozen to concrete-like consistency. You can hardly ask for better snow-biking conditions.

I quickly adjusted to the huge temperature drop and headed up the Dan Moller trail. The trail is steep enough that I can only ride up the majority of it in the most supreme conditions. Thursday had those conditions. I sweated and gasped my way up five miles of crust, stopped at the Ski Bowl and turned around, almost shaking with nervousness about the idea of dropping 2,000 feet in five miles on a trail that's roughly as hard as a sidewalk. But as soon as I let off the brakes, I was caught up in the rush of pure, well-earned speed. I caught several blips of accidental-but-sweet air off the snowmobile moguls and careened through pockets of sunlight as spruce trees whirred past. It was so, so fun. Worth any amount of sleep deprivation.

Today I set out for a long ride. Last week, while Geoff and I were waiting for our rental car in Kona, we ran into Jeff Oatley, a cyclist and ITI veteran who lives in Fairbanks. It was yet another completely random and unlikely encounter of which we had several during our stay in Hawaii. We talked for a bit about the race. Jeff asked me how many "hundred milers" I was doing in prep for this year's ITI. "You know," I told him, "I don't think I've done any hundred-mile rides yet."

Today I set out in below-zero windchills, on my Karate Monkey because ice conditions are so treacherous right now. But I felt great, completely fresh - probably because I'm coming off a week of serious tapering - and decided that maybe today would be the day to go for 100 miles.

It was not easy. Five miles from the end of the road, all road maintenance ended, and the leftover snowcover was deeply rutted and frozen solid. I found a snowmobile trail off to the side and used that, but even that was so hard and rutted that my arms started to hurt from lack of front suspension, and I nearly bucked myself off my bike twice before I finally made it back to the relative safety of ice-covered pavement. I drifted through various levels of sleepiness but mustered up the courage to cut away from the direct route home and ride the spur I needed to complete to net 100 miles. I actually started to feel good again as I returned, only to run over a tack with my front wheel and discover that I stupidly had not put my tire levers back in my pack after the Hawaii trip. My options were to try to remove a tight studded tire on a metal rim with my bare fingers in below-zero windchill ... or walk three miles home. I chose the walk. It actually felt good at first ... warmed my feet right up ... but quickly became a tedious march that seemed to never end. I returned home just over nine hours after I left ... still not a bad time for a winter century. What's more important to me than the mileage is simply spending that long out in the subfreezing weather, eating frozen Clif Bars and drinking instant-brain-freeze slushy water. And pushing my bike for a fair distance. That's the experience that counts.

Painless view of HURT 100

Date: Jan. 17
Mileage: 77.6
January mileage: 507.1
Temperature upon departure: 75

Geoff told me that, even though I attended the race meeting with him Friday night, it wasn't very likely that I'd find the race start on my own Saturday morning. "I'll be fine," I answered. He left at 5 a.m. with the car for the start of the HURT 100, a 100-mile ultramarathon that climbs 25,000 vertical feet over the five loops of a rooty, muddy, narrow 20-mile course. It was Geoff's "training race" for the Iditarod Trail Invitational. I don't claim to be nearly that ambitious about my training, so I set out to spectate the race and do some urban road biking.

I left the hotel room at 8:21 a.m., hoping to cheer Geoff on at the end of his first loop. Unfortunately, he hotel had stranded us on the 43rd floor, one floor down from the top. The first elevator arrived vacuum-packed with people. The second came 10 minutes later under similar conditions. The third had a little more room, but not enough for me and my bike. By 8:43 a.m., I began contemplating the walk down 43 flights of stairs with a bike on my shoulder. At 8:48 a.m., I decided I would have to change out of my bike shoes into some more walkable tennis shoes. At 8:49 a.m., I had my back turned to the elevator, prepared to spend all day riding clunky clipless pedals with tennis shoes after hoofing down 43 flights of stairs just to avoid the endless wait. That's the minute that an elevator with enough room for me arrived.

