Craftsbury Outdoor Center

Cross Country Skiing at Craftsbury

Over Martin Luther King Weekend my family and I went to one of our favorite cross country ski centers in NE, the Craftsbury Outdoor Center in Craftsbury, VT. In the heart of Vermont's unspoiled Northeast Kingdom, you'll find some of the finest cross-country skiing in New England. Located on a high rolling plateau, the Craftsbury Outdoor Center often gets more snow than other locations. It also gets mighty cold as it did the weekend we were there but when you are cross country skiing you stay warm even in sub-zero temperatures. We have been coming to Craftsbury for many years, sharing the experience with a handful of friends from Southern Vermont.

The weekend we were there the snow and the conditions were perfect. Fluffy white snow came falling down on my daughter Valentina and I as we skied the 8.0 KM loop around Big Lake Hosmer. She was might proud and kept wanting to keep the lead. One of the great things about Craftsbury is that there are beautifully groomed trails for all ages and abilities. My husband and my 5 year old son Luca opted for the easier open field trails, my Bill Koch racer Valentina likes the rolling trails as well as the oval track where she could practice her skating technique. The entire group of families did a wonderful 7KM group ski along a river to the picture postcard center of Craftbury. The kids and a few parents hopped in Craftsbury's van for a shuttle back, te rest of us got to ski back and log on 15 KM of sking for the day.

I love the long 12Km loops such as Ruthie's Run that get me deep in the woods, gliding, double poling, breathing and reaching my cross country zone. I enjoyed this trail a couple of times with a group of other moms of equal pace and intensity, we all left the kids with the dads as we relished in powdered freedom. The trails are a mix of woods and gorgeous farmland with broad white vistas framed by farmhouses, birch trees, picket fences and the distant green mountains. The track keeps you centered, the landscape opens your heart.

All trails lead back to a simple cross country ski lodge where you can rent equipment and get hot drinks, snack and other simple winter delights. A favorite hang in the evening is the ice skating rink in front of the lodge. If the kids are done skiing and skating the sledding hill is filled with kids making jumps and doing joyful after joyful run. The accommodations are simple and rustic but if you are skiing all day and just want a place to lie your head, you'll be fine!

Like cyclists, cross country skiers get big appetites. Another highlight at Craftsbury Outdoor Center is their delicious healthy buffet offered to guests 3 times a day. Hearty meals such as
zucchini stew, potato pancakes, zucchini quiche and of course a wonderful soup and salad bar keep the troops settled. Homemade deserts are a dream come true. We fill our bellies with the the grateful thought that our bodies are burning more calories than we are consuming. If you are a cyclist and want an excellent cross training sport you can do for life (and that uses every muscle in your body), take up cross country skiing in 2008!

Craftsbury Outdoor Center is the perfect place for families. After skiing, kids love to ice skate or speed down the sledding hil before dinner. They have a wonderful family week during February vacation that is jammed pack with kids activities including scavenger hunts, ice fishing, kids races and tandem skiing ( ski on a ski built for two).

Another popular event at Craftsbury Outdoor Center is the annual Craftsbury Cross Country Ski Marathon. The TD Banknorth Craftsbury Marathon is a point-to-point, classical technique, cross-country ski tour and race starting at Highland Lodge in Greensboro and finishing on Craftsbury Common. There are 25 and 50 kilometer course options that pass through three exquisite Northeast Kingdom upland towns. Local inns and a historic general store provide trail-side food and drink including tasty soups, home baked breads and pastries. One hundred and seventy volunteers located on course provide support and cheer skiers on. The TD Banknorth Craftsbury Marathon is the largest cross-country ski event in the Eastern US and has been proclaimed one of the top ten winter events by the Vermont Chamber of Commerce for several years.

Come back to Craftsbury in the summer when you can scull, run or enjoy mountain biking along the same trails that you skied in the winter.

Coming up this weekend, the Craftbury Marathon and Women's Cross Country Ski Day at the gorgeous Mountain Top Inn in Killington

New Year's Cycling Resolutions bring balance, health and FUN into 2008!

Greetings and Happy Martin Luther King Day

I love the New Year! It is such a great time to wipe the slate clean and start things anew. I usually take the first few weeks of a new year to craft my resolutions, define new habits and choose those that I want to break. I make my list for the year and get my action plan rolling by late January, leaving plenty of space for serendipity!

