After a great fall mountain biking season, December has started off slowly. Today’s ride to work was my first time on a bike in 3 weeks. My last commute was Nov 27, and my last bike/geocaching ride was Nov 24. Weather, health, and travel have been the culprits — the fall drought finally broke around the end of November, and now we are in freeze-thaw season, which makes mountain biking tougher. Wednesday is my usual day to ride in to the office, but the past few Wednesdays have been rainy. 10 or 15 years ago, that wouldn’t have stopped me, but nowadays, I’m more apt to just telecommute on rainy days. Last week, I was out of town, and the week before that, I had another cold. On top of that, this time of year, I tend to start eschewing geocaching by bike in favor of hiking. So, there you have it — kind of a perfect storm. I expect the trend will continue for a while. Today was likely my final bike commute of the year (though there’s a small chance I’ll ride in on Friday). We’ve got a cold snap coming up, so I might try to get out on the mountain bike at least one morning next week while the temperatures are below freezing. On the weekends, I’ll likely continue to favor hiking over riding, at least through December, but we’ll see. I’ve learned over the years that with everything going on during the holidays, it’s best to be flexible with planning these kinds of things.

Historically, I have not done much mountain biking in the summertime. The main reason is that the slower speeds and shorter bursts of exertion tend to get me extra hot and sweaty. Conversely, with road biking, there’s a consistent cooling breeze from air resistance, and the amount of exertion is more uniform, allowing for better regulation of body heat. The other issue I have with mountain biking in the summertime, particularly commuting to work, is poison ivy. My usual route takes me through a few exposed areas where the trail is narrow, with dense growth on either side that includes poison ivy.

It has always bugged me that there are so few days each year that I consider viable for commuting to work by MTB. In the winter, trails are frozen in the morning, but a muddy mess in the afternoon thanks to the freeze-thaw cycle. In spring, winter melt-off and rains make everything too muddy. Summer has the aforementioned issues of overheating and poison ivy. That leaves autumn as the only season where conditions are “ideal”, and now, it’s hard to ride in PVSP in the fall without getting coated in seeds from the wavyleaf basketgrass that is slowly taking over the entire watershed.

I would really like to do more mountain biking, but if I’m not getting my MTB time in while commuting, it’s tough to fit it in along with other activities like paddling (which I’m looking to extend into the colder months eventually), climbing, road biking/geocaching, etc. It seems like the answer is to stop waiting for ideal mountain biking conditions, and learn to adapt, kind of like what I’ve done with my road bike commuting over the years. To that end, today is not a day I ordinarily would have chosen to commute by MTB. It started off in the mid-70s and humid, and there is a heat advisory for the afternoon (a near-daily occurrence lately). I suited up with my usual summer biking garb, including a double-thickness Sweathawg helmet liner (one of those things that I wonder how I got along without for so many years). I rode Belmont Trail, Garrett’s Pass, Grist Mill Trail, and Soapstone/Starstruck. The shortcut trail that connects Rolling Rd to UMBC Blvd always gets too overgrown in the summertime, so I avoided it, opting instead to ride Rolling Rd to Wilkens Ave and then into UMBC via Hilltop Rd. The route had a few miles of pavement to help cool me off, and avoided areas with large amounts of PI (with the exception of a short stretch of Belmont/Morning Choice). The trails were dry (but not too dry) and fast.

On the way home, I usually enter the park via the Soapstone Trail, but the top of it is a veritable forest of poison ivy this time of year. Today, I think I’m going to try taking Foxhall Farm Rd to Vineyard Spring Trail. Another option would be to skip the Baltimore County side altogether, ride down Gun Rd, and enter the park at the railroad crossing. The former seems like it would be a better ride (other than the start along Wilkens Ave). It will be a lot hotter than this morning, so this will be a good litmus test of whether this will be a viable option in the summer. Another barrier to commuting in the summer is afternoon thunderstorms, but that hasn’t been an issue with the current heat wave, as it’s been exceptionally dry recently.

