New Year's Day Ride

Humans spend a lot of time looking forward. We tend to not be all that happy in the present, and we like to look ahead to times we think might be better. On New Year's Eve, we spend a lot of time making resolutions that will probably never cross our minds a second time. Humans also spend a lot of time looking back (mostly to 1982).

Instead of doing any of that, let's spend the day looking twelve to fifteen feet ahead while moving our feet in circles. Let's ride 25ish miles on mixed media (mountain or cross bikes will probably be necessary, unless you ride road bikes like this guy). Obviously, we'll have a beer or two upon our return. If we spot an orange camper van along the ride, we'll buy a round. 

Okay! Meet at the shop on January 1st, 1982, at 12:30pm. That will give you time to sleep off all of those steak and tater-tot sandwiches you ate after midnight on New Year's Eve. See you then. Yeah bikes!

A proposed route.

We'll do something like this if the weather has made the streets impassable. 

Eggnog Tide

As you may know, we North Americans are basically in the throes of 30 Days of Insane Traffic and Rapid Weight Gain. What I mean to say is that I don't want to deprive myself of even one chance to drink too much eggnog, so this blog will be going on hiatus until Monday, January 5th, when it will return with lots of pictures of eggnog and and probably not much else. 

Before we uncork the bourbon and warm up the eggbeater, this blog wants to talk briefly about that sluggish feeling you get when you find yourself off the bike for too long, as a proponent of a holiday-time anti-lethargy buddy system. There are many reasons why a committed cyclist may be off of his or her bike for a longish period of time. All sorts of definitions of the word "longish" are appropriate here, as even a couple of weeks without a ride--especially if those weeks include multiple Thanksgiving meals--can leave a person feeling gross and lethargic.

The problem with getting floppy bear to get up off his flop and go do something is that nobody wants to be the person to approach floppy bear with a sharpish stick and jab him, because the thing that he will get up and go do is take your stick away and snap it over your head and stare menacingly down at you whilst popping his knuckles and etcetera etcetera. 

The thing about being off of the bike for awhile is that, for some reason, it's easy to forget how easy and enjoyable it is to ride. It seems to cold out, or the trip too far, or the destination too formal, or The Nothing is coming, or Jurassic Park is on TV, or etcetera etcetera. Maybe this doesn't happen to everyone. Maybe it happens only to those of us who, as children, would be afraid to jump back in the swimming pool if we'd been out of the water long enough to dry off because the water might be too cold. Despite very concrete, personal experience that involved hours of play in that very same water only minutes before, the possibility that the water would feel cold was often overwhelming. 

Of course, the water was always fine, and it's not too cold for a ride, and the trip is not too far, and Jurassic Park is always on TV. After half a mile, you will be happy you rode. Sometimes you just need someone who leaves you no choice. Someone who is not afraid to tell a grumpy bear to get up and get moving.

"Who needs a thermometer? That's what nipples are for."

Or you can not ride and risk winding up like this:

So as the days get short and the food gets fatty and the nog gets eggy, remember that friends don't let friends enjoy the heated homes and modern conveniences that they've worked so hard to pay for. 

Don't forget you love your bike, and perhaps I'll see you out on the frozen road or trail. If not, see you back here in the new year after too much of this:

Black Knight Friday Sale 11/28 10:00 to 6:00

It's our first Black Knight Friday Sale. We'll have hot apple cider, leftover Thanksgiving goodies poached from the dessert table, and discounts of up to 20% on parts and accessories and stuff. Bikes will cost $100 more than usual. If you buy a bike, Yawp will donate $200 dollars to a charity of your choice (we know of a handful of really rad bicycle charities if you don't have a favorite charity).

Yawp will be closed on Thanksgiving Day so that we can LARP.

Front Range Fat Biking is not Fad Biking

Some people consider winter bicycling to be idiotic. Since this blog isn't authorized to determine who's an idiot and who's not, let's instead question whether winter bicycling is or is not extreme. Humans do lots of extreme stuff, and as long as a lot of people participate in that activity (or at least in their wildest dreams wish they could), nobody has an unkind word to say.

This being Colorado, I imagine I don't have to push this argument too far. We, for example, have this guy, whom everyone loves for nothing but his extremism and devotion. The number of winter riders in Denver is growing, and if motorists don't yet expect to see us riding on snowy days, we're nearing the day when they will. If you live in Colorado, there's a good chance you ski, snowboard, climb frozen waterfalls, dogsled, snow pogo, ice dive, glacier snorkel, or slush surf, so if you drive by a cyclist and wonder what that idiot is doing, then you are probably thinking tribally and not globally, my friend.

I said all of that to say this: fat biking in the snow is awesome, and if you haven't tried it, you should. With the price of ski passes moving into four-digit territory (that's $2000 (!) for Aspen or Telluride) and with traffic on I-70 moving slower than a corn cob through a terrier, there's no reason not to try fat biking. If you haven't tried it already, here's a story about what you might sort of expect.

My compatriot J-Mix (J Mikks (J Miques)) and I recently had ourselves quite a time on fat bicycles. It was fifteen degrees when we met at the Apex parking lot. 

In minutes we had stripped down to our base layers. I wore only a merino wool Icebreaker shirt (that's about as thick as a t-shirt) and some summer gloves for a majority of the climb. I'm sure this would be a different story if the sun hadn't been out, but still, it was by no means unpleasant or even chilly.