So many of us make New Years Resolutions but often the challenge is that the resolutions are simply too generic, like lose weight, exercise more, spend more time with my family, eat more healthy food, take a vacation with good friends. I think the success of your resolutions comes in visualizing the result and by making the goals clear, specific, measurable, realistic and connected to a passion that will get you there. I also like to make one resolution in each area of my world since life balance is one of my core values.

Cycling is such a wonderful sport and activity for it can embrace, inspire and connect every area of your life: health, travel, family, diet, learning, friends and even spirituality. What if each of your New Year’s resolutions had a cycling theme? What if embracing cycling as this year’s theme results in your having the best year of your life?

Here’s my top ten list of cycling-themed resolutions towards a bigger and better 2008:

1. Improve Overall Health & Fitness: Ride your bike regularly.
2. Enjoy Quality Time with Family: Get your whole family on bikes.
3. Connect deeply with old or new friends: Plan your next bicycle tour reunion.
4. Travel More: Take two bicycling vacations this year
5. Make Healthy Cuisine a Habit and Lifestyle.
6. HAVE more FUN: Don’t take cycling too seriously.
7. Connect and Give Back to your Community and Our World: Sign up for a charity rides.
8. Learn Something New: Learn to fix your bike, lead a bike tour, bicycle through history.
9. Save More Money: Save gas money, bike more miles, at least locally, than you drive.
10. More Life Balance and Spirituality: Cycling as meditation in motion.

1. Improve Overall Health & Fitness: Ride Your Bike regularly. Commit to a cycling metric, like an annual mileage goal or a number of cycling days per week goals. Join a cycling club and connect with a Ciclismo Classico ambassador in your area. Most bicycling clubs like the Charles River Wheelmen have regular weekly rides (even in the winter) and have mileage trackers on their websites. If you live in snow country, get out and cross-country ski. It is a great cross training sport and you can use all of your winter cycling gear! Join a spinning class. You'll be surprised how it will condition you for spring riding - plus, it's a lot of fun. Crunch Fitness www.crunch.com offers a class of "karaoke spin" - so you can sing Verdi while you pedal along! This spring, invest in a cheap commuter bike and commit to using your bike for transportation at least one day a week. Get inspired by reading Car Free Times.

2. Enjoy Quality Time with Family: Get your whole family on bikes. Take your family on a local and or international bike trip. Whatever stage your family is in (young kids, older kids, adult kids and older parents) a bike trip is a great way to bond but enjoy individual freedom (i.e. you are not stuck in a car together for hours). The trick is to pick a tour that embraces all levels and has a variety of activities that everyone can enjoy. Parents know how easy it is to convince their kids to do something if other kids their age are doing the same thing. While my 10 year-old son Lorenzo likes to bike, nothing could get him to bike as far or as fast as having other kids to bike with us on our Mediterranean Multi Sport to Sardinia that we did. We will be taking this amazing tour again with our family in 2008, join us! Kids as young as 6 do great on a bike tour, the perfect age is 10-16. You may have to lower your mileage expectations but nothing compares to spinning along a gorgeous road, stopping for ice cream, photo ops, hugs, animal attractions (last year we saw a wild boar in Sardinia) or just taking in the views together. Sure there is the token whining and complaining but they do that at home anyway, right? Everyone’s whining is more manageable if accompanied with inspiring views and good times. Invest in a tandem. Last year we bought two tandems that my ten-year and eight-year old ride on with us. We ride faster, farther and enjoy ourselves enormously when our pace and energy output is more cohesive and consolidated. My eight-year old daughter and I did a 100-mile bike tour across Massachusetts on a tandem last year and it was one of our favorite experiences last year. We usually led the pack and my daughter really learned to stand up and push hard on the hills and experience the pure joy of a fast downhill. I had total peace of mind knowing that she was safe at all times. Singing Sound of Music tunes, keeping track of “yard art” and giving her the map reading and photo- journalist job made the three wonderful bonding and relatively stress free. She is already setting her sights on a cross-country tour someday! Here is a nice book to consider. What about a mother-son tour, a father-daughter tour, a grandparent and grandkids tour, any of these family combinations could be the trip of a lifetime.

3. Connect with old or new friends: Plan your next bicycle tour reunion Reconnect with old or new friends. If you and your friends are active, there is simply no better way to bond than when you are active, learning and outside. Sign up a group of 12 and you travel free and while we do all the planning. Get inspired or record the memories of your trip on Crazy Guy on a Bike. Check out Super Alumni Tom Fortmann’s adventures with friends on his Bike Across Southern Italy with Ciclismo Classico.

