what the hell was I thinking?

I know that I was never going to be a contender for even the top ten (or probably even top 20) in Arrowhead this year (and probably never).  It's gotten incredibly competitive.  In '09 I managed to get 12th place.  There were 15 finishers (and 25 starters) - almost all of whom had some kind of fatbike (I didn't - and I plan to whine about it).  In '09 my time was just shy of 40 hours.  In '11 I finished in 33:30 for a 24th place finish out of 39 to finish.  55 started).  I didn't race in '12 but if you take my time from '11 and see what place that would have got me, it would have netted me 35th place.  And this year there are 6 past winners so it'll probably be even faster (assuming good trail conditions).  So what does this mean for me?  Almost nothing since my goal this year is to accompany John to the finish and take some good pictures and possibly video during the race.  He's never done anything like this before and I'll be doing what I can to help him along - our only goal is to finish.  It's still 135 miles.  Just finishing it will be a big deal - if we can manage it.

Along about Christmas I ran into a bout of motivational withdrawl: I didn't feel compelled to ride much.  It was fine for a while - I had been training hard before that and needed some recovery time - but it kept stretching out.  "Oh, I'll go for a nice long ride tomorrow" and then of course I wouldn't and then would say "Oh, I'll go for a nice long ride tomorrow".  This continued for a few weeks.  I actually did get a few rides in but they were only a few hours long.

Arrowhead isn't like the final exam in college that you can stay up late the night before cramming.  You try and pull that for Arrowhead and your chances of finishing are pretty low.  It's a wonder that I can motivate myself to train for Arrowhead because I'm a terrible procrastinator.  I'm real quick, I think I just figured it out: riding my bike = fun, studying for Organic Chemistry = pulling teeth.

Anyway, I got out for a ride a couple of days back.  Then I went for a short one last night and then a medium one (just over four hours) tonight.  And that's a wrap.  I'm as good as I'm going to be for Arrowhead (not very).  It's actually cold here now.  First ride this year that was below zero - with wind chills at about -30.  It feels good to get out in some semi-cold temps.  Relaxing.  Now I know that if it gets cold at Arrowhead I can handle it - the main thing to remember is that I shouldn't lick my pump.

A picture of me taken by a nice, passing snowmobiler who stopped for a chat.

I hope and pray that conditions aren't like this for Arrowhead - or at least very much of it.  In reality we'll have to play the hand we're dealt at Arrowhead but hopefully the hand we're dealt isn't soft snow (packed by maybe half a dozen snowmobiles) with 4" of untracked stuff on top.  Very slow.  Although I took my computer off my bike (too much other stuff on the handlebar) I would guess that I was going somewhere between 3 and 4 mph.  (Or close to 40 hours to complete the whole thing)

This spot is where the Moquah Spur intersects with the Iron River trail.  In the fall when the trail is hard-packed and fast I can make it here in about 45 mins.  On this ride it took about 2:30.

I thought I had the Blair Witch chasing me.  So I stopped to take a picture.  Makes sense, right?

 

 

 

 

 

I made it to the end of the Moquah Spur roughly 6 miles away in about an 2.5 hours.  The Arrowhead record (15:45) is not in danger by yours truly.

Skewer

Whoops, forgot to post this one.  I wrote it sometime in December.  

The night before yesterday I spent getting my 29er ready for ice riding.  I have a pair of studded tires (that I made myself using an old pair of tires and a bunch of sheet metal screws).  So I switched the tires over, and the frame bag with pump enclosed, and threw a spare tube in too.  I was ready to ride.

 OK so when I was 3 hours into the ride at the farthest point from our place I stopped to eat a snack of summer sausage and fry-bread.  When I rolled out to start heading back home I immediately noticed that I had a flat front tire.

Flats almost always suck but this was no big deal as I had a spare tube, and pump along.  I went to grab my tire irons out of my seatbag and was horrified to see that I didn't have one with me.  I had forgotten to switch it over to this bike.  A string of rather dark thoughts went through my head as I thought of all the miles I'd be pushing my bike home just because I had forgotten the measly tire iron.  I threw on my spare windbreaker that standard to bring along on every bike ride - but of course a tool kit is also a standard thing to bring along so I guess that "standard" is about meaningless - and started walking.

