Midwinter Spring Melt

As the global warming hoax continues, temperatures reached the mid-40's in Anchorage  last week promptly melting what meager snowpack we had accumulated thus far into an icey wet mess.  These springlike conditions necessitated studded tires,  full fenders, and waterproof riding gear for the daily commute. So I reluctantly had to park the fatbike and hang up my wool sweater and dig some fenders out of the garage.

I had been saving a set of vintage steel fenders with an integrated old dyano tail light, and the unseasonably wet weather gave me the chance to mount them to the Long Tail Trucker.  Running the wiring from the dynamo hub was a snap thanks to a series of stainless steel strips lining the inside of the rear fender; just had to use a flat head sceew driver to pry open a small gap, feed the wire through, and the wires are now held securely in place and out of sight.

Surprisingly, the old bulb was still functional, but I will likely replace it with an LED bulb in the near future.

The white painted steel, and racing flag decals add a little vintage class to he cargo bike and work like a charm to keep the icey grime out of the drive train.

DIY Bottle Insulator, in about 29 steps

Keep your water from turning to ice on those cold winter rides.

Handmade by you is better than made in China.  

The construction is basically a series of nesting cylinders consisting of an inner layer of Insulbrite material to retain and reflect radiant heat against the bottle, intermediate layer of synthetic pre-quilted polyfill insulation to keep the cold out, and outer-layer of rip-stop nylon for durability and water restiance.  This is similar to products offered by Outdoor Research and Nalgene.  The O.R. product uses closed cell foam as the insulation, but I had extra pre-quilted synthetic insulation from another project lying around so that's what is used here; Any sort of other insulation could easily be substituted.

  The O.R. case of similar size weighs 163 grams, and the final weight of the DIY case with the cheapo plastic zipper was 109 grams, so it's weight weenie approved.
Stay tuned for a controlled comparison freeze test of this case vs the O.R. Water Bottle Parka.  

Materials needed:

Water Bottle

Ripstop nylon

Synthetic insulation (like primaloft)

Insulbrite Material

7" zipper
Colored thread

Sewing machine

Scissors

Measuring tape

Chalk/ Marking

1.  Measure the outside circumference of water bottle, and determine desired height  you would like your zipper to be for the top/lid of the case.

2. Cut Insulbright fabric to demensions determined above, adding 1/4 inch in length and width to compensate for the seams.  

3. Wrap Insulbright material tightly around water bottle, pinning along vertical seam line. 

4. Remove water bottle from insulbright; straight stitch along vertical line, removing pins as you stitch.

Cut away excess material, reinsert water bottle to test fit.  

5. Keeping water bottle in the newly formed insulbrite cylinder to maintain the form,

 trace out a circle of insulbrite for the base.

 Make this circle a 1/4" larger circumference than outside edge of insulbrite cylinder.  

As seen below:

6.  Pin insulbrite circle to one open end of insulbrite cylinder, matching up the edges.

7.  Straight stitch carefully along edge, joining the circle to the cylinder, removing pins as you go. 

8.  Next create the insulation layer, with same methods described above.  Wrap insulation around water bottle with insulbrite layer to determine dimensions.  Pin along vertical seam line, and straight stitch.

9.  Trace and cut out circle of insulation, using the insulation wrapped around water bottle as guide; again making circumference of circle larger than outer edge of insulation cylinder by 1/4 inch.  

Then holding scissors at about a 45 degree angle towrard the center of the circle,, cut around the top edge of the circle of insulation resulting in the top edge being 3/4 of an inch smaller than the bottom edge.  

10. Pin circle into cylinder matching the edges as best as possible.  

11.  Straight stitch the circle of insulation to the cylinder, removing the pins as you stitch.  

Now create the outer most layer of rip-stop nylon, using same methods as first two layers.

12.  Measure outside circumference and height of first two layers, adding 1/4 inch to length and width of final dimensions.  Measure and cut rip-stop nylon.  

 

13. Pin nylon around bottle and first two layers to ensure a snug fit, remove cylinder, straight stitch along pin line.  

14.  Slide your new nylon cylinder over first two insulating layers, and trace out circle of nylon, again adding 1/4 inch to dimension.  

