The Inagural Commute and Ride

My first commute on the Pugsley was successful. Over the past few years I have dialed in my layering system for temperatures below zero. My coworkers asked how I stayed warm on the ride in yesterday, but the real issue was how not to overheat.

The ride home was the tough part. At 5pm it's already dark and the temperatures were dropping below zero as I left the office. I had a chill inside of me before I even got dressed to ride, so I blasted the space heater in the office to warm up. That seemed to work.

I arrived home warm and happy and with plans to get out and do a trail ride later that night.



It didn't matter how cold it was, I wanted to get out and ride on the trails. So Brian and I met Tim out at the Smokejumper trailhead. When we got to the parking lot we were hesitant to get out of the car. When it's that cold you need to have a plan and move fast so that you don't freeze your ass off before you start riding. When we left the trailhead on the bikes Tim's thermometer read 0 degrees.

My thoughts of frozen body parts quickly subsided as we started gliding down the trail. The snow was packed down and Brian had no problem on studded tires, but there is something about sitting up there on that snow bike that makes me happy, even if I don't really need it yet. I know that I could ride off the trail and into the unpacked snow if I wanted to. It just opens up the door to a world of possibilities.



Tim snapped this picture of me in the last five minutes of the ride back to the car. I've been doing pilates lately and learning how to relax my shoulders while everything else is working, but there is no way to relax your shoulders when it is this cold. I barely managed to get my tongue back in my mouth before it froze.

Tim's thermometer read -10 when we arrived back at the parking lot. Now I'm sitting at work eating lunch and daydreaming of where I want to take my new bike next.

The bike building gods hate me...

... but it is finally finished!

So close...

I spent most of my free time this weekend putting together my new snow bike. I was happy to have finally acquired all of the parts. It was fun in the beginning, bargain shopping and finding parts in the garage and acquiring free parts from friends, but after awhile trying to pick out parts just got annoying.



I'm not really into bike gear. I like WHOLE BIKES, that I can ride. A pile of bike gear laying around my living room floor in bags, doesn't really excite me. So it wasn't until today that I fully realized that soon I would own a Pugsley. A whole one that I can ride in the snow, instead of fishtailing and sinking and struggling or having to hand shift the Snow Ho.

I was dreading putting the bike together. This is my first bike build, and if you read this blog regularly you know that I am a little clumsy. Me and bike tools (or tools in general) don't really get along.



But I wanted to ride my bike. So, Friday night I had the guys at Speedway install a new bottom bracket and crankset, and put on the headset cap thingys. Yesterday Brian wrestled with the headset caps (I still am not sure what he was doing) while I disassembled my summer mountain bike for parts, and assembled wheels with tires and tubes. Big ass tires and tubes... oh yeaaaahh.



We cut the fork and assembled the headset together. I set up my seat height so that it matched the height of the seat on my old mountain bike, which is now just a pile of old cables and frame, so sad.



I put the wheels on and we installed the brakes and brake cables. That was where we left it yesterday.



Today I woke up thinking I would spend an hour adjusting the brakes and installing the shifter cables, then adjusting the derailleurs and I would be out the door by noon riding my new bike.

Brian guessed that it would take me two hours. I laughed at him. Hahahaha!

Then my bike laughed at me. It took five hours and it was 5pm when I was still messing around with my rear derailleur trying to figure out why it wouldn't shift all the way to the largest cog. I realized my chain was too short. I took it from my mountain bike and never thought about the fact that you have to change the length of the chain to fit. I have never done this before, remember.

I thought about running to the bike shop before they closed, but realized I had neglected Niko all weekend, and he needed to get out and run. So my poor little Pugsley sits down in the garage without a chain waiting to be ridden.

The idea that I will have a fat bike to ride by tomorrow makes it feel like Christmas Eve. Last night also felt like Christmas Eve, but then today Christmas came and we unwrapped our presents and we realized that the one thing we were hoping for came, but it needed to be assembled and needed batteries and all the stores were closed because it was Christmas. Makes sense doesn't it.