Probably 15 year ago I remember reading an article (I believe it was in Dirt Rag - as if that matters much) that had a little tidbit that's stuck with me all those years.  I have no idea why it did, I've never used that tidbit before, I have no idea what the article was about, it's just one of those things that sticks with you.  Usually I've got a memory like a steel sieve but this clung to my brain.  The tidbit is: if you find yourself out in the middle of nowhere without a tire iron try using your skewer.  I did this and it worked great.

I've got to think that the chances of a person remembering a pump and spare tube while forgetting a simple tire iron would be rather slim but hell, that's exactly what I did yesterday. 

I pumped it up and was off.  And boy was I relieved - it would have probably been a 20 mile hike home.  I shudder to think about it. 

It was probably another 2 1/2 hours home.

Not Again! Return of the scat eater.

And so it is with Arrowhead.  Well if you define "scar" thusly: leaves a lasting impression.  No doubt Arrowhead wounds some.  But some of us keep coming back (personally it's my third time and I know there are others that have done it several more times than that).  If it wounds it must be kinda like a wound that causes a scar that you brag about at the bar after a few months of healing.

Sunday, Greg, Jon, and I rode our bikes to Iron River and back - which is a little over 40 miles.  We were supposed to get a big snowstorm but although it was snowing lightly most of the ride it never really got deep.  I must say I was kinda hoping for an epic....

As you can see it was on a rail-trail.  I know that I said I was hoping for an epic ride but also have mixed feelings about that.  Over the years I've done enough rides (mostly races) on rail-trails - and if trail conditions are bad it means that epic-ness ensues.  This is for a couple of reasons: 1) It's flat (or very nearly so).  If you can't ride here you can't get going again on the next downhill because there are no downhills.  If conditions are bad it's very likely that they're gonna be that way for a while.  2) It's straight.  Let's consider a scenario: If conditions force you to get off and walk then you'll be going relatively slow.  You get off, look around and then put your head down and walk for a ways.  When you look up again it seems as if nothing has changed: that crooked tree that was in the distance when you first started walking is still in the distance.  3) Even in ideal conditions rail-trails are boring.  And I can never get over that the trail itself is a leftover of industry.  I realize that industry has made it possible for our way of life.  I realize that industry makes possible things like cars and computers and bikes.  I realize that.  But it always rubs me a the wrong way that after all is said and done, after the fat cats get their profits, that they can't seem to clean up after themselves in a meaningful way.

Speaking of epics naturally makes me think of wet cats.  The connection is obvious.  At least the maker of this video thought so.

Anyway, at one point the trail took us by a beautiful wetland and I had to stop for a picture:  

Jon's bike had a coating of snow

I thought I'd repeat my scat-eating shenanigans from a few years back.  Just kidding these are actually chopped dates with a coating of flour.  Really!  Why are you not believing me? 

I actually did eat this.  Or at lease put it in my mouth with intentions to eat it.  I rather intensely regretted this almost instantly.  I'm a quick one let me tell ya'.

Recovering

Well, I suppose that since I'm solely responsible for the content of this blog I could say that Jon and I rode 5 hours Saturday, downed a bottle of whiskey without stopping midway through the ride and all I had to eat was my last Twinkie ever (since the company that makes them is no more) and was also juggling running chainsaws.  And I rode 90 miles in those 5 hours.  Yeah, would you believe that?   

How about this: Jon and I rode 5 hours on Saturday only stopping for a few snacks and when we got done I felt as if I could've kept riding for another 2 hours.  And when I got done I stretched, took a shower and had enough energy to have a mock wrestling match with my stepson.  Believe that?  

Well in truth, Jon and I did ride 5 hours  We did stop to eat and drink.  We managed about 40 miles over some tough terrain.  When we got done riding I took a shower and then passed out in bed for a bit managed to drag myself around that evening and was so tired that I lobbied to watch the same Harry Potter movie that we had watched the night before so I could just shut my brain off.  At the risk of sounding like a surfer-dude (or see the remix here) I was thrashed.  It was a great ride.

I will only maintain the level of intensity that we maintained Saturday in Arrowhead if being chased by this:

While riding towards Long Lake, Jon thought it would be fun to see if the ice was strong enough to hold us and if it was ride around on it.  It was strong enough* and we also found a turtle.  It was epic.

   

The helmet straps were epic as well

* We didn't actually break through the ice but it wasn't any too thick either.  As we rode slowly and cautiously along the ice would moan and crack - sometimes it would crack enough that I could feel the ice shift.  It was freaking me out and soon after we started I pulled off on solid ground and called out to Jon that I was turning around.

