Alaskan Pack Fodder

I spent Christmas in the middle of nowhere. About  350 miles southwest of Fairbanks, smack dab in the middle of a whole lot of nothing. It was -24F outside, and I was recovering from a bout of food poisoning (or something like that). I was separated from my family for a second consecutive Christmas. It's pretty much the darkest time of the year.    It would be easy to get depressed in such a situation, so it's fortunate that I'm emotionally stunted. Basically my range consists solely of anger and apathy, and given that I chose to be here (got to pay for bike parts somehow), my go-to (anger) just doesn't seem appropriate in this case. I chose this. I make a choice every time I drag myself out of bed early in the morning to get on the trainer. My justifications for the decision may be weak, but it's my choice .     A couple of my friends were riding in Laos with Rebecca Rusch, and I was reminded that choice is too often a luxury. In this case, unexploded ordinance

When I really started getting in to the world of the roadie, I was on forums a lot. Before that, it was skiing forums. Before that, off-roading forums. It was a way of connecting with others infatuated with whatever fringe activity I was involved in at the time. I learned a lot, and some turned out to be useful. Most wasn't, but that was part of the environment.    I still check in with a couple of them occasionally. One mostly for the classifieds, because the regulars there share my tastes in bikes and good deals frequently pop up. The conversations rarely arouse much interest, centering mostly around which Rolex best matches their Audi or some such nonsense. I rarely jump in.    The other has been withering on the vine for years now, propped up by ads that are sold with the promise of high traffic, which is 90% bots. A few of us are around from the glory days, but now there are too many sub-forums with ancient posts that nobody reads. Even the doping forum, once a bastion of

I wrote this a month ago and never posted it. I have no idea why. _________________________________________________________________ I'm clawing the skin off my legs.    About this time every year, my skin starts drying out. I start slathering on weapons-grade lotions to keep the itching to a minimum, but there's always a couple weeks that certain patches of skin get the best of me. I end up scratching until I bleed, which tends to ruin the aesthetic appeal of my smooth roadie legs. I've had road rash that looked better.    The dry air off the Chukchi Sea is really doing a number on me.  Taking two or more showers a day under the hyper-treated water at the radar sites doesn't help much. Since I usually split my workouts into morning and night sessions, I take a shower after each- the alternative would be festering in my sweat salt all night, which would probably be about equally as bad for my skin.    It will pass. My skin always adapts after a while, and the c

About a month has passed since I was hitting training numbers I hadn't seen in years. I knew it couldn't last, so I stopped.    When I got home, I didn't get on my bike. Yeah, the rain and 40F temperatures could have had something to do with it. The purchase of an expensive RV and the modifications it required might have had something to do with it as well. Spending time with my family and dog probably accounted for some of that, too.    But yeah, I slammed on the brakes pretty hard.     Other than a couple Sunday rides at the Dome, I didn't touch my bikes for two weeks.    When I left for my current trip, it took me a week to get back in the swing of things. My legs no longer responded as they had, and they still aren't all the way back- which is perfectly fine. It's the middle of the winter and I'm on the northwest tip of Alaska.There's nothing here to "peak" for. My only goal is to not gain too much more weight and try to sustain som

I've been putting in the hours on the trainer.     The last time my Training Peaks squiggly lines trended this high was when I was doing 300+ mile weeks in Mississippi a few years back. By the end of that trip my legs were twin tubes packed with ache and I was getting on the bike somewhat out of obligation.  I'm not in the same shape this time around, thanks to a steady diet of mass quantities of food. I'm round, although multiple co-workers have stated I look thin and ten years younger than I actually am. This perception is based more on the physiques they see day-in and day-out than actual reality. It enables my more counterproductive tendencies.    What is the same is the aching legs. If I was still sitting at a desk most of the day and dying a slow death like a normal person, it wouldn't be much of an issue. However, my current position involves a lot of stairs and other stuff cyclists go out of their way to avoid. Nothing like following up sprint intervals wi

For the last three years, my "peak" (such as it is), occurred during the off-season.    That's pretty messed up.    Thanks to injury, ill-conceived projects, retirement, a new career, and any number of other factors, I managed to reach my best fitness (again, relative) when I don't have a good use for it. Instead, all of the days I'm out on the pavement I'm just flailing away, pedaling squares and suffering. Doesn't make a whole lot of sense, does it?    So now I'm at a radar site out on the coast, about an hour's flight south of Bethel. And I'm cruising along on the trainer these days. In one way I'm happy I can still cran out those kinds of efforts, but in another I'm frustrated I never seem to be able to line them up with anything that really matters.    I daydream sometimes about a return to "glory". Dropping the weight, actually planning out my training with a goal, and mixing it up again with the gang in a crit.

