Will the winter do me in?

[KSH]

I started cycling late spring of 2005. I only put 600 miles on my bike that year. This year I should put 2000 miles on my bike (It's still in the 90s here in TX). My first ride was 6 miles long. My longest ride to date is 66 miles. With daylight saving time ending soon I will no longer be riding after work. My only ride time will be on the weekends. I'm concerned that I will lose most of the fitness I've gained over this year. I know me and I know that I cannot do the trainer/stationary bike or treadmill thing...to much like a rat in a cage for me. I will be increasing my racquetball playing to 3 days a week instead of two. And I've just now seen a drop in weight (4 lbs) that seems to be staying off...which I'll probably just gain back this winter. Am I doomed to start all over from square one next spring or will weekend riding be enough to keep me from slipping backwards? sigh...

I'm worried about the same thing!

For me to keep my cycling fitness up I have to ride at least 3 days a week.

With winter coming on, this will be dropped to Sat/Sun only.... with maybe some spin classes during the week (not the same). Of course, I will ride at least 70 miles on the weekend.

I just figure that I might lose a little fitness over the winter, and I won't have to work too hard to get it back, when it warms up again and the sun returns!

Just do what you can... you will get it back... no worries.

[Geonz]

http://www.icebike.org/

The cycle-licious website guy is in colorado & he rides all year.

Studded tires rock :-)

[tygab]

http://www.icebike.org/

The cycle-licious website guy is in colorado & he rides all year.

Studded tires rock :-)

Wow, thanks for those links. This is getting me very excited to set up a winter bike before we get any snow/ice. In winter I snowshoe our rail trail, and there are x-c skiers too, but what could be better than biking it? Plus, it'd give my old suspension-free mtn bike new purpose since I mostly have been road riding, and there are a lot of places that a mtn bike could go in the winter.

Fun to make a little project of it!

[Jo-n-NY]

I agree with KSH. Although I do use the trainer during the winter or whenever I find I cannot get outdoors. I have done this for 4 years now and when the outdoor riding season came back I did not feel like I was beginning from square one again. I didn't loose much of my fitness level.

Now just knowing that, it really does not bother me to get on the trainer. If I get the feeling that I really don't want to go on it, I just pedal at whatever speed for half an hour. The speed usually automatically pics up. Kind of mind over matter that I am not going to give it my all, and my motto that something is better than nothing.

~ JoAnn

[tprevost]

I just wanted to add that I'm going to start doing spin classes this week (going to the Thursday class ). There are several newer riders (Brandy and Tiff, from this forum) that started out extremely strong and are able to whip out really long rides... and a lot of that strength comes from what they built up in those spin classes! I started riding earlier than they did but I just don't have the leg strength (thus the spinning class and some additional weight training) so they blew by me on their first few times out!

Seriously; its a great mid-week option!

trac'

[li10up]

KSH, thanks...that's reassuring.

I am NOT a morning person so I doubt I'll be getting up an hour early to ride. I may try a spinning class again. So since I'll only be riding on the weekends what should I do to get the most out of those rides? So far I haven't been good at having a "plan." I ride with others so we just go as fast as we can over the route we decide to ride. Over the last month or so I've increased my avg. speed on our typical route from 14.x to 16.x mph. I have been so excited about that. Last night's ride avg. was 16.6 mph!!! Not long ago I was puzzled why I couldn't seem to get up to 15mph for an average. Then, all of a sudden I'm riding 15.x to 16.x mph as an average...18-24 mph on the flats. It's like I just peaked all of a sudden. The thought of losing that makes me sick since it took me all summer to get there.