Speaking of turtles naturally reminds me of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.  If you are ever feeling pathetic or that you're life isn't worth the paper its printed on just watch this enthralling video and you'll feel better.  It's about a full-grown woman who works in a factory and takes out loans to be able to afford to buy the head used by the Turtle Michelangelo in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III.  I must say, I'm not sure what to make of this.  Sure, there may be a few dumber ways to go into debt, and really borrowing two grand is childs play compared to just the debt a lot of people have sunk into their cars (which is - of course - accepted by society, though it's probably only accepted because of slick car ads, not because it makes sense.  On the other hand who the hell am I to say if something makes sense or not?).  But to spend enough money that you have to borrow some to be able to afford a fake plastic head?  And then people not only do stuff like Arrowhead, but pay to do it.  I'm realizing that I'm in no position to be throwing stones, since I live in a glass house.  

Breaking: you can buy a bathroom mirror wiper for only $135!

I'm sure it comes in handy, but $135?  Really?  You'd think for that price it would be motorized and voice activated.

dead weight

Since John is doing Arrowhead with me I'll be sporting a pair of viking horns on my helmet.  It could be worse:

does this helmet make my butt look big?

Yesterday I went out for a ride - and except for an unplanned and unwanted stop (see first picture below) I rode for the better part of 4 hours.  OK, I did take a few quick breaks mainly to look at the map and try and figure out where in the hell I was.

For the most part the ATV trail I rode part of the ride on was pretty much untracked except for some animal tracks in spots and also the tracks of some jackass who drove a truck down the trail.  And, of course, I left a set of tracks almost sure to confuse the majority of trail users.

If it doesn't burn gas and say VROOM I don't know what to make of it.  Pert near a mystifactory.  

I've never been all that clean of a guy.  I can't ever remember cleaning my room and having it stay that way for more than about 15 minutes.  So in some ways it's satisfying for me to ride across and blank slate of fresh snow.

It's like a fresh silken handkerchief is lain out before me waiting for the sneeze of my tires.  Or whatever.  I'm not feeling particularly funny at the moment.

And of course the depth of the untracked snow can either enhance the fun factor (as in the above picture) or detract from it:

When the snow is deep enough and hard packed enough to support your bike as you walk away and take a picture then it's time to stop riding.  Guess who didn't.  This guy (me):

I can just feel myself getting dumber the longer I look at this picture.

Well, truth be told, I did stop riding in that deep snow.  Not because I didn't want to, because I couldn't.  I walked while I pushed my bike to a spot where the snow wasn't so deep.  It's a rare time when you can't even push (or carry) your bike.  And of course it varies from person to person on when to say when.  But it does happen.  I must admit that I get pretty frustrated when I have to push.  Not that I won't do it - heaven knows I have done my share of that - it's just that well, I like to ride my bike not push the damn thing.  By far the most frustrating thing is riding in snow that is just barely ridable where you can go from a wobbly, effortful ride to pushing, think the snow is firm enough to maybe try riding so you swing your leg over your top tube and your wheel just spins in the soft snow.  Swing your leg off your bike.  Push.  Try again.  Nope, still too soft.  Push. Try again.  Actually get going but it's so slow and wobbly and takes so much energy that you're better off walking.  Push some more.   Think of a stop-and-go traffic jam.  Are we having fun yet?

What you can't see is that there is not only the snow (8" of the stuff) but a layer of frozen rain under it.  It was a hoot.  Yeah right, it sucked plain and simple.  Everybody quit this race.  It was a push-your-bike-until-you-quit race where the guy who rode/pushed farthest before he quit won.  Whoof - it's giving me heeby-jeebies just to think about it. 

