[Revised yet again 2/2.]
Here’s the situation. The mid-Michigan area I live in is full of woodsy trails. We also have one of the biggest bike clubs in the US that produces several big tour events as well as top road and dirt racers. I ride all kinds of bikes myself. But even though there are lots of cyclists out and about in the summer, the woods and trailhead parking lots seem relatively empty in the winter. I say, What’s up with that? It looks like the bikers are missing out on some great winter action!
Come winter the dozens of trails in our area get all snowy—so do our frozen rivers, lakes, woods, fields and golf courses of all kinds (some quite hilly and woodsy). So I do what seems obvious: I stop riding my bike as often and instead go XC skiing at these places almost every day all winter. Each week I hit as many places as I can, but the ones near my house are nice enough. Sure, some weeks we don’t have snow—we’re in a middling snowbelt—but mostly anywhere there’s a little snow there’s decent XC ski conditions.
…And “decent XC conditions” means a GREAT TIME is ready to be had!
Now, I know that in a lot of snowy regions there’s good crossover between biking and XC skiing. And, of course, where it’s too slushy, everything is miserable, and everyone stays home. But where I live we get 50-100 skiable days and, say, 150 good days or so only an hour or two north.
You’d think the bleakness of our local winters might actually get more people outside than in sunny snow places because we need it more.
On the roads and in the towns it’s often butt-ugly in winter: slushy, gray, overcast, dirty, dirty, dirty.
Out in the woods it’s the cleanest time of year! White white white! Fresh fresh fresh! Air, water, everything.
Winter keeps bikers off bikes (to an extent), but it shouldn’t keep them away from where the action is just right and where cold isn’t cold anymore. What’s more is that I notice bikers saying they can’t afford skis. People who spend $500 on wheels complain that a $300 complete XC ski package is too much? It’s time for an attitude adjustment!
Let’s start by making sure we understand XC…
XC Skiing: The All-Body Scenic Dyno Action Sport!
I say that XC skiing is the snowy non-biking way to bike.
As long as there’s a couple inches on the ground, XC keeps you happy, warm and ready for anything.
One of the biggest and most obvious things is that snow is white! —A simple, cheery, fresh, relaxing color. After a summer of the cacophony of life on pavement and dirt, amid all those colors and stinks, winter offers fresh simplicity. Everything looks good against snow. White as far as you can see. Ah, yes!
Now, the pic I’m using here, of an old friend and ex-nat’l bike champ, yo, doing her styley thing, is a great one, no one can deny. But what I really want to do is get some comparison pics—showing pals riding styley singletrack trails in the summer, then dyno-skiing the same trails in winter. That’s probably all anyone needs to see to get the point. It ain’t rocket science. But I have a fun tale to tell anyway…
Don’t worry, the money for your ski-set will show up. Worst-case scenario, in exchange for a step down to normal-mortal components in one aspect of your riding, you can add a whole new world of fun. And you can buy a whole used set-up at end of winter for $100.
People around the Midwest should realize that we only have moderate alpine skiing hills. They’re pricey and often hours away. But we have thrifty WORLD CLASS XC ski trails and skiable terrain almost everywhere. The same must hold true for everywhere that has snow and mellow terrain: your lift-served areas will be moderate but your XC options wonderful!
All-Body Dyno Big-Glide Action
Skiing is like biking, without the moving parts. And without the crash danger. And you can go anywhere, even on water (ice). Trails are cool but skiing is bigger than that: you can bust off em and go right thru the woods—especially on crust snow—or cover the fields like a deer. The speeds are close to biking, too. As are the skills and pack dynamics. And the XC ski singletrack is sweeter than sweet!
Skiing is also like biking in that you get to love the hills. That’s the amazing thing about XC compared to other skisport: when you do it right you get sweet glide going UP the hills. In fact, I think uphill glide is sweeter than the obviousness of descending. Who cares if it’s a bit slower. The miracle is bigger. Just like when you’re dialed in for climbing on a bike, it seems like you just float up the hills, like you’re getting more back than you put in. The speed, action and intensity is about the same going downhill in all the glide-or-roll-sports, but with XC you’re more nekkid. Well, cycling can have even less clothing but XC has a more exposed all-body dynamic.