4. Travel: Take two bicycling vacations this year. They make you feel refreshed, healthy, connected, young at heart and in synch with your soul. Sounds like the perfect simple soul food. Get out your calendar today, give one of our travel consultants a call and let us help you pick the perfect trip for YOU. Here are some great suggestions for any season:

La Bella Sicilia: Eastern Sicily
Piedmont: The Land of Barolo & Truffles
Andalucia, Spain
Venice to Bologna
Assaggio Toscana – A Taste of Tuscany

5. Make Healthy Cuisine a Habit and Lifestyle. Learn to prepare healthy cuisine by taking one of our Celebrity Chef tours. Sign up for a local cooking class like those offered at the Cambridge Center for Culinary Arts and invite a few cycling friends to join you. Plan to take a ride before the class so your appetites are whet for your wonderful cooking. Take a local walking tour of Boston’s North End, New York’s Little Italy or North Beach. You will be inspired to get back to basics and shop and enjoy more authentic, healthy eating. For extra credit: ride your bike to the start of the walking tour. Check out Bicycling Magazine and commit to learning more about what is the best kind of nutrition for cycling at. Enjoy my 1983 book Cycle Food: A Guide to Satisfying Your Inner Tube.

HAVE Fun: Don’t take cycling too seriously. If you find yourself stressing over your miles, your equipment, your gear or any aspect of your cycling, step back and revaluate how you REALLY want cycling to enhance your life. Cycling is not only about speed and heart rate. Blend your training with some pure cycling fun. Cycling is and should be fun and it can be your means to establishing a lighter look on life. Try participating in a bicycle festival:

http://www.cactushugger.org/
http://www.gorctrails.com/festival/
http://www.shegotbike.com/

Rent a classic bicycle film and experience the wild and wonderful depth of bicycle culture:
http://kenkifer.com/bikepages/lifestyle/index.htm
http://www.chicagofreakbike.org/.

Participate or start a kid’s bike parade:
http://www.bikeparade.com/
http://www.streetfilms.org/archives/tykes-take-the-streets-kids-art-bike-parade/.

Take a friend or partner to a bicycle film festival. The films are so cool, fun, inspiring and the other folks that go are often a unique bunch too.

Come on our Jingle Ride, it is always the second Sunday of December. HO HO HO. Start your own Jingle Ride, Halloween Ride or 4th of July Ride. We would be happy to help you plan your first event. Always practice a monster smile whenever you ride, remember the first time you learned to ride, remember that moment on each bike ride. Get ready for Global Belly laugh day on January 24th.

7. Connect and Give Back to your Community and Our World. Sign up for a Charity Rides, Kids & Cycling, Recycle your Bike! Bicycling offers so many opportunities to make a BIG difference in your community or in the world. For the price of a week of Starbuck’s coffee, join your local advocacy group whom are each working so hard to make cycling safer, easier and more accessible to all. If you live in Massachusetts, please join Mass Bike. Sign up for a charity bicycle ride like the Pan Mass Challenge, Best Buddies or MS Ride. If you are riding the PMC, please join our Team Gelato or take the first Virtual PMC Bike Across Italy, as we donate a portion of the cost of your tour to the Dana Farber. These rides also inspire you to train, you meet other outgoing people who care and the money you raise does great things. Learn more about bicycling organizations that are making a difference like International Bicycle Fund, or Bike Belong and Right to Play. Sponsor our cycling future, invest or get involved in educating children about bicycling with such organizations as Cycle Kids or Safe Routes to School

Donate your old bikes and bike parts to an organization like Bikes Not Bombs, which send these bikes to Africa. Check out this listing for other resources.

8. Education: Learn to Fix Your Bike, Learn to Lead a Bike tour or take a European Bike tour with Ciclismo Classico and learn as you spin! A bicycle is a window to the world and many new skills. It is also a sport where you are forever learning to tweak your technique and improve your performance (if you want). Anyone who owns a bike and commits to riding weekly, should learn the basics of roadside repair. Your local bike shop or community education program can be a source of information on courses. If you would like to take your bicycle education to the next level, sign up for one of the League of American Bicyclists courses: that teaches cyclists to ride safely. Interested in becoming a bicycle tour guide? Ciclismo Classico offers the only week long Leadership for Life program that teaches the fundamentals of bicycle tour leadership. Looking to become a better bicyclist? Every Ciclismo Classico tour offers one-on-one coaching as well as cycling clinics. Consider a Chris Carmichael Training Camp or training program.