Winter Welcome

Getting out the door every night to exercise has become increasingly more difficult. For one, I have been feeling the affects of the darkness pretty hard this year. I have not been able to get out of bed before 8 am, I have felt sluggish and unmotivated all day, and when I get home I just feel like pulling the blanket over my head and hanging out with my peeps on the couch.

Second and most important, I don't have any goals right now. I know I want to climb, ski and ride my bike a lot this winter, and I want to build my aerobic capacity so that I have a big base to work with in the spring and summer, but I'm not signed up for any races and don't have any big climbs planned, so I really have nothing to work towards.



I know if I get out the door for at least and hour I will feel better, and I have, but I really have to push myself to get out there. I always struggle with this time of year because I feel like we are waiting forever for winter to get started. When will there be enough snow to ski on and when will the ice form up.

It snowed a few more inches today, and that has helped tremendously. It makes the darkness a little less harsh. Things are brightening up. I have heard rumors of people ice climbing already.

I'm starting to think about a few goals I might want to set for myself this winter and hopefully can begin to formulate a plan. I need a good hard challenge to work towards.



Tonight Niko and I went out for a run. I even got to wear my studded sneakers. Then I made a big pot of beef stew and had a beer to welcome the winter. It's about time.

Our new skijoring rabbit

It snowed about three inches at our house last night. Finally some snow in town to play around in! I took Niko out for the first skijor of the season. He had forgotten how to pull and was just sort of trotting next to me and stopping to pee on every tree.

That makes skiing harder than it needs to be. Every ten feet I would yell, "On by!" and yank him back onto the trail. He had no idea what he was doing in a harness and what I was trying to get him to do.

About a mile up the trail we saw Brian heading home from work on his bike. Niko cannot resist Brian on a bike. If Brian is going somewhere on a bike, that is where Niko wants to be. He doesn't care where it is.

This gave me an idea. After Brian took off we turned around to face the direction he was going and Niko could not wait to take off in that direction...



After letting him get all riled up I yelled "Hike! Hike!" and we were off. I have never seen him pull me so fast. Now we just need to work on how to stop.

Building Character... or Something

Laura rented the Dale Clemens cabin Saturday night which is just off of the Lost Lake trail, so we thought it would be a good idea to try and ride our bikes up to it. People have been riding the trails down on the Kenai with no problem in the past few weeks, just a light dusting of snow and frozen trails to ride over, so we didn't think it would be a problem.

Brian wanted to get up to the cabin as fast as possible so that we could drop our bags and continue riding up to the Lake. We took the winter route, which is more direct... and shitty. We didn't know it was going to take us 2 hours to "ride" 2.5 miles.

The bottom section of the trail was good, but the weight on our backs was quickly becoming a problem as the trail got steeper.

So we started to push...



And push...



And push some more...



Then we saw some people coming down the trail.

"Are you folks going for a bike ride?"

"We were going to try."

"There's three feet of snow above the cabin, we were post-holing the whole way."

"Oh."



We thought about ditching the bikes. We only had our skinny studded tires on and if there was three feet of snow above the cabin, we weren't getting to the lake on our bikes.

But there is a running joke that goes on in our household that suddenly became relevant. Brian once asked why anyone would want to push their bike 100 miles in the Susitna 100 when the conditions were bad with too much snow, when you could just go skiing instead. Someone replied, "Because it builds character."

And so we kept pushing and joking about how we were building character. We stopped a few times and I was like, "Ditch the bikes now?" (see how much character I have) and Brian would say, "Well, I'm going to build more character, but you can ditch your bike." So, it became a challenge for me to keep pushing all the way to the cabin, and maybe by the time I got there I would be overflowing with good character.

The snow wasn't that deep, but the winter route that we decided to take, pretty much went straight up for 1800 feet.