I rolled out onto the streets of Waikiki and, as predicted, became instantly flustered. Traffic around Honolulu is intense and I don't think I've ever encountered a less bike-friendly city. It's strange - Weather in Honolulu is 80 degrees and mostly sunny year round. You'd think that kind of environment would nourish a strong cycling community, but I encountered few bike paths and even fewer cyclists out and about in an entire day of riding. I wove through rush-hour traffic and made my way toward the hills, but somehow ended up at a race checkpoint. They pointed me in the right direction of the race start, about six miles away. I arrived at 9:45 a.m. just in time to miss Geoff's first loop through.

I spent some time talking to Pam and Anne, two ultra-runners from Anchorage who came to Hawaii to support their fellow Alaskan runners and enjoy the sun. Anne competed last year in the Iditarod Trail Invitational, dropping out just south of the Nikolai checkpoint after she sustained frostbite on her eyes and face. So we had a lot to talk about - perspectives from last year's race, this year's training. Anne's training schedule baffles me. It must amount to 40 hours per week. She was leading the foot race before she was injured last year, and with her mental tenacity, may just give Geoff a run for his money this year. :-)

Geoff was running a strong, consistent race, and it was easy to gauge when he would be coming into checkpoints. After missing him the first time around, I met him most every time at the race start and the seven-mile checkpoint. I took advantage of the two and three-hour gaps between to ride the hills on the outskirts of Honolulu. It was focused riding with hard climbing in mind, and I ended the day with 77 miles and 7,300 vertical feet of climbing, according to my GPS. Still, because I spread the riding out over most of the day, and spent so much time chatting with ultrarunners and cheering on Geoff, it really felt like I didn't ride at all.

Not counting our brief leapfrogging in the 2007 Susitna 100, this is the first time I ever watched Geoff race a 100-miler. It was amazing, really. He seemed to just coast through it. He was driven and focused, definitely, but I was not seeing the hurt I had expected to see. In an effort to try to help him as much as I could, I cut through sketchy neighborhoods and rode in the dark just to see him through most of the checkpoints. But he had little use for my or anyone else's help. He drinks checkpoint water and eats checkpoint food, but he is otherwise very self-supported in his racing strategy. This style often catches race officials and other runners off guard. For me, the fun wasn't in helping Geoff but in meeting other faces in the ultrarunning world. I tend to get caught up in an ultracycling bubble, and forget that there's a whole other world of amazing people who are even crazier.

Geoff won the race in a course-record-settling 20 hours, 28 minutes. Anne, Pam and I were all there for the 2:28 a.m. finish, cheering into the night as Anne waved her "Go Alaska Runners" sign. Three Alaska runners started the race. Blisters forced Dave Johnston to exit the course at mile 40. Evan "yes, ladies, he's single" Hone of Eagle River, on the right, finished 10th in 28 hours. The Hawaiian race officials were genuinely impressed by the strong showing by runners from the land of ice and cold. Geoff didn't let them in on his secret - that he trains not on the tundra but in Juneau, Alaska, probably one of the few regions of America where summer trails are more tree-shrouded, muddier and root-choked than Hawaii.

I learned a few things about biking while I was in Hawaii:

1. I have somehow become a really strong climber. Finally on a bike that weighed less than 25 pounds with tires that had less rolling resistance than a flat-bottomed boat, I found I could shoot up 10, 12, even 14-percent grades like they were nothing.
2. I am a terrible road biker. On the skinny tires and low handlebars, I felt so jittery and cautious inching around switchbacks that it often took my nearly as long to descend a road as it did to climb it.
3. I have been told Honolulu traffic is worse than many metro areas, but I don't understand the appeal in urban road biking. Don't understand it at all. All that stop and go, constantly fighting back the stress and strain while streams of hot steel roar past. I'd take grizzly bears and ice over that any day.
4. I was blocked out of the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific because I was on a bicycle. I was told there was no "running, jogging or bicycling" allowed in the area. When I explained to the security guard that I was simply a tourist on a bike, and expressed my viewpoint that I was no different than the lines of cars streaming in, he looked at me like I was an alien from Alaska.
5. Now that I've seen the Big Island, I can't wait to go back there on a bike tour. Look at that road up Mauna Loa. Doesn't that look amazingly fun?