Rutgers Winter Road Training Begins !!! (1/17 - 1/18)

The cold weather couldn't keep the RU squad down. After over a week of straight roller rides, and beating almost every NFL team on N64 while on rollers. I decided that regardless of the temperature on Saturday I was going outside. I posted the challenge to the group and put on every piece of cold weather gear I could find. I checked the weather online and a little piece of my soul died when I saw 4 degrees with a feels like of 0. Regardless I had already posted to the group and could not take back the e-mail. So I decided I would ride. Here is a list of what I wore for the ride:

- Polypropylene Long Johns upper and lower
- 2 under armor upper base layers
- arm warmers
- 1 under armor lower base layer
- leg warmers
- booties
- 2 pairs of winter cycling gloves
- cycling mask
- wool knit cap
- glasses
- s/s cycling jersey
- bib shorts
- Verge Warsaw jacket
- NO water bottles (no point, there were just going to freeze anyway)

It took me so long to put on all of the cloths that I was 15 minutes late for the ride. However, one brave soul, Matt Bathe, was man enough to wait. Wearing less cloths than me (proving his dominance as a male), Matt I and started out on our ride. What you don't realize that it is not the cold that makes it hard to ride, but the lack of movement from all of the cloths. So feeling like giant marshmallow men in all our layers we belabored our way the six mile. Pulling into the rest stop we saw a group on mountain bikers enjoying the snow covered trails. I have to admit, it felt good to hear all the mtbers conversations stop and watch them all stare at the "crazy roadies" out on the roads. At the rest stop, Matt looked down at his bottles almost completely frozen. Attempting to get the little remaining liquid H2O, Matt reached for his bottle only to find that it was frozen to his cage! We got going again and finished a first bridge just before we froze in place like the tin man. Near the end of the ride I look over to Matt, who has a relatively tame read bearded (compared to his beard in the past) and see that he has an ice goatee about a quarter of an inch thick. After I get home it takes me an hour to get off all of the layers and regain feeling in my toes. So the moral of the story is IT'S COLD OUTSIDE.

Sunday the cycling apartment hosted a 2 hour trainer ride in out attic, which is not much warmer than it is outside. The crew was Nick, George, Matt, Charlie T, and myself. This was a ride of first. It was the first trainer ride of the New Year, the first trainer ride ever for Nick and George, and the first time Nick and George had ever seen "Breaking Away". So in a reverse flying V, Matt, Charlie T, and myself up front with Nick and George in back, we set out for our Cycle-Smart dictated 140+ minutes of easy. I was quite impressed by the two new comers. I did not hear one complaint and they never asked how much time we had left, I guess they figured I did enough complaining for everyone. It was a good ride. With the exception of one stretch break and one pee break, we did a consistent 144 minutes, and by the time we had finished the attic was a sauna, in part from the rubber we burned, but also because we just looked that hot on our bikes.