Bad weather and scheduling conflicts conspired to keep me off the bike in January, with the exception of several commutes to work and one mountain bike ride. That changed today, as I took a ride out to West Friendship and back by way of Ellicott City, logging just over 40 miles. The temperature was right around freezing when I left the house at 7:45, and in the mid 40s by the time I got home, with beautiful sunny skies and light winds. The end of the ride brought me through Old Ellicott City and Patapsco Valley State Park (via the Grist Mill Trail), both of which were hopping this morning. I had intended to ride my Surly, but the rear tire was flat, so I rode my Masi single speed instead. That made for a more challenging ride, particularly once I got to the rolling hills of Turf Valley and points west. It was a great workout for the quads, though. I found 3 geocaches along the way, which gave me an opportunity to get off the bike. My back/left hip has been acting up lately, and was definitely letting me know when it was time to stand up and stretch.

Nowadays, I don’t bike as much in the winter as I used to (opting instead for hiking/treadmill) but I still try to get out a couple of times per week. However, the snow we’ve gotten recently has further reduced my riding. Last Wednesday, I commuted to work on my old Specialized Rockhopper. I had not ridden this bike in almost a year, but I did get it tuned up at the shop recently. The morning temperature was in the teens, and the afternoon temperature was in the 20s. I rode with studded front and back tires for the first time in at least two years. It brought me back to my early bike commuting heyday, when I was obsessed with riding year-round in every imaginable weather condition.

Today, I took a mid-morning mountain bike ride. It was my first time (that I can recall) riding in the snow. It was a little too cold at dawn, so I waited until 10:00, when it was a little warmer, but still well below freezing. With a thaw on the way (it’s 37 as I write this) and sloppy, rainy weather coming later in the week, it’s looking like the window for snow rides isn’t going to last beyond tomorrow morning. Today, the trails were great, with most of them having been nicely “groomed” by earlier riders. Other than a few icy sections (mostly in sunny areas), the trails were in great shape, and fun to ride. I learned that snow riding (even on groomed trails) requires more physical effort, and different skills, than “regular” riding. I rode my hard-tail bike, which has new tires, and they gave me pretty good traction. I found that it was rather easy to overshoot turns and end up in the deeper snow on the edges of the trails, which generally causes the bike to lose traction. I was able to recover from this a few times, and others, I had to put my foot down and scoot the bike back onto the trail. I felt kind of like a beginning rider again. I suspect that if I lived in a snowier area, I’d get pretty good at this, but I don’t see it happening in Maryland. I only rode 7.5 miles, but it took me 90 minutes. I’m really glad I got out, as rain kept me off the mountain bike for most of December and early January, and it looks like the rain will be coming back later this week. I’m not sure when I’ll get another opportunity to ride in the snow, but I had fun today.

This morning, and last Thursday morning, I’ve taken advantage of hard overnight freezes to get some morning mountain biking in. We have had significant rainfall the past two Sundays in a row, and that, combined with the freeze/thaw cycle, has made the trails too muddy to ride any time later than about mid-morning. The general rule is that if you’re leaving tire tracks, you shouldn’t be on the trails. That rules out commuting in the afternoon, but if it stays below freezing for several hours overnight, there’s usually a window between sunrise and 9 or 9:30 when the trails will be frozen. I took advantage of that window on both days, riding 14 miles or so last week, and 10 miles today, and conditions were ideal both mornings. According to Apple Fitness, my ride-time temperature last week was 26°F and today was 25°F. By 9:00 today, things were warming up, and I could tell the window was closing, as some areas were starting to thaw (I liken it to Cinderella’s coach turning back into a pumpkin at midnight). We got close to 3 inches of rain this past Sunday into Monday, and all of the streams were still running high, with lots of evidence of water run-off on the trails. There’s no way I would have been able to ride had the trails not been frozen. I’m sure everything was a muddy mess in the afternoon, when temperatures got up into the 40s.

I have found that I have to dress differently for winter mountain biking than I do for road riding. On the road, the faster speeds make a windbreaker a necessity to stay warm. On dirt, the windbreaker makes me sweat more, because it doesn’t breathe well. So, I leave it home and wear several breathable layers instead. Today, I wore a short sleeve wool t-shirt with arm warmers, a thin synthetic “32 heat” long sleeve pullover, and my heavy Canari winter cycling jersey. On the bottom, I wore my Garneau cycling pants, Smartwool socks, and waterproof Altra Lone Peak shoes with warming insoles. I rode with Bar Mitts and medium-weight gloves (by far my preferred setup for winter riding). On top, I wore a balaclava under my usual MTB helmet. This setup keeps me quite warm and comfortable on the trails, but does get a little bit cold if I have to ride for any significant distance on pavement.