- In today's video, we're going to learn how to
do donuts in a parking lot in a rental car with Tim Johnson.
That's actually not what we're going to do.
My GCN colleagues over in the UK
tend to make videos about riding in the winter
but every time I see one I look at them and I think
that is not the winter that I know.
For many of us, riding in the winter means
that we see un-ridable conditions
and we have to get friendly with the indoor trainer.
But I've always been curious and thought
there's got to be a better way
and I've known tons of pros over the years
that have used cross country skiing as a way
to stay fit in the winter.
But like everything, there's been an evolution,
so I went up to visit former pros Tim Johnson
and Lyne Bessette
to learn about a unique way that they trained
in the harsh winters of Quebec, Canada,
doing something that I didn't even know existed
called ski mountaineering, or as they called it, ski-mo.
All right TJ, welcome back.
After our bromance when we were out of Washington
doing all that mud riding and everything, super fun,
it's great to have you back.
- [Tim] Hey, thank you for having me.
- No thank you for having me.
- Little different nowadays, isn't it?
- It is, it's a little different yeah.
- What changed?
- So we're doing ski-mo which to me a couple weeks ago
when I was looking at different things to do for
being out in the winter time, staying fit,
this was one of the things that you and I talked about,
so we're here now.
- [Tim] We are.
- [Jeremy] What the heck are we doing?
What is ski-mo?
- So, you know this is
really my favorite winter activity.
We are doing what is considered the cyclo-cross of skiing
with ski-mo.
It's really high intensity, gives you a really good workout
by climbing uphill you stay warm on a day like today
but then once you get to the top,
you enjoy some of the best parts of cyclo-cross which is
going downhill on something
that's not meant to go downhill with.
Basically, the wrong tool for the job,
tiny little skis, they don't have great control
but they're super fun so that's why it
really matches up well, ski-mo and cross.
(gentle music)
- It's faster than snowshoeing and the better part is
you get to downhill real fast.
- Way more fun than snowshoeing.
Come on that's not even a comparison.
(upbeat music)
TJ it's beautiful up here.
- No I think, even when it's this cold
it's still really nice up here.
- Yeah, so we're here at your buddy's place.
- Yeah so my friend Dan, he owns the velo cafe
and he's agreed to set you up with skis, boots, poles,
basically everything you need to be able to do ski-mo.
- I am excited and I cannot wait to get in there
because it is freezing out.
They have coffee in there?
- Yeah they do, lets go.
(upbeat music)
- All right so we're here at Velo endurance cafe
in Quebec with Dan, one of the owners of this shop.
Dan tell us what is going on with the equipment today.
- [Dan] Well we're going to do our favorite sport,
we call it the ski mountaineering, ski-mo.
Here it's been our sport for 15 years now
so we're going to bring the friends, the cycling friends,
up to our training land.
So we're going to use like, what we call this,
it's kind of the road cycling of ski-mo
so racing skis, super light, like for the training freak
and racing freak, those are the tools.
And for the gravel bike people in cyclo-cross
like we have those guys here today,
the skis to explore and do all kind of adventure,
they are a bit heavier, still quite light,
but you can go everywhere in climbing,
and also going down bigger cliffs, jumps, around trees,
so we're going to have fun this afternoon.
- I love it, thank you.
You guys have set us up, you've fit me up,
you've got shoes here, you've got headwear,
you've got pretty much everything that I needed,
you guys also do Nordic ski stuff as well.
- Yeah exactly.
- This is like, if Nordic is the road racing,
and then there's like gravel somewhere in there,
this is definitely the cyclo-cross gravel crowd.
- I would say so and the advantage is
you can discover a lot, it's a great training
and the season is really long because we can go
in almost any kind of conditions.
(upbeat music)
- I feel like some sort of a brachiosaurus right now.
- Oh, excuse me.
(Tim laughs)
(upbeat music)
- I've literally never, ever done this before,
I've never even Nordic ski'd before.
- That's why I'm so excited for today.
So what we're doing is we're taking a set of skis, boots
and poles, it's really the core of what you need for today.
- Yep.
- These skis, if you want to pick your foot up here
and you show a little bit,
these skis have a skin on the bottom
which allows you to climb up the hill.
That skin'll allow us to go uphill on a single track,
basically just like a mountain bike on skis,
we're going to climb up for a while
and then when we descend it's fun and it's fast.
You've got very light boots, you have very light bindings,
you have boots that are specially prepared
to allow you to climb uphill, they're very lightweight
and they have a lot of flexibility.
So as opposed to a traditional alpine ski boot
which weighs five pounds and it's very very stiff,
you want it as stiff as possible,
this kind of has a little bit more flexibility.
