AK

It came time to present my paper on Finding Trails. The place: Anchorage, Alaska.

A perfect destination for a toasty Arizonan. They are having a “crappy” June – 50’s, clouds, rain.

Perfect.

Upon landing I met up with Adam B, who invited me to stay at his place. We rode all over Hillside – Rovers, Llama, Spencer. Roots were the name of the game.

When we got back it was 9pm. It got kind of dusky around midnight, but never dark. It was impossible to go to sleep with all the light blasting through Adam’s front window.

I could get used to this.

A draining day at the conference led to more riding. Above is approaching Powerline Pass, which I rode to from Adam’s place. I found the denizens of this valley more interesting than the denizens of the conference halls.

Adam set me up with his B29, a blast from the past for me. I’ve suffered plenty on that frame, and I was happy to queue up a little more pain on it. It’s a 1×9, which to me is practically singlespeed. Good times.

Despite the fact that we are past the summer solstice, there was too much snow to attain the pass. I turned around and skipped the Glen Alps parking lot for a descent of Powerline, South Fork Trail and Llama.

I wonder how long that drop will stick around. With a thudbuster on board I had no excuse for not hitting it.

A magnifico view of downtown presented itself. At least I had some good riding to do between here and there.

Llama trail. Green is my new favorite color.

Or yellow.

Thanks to Adam, I not only had a bike to commute with, but a fantastic commute route. I’m utterly jealous of his commute — ~10 miles and almost all sans automobiles. Singletrack and dirt road options are there, too.

I’d pedal the bike paths on the way there and take the scenic / fun route on the way back, laptop computer and spare clothes/shoes bouncing around in the bag.

Thursday I stood around for ~3 hours and was talking nearly nonstop. It was cool to see so much interest in the paper and techniques. Not a single mountain biker in the 1000+ member bunch, though, just a couple hikers. Everyone was very kind and generous, with one notable exception. This guy wasn’t satisfied until he had proved himself smarter than me. I don’t think either of us questioned that fact going in, but apparently it needed to be proven.

Funny stuff. It was an interesting experience and overall quite worthwhile, but I don’t foresee a long future of computer vision conference attendance in my future. Even with the superb location, good friends, awesome bike commute and quality auxiliary rides…

Speaking of quality rides. I sent a plea out to MTBR for a ride out of town. Adam had high hopes of getting out for some rides with me, but the guy is deeply and happily involved in his “job”, and things were busy for him.

Mark responded and invited me to join his friend, Adam, on a ride in the Resurrection Pass area. Initially we were going to do Res, but my 5pm flight meant we only had about 4 hours to ride.

Things were looking a little shaky when Mark’s bike flew off the bike rack on the freeway on-ramp, folding his derailer hanger in the process. I was wondering a little what I had got myself into. But if I miss my flight, I miss my flight. I’d rather risk it on a good ride.

It turned into a great ride, with great company.

Looking back on it now, the ride seems so strange, almost dreamlike. Above treeline it’s always kind of like that. Knowing I’d be riding in dry hundred degree air within the next 24 hours was another part of it. Fog and the trappings of the clouds had their effect.

Devils Pass Lake.

That was an interesting obstacle. Mark went first, then he turned around and as I approached said, “dude, you’re standing on nothing right now.”

Nothing collapsed. We saw grizzly prints in the snow, checked out the forest service cabin and descended a bit towards Coopers Landing. Then it was time to turn around and head back. I could have used a couple more hours up there, though my numb feet may have disagreed with that.

The descent back down was ripping, and easily the best riding of the trip. There is some special riding up there, but the window on it is VERY short, and this year almost nonexistent.

I made my flight thanks to a very cool cabbie from Pakistan. Somehow we started talking about the Divide, and by the time we got to the airport I actually believed there was a chance he’d ride it. I’ve never seen someone so interested in the concept of bike touring. He really made an effort to understand it, and to some extent, I think he did.

A good ride like that is a great way to setup for a 8 hours of flying and associated traveling drudgery. Not tedious at all. The mp3 played solid tunes, and I had queued up my favorite blogs to catch up on during the flight. My brain had much to process from the trip.