9. Finance: Save gas money, bike more miles than you drive. Each year Tom Fortman, one of our Ciclismo VIPs alumni, commits to put more mileage on his bike than in his car. Last year Tom rode 7000 miles by bike, three times the distance than even the most avid cyclist will ride in a year, but nevertheless, using your bike instead of your car will not only save you gas money but you’ll be healthier (health cost bills), happier (therapy bills) and make the world greener, one pedal stroke at time. Before kids, I had not driven for over 20 years and it became my most fascinating cocktail party topic. Now I still only drive when I absolutely have to bring my children and all their stuff somewhere and even then I stick to a two-mile rule with my family. Under 2 miles, we walk, bike or take the T. It is really not that hard to be car free. If you truly want to impress people, tell them that you commute by bike everywhere. You might as well have told them you won the Boston Marathon! We are financial, social and cultural slaves to our cars. Begin to break the dependency. Get inspired by reading Car Free Times. Invest in the ultimate commuter bike, a foldable Bike Friday. Their new Tikit model can get you on and off the subway or bus in seconds.

10. Spiritual: Cycling as Meditation: Take a Yoga and Cycling Tour, Connect with a spiritual place by bike, read inspirational books and see classic bicycling movies. Although I have tried and still like to meditate, I have always found great peace, presence and serenity in the act of pedaling along a quiet road and letting the thoughts drift in and out of my mind, never fixating on any thought just focusing on breathing, pedal stroke, the pulsing of muscles and whatever flows in and out of my mind. In addition to cross country skiing, yoga is the perfect cross training for cycling. It not only stretches and relaxes those muscles that get too tight when cycling but it also teaches how to be more centered and focused on breath, which is the essence of meditation that can be transferred to cycling. Our new yoga and cycling tour makes the natural connection between two highly meditative and physically healthy practices. Rent the Flying Scotsman: to get your soaring spiritually. For your winter walks and workouts listen to some of my favorite inspirational thinkers: Dr. Wayne Dyer, Pema Chodron, Debbie Ford, and Eckhart Tolle.

Enjoy the Best (cycling) Year of your life.

What are some of your cycling resolutions? Please share in the comments section

Into the Wild: A Fatal Voyage of Self Discovery

For those of you who, like me who have put "simplify and declutter" life into your list of New Year's resolutions, after seeing Sean Penn's movie, Into the Wild, you may be inspired to clear out more than closets. You may want to, like protagonist Christopher J. McCandless, choose to reinvent yourself. Based on the best selling book Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer, the movie perfectly captured the intense spiritual journey of determined and driven young man.

Into the Wild tells the adventures of Christopher McCandless, a top student at Emory University and an athlete. After graduating, McCandless decides to give his entire $24,000 savings account to OXFAM and burn all the money in his wallet. He hitchhikes all the way to Alaska to live in the wild, bringing only a .22 caliber rifle, a camera, several boxes of rifle rounds, some camping gear, and a small selection of literature—including a field guide to the region's edible plants, Tana'ina Plantlore. During his adventure, he encounters several unique people that change his life before he faces the dangers of wilderness.

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film 4 stars out of 4 and described the film as "spellbinding." Ebert wrote that Emile Hirsch gives a "hypnotic performance", saying "It is great acting, and more than acting." Ebert said "The movie is so good partly because it means so much, I think, to its writer-director.", Sean Penn.^[4]

While his Alaskan experience in an old bus is reminiscent of Jack London's Call of the Wild his journey getting to Alaska is ripe wonderful human spirit and the yearning for family and connectedness such as the heartwarming encounter with an Ron Franz, an aging widower who sees in Chris his own lost dream and the son for who he yearns. His journey to Alaska reveals his "rebirth" into a new manhood, one that is rooted in raw nature.

Having hiked in Peru for six weeks and bicycled solo around Europe for three, I connected to Chris's profound feeling of total freedom of being out on the road with just what you carry on your back. It is one of the most liberating feelings I have ever experienced and this film only made the yearning stronger. My daughter and I talk of a cross country bike trip but until she is old enough we'll be content with NE.

The gorgeous scenery that fills the screen is reason enough to see this amazing film. From a NY times review: "What he mostly saw was the glory of the North American landscape west of the Mississippi: the ancient woodlands of the Pacific Northwest, the canyons and deserts farther south, the wheat fields of the northern prairie and Alaska, a place that Mr. McCandless seemed to regard with almost mystical reverence."

