Mrs. goes/ Steed comes

The Mrs. left today to return to MSP to start school. It started as a sad day, but then:

I got my steed back! I brought my MTB to the LBS on 6/ 19 to solve a chain suck and shifting problem only to find out the frame was cracked.

2 months later, Gary Fisher has finally replaced my bike which was under warranty. It looks pretty good no?

The bike is leaning in some raspberry bushes. They tasted really good!

I had to upgrade to disc brakes (BB7) and new front (XT) and rear (LX) derailleurs to make this frame work with all of my old parts. The new rear shock is really cool!

I was able to get GF to pay for about 1/2 the labor (initially it was all on me!) and a new good friend nicknamed Slowpoke on AKspokes.com gave me the wheels (so as to fit the disc rotors) so I was only out $200 to basically upgrade my bike by A LOT!

I did loose a lot of time on the bike. It wore on me a lot this summer not being able to ride the dirt. I think if there is a next time I'll buy a used bike and sell it when I get my steed back.

I'm not sure when I'll be able to get in a big ride but I'm chomping at the bit right now. I just went for about 40' tonight to make sure all was well. It is.

More from the commute

This is one more video from the Mrs. commute. I really like this spot because it has a street lamp in the shape of a fishing lure and a blue target sign embedded onto the pavement. Me thinks the new Target in town may "donate" in order to make it a red lure and sign to get a bit more advertising:

Today I had to go grocery shopping. Lot's of people comment on how big my basket is. Why would I want a smaller one when I can do this (I know: another alcohol reference, but this is really about the basket, not the two 12-packs that were on sale! And yes, that is a sack of groceries next to them):

Sometimes I get to pass other bikers while riding my Dahon fold-up/ compact/ travel bike (with 20" BMX tires) and it just feels good.

Today I was heading up a pretty good hill and a guy on a MTB was in front of me. I sucked up to his rear tire and after a while he smiled and said "Nice!" when he saw my little bike. I chose that point to pass him:

Mrs. on commute

After doing my hill workout I decided to meet the Mrs. and ride home with her on her usual commute. Here is a sample of the grinding monotony she gets to ride to and from work every day:

Here is a shot I took trying to give some perspective to how steep the hills are when I've reached the 2/3 mark of up (I start about 100' above sea level):

We found a grazing moose for the Mrs. to pose in front of. Not sure what it's barfing up, we didn't stick around to find out:

4th of July

Yep, I'm finally getting caught up. We went to Seward for the 4th and watched the fireworks at midnight of the 3rd (it was sort of dusky, the clouds helped) and sang patriotic songs as they exploded in the air between the mountains.

We camped in my roommates parent's yard and we went down in the morning to watch our friend Aubrey take 4th in the race...no, THE RACE!

The mount marathon race is a race up, then down a mountain. It's so steep that every year tourists have to be rescued off of it: http://www.adn.com/front/story/477169.html

The following are pix from the men's race (we couldn't get ourselves up early enough for the women's except to be at the finish line).

Here they are going up the part that you can see from the bottom:


Here is a few guys flying down the cliff face on the way back down (click on the pix to make it bigger):


And here is the winner running down the shale:

There is snow at the top so they kind of skid/ slide down on their butts until they get back to dirt and rock.

We also got to meet the Mrs. distant cousin who was coming though on a cruise. He is the district attorney for a huge area in northern Minnesota encompassing Duluth. He wrote a very nice letter of recommendation to help get her into law school for which we are very grateful.

The drive down and back were gorgeous between the mountains and next to the sea.

67.5

An odd number for a title, but that's my mileage from biking yesterday. I used my Dahon fold-up bike and may have set an Alaskan record for most miles on a compact bike in a day.

My knee was getting pretty sore at the end, still is, but when a gorgeously sunny day presents itself here you have to take advantage (last week it rained for 6 days straight)

Here is how you treat a sore knee:

Here are some flowers from the Turnagain Arm where I ate my lunch. In the background you can see the clear strips on the mountain where the avalanches have removed the trees (too bad I didn't realize the camera was set at a low mega pixel when I took some of these):

Here is the view where I ate my lunch:

On my way back into town, I met up with the Mrs. when she was finished working. We went down the Tony Coastal trail to get home and got to see a bunch of these:

Now I've got helmet cam positioned right, but it's still doing 8mm quality video. Here is a sample of what you get to see riding/ driving to the Kenai Peninsula from Anchorage (can you tell it's an upright bike?):

Career Milestone

So here I am at the big milestone: 10,000 flight hours! I've been logging flight time for 18 years and on July 9, 2008 at 7:51 Pacific Daylight time I snapped this picture when I hit the big number on my way from Seattle to Lihue, Hawaii.

If this keeps up I'll have over 30,000 hours when I retire.

cursed hill

Today I biked my hill route. Last time I did it I got glass in a tire which was annoying to change since I had stuff piled up in my basket.

Today I managed to break a spoke on the way down some recently climbed large hills. It wasn't too bad, but the wheel would rub one side of the brake then the other. I gotta stop incorporating errands into my workout: I had the basket full again today.

I was able to get it fixed at the LBS so I can ride it to work tomorrow. It's always nice having something done at the bike shop when it comes back in better shape than I could have done and, of course, a lot less effort on my part.