As we close out 2024, the PEZ CREW would like to thank our readers and sponsors for your support, and share a few thoughts for this Holiday Season. And since it’s that time of the year when the weather makes it hard, if not impossible, to ride outdoors, we thought it would be appropriate to share how we survive the winter months. Cheers!
Richard Pestes – Publisher
One of my last Fall rides, past Cleveland dam, where days of heavy rains required a release of some water – that sounded like a jet engine.
The end of October brings a drastic change in weather here – daylight savings brings darkness by 5:00pm, and temps drop to around 10C degrees, which these days is just about my threshold for riding (although my perspective always changes come January and I’m itching to get back outside.) I’ve realized that getting through November and December are a real challenge to my mental health, so I don’t complain when Mrs. Pez asks me to put up the Christmas lights early.
So this year I asked the guys about how they all get through winter. For my part, I’ve found myself taking a total break from the bike until January, but have added pilates to help my flexibility and mobility, and weight training to gain back some strength that I’ve noticed has ebbed away in the last few years, and walking to get me out of the house and moving. All have been excellent for my mental well-being too – since 2 of the 3 having fun with other people.
This was the first year since Covid that I didn’t do any major travel for cycling, and didn’t have any big events to train for. The result was a forced chill-out about must do rides for the sake of training, and although my overall fitness was below previous years, I did more rides simply to enjoy being on my bike, and riding with friends. And my Strava stats showed I rode almost as as many kms as 2023, and actually had more active days.
And in spite of Pogacar’s total dominance in almost every race he road this year, I still really enjoyed watching it all unfold from the Spring, through the summer Grand Tours and the Olympics to the Fall Italian races.
As we close our 23rd year of reporting on “what’s cool in road cycling” – with some gravel, cross, and adventure riding tossed in for added flavor – I’m thankful for the work of the mighty PEZ-Crew – some of whose messages are next… thankful for the support of our advertisers who keep this site funded, and of course to you readers who tune in and help us stay connected to this wonderful community or cyclists.
May happiness, peace and prosperity find you all in 2025.
Alastair Hamilton – Editor/EUROTRASH
Happy holidays to everyone and I hope you all have a great time. Here in Spain we have a big feed on Christmas eve, but there is also no skimping on the grub on Christmas day. Of course I will be weighing my food and watching the calories, cough. I’ll be getting back on the Wahoo KICKR in the New Year after a bout of shingles took me out for nearly two months, but it’s getting better and Zwift (other training apps are available) is calling me. You never know an outdoor ride could also happen. The weather here is usually mild at sea level, with possible snow in the hills (over 1,000 metres), but perfect cycling conditions, which is why just about every WorldTour, ProConti, and some days it seems, every other team bases themselves in the area for training. Although I am hooked on Zwift because of how easy it is just to jump on for an hour, nothing beats real life riding.
One of my favourite (and also least favourite) rides is the Coll de Rates. I live on the side of the longer climb, not the shorter side from Parcent, where everyone ties to set a record time. They say Jonas Vingegaard got his contract with Visma because of his record ride on the ‘Rates’. Now Tadej Pogačar holds the record at an average speed of over 30kph with the an average gradient of 5.5%. Anyway, I thought I should go to the summit of the Coll to wish you all the best – I’m sorry to say it was in the car, not on a bike.
The Coll de Rates from the Tarbena side
Talking of Mr. Pogačar, 2024 was his year. He won most races he started and did the Giro/Tour/Worlds. But his domination didn’t kill the sport, the season was still exciting. One worrying thing has been the amount of bad crashes, especially involving top riders and the breaking of bones. The WorldTour riders get paid a lot of money and their career is too short to lose months of racing, but what can you do? The peloton isn’t going to slow down.
