Snow

Picture from out there blog
Monday was a beautiful fall day in the 70’s. Tuesday it clouded up and started snowing in the afternoon. We got about 4 inches of snow although most of it melted on the streets and sidewalks. It was a good thing we didn’t get more. It’s been warm except for the weekend of the cyclocross race and most of the leaves are still on the trees. Even 4 inches of wet snow was enough to break lots of branches. A-Basin was the first ski area to open in the US when it opened last Friday. Loveland opened the day after but wasn’t the first for the first time in 7 years.

Dena from The Gazette was thinking about whether the Manitou Incline would be a good place for a fast sled ride. I think she has a pretty good idea the damage she could do to herself by doing that. A couple months ago, I was hiking the Incline pretty much every week but having done it lately.

This week was a reminder that winter is pretty much here. Although I like to lots of outdoors activities, I focus on long distance cycling and mountain biking because that’s what I do competitively. The race season in Colorado really goes from about April through September. Jill in Alaska asked a couple days ago what cyclists do in the off-season. Because she does things like snow biking, she’s just ramping up her training.

Here’s what I think cyclists should do in the off-season. I think it’s important both mentally and physically to cut back on cycling. I still think you need to stay active to keep from losing too much fitness. It takes a lot of work to get fit and it takes very little to lose it. I think doing cross-training is important to help balance the body out which I think helps prevent injuries. A couple times I’ve gone to the Superstition Mountains near Phoenix or the Grand Canyon in January or February and gone backpacking for a week to drop some weight and get a good base fitness. For the last 7 years, I’ve done a 4 day back country skiing trip to the Eiseman Hut in February. We leave the hut around 9 and always take our head lamps with us because it’s not unusual to not get back until after dark.

Another important reason for ultra road cyclists to do cross-training is because all of the exercise without much weight bearing can cause bone loss. I’ve heard of studies where 40 year old ultra cyclists have the bone density of 60 years olds. I’m not sure if this is as true for ultra mountain bikers because there’s more jarring and getting off for hike-a-bike sections but it still does concern me.

So what am I doing this fall? I’d like to say I’m fit but just not riding my bike much. The not riding my bike much is true but unfortunately the other part isn’t. I’ve been doing stuff around the house and spending more time with my kids and Julie. I put a lot of stuff off when I was training so much last winter and spring for RAAM.

I’ve also been working on the shopping portion of my website. I wasn’t happy with what I had before and it was provided by a 3rd party so I couldn’t change it much. Now I have my own database for products and my own code so I can change it and improve it. I think it’s already better than what I had before but I still have a lot I want to do to it. I also have some bugs to fix. I’m doing some price comparisons and if a merchant as an item for sale, I’m sometimes not getting the price displayed correctly everywhere. I have a lot of outdoor gear but I want more cycling gear. I’m working on adding some cycling specific merchants and I think I can get them added soon.

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