Weather Riding: Suddenly Winter

What happened?  I went away for a week.  I left you all with a perfectly good late Autumn.  I figured you could handle that.  But I came back to…  Suddenly it’s Winter!

Okay, let’s poll the jury.  What do we do about this?

Johann speaking:  This is not cold.  Go ride the bike!  Cold is when the tires freeze and break.  Arm warmers and vest are all a real rider needs.  If you get cold, ride harder to make warm.

Bill here:  I think, since your planet has climates, that I will simply go south, below the equator, to where you are keeping Summer now.  Your birds are smart enough to do this.  So why don’t the so called “higher species”?

Road Dragon:  Most of us are mere mortals.  We are not blessed with the toughness of our Belgian friend.  We don’t own a personal flying saucer.  So we have to cope with the climate and conditions we are faced with.

And just what is facing us?  For those of us fortunate to live in north Georgia, we can expect the following for the rest of the Fall, and the Winter to come.  There is a la nina event.  This can make long range prediction hard, but the smart money is betting on the following.  We will have a warmer than usual Winter, but we can expect that to be on average.  We can look for much bigger swings or “excursions” from the norms, and averages will be higher.

That means we can expect to see some really chilly days, and some really warm ones.  We can also expect to see a wider daily temperature swing.  And (good news for cyclists) it will be, generally a good bit drier.

What does that mean to me?  That kind of depends on the type and amount of riding you are doing.

For short rides, between one and two hours, you can dress for what you see.

For longer rides, two to four hours and more, you are going to have to carry more stuff.  If you start out in the early part of the day, it’s likely to be pretty chilly, but it will warm up and you will be overdressed.  Similarly, if you are starting out in mid-day, it will be warmer and warming, but along toward late afternoon and evening, the temps are going to drop.  This just might be a year to rig a rack and some kind of carry bag to your training rig.

We can also expect different weeks of weather.  There are going to be some surprisingly chilly weeks ahead of us, but they are going to be interspersed with some fairly warm ones.

All this amounts to some challenges to consistent training.  The general strategy is; be flexible and adaptable.  Have your cold weather gear ready, but be prepared to enjoy the nice days too.  Don’t put the rain gear away.  (Dryer does not mean no rain.)  And be ready to bailout to the indoor trainer. 

A word on indoor training:  This just might be a very good year to get into a Spin Class.  Remember, consistency is golden.  Of course there are going to be days when you go to spin class, but it was brilliant, sunny, and warm.  On the other hand, there are going to be plenty of days when you are going to be glad to ride inside.

I recently had a conversation with a relatively new arrival to our area.  She said something like,  “This is the south!  I thought it wasn’t supposed to be cold here.”  I reminded her, as I do you now, of the lyrics of the song Dixie

In Dixie land whar I was born in,

Early on one frosty mornin’

The emphasis is mine, but the sentiment bears notice.  It gets cold.  We have a choice.  We deal with it, or we give up.  I think most of you are the “deal with it” type.

We’ll talk more on specifics in the very near future.  It’s good to be home!