The Goldilocks Zone

I’m just back from Seattle, which is having a proper winter, by any measure. The nights are below freezing, there’s frost in the shade even into the afternoon, and above about 2000 feet of elevation, there’s snow on the ground. 

While there, I got in two bike rides and two sessions of skate skiing. The only occasions I’ve ever felt cold while skate skiing occurred when I chose the wrong gloves, and even then, only my fingers felt cold. When I was teaching Nordic skiing years ago, I compared diagonal (traditional) skiing to walking—you don’t have to go hard to move—and I compared skating to running—to run, even slowly, you have to make a real effort. So, other than blowing snot rockets every time I stopped, due to my runny nose, I never really noticed the cold. 

Riding your bike in the cold is a different matter entirely. 

First, let’s just concede that cycling is generally considered a warm-weather sport. Almost no one takes up cycling in the winter. There are actual winter sports, such as the aforementioned Nordic skiing, or Alpine skiing, or snowboarding. That said, riding in cold weather pays a number of dividends. But, I’m thinking of one of them in particular. 

So, yes, of course, there are the calorie burning and aerobic fitness gains that come from riding in cold weather, with a little multiplier thrown in on calorie burning because your body is working a little extra to keep you warm. 

The thing that makes riding in the cold a challenge is getting the clothing right. If you’re planning to go hard, you’ve got to go with stuff light enough that you won’t overheat, but also, you have to calculate your loop so that you arrive home before you’re out of gas and forced to slow down. On the other side is overheating and then turning the inside of your jacket into a greenhouse and running the risk of hypothermia if you slow down. 

So there’s a Goldilocks Zone where you ride at an endurance pace that you can maintain for hours, an effort that won’t deplete you, provided that you get your clothing right, which is the real trick. 

On both my recent rides, the temperature was in the mid-to-high 30s, which is the beginning of the zone for when things get interesting. My wardrobe was pretty straightforward: Thermal bibs; thermal knee warmers; a midweight, long-sleeve base layer, a thermal jacket or a windproof thermal jersey, winter gloves and a thin fleece hat I wore beneath my helmet. If there had been more daylight, I could have stayed out hours longer. 

I’m not advocating being wrapped up like Ralphie’s kid brother, Randy, in “A Christmas Story.” But I am recommending being dressed so warmly that you can’t stand around inside dressed like that.

The upshot of all this is a lesson that I’ve seen many riders get wrong. How to do an easy ride. I’ve known so many riders whose idea of an easy ride is quick enough that they can’t breathe through their nose. The challenge, truly, is going easy enough that you’re building aerobic base fitness that will serve you the rest of the year. If you’re dressed properly, you’ll overheat if you go too hard, so your wardrobe acts as a kind of governor. 

This brings into focus what I like to call the Padraig Theorem. It states that the odds of you holding your pace to your endurance zone—the Goldilocks Zone—drops by 50 percent for every rider who joins the ride. Riding with three friends gives you a 12.5 percent chance of staying in your endurance zone.

Those easy winter rides provide other benefits, as well. There’s the way that they strengthen your tendons and ligaments so that when you start training hard, you’re less likely to develop an overuse injury. It makes staying in the saddle on long days more pleasant, and results in less soreness.

Bundling up and going easy is a barometer of how able I am to check my ego, and that’s one instrument I can’t check too often.

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