In other news: A Surly Pugley fully built up weighs about 38 lbs.  Add another 25 pounds of gear on top of that and you get a rig that weighs a few pounds shy of 65 lbs.  I weight about 165 pounds.  And let's say that I wear 10 pounds of clothing for a winter ride.  That's a grand total of 240 pounds (which is an estimate, I've never weighed it to be sure).  I will obviously try to minimize the weight I carry - things have a way of adding up over 135 miles.  But a fat-bike is necessarily heavy.  I weighed just my rear wheel a while back and the wheel alone weighed almost 10 pounds.  Ugh.  Even the Salsa Beargrease weighs in at around 28 pounds - quite a bruiser for a full-on race bike.  There's just simply alot of rubber - and worse yet that rubber is rotating weight.  Anyway, I'm trying to think of ways to lighten my bike/rider total weight.  The rider weight isn't going to change much.  I've been at the same weight since high school almost 15 year ago.  I've been trying to think of how I could save a half pound here, 4 ounces there, a full pound somewhere else.  But 1) each little drop in weight comes at an expense (unless I just totally omit something.  Some things are required gear and I can't omit them anyway; and others are a safety issue and omitting them could mean bad news); for example I could buy a new -20 down sleeping bag - but a new bag costs hundreds - but the synthetic one I have now - though heavy - works fine.  I suppose that I could give up my thick sleeping pad up and go with a thinner one and save a half a pound - and hope to god that I don't have to use it.  And 2)  Say I was able to drop a pound here, four ounces there and a half a pound somewhere else - that's 1.75 pounds.  That's pretty decent.  But that 1.75 pounds is less than 1% of my total weight (.73% or 1.75/240) or 2.7% of by bike weight.  I can't really justify spending hundreds to drop a percent or two off of my overall weight.  My strategy is to carry what I need and not anything else (although it's impossible to be able to totally predict what you'll need when temps could range 70+ degrees (as they did at Arrowhead between '11 and '12)  lighten things as much as I reasonably can - and don't worry about it.

Maybe I can drop a bit of brain-weight by just staring at that picture for a while.

First (real) Snow

It snowed for real last night.  Or maybe I should say that we came back from our Thanksgiving visit to my 'rents in southern Wisconsin last night and things were white.  Don't know exactly when it snowed - just that it was snowy when we got here.

Now after that annoyingly accurate depiction of our weather I'll continue with the rest of this blog entry.

As you can see from the above picture I'm not too in to cleaning my bike.  And I've convinced myself that this is fine - that it doesn't really affect anything.  I can definitely see how getting grit and grime in the moving parts wears 'em out.  And I actually clean that stuff fairly regularly.  But if I'm out for a ride and go through a puddle and splash mud up on my rim or frame I really don't care.  I've got better things to do than be OCD about the cleanliness of my bike.  Like take a nap, watch grass grow, paint dry, or the fur grow on Jenny's rabbits.

I went to youtube to search for a funny video about "cleanliness is next to Godliness" and found this video which has a promising title and starts off decent.  But most of the video just consists of a couple of cats laying there.  What possesses someone to take a video like this and think they have something good and then go to the trouble of posting it on YouTube?  Maybe it's supposed to be ironically funny because its so bad.  I bet that almost all of the 127 hits they've had have been people like me who watch and it and then keep watching it because, well, something has to happen, right?  It's kinda like if someone just watched the end of Monty Python and Quest for the Holy Grail without having seen the first hour and a half of the movie. Reminds me of this.

If you look closely you can see that he's running an Endomorph on the front as well - this was in '09 when there was no choice.

The above 3 photos were taken by Mike Curiak during the '09 version of Arrowhead which I participated in although my tracks were made by a 2.4" WTB Motoraptor.

I've been noticing recently, especially with the advent of all the new tires available for fatbikes nowadays, that I get kind of a warm fuzzy feeling when I see an Endomorph tire track.  (In case you don't know and Endomorph is the original production fatbike tire)  Everyone who has ridden fatbikes for very long has either ridden them or seen them being ridden.  When I got the bike it came with a Larry up front and an Endomorph in the back.  I frankly don't know if other tires are better.  Haven't tried any.  Have never seen a need to.  I'm sure that it depends on the conditions you're riding in and your riding style.  I'm not a particularly aggressive rider and so don't push things hard enough (in corners or up a steep hill) that a more aggressive tire would make much of a difference.  And I'm not ashamed to have to walk up a steep hill.  If I push hard enough to make an Endomorph spin out then 1) I'm probably riding something so steep that it's almost as fast to walk and 2) feel pretty good about my fitness - it's no small feat to push an fat tire so hard it spins out. 