For those that understand the title's reference: Fuck dude, you're old.    Lately I've come to the realization that I need to change shoe brands. For over 15 years, I've been a Specialized shoe guy. Size 45 wide, mostly at the Pro Road level. They fit, were stiff enough to hold up under all 20 of my watts, and weren't S-Works expensive. There were a couple versions along the line that didn't work out so well, but the Pro Road was my go-to. I'd buy them any time a decent pair popped up on my size on eBay. The last few years it's been kinda quiet on that front, so while my existing pairs slowly rotted off my flippers, there weren't any new ones in the pipeline to take their place. Well... maybe 2 or three pairs, but how am I supposed to operate at peak performance without a sufficient number of spare shoess? What is this, North Korea?    I tried other, newer Specialized models, and was completely underwhelmed. They pinched my foot here, rubbed th

Instead of buying quantity, I'm trying to buy quality these days. OK, I'm trying to buy quantities of quality, but the focus is on not ending up with so much junk and instead having butt-tons of good stuff.    It took me about year to source the hubs. Chris Kings in Mango. It started with the 24 hole front hub, which was a screaming deal I couldn't pass up. I figured I'd pick up a 28 hole rear and have them strung to moderate-grade carbon rims for a flashy race-day set. Problem was, that rear hub was hard to find for a price my cheap-ass wouldn't whine about.    The hub sat in a box on a shelf for a while, until one day I came across a rear hub for a great price. It was 32 hole, which may seem like a bit of a mis-match, but my fat ass tends to be harder on rear wheels than my skinny arms are on front wheels. So, I had my hubs.    Since a 32 spoke rim is a little stiff when paired with a deep carbon rim and carbon rims bring the suck when it comes to braking, I

Garmin hates me. I must have battered wife syndrome, because no matter how much they abuse me, I keep coming back.    My first Garmin was an Edge 305. Crappy design that relied on the case to hold the battery to the contacts. A little vibration and pretty soon it would start shutting off mid-ride. As more time passed, the failures would happen more often. The fix was to solder wires to the contacts, which I did, and the unit was trouble-free for six months. Then it died. Hard.    I replaced it with an Edge 500. Pretty darn solid unit. I'm not a navigation-happy guy, so I only needed elapsed time, speed, distance, power, and heart rate, all of which the Edge 500 provided. The only issue with them I ever had was sensors (like power meters) were paired to a specific bike configuration and you could only pair one heart rate monitor. I had more than a few bikes with power meters and more than a couple heart rate monitors, so I ended up getting multiple units. I think I had four of t

I was fully committed.   Pouring sweat. Mashing the pedals. Snarling. Drooling. Wild-eyed. Flailing. Yanking on the bars to wring every last watt out of the effort...    Crack.    A sharp noise. Sharp enough to get my attention and temper the rabid nature of my Zwift sprint.     I still got the coveted virtual sprint jersey that would be mine, all mine for an hour or until somebody came along and took it away. Not that the jersey really matters to me. What matters is the carrot in front of me that causes me to push harder than I would otherwise. Push the old intensity up a few notches and get more out of the time I spend on the trainer.    I knew what the noise was and where it came from. It was the sound of my bespoke Chinese "carbon" bullhorn handlebar, which was lovingly crafted by poor children from only the best dishrags and superglue, giving its two-week notice. You'd think with a respectable name like "Future", it would have had more st

I was composing an overly-long post on how I was trying to be good and not buy more bikes I don't need or, when you get right down to it, really want. I have a compulsion to acquire things for the activities I'm passionate about, even if they don't add anything meaningful to the experience. I did it with music equipment in my teens and twenties, Jeep stuff in my twenties and thirties, and now bike stuff in my thirties and forties. You'd think I would have figured it out by now, but ever since I've had the means to do so, I've been the type compelled to acquire.    The other day it was an Eriksen frameset. Kent Eriksen founded Moots, and he makes very, very nice bikes.  North American Handmade Bicycle Show a ward-winning bikes. Gorgeous stuff. This particular frameset had everything I desire, with a tapered ENVE fork, English threaded bottom bracket, exterior cable routing, stiff rear triangle, thinner seatpost, clearance for 28s... Yeah, I was right there with