The snow didn't make much about the climb more difficult than it would've been on a dry day. The only tricky sections were where rocks warmed in the sun and then melted the surrounding snow. This made the larger rock slabs wet and muddy. Rocks the size of volleyballs were slippery enough to throw my rear wheel sideways. The texture of the snow varied so that switchbacks in the shade were a cinch, while sunny switchbacks and wet water bars proved a little slippery, but neither J Micks nor I dabbed more than we would've on a dry run.

When the going gets tough, the tough get beards.

Jay Michs on the path of the ninja.

Since we weren't blazing trail, getting started on steep slopes was easy. I was riding a Surly Ice Cream Truck with Bud and Lou 4.8 tires that, on the sunny front side of Apex, were the very definition of authoritative.

The backside of Apex (after the new Grubstake cutoff cut off) had more snow and fewer tracks, so we had to break our own trail on Sluicebox and beyond. Breaking uphill trail in five plus inches of snow was difficult. Getting started was especially tricky, but we took turns and stopped where the snow was thin and things were fine, though neither of us brought enough food. We figured (any by 'figured' I mean made up without any real data) we exerted about 1.5 times as much energy as we would've in summer, which means we wanted snacks in a bad way. Hot chocolate, snacks, and whiskey are three things we absolutely should've had.

Quick tip: keep all of your weight over the rear wheel while simultaneously keeping all of your weight over the front wheel.

At the top, we opted to turn around and descend the tail we'd just made instead of braking trail downhill. We descended. It was hilarious. I won't speak for J-Micz, but I personally navigated the fine line between having the time of my life and also fearing for it (my life). Wrecking, though, hurt about as much as a pillow fight.

Quick tip: when you want to turn in deep snow, don't use the handlebars. Use the Force.

Descending the front side, where the snow was thin and heavily traveled, was just like riding a bike. 

Glove liners were almost too much on climbs, while ski mittens weren't enough on descents. You need a larger pack than you normally carry, so you can haul extra layers and a shell (also a thermos, buritto, goggles, etc.) uphill. Mittens, by the way, won't give you the dexterity you'll need to hold onto the bar and operate the brakes with frozen fingers. You'll need lobster claws, and if there's one activity where Bar Mitts really shine, this is it.

Even if you are completely worn out and cold and tired and have a millions things to do, you will probably immediately make plans to ride your fat bike at Three Sisters the following day, no matter how much you don't want to. Because you will really really want to.

While J Mixe and I drank hot cocoa on this rocky outcropping, we talked about how nice it was to have a winter sport again. Both of us have fallen away from the land of lift lines and interstate parking lots, and not getting outside makes winters long and unbearable. When you don't get out and play in the snow, winter is just something you have to shovel. These trails border on urban areas, and yet are silent and isolating. Just a few miles outside of the city, the winter woods feel just like the vast and remote woods I grew up wandering around in, and are exactly what I need to see in order to return restored to grocery store lines, stoplights, unabating liter, and junk mail.

Buff Creek in the Middle of the Night

Fear can be difficult to recognize in a way that other emotions aren't. It can take years after an event before I realize it was fear that made my decisions for me. The funny thing is that if you can identify it in the moment, it comes out from behind the curtain much like the Wizard of Oz--weak and powerless with a bad haircut.

I don't mean to say that fear is all bad. It has probably saved many of us from poor decisions that would've resulted in full body casts. Let's say you were, hypothetically, scaling the front of the Natural History Museum while your hypothetical teacher Mr. Loftsguard was in line for tickets inside, because a friend of yours whom you secretly hated said you probably couldn't do it, well you might've ruined everybody's field trip and never been treated to see a hundred tiny bird carcasses that a curator was very excited about but that all looked very much the same to you had fear not settled upon you when you were about fifteen feet up and made you return to the ground. Just for instance. 

As my compatriot Mr. Braids and I set out for a night ride at Buffalo Creek at about 9pm, I did not realize how afraid I was. Afraid of the cold, afraid of the predators, afraid of the dark. Some of this fear could be rationalized. There are a lot of animals out there that I should be afraid of running into: 

Huggy Bear

Mating Season

Sean White

Trail Kitty

Vegetarian

Tesla

However, the odds of running into one of these creatures at night is probably about what they are in the daytime. What I was really afraid of, I realized later, was the dark. The Unknown. I realized this when Mr. Braids suggested we try riding by the light of the moon alone. We switched off our lights, and as we began to ride, I felt completely blind, but I could see just fine. It turned out to be terror that was blinding me. I had my head down, my brain off, and was trying to ride up Mr. Braid's rear wheel so that I could cower nearer him. I didn't even know that I was afraid, or that I was totally outside of my own experience in that moment. Finally, the second or third time I almost ran into Mr. Braids's rear wheel, I stopped, figured it out, and called the Wizard out from behind the curtain. The entire evening cracked open.

Neither picture nor description could do the moonlit landscape justice. All I can say is that there aren't many times in my life when my inner infant shuts up--stops wanting, stops whining--and I am transported out of time and out of myself. That ride in the dark was one of those times. It was what we might think of as a Double Complete Rainbow kind of time. I don't know what taking acid is like, but that ride was how I imagine a really good trip might be. Let the similes/metaphors proliferate.

Mind-blowing experiences seem to happen when you least expect them. They almost never happen, though, when you are at home, too afraid to throw a leg over your bike. Try riding in the snow, in the dark, in the middle of the night, or just to work. Try riding where you haven't before. Prepare for probable risks and let the rest go. It's a bike ride. It'll be great.

Video of the Week