Cycling pictures

Here are some pictures summing up my cycling adventures in the last year or two. I should have posted them as they happened, but I was swamped last summer, so now you just get a whole bunch at once, late. Enjoy!

It's good to be prepared for when geocaching sends you places you can't really take a bike, even though you're still dressed for cycling...



We had some flooding last July, and some of the bike paths by the river weren't realistically rideable. Not if you want to keep from getting drenched in Chena-river-water, anyway.



Like with any sport, the gear tends to develop as the rider does. My family sent me a couple jerseys for my birthday, like this one here:



Note: I was a lot more excited than that, but the smiley pictures came out a little fuzzy (like the cat in the corner of this one). Sorry about that.

My buddy Byronius got me a new chain ring, which Coffee Duck taught me how to replace. Nailed it! My first bike upgrade! Yay!



Geocaching is always one of my favorite hobbies, and cycling makes it much easier and more fun! Arctic Llama was even able to bring his Llamalets along.



On my way to work one fateful morning early last summer, I wrecked and scraped my face up. It felt like it took forever to heal, but it was really only a couple weeks, and now the scar is almost unnoticeable. This is after I cleaned up a bit--I thought the "before" picture might be a little too cringeworthy for the blog.



I am really grateful I was wearing my helmet. That crack there could have been my skull! I've always been really dedicated to wearing a helmet, but now I have a really good story about why. I kept the broken one so I can use it as a show and tell item.



Eventually, Coffee Duck and I worked our way into mountain biking. Nothing suuuper hardcore, since neither of our bikes are designed for the crazy stuff, but Esther Dome had some fun and interesting trails. Or... well, mud.









A trail to a (relatively) nearby glacier had some interesting parts too:



Someday when I'm rich, I'll get a Corvus fat bike and have some awesome winter cycling pictures for you too! Until then, I'll try and update more often with some fun adventures this summer.

First paddle of the season

Two weekends ago, I went for my first outdoor paddle of this summer with Coffee Duck and our friend Badger Dog. Badger Dog likes to canoe, but Ducky and I prefer kayaks. Fortunately, there is no rule saying our boats all have to match.

It was my first time paddling when there was still ice on moving water. And of course, I have to specify "moving water" because last year at the same time (May 5th for both), I did paddle on still water that had ice on it:

There was considerably less ice on the moving water this year than on the lake last year, as you can see.

There were big floating ice platforms, some ten feet or so across, and Ducky and I enjoyed getting up some speed and grounding ourselves on the ice, sliding across to the other side. Unfortunately, I didn't get any good pictures of that particular piece of fun. I did get a picture of the weird ice formation on one of the smaller chunks, though.

That water just looks so nasty, though...

Classes

I'm so excited for warmer weather! I can't WAIT to be on open water again! Loading and unloading the boats on the trailer is WAY more comfortable now that we can do it in shorts instead of ALL the coats and gloves...



Why yes, those boats ARE steaming. Hard to believe that was just a month ago, and now...



Our classes are going (heh heh...) swimmingly! We've learned a fair bit about being better instructors and playing off each other well. I really like that we've arranged for classes to go from 2:30-4:30, while open paddling is 3:30-5:30. This helps the students not be distracted by watching the paddlers longingly while we're going through the necessary talking-before-getting-in-the-boat. It also gives the students time for free paddling practice after the class so they can practice and learn from the other paddlers. Also, (bonus!) they get extra time on the water, so they're getting something from the class that the other paddlers aren't. So far, though, although we've had several students who had paddled quite a lot before (one of today's students was even on the champion Epic league team last summer), we have yet to have a student who didn't learn something from even the introductory class. That's a nice feeling! :)



We're looking forward to teaching classes on the Air Force base in the fall, and are currently aiming to alert the home-schoolers (there are a LOT of home schooled kids in and around Fairbanks) to the option of canoe and kayaking classes year-round. (If we're lucky, we'll have a youth Epic league in no time!)



In the meantime, Mike has been working hard preparing a presentation for the Fairbanks Paddlers Club, which means he's been going through tons of pictures and GoPro videos from last summer. His excitement is contagious, and all of us are just itching to get out and have summer fun now!





Though as much fun as it was, I hope we don't end up having to do this again:

Bored paddlers

Today at the pool, a bunch of us were practicing all kinds of weird tricks. Balancing tricks, bounces, spins, rolls... We practiced with paddles, with Frisbees, with hands only...