Looking the other way, down towards Parcent and the Jalón/Xaló
So what about 2025? Maybe Pogačar won’t get it all his own way, but he is a phenomenon and can win most races in the way he wants. As always we will be hoping for a battle between the Slovenian, Vingegaard, Evenepoel and Roglič in the Tour de France, but it usually doesn’t happen that all the favourites are still in the battle when it matters. The Classics, on the other hand, are more open and the cobbles are what we love to have on the menu. Van der Poel and a recovered Van Aert will surely enliven the spring. PEZ-man Ed Hood loved the Classics, well, Ed loved everything to do with the sport, we all miss his enthusiasm and knowledge.
Tadej taking a selfie about a couple of hundred metres past my house
That’s my pre-Christmas ramble over. I hope you have enjoyed reading PEZ and keep coming back. A happy and healthy 2025 to all
Chuck Peña – Tech Editor & Sock Guru
To everyone out in PEZ-land: Wishing y’all the happiest of holidays … however you celebrate … Christmas, Hannukah, Kwanzaa, or anything else. Without all of you, we wouldn’t have a reason to write! So we’re grateful that you want to read our sometimes pithy prose.
I hope 2023 has been good to all of you. For me, the highlight of the year was a change in my work situation (my “real” work that pays the bills) that allowed me to pack up my apartment in Babylon on the Potomac and move down to our house in the Lowcountry to be full-time with my wife and daughter (plus our dog) after two years of going back-and-forth not often enough. It’s a slower island/resort lifestyle where we are with less to do in terms of attractions (or are those distractions?), but I enjoy the change of pace from urban city life and I couldn’t be happier being with my family. Plus it’s warmer down here than up north!
Which brings me to our “how we get through the winter” theme …
The good news for me is that winter in the Lowcountry is warmer than in Babylon on the Potomac. That said, since Thanksgiving we’ve actually had several mornings starting out in the 30s F (and a couple in the 20s!), but that’s unusual. More usual winter weather is something like lows in the mid-40s and highs in the high-50s. That means I can actually ride outdoors if my schedule allows and I’m feeling motivated/inspired. I’ll definitely keep doing the Hilton Head Island Sunday group ride throughout the winter. And try to get the Bluffton crew of the Major Taylor Lowcountry out for some winter rides. One of my incentives to not be a slacker is that I’ll be riding the Giro d’Italia Ride Like a Pro USA gran fondo in St. Augustine, FL in mid-January (stay tuned for my write up about it sometime after the event).
But even if I can ride outdoors, sometimes I’m just too busy (or too lazy) to kit up. On those occasions, there’s my Wahoo KICKR BIKE SHIFT out in our Carolina Room (I’m spoiled not having to deal with putting my bike on and taking it off a trainer whenever I want to ride indoors). I have a #wahooligan set up with a KICKR HEADWIND Fan and a Wahoo KICKR Desk. The biggest change for me is having to adapt to a small screen (my MacBook Air) Zwift-ing, Xert-ing, and Wahoo X-ing (we actually have a 42-inch TV in the Carolina room but I can’t be bothered with moving it — it’s on a rolling stand — to use it for riding). I know … first world problem.
In the basement of our house in Babylon on the Potomac with an 82″ projector screen
At my apartment, I had a 65″ TV
Finally, there’s this … Warmer winter in the Lowcountry means I get to work on my golf game!
Father-daughter golf in the Lowcountry
Leslie Reissner – Film & Book Review Editor
Season’sGreetings ! Another year has flown by pretty rapidly and looking over those 12 months I feel there was some accomplishment. I was resolved to ride my vintage bicycles a lot more and happily did so after discovering the secret to better utilization is to switch them over to modern clipless pedals.
Sadly after my past memorable experiences at vintage events in Europe (l’Eroica, Retro Ronde, Anjou Velo Vintage, In Velo Veritas, etc.) it’s disappointing that similar organized rides are pretty well invisible in North America. There were some other letdowns: after 14 years, I returned to club time trialling and realized I don’t really like it so much anymore. And efforts at gravel riding, including most of the Prescott-Russell Trail in a single day, confirmed that gravel is for other people.