- Okay.
- The poles are also different, they're adjustable in height
so when you're climbing you get the best support you can
for your arms,
but when you're descending they're short enough
so that when you do a pole plant
you feel like you're on a downhill ski setup.
- Okay.
- So, funny thing is you've got this great
little water bottle holder here.
- We're at about zero degree temperatures right now,
it's actually negative degrees.
It not frozen yet?
- Well the vodka isn't frozen yet so we're good, it's good.
We're going to have something to drink later.
This kind of speaks to the athletic portion of ski-mo.
When you're climbing, you have high heart rate,
you know 170 beats a minute, you're cruising along
so you're going to want to have your water close by.
You also have a backpack on for extra clothing,
extra gloves, extra hat.
I mean I think you're wearing almost everything
that we've given you so far today.
- Yeah.
- But in case you need more it's going to be in your backpack.
- Okay.
So, we're on our way, we're going to go into the trails
which is like a single track, cyclo-crossy,
I'm scared, lets go.
(Tim laughs)
- Oh yeah, looking good buddy, keep it up.
- At some point during this whole ordeal
I realized that my legs were howling at me
just like I was in a hard training effort,
my heart rate was right around threshold
and I was having flashbacks to barely being able to hold on
to Tim and Lyne's wheels.
Just today it's not wheels, it's skis.
It's cold but miraculously I was outside
getting in a hard workout with friends
just like if we were out on a hard training ride.
Okay so we met up here, Lyne it's great to see you.
Thank you so much for coming out with us today.
If you guys don't know, Lyne is a two time olympian
on the road bike,
you also famously won the Nommay, was it Nommay world cup?
- [Lyne] It was Nommay,
it was the first time it was a world cup.
- [Jeremy] It's now coming back up again this year
so that's very exciting
and cylco-cross, you did a lot of this kind of stuff
to stay fit in the winter time.
Tell as about what you would do.
- When I was training I had to do other things
because the first couple years of my career
I couldn't really just go to California and live there,
you know?
I mean I needed to make money to be able to do that,
or meet my husband, that was helpful.
So I had to train at home in the winter
and I used to do cross country skiing a lot
and I would ride my bike inside.
The interval part I would do it on the bike
but all the long distance stuff
I would either run or cross country
and a couple years ago,
no more than a couple, maybe five or six,
I discover ski-mo, ski mountaineering.
It's a sport that's very popular in Europe
but we use it here because it's great training
and it's something different that keeps us outside
in the winter instead of riding in our basement, you know?
So I love it, and it's something that I've been doing a lot
over the years.
- I love it, I love it.
We're about 15 minutes more of ski mountaineering
to the top of the estate, where the beautiful outlook.
We'll catch up with you there.
(upbeat music)
- [Lyne] It's really surprising what you can go up
with that type of equipment,
especially when you have really wide skins and thicker skis.
(Lyne laughs)
I think there's a bird in the woods.
(upbeat music)
- And so, you just beat me up all the way up the hill.
- Yeah, no problem.
That was easy.
- That was brutal.
And now this looks very treacherous going down
but we're going to come back out
and we're going to go down back towards.
- A ski area, so one sec.
You try to keep a hand on the ski, okay?
- Okay.
Yeah, so they won't go away.
- 'cause there's no brakes on it.
- I got it.
- So you fold the skins, I usually do thirds, in thirds.
Take your time.
It's really easy but don't force it.
Yeah, you got it.
- Okay.
- Click your heel down.
Yeah.
- Hey.
- Yeah, you got it.
- Okay.
- And then you finish this with your safety little pin
that you can put in here like that.
- All right.
- So that's one.
- Okay.
- Then you got to--
- We'll get the other one.
(upbeat music)
- He's so confident, I don't know if this is going to work.
Okay, we're watching Jeremy come down the hill.
He's got amazing technique, he's doing great.
He's got to try and stop before he gets to us
but I really don't think it's going to happen,
he's going to hit the ground.
Yo, oh my god.
Proven wrong once again, incredible technique.
He takes to this like a duck takes to water.
The happiest guy that skis I've ever seen
on their first day.
- All right so we've come down, we've had our first run,
we're taking in,
we're getting a little blood back in our fingers
and now we're going to go back up, and to put this skin back on
a latch there...
- Yeah, right at the top.
- And then kind of pull it down,
and then get it, just give a little rub.
- So you just want to make sure it's lined up on the edges.
- Yep, it's not.
- So that you do a little bit at a time,
make sure it's lined up.
- Yep.