One of our new paddlers (he took an intro class just a few weeks ago and already has a pretty reliable Eskimo roll!) watched us and commented, "It's amazing the things paddlers will do when they get bored..."

Kayak sledding

I know I promised I would talk about more boat names next, but I think I'll use that for a filler post some other time. The weather's been getting warmer, and it's supposed to be getting above freezing fairly consistently starting this week (WOOHOO!), so everyone's getting eager to get outside. We're using the last little bit of winter that we have to have all the fun we want to have in the snow without the -30 degree temperatures that usually accompany our winters. In this case, Mike, Tony, and I decided to give kayak sledding a try.

We took our kayaks to the sledding hill on UAF campus. The remains of cheap plastic sleds littered the ground, but we didn't let that deter us. Mike and I each grabbed a Stomper, figuring them to be good, maneuverable choices, Tony grabbed the Mullet, and we started huffing our way to the top of the hill. Turns out that kayaks are a lot heavier than normal sleds, and the climb up the hill was something of a workout. When we finally reached the top, I looked down the hill and noticed it was a lot bumpier than I was expecting. Also, the snow was hard-packed, not powder, and I realized the paddles were probably not going to do us much good. I began to have misgivings.

Mike went first. Tony called for him to drag back on the paddle, but it was pretty ineffective, and he turned sideways and bounced hard on each of the drops near the bottom. I felt sure he was going to flip, but he slid safely into the powder at the foot of the hill.

I went next and tried to follow the back-paddling advice, but there was no grip. I might have had better luck trying to control my speed and direction with a handful of Jell-O. The kayak turned sideways just like Mike’s did, but clearly, his balance was far superior to mine. Slamming back into the ground after each drop was uncomfortable, but not nearly as uncomfortable as when the kayak flipped upside-down and I slid the rest of the way down the hill on my face with a kayak on top of me.

The visor of my helmet was broken, but I was surprisingly undamaged, so we decided to continue. But first, we stuck our paddles into the snow at the base of the hill and decided to control our boats by dragging our gloves on the ground, which worked far better. Tony made sledding look easy, and he always slid the farthest when he reached the foot of the hill. Mike, who loves challenging himself, took the chute that wove through the trees and even took a big jump backwards (though that might have been accidental). Not only did I manage to not flip over again, but on one particularly entertaining trip down the hill, my boat came to a gentle stop right up against the paddles, which I tagged to score a point. (GOAL!!!)

Things we learned: 1) Flat-bottomed boats like the Mullet are a better choice than boats with more rocker. 2) Powder would probably have made this easier. 3) Without powder, don’t try to use a paddle. 4) ALWAYS wear a helmet!!! 5) Unless you're actually injured, don't quit just because your first try didn't work out perfect.

This is definitely something that was worth doing, and while I don't know if it immediately jumped to the top of my List of Favorite Activities, you certainly wouldn't have to twist my arm to convince me to go again.

--Video courtesy of Pirate Cat Studios

Boat names: Pumpkin, Great Pumpkin, Sweet Baby Chico, Demon Splat

Alaska Dream Adventures currently has 91 boats (mostly kayaks, but some canoes) in its fleet. A few of the rental boats have names, and, as we're just about to take steps to catapult Alaska Dream Adventures into a much bigger business, we plan to name the remaining Nameless Ones. Want to know how a few of them got their names?

The first boat I personally named was Pumpkin, my orange XP9. She was named for her color and because I fell in love with her right away, and "Pumpkin" is also a term of endearment. Her big sister, the orange XP10 naturally became the Great Pumpkin. (She's Pumpkin, only bigger, and "Great Pumpkin" is, of course, a reference to the Peanuts comic strip.)

Sweet Baby Chico is a Jefe Chico. The first time we took him down Rock Creek (a shallow, rocky little run with lots of fun and active paddling), he got a hole or five in the bottom of the boat and we kept having to stop and bail. We tried patching it, but we hadn't brought the equipment with us, as the run only takes an hour. Sweet Baby Chico kept sinking and even tried to throw Mike (the paddler using him) out of the boat when we hit the calmer lake water. We ended up having to do some significant repairs, and the bottom of Chico is now a mishmash of plastic-welded colors. According to Mike, "it's a pain in the @#$ to roll, sinks, covered in patches, tried to drown me..." So we called it Poor Baby Chico. But I once called it "Sweet Baby" instead of "Poor Baby," and "Sweet Baby Chico" is what stuck.