In terms of raw speed, didja know that the Chequemegon mt-bike race is won in about the same pace as the Birkie ski race which is held on basically the same trails? And people always consider lift-served skiing to be fast but one is rarely going faster than 20mph on a challenging run: you often go faster on XC descents.
Now, mt-biking has its singletrack jones, but XC has it, too. Nay, XC beats out mt-bike: you can pivot on a heel rather than have to guide a whole wheelbase. So where do you find tasty XC singletrack? Just hit your fave bike singletrack when the snow flies! It’s not likely to be groomed, but many groomed ski trails are too wide to give the singletrack dyno thrill. Narrow ski trails are out there. You can also easily make your own—just find a way thru the snowy woods and ski it in a few times. Instant trail! No enviro impact. Gone with the snow.
To look at handling skills some more, with XC you’re using the whole body and get a sense of full abandonment style. You blast corners, catch air, your body parts being tossed every which way by G-forces. In XC you’re not restrained to the frame of a bike. You’re chest-first to the elements, flying down the hills, twisting the chutes, upright and exposed. You bomb corners, legs and arms straining to fly wide when they aren’t digging in. Kinda like hockey, only on terrain. Catching air, off camber, big tuck: it’s all yours.
XC offers range of action motion to beat the band. It’s expressive, in a way. You throw your body forward, down the trail, then reach way out and catch yourself, throwing yourself onto the poles, kicking as far forward and back as your legs will go—everything on your bod is swinging and flinging far and wide. You “pop” your core effort then let yourself, your limbs, fly out, relaxed, to the end of their stroke. Yet it’s low impact. It gives you spring and explosiveness without strain. Cool!
XC is like dancing. Classic and skating each offer several distinct moves or techniques for any situation. Keeping your Big Mo flowing best through a course involves seamlessly changing up between all these techniques, sometimes using a different move on each stroke, all in rhythm. In fact, in other languages the skating moves are called “dance,” as in “paddle dance” and “double dance.” XC is a big beat!
XC is uniquely an all-body terrain sport. Well, slide-seat rowing is similar but there’s not much topography. Water is cool and waves are lovely, don’t get me wrong. The kind of rowing that’s something like skiing is the ultralight superthin carbon boat kind, where the hull is no wider than your hips and disappears under you. That kind gives you a similar flying sensation that skiing does—but slower and without as much dyno terrain action (except in big waves). The special thing about XC is its “gathering-bursting” style. Rowing has some of this, in one plane. Inlining and even running have much less of it. XC is a continuous leaping. You know the explosive feeling you get from a great dive off a springboard into water? Or the rhythmic gathering feel of doing the butterfly swim stroke? XC is like both of those ALL the time. Each stride is a punchy leap yet it’s smooth. It’s a leap into thin air. A total body toss. XC has what’s called “hang-time,” a thrown-abandon between efforts where you glide, float, fly and relax. In skate I call it the “angel hang.” You throw yourself, pop your move, then arms are flung behind you, and one leg has popped out to the side and is floating there a moment, and you’re rocketing along at, say, 15mph on one foot, chin out. Pretty cool.
But back to the equipment. This can be another cosmic aspect of skiing: there’s basically no moving parts. That’s cool. OK, there’s one moving part, the binding, a minor thing (iceskates are cool because they don’t even have that). So here’s a ski, with a flat bottom, and it glides like a skate with a razor edge. That’s cool. Then there’s wax: in classic you have kickwax which when buffed isn’t hardly visible: yet it GRIPS. And when pushed it glides! Grip and glide, all on one smooth, flat ski. Kinda neat. A biker can appreciate the simple elegance of it, I think—especially a fixie rider, right?
Skisport, cycling, ice-skating and inlining all play off glide (or roll), making them close cousins. Worldwide, in snowy areas you find lots of crossover between top athletes in these sports. They belong together. If you do one, do them all. There’s nothing stopping you.
All-Body Dyno Scenery!
In the winter, with no leaves on trees, no weed-thickets, trail vistas are opened WIDE. Summer has a close-in jungle feel. It’s cool in its own way but there’s still sweat, bugs, prickers, and nettles. Winter offers glide glide glide. And the AIR is so CLEAN! No pollen, no cloggy humidity.
