Hi biker chick! Congratulations on your 25 mile ride!!! I'm excited that you're already ready for more & setting a great new goal for yourself

You're in NW Indiana, I'm in SW Michigan ... so I understand what a long, long winter we have ahead of us! Here are a couple of thoughts for improving through the winter....

You said you don't have a spin class near by, but I wonder if you have an indoor trainer or could buy a new or used indoor trainer to put your bike on? Having my bike setup in my basement is a real incentive come January .... I can come home from work & put in as little or as much time as I want to. And having my own bike (instead of a bike at the gym) to ride indoors means I'm working exactly the right muscles to make me stronger, faster, and more comfortable in the spring! Sometimes, my husband and I invite friends over & we'll all do an indoor workout together, with some music or a movie on...the time definitely goes faster that way! We mix it up, sometimes doing long and easy indoor workouts, sometimes adding tough 'sprint' like intervals in, sometimes doing those awful long+hard effort workouts.

General fitness ... bike specific fitness is important for getting faster & improving endurance, but if you just can't ride (or can't ride as often as you want to) through the winter, cross-training can pay huge dividends in the spring. It helps to think about your own strengths and weaknesses. For me, power and core strength are weaknesses, so I work on light strength training and core work (pilates, other ab/back work) several times a week once the cold & dark hits, but still try to ride my trainer 1-2x/week & get outdoors for a snowy ride or xc ski 1-2x/week! Other people might feel that endurance is a weakness for them, and choose to add long walks, swimming, cardio machines, running, etc. to their winter routines.

Keep it fun Whatever you decide to do, keep it fun and be patient with yourself. The more you ride, and the more variety you ride, the stronger you will become! Mix up your rides so that you have a variety of lengths, terrains, and intensities/intervals, plus the occaisional ride to the ice cream shop (of course!), and it will never be boring