27 August 2008 Biking Dad

Not many 40-something women can call their dad a stud. Mine is. As we were biking a 28.5-mile tour of Anchorage's bike paths and routes today, I decided he was as good if not better a biker to tag. None of my non-blogging bike friends even responded to my tagging. I thought about tagging my friend Jeff in Talkeetna (who dreams about pugslies) but he'd probably think these questions are silly. Dad likes silly questions and may be amused by answering them. Hey, he braved moose and crawled under the Seward Highway to do all of the Campbell Creek Trail today; he's a sport and a dad willing to indulge his daughter.

Dad and moose at Taku Lake, Campbell Creek trail

Dad biking the Campbell Creek Trail under the Seward Highway

Biking Dad:

If you could have any one — and only one — bike in the world, what would it be?
The one I’ve got – Trek FX7.5. Because it’s the perfect old man bike.

If you had to choose one — and only one — bike route to do every day for the rest of your life, what would it be, and why? Why would one be confined to one bike route? I can’t conceive of that being a possibility in my life.

What kind of sick person would force another person to ride one and only one bike for the rest of her / his life? Probably a close relative. Or the person who made up this questionnaire.

Do you ride both road and mountain bikes? If both, which do you prefer and why? If only one or the other, why are you so narrowminded? Only one because that’s all I can afford and it’s a good well-rounded bike to do many things. No mountain biking but it does road and trail quite nicely.

Have you ever ridden a recumbent? If so, why? If not, describe the circumstances under which you would ride a recumbent. Only at the gym. It doesn’t look comfortable to me at all.

Have you ever raced a triathlon? If so, have you also ever tried strangling yourself with dental floss? No, but I wear the shorts.

Suppose you were forced to either give up ice cream or bicycles for the rest of your life. Which would you give up, and why? Ice cream. Why? Because you made me choose.

What is a question you think this questionnaire should have asked, but has not? Also, answer it. Anything but what you’ve asked so far.

You’re riding your bike in the wilderness (if you’re a roadie, you’re on a road, but otherwise the surroundings are quite wilderness-like) and you see a bear. The bear sees you. What do you do? I’d ask you if you have your bear spray with you because I wouldn’t be riding near bears at any other time.