January 9^th kicked off the CRW’s 2022 Year with the Board of Directors meeting to discuss a financial review of 2021, the preliminary budget for 2022, along with other club matters.

With the continuing evolution of the club into new programs and ride related initiatives, the Board felt it was important that spending guidelines be adopted and published for the membership to further the understanding of financial approvals contained within these initiatives.

Please note below highlights from the budget and these new guidelines, as well as links to the documents in their entirety.

2022 Preliminary Budget Highlights:

*Revenues of $47k -primarily from membership dues of $37k and century profits $10k

*Expenses of $46K -primarily from club insurance of $9.8k, charitable donations $10k

                                -membership and leader appreciation spending of $18.6k

Please review detailed preliminary 2022 budget here Again, note that the budget is preliminary and many details have yet to be worked out.

2022 Discretionary Spending Guideline Highlights:

Discretional spending is distributed across various initiatives and individuals within the club to help foster an enjoyable club experience.  This is done to the benefit of all who participate. The club encourages participation in any or all activities of interest.

             * $50 is within the discretion of Program Coordinator.

             *  $51-$250 requires approval from the EVP or VP of Rides

             *  $251-500 Requires approval from the President

             *  $500 + requires board approval

Other requirements:

            * Maximum cost effectiveness should be employed

           * Repetitive treat spending is not encouraged

           * The centuries program will have latitude beyond the guidelines due to their uniqueness.

Please read the detailed Spending Guidelines here

By Coach John Hughes

We have snow in the mountains! I live in Boulder, Colorado, and I love long cross-country ski outings. I also enjoy riding outdoors even when the temps are in the 20s. How do I keep fueled? First, I know my nutrition requirements:

Caloric Requirement

For rides of more than an hour in temperate conditions, the American College of Sports Medicine recommends consuming every hour 0.3 gm (1.2 calories) of carbohydrate per pound of body weight (0.7 g per kg).

For a better guesstimate, use this table, which assumes that you are riding a road bike without a lot of extra gear on a flat road with no wind and not drafting.

Approximate Calories Needed While Riding

Example: If you weigh 150 lbs and ride at 15 mph, then you burn about 150 x 3.4 = 510 calories / hour. If you weigh 70 kg and ride at 24 km/h you use about 70 x 7.4 = 518 cal. / hr. These are guesstimates – rounding, you burn about 500 calories / hour. You’ll burn more going uphill and fewer spinning downhill. On my website you can download a Calorie Estimator spreadsheet to estimate total calories for a ride based on the length of ride, total climbing, riding speed and your weight.

In colder weather, add 10% to 20% to your caloric burn rate.

For rides lasting more than several hours, you should consume every hour about 1/2 of the calories that you are burning, primarily from carbohydrate, with a bit of protein and fat.

Your body can store limited amounts of glycogen (from carbohydrate), enough for a few hours of hard exercise. When you run out of glycogen you hit the wall and your legs feel dead. Your brain also needs fuel and can burn only glycogen. When you run out of glycogen, you bonk and your brain feels fuzzy. Even if you start eating carbohydrate immediately when this happens, recovery takes time. You can probably suffer through these on a summer ride, but running out of glycogen in the winter can make for a very long, unpleasant outing.

Hydration Requirement

While your caloric requirement increases in the cold, your hydration requirement decreases because you aren’t sweating as much, although you still need fluid. Some physiologists used to think that the hydration requirement increased in the cold because you are exhaling moist, warm air; however, metabolizing glycogen (from carbohydrate) releases H2O, which more than offsets the water vapor exhaled. In the winter you may be tempted to drink less than in the summer because bathroom breaks are harder when you are wearing multiple layers. Don’t. Follow this rule year-round: drink to satisfy your thirst.

According to the table above, I’m burning about 500 calories per hour riding and probably about the same XC skiing. How do I do get these calories in cold weather?

Eat Breakfast

I start with a breakfast of mostly carbohydrate to make sure that my stores of glycogen are full. I eat multi-grain bagels or toast or cereal or oatmeal, fruit, and non-fat yogurt (for a bit of protein). I might eat an egg (poached or boiled, not fried) instead of the yogurt. I usually eat several hours before I start exercising and then wait for the day to warm up.

Eat a Snack Before Exercising

Since breakfast was a couple of hours before I throw my leg over the top tube or click into the skis, I eat a carbohydrate snack of several hundred calories. Also, research shows that it will be easier to maintain or lose weight if you eat the same number of total calories spread across three meals plus snacks instead of just three regular meals.

What to Eat

Sports nutrition products such as bars and gels offer no performance advantage; however, they may be more convenient than real food. Bars that taste good when they are 80° F (27° C) may be unpalatable at 32° F (0° C). As it gets colder, you may want to change what you eat. I often take food that’s crunchy whatever the temperature: granola bars, crackers or pretzels, dried fruit, perhaps with a few nuts. I like to eat banana bread, oatmeal cookies, fruit newtons, soft bagels with peanut butter and jelly, boiled salty potatoes and the occasional gel. Bananas are also good early in a ride but get brown in the cold.

What to Drink

In the summer I usually carry a bottle of sports drink and a bottle of water. I make my own sports drink, which is quite similar to commercial products but much cheaper:

• 1/3 cup (80 ml) orange juice
• 12 teaspoons (50 g) sucrose (table sugar), glucose or maltodextrin (a starch)
• 1/4 teaspoon (1.2 ml) salt
• Water to make 1 quart (0.95 L)

In the winter I use hot water and in my second bottle I carry tea sweetened with honey.

