by Chris Dugan

I was a slow convert to Snow biking. When I came downstairs at Christmas and saw the new Surly Pugsley “Black Ops” snow bike next to the tree, I thought “oh crap-another bike-where the hell are we going to put it?”. (We have bikes everywhere-we can barely park in our garage).  So when Trish, my wife (and bike addict) suggested we bring our snow bikes to Rochester the day after Christmas, I was neutral on the idea.  When we got to Rochester, and found a half foot of fresh snow on the ground, I immediately thought “this is gym weather. It’s indoor cycling weather. Pool weather. It’s not riding or running outside weather”.

When we got on our bikes and rode across my in-laws’ vast, snowy lawn, I thought “this isn’t so bad…”  Then we crossed into some nearby woods, and got onto some mild single track. I was impressed at the way the big knobby tires gripped the snow. And at the way they absorbed shock. If you like your 29er, you’ll love snow bikes. The tires are massive, so it doesn’t matter much what’s underneath the snow.  At one point, we cracked through some thin ice and were suddenly up to the hubs in water. My pug churned through it, crunching through the crust, gripping the mud and shooting out a rooster tail of water behind me. Suddenly, I was smiling.

Trish stopped to take a photo of the trail we had made through the otherwise undisturbed blanket of snow. If you’ve ever gotten up early to leave your tracks on a ski slope, you know how satisfying it is to break trail.  If you love to ski out of bounds, through the glades, you’ll feel the same sensation as you inevitably lose the trail, and freewheel through the thin brush.

We broke out of the woods onto an old grass landing strip. I downshifted and picked up my RPMs, leaning forward into the wind as my big wheels rolled through the drifting snow. It was twilight, and the field had that quiet peaceful sensation, as the snow absorbs all the ambient sound.  We popped out onto the canal trail, and upshifted. You can really open it up on a flat trail-we were cranking through the packed powder at about 15MPH, laughing at the absurdity of being on our bikes in Central New York on December 26^th.

But that’s the beauty of the snow bike for people in the Northern latitudes.  It enables us to recast winter. There doesn’t have to be an indoor season anymore. The same conditions that forced you to go to spin class last year are now a good catalyst to get your gore-tex on and get outside.

Today, as I was riding through the woods near my house, I saw an archway of trees, bent over & heavy with freshly fallen snow. I put my head down and blasted through them, sending snow flying everywhere, and emerging from the grove looking like a Yeti. I looked up and saw a snowshoer, who was laughing at me.  “Look at you-you are a nut! “  As I hopped over a log and pulled alongside him, he stopped to admire the bike. “Wow, look at those tires. That thing really handles the snow well. That’s really an awesome bike, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, it really is an awesome bike” , I said.  Then I looked downhill, couldn’t detect where the trail went anymore, so I just aimed my bike down the hill, figuring I’d find it eventually. Or not.

Ever since our fleet of Surly Pugsley snow bikes arrived at the shop about a month ago, I’ve had my eye on one. Just one trip around the parking lot and I was hooked! And here’s why. Winter is tough season in CNY for cyclists. You have basically two choices. Bundle up and brave the snow on your road or cyclocross bike or set up your bike on an indoor trainer in your living room/basement/garage.

Option #1 drawback: to be honest, it’s not dodging snowplows or worrying about salt on my bike that discourages me. It’s more about just being so much SLOWER in the winter on the same routes that I ride all summer long. Call me vain, I don’t care.

Option #2 drawback. You’re stuck inside, in one place. Utter boredom. I don’t know about you, but I ride because I love the feeling of my body moving through space, out of doors. Running, skiing and snowshoeing are OK substitutes, but hardly the same thing.

I miss cycling tremendously in the winter. Enter my new snow bike. The Surly Pugsley was created to go where standard all-terrain bikes flounder. They’re great on otherwise unrideable terrain (such as ice and snow) because of the flotation and traction provided by their huge, bad ass tires.  Quite simply put, snow bikes are all about putting the fun back in biking!

And if you don’t want to take my word for it, listen to this clinic put on by our Service Manager Ari Andonopolous. Then look for details of our snow bike demo day in a month or so and come out to experience some pure, unadulterated winter fun for yourself!

NCC Stay Moving Clinic – Snowbikes with Ari from Tobie DePauw on Vimeo.

The holiday season comes only once a year, and as such should be a time of much joy and celebration. Our best advice to you comes from a friend’s wall on Facebook: Holiday Eating Tips After Years of Careful Observation. SO LISTEN UP!

1. Avoid carrot sticks. Anyone who puts carrots on a holiday buffet table knows nothing of the Christmas spirit. In fact, if you see carrots, leave immediately. Go next door, where they’re serving rum balls.

2. Drink as much eggnog as you can. And quickly. It’s rare… You cannot find it any other time of year but now. So drink up! Who cares that it has 10,000 calories in every sip? It’s not as if you’re going to turn into an eggnog-alcoholic or something. It’s a treat. Enjoy it. Have one for me. Have two. It’s later than you think. It’s Christmas!

