Alaskan Pack Fodder

It's been over two months since I hung up the Storck in frustration . It's still hanging there.   Last week I finally started moving towards resolving the situation. Instead of getting replacements for the fragile plastic and rubber cable grommets that came with the frame and were quickly destroyed as I struggled to route the internal cables, I ordered cable stops sets from '08 and '10 Trek Madones. During my cable fight, I realized that the stock ones were going to be destroyed eventually no matter how careful I was. It just wasn't a maintainable and sustainable design, and eventually parts were not going to be available.   I'm not sure this is going to work. It will likely take a little more grinding with the Dremel and drilling to get the parts to fit, but it shouldn't be rocket science. Famous last words.   At this point, I need to do something. The half-built bike is not doing me any good hanging on the ceiling, and I'd like to ride it sometim...

OK, here's the fun part.   You're clinging to the wheel in front of you. Doing everything to stay in contact, because you know in the deepest parts of your soul that if a gap opens, you will never close it, and you will be adrift. That few inches of space is your whole purpose in life.   People wait their whole lives to see the scenery on either side of you, but you're too busy focusing on meaningless points up the road. You're hoping that by acknowledging them that they will somehow help you climb this hill. They don't, because they're inanimate objects like signposts and rocks. Selfish bastards.   You match cadence with the guy in front of you, promising yourself that every time their right foot comes down, your right foot will come down. That you won't stand unless they stand. That you will be every bit as strong as they are, even if you aren't.   The steady ache in your thighs keeps building. You know all you have to do to make it stop is t...

I finished up a long, solid ride with lots of climbing. The legs felt empty when I got home. Empty of all of the shame, regret, sloth, and pork fat that shape my world.   My legs felt clean.   It's one of the things I love about cycling. When you put everything you have into a ride, what's left is stripped of all of the extraneous junk that sometimes accompanies the sport.   I pulled up to the garage and noticed the wife and kids weren't home, so I pulled out the race bikes and began to scrub. The layers of dust, sweat, and unidentifiable substances slowly stripped away, until they seemed almost as clean as my legs felt. The process left me with a feeling that I had accomplished something. That somehow I was ahead of the curve instead of constantly playing catch-up. It's a rare feeling for me, and I savored every moment.   Clean.   T he post-ride shower removed the last vestiges of the previous four hours, and a few swipes with the razor...

It's been over a week since I got back from Fairbanks.   The fire that closed the Parks Highway and burned through the community of Willow is more or less under control, and while it's still burning there are other hot spots around the state that are keeping firefighters busy. My thoughts are with friends up there working to protect lives and property.   Hot (for Anchorage) temperatures have made training rides interesting for the last week, and I was glad Janice allowed me to back off and recover. It's started to cool off as the clouds roll in, so hopefully some solid rain will help with the firefighting efforts. It would be a nice change.   My TT bike and race bike are still sitting untouched in the garage, still coated in Denali Highway dust. I just haven't had the time or energy to clean them, so I will likely contract Ebola when I get around to it. Maybe tomorrow.   After a few days of limping around, my calf finally feels normal. A doctor I ta...

Before I go on, let me again state that this is not an attack on the organizers of the event. The amount of energy it takes to pull this off is staggering. The personalities, agencies, and red tape you have to deal with can be soul-sucking. The behind the scenes politics that the rest of us never see wear you down. The upside is the pride you feel in what you helped create. You deserve that feeling, because you worked hard for it. You created an outlet for others to live out their Walter Mitty fantasies in a healthy way. In today's world, that's a very good thing. You should be rewarded for your labor instead of having some fat internet blogger tell you the child you raised from an embryonic stage is ugly.   Your baby looks like Honey Boo Boo .   Just like with Honey Boo Boo, some people like that sort of thing. I don't, so I'll explain why.   First and foremost, combining fields of widely differing capabilities is the gold-standard...

There was a bit of an intentional gap between Part II and Part IV, because I wanted to make sure the message had the proper tone and wasn't a reflection of my personal pain and humiliation (like all of the other posts have been to this date). Hopefully this conveys where I stand on the parts of the Tour of Fairbanks that I didn't find so wonderful.  While certain parts of this year's Tour of Fairbanks were right on target, I think the last two stages were far off the mark. I will admit up-front that my perception is likely affected by the fact I was riding hurt, but the way the packs were spread out across the landscape by the end. The strongest racers won, which is always the goal, but the remainder of the shattered pack limped in at increasingly large intervals. When you're a racer, new or experienced, this is never a motivating place to be. Course selection is a big part of the balance in creating a selective-yet-inclusive race that encourages racers of all abi...

 So, it's been a couple days since I got home. The back and legs are starting to heal. The sharp sense of personal outrage has dulled a bit. Perspective has started to set in. My overall impression: I had fun with certain elements of this edition, but was not pleased with others. That's not to say that it was all bad. There was a lot of good things happening during this stage race. The biggest positive was the size of the women's field compared to previous years. It was awesome to see the women rival the size of the Men's field, and there were more than a few of them mixing it up day after day. This is a trend the vast majority of male racers would like to see continue. When there's more women racers, the differences between the really strong and less advanced don't seem so huge, because there's always somebody to race against near your level. It makes the whole experience better for everyone. Plus, women naturally look better in lycra than a bunc...