Sincitycycler

To our warm-weather forumites who have never tried the sport, you haven't died a thousand deaths until you have tried cross country skiing.

I had a surreal flashback of 28 years ago triggered by catching glimpses of the biathlon races at the Turin games on the plasmas at the resort I work at this evening.

I did XC skiing as a gym elective while a junior in high school back in Wisconsin as a skinny and reasonably fit 17-year old during the winter. Needless to say, I hurt like a wounded animal days a week for 4 weeks!

Why is it so tough? Besides the freezing temperatures of winter, you are using your arms, churning your legs, wearing heavy clothing, as well as supporting your body weight the whole time and you don't get to coast much at all when you're tired like in cycling (the mole hair on the bottom of skis causes alot of drag).

XC skiing is like riding out of the saddle all of the time!

No sport in the world burns more calories/hour - it's been documented and is why alot of the exercise machines at the gym are patterned after the activity.

I can still feel the pain after all of these years.
No thank you!
Bikes are cool for this 45 year-old carcass...

pelotonracer

I'm an ex-Nordic racer... but you haven't mentioned how much more tiring the skating technique is over the classic- even less glide, but more power. I could hit speeds of 24+km on the flats, which is only okay (I think Olympians can get 30+km). I gave it up after one of my skis broke, because I wasn't doing too well anyways, and I was too cheap to buy some new skis.

On the other hand, Nordic is a lot cheaper than cycling- a nice race setup costs about $600, compared to the $1500+ of a raceable bike.

patentcad

>>Wanna try a sport where you suffer 2X as much as cycling?<<

No. Besides, if I want to suffer 2x as much as cycling all I have to do is watch Bode Miller's next press conference.

AndyGrow

X-country skiing is what takes place of cycling up here in the Great White North. Talk about coming out of the off-season in prime cycling shape! I ski 3-4x a week, and 2-3x a week I'll hit the rollers on the fixie to concentrate on form.

Gotta love 'da snow!

plodderslusk

The joys of xc skating

I think xc skating is a wonderful wintersport also for the aged neverwas'es (much sadder than a hasbeen) among us. I spent two and a half hours yesterday and two hours today skating through Oslo's backcountry. Cycling has given me (at soon 49) quite a decent engine and skating uphill is a great way of using it. The thrill of FAST decents and passing nearly everybody using the classic tecnique adds to the fun. Try it !

fifao

I've heard free-running can be quite painful.

reneuend

I agree. I "used" to XC Ski also but now I'm too far south to get enough snow and too far north to enjoy warm weather. What was I thinking?

Wisconsin has one of the best XC-Ski slopes I've ever been on. I don't remember the name of the park, but it was near Black River Falls. Going downhill on XC skis on a trail in the woods is quite exhirating because XC Skis don't turn easily.

Thanks for bringing back those painful memories!

fmw

I was a mountaineer as a youngster. It was brutal because you did it from dawn to dusk, sometimes with no rest periods at all. I could burn 6000 calories in a day. I couldn't eat enough to restore it because I couldn't carry enough food. I came back from a long climb in Peru once weighing 118 lbs. (5' 9") Not only was there no body fat, there wasn't much of anything left.

sestivers

What about wrestling? Boxing? Although those go for "only" three minutes at a time.

I had the opportunity to try biathlon one time. Talk about feeling like a complete scrub. I had my crappy second-hand skis that were way too big, I did not even know what skating was, and I was wearing sweatpants and hunting gear around all these guys with their spandex outfits and such. Needless to say I did not do very well and have not done it since, but I would like to try it again with "proper" equipment and technique. I'm a good runner, I played college hockey, and I also shot pistol in college so all the right pieces are there to do okay... not saying that I'm going to try out for the next olympics but it would be cool if there were more opportunities to try things like that.

p.s. Yes, XC is a great ass-kicker.

jimbud

I hear in golf now if you score 5 over par on a hole it's called a Bode.

terrymorse 

Elite cyclists and XC skiers burn the same amount of calories per hour, so I've read. Makes sense, the limit to performance is the cardio system, not the number of major muscles used.

