Alaskan Pack Fodder

Day three dawned on the Tour of Anchorage with fresh chances to fall further down the GC rankings. A time trial and road race out at Point MacKenzie, which is a couple miles from Anchorage or about a 90 minute drive. There's a stretch of pavement only used by the prison, fishermen, and people that house their children in Conex containers. It's about the best venue for road racing out here, despite the drive.   Today's first failure took the form of a warped freehub body on my time trial bike's disc wheel. The lower gears of the cassette had a mesmerizing elliptical pattern that prevented proper shifting. A quick swap of wheels to my fat Chinese carbon twin and verification of derailleur alignment and I was back in action... except my Garmin chose that moment to go on the fritz. Another quick swap with a suitable sub and I was all ready to ride a sub-par time trial.   The first rule of time trials is never go out too hard. I took this to heart, and...

After my spectacularly mediocre result in the Prologue, I felt I needed to step up my game a bit for the hill climb if I wanted to truly fail in a manner that reflects my suitability for this sport. I certainly gave it the old college try. This time I had help.   I spent my day relaxing, leisurely cleaning up baby vomit that would periodically appear around the house. It was glorious, especially since my beloved daughter started exhibiting some of the same symptoms. At least she managed to hit a trash can or toilet. I do love that girl of mine. The day was all about trying to get the kids to eat and drink, and then cleaning up the aftermath. Racing up a hill while depositing bits of lung on the pavement sounded like heaven in comparison, so as soon as the wife returned home from work I was loading up the car to make my escape.   I pulled up to the hill climb start and signed in with plenty of time to spare. I lingered talking to friends and frenemi...

I rebuilt my time trial bike a couple days before the Tour of Anchorage. Completely swapped groupsets and pretty much every part that could be bolted on. Rode it around the block a couple times to test it out, then parked it. Don't want to wear anything out by actually verifying that my marginal wrenching skills had hit that one-in-a-million chance that everything worked. I'd find out everything I needed to know on the opening prologue.   Since my toddler had brought home yet another bug from daycare (his second in as many weeks), I didn't want him to suffer alone. We spent the day before and morning of the first stage not digesting anything. While he favored spewing food in liquid form on carpets and other cloth-covered surfaces around the house, I opted for the other end of the digestive tract. Oh the fun we had...   When it was all over, my whole body ached. That deep, empty ache like after a long bike ride that depleted every last energy reserve. The kind of ...

You place your feet carefully, bracing yourself for each shift of weight and how that will transmit to the rest of your body. It's a conscious effort, designed to prepare for that impact and protect the damaged part of your body. Movements that are usually fluid and unconscious take planning and effort, but all of that pays off when you make it across the room without increasing the pain load.   Then you step on the toy. You know, that little toy Monster truck your son loves so much. The one that he took to your parents farm and left on the floor. The one that the loveable golden retriever chewed the wheels off of in a show of jealousy because he suddenly had competition for affection. The one that your father crafted wooden wheels for on his lathe. That one.   The unexpected weight shift normally wouldn't be a big thing, as you're usually fairly agile. But it is, because you're not right now. Your lower back is kinda twisted up from carrying your son on a hike over...

"Other people need to get in the shower, Abby." I really didn't want to get out of bed and get ready for work, but it seemed liked the adult thing to say to a daughter lolly-gagging in the bathroom. I would have been happy just to stay there and listen to my son snore next to me.   The day before the wife said we were going to Whittier to go berry picking. It was a statement, not a question requiring spirited debate. I had an easy workout on the schedule, but felt guilty for slacking off and not doing the planned ride. I shouldn't have.   Berry picking sounds like a fairly relaxed activity, and usually it is. Blueberries don't exactly put up a fierce fight. They mainly just hang there until you pick them. Since a lot of the easily accessible berries were gone by the time we got there, the berries we found were a little more "sporty". Picking them required climbing up muddy game trails, over roots and fallen trees, while trying to maintain balance ...

The last couple days I've been riding the Storck. I installed my Quarq RIKEN instead of the S975 (which didn't fit), touched a few minor things, and took the sucker for a ride.   Despite being a complete disaster initially, the bike is a lot of fun to ride. I've never ridden an aluminum frame that is this responsive, mostly because the majority of aluminum frames I've ridden have been on the lower end of the spectrum. The nicer ones I've ridden were designed less for performance and more for comfort. The one bike that I've ridden that was along these lines was a Cannondale CAAD 9, but it was hampered by less-than stellar components, so a real A/B comparison isn't possible without building up a bare frame.   What I can say is that this bike feels "tight". Not in an over-torqued headset way, but rather it feels like everything is machined and aligned perfectly. I feel directly connected to the bike.   The downside of this is I feel directly con...

Last night I was working on the Storck during the 15 minutes the wife allows me each week for bike maintenance. My bikes are starting to fall apart, although probably not as quickly as they would if I actually turned a wrench on them.   When I got to installing the crankset, I decided to use my Quarq S975 power meter. Over the years I've abused it horribly. It's seen countless soaking wet rides, and was even submerged when I rode through a flooded bike path tunnel. Seeing the Garmin mounted to the handlebar stem under a couple inches of water while you chug along slowly is quite the experience. Through all of that, that S975 never had a significant problem that a new battery didn't fix. Since the Storck will not likely live a life of relative comfort, the S975 seemed like the obvious choice.   I tightened down the crank arm bolt to the specified torque setting of "real tight plus one grunt", then prepared to install the chain. The only problem was that ...