We've gone to full blown Arctic cold here with temperatures below freezing C during night and barely above during the day. Add to that a stiff easterly breeze and the wind-chill factor makes it fell like freezing yet again. As someone noted regarding the Finns; they have black Friday every Friday, about five months of the year. Well certainly black Friday in Denmark this year was indeed black and dark. So was the whole weekend. I did manage an outdoor ride Sunday though. My toes were so cold when I got home I thought they were going to fall off. Luckily for me they warmed up again and are all still present, correct and accounted for. I'm glad I got a trainer for the bike for indoor use last year as I really don't fancy riding outdoors in these temperatures. although the sun was out today, in shadow it is still "brrrrrrrrrrrr".
I didn't escape the occasional cold. Quite a few have been hit but after a fortnight I was reasonably OK again.
Your calories calculation is very interesting Roger. Measuring the stats for today's indoor effort, my Garmin device recorded my burn as 903 cal. during the 1:43:48 ride so I am closer to the 231 cal. per half-hour than 374. I'm almost 158 ponds and just about 6 feet tall. What I found from some sources and from empirical evidence and experimentation, I'd have burnt more calories had I been outdoors in the cold since the low temperatures would have forced my body to burn off more calories to generate heat. Being fairly fit I think I have difficulty burning calories at the same rate I did when I was less fit, and when I was weighing more. No, there is not a lot of fat on me any more. It is quite satisfying to observe my muscles and tendons when in various yoga poses. As I am trained in muscle and tissue massage I can't help being a little bit proud at the results of a total of 21k km of cycling during these last three or four years.
Most of the energy spent is replaced with preparing and enjoying Italian and Indian food a glass or two of wine..
