Turnagain Arm bike adventure

On Saturday, I decided to be daring and ride my bike over 80 miles when I didn't really know where I was going or what the road conditions are. It went better than I excepted.

Turnagain Arm is part of the Cook Inlet near Anchorage, home of the bore tide and beluga whales. The first part was on the side of the highway, with cars traveling to Seward whizzing by at 60 mph. Of course, the most disconcerting part is the tour buses from the cruises coming out of Seward. Because the bay around Anchorage has such a big tide, the cruises dock at Seward (about 100 miles from Seward) and then the people ride buses up to Anchorage for sight-seeing. There must be 1000+ buses in the fleet of Seward bus-dom. Seward doesn't have that many people living there year long, so the big joke is that there are more tour buses in Seward during the winter than there are people.

Nobody seems to come to Alaska during the winter. Locals will tell you that it is the prettiest time of the year, and that the skiing is great. I think people think that they need more than 6 hours of sunlight in one day or they are afraid of losing their tan. But most of the cruise towns completely shut down. Whittier, a town known for its kayak adventures during the summer, has a population of near 0 during the winter.

Okay, I digress. This ride is one of the best I have been on, scenery and training-wise. For the scenery, there are mountains on your left and and a beautiful bay followed by more mountains on your right. I cycled all the way to Girwood just looking around and gawking at the sights, which wasn't neccesarily conducive to riding in a straight line. Girwood is famous for backcountry skiing, but is also very nice during the winter. There was a great hill at the end of the town with aobut a 5% grade for about 10 minutes. Good training.

After the hill climb, I turned around and headed back for Anchorage. I realized I had been having such a good time on the way up because I was being befriended by a good stiff breeze from my back. Now I was battling this wind back to Anchorage. The turnagain arm winds are known to reach hurricane force a couple of times a year, so I suppose I was lucky that it was only blowing at 20-25 mph. I have some friends on the MSU cycling team in Whichita Falls, and they always say that they have no problem facing the hills in Austin because they are used to the relatively high winds in the Texas plains compared to the more stagnant air of Austin. Well, when training in Alaska, you have to deal with both. The wind back completely shelled me.

Needless to say, I took Sunday off and played a game that I found in Adam's house called Rome: Total war. Hopefully I don't get addicted.

Time for another ride! Today I'm going back to Eagle River to see if I can find a better route than last Monday. Wish me luck.