Rolling Through the Changing Seasons

I am not a professional cyclist. What I am, however, is very devoted to road biking. I love it. I may not count calories or kilojoules, I don’t calculate mets or wats, and I don’t use a Powermeter or a heart rate monitor. I do, however, put a lot of miles on my road bike, and I follow the sport in all its boundless glory and recent shame. I believe Lance rode clean, I desperately want to believe Floyd, and I think there’s nothing wrong with getting kissed by the podium girls when you win. I want to compete in the Giro d’Italia in my next life.

This year has been an interesting one for me on the bike. In a wonderful turn of fate, cycling is a terrific way to rehabilitate from ACL reconstruction. My surgeon didn’t have to tell me more than once to get on the bike. I spent a fair amount of time riding this winter with my beloved Orbea on a trainer in my dining room (which seemed somehow like heresy to me), and but for a hiccup in my recovery in March I’d have come out of the winter fitter for cycling than I have been in a long time. I’m working hard out there on the roads and my fitness is coming along, but I’ve got a long way to go. As in the case of my skiing, my continuing recovery has forced me to change my approach to cycling, so it’s good for my development as an athlete and coach.

Speaking of which, ski season and cycling season complement each other in some ways that one might not expect. Diet is one of them. As I’ve said, I’m definitely not a calorie counter and I don’t obsess about my weight – it comes and goes a bit depending on a lot of factors. In winter in Vermont, however, body fat is a good thing and you’ve got to keep your blood sugar up when the temperature drops. So I eat, eat some more, and enjoy the whole process. By March, however, with the sun out for longer, warmer days, I suddenly start to feel a bit sluggish and my thoughts turn to different kinds of food. OK, I’ll admit that it’s partly an overt attempt to get back in cycling shape and also partly the realization that once I hit the roads it feels as though I’m towing a U-Haul containing every buffalo chicken sandwich I’ve eaten at The Loft over the prior five months, but there is a natural, seasonal ebb and flow at work.

I caught myself feeling a little self-conscious about this while food shopping here in Ludlow last week. For the uninitiated, the one grocery store in Ludlow is not exactly on par with the Whole Foods in the Time Warner Center, and our town is not comprised of the fittest, healthiest people in America. Consequently, the contents of my basket may have been grounds for harassment. Consider these ingredients and you’ll understand what I mean: baby spinach (for The Big Salad), broccoli, soy milk (nothing worse than rumblings asunder while on the bike), whole grain English muffins, all natural peanut butter, Maine blueberry jam (which, when combined with peanut butter on an English, is the ultimate pre-ride power meal), Gatorade mix, eggs, onions, black beans, chipotle Tabasco sauce (note the ingredients for huevos rancheros and insert Homer Simpson noises here), two kinds of high fiber cereal, and three avocados. The only thing missing is coffee, but I get a decent roast at the Shell station for a buck with my own mug in the morning. No, I’m not on a diet. Yes, I eat a lot. And in cycling season, two of my three daily meals are designed specifically to make my life on the bike easier and better. My excuse for not including dinner in that regimen is that it’s essential to my recovery (everyone needs at least one good rationalization a day, right?).

One other tidbit about the relationship between cycling season and ski season is a very visceral response to the weather and how we dress for it. Each year I have the same reaction, invariably: in spring I spend a day skiing while aware that I’m wearing lighter clothing than the last time I rode outdoors, and in fall I spend a day cycling aware that I’m wearing heavier, warmer clothing than I wore to ski during the prior spring. I make a mental note of each of these experiences as a sign of the changing seasons, not just in terms of how the world around me is changing but in terms of how I choose to move through the world at different times of year. It’s as though I experience a diet, clothing and equipment equinox, vernal and autumnal. I wouldn’t trade either of them.