Ski trails are where many sports meet. Maybe a quarter of the skiers out there are mainly skiers—most of them do other sports more often. It’s really not snowy that much of the year around here, after all. The ski trails are the one place where bike racers meet canoe racers—runners and triathletes show up, too. Hikers and bike tourists probably probably comprise the skiers who have the most fun—they’re out with bread, cheese and winesacks and who look for interesting trails and sights and who cares about the workout. But everyone has a great time in their own way.
In winter the hillier golf courses are a treat that you can’t enjoy on a bike in summer. They really come on strong when it gets crusty—what fun it is to bomb their tidy rolling hills. (Stay off the greens and there’s no harm. I’ve never been hassled on them.)
XC has another fresh angle for cyclists: frozen waterways. A couple weeks a year around here the snow and ice are just right for skiing the woodsy lakes and open cattail swamps. Sometimes I can even add in our twisty rivers. It’s a wide-open blast.
Then comes another joy: crust skiing! Springtime brings sunny melts and refreezes, for skiing or skating anywhere in the woods, dodging trees, flying over the lakes, leaping the fields, having a blast. It’s total liberation from the limits of trails. It’s a time of sunshine, suntans, wineskins, picnics—shorts and shortsleeves even.
Now, alpine skiing, telemark and snowboarding are all fine—where you can find em. But you tend to need more snow and you definitely need more terrain. Probably only 10% of snowcountry is truly hilly enough for lift-served or hike-em-up action. With XC all you need is gravity and a couple inches of snow, toss in a little hill and you’re set for max fun. Of course, grooming for XC can get as sweet as any snowsport, but it’s optional. And steenking chair-lifts don’t even apply. XC is more a “wherever you are” sport rather than a resort sport, and even at resorts XC is probably 1/5th the cost and has far less enviro-impact. Also, XC is thought of as slow and sweaty. Well, you work just as hard doing alpine dyno-style and the speeds are basically the same: except XC is faster up the hills. (I can outski most lifts back up the hill.) Lastly, compared to lift-resorts XC trails go places. Some alpine runs have heritage, but, truly, trails trump runs.
Then there’s the hang-out fun factor. In biking you go for a ride with your pals. Same with XC. There are no helmets and not that many sunglasses or fancy outfits. There are lots more snacks and bota-bags of wine. The winter woods is a quiet, intimate setting to hang out in with your pals. For roadies, skiing is a way to get the woodsy hang-out vibe that mt-bikers enjoy all summer. I’ve heard roadies say that they see their road-pals more often on the ski trail and in the ski-trail parking lot in winter than they see each other out on the road in the summer. Roads are a big place. Trails bring folks together.
It’s known that the woods and mt-bike trails are cool in summer—compared to the parching heat of pavement. But it’s less known that the woods are warm in winter. No need to expose yourself too much to the artic blasts of riding the open road in winter. Hide out in the sweaty dyno woods.
Sometimes I see the futile, lame, ugly marks of a biker trying to ride a ski trail. He doesn’t get far. It hurts the ski trail. It’s not done much. Still, all the trails are right there, a few inches down, calling you. So I can understand the urge. But do the right thing AND USE BOARDS!
All-Body Dyno Technical!
If you still have a cost nag, c’mon, my $300 set-up has lasted me 15 years. I keep adding more skis, though. I got no-wax skis at the thriftshop for $20 to go with my waxables. I have skaters, too. Heck, I have big ole cheap wood snowshoes for the WAY deep stuff (that float is SO cool). I’m totally covered. And it’s all cheap compared to bike stuff. And skis last, last, last.
It may be that due to the heavy marketing of race-style ski stuff that some versatility has been lost or that people think that only groomed areas are good enough, even if they need to drive hours to get to them. This ends up hurting the ski scene. Groomed skiing is great, no doubt. But so is every other kind. And just as some riders like to do it all (on cross and rando bikes and such) it’s easy to enjoy versatility in XC. All it takes is a ski that’s a bit wider than a groomed-track ski and you can get great glide anywhere. A track ski tends to be under 50mm wide. An all-terrain ski of 55-65mm gives you great float and glide in ungroomed snow. A 55mm ski still works fine in groomed trails AND gives float for bushwackin’. That’s the ski I use the most, that I use every day. It’s a strong ski, too. I’ve done plenty of jumps on mine. But then I don’t live near groomed trails. If I did, I’d use what works best there. Just remember that as long as there’s snow, XC offers a mode that works GREAT.
