No snow today!

The wind is out of the west, southwest, the temperature is threatening to move past 30 degrees and there is a break in the snow flurries that have been falling for the past few hours: time to ride.



I'm zipped, velcroed and generally bundled against the cold. The effect on the bike is a bit like riding in molasses. The gravel/dirt road that leads the half-mile from my house hasn't been graded since the last precipitation and is now frozen into a hard, brown surface that isn't too bad on the tubulars.



The muted colors of winter, slate skies, browns of harvested fields and the stubborn dark evergreens. The cranks turn and the muscle memories of yesterday's interval workout on the rollers make themselves known in a series of achey messages in my head. Only a few miles, but I know that by Luxemborg the spin will be back, and a rhythm will take the place of the aches.

Off-season riding in Iowa is tough in its own way. The speeds are slower, the risk of frostbite is always there; you can be feeling nice and toasty all over and then the sun slips away, the wind shifts and suddenly you can't feel your fingers anymore. Harder, though, is the doubt that creeps in when the average speed dips into summer's touring range and the top speed for a ride doesn't break thirty. Am I still fit? Will I be fit in the spring? Two antidotes are always on hand, however, your experience on the bike, the meso-cycles of fitness that happen annually, over and over (you've been here before) and your love for riding (I like being on my bike; who cares if I'm going slow?).

One way to measure how fit you are is to ride with others, push the pace up a hill and spend some time swapping stories, commiserating about riding in cold, wet weather, in cold, snowy weather or fighting a 35 mph headwind for a few hours riding home last week. This makes you feel better in the end and you realize that the community of the bike is as important as your average wattage for the ride.

Bonne Route!