An enthusiastic reader, Chris has his own unique spiritualism that is inspired by Thoreau, Toylstoy and Jack London. Had Chris survived, he might now be regarded like a modern day Edward Abby. Some inspiring quotes from the movie:

There is pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society where none intrudes,
By the deep sea and the music in its roar;
I love not man the less, but Nature more."
— Lord Byron

"Rather than Love, than Money, than Fame, give me Truth."
— Henry David Thoreau

"It should not be denied... that being footloose has always exhilarated us. It is associated in our minds with escape from history and oppression and law and irksome obligations, with absolute freedom, and the road has always led West."
— Wallace Stegner

Now on to those closets!

Winter Wonderland

New Year's Skiing in Quebec

Happy New Year to all!

My family and I just returned from 6 days of gorgeous snow in Quebec. We stayed at the charming Chalet Montmorency perfectly located minutes from downhill and cross country skiing at Mont Saint Anne. We stayed in a delightful 2 bedroom condo steps away from the pool and hot tub. I skied about 100 km over the 6 days that we were there and being with my family snuggled into this snow heaven was a relaxing reward (and the best gift I could ask for) to a busy holiday season and the perfect conclusion to a wonderful year. While the skiing was pretty great all over the Northeast over the holidays, Quebec is simply a winter wonderland. There is over a three foot base for downhill and perfectly groomed cross country trails. The cross country ski center is hand's down the best place I have ever cross country skied (yet) although I would love to hear about YOUR favorite cross country ski areas as we are planning our February vacation ski week. What are your favorite cross country ski areas in the USA and beyond?

At Mont Saint Anne there are over 200 KM of trails are perfectly groomed for classic and skate skiing and they are long enough and easy to follow so you are not taking out your map at every turn or change in terrain. The trails are varied, gorgeous and perfectly suited to all levels including my 5 year and my own desire to ski 20 KM of intermediate terrain. One of my favorite twisting trails is the 10K ski home to our chalet along a frozen river. I also loved skiing the easier #33 trail with my daughter and friend Eli and stopping along the way to warn our mittens and eat chocolate in heated chalets. It is a nice cross country ski culture and in the lodge and on the trail you will meet many folks from the USA as well as Canadians to practice your French with.

In addition to the amazing snow conditions, we enjoyed a memorable New Year's eve in Quebec's main square. Not only was it New Year's Canadian Style but the city launched it's year long celebration of its 400th year anniversary. Before the big countdown we walked Quebec's quaint historic streets and decked out of the cold into a small restaurant where we had dinner and ice cream sundaes. We did not arrive in the packed piazza until 11:30 PM but we managed to squirm our way to the center stage where we enjoyed the multi-media show. Finally there was the countdown to New Year's in French of course...Buon Annee! It was a wonderful way to kick in the new year...stay tuned for my Blog on my New Year's resolutions which include learning to play the guitar (finally and I mean it), focusing our business more on our cycling core and writing and blogging more.

A few words about cross country skiing and cycling. For those of you who have discovered the joy of cross country skiing, you know that it is the perfect compliment and cross training for cycling. For those of you who have not nordic skied but have always wanted to, why not make learning to cross country ski as one of your 2008 resolutions? Not only is cross country super low-impact, lifetime sport but you burn tons of calories, it is highly aerobic and it works every part of your body, especially the upper body that does not get a lot of work cycling (unless you are climbing lots of hills). If you love being outdoors in the winter, I highly recommend that you take up cross country skiing. Unlike downhill skiing, the equipment investment is minimal ($100-$400) and you can use your cold weather biking clothes! The trail fees are at least 1/4 the cost of downhill: my entire family cross country skied for $49 a day. Like cycling, you only need a couple hours to feel like you have gotten a great workout. I would recommend a couple of lessons to learn the stride and technical basics, then just like cycling, the more you ski, the better you get! You can also learn a lot about this wonderful sport on the web at xcskiworld.com. The hardest part of cross country skiing in the NE is depending on and finding snow.

This year has started out great, although conditions can be touch and go so it is best to enjoy it when you can. In the Boston area, Weston Ski Track actually makes snow so as long as it is cold enough, skiing is only a short drive away. While kids, including one of mine, might opt for the thrill of downhill skiing, cross country skiing is the perfect sport for kids: low impact, inexpensive, easy to learn, few injuries and fun. If you live in the Northeast and you are interested in getting your kids involved with this lifelong sport, check out the Bill Koche League If you live in the Boston area, come visit one a practice of the Eastern Mass Bill Koche Ski Club.