And even when the snow is gone you can still get most of the fun on rollerskis. It’s not the same but it’s still all-body action. And with fast wheels you can even go places.
And lore? You want lore? Skiing is full of it. It’s all about great adventures and trails but it’s also about everyday technique and waxing. It’s endless if you want it to be. Or you can just revel in the simple and tried’n’true.
Maybe some folks shy from XC because it seems like figure skating: too hard to do. Well, a couple lessons from either pros or buddies and you’re in like Flynn. If that scares you, c’mon. After you start you can improve for the next 10 years straight if you like.
Ya know, in cycling we often hit plateaus. In skiing one can improve for years and years. Good technique can be had readily but better and better technique keeps paying easy dividends.
In cycling we can also dial in our bikes to get better results but there’s only so much you can do, especially in the daily care area. I mean, wheel truing involves skill but sheesh. In skiing, one can enjoy just slapping on whatever wax works and have fun with that. Or one can test waxes, base-rilling and brushing and find combinations (sometime with cheap old waxes) that are lightning fast in comparison to others. Fiddling with the equipment can be very rewarding yet not complex. Wax em up in 10 minutes and away you go—you might easily know which wax will give you rocketships. If you try them out and think you can do better and have time, you can be back on the trail in short order. Waxes smell good when ironing and once you get a feel for your trails and snow you’ll never feel a fresh snowfall come down again the same way: Oooh, it’s Swix Purple, oh yes! Dang, it’s going to be Rex Blue all the way tomorrow, for sure! Oh man, it’s getting cold—but not too—Extra Blue will rule! Hooo, it’s cold—better get that Start Green buffed.
As far as technique goes, ski with better skiers and imitate them. Ski and ski more. Try to get more glide with less effort. How to get max kick with least raising and lowering of body mass? Feel the sweet spot, just flow up that hill—kick off the heel, complete the poling, extend that glide. Oh yeah! Initiate that doublepole with a pop. Fall on those poles. Swing that foot forward. It’s a world of a half dozen techniques (for each major discipline, classic and skate) that combine with infinite variety and when you’re really bombing, really in the zone, every few strokes might use a different technique to optimize momentum and you don’t even notice it.
Now, cycling is great because it goes places. Skiing isn’t a town-to-town or destination thing so often. It’s largely a motion jones. Scenery is important and trails are a major thing: quite a few are historic, not to shake a stick at. They go places in their own way. But it doesn’t take much trail to keep a skier happy. That’s coz the action itself is so sweet. I’ve been doing it for decades and I still enjoy the float, the hang, the glide, getting the most out of the rhythm: flow, flow, flow. —Even on just my mile of neighborhood trail.
All-Body Dyno Cycling Skills Boost!
Sport skiing with your pals goes a lot like riding in a bike pack. If you ski close together you get a draft. The faster you’re all going, the more important the draft is. When you’re in a race, or at race-pace, then you’re talking full-on tight clusters of dueling skiers. Those looking to win are jostling for position, waiting to make their moves. The climbers attack the hills. The handlers wait for the twisty downs to jump out and take off. Sprinters mooch til the last few meters. As I’ve mentioned, the speeds are even similar. Ski skills cross over to cycling skills, baby!
Then there’s the workout. XC makes every part of you strong, flexible and longlasting. You get a huge range of motion workout but with most of the work coming from your core in a way that closely mimics cycling. But XC is probably the one that helps your athleticism more. A skier moves around so dyno on the trail that when weird things happen when they’re biking in the summer, like crashes, they’re less apt to get hurt or strained. They know how to crash. They’re resilient. In XC you work your V02Max to the max. Let’s just say that after a winter of skiing, you can easily bust into a huge Spring of cycling. Of course, the true maniac cyclist lifts weights all winter and rides rollers and does bundled road rides when possible, and rides around town on a fixie the rest of the time. But XC fits into the mix wonderfully, offering big fresh uplift, whenever there’s snow on the ground.
