Cold Is Not Fun....

Well, maybe it's a little fun especially when you get to use a cyclocross bike and cruise through the snow on the Root River Parkway. Today I rode outside and it was pretty cold, but not uncomfortably cold as I bundled up quite well and managed to ride for 2 hours outside before heading home to ride another 1.5 hours on the trainer. Really the only reason that I came home was that my waterbottles froze after 20 minutes and I had no water, which is obviously important in spite of the fact that I wasn't sweating too much. I went from my house down to the Root River Parkway to find a snowed over trail so luckily I had my cyclocross bike and I just kept on going. I was not sliding too much as I kept my ass planted on the seat and the knobbies did the rest biting in to the snow quite well but I have to say my upper body got beat up a bit from all the ruts made by pedestrians. I rode on the Root River Parkway over to the Botanical Gardens and did a loop around that part of Whitnall Park and then made my way through some neighborhoods and back on to the trail eventually to head home. I got back to my house after 2 hours and my bottles were frozen solid, so I grabbed a new bottle, changed clothes and jumped on the trainer for another 1.5 hours just to warm up and get in a longer ride. So today's total was 3.5 hours which was 15 minutes short of my scheduled ride time but I'm just happy to be warm. Tomorrow it is supposed to be fairly cold in the morning and warm up to like 20 by noon and then a high of 27 by 3:00. There is a chance of flurries in the morning but that shouldn't stop me from heading out to Lake Geneva where hopefully I'll do 3 laps around the lake, for about a 4 hour ride. The cold affects my knees quite a bit and the hills are the bone-grinding steep kind so if my knees hurt after 2 laps I'll do some flat miles away from the lake to save whatever I have left so that I'm not limping like a baby by the end of the ride. I'm bringing my Camelback tomorrow to avoid the whole frozen waterbottle thing, so I'll have no problem in that regards, and I'll keep a couple of bottles wrapped up in the car as well for my last lap as the CB will probably be empty after the first couple of laps. Well, that's about it, time for some sleep, hopefully to rest up for a nice ride tomorrow. Until next time..........