Anchorage Daily News

Q & A

Name: Jill Homer

Age: 28

Occupation: Weekend editor, Juneau Empire

Hometown: Sandy, Utah

Current Alaska home: Juneau

Just as for many transplants to Alaska, Jill Homer's move here in 2005 was meant to be an adventure.

And what an adventure she has created.

The 28-year-old Utah native was not quite sure what she'd do with herself here, and during her first winter in Alaska was determined to stay busy and in shape. But what to do during Alaska's snowy winters?

Enter winter cycling, a sport she had never tried -- or even heard of.

"It's strange, it happened pretty quickly once I came up here," said Homer from her home in Juneau. "I was surfing online and connected with that group of Anchorage winter bikers."

"That group" included some of the diehard winter cyclists that keep the sport active in Southcentral. Riders such as Pete Basinger, Carlos Lozano and Tim Woody posted notes to Homer, encouraging her to give it a go.

She did. With their guidance, she said, an addiction was born.

In three winters, Homer went from riding her full-suspension mountain bike around Homer to entering wilderness races such as the Susitna 100, to plunking down major cash for a Pugsley snow bike and entering one of the most challenging winter endurance races, the Iditarod Invitational.

Homer is signed up to bike the 350-mile race from Knik Lake to McGrath, which begins Feb. 24. A longer version, dubbed "the world's longest human-powered winter race," is 1,100 miles and travels to Nome.

"(The Susitna 100) went pretty well in 2006 and 2007 and I finished both times," she said. "I was still working (on) dialing in my gears and figuring things out. I struggled a lot in 2006. It was a really warm year, and I got stuck in the rain. It's a lot harder to stave off the hypothermia in the extreme wet than the cold."

While pursuing her newfound sport, Homer also created a blog (arcticglass.blogspot.com), which has a following of winter cycling devotees who keep her motivated. All winter, she's been posting her training progress. The Iditarod Invitational, her biggest challenge, is the culmination of her writing and training.

As a rookie, her goal is simply to finish with fingers and toes intact. As a writer, she knows the experiences will provide plenty of fodder.

We caught up with Homer a week before the Invitational, and asked her about her riding, her writing and her life in general.

Q. When and how did you end up in Alaska?

A. I moved to Alaska in August 2005, mostly under pressure from my boyfriend, Geoff, who was pushing for an Alaska adventure. We had traveled across the state in 2003 and fell in love with every corner of it, except for the Southeast, which we found rainy and depressing. So it isn't without irony that we ended up in Juneau.

Q. How did the blog get started, and what inspired you? Does it keep you on task for your riding, knowing you'll be reporting back to whomever is following your life?

A. I started the blog to help keep my family and friends updated about my life in Alaska and also to make them insanely jealous with scenic photos of my cabin above Homer, where I was living at the time. When I started training for the 2006 Susitna 100, I began to attract a readership of other cyclists and snowsport enthusiasts. It branched out from there, and has since evolved (devolved?) almost solely into a bicycle training blog, albeit with pretty photographs. The blog is my single most effective motivating tool. If I report that I am planning on a ride of a certain length, and then I don't go through with it, I know I'm going to have to explain myself.

Q. How has the following been on the blog? Are you getting support? Financially? Otherwise? Has the technology helped/hindered?

A. My blog's following has ballooned this year and now has anywhere from 1,000 to 2,000 unique visitors per day. Readers are quick to offer me advice, most of it good, and also offer a lot of emotional support. The fundraising on my blog has been encouraging too. Technology like the Internet has been a huge boon to the still-esoteric sport of ultra-endurance cycling, where competitors are still few and far between. It helps us connect and share our passion, organize events, and feel like we're part of a community even if we have never met most of our "teammates."

Q. Tell us about your training? What do you like most about it? What do you like least about it?

A. As a new snowbiker with relatively little competitive background in general, I have been training for "survival" mostly. I put a lot of long hours on the bicycle, which helps condition me for the grind of (long) rides. I have been building this base since summer, and peaked out at about 26 hours of training in one week. I also make an effort to go out in every kind of weather to get an idea how my performance changes if it is especially warm, cold or snowy. The amount of time eaten up by training can be a burden on the rest of my life, and it's monotonous at times. But every week there are moments I wouldn't trade for anything.

Q. This has been an unusually cold winter here. What about Juneau? When it's particularly cold, how do you keep motivated?

A. Juneau's in the midst of a crazy weather spell this February -- we'll have a foot of snow, followed by a week of single-digit temperatures and 50 mph winds, followed by another foot of snow, repeat. The cold here is nothing like most of Alaska -- we see only a few drops below 0 each year. So when it does get cold, I become more motivated than ever to go out and test my gear. I'm lucky that this "cold" winter has provided me with plenty of opportunities.

Q. What's your greatest outdoor accomplishment?

A. I think my greatest outdoor accomplishment is still my completion of a 3,200-mile self-supported bicycle tour from Salt Lake City to New York in fall 2003. Our 50-mile-per-day average seems rather tame in comparison to what I do now, but when I remember the demons I had to overcome just to keep pedaling, I can't deny that it remains the hardest thing I've ever done.

Q. What do you do if you can't be outdoors?

A. I enjoy reading -- mostly adventure nonfiction -- drawing, going to movies and plays, and of course, blogging.

Q. What was your scariest or most memorable outdoor moment?

A. This is probably going to seem tame compared to attempting 350 miles of snow biking in the Alaska winter, but some friends and I were white-water rafting down the Colorado River when our boat flipped in Cataract Canyon. I was dragged under the boat as a piece of webbing caught my neck. I don't know that I'll ever block that image from my mind -- how eternally dark and quiet it was under the rapids. That was seven years ago; to this day, I'm still terrified of white water.

Q. If you're successful at completing Iditasport Invitational, what's next? Nome? More races? A new sport? Any goals on the horizon?

A. It's hard to even comprehend actually finishing this race, let alone what could happen afterward. I hope to someday participate in the Great Divide Race, the 2,500-mile mountain bike race from Montana to Mexico. I'd love to make it happen in 2009, but I have to say I need to finish the Iditarod Invitational first. If that doesn't happen this year, I imagine that will remain my big goal.

Q. Got an Alaska hero since you've moved here?

A. After following the Iditarod Invitational reports obsessively for two years, I'd have to say Anchorage cyclist Pete Basinger. His quiet determination and ability to hammer out endless fast miles in tough conditions is nothing short of inspiring.

Find Melissa DeVaughn online at adn.com/contact/mdevaughn or call 257-4482.

TO READ Jill Homer's blog about her training regimen, go to

arcticglass.blogspot.com/

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