I knew it was going to happen.    It's happened many times before, and it will happen again.    I dramatically increase volume and/or intensity in a relatively short period of time, I get away with it for a little while, and then my legs fall off.    In this case, I timed it just about right, missing it by about a day. A day before my rest day and I could barely turn over the pedals.  The knee I whacked into a curb at the Tour of Fairbanks a few years back started saying, "Dude. Dude. Dude..." with every revolution.  I ground out the 90 minutes I had planned, but it wasn't pleasant. Walking up and down stairs was agony. The persistent ache even crept up my legs when I was stretched out on the bed.    I overdid it again.    Maybe I'll recover enough on my rest day to pick things up again. I'l start slow and try to regain/retain some of my momentum, instead of falling into a pit of sloth and Oreos.    I'm almost back to my pre-season fitness. Sou

Stick with me here.    When I feel more like a cyclist, I'm more inclined to write about it. Whoa. Deep.    Right now I'm too fat and weak to be "fast" (by my standards), but I'm making progress. I'm putting in the work. I haven't weighed myself, imply because I'm not at the point I really want to deal with that right now. Maybe after the new year. At the moment, I'm just focusing on making the squiggly lines on Training Peaks trend upwards. Marginal gains and all that.    Still, it's nice.    I expect I'll burn out sooner or later. I'll push it too hard for too many hours and my body will just fail with a whimper. No blaze of glory, just fizzle out like a soggy sparkler on the 4th of July. Without any sort of structure to my flailings, it's almost inevitable.    It will be fun while it lasts, though.    If I can postpone the burnout for a few weeks, I'll be able to get in some good road miles in. While the kids an

A few years back I was at Disneyland with the family. Of course I brought my bike, thinking I would get some miles in along the ditch (Santa Ana river) after log days walking around and standing in line.   Of course, I did my homework and found group rides and races happening in the area. I jumped at my chances when the family wanted to hang back at the house around the pool or were just worn out from standing in line.   One of the chances almost didn't happen. I saw a race was happening a mere 30 minute "sporty" bike ride away, but until the family threw in the towel early that afternoon, I didn't think I could make it. Then it was just a matter of quickly buying a one-day license, signing up online, and hauling ass through Southern California traffic to get there. No problem.   Surprisingly enough, I made it on time to catch my breath, pin on a bib, and line up. I bled my eyes out that race, barely holding on and sprinting for fifth after some local young hammerhea

For the most part, the internet bandwidth for personal use at the radar sites sucks. It's worse when you have many, many people dipping into the same small bucket of data. So, I gave up on using Zwift and reverted back to using old Northern Classics videos. It worked for me on my best years, so I figured I'd stick with that.    However, what I've found is that without a good training plan and some definitive goals, all I do is ride steady. I'm not training for anything other than trying to stay somewhat in shape. I have no goals. I'm overweight, and getting a coach again would be a waste of money. I can't plan for any goals, because my schedule is variable at the moment. Plus, the season is over. That boat has sailed without me. All I have left is the fat.    This time around I lucked into a site without many people using the internet. I jumped back on Zwift, just to see if it would work. It did, and I've been chasing virtual rabbits and trying for virtu

I like my LeMond Revolution trainers. The "road feel" is second to none, and I've never really cared about the jet engine noise level it produces. That said, not everyone at the radar sites could ignore it as easily as I can. When I'm getting on the bike around 3:45 AM, this becomes an issue. I needed to do something, but most quieter trainers either are too heavy or too bulky for air travel when in a case. The ones that aren't usually give the impression of riding through mud.    Wahoo came out with their Kickr Core , and I tried to research it to see if it would work for me. After less-than stellar answers to my very specific questions, I just went ahead and ordered one from Fall Line Fitness because they're local, they support local racing,  and everyone sells Wahoo products at cost anyway. Justin was cool in letting me weigh each piece and see how it fit in the case before I laid down the cash.    The good news? It fit in the Pelican case my LeMond tr

It's been a few years since I participated in the Tour of Anchorage, much less competed in it. Injury, lack of form, and other reasons kept me away. I knew as soon as I heard about the stages that I wouldn't be participating this year, either- even if I was in town at the time. Even at what I would consider peak form, it wasn't my cup of tea. Given my current sad state of fitness, the climbing-heavy TOA was just wasn't something I am capable of.     As it turned out, I was home during this year's event. I chose to go camping with the family and ride the hills around Homer instead, missing the first three stages. After driving 5 hours, I made it home in time to shower, change, and load up my bike for the crit. As the only flat stage, it sounded like fun. After hanging with the pack during my last foray, I figured I would follow some wheels, jump for a prime or two, and get in the race intensity I've been missing the last year. That was the plan.     I got the