- All the way, usually two thirds of the ski.
- Okay.
- And then pick it up off the ground,
- Yep, kind of get it...
- Yep, you can put it against your waist, whatever.
- Okay.
- And then right at the very tail end is the plastic piece.
- Oh yeah, yeah, right.
- [Tim] Right over the bottom and then flick it, yep.
Usually it's sticky the whole way up.
- Okay, not a perfect job but I'll make you redo it
that way I'm good.
(Tim laughs)
- [Tim] Good start.
- All right Tim so we talked about the boots,
we talked about all the differences in boots,
we talked about the skis, the differences of skis,
Dan was awesome over at Velo endurance,
at being able to tell us about everything,
lets talk about technique.
We saw Lyne, who is going out for another run
so thank you Lyne for being on the show.
- As usual.
- She's off, she's wearing the skin suit
which we're going to talk about clothing after this
but like, tell me about technique.
- [Tim] Cyclo-cross and ski-mo kind of
remind me of each other because in cross
just get it done, get over the barriers
to figure out you can do it,
and then refine the technique.
- Sure.
- So same thing with ski-mo.
So refining technique in this case
is trying to get uphill as efficiently as possible
and that goes to how you're skiing,
how you push the ski forward rather than lifting your foot
and placing it on the ground,
and also it has to do with the poles.
So as you're poling, you want to use it to keep
your momentum going forward.
You don't want to try and lift weights with your hands
but you want them to be involved in everything you're doing.
- Okay.
So like, what I was doing when we first got going,
the pterodactyl, tyrannosaurus rex thing that I had going on
that wasn't right.
- Well, you know it's fine to start off with
it's not something you want to keep doing.
- [Jeremy] Okay.
Lyne went by here in a skin suit.
- [Tim] Yeah.
- [Jeremy] That was scary for me 'cause it's
ruditorily negative degrees out.
- [Tim] It's very very cold.
- [Jeremy] I'm wearing a ton of my GCN kit
like I'm just wearing cycling stuff under here.
- So, you know as we talked about,
when I first started doing this,
I would just wear my bike clothing.
I would dress like I was going for a cold ride
but I wouldn't dress like I was going to shovel snow
in the driveway,
I would go because I would get really hot.
I would dress like I'm going to get hot, so,
go ahead, people can start off wearing thermal base layer,
thermal pants with thermal jackets on top
so you are wearing your GCN kit.
On any given day that's not zero degrees fahrenheit,
for sure.
You have one layer on your legs,
bib tights, thermal bib tights.
Upper body you have a nice wool undershirt
to regulate your temperature.
- Yep.
- Long sleeve and maybe a vest or a wind vest on top,
and then, the helmets, this is a ski-mo helmet
specific for this sport but you can use a bike helmet.
- Sure.
- You know, you want to make sure that
you've got your neck warm, you've got your head warm.
Gloves, you know that it's unusual to see me wearing gloves.
- Yeah.
- Usually I would actually not wear gloves
when I'm going uphill really quickly but you know,
because it is so cold I've got big ones on here today.
- Yeah, I got it, okay cool.
All right we'll head to the fall,
lets go, lets go do another run
and then lets get the heck out of here, it's freezing.
- We got to, before it gets too dark we got to go.
- Okay.
(gentle music)
Dude that was an incredible day out, I had so much fun--
- Me too.
...ski-mo'ing.
We were talking before, people are not just doing this here
in Quebec or in New England, whatever,
people are doing this worldwide,
you were showing me pictures, Romain Bardet,
a bunch of like big pro riders
are actually doing this stuff.
- It's big in Europe, it's big in France, Switzerland,
I mean, some of the races have thousands of people in it.
What we did is just, we went out for a ride together,
it's really fun.
- Yeah, that was like a training session
but people are doing these races
like running in their ski boots, putting their stuff on,
it's totally cyclo-crossing.
- You did great out there, I can't wait to do it again.
- Dude, there's no way that I would have been able to
fat bike or do anything because it was so cold today,
this was truly the only way really that I think
I could have gotten out, gotten in a workout
where my heart was just pounding,
and then it was just so much fun to go down.
I see what's happening here.
- Don't tell anyone, whatever you do.
- If you guys liked this video,
definitely give us a thumbs up.
Leave us a comment below if you guys have done ski-mo before
or what you do...
- I want to hear it, I want to hear it, tell me.
- While it's super cold out,
I want to know what exercises that you guys are into.
You want to check out other adventurous content,
check that out down here
and if you want to subscribe to GCN,
click right in the center.
Lets finish these coffees up and get warm, I'm still cold.
- Yeah me too.