adventures in commuting

I had a great ride home this evening, and it wasn't just because my Fargo was dressed up with flowers on the handlebar. The air was cleansed by the rain. Just a few sprinkles landed on me after I left the shop at around 9. I could see some clouds moving over toward the inlet, but there was hardly a breeze.

Drivers cooperated as I rode through the construction at the Seward Highway. Pickup trucks waited for me. People backed away from intersections when they saw me. They yielded when they had the right-0f-way. Along Elmore Road, I saw two moose browsing in a meadow near the mushing trails.

I turned onto the path alongside the new Martin Luther King, Jr. Avenue, passed the ballfields and climbed a small hill at Tudor Center Drive. That's when I saw three black bears on the north side of the avenue. I stopped and turned my bike sideways on the trail, prepared to backtrack if I had to.

It was a sow and two cubs. They were shiny and their fur rippled as they moved together and began running across the road. Bear cubs sometimes seem like they could tumble head-over-heels at any moment; their legs seem so small in proportion to their bodies. The family crossed two lanes of pavement, the median and another two lanes as a few cars slowed to let them pass. I watched and waited; saw them disappear around a fence and into the forest.

People have been seeing bears on the trails on the edge of town: in a municipal park a little closer to the mountains and in the state park. I wasn't expecting to see this family tonight but it put a big smile on my face to see my first bears of the year.

Just a side note:
I can't let this moment pass without mentioning that before I climbed the little hill near Tudor Center, I'd noticed the wide underpass that was built under the road. It includes a branch of the paved trail system and a wide grassy area. Planners said it would be a safe wildlife crossing, preventing animals from crossing the road and getting hit by cars. I think I'd rather I encounter the bears at street level as I did this evening instead of under the overpass.

do overs

a sweet ride - my Trance Advanced

I don't like do-overs. I mentioned this in September after I again failed to make a little right-hand switchback that's been taunting me all summer.

On Friday, with the framers busy working on the house, the nail guns and power saws making too much noise for me to think, I let the sunny fall day draw me to the park. Each day, more leaves have been falling to the ground with the mere suggestion of a breeze, covering stretches of the trails and opening up more views of the mountains. I pedaled toward the STA trails.

Now that October is here, the barriers which gave Rover's Run Trail to the bears for the summer have been removed. The gently-climbing trail that follows the Campbell Creek was closed in late May, before it could be opened for the dirt season. Last time I rode Rover's there was probably snow on the ground. Yesterday, some of its puddles had a film of ice no thicker than the caramelized crust on a creme brulee and my tires shattered a path through the ice with similar satisfaction to a spoon on the sweet crust. The trail surface was often leaf-covered and alternated from frozen to a half-inch slick of mud to eight-inch deep puddles. I rode on, over to the STA trails.

check out the new trail signs!

As I began up Drone Lane, I could hear the slimy mud as the tires lifted it off the frozen, hard-packed trail. It's the gooey time of year. I saw ahead my nemesis. I shifted into the gear I thought would be best for the switchback: 1 and 4. I pedaled up, began turning right and stalled.

Okay, I thought to myself. If there is ever a time for do-overs it is now. After all, the riders and bicycles I began seeing coming down the trail were covered with mud from the fast, splattering descent and I had forgotten to install my fenders. So I turned around and rode down, then rode up again. And stalled again. And again.

what color's that bike!?

it looks so easy from here!

What was the problem? I was in the right gear, I just couldn't turn tight enough to make it. Maybe, I thought, I can try again, but this time I decided that if I ended up riding into the ditch on the uphill side of the corner, that would be okay. It's not a deep ditch and I was certainly not going to be riding fast. I rode down again to a small level spot where I was staging the attempts. I rode up and, as expected, ended up in the ditch. Two more tries and I was in the ditch but managed to pedal out. I had to think this through some more.

Next time I climbed, I looked at a birch tree ahead of me, on the outside of the turn. Last winter Randy, one of the STA volunteers, had installed a reflector on it to help mark the trail for night riding. I decided that if I was to make this climb, I needed to veer a bit more to the left before cutting sharply to the right. I aimed for the tree, then turned my bar right, looking up the trail, trying to keep from dropping into the ditch. I rode around the apex, then along the edge and up a few more feet of Drone Lane. I could have kept going. But like a musician who finally plays a complicated phrase, I decided to do it again.

aim for the larger birch, then cut to the right!
(I see flagging - maybe soon we'll fix the grade
where things sloughed a bit...)