3. If something comes with gravy, use it. That’s the whole point of gravy. Gravy does not stand alone. Pour it on. Make a volcano out of your mashed potatoes. Fill it with gravy. Eat the volcano. Repeat.

4. As for mashed potatoes, always ask if they’re made with skim milk or whole milk. If it’s skim, pass. Why bother? It’s like buying a sports car with an automatic transmission.

5. Do not have a snack before going to a party in an effort to control your eating. The whole point of going to a Christmas party is to eat other people’s food for free. Lots of it. Hello?

6. Under no circumstances should you exercise between now and New Year’s. You can do that in January when you have nothing else to do. This is the time for long naps, which you’ll need after circling the buffet table while carrying a 10-pound plate of food and that vat of eggnog.

7. If you come across something really good at a buffet table, like frosted Christmas cookies in the shape and size of Santa, position yourself near them and don’t budge. Have as many as you can before becoming the center of attention. They’re like a beautiful pair of shoes. If you leave them behind, you’re never going to see them again.

8. Same for pies. Apple, Pumpkin, Mincemeat. Have a slice of each. Or if you don’t like mincemeat, have two apples and one pumpkin. Always have three. When else do you get to have more than one dessert? Labor Day?

9. Did someone mention fruitcake? Granted, it’s loaded with the mandatory celebratory calories, but avoid it at all cost. I mean, have some standards.

10. One final tip: If you don’t feel terrible when you leave the party or get up from the table, you haven’t been paying attention. Re-read tips; start over, but hurry, January is just around the corner!

That’s Paul there a few years ago on the rollers in front of the shop.  Needless to say, the evening traffic on Erie Boulevard certainly took notice of Santa riding his bike on a set of rollers in a snow storm.

It’s not at all unusual to see Paul on his bike outside any time of year, minus the Santa costume. All that use means Paul is ready for a new ride and he wants a Trek Project One Madone! With Trek’s custom bike program, Paul will be able to customize, personalize, even sensationalize his perfect set of wheels.

Trish wants a Patagonia Nano Puff jacket in every color! She pretty much puts one on in October and you’ll see her wearing one until at least April. The teeny, tiny Primaloft fibers warm better and compress smaller than any other synthetic fiber. So Trish stays warmer with less weight and less bulk. And that makes Trish very, very happy. Windproof, water-resistant and it weighs just 8 ounces. And it even folds into its own pocket!

Operations Manager Brian Kiggins wants a set of Mavic’s Ksyrium SL Wheels because they’re aerodynamic and light, yet tough enough for year-round training! The front wheel has 18 radially laced spokes, and the rear wheel ups that number to 20, with Mavic’s Isopulse spoking pattern to provide optimum power transfer. They’re available with either a Campagnolo-specific or Shimano/SRAM-specific freehub body.

This wheelset is also part of Mavic’s MP3 extended warranty program. The acronym stands for Mavic Product Protection Plan, and it provides you with two years of almost unlimited no-fault protection from Mavic. More details can be found on the MP3 website.

Service Manager Ari Andonopolous wants the new Nite Rider MiNewt.600 cordless bike light.  He rides his bike to the shop from Fayetteville, day or night, rain or shine. This light is everything he could ask for in a one piece, modular bike light. It features the best in class lumens per dollar ratio, tool-less quick release mounting and a retina searing 600 lumens of light output. Great for on the road or on the trail.

Store Manager Dan Button wants the RADBOT 1000 rear light for his bike! This light has one directive: to defend you and your bike from rear collisions. The company that makes it, Portland Design Works, describes it like this:
..its blazing red eye contains a 1.0 watt Japanese LED to stare down vehicles. This is the same powerful LED used in the brake lights of new cars. Also the RADBOT 1000 makes a mean cup of coffee. Actually that last part isn’t true…” You gotta to love a company with sense of humor!

Ty wants a new helmet! He likes the Giro Aeon Helmet in Titanium Silver because it’s got a killer combination of light weight, comfort and cooling performance for those July days. The new Aeon weighs only 222g in a CPSC approved size Medium. Yet it also provides cooling power equivalent to the most ventilated helmet ever made, the Giro Ionos.

Bob has his eye on a new mountain bike and he’s hoping to see a Trek Superfly 100 because it’s perfect on demanding technical trails, exceedingly efficient everywhere else. With this bike, you get full-suspension technical performance with the flat out speed and efficiency of 29 inch wheels.

Jim has his eye on a Surley Pugsley  - the bike of choice for someone who likes to spend long hours in the woods.  Even though Jim might prefer to get up and down the local trails on his own two feet, we’re pretty sure that he’ll have even more fun on a Pugsley this winter! This bike is meant to go where standard “all terrain” bikes flounder. The floatation and traction afforded by large-volume, low-pressure tires will carry Jim over and through otherwise unrideable terrain…sand, mud, wet rocks and roots, ice and many kinds of snow. Look for him on one at a trail near you very soon!

