Getting Motivated to Ride to Work - Matt Williams

So here's the thing, I tell myself: My commute to work by car is 15 minutes on the highway. My commute to work by bike is 30 minutes on a quiet, picturesque dirt road. It should be easy, but guess which way I get to work every morning? Right. I know, and repeatedly tell myself, that it's pretty easy to get up 15 minutes earlier. I also tell myself, and rightly so I might add, that I'm always crunched for training time, and that by riding my bike to work I'm basically getting a free half hour in,…

First Turns: Early Season Skiing - Matt Williams

Nina and I recently stood at the top of a ski run that probably won’t be officially open for at least a month. Good idea? Maybe. Probably. Sure, things were white and wintery at 3500 feet in the Green Mountains – the trees had that white veneer covering them, but the long blades of grass were still poking though the two or so inches of snow on the ground. In short, the snow coverage was minimal. Still, it was enough to have tempted us to strap skis to packs and start hiking – knowing that those first turns…

Mountain Bike Racing as a Team Sport - Matt Williams

Mountain biking is not often seen as a team sport. Sure, many of us ride for a trade team of one kind or another, but for the most part we don't train with our teammates, or race with them for that matter. When the gun goes off it's up to you to ride the course as fast as you can, and fix your bike if it breaks. There's not a whole lot a teammate can do to help you go faster; unlike a road race, drafting doesn't help much.

This summer my partner…

The Rewards of Bike Touring in Vermont - Matt Williams

Summer’s definitely in full swing, and I’ve been out quite a bit recently leading road bike tours around Vermont with Inn To Inn. It’s a great way to spend the summer: showing people some of my favorite (road accessible) spots in Vermont by bike.

Though every tour is different, there is one routine that is pretty predictable at this point. Eventually – usually it takes a day or two – it tends to come out in conversation that when I’m not leading tours I’m training hard and…