Winter Trail Hazards

I got out for a ride last night . . .  a sweet, 1,000ft of descending, 97% singletrack, fatbike ride last night.

The last little bit of singletrack is a 0.5mile piece of trail I've been trying to get packed in and rideable for the last month or so.

I'd been out snowshoeing on it the night before (and I only don snowshoes, begrudgingly, for the purpose of better bike riding) and last night it was riding better than it ever has when I came upon open water where there had been none the night before.

 

It seems a moose approached from the lookers left of the above picture, intersected with the Jumpy Squirrel trail, and punched through to a creek I didn't even know was flowing underneath the trail. 

 

From the other side.  One moose sized hole in the middle of some winter singletrack. Must have been fairly startling for the moose to suddenly be standing in flowing water, even if it wasn't terribly deep.

My iPhone Tried to Kill This Blog

A new job, a new baby, and a smartphone all combined to try and kill this blog (but mostly it was the phone.)

But I still ride bikes, and I'm hoping to even write a few words and post a few pictures every now and again on this here blog.
So if anybody out there is still interested here's just a little something:

My wife's Christmas gift to me was one simple thing.  A fat, aggressive tire named after me, even though I am neither fat, nor terribly aggressive.  The yin to my yang I suppose.

It seems I change my brake pads even less often than I update my blog.
Stopping power was greatly improved when I switched to some pads that weren't worn down to next to nothing.

Things and Stuff

April has been amazing, and I've been getting some riding in.

Rode to the post office with Little to mail a birthday present to my brother in-law.

I had to hit up 3 different LBSs to find an AK shop t-shirt for a birthday present, but I was really pleased with what I eventually found.

Noticed this sign while I was locking up to the bike rack.

I'm pretty sure it's entrapment to install a bike rack where bicycling is forbidden.

Vic inspired me to experiment with some hose clamp, stem mounted water bottle.  Little saw what I was doing and requested on for his trike.  He and I were both pleased with the results.

LoL came by this weekend with a sweet new fork for his Moonlander.  It's amazing how light this hunk of plastic is.  

 

Fortunately I have an irrational fear of crabon that keeps me from investing large sums of money in shiny plastic bits.

Ocean Air Cycles had their t-shirts on sale for cheap.  Nice looking shirts, funky, small US bike company, how could I resist.  I was even happier when the package arrived with more than just a t-shirt.  A few stickers and some beautiful postcards were just above and beyond.

Like I said the April riding has been amazing. Blue sky, warm (above freezing) day time temps and smooth snowy trails are hard to beat.

Neither this guy, nor myself were in too much of a hurry this afternoon, so we spent a while checking each other out and sharing the trail before we both went peacefully on our respective ways.

The trails were holding up pretty well, even as the temps approached 50deg F.  Nice to be out riding in a short sleeved jersey and shants.

 

Things were a little punchy and deep if you had to dab off the packed trail, but there are worse problems to have.

 

Stumbled across this old run down cabin in the woods.  Less than two miles from our house, but on a little used trail that I had never explored before.  Would have been a pretty sweet place to live back in its day.

  

I persuaded Little to help me slap the Big Apples back on the Dummy and ride to the park with me.  He did an awesome job hanging on to the back of the Big Donkey.  I still plan to build a proper seat for him or something, so that he and I can both relax a little bit while he's back there.  As it was I was rolling slowly and constantly seeking conservation that he was still hanging on with both hands (most of the time he was).

 It's really fun to have him out of the trailer and to be able to maintain a conversation while we roll along.  4 fun miles together this evening.  His only complaint was that he hurt his bottom when we practiced riding off a curb at low speed.  I'll set him up with a magic carpet or something similar soon.
I'm really excited for this next chapter of family riding.

They Tell Me It's April

They tell me it's April, but you could have fooled me.

Spring Time in Alaska.  No offense to Johnny Horton, but June's voice makes this my preferred version of his song:

 

Had a modified version of this stuck in my head riding around last night:
"When it's springtime in Alaska there's four feet of snow."

We've had two storms move through in the past 5 days, each dropping 6-14inches of snow depending on where you're at in town.
While lot's of folks are grumbling and understandably ready for spring I've been more than happy to watch the snow come down.  And what great snow it's been.
Not the heavy wet concrete snow you'd expect in the spring, but fine, light powder. One of the finer things in life if you ask a ski bum in recovery like me.

I haven't managed to ski much lately for a variety of reasons, but I have managed to get out and ride around in the fresh stuff.

Sunset Sunday.  

In between storms. 

Over 14hours between sunrise and sunset these days.

Fat tracks in fresh snow.