Exercise machines at the gym are good for people who haven't developed enough endurance in their legs to prevent early fatigue.

ViperZ

Alpine Skiing, Black & Double black Diamonds, all day long will make your Quads scream like never before, and make your lungs burn as if they are literally on fire

There is lots of "other" sports that can make a person suffer, it all depends on the intensity you put into it, and what you trying to get out of it...

GuitarWizard

Oh.....I thought you were gonna say mountaineering.....while cross-country skiing is a good workout, winter mountaineering reallllllly gets you a total body workout for hours on end with your heart rate pegged the whole time (unless of course you're belaying).

jyossarian

I was just on my Nordictrack today thinking I'd like to actually try x-country skiing one day. After reading this thread, now I'm not so sure. Maybe I'll make an ice bike instead.

patentcad

You can't be serious. I'm an avid cyclist- 150-200 miles per week now in winter and 250+ miles weekly in warmer weather - and I went downhill skiing today. I consider myself an expert skier (40 yrs worth)- and ski aggressively - and a full day of banging hard on the slopes doesn't add up to a hard 2-3 hour ride. Not even close. Is there terrain out there that could make me work harder? Sure - at major world class resorts (our local podunk hills here are a joke compared to the big mtns. I've skiied around the world). But even then the workout I'd get would be muscular - not aerobic in any way compared to cycling.

I spend most of my time downhill skiing sitting on chairlifts. Yes, I DO ski at the wrong places. But it's never going to come close to cycling. Of course I don't know how anyone else rides. But yesterday I rode 65 miles over 4 hours and climbed nearly 4000 vertical feet. And when I got home I SLEPT for 3 hours to recover. When I'm done skiing it's Miller time (as in Bode Miller of course).

This difference is evidenced by Bode Miller's beer gut. I don't see that on George Hincapie or Lance Armstrong. Different sports. But world class skiiers generally aren't on the same conditioning planet as world class cyclists. And of course George Hincapie can't ski world cup hardpack @ 60+ mph. But don't compare the 'workout' aspects of the sports. I don't think they're too comparable.

DieselDan

I've forgotten more about cycling then I'll ever know about skiing.

AndyGrow

TRUE.

Downhill skiing and beer drinking go hand-in-hand (wear your helmet!). Downhill is what I do when I want to take the wife out for some fast fun.

X-country is what we do when we want a good workout.

ViperZ

I'm serious. I have race and ridden on Bicycles and Skiing, and I found Bicycle racing and ridding has not pushed me to the limits as Skiing. Maybe I was just an medocre Cyclist? Thats not to say Skiing is tougher, but it can be just as tough depending on what you want out of it.

I found skiing tough in that some of the big runs, always wore me down regardless of how good of shape I was in. My quads and legs felt like noodles at the end of the day, and during the runs my lungs hurt, way more than intervals or backchecking in Hockey after a long shift. I always skied with a group or wild guys that always pushed the limits, We would ski from opening to closing seldom stopping for breaks, Moguls and steep chutes all day long, it may be easy for you, but I found it takes a lot of effort and courage just to keep going, and not slide to your death or serious injury. I also found the out of bounds deep power skiing took a lot out of my body as well. During Slalom racing, I found that even being well trained, that after a run througt the gates, my legs burned, regardess of how conditioned I though I may be. I was just a medioce ski racer as well. When I skied, I could not even think about drinking, for I would have paid the price the next day.

But then thats just my experience, I'm not a world class athlete like you, and my point was that a lot of sports can have just as much suffering, not just cycling, I have spent a lot of time XC skiing as well, however I never raced, and as such found it quite enjoyble, again it all depends on what you are going for in that particular sport.

Maybe you are right, it's not the same, but for me my DH took more out of me than my Bicycle riding.

snowgukonwheels

suffer 2x as much as cycling? Try marrying the mayors only daughter...