This morning I went for a walk and as it was -13C and windy, with some snow and a lot of ice, so definitely outdoor riding season has come to an end. This means it is back to the Pain Cave full time, which might be onerous for some but I actually quite enjoy it as I have a good set-up. With a big monitor I enjoy the immersive effects of riding with Rouvy or Wahoo SYSTM and have even bought a white board to plan out my rides. Many might be scenic jaunts, but there will be some hard effort days too. Add in basic weight workouts at home plus twice-weekly visits to the municipal indoor pool and I hope to see some gains when I emerge blinking into the sun in April.
Until then, I wish all Pez readers and my colleagues all the best for the season and a great 2025!
Stephen Cheung – Toolbox Editor & Groadie
After 4 years of pretty much staying close to home thanks to the pandemic, 2024 was my return to lots of academic travel. There were many, many highlights, including comparing both Kansas City and Korean BBQ back to back at two conferences, mixing a snowboarding trip with a wintertime conference, an authentic smoke sauna experience in Finland speaking at another conference, along with helping my pal Olaf move his astronomical observatory building from one cabin to another halfway across Norway. Those trips were reminders of why academic travel can never be replaced by virtual conferences or meetings – even though I organized a highly successful virtual webinar series myself. Virtual can never replace the personal spark of actual conversation and interaction.
But the absolute highlight was our grand bikepacking adventure in Iceland this “summer” with four friends from across Canada. I had done separate smaller trips with different combinations of the guys in 2022 and 2023, but this was definitely another level of intensity and enjoyment for all of us. The trip absolutely pushed us to our limits, but we learned that what we think of as our capabilities and limits – physical, mental, emotional – are very often self-imposed and just figments of our own imaginations.
In the same way, I’m seeing that my definition of cycling is a figment of my own imagination. Cycling has changed so much for me through the years. I started out as a racer-boy and roadie for many years. Then I got heavily into cyclocross. Then came gravel, which started out as another means of racing but became more and more a means of exploration to the point that I never look at the results sheet. Which has now led to bikepacking off the beaten path.
So enjoy the holidays and may 2025 bring you further new and fun facets of this amazing sport!
John Thomson – Photographer of Bike Races and Catwalks
I am writing this Christmas message as I am watching the cross race in Mol on my TV and wishing I was there to shoot MvdP without his glasses on. But I had a very good year with pictures at the Tour de France, Olympics, Flanders and Roubaix. And with great admiration for the riders who battle and come back from adversity like they do, in the most beautifully photographable sport in the world. Wishing all PEZ readers a very Merry Christmas and don’t forget that “Christmas is the only time of year in which one can sit in front of a dead tree and eat candy out of socks.”
Jordan Cheyne – Contributor
Winter isn’t really something to “get through” for me anymore. I spent over a decade grinding the hours away on the indoor trainer and dreaming of warmer days out on the road. Since moving to Tucson, Arizona, full-time three years ago, those days are behind me. The searing summer heat has replaced the bitter cold and snow as the most trying part of the year. To me, the trade is well worth it: the driveway might melt a little when the temperature creeps above 40 Celsius, but I’ll never have to shovel it.
The holidays sneak up on us now, though. The snow, the darker days, and even the arduous miles on Zwift were subconscious cues that the year was waning and Christmas was getting close. The first training camps of the new season were within sight, and I would always think of the holidays as one final reprieve from my rigid training schedule before riding fast became my full-time job once again. In Tucson, with day after day of perfect “room temperature” riding weather, I didn’t feel like I needed the break. The holidays were just a bonus on top of what felt like a permanent training vacation. Christmas was always just as special, just in a surprisingly different way.
This year is the first in my adult life in which I won’t ride a single mile during the holidays. I haven’t ridden for a long time actually. The recovery from the spinal injury that ended my pro career hasn’t been a smooth or linear process. I will enjoy the warm winter sun on a golf course or a cafe patio instead of on the slopes of Mount Lemmon. It makes me appreciate all those long, chatty holiday rides with friends and teammates but not necessarily miss them. Christmas is always a good reminder that whatever roads life takes me down, I should be grateful for the the people and the home I get to return to.
The post PEZ’s Holiday Greeting 2024 appeared first on PezCycling News.