 

The front deck on our house has a ramp instead of steps.

The previous owner built it so a wheelchair bound friend 

could drive his 4wheeler right up onto the deck and hang out.

The bike friendliness was a definite bonus when we bought the house.

Hard to tell by the photo, but it was still 

coming down hard when I was out riding last night.

Spring will appear sooner or later, but for now I'm going to keep doing my best to enjoy the amazing combination long days and great snow.

Fatbacking

I have had the pleasure of having the opportunity to spend some time aboard a couple different Fatbacks recently.
Cousin Rye N was out of state for a while for work, so Biermag, Little and I made the most of his absence.
The icing on the fat cake is that March is one of the finest months to be in Alaska:  snow, bluebird days, warmer temperatures, no bugs, no bears, no brush.  Take it from me, this is the good life.

I had to bribe that little face in the trailer with some tortilla chips to get him in there.  After that he was good to go for a two hour ride.

The Pistenbully rolled through heading the other direction during our ride, smoothing out the 5+ inches of heavy wet snow that fell the night before.

Experimented with my sunglasses as a filter in the bright sunshine, no instagram action here.

GSC took off for a little spring break and was kind enough to invite me to take his new steed out for a ride.

That steel fork looks (and rides) awesome if you ask me.

 I dashed up to a permit only winter trail and spent about an hour climbing in a t-shirt.

Trail was in great shape, I had a huge grin on my face the whole ride down.

Both bikes were a treat to ride.  I most definitely concur with Gypsy Nicholas and Sheldon Brown that the fatbike revolution we are seeing is the biggest thing to hit the cycling world since the early days of mountain bikes.

It's been wicked cold around here.  Warmer temps arrived this week along with a healthy dump of snow . . .

 .  .  .  so when Little has wanted to do a little riding, indoors seemed like a good option.

Doesn't seem to slow him down much.

Feels Like Winter

While the days have gotten short and the temperatures have been cool, there has been lots of beautiful sunshine to enjoy on at least one way of my commute.

I've been riding this beast almost exclusively for the last few weeks enjoying it's midfatness on the little snow we do have.  The $30 pogies have continue to serve me well, even after 7 years.  I was riding at -5 F this afternoon with my bare hands in them for the last 5 miles of my ride.

More exciting than snow has been the overflow from frozen streams around town.  I came upon this immediately after leaving the house yesterday.  An ice damn in a culvert had water flowing out down the road in single digit temperatures.  A couple of trails around town have had a some significant overflow issues on and off over the past few weeks.  In a very dorky way, I really enjoy the dynamics of water and ice.

 Spotted this guy just off the trail riding to school today,

then heard something behind me and noticed I'd parked my bike right between the two bulls.  Fortunately the were mellow and disinterested in my existence.

The left palm of his antlers appears to have broken off at some point.

 

Flavor

Same trail, slightly different flavor.

 

Went to visit GSC and SHeck for some banana bread today.

Road Bikes and Lunch Buffets

I got the Bridgestone out for a test run yesterday after finishing some off-season upgrades.
New (second hand (actually third hand I think)) wheelset/9spd cassette and some bar end shifters has brought the RB-1 well into the mid-1990's.  Still tweaking saddle and handlebars, but really enjoyed the illusion of speed the bike gave me.

I don't see why not.

I ran into a couple different patches of snow on the trail over to GSC's, but the bike handled itself rather impressively and plowed right on through.

Local street toughs.  Don't let their smiles and kind words fool you.

This morning Little wRider and I rolled out to do a Chariot hand off with Mrs.
We encountered this pair of brightly dressed street toughs blocking our path.  Fortunately some quick thinking and smooth talking on my part enabled us to get by with out being roughed up too badly. 

Thai food?      Don't mind if I do.

We found Mrs. had happened to pause her commute directly in front of a delicious smelling Thai restaurant to chat with Kousin Kristen.  Obviously this led to an impromptu lunch buffet.

Breaking Up is Hard to Do

Here the end of winter is more commonly referred to as 'breakup' rather than 'spring'.

It's a sloppy, dirty process, but slowly you get to see all the things that have been buried under piles of snow for months.


Like benches along the bike path.


Or the center-line of the road to the university.
That's right, only half the street has been used for months now. The snow berm begins in exactly the middle of the road.

A Couple From Today

This Evening

There was more snow for tonight's ride home than I had been anticipating.
Last weather report I saw called for accumulation of < 1inch
Oh well, I'm not complaining about first tracks.

Big, Fat, Wet Flakes

School bus was stuck and abandoned.
Flat ground, with chains on, still got stuck