Winter?

It is actually feeling a little like winter. At this point I'm ready to do some
skiing so I'm keeping my fingers crossed for a few more big storms.

I did a great 3 hour ride in Corner Canyon on the KHS on Friday. I left right
about the time the snowstorm started to blow in. Singlespeeds are perfect for
this kind of thing - no chainsuck, no ghost-shifting, and no derailleur cable
cleaning after the ride. On the higher sections it was mostly snow, the lower
sections were just wet. The bench was right in the middle with lots of slushy
puddles. The wind was howling. The gusts had to be 30 mph in some places. I
think this was the first single-speed ride I enjoyed almost every minute of it
(except another pinch flat up front -- I've got the Stan's ready to go).

People are always debating the value of weight-lifting for cyclists, especially
this time of year. I know Friel is a believer. I'm not. My best seasons have
been sans-weights. In the years I've done weights, I easily get to the top of
Friel's strength/weight recommendations, but I'm still slow in the high-power
portions of a race. Early in race, steep climbs, and the bottoms of climbs.

Numerous studies have been done on this topic, but almost all of them use
relatively slow cyclists. I just don't think it is specific enough. If you don't
ride all that much anyway, any exercise helps. It'd be great if they would help
me, because weights are a lot more pleasant than riding nowhere in the basement.

Anyway, I think the single-speed might have some hope of providing beneficial
resistance-training. At least the motion is right, although the contraction
speed isn't. If I show up next spring to Five Mile and smoke everyone on the
steep, short climbs, we'll blame it on the SS.