Bike Snob NYC Mention

I made a comment about the ghost bike issue in the Bike Snob NYC blog yesterday and my comment was mentioned in Snob's post today. Check it out.

A Comment on Ignorance

It’s easy to predict what you’re going to find in the comment section of an online news article. The comment section is the domain of people who feel obligated to subject the rest of us to their half-baked, ill-informed, mean-spirited and grammatically flawed opinions. These opinions are generally heavily biased and completely ignorant. My general policy is to avoid the comment section all together, but I find that it’s like a train wreck; I know it’s going to be horrible but I just have to look.

Take for example the following comment left by Buck1996 on the KTUU story about the DOT removing the ghost bike from the Tudor and C Street intersection:

To prevent this problem from occuring again I recommend keep the bikes off the road. Bicyclists do nothing but impede traffic and cause a real safety hazard to themselves and the vehicles around them. Road were made for vehicular travel. Bicycles are not taxed for the upkeep and maintence either.

While not as mean-spirited as many comments left on these types of sites this one is clearly heavily biased and completely ignorant. What followed Buck1996’s comment was a true gem of a response courtesy of Higgs Boston:

To prevent this problem from occurring again, I recommend keep the cars in the garage. Automobiles do nothing but impede the flow of responsible bicyclists, pedestrians, and other traffic that does not require the movement of tons of indulgent metal down the road. Motorized vehicles are a safety hazard to themselves and the vehicles around them. City infrastructure is made for citizens, not self-righteous children behind the wheel. Road traffic is not taxed anywhere NEAR enough to support the cost to taxpayers and property owners, many of whom cannot afford a car, while the same children vote against funding for public tansportation.

If you do a little research of your own you will find that Higgs is right on the money with his comment, particularly relating to the highway subsidies paid by all taxpayers. What a difference a little self education makes.

When hub freezes over

Last spring I found myself not riding places I wanted to out of fear that my full suspension Giant would be too tempting to thieves and it would get stolen. I decided to buy a less expensive bike to use as a commuter.

I wanted something with fenders that I could mount a pannier rack to. Since I live in Alaska, where freezing temperatures dominate six months of the year, I wanted a bike that didn't have any suspension that could get damaged in the cold (I hear that seals can freeze and break) and a bike that I could easily mount my studs to (which are for 26" mountain bike wheels).

I came across the Kona Worldbike at Speedway Cycles here in Anchorage. The bike met all of my criteria, plus it had an internal hub that did away with the need to have a high maintenance derailleur system. I rode this bike as frequently as I could over the summer (which was not nearly as frequently as I would have liked since I was working on a road construction project out of town and getting married last summer).

I was actually looking forward to winter for the opportunity to ride my bike to work a couple times a week. I threw my studs on and waited for the right day. I'm not into killing myself during my commute so I wait for the right day to ride in. A day when there hasn't been snow or wind for a couple days so that the city has time to plow the bike paths. (In all reality it makes little difference since the road plows seem to make a game out of covering freshly plowed sidewalks with snow from the roads (Check out this post to see what I mean).

After commuting a couple of times I started to notice an annoying pattern developing. My morning ride to work would go pretty well, but during my evening ride home I always felt like I was riding up a hill of sand. There were times where I had to get off and walk on some very gradual uphill sections. Not only was this tiring but it was a little embarrassing too.

I went back to Speedway to see if anyone knew what the heck was going on. It turns out Shimano packs their internal hubs with grease that freezes in cold temperatures. I'm sure that works for 99% of the people who buy bikes with Shimano internal hubs but I'm the 1% that uses their product in a way that they apparently didn't anticipate. Luckily the Speedway guys are aware of this shortfall with the Shimano internal hubs and know how to fix it.

I'm glad to report that my hub has been re-packed with grease that will not freeze in any temperatures that I would ever ride in. Thanks Speedway.

Reconnaissance

The Marine Corps is the most elite branch of the U.S. military. They have the most stringent physical standards and the longest boot camp among the armed forces. The most elite units of the Marine Corps are the Reconnaissance units. In order to be accepted to a Reconnaissance unit a Marine must have a stellar record and undergo an extreme physical indoctrination. These Marines receive specialized training, including hours of swimming and running with heavy loads.

The mission of these elite Marines may seem simple considering the intensity of their training. Their primary function is to slip undetected behind enemy lines to collect information about the opposition forces. They conduct their missions in small groups and they make every effort to not be detected. A successful reconnaissance mission is one in which a shot is never fired and the enemy never knew they were being watched.

I set out for my first ride yesterday thinking that I would try some new terrain, I live near Russian Jack Park and I figured that would be a great place to start my mission. I rode along Muldoon Road to Northern Lights Boulevard to the East High footbridge. I was able to take the footbridge over to the Russian Jack trail system. The sidewalks and trails along Northern Lights and Muldoon were mostly free of snow and ice. I was studded up so I didn't have any trouble with the icy spots. Where I ran into trouble was on the Russian Jack trails where I lost traction on the slushy snow.

It wasn't until I was past the Russian Jack Chalet that I really started having trouble. The trails seemed to have well packed snow up until then. Once past the Chalet, I hit a couple of soft spots that required me to get off my bike and walk a few feet before I could find traction. I pushed on until I got past the tunnel under Debarr, and on the other side I found a sudden and complete loss of traction. I couldn't dig up enough motivation to keep pushing along the trail so I headed home without conquering my first new trail.