Did you know that there is actually a bamboo fatbike?  They claim that the one in this video is.  Of course I know that bamboo can be fashioned into perfectly good bike frames.  And or course bamboo is a renewable resource.  And a bike made from it is kinda an art form.  I get that.  But when a well-made steel framed bike is perfectly serviceable, relatively cheap, strong, durable, and also an art form it doesn't really make too much sense.  I understand the need to use sustainable alternatives in almost everything.  But I don't think the priority right now should be to develop an alternative to steel (or aluminum or titanium or whatever) it should be to use the steel (or aluminum.  I'm not aware of any piles of scrap titanium lying around but I'm guessing that's because I don't have the inside line on the world titanium market) we have laying around - and we have plenty of it to supply our need for new bike frames for some time.  And now that I've gone on the record saying that bamboo bike frames don't make sense Arrowhead 2013 will probably be won by someone on a bamboo frame.

And I can hear claims about bamboo's strength, even see videos such as this one.  But a real world test of bike strength should go something like this.  I'm not a big fan of carbon bikes (such as the one in the video I just linked to) not because they're no strong or light or fast or anything.  The main reason I like the video is because it's cool as hell.

First Snow

OK, so it was barely a dusting - but still the post title is technically correct in a kind of sneaky lawyer way.

I rode down into this valley because the drifts up top were just getting too deep.

 

Well we did get some snow so it's not total bullshit.  Kinda gets you thinking about what it means for it to snow.  If I lived in Equatorial Guinea I'm pretty sure that even a dusting would be insane.  But in northern Wisconsin it is probably something like 95% bullshit.  

All this talk of snow falling where you kinda don't expect it reminds me of this: the picture of my brother skiing at his house in Atlanta, GA a few years back.  His neighbors thought he was crazy.

Well, I went for a ride the other day.  Most of the riding I've been doing lately has been on ATV trails.  There's deep sand on parts of them.  And plus most of the ATV trails around here will be snowmobile trails this winter - so I'll be a little less likely to get lost.  But maybe that's just part of the adventure.  

Even around here I'm known in some circles as "that crazy biker guy."  And I don't mind that.  There's really no point to trying to deny it.  Roll with the punches.

Speaking of the words "crazy" and "roll with the punches" gives you boxing.  You think riding 135 miles is nuts then try getting in a ring and try to punch another guy so hard and/or so often that he can't stand or even get up.  All while he's doing the same to you.  Yee haw!

Speaking of cyclocross (which, of course, nobody was) here's a video of the start of a race.  I must say that I'm by and large solidly mediocre at racing my bike.  I have done exactly one cyclocross race where I finished just before being lapped.  Like I said I'm kinda bad at most anybike racing I do but short, intense races (like a cyclocross race) are worse.  Although I almost never do all that well, the longer the race the better the chances that I'll suck less.  Don't get me wrong, cyclocross is really cool.  But in my book races like Arrowhead and the Iditarod Trail Invitational and White Mountains 100 and Yukon Arctic Ultra take the cake. Personal preference. 

The moral of the story told by the elevation profile of the race is:  you will be smitten.  Or smote.  One of the two.  Well for me during the '09 race I was unquestionable smote.  Especially in segment 2 (between Gateway and Melgeorges, a section that seemed to go on and on and on until I finally pulled in to Melgeorge's at a little after 4 am [or 11:30 after I left Gateway - I don't wanna do the math to figure out my average speed]), segment 4 was pretty bad too.  This was back in the  good ol' days that checkpoint 3 was the Tipi of Despair and was set on the top of the exposed Wakemup Hill and didn't even have water (the good ol' days kinda sucked).  I had carelessly let my Camelbak hose freeze up and had no water in those last 25 miles.  I ate snow.  It was an interesting experience.  Anyway, once the race was over and once I had quenched my thirst, hunger, and need for sleep, as I thought back on the race I became more and more smitten.  Not quite ready to actually race it again, I went back in '10 to photograph the race (see the pics I took) and was smitten the rest of the way again.  I went back in '11 (when I started this blog.  The blog covers training as well as the race but you read part 1 and hopefully after reading that you'll want to read part 2)(by the way, if you want to read what I wrote about the '09 race, click here.)   Perhaps what caused me to be smitten was being out there taking pictures like this:

I was almost drooling I was so jealous of the guys/gals in the race.  I wanted to be doing it so bad.  Snow conditions were nice and hard, temps were about perfect (I can't remember exactly but it was something like -5 at this point).  Oh, in case you're wondering, this is the leaders about a mile after crossing Hwy 53 maybe 19 miles into the race.

Now I'm definitely smitten.  But don't ask me if  I'm smitten or smote this year until after I've had a meal and have slept at the finish (assuming I make it that far).