Winter training in northern latitudes is the key to improvement as opposed to constantly re-establishing a base every spring. Using rollers, taking advantage of the rare nice weekends with the occassionaly nasty ones really makes improvement measurable year after year. I face rain, wind, temps to low 30's. Not nearly as brutal as Alaska/Maine/Minnesota snows or lake effect cold though winter maintenance in coastal Pacific NW is a B. a 3 month layoff (injury) Oct-Dec set me back 4 months and it wasn't till May that I got ahead of September.