The moral of the story; do your reconnaissance. I drove down the Glenn Highway a little later in the day and could see that the trail was clear and dry. I saw several people taking advantage of the trail, not struggling at all. If I had driven by at some point this past week to check the conditions at Russian Jack I would have realized the trails weren't ready yet and I could have changed my plan for a more successful ride, the Glenn Highway trail for instance.

Kincaid vs. Bicentennial

I know I have yet to write a single trail description yet, but I thought I would go ahead and start the debate anyway. I've ridden in both parks, more so in Bicentennial than Kincaid. I haven't come close to riding all of the trails either park has to offer. In the case of both parks, there are a lot of trails to ride. Over the course of writing this blog, I expect that my opinions of these two parks will change.

With all that being said, my first impressions of each park are as follows:

Kincaid - Great if you're a skier.

This park is set up very well for the cross country skiers that frequent it during the winter. The trails are generally wide enough to allow room for the skate skiers, and then some. The trails are marked with directional arrows that allow the skiers to efficiently traverse the trails. This is not a park for mountain bikers. The trails are too wide to appeal to the single track fans. The Surfaces are too often grass, making pedaling difficult, especially with all of the steep grades in the park. One of the upsides to Kincaid is that the trails seem much less crowded in the summer (with people at least) than Bicentennial. It's also THE place to go in Anchorage if you want to see a moose. I've seen more in Kincaid and along the Coastal trail than I have anywhere else in town. Even with the upsides of Kincaid, as far as I'm concerned this park is better left for the skiers.

Bicentennial - The place to be for mountain bikers.





The best mountain bike trails in Anchorage (and maybe even in Alaska) are in Bicentennial. The surfaces are packed dirt and the trails tend be over rolling terrain, with less impossibly steep grades. There are lots of technical aspects to the trails, with roots, boulders, and fallen trees to navigate. There are sections of the park where the trails are too wide, too steep, and too vegetated for biking but the trails in between make it worth the trip. It's been my experience that Bicentennial has a more diverse user group than Kincaid (bikers, hikers, orienteering groups, joggers, equestrians, etc.)and the trails tend to be much more crowded (oh, and then there's the bears)... Despite the down sides when you consider the new sections of mountain bike trails constructed by the Single Track Advocates and the park's links to Fort Rich trails and Chugach Park trails, Bicentennial is definitely the place to be for mountain bikers in Anchorage.

My Bike History

Since I haven't been able to make it out for a trail ride yet, I thought I may as well put down a little description of my bike history...

One of my first bikes memories is riding my BMX off of a curb and breaking the frame. I was pretty young, 5 or 6, and had picked up the bike new at Toys-R-Us. This was a big deal for me since we didn't have much money growing up and I rarely got anything new.

I've owned two hard-tail mountain bikes. My first mountain bike was a Diamondback of some sort. The guy at the bike shop must have thought I was destined for a growth spurt because the bike was too big then, and it would still be to big for me now. Adding to the awkwardness of the overly sized bike was the fact that it had a "splatter" paint job. I'm pretty sure the base color was black, but the frame had been splattered with all different color paint, very Jackson Pollock. I'm pretty sure it was a steel frame bike and it had a solid fork.

My next mountain bike was a GT Aggressor. I think it was an aluminum frame. It was bright red and had a front suspension fork (although a pretty lousy one). I bought it when I was around 17 to replace my car, which had been totaled when I was rear ended while stopped at a light. I only go $500 from the insurance company for the wreck, so I used it to buy a bike. It was a good bike, but was horribly uncomfortable. For some reason my hands would fall asleep about a mile into every ride. I didn't take the bike with me when I was in the Marines, but I grabbed it on my way up to Alaska. It took me a while to get tired enough of it to replace it, which I finally did in fall of 2008.

That's when I spent a few weeks searching the Anchorage bike shops for just the right ride. I found it at Paramount. I rode a couple of Giants there and decided that they had the right fit. I settled on a Giant Trance 2 and couldn't be happier. I'll provide more details about that in a later post.

Getting Started?

It's Spring in Anchorage, the snow is melting and it's icy in the morning (all day in the shade). In a couple of weeks the snow will have melted away but the ground will still be frozen, which means every trail that isn't paved will be a muddy mess. This is why the Municipality's policy is to close dirt trails during break-up (what we call this time of year). The dirt trails will be closed until June 1, which seems like a very long time from now.

The delay in opening the trails is all the more difficult to bear since I've been off my bike all winter. Partially due to hip surgery in October and partially due to having a full suspension bike in Alaska. It turns out extremely cold temperatures (like the ones we get here in Anchorage) are devastating on suspension components. Luckily I didn't learn this first hand.

I spent most of the winter recovering from my surgery. I was able to ride a stationary bike starting in about December, I was able to start playing hockey again in February, I went snowboarding in March, but I wasn't able to ride outside because of the whole full suspension bike thing. So now that the weather is warming up I'm ready to hit the trails. In fact, I slapped my studs on this weekend and went for a 19 mile ride (round trip from my house to Westchester Lagoon via the Chester Creek Trail).

I'm thinking I've got a couple of weeks before it gets to a point where all the dirt trails are off limits. I've also got 135 miles of paved trails I can conquer, so I'm thinking that I'll be able to keep myself busy enough. Of course these aren't the ideal conditions upon which to base a trail description. I'll have to play the blog by ear for the near future, or just ride the trials again once they are clear.