And again, and again. I tried to make a tighter turn each time. I must have ridden up and down that stretch a couple dozen times, but I wanted to know that the next time I ride that trail I'm going to know the line just like I know where the letters are on my keyboard. I wanted to know that next time I won't have to think about it as much. That I'll be able to aim the bike and it will know how to make that turn.

Through the process, I remembered my friend Lori joking a few weeks ago when I'd made a tough climb pulling my fully-loaded BOB trailer that I'd shown that hill who was boss (though she used a term I wouldn't use on a family blog). I decided on this corner that rather than dominating it, I had to communicate with it. Talk my way through the impasse until we came to an understanding. Now, I understand that tight bend in the trail. I've made friends with it. We're going to get along just fine.

When I got home, they had begun framing
the new front entrance.

closed!

They closed Rover's Run Trail yesterday. Some call it "Mellen's Way," though the renaming attempt has been foiled by the media which refuse to use the new moniker. Nevermind, though, the trail is closed until October by order of the Parks & Recreation department. It's because of the bears. It's because of the people. It's the fish. It's the wildlife managers.

It's for our protection.

I've biked this trail for years. The year I worked on my book I encountered a black bear sow and two cubs. I skidded to a stop and waited, all the while calling for Jon who was behind me planting trail markers for an event. It made me a bit nervous. A bit more aware, in the same way I'm aware when I'm walking down a street at night in an unfamiliar city or neighborhood. Wary but confident that I can handle whatever arises.

Then last summer the brown bears caused trouble. They seriously mauled two people on the Rover's Run trail, one, a teenage mountain biker. After a runner was attacked, the trail was closed until winter. Two men were also attacked and chased on a trail nearby - the Double-Bubble portion of Spencer Loop. A brownie also chased a runner on the eastern portion of Spencer Loop. Both these trails remained open and are open now.

But Rover's has been closed because it is near a salmon stream, though other trails near the stream have not been closed. I've seen brown bear tracks on a trail across the road from this stream. It has not been closed either.

The trail is not the best one in Anchorage's parks, but it's popular and it connects us to other trails. I happen to live just over two miles from it and commute within a half-mile of the trail on my way to and from work. I'll tell you that it was a bit spooky riding through the park last year, especially after the second mauling. Partly because I arrived at the trailhead to find police tape blocking my exit from the trails I'd just biked; partly because an officer was gathering his gun and gear to head out into the woods to find that bear. But mostly because after that second attack, the park felt abandoned, like an empty street in a nameless city. You felt there should be people there but just didn't know where they were.

Where they were was not in Far North Bicentennial Park. They were in the state park, at Kincaid Park on the west side; they were even on the Resurrection Trail where there are loads of bears and little hope for cell phone service (so I hear from people who have cell phones) in case you need to call for help.

So last year the city told residents to stay off one trail, so people abandoned the entire park. We can assume that bears felt comfortable moving in. Now here we are with the start of the summer mountain biking season and Parks and Recreation is closing down a trail. I'm sure there's been lots of pressure to do so (mostly from people who don't use trails). This is precisely what the city shouldn't do. What they should do is tell every mountain biker, hiker and equestrian to fill those trails. Stop-and-go traffic, fender-to-hoof all along the trail. Weekends, evenings after work. Fill those trails.

Because if we are out there making noise, passing through, causing a commotion, no bear is going to want to choose that trail as a buffet and playground for raising a family. Trouble isn't going to move into a busy park.

For the record, I don't advocate poaching closed trails (esp. when there's a camera and they can always find out who you are so you can be ticketed and it makes all of us look bad as a group), but I do think we all need to make a case for reasonable trail management. Closing one trail is a simplistic solution whose repercusions will resonnate throughout the park. Not in a good way. If people don't think a park is safe, will they fund projects to improve it? Will people schedule events in the park helping put more fees in the city coffers? I think not. The people pressuring Parks & Rec to close this trail should think a little more creatively about how to make our parks safe rather than scaring people away.