And Fran is hoping for his very own Scott Foil Aero road bike…so he can be faster and more efficient in all road conditions! And since the sky’s the limit when it comes to asking for things from Santa, he’s asking for the Scott FOIL Premium, a premium mix of Di2 components hung on the HMX FOIL frame and rolling on Zipp 404′s!

  Everyone is looking for just the right gift this time of year. If you’re like us, you’ve been checking online for ideas and racking your brain trying to figure out what to get everyone on your list. Look no further. Read on to see just what our staff is hoping Santa will bring them this year.

When you show up to Trek Ride Camp, you are surrounded by bike geeks. Young bike geeks. Cool bike geeks. The kind who ride their commuter bike to work every day, then race cyclocross after work, and do a century on the weekend. They are lean, skinny, tattooed people who think about frame stiffness and gear ratios and all that other crap I don’t really understand. They aren’t obnoxious about it-but they know, and you know, that they could bury you on the road or trail. So as we gathered in the courtyard of the Corque Hotel in Solvang, CA to get our ride brief, I was thinking “I’m going to get my ass kicked. My job today is not to wind up in the SAG wagon”.

 I’m not a technically great cyclist. I weigh 210 pounds, and didn’t really start road riding seriously until about 5 years ago. While I’ve done triathlons and adventure races, I’ve never actually done a bike race, and I’m uncomfortable in a peloton. I like to scratch my nose, and drink water, and eat food-all the things the skinny tattooed people have trained themselves not to do. Peloton riding is one of those environments that can make a really secure person feel like the kid wearing clothes that don’t match in 5^th grade. We’ve all been on the group ride where some dork you don’t even know yells at you for not making the proper hand signal for “gravel on the ground”, and you actually feel like a loser. Deep down inside, you know this guy probably counts paper clips at a hospital during the day, but somehow he’s become the bike peloton guru, probably because he has the ultimate Tour de France CD collection at home.  I don’t like feeling like a loser, so I was going to steer clear of the peloton.

 The other consideration was that this was a really beautiful place. Solvang and nearby San Ynez are the homes of some of the best vineyards in the States. You ride through orderly arrays of grapes, with majestic four thousand foot mountains in the background. The colors are amazing-reds, tans, greens and browns comprised of cultivated land, wild, grassy fields, and the sage of the high desert. So it’s dumb to put yourself in a situation where you wind up in a peloton, staring at the sweaty ass and rear tire of the guy in front of you. So I waited for the speedsters to exit the parking lot, and fell in towards the back of a 40-rider line.

But we’re here for the cycling, and Solvang certainly doesn’t disappoint in that regard. The temperate climate and surrounding Santa Ynez mountains make Solvang a favorite training locale for several professional cycling teams, and the village has hosted a stage of the Amgen Tour of California for the past few years in addition to numerous amateur cycling events.

We arrived at Hotel Corque Monday afternoon, a boutique hotel on the main drag. Trek Travel is known for its plush accommodations, and that held true even on a scaled back trip like Ride Camp. Here’s a view of our hotel lobby – love those funky giant sized chairs!

We quickly changed into our cycling kit and headed out to the parking lot to meet up with the Trek Travel crew. Their set up is impressive – demo trucks, three tents and over 40 sparking 5.2 Madone road bikes for the group.  The guys quickly got us set up on our bikes, including swapping stems and saddles to ensure that we’re going to enjoy the long hours on the roads over the next four days.

The ride of the day was a short 15-mile loop on the Solvang Individual Time Trial course, one of the stages of past iterations of the Amgen Tour of California. It was the perfect distance to get a feel for our bikes and a taste of what to expect over the next few days of riding.  The sun was setting over the mountains as we hustled back to town to get ready for social hour and dinner.

This version of Trek Ride Camp is a little different. It’s specifically for Trek Bicycle retailers and bike shop employees.  There are about 40 of us here this week, from shops all over the USA and Canada. We’re going to spend most of our days riding, but also a good chunk of time each day listening to some of Trek’s best product managers talk about the latest and greatest Trek has to offer. And we soon learned that we’d have a few celebrities in our midst this week…

Team Radio Shack professional cyclist Chris Horner is here! He accomplished the highest-profile result of his career this past May by winning the 2011 Tour de California stage race. What struck us immediately about Chris is how approachable he is.  As a Trek sponsored athlete, he’s involved in testing and evaluating just about every Trek product you can imagine from bikes to helmets to shoes to clothing. Chris is here to lend his experience as someone who spends about 30 hours in the saddle each week as a professional cyclist.

Here’s a short video of Chris at dinner talking about the importance of saddle choice and getting riders to give a saddle a fair “trial” of at least a few weeks. That all important break-in period can be tough to endure, but we can all agree that when you find the right saddle that works for you, it makes for a much more pleasurable experience out there on the road!