I’m struggling at the min, cold, wet, dark and I just cant be arsed with riding!

I’ve been enjoying the odd ride on the trials bike, and commute when it’s dry and not freezing. I’m not doing any extra miles on the commutes or pushing hard on hills like I have been all year, and I really cant be bothered with getting muddy then cleaning mountain bikes, shoes, kit etc…

I’m sure it’s mostly the time of year, but am I the only one?

What do you do to keep motivated through the winter?

slim to none. crappy chesty cough that is lingering. one easy turbo session in the last three weeks.

set goals.

ive just been put in a spot on a puffer team so that is motivating me to hit the turbo trainer and get on the core work ( i would be out in the rain but im currently on a compound in angola)

i also have a threat of redundancy so if that comes i want to be fit enough to hit a couple of life goals in the down time that require my readiness so thinking of those things helps me keep on it rather than focusing on the mundanity of it all.

Its how ive always worked . Set my goals for the next year and it helps focus the mind. if you have no goals it makes it too easy to sit back and say naah not tonight.

I’ve been commuting a bit, but err’ indoors keeps filling the weekends with stupid Christmas consumer activities now,

And my MTB build for next year is going slower than I would like…

Zwift

Racing cross every weekend keeps me really motivated, plus I’m dead excited about getting back on my mtb in Feb.

No doubt about it for me, it’s far harder to get myself out of the door than it was mid summer.

When I’m struggling for motivation, I remind myself of how I was back in January, when I rode for the first time in seven weeks and even before mid November 2016, I was only commuting… I don’t want to lose the fitness I’ve built up and the extra weight I’ve lost by not riding and eating “too many mince pies” over Xmas.

At ~1515 yesterday, dressed in my winter gear including new thermal bib tights, it was bitter as I walked out to grab the bike… Even wearing my thin Dafeet gloves inside my Aldi Lobsters did not get my hands uncomfortably hot during my ~70mins/2000 feet of hill reps (mostly on Copsewood Road that leads into the insane Dell Road that peaks at ~20% gradient) on the Wazoo.

I’ve not been bothered by mileage since around late October, for now I’m mainly concentrating on the monthly 8000m elevation challenge on Strava. It’s not about setting new PBs either, they are not going to happen while layered up in the cold and are definitely not going to happen on the Wazoo compared to my road bike!
Typically, I take the first ~100 foot incline steady as a warm up and then try to give each ascent a decent effort, getting my heart rate up to ~180bpm… And then freewheeling back down the hill to let my heartrate drop back to ~130, except yesterday it was so cold I had to spin down the hill to keep warm! 😆

For me, it is a mind game, the thought of going out in pants weather is far worse than the positives of being out there.

I have a limited window to bike due to wife and baby and work commitments. So any mtb opportunity I grab – occasional weekends early doors and Wednesday night rides locally. Helps to have a group to ride with in the dark – more fun that way.

Commuting on days I don’t have customer meetings – probably averaging 30 miles a week. I use Strava to encourage myself to push hard on the commutes for fitness purposes.

I was thinking about how hard winter commuting is while riding in this morning. It was cold, icy and hard hard work. My commute is easy but the winter aspect really makes it so much harder. Does the cold make it that much more demanding?

Anyway I hate driving my car through the city so I have to continue riding. Its the lesser of 2 evils.

Motivation to eat pizza high.
Motivation to ride a bike zero. Its winter for gods sake.
Will start again in March.

Low at the minute, we chanced a ride out yesterday in the snow but piked out halfway round and went home 🙁 Meh. If/when it dries out and freezes over it’ll be easier to get out of the door but wet soggy bogginess can **** right off 😆

I’ll stick the heating on and get yogaing instead.

Motivation isn’t bad…pretty good in fact. I couldn’t do the commute thing, but riding both indoors and out is all good for me.

I’m keen, but injury and illness has limited riding for a while now. So just riding with kids and some lightish rehab type rides. Means I feel like I’ve lost all the fitness I had 6 weeks ago. A bit gutting as I felt like I was riding into some decent singlespeed form. Now i’m going nowhere near the singlespeed.

Anyway – all the above has turned me into a grouchy bastard.

Very motivated, unfortunately my dodgy disc is making itself known. I have my kit and winter hack stashed in the Van at all times in vain hope my back is suddenly cured. The odd pootle to the pub is about all I can do at the mo.

Now i’m going nowhere near the singlespeed.

This. I think I’ve pulled a muscle in my arm rowing the **** up hills 🙁

I’m going snowboarding in three weeks, and got a calf strain about 2 weeks ago.

I do fancy getting back on the bike but I
a) don’t want to hurt myself before going away and
b) have got loads of other stuff to do since we’re having a loft conversion at the moment.

I’ll see how we go after Christmas…

Mines good at the moment; I love the cold, frozen trails. I’d be happy if all winter was like this. Up until the cold snap I was struggling a bit because I’ve had enough of ridingwet, shitty trails especially after a fairly damp summer.

Reasonably good after two weeks of flu followed by 1.5 weeks of a cold. I’m champing at the bit to ride now I’m healthy again.