I like how the Europeans ski. It’s like how they ride bikes. They ride elbow to elbow, bumping around without a thought, leaning on each other to tell stories. They ski about the same way. They bunch together so they can chat—you’re always tip to tail or if ski-skating with Euro’s your skis are meshed in with theirs, with your tips gliding up between their tails and your pole plants coming awfully close to theirs. Yet they’re relaxed. That’s the secret. Relax, have fun and ski together, why not. Their youngsters clown around and do tricks willynilly as they ski. They might do a forward roll off a bank into deep snow or kick together a little jump on a downhill and go up and down a few times jumping and catching yards of air, landing in their best telemark. Then they continue on their way.
As a sidenote, it might be that classic skiing would actually boost your cycling fitness more than the skating style. Top ski racers still train more than half classic even if they’re skate specialists. Skating is developing a higher turnover these days and its poles are getting shorter but it still has a longer power-phase and slower tempo than classic. Classic somehow lets you get more power into each stroke, too. Because the skate stroke is long it can’t be so hard, also a hard shove can make a ski wash out. Classic lets you put total effort into each fast kick. It’s all good for your cycling, but don’t forget the classic if you really want a hone. Especially at high altitude.
And did you know that basically classic and skating are the same? Truly, all the same angles and weight transfer skills are involved. Body position is the same, even equipment is starting to become more alike. So if you learn one, you got em both, no problem. Heck, if you have downhilling for alpine covered, you’re in with XC as well: a dyno-ready body position does the trick for all snowsport—maybe for all sport, huh? The dyno-ready core posture is similar across the board probably, adjusting to each sport should be an easy adaptation.
Then there’s ski racing itself. Every weekend in winter snowcountry there’s a Sat and a Sun XC ski race near you. They’re each like a winter festival. People are cheery, the colors are bright, the snow is white. People are at least as friendly as at a bike race or triathlon. Probably more so. Entry fees are on par with other races. Or try a midweek time trial held by a local club for free. Get the lead out. XC races come in every flavor and distance, like cycling. The XC sprint is popular these days—a 1km out’n’back blast often held in a public venue with spectators. Other events range from 10km to 50km, with several distances usually offered. Races are offered in both skating and classical, often on alternating weekend days. Pursuits pop up every now and then which start you skating a loop then you switch over to classic. Occasional citizen biathlons are out there where you can try skiing and shooting.
No matter what the race, you can let it all hang out, full-on, all-body style. Let the snot and slobber flow. Go way past the redline. See them stars when you hit the top of every hill. Fall down if you have to. But try to keep moving. You’ll recover soon enough. (OK, don’t really go under—just go hard.) It’s a self-weight-supporting sport like running, but you’re gliding, so you can rest on downhills. You might as well be sitting on a bike. It’s easy on the bod. Yet it uses all 4 limbs plus core. So you can go hard hard hard. When I was in shape I’d try to pole so hard that I’d pull my arms outta their sockets. Break everything. (I used to think “break the bike” on my bike.) At the same time, when you’re flying it can seem effortless. You’re enjoying the trail, watching the race unfold and who knows what that darn body is doing down there.
I like specialties in skiing just fine. But all-rounderism is just as important. Skiing appreciates that as much as cycling does. Skiers who do it all are hitting a sweet spot. I like the Skimeister concept. They’re into it in Europe and occasionally over here. It means two things (to me anyway). There’s keeping track of a racer’s results in a variety of disciplines. Then there’s the all-in-one event, a race that challenges skiers every which way. There’s been the Skiathlom where you ski up a hill then shred down it thru gates and over a couple jumps. Then there’s the Derby, where you do a huge downhill resort run, go thru a gates section, do a couple jumps then ski a sizeable XC course. The Adventure Racing side of XC offers plenty of action, like Jackson Hole’s Pole-Pedal-Paddle and the Sea to Ski. NM has something, too, I think. Or used to. Big events are always out there somewhere. There’s also a multiday nonstop partner-event in the Rockies where you do huge mountaineering traverses, steep tele-action, crust, skating, classic, the works, overnight in risky country to get to the other side of the Range.
Summer might be your usual bike race season and winter your quiet time, c’mon, don’t let it get totally quiet. Spice it up! Sure, you might be burned out on dirt or pavement and cars, but the snowy woods will be fresh to you.
