Alaskan Pack Fodder

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...

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 b...

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 ...