15.  Note: Make sure the vertical seam stitching is exposed (on the outside) for this step.

As before, pin the circle to the cylinder matching the edges carefully, then straight stitch, removing pins as you go.  Now turn this cylinder inside out, so all the stitching is hidden inside.  

16.  This is a good place to repeat steps 1-15, to create 3 cylinders for the top part of the case, the lid.

I left a little bit of room in my top part to house a chemical heat pack if needed.  

17. Now time for zippers!  Nest all the layers together and pin your zipper into place along the exposed edges of where the two halves meet.  

18. Put a zipper foot on your sewing machine for this step.  Remove the nylon layer and top stitch the zipper to the nylon, I used red thread for style.

(A happy coincidence was that the nylon cylinder fit over my sewing machine fine, allowing to top stitch, this may not be possible if you are making a case for a skinny water bottle)

You may now notice that there is an ugly open gap in the zippers at the back of the case.

19.  Mark off this area at the ends of the zipper with your chalk, and measure up 2.5 inches above and below the zipper line.  Measure out this rectangle and then cut out the same dimension in insulbrite.  Then cut two rectangles of nylon of with a 1/2 inch added to the length and width.  

20..  Top-stitch the insulbrite between the two layers of nylon.  folding the edges of the nylon over and top-stitching a second time.  

21.  Now take the the two outer-layers of nylon and pin this rectangle onto the open area between the ends of the zippers.  Then top stitch in black thread around the edges.  

For extra style points try to stitch with red thread in line with the zipper attachment stitches.  

If every stitch is crooked, people might think you did it on purpose.  

  Now to cover the exposed insulation with nylon.

22.  Trace two concentric circles on nylon: the inner circle with same circumference of water bottle; the outer circle with same circumference of insulated case.  I shaded the areas between the circles below.

23.  Cut out the shaded area to make a doughnut shape,

Repeat Steps 22 and 22 to create two doughnuts. The inner edge of the doughnut will be stitched to the edge of the insulbrite layer, and the outer edge of the doughnut will be stitched to the inside of the zipper.
See Step 25 for illustration of this. 

 

24.  Pin  inner edge of nylon doughnut to open edge of insulbrite, carefully matching the edges, then straight stitch removing pins as you go.  

25.  Nest the insulbrite layer back inside the lofted insulation and nylon layer, taking outer edge of nylon doughnut and pinning it to the inside of the zipper.  Straight stitch carefully removing the pins as you go.  

26. Create 2 inch extension cylinder to overlap inside of zipper.

Now take a 2 inch wide piece of insulbrite and cut to a length equal to circumference of water bottle.  Straight stitch the 2 inch ends together, creating a short cylinder.

27. Place this small extension cylinder into the top of the lower insulbrite layer, overlapping 1/4 inch, increasing the height of lower insulbrite layer by 1.75  inch.  DO NOT STITCH TOGETHER YET.  

28.  Taking the second nylon doughnut, place it over the 2 inch insulbrite extension cylinder that you made in Step 27.  Pin the inside edge of the doughnut through both layer of insulbrite (existing bottom cylinder and 2 inch exetnsion cylinder).  Top stitch all three layers together, removing pins as you go.  

29.  Pin the outside edge of the nylon doughnut to the inside edge of the zipper of the lower part of the case.  Stitching carefully, removing pins as you go.  

I like to burn off my excess threads, but I do not recommend this as materials used are highly flammable. 

BOOM!  You're done.

14 hours, 20 below.

The Iditabike (Iditarod Trail Invitational race/ ITI)  is a 1,000 mile race from Anchorage to Nome, akin to the would famous Iditarod dog-sled race.  The ITI also has a "short course" 350 mile route from Anchorage to McGrath.  This is an awe-inspiring endeavor to undertake.

A few weeks back, I got a call late in the day Friday to tag along on an ITI training ride, so I raced home to frantically throw together my winter camping gear that had been packed away since last year.
I was excited to spend the night riding with some of these racers and hear about their past experiences on the Iditarod Trail, and see if I could keep up...

