Originally Posted by
BobbyG
I was introduced to Atom Balm (or something similar) freshman year on my high school cross country team. The coach offered it up to us on the first cold-weather practice day. I still remember that first post-run shower...(Yikes!)
I love that toasty feeling when riding in the cold. I ride year-round down to 10F, and I have found I "loosen-up" on my own after about 10 minutes of riding, but then, I tend to run hot. As far as morning stiffness I replaced my coffee in-take with Yerba Mate a few months ago. It has similar caffeine content, but far less acidity than coffee or tea. It turns out to have anti-inflammatory and anti-histamine properties. At 56, I now have far less leg and back stiffness in the morning than I have for the past few years.
However, it smells like wet grass, whereas the clove-mint fragrance of your embrocation cream sounds delightful.
Oh man, yerba mate is SO delicious! Good idea--it has so many good things in it. I ought to drink it more often. Amazing stuff! I especially love it with a slice of cake, Argentine style, in the afternoons. A friend of mine who spends a lot of time in Argentina introduced me to it a while back. It's amazing.
And the Rapha embrocation cream is even better than the Mad Alchemy--although MA's formulation is quite nice, with the clove and mint. There's all kinds of good stuff in Rapha's formulation--vanilla, wintergreen, pine resin fragrances. They say it's supposed to recall Mont Ventoux, which I'm sure it does (but I have never been there).