Demon Splat is a green XP9. Originally, we named it Green Apple Splatter: "Green Apple" for the color and "Splatter" because of what happens if you eat too many apples... But, being a demo boat, the word "Demo" was already marked on the side, and Gregg pointed out that the boat was named Demo (he pronounced it "dee-moe"). So Mike grabbed a Sharpie and added an "N" after the word "Demo," then added "Splat" as homage to Green Apple Splatter's original name, thus changing the boat's name to Demon Splat.

Coming up later: Explanations for Thwomp, Bruiser, Garuk, BOB, Riffraff (name pending approval), Nightshade, Soggy Smurf, and more. Feel free to share in the comments any fun names you've had for boats (or cars or other meaningful objects) and how those names came to be.

Epic Enthusiasm!

In the summertime, I play Epic Kayak Ultimate. The easiest way to describe this sport is by calling it Ultimate Frisbee from kayaks. But that description doesn't do it justice at all! I like sports okay, in general. I enjoy basketball, volleyball, tennis, and especially racquetball. But Epic is a whole different thing. Your abilities in the game are directly affected by your choice in boats (which, in turn, is affected by your size and build). Some boats are built for speed, some are built for maneuverability, some are built for stability. If you don't yet have solid balance in a boat, you'll have to sacrifice some speed to get a more stable boat. And a Dancer is way faster than a playboat, but it takes significantly longer to turn, which can cause a problem if the disc lands four feet to the right of you.

In the winter, we paddle kayaks in the pool twice a week, but the pools are significantly smaller than an Epic field, so we can't play a proper Epic game. Instead, we use the time to try out different boats, practice other skills, such as rolling, and generally stay in shape. It's a great way to hang with friends and get some exercise to stave off the cabin fever we all tend to get in Alaska, when it's cold and dark too often to do all the outdoorsy things we love to do all summer.

Tony and I teach beginner-level paddling courses in the pools on one of our paddling nights, then practice our own skills on the other paddling night. Today, we didn't have any students (for the first time since we started teaching classes), so we ran a quick practice class for Gregg and Mike (the other two guides at Alaska Dream Adventures), then took advantage of the rest of the time to play around. Since everyone paddling tonight was a relatively skilled paddler, we started a game of... well, disc-passing. There weren't teams or a goal to score on. It was a free-for-all race to the disc, then the winner would pass to the most difficult shot and try and get people to fight over it. We discourage aggression that could result in ramming or other injuries, but today we were definitely all getting really into it.

For my part, I was in a Dancer. The Dancer is one of the fastest Epic boats in our fleet. I own a blue-and-red one I call the Soggy Smurf (Smurf for short). It's a bare-bones boat. No thigh braces, no supports, not even a drain plug! I learned while practicing my rolls that I can't lock into it well enough, thus resulting in my sliding out of the seat. I tried adding hip pads, but they were insufficient, and they kept falling out. I suggested to Tony that I might want to try thigh braces. We found another Dancer in the fleet with thigh braces that I originally intended to yoink and put in the Smurf, then adjust the seat however I needed to and call it good. But the seat of the other Dancer actually had a back support, which would give me a better lock in when I leaned back. And it had a proper drain plug and some supports (which, theoretically, would help with buoyancy). The foot pegs even felt higher quality. So today, I brought the other Dancer to test out. I named her Nightshade.

So, first of all, rolling in Nightshade was AMAZING! I could hang out upside-down, and my hips would say, "Mmmm, well, I would slide out, buuuut... this is nice." No problems at all! Second of all, because I was locked into my boat better, every paddle stroke became more efficient, so I was shooting across the water like lightning! (I felt even faster because I've been playing around in dinky little playboats all winter, which are fun, but not exactly built for speed.) Hands down, I was significantly faster than anyone else in the pool today. Tony might still be able to beat me in a race... IF he were in a Stinger. And I still accelerate faster, so in the pool, I still win!

Shooting across the pool in a fast boat, paddling for speed for the first time all winter, and practicing positioning and blocking and everything else you use in an actual Epic game rebuilt my enthusiasm for the game more than every Epic event we've tried to do all winter long. I can't WAIT to play again and see how much trading in Smurf for Nightshade improves my game!