Trail-maintenance is familiar to mt-bikers but it’s a great change of pace for roadies—and is a great way to start building ski fitness every fall. For skiers when it starts getting chilly they don’t get bummed to be riding less (well, maybe a little). Geese flying south and ice here and there gets the blood revved for someone who’s been skiing the year before. You know what’s in store!
Yet another great thing about XC is that homemade singletrack trails can be basically “leave no trace.” All it takes is a little vision, foresight, imagination as you cruise the terrain to see where a trail wants to be. Then a little pruning and dead limb tossing (conforming to local regs as best you can) as you stroll along gives enough clear space to ski with good flow and come winter your trail can be skied in. XC can be quick to make happen and way low-impact. Come Spring melt it’s like no one was ever there. This can’t be appreciated enough: with XC singletrack there’s no such thing as erosion. To build XC singletrack you’re just making the opening and clearing nasties underfoot, nothing more. It’s fast, easy, noninvasive. Yet it gives you all the trail-love. (Of course the sky’s the limit if you come to love trailbuilding and grooming. It can be turned into a career!)
I love cycling. You can get anywhere on a bike. It offers a max workout and tons of versatile action and lore. The racing is huge, diverse and almost year-round. But for an all-body workout and the rewards of oh-so-satisfying technique, XC is what you want! And in mellow terrain if there’s a bit of snow on the ground, XC delivers!
Let’s not forget Speedskating!
One thing that hasn’t made a comeback yet around here is black ice. So speedskating is basically off the map. I still think every outdoor sportsman should have a decent pair of speedskates for when it does freeze, but what can ya do. Now there’s a sport. Talk about no moving parts! Well, it’s like inline skating. (Actually it’s the other way around.) You can really train good pack skills on skates—you can get so close!—ice or pavement. Really, it’s just so cool when a narrow, twisty river freezes and you can just blast down it for miles, to the next town. It’s so much cooler than a road or bikepath. There’s no contest. Inline’s neat as an approximation, though. And of course with inlines you get the tasty hills. With both ice and inline these days you can get blades and wheels that attach to ski-skate boots and take advantage of the “clap” effect that an XC binding offers. The blades sold for ski-boots are also interesting in that they’re designed in the Nordic Touring style: they’re long and low and have a long, rising tip. They work great on rough or snowy ice. In Scandanavia they’re used for daylong wild-ice tours. And on ice, as with snow, crashing is hardly a worry—except for your short-track hockey rink action, of course. That short-track stuff is a blast, too. Talk about full contact and fast!
Local XC Heritage, a la Bikers
Back in the day when I bike-raced with the then-traditionalist Detroit Wolverines Sports Club their logo was made up of a wheel, ski and skate. They expected their racers to know how to speedskate and XC ski with gusto. Our local bike squad—guys and gals, young and old—would hit the ski trails en masse and attack, attack, attack. It was great fun.
Maybe some people know this but from the 70’s to the early 80’s, XC was quite popular. We had tons of snow, that’s for sure. Then in the late 80’s we had less. But back in the day on the trails at the state game area we’d actually have a traffic-jam parking situation along with user-conflicts with snowy rabbit hunters. There’d be a hundred skiers out there when it was nice snow. Nowadays there are just a few skiing each day. Even though conditions are great! It’s time to come back to the glidey snowtrails, folks! We used to have, like, 4 ski races in the Lansing area alone, with a couple dozen hardcore racers training every day on local trails. We had competing races in multiple places statewide each weekend all winter—and they offered valuable prizes to winners. (It seems like bike racing also had bigger money in it in this region back then, too—hmmm.) Now we have zero local races. We do have a lovely regular schedule of up-north races, though, on both Saturday and Sunday, usually each race near the other, all winter long. They’ve all been delivering great fun for years now and they let everyone see everyone else all winter long.
OK, ski-skating was added to the mix back then, too, making people fretful. Ski equipment got tons better, too—a very good thing—but the high-end stuff perhaps costs more (actually, dollar for dollar gear is probably cheaper today) or maybe it just seems complicated. (As if new bikes with STI and suspension and such aren’t complex!) It all somehow created a fall-off in skiers. –A situation I say is ripe for a turn-around. And bikers are the people who could make the difference.
