Looking Past the Cold

Last night, I bought airline tickets to fly to SoCal and race the Stagecoach 400.
400 miles of desert mountain biking in late-April sounds nice right now, as the mercury is still falling past 35 below zero.
It'll be bikepacking and sleep deprivation at its finest. To quote JayP, 'I plan to go to places in my mind I've never been before.'

Here's a sample of what I can expect... photo courtesy of Hub Cyclery in Idyllwild, CA, who puts the race on.


I can't begin to say how excited I am, not only for this race, but the 3,000+ miles of mountain bike racing and trips I have planned.
It should be a year to remember and a year that will take me to incredible places, both on the map and in my heart & mind.

More on the other 2,600 miles of biking races and trips to come... Stay tuned and, as always, thanks for being awesome viewers!

Inspiration

Jay Petervary Tour Divide Record Ride from Fisher Creative on Vimeo.
Jay Petervary, legendary self-supported long-distance endurance cyclist recently set the record for the Tour Divide. This vignette gives insight into Jay's mind and what it's like to set a record on the toughest bike race in the world.

Time to (Re)Think

One of my most favorite things about being on a bike is all the quiet time you have to think... about anything... and everything.

Obviously, I like going light and simple and pedaling a heavily laden bike up steep hills is not so much fun. So, I resorted to Cass Gilbert, world traveller via Surly Ogre. His (bike)packing style is similar to mine, so I was able to jump the learning curve quite a bit through his writings and photos. He has great insight on how and why, including how & why not, through experience. The latter is the best.

My Fargo got rigged up in a similar fashion, which I really like a lot. It worked fantastically in the 1.5 day ride Brett & I did to Denali Park.
Unfortunately, my worsening ankle pronation due to flat arches, caused a tendon/ligament to flare up and cause a good limp. I had to quit the 460 mile ride I had planned for 6 days, going across the Denali Highway and back up to Fairbanks.
Instead, I hopped the train back to Fairbanks from Denali National Park, where Brett had planned on accompanying me to.

In the 120 paved miles, I did learn my nicely-organized set-up in one way and junk show in another, could be improved upon. Ironically, I got home and Cass had put up a post with his altered set-up, which was almost exactly what I was thinking to change. I like the addition of the rack to strap random things to, or as a place to put some food at the start of the trip or at re-supplies.

When I got back to town, I bought some Superfeet insoles and they seem to be helping my foot issue. I'll give it a few days of rest, then I'll be back on the bike. I have a few more rides I'd like to do this summer, including the portion I had to skip out on.

Ride times:
Fairbanks to Monderosa ~55 mi: 3.5 hrs
Monderosa to Tatlanika/Nenana River bridge ~27 mi: 2 hrs (camp overnight)
Bridge to Healy ~25 mi: 2 hrs
Healy to Denali Park ~14 mi: 1 hr
8.5 hrs total ride time, Fairbanks to Denali ~120 mi

Here are some photos of the ride. Thanks for stopping by.
Josh

Prior to Launch

Getting loaded up to do 450 miles on the new Salsa Fargo 3. Mostly a paved route with 110 mi of dirt in the middle. And mostly solo.

The kit pictured worked well on a seven mile ride with some gravel... except for the sandals strapped to the seatbag. They fell off twice. I'll add a cordloc to the stretch cord and I think that will solve it.

Ken went hiking with Andrew Skurka and (finally) saw the light in ultralight. I've tried with him, but he's stubborn... and morally opposed to owning too much 'new' stuff. I applaud him for that and we cheers over it, with PBR in cans.

I'm hoping to learn some stuff on the bike this week. I have 1,000 miles of riding planned this month. Yay bikes!

No, I did not die.

It's been a month-and-a-half since I last posted, as you probably well know. Sorry. Life has been busier than words can describe, mostly with adventure, but work (out of the office) has played a big part, as well. I have only worked indoors for about a week in the past month-and-a-half, which has been awesome, but also stressful.

Jen & I joined 9 others in Yakutat and paddled down the Russell Fjord for a ways, before deciding that only 4 hours pause in the rain in three days was trumping our ability to enjoy ourselves. We turned around the next day and everyone else continued on. Snow accumulating on our packrafts made us happy we were headed back, while the others continuing down the fjord wondered what they were doing going closer to the glaciers.

The night we got back, I started moving into a new cabin located 3.5 miles closer to town. It's way nicer than the old place and that much closer to work, which is huge in the winter when it's -35F. I somehow scrambled to move out of one cabin and into another in 5 days, just in time to leave for two weeks.

The next fifteen days were spent on the Yukon River, between the town of Circle and the Canadian border, surveying peregrine falcons nesting on the bluffs above the river. A great, long time out on the river (my old stomping grounds) and we got to watch a lot of birds... pretty much a nesting pair on every bluff.

The day after I got back, it was re-pack and turn around to boat down the Yukon, orienting four co-workers to Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve. The Yukon was at flood stage and it was like being in combat, navigating the boat on the river.

After being car-less for a month, I made the decision to keep it status quo and buy a new bike instead of a car. The Fargo 3 got the nod over the higher-end Fargo 2, which lacks bar-end shifters and is only a 2x10 with a really lame paint job. I'd feel snobbish running 10 in the rear, like a real road biker, which I am not. A couple other little things, ironically, make the 3 nicer (IMHO) than the higher price point 2, outside of the bane of my existence, Avid BB5 brakes, which are easily replaced for cheap. Overall, I like the Fargo over the Surly Ogre because of the drop bars, the road gearing up front and a mountain cassette in the rear (all mountain on the Ogre), and having been not so impressed with the feel of the Ogre, either.

Now, only four days after returning, it's the eve of heading down to California with Jen to do a mini road trip to Nevada.

The point of all this is I have countless photos, stories, gear reviews, etc, to share from as far back as February... or maybe even earlier. But, with a lot of time off the rest of this summer and lots of big plans (plus a GF, lonely dogs, and a new cabin to move into), it may be fall before I even get a chance to go through all the photos, much less put together a post worth reading.

All I can say is thank you and semper fidelis.
Now, go get some, yourself!