Crisp, cold and sunny weather helping too.

🙂

My motivation had come back until my bike broke, then I broke the one I borrowed, then the one I’d bodged together to replace the other 2 got hit by a car. Now not so much.

That’s just for commuting though, my motivation to ride at the weekend is looooow. I nearly went out last week but couldn’t be bothered in the end. It doesn’t help when you can only go out between 8pm and 8am, can’t be arsed with early mornings in the winter. I’ve not been out on the MTB since the end of August.

After two falls last year on ice and wet leaves, I’m sh*t scared of falling off again at the moment. I commuted my 10 miles this morning on the 29+…

winter tires are a bike thing too 😀

I love the cold, frozen trails.

Don’t we all! Very rare nowadays though, It’s been sleeting here last night so all my local trails are just a boggy clartfest.
I’ve written 2017 off anyway after Mrs Egf’s crappy health issues so I might just hibernate till spring.

Still good ..but waiting to see if anyone is going out to play tomorrow ..light snow and heavy ice overnight ..

I had a biking trip somewhere warm. Motivation was high so went riding, reality was not so good and motivation is waning with the cold. Still want to ride this weekend though.

Current motivation is good, I’m still really enjoying the new bike which helps.

And I’m about to build a little hard tail to mess around locally on.

Sounds silly but what helps is that we work shifts so have to plan a bit in advance – it’s amazing how much a Google calendar event helps to actually get you out the door.

I’m struggling to find the motivation to even finish my

I set some goals at the start of the year.

Ride 12000km total, including Zwift kms.
Get to level 25 on Zwift
Tron bike on Zwift
Mallorca 312 full distance
See the Tour de France at the roadside
Ride more with other people

So a mix of summer, winter, indoor, outdoor, social, lonesome goals.

I’ve completed Mallorca, TdF, riding with others (shop rides), level 25 Zwift.

I’m on 47000m out of 50000m on Zwift to get the tron bike.

10,800km ridden for the year.

So – my motivation is mainly driven by those last two goals. Without them I’m be curling up on the sofa with beer.

Find somewhere that is weather proof to ride. I’ve a few areas that are not prone to wet weather and sheltered from the wind.

I always look forward to riding these as I don’t ride them in the summer.

Also trail centre rides are always good when the rest of the country is manky.

Well next years goals so far are go bikepacking and solo Singletrack 7. That’s it. Maybe need to find some other stuff…

Ooo, just had an email from the Scott MTB Marathon series. Doing all of them could be a goal.

Having lost all my fitness due to a 10 week layoff with illness I’m keen to get back to where I was, especially as I’m in the ‘use it or lose it’ years, so I set myself the goal of riding 3 times a week which I’ve kept to since Sept. Beginning to struggle to get out in the slop now but went out yesterday into that northerly and was rewarded with rock hard mud around my local trails. Slopping round the Peaks in the slush early tomorrow is looking unappealing atm though, so I might take the easy option and ride locally

I’ve probably done 1200 miles in the last 3 years.Before that I rode 1200 a month.
My motivation is to drink more.

Motivation not great at the moment.
This year is the third year in a row where I’m probably going to miss my 3000 mile riding target.

I’m currently on 2690 miles, was doing really we until about a month ago (bang on target) but work travel + illness in the last two weeks has killed it.

I’m going to try and knock out as many turbo miles as possible, and get out when I can. I guess there is a slim chance I could do it.

I love riding at this time of year so motivation is high right now 😀

Slippery days don’t worry me right now but come January I’ll be struggling if it hasn’t been freezing for a bit. I like the variety the winter can bring, if it turns out to be a mild, wet winter though I’ll start to struggle after a few weeks.

Too many young children mean I only really get out on rides after they’re all in bed

So that means remembering to charge lights, thermals and late to bed, sometimes it’s very hard to get motivated but once im out there it’s all worth it!

1200 a month!? I aim for 100 ! (Off-road, commuting doesn’t count imho)

Think about your fitness going if you don’t ride over winter. I use to stop but then suffered for a long time until my fitness came back and took up to late summer.

Try setting targets and at the lease use a turbo with an app so when Spring comes you’ll be fitter and stronger to enjoy longer rides.

I was going to enter the Boltby Bash to give me something to aim at fitness-wise but I haven’t and I dunno if I fancy it or not now. I did get a couple of advance tickets for Northern Grip though, which is nice. This year’s was ace so looking forward to next year’s (in our new-to-us FKW van!) is one thing to keep us going through the next few months of shit weather.

Kayla 1- random but are you building Barry the boxer on self build group ?

All good here, takes a bit more thought with charging lights etc, but I’ve got my routine down. With modern kit I don’t really worry about the weather. I won’t pretend I enjoy a dark windy freezing road ride like I do a light summer MTB blast across my local hills. But the dark miles make the summer one’s all the sweeter!

No, we got a pre-done ’03 Ducato earlier this year and my OH re-jigged it to suit us. We’ve been away a couple of times in it but we haven’t had a proper full weekend away with just the bikes yet!

Fair, its the cleanup that starts to do my head in after a month or two of dirty winter rides. Hardtails coming out to play next so it help.