I jumped in a crit tonight. I wasn't dropped. Despite what the results may say, I call that a win.   I hung in there, mixed it up when the urge struck me, and most importantly, finished with the front group. That's all I wanted to do.    I have to be honest with myself. I've been gaining weight and bleeding fitness while the competition has been putting in the miles and putting down the fork. I'm not the rider I was last year, and he's not the rider I was the year before... I can track about a five year decline in Training Peaks (if I had the energy or motivation to do so), and this last year has probably been the most signficant dip. At a certain point, you can't fake it anymore with douchy wheelsucking and a mind for kindergarten-level race tactics. You have to have something in the legs and the will to mix it up with the pack between the ears. The last crit I entered, I had neither. This one? I dunno. Maybe it was the luck of the draw or the mostly fl

In less than a month I lost 10 pounds. That would be great, except it wasn't planned and not exactly healthy. I basically stopped eating and sleeping from a combination of heat and stress. When I actually try to lose weight through diet and exercise, I can sustain a loss of about a pound a week over several months. This was something different.    When I got home, I slept for most of two days. I started eating again. I gained back some of the weight. Oh well, can't win them all.    Still, I'm trying to make the most out of this. I still am way too fat, only slightly less so. I'm trying to get out and ride as much as I can stand, without trying to train for anything in particular. I may line up for another crit or two while I'm home to get my teeth kicked in properly. I need it. I deserve it.    It's a work in progress, one without any clear idea of what it's supposed to look like when I'm done with it. Maybe I'll get in some sort of race shape

I've been trying to make myself hurt.    I used to be quite good at it. Not the falling down kind of hurt. That came later. The kind of hurt where you bury yourself in an effort, ignoring all of the signals to back off or stop. I used to know how to ignore them. These days? They dictate my riding. I'm a slug.    So, I have to work my way back into it.    For the past month I've been at a radar site near McGrath, Alaska. Friends of mine that ride fat bikes know it as a waypoint along the ITI course. That's in the winter. Right now it's not at all like that. For one thing, there are four major wildfires in the area. Lots of smoke. Today visibility was less than 1/4 mile. Great for the lungs, even indoors. Then there's the temperature which has been around 90F for over a week. If everything wasn't already burning to the ground around me, the oppressive heat would just torch it. And me.    I grew up where temperatures were like this

Bear with me.    I jumped into a crit a week or so ago and was shelled on the first prime lap, then lapped a couple times by the lead group. I knew the prime was coming, and jumped with the hope of doing something. When I hit the wind, I knew I had made a terrible mistake. I sat up and let them blow by. I probably could have held on and stuck with them until the race split, then hung onto the second group, hiding in the draft and being a douche. Instead, I sat up and waited until I could latch on and catch a free ride. for a while. When the last lap came, I sat up and let them go again. No need to mess with their race. I was Dead. Fucking. Last. I knew it was going to happen. I'm 25 pounds heavier and my FTP is 25 watts lower. Race shape? Not even close. These guys have been putting in the miles and taking care of themselves, and I have been skipping workouts/rides in favor of the fork.    Faced with that hard reality, I really buckled down and skipped riding the next couple

Yesterday I sold a bike. I built up the Russian titanium frame and sold it at the bike swap. To be honest, given the amount of new parts on it, a little math would probably reveal I practically gave it away. That's why I don't keep records of what I spend on most projects. I just don't want to know. Hopefully the new owner will ride the hell out of it and enjoy it.     That's really what's it's all about, and that's a lesson I never seem to learn. I just want more.    I've been looking at Moots frames all over the place. Specifically Moots Compact and Compact SLs. I don't need another one. I now have two, in addition to the Vamoots RSL.     The first Compact is the only bike I've actually melted into. I've come close before, but somehow through dumb luck I've managed to hit on a combination that just works for me in a way that no other has before. It just feels "right", and I'm smitten. Other than the odd component in

It's been a while. A lot has happened. Not much has happened.    I retired from the Air Force. I pretty much immediately started working for a defense contractor on remote radar sites. How remote? Well, when this picture was taken at Point Barrow, I was the most northern roadie in the United States. Maybe North America. I bought a beat up Ritchey BreakAway CX, had it powder-coated, and built it up in a minimalistic way for trainer-only use to save weight. It's worked well, so maybe I can stay in some sort of shape in my new life. Race shape? That remains to be seen, but at least I'm moving. If the physical and emotional trauma that is the travel trailer project currently dominating my driveway has taught me anything, it's to never stop moving.    I'm very, very heavy. I may not look it, especially compared to my current co-workers, but I am. The fat sits around my waist like an inner tube, and I'm not sure I've completely accepted what the scale tells