Winter

It's starting to look like spring out there after another pretty long winter. It can be a little hard to stay in shape over the winter in Montana, as the cold, snow, and dark all conspire to keep you on the couch with a tasty local beer. While the couch and beer are appealing, and it is nice to have a bit of a winter break, I don't want to spend too much time sitting around getting fat and out of shape.

With thoughts of springtime bike maintenance, upgrades, and new equipment in mind I tried to keep my winter time expenditures to a minimum, so no, I still don't have a fat bike or a fancy backcountry ski setup. Or even XC skis. Those things would do a much better job at keeping me active during the winter as riding on a trainer is really not very fun. I did at least managed to stay a little active. After an early november snowstorm the roads cleared up and I manged to get a good amount of riding in during november and december. Then around mid-January things cleared up a bit, and despite being a little cold I got in a few more miles in Jan-Feb.

Gear ratios and calculators

You might have noticed I talk about gearing a lot, especially after buying two new drivetrains last year. The other point of view is "I don't care, I just ride my bike," but I'm not like that. Instead I like to stare at a bunch of numbers on a screen and try to determine which will be the better combination of gears. While there is definitely merit to just riding a bike, if going up hills seems too hard, or you are always spinning your pedals too fast on downhills, it's worth considering different combinations. And then, if you're doing what I did and going to a 1x setup, it's a good idea to compare what you're getting with what you have.

The end of the year

After Rolling Thunder at the end of October, I didn't even go for a ride the next week and then we had a good few days of snow. That had me thinking that my outdoor riding season was mostly over. But then it didn't snow for like a whole month and I made it back outside a few times.

Another 1x11 review

This year I swapped both my mountain and cyclocross bikes from 2x10 to 1x11 drivetrains. Like I mentioned, this is simpler, lighter, easier to use, and tends to keep the chain in place better with the big chainring teeth and clutched derailleur. And like I did with the mtb drivetrain, I figured I should get a little use out of the new cx parts before giving it much of a review.

Words about my new road bike

I mentioned a new road bike awhile ago, but didn't really go into detail. I've been riding it all year and figured it was time, since I want to get a little more into talking about equipment and different rides and routes instead of myself all the time. I guess posts about trail work and the zootown derailleurs would be good ideas too.

Yeah, about that new road bike. It's nice

Rolling Thunder Cyclocross 2017

Rolling Thunder tends to mark the end of the season, and not just for racing, because winter usually shows up not too long after. This year we got cold weather and a big snowstorm a few days later (although it's been nice since and I've been out riding a bunch).

Like last year, I made sure to get out and help Shaun with the course. Thunder takes quite a bit more work than the standard Wednesday night series. Mostly it just comes down to driving in stakes and running tape but there is some other stuff that needs to happen too. Without any help Shaun would end up doing all himself and I had free time, so really it was about the least I could do. There is also a really nice benefit of helping with the course and that is being able to get very familiar with it before the race.

Wednesday night cyclocross

Cross season is over for me, and there won't be much more outdoor riding this year, so I guess I could write about it. Once again we had a 6-race Wednesday night series plus Rolling Thunder. I went to all of those, but did miss all the out of town Wild West series races again. Partially because I never got around to buying a USAC license, and partly because it's a lot of time and expense to go travel every weekend to race. I was also afraid of getting burnt out by the time thunder came around.