   

My impulsivity got the better of me and I made a game of packing as much gear as possible onto my bike; resulting in a rig weighing somewhere north of 65 pounds (because that's where my scale stops).  But I had an avalanche shovel, two sleeping pads, french press, hatchet, coconut water, spare batteries, extra headlamp, change of clothes, and flask of booze so I was well prepared for any apocalyptic eventuality.

The ride commenced in just after 10:00 PM out my back door onto the Chester Creek trail to rendezvous with the group.  We warmed up around town, following several of Anchorage's urban trails, then worked our way up into Chugach State Park and of the front range.  My riding companions were all on 27 pound Linsky welded titanium Fatbacks with minimalist gear, so I felt a little over prepared for the evening, and was cursing the weight of my hatchet and shovel during the extended climbs out of the Anchorage bowl.  

The lack of recent snowfall and sub-zero temps had left the trail conditions packed, frozen, and fast.  A surface well suited for their Fatbacks with the standard issue fast rolling Surly Larry Tires.  My Surly Moonlander  on the other hand, equipped with the fattest, knobbiest, tires available, had me spinning hard just to keep pace as the others coasted effortlessly through any section of trail with a moderate decline.  I won the prize for most calories burned.

There is something about biking in -20 degree weather that seems to suck the energy right out of you, so we paused frequently to adjust layers, snack, hydrate, and check one-another's faces for frostbite.  

Somewhere around 4:00 AM, we bed down just off the path to take an early morning nap; and after a bite of chocolate and a shot of syrupy vodka to take the edge off the caffeine infuse energy gels, my bivy never felt so inviting.

Emerging from our frozen cocoons a few hours later, we were greeted by first light, warm coffee, and a promise of a fast icy technical single-track decent back to town.  

Home by noon. Dehydrated, exhausted, frosty, happy, and thankful for a wild Friday night.

Covered about 50 miles with a taste of what the race pace for an ITI would be like.

Definitely not going to sign up this year.

 

Urban Assault

A common phrase exchanged when discussing the subjective merits of living in Anchorage is: "The best thing about Anchorage is it's only 20 minutes from Alaska."  

Oftentimes the contrast that the urban sprawl offers to the unforgiving wilds of the Alaskan landscape creates a feeling of separateness from the "real Alaska" that can potentially lull Anchorageites in to a false sense of security in exploring the terrain in and around the city limits.

With minimal snowfall through the end of November, I had been eyeing a winter biking route lying in the borderlands of our fare city.  An established route in the summer months, the Powerline Pass to Indian  trail is a popular day trip in the Chugach State Park and affords some gravity fueled rewards descending to Indian, with an elevation change of roughly 3500 feett beginning and ending at sea level (when starting from the urban bowl). The thin snowpack of the early winter made this an ideal route for the unique attributes of a fatbike.

Leading up to the weekend planned for the ride, I opted out of the trip due to other commitments.  Also,  a storm system had brought two feet of fresh snow along with high winds on a base of 2 weeks worth of hoar frost. (Read: highly unstable and dangerous!)

Although I wondered if my riding buddies had similar misgivings about the route, I assumed they wouldn't attempt such a trip due to the high degree of avalanche danger, or perhaps would have checked snow conditions via the Friend's of the Chugach

I was wrong, and despite the sketchy conditions they took to the mountains, attempting an up-and-over of Powerline to Indian.

The picture below shows the accent up to Powerline approaching an open couloir on the aptly named Avalanche Peak in the Chugach front range.    Two minutes after this photo was snapped a point release sent a slow rolling powder slide further compromising the route ahead.  The intrepid and ill-informed cyclists pushed onward into the sketchy snow-pack, and amazingly didn't trigger a second slide.   Thankfully the all day trek brought them safely to Indian, and prompted afterthoughts of "maybe next time we should have shovels or beacons...?"

They were truly lucky to not have been injured or killed. I relay this story here in hopes that people will educate and equip themselves appropriately.  This is increasingly important with the advent of fatbikes bringing a new group of outdoor enthusiasts to the mountains; encourage your winter biking peers to get basic a snow-safety  education before venturing out of city limits.