We finally came up over a really steep hump, where I literally was hoisting my bike over my head, while kicking steps into the deep crusty snow, and there was the cabin.

Here is the view from the cabin...




The ride down today started out slow with more pushing, but once we got back into the trees we could ride pretty much the whole way.



It was worth it, and look at all this new character I have today. ;)

Happy Halloween

For some reason I am at a loss for words about the Frigid Bits Halloween party last night. I didn't dress up this year because I've been sick all week and just didn't have the energy to put a costume together, but I'd say Brian made up for my lack of costume. I won't be posting any of them here, but if you really want to see you can log on to akspokes.com. You have to be a member to see photos I think, so you'll have to reaaaaallly want to see them.

Quick update. It hasn't snowed in town yet and it's November already. We've been doing our usual boring October stuff around the house. Now that things are freezing up, ice climbing season should be starting soon! I have been in the climbing gym a lot trying to get strong. My Pugsley is almost ready to build (probably next weekend). Today we are on the couch recovering from Halloween. That pretty much sums up what's been going since we got back from Moab.

Stay tuned.

Fruita Day 3 - Mary's , Steve's and Handcuffs

After a few hours of trying to wake up and much cajoling and peer pressure from Tim, we finally got out the door on Saturday to ride. It would be our seventh straight day of riding and needless to say we didn't have much energy or enthusiasm.

But we knew it was our last day to ride in Fruita, so Heather and I eventually gave in. The ride proposed would be pretty mellow and the weather was perfect, so we couldn't say no. Huber was out due to a crooked back, Monkee and Tim Kelly were off to do a more difficult route in the same area, and the others had already headed back home.

So Tim, H and I planned to do Mary's Loop to Steve's to Handcuffs and then ride back out on the road. The parking lot was crowded when we arrived because it was Saturday. I crawled on the bike fully prepared to be hit with a wall of pain as we pedaled up the first big climb.



But the pain didn't come. I was tired, yes, but my legs felt surprisingly strong and my mood was good. My new rental bike in Fruita was a perfect fit and after practicing technical riding all week I now felt like I belonged on the bike. I didn't feel clumsy or awkward and I didn't want to be anywhere else.



I was sad that the vacation was ending. I was sad because we had such a good time with a great group of people. Because I Laughed more this week than I have in a long time. Because my mountain bike skills jumped up so many level and I wanted to continue to practice to see how far I could go. Because waking up in the morning knowing that all I have to do that day is ride a bike makes me happy.

Because the bike I was riding was awesome and I didn't want to give it up...



The last few miles on the road back to the car I was torn. I was exhausted, but wanted to keep riding. I don't know when I will get back to this area, but I hope it is soon, because I have more business to take care of here. I'm not done with you Fruita.

Fruita Day 1 & 2 - Rustler's Loop and 18 Road

My body is completely trashed. My leg muscles feel like they are detaching from my body. My heart rate feels like it is constantly elevated. We are all counting our bruises and scrapes to see who has the most. But we are heading out the door to ride, because we'll only be in Colorado for two more days.



Today we road at the 18 road area. I have heard a lot about this area because Brian camped here for a week last year, so he knows the trails really well.



Kessel Run is a fast fun roller coaster of trail with little technical challenges and probably one of the my favorite trails we have ridden on this whole trip. Last week I would have said this was my favorite trail, but I just can't get the Porcupine Rim out of my mind. It pushed me so far past my comfort level on a bike on the start of the downhill, but by the end of the ride I felt completely comfortable. I say I grew the most as a mountain biker on that trail.



I'm in coffee shop now trying to figure out how I am going to muster up the energy to ride on Saturday and Sunday. I had trouble standing in line waiting to order coffee. I looked at the photos I took today and thought, wow that was really beautiful, how did I miss it?

So this is what it feels like to be over trained. It's not pleasant. Maybe a good 10 or 11 hours of sleep tonight will help.

Goodbye to Moab

You will be missed...