Carrying Nutrition

You need to protect your food and drink from the cold; however, you also want them accessible. The more you cover up your nutrition to keep it from freezing, the harder it is to eat and drink! Over a wool long-sleeved jersey I wear a thermal vest or jersey with a windproof front and pockets in the rear where I can keep my food protected from the wind. Over these I wear a windbreaker or coat with a two-way zip—by unzipping the lower part I have easy access to my pockets. If it’s colder, I carry the food in my jersey pockets under the heavy jersey.

Carrying Fluid

For fluids, if it won’t be too cold I carry a couple of insulated bottles, the kind designed to keep fluids cold. I fill them with warm drinks: sports drink and tea with honey. If it was colder, I used to put each bottle inside a heavy wool sock before putting them in their cages. I now have a couple of steel Stanley thermoses that fit in my bottle cages, which are available on-line. Their design works well for cycling; it takes one finger to depress a button to open the valve, allowing you to drink one-handed.

If it will be even colder, I wear a small hydration pack under my coat or even under my thermal jersey. Mine has an insulated hose. You can get a bladder with an insulated valve as well; I just blow back into mine after drinking so that there’s no water in the valve to freeze.

Eating and Drinking Regularly

Eating and drinking regularly is important year-round for a fun, successful ride. It’s easy in the summer. You pull out a bottle or something from a jersey pocket and drink or eat on the bike. When it is colder and wetter, your nutrition may be less accessible, but you still need it! You may be wearing heavy gloves, which make it hard to grab food. I wear thin glove liners under my winter gloves so that my fingers are more dexterous but still have some protection if I remove a glove while riding.

If it’s too hard to eat on the bike, then you need to stop to eat. I coached a MTB racer who enjoyed events like the Iditabike, well over 24 hours of biking (and hiking) in the snow. He learned that he needed to stop every 20-30 minutes to eat and drink or he’d bonk.

Some days riding on the plains in Colorado with the wind chill, it’s too hard to try to eat on the bike. I stop, face away from the wind and eat and drink something. On longer rides, I eat like I do on a bike tour. In addition to hourly snacks, I stop every few hours to go inside a store or café to get something hot to eat and drink and to warm up. Some riders do laps from the house so they are never more than an hour or two from hot chocolate and a warm-up!

In the winter, you should be doing base training, the classic long slow distance, so follow these tips, take your time to eat and drink, and enjoy riding outdoors instead of grinding away on the trainer!

Coach John Hughes earned coaching certifications from USA Cycling and the National Strength and Conditioning Association. John’s cycling career includes course records in the Boston-Montreal-Boston 1200-km randonnée and the Furnace Creek 508, a Race Across AMerica (RAAM) qualifier. He has ridden solo RAAM twice and is a 5-time finisher of the 1200-km Paris-Brest-Paris.

He has written nearly 40 eBooks and eArticles on cycling training and nutrition, available in RBR’s eBookstore at Coach John Hughes. Click to read John’s full bio. Article appeared in Road Bike Rider 9 Tips for Eating and Drinking During Winter Bicycle Rides - Road Bike Rider Cycling Site

This article originally ran in WheelPeople in November 2010

Throughout history, species have followed a course of evolution. Life forms have started from the primordial ooze, and risen to become investment bankers (some would disagree that this was an evolutionary process). And throughout history, scholars have studied this progression. One wonders how scholars several centuries hence will chronicle the evolution of VeloMan.

VeloMan is descended from the species Homo Sapiens, but that is where the resemblance ends.

Veloman's head is usually encased in a protective carapace. Occasionally there are members of the species seen without this, but evolution being what it is, their survival is in doubt.

Veloman is a biped, though his usual stance is hunkered down over the handlebars, so can't really be called a homo erectus. His feet are not unlike cloven hooves, containing clips to rigidly attach to pedals.

He is not unlike a marsupial, except he has multiple pouches in the back, not for carrying young, but food to consume. Food consists of hard bars containing nuts and berries. Unlike other species, he does not forage for nuts and berries himself but obtains them from others. He also consumes a semisolid mass of sugary material, known as "goo." These are apparently sufficient to sustain life over long migrations. There is a hump-backed variety so named for a dorsal pouch for carrying water.

His mating rituals are difficult to understand. He sports beautiful multicolored plumage, but seems to avoid females, preferring to associate with other alpha males.

He is known to travel in herds, sometimes 30 or more specimens. The weaker of the group, unable to keep up with the herd, are left for dead.

Just as fish have evolved a set of gills and sleek profile to cut through the water, Veloman has adapted to present an aerodynamic profile while running with the herd. He has adopted a position not unlike the praying mantis with arms close together to allow him to reduce wind resistance.

All in all, Veloman is a highly evolved species and should replace inferior ones. Assuming of course velo man does not become extinct and be replaced by Roller Man.

Pedaling the mounted bike causes a small propeller to rotate. The propeller is on an arm that extends into the water when in use. These boats are available by the Potomac River in Washington, DC. Let us know if there are any in the Boston area.

It won't always be this cold, and a ride over a lake or river would be pleasant. Again, when it warms up.

Photo by Alex Post taken along the Potomac River.