December rides...

[north woods gal]

Glad you found the combo that worked or you, NY. You're right about folks being different in how they react to the cold. No wind and sunshine sure makes a big difference for me, too. The sunshine factor is probably mostly psychological for me, but it sure helps. Today was a good example. Temp only in the teens, but calm and sunny. Had a great day on the skis, followed up by a little fat bike work on neighboring roads. Have found that it's actually much safer for me riding the fat bikes on icy, snow-packed roads than walking.

Put my bird feeders up on Sunday afternoon and they're being mobbed by Chickadees as I write this. Way cool.

[emily_in_nc]

AZFiddle, loved your pics and hearing about your birding. I have never seen a Burrowing Owl. So cool!

We rode the past two days, and tomorrow will be our day off for recovery, laundry, grocery shopping, projects, cooking, ETC!

Yesterday's ride was east on the West Orange Trail (the easy way!) with a couple of trail spurs, for a total of 33 miles. Today's was west to hilly Lake County (the hard way!) for a total of 36.5 miles. I've beat my yearly goal of 3K miles and am loving going sleeveless in December! Yesterday was a little cooler and overcast, so I wore a thin long-sleeved top (with shorts), but today was full-on sleeveless.

I will say, though, for those of you who want to hear about warm temps, I am sweating big time right now! Took a shower after our ride and am going to need a second one. I don't mind the heat but could definitely do without the humidity (drip!)

[north woods gal]

Emily, congrats on breaking your goal. I know that was important for you. You did it, girl! Very impressive.

[emily_in_nc]

Emily, congrats on breaking your goal. I know that was important for you. You did it, girl! Very impressive.

Thank you! I rode 7500 miles in 2014 (my best year ever), so this year is not even close, but we did a lot more hiking, so I am happy with it. Now I am trying to break into the top 25 on bikerides.com, where I track my miles. In '14 I finished #7 and DH finished #2, but this year he is not doing it and I have been in the 30s for most of the year. Spending Dec. in Florida, though, I am moving up as many other participants are not able or willing to ride in the cold and snow in so many places in the US.

Yes, I have a bit of a competitive streak!

[north woods gal]

Guess I'm one of those that keeps riding, rain or snow or cold. Single digit temps with 20 below wind chills, today and yesterday, but still managed a little on the fat bike, mixed in mostly with the skiing. The biking out on the road was iffy, what with a sever wind, but the skiing not bad, at all, back in the shelter of the woods. Could really hear the wind roaring through the trees, though.

I'm not competitive in the sense of competing with others. Just not in me. On the other hand, I am fiercely competitive when it comes to competing with myself. I am forever trying to answer that nagging question, "Can I?". It's taken my places I never would have expected and it's also had its share of danger along the way.

Since it is December, I think it is a good time to review what we have all done, this year. I'd say the 3000 miles you've done is a great year, Emily, all the more so for all the variety of places you got to ride. Not just miles, in other words, but some great quality miles, to boot. Loved reading about all your adventures.

Me, all local miles on familiar grounds. I made it to just over 2500 miles in my counting when concentrating on the road bike work, but I did stop counting late in the summer when I transitioned more and more to mountain biking. Come fall, nearly all of my biking was MTB trail work. Try as I might, I just couldn't cook up a formula that would convert MTB miles to equivalent road bike miles that made ay sense. Just concluded that the two types of biking are too dissimilar in their physical demands for any real world comparisons. That, and like most MTB nuts, I rate progress on the MTBs in terms of trail difficulty, not miles. Still plan to do plenty of both in '17, but the way I love being out in my beloved north woods, I suspect I'll mostly be an MTB girl, next year.

[ny biker]

Congrats Emily, and also to you NWG for still getting out there in the cold weather.

I thought about riding after work last night but figured it might have been too cold and damp, and also I had a bunch of shopping I needed to do and then had to make cranberry sauce for work, as I mentioned in another thread. When I finally got home I decided that it would have been fine weather for a bike ride, but by then it was too late (and I still hadn't made the cranberry sauce...).

Tonight is a bit colder, only by 6-8 degrees but just enough. So this morning I reprogrammed my thermostat to not warm the house up this evening before I get home from work. Arriving home to a chill will be an incentive to set up the bike in the living room and get in a workout. For another incentive, I have eaten way too much food today thanks to the holiday potluck lunch at work. It's funny, so much of what was there did not appeal to me, but it only takes a few really good things to make me indulge. This year we had the usual key lime pie and orange cranberry bread that I love, plus some good cookies and another kind of bread. There was also homemade flan that was really good. And it was authentic; I asked for the recipe and the person who made it said she would have to translate it from Spanish to English. Excellent. And someone made crepes, which I haven't had in ages. They were very good, too, with some berry jam. Plus a few steamed dumplings and some salmon with rice. Lots of food, very good food. So yes I have incentive to get in some high-intensity intervals when I get home.

[Crankin]

Sigh, I don't know if I am going to ride outside again this year. Today was lovely, but too much ice on the sides of the road for me to ride. I skipped the club's hike/Xmas party because the weight on the scale this morning was way too high. And, I didn't want to drive 20 miles to get to the start. However, the Chanukah party is in 2 weeks and close to me, so I am hoping I might get an outdoor ride in there, although who knows. There is also an alternate hike, which I've done twice.
Polar vortex arrives here tomorrow afternoon, followed by now, rain, and 50 by Sunday.