Winter cycling is dumb. But it's a fun kind of dumb.

WAUSAU - It may have all started back in November, when I rode a bicycle to get coffee and cake at downtown Wausau's La Prima coffeeshop and deli.

It was a distance of only 3.5 miles, but it seemed much, much longer because the air temperature was a frigid 4 degrees Fahrenheit. (That's –15.5556 Celsius for all you readers outside U.S. borders.)

I'm proud to be a product of the north, a descendant of vikings and have been thoroughly brainwashed by Packers Ice Bowl mythology. But even I have to admit 4 degrees is cold for a bike ride. A rational human being would have either A) stayed home and brewed his own coffee or B) driven to the shop in an automobile, a convenient means of modern transport that produces heat. 

But the choice was not rational. My wife reminded me of this as she wrapped a scarf around her neck as she headed out for work: "You're crazy."

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She uses "crazy" as a descriptor for many of my ideas. That's a word that can mean many things, but her definition most often is "irrational, painful, unnecessary or extreme." (Extreme is another word that means different things to different people.)

I admit my choice to ride a bike to a coffee shop in bitter cold was an emotional one. I just wanted to test my limits. I was curious: Could I even get to the coffee shop? How much would it hurt? Would my bike work in the cold?

At the same time I was participating in a fundamental theme of the story of human existence: man vs. nature.

Riding a bike outdoors – and running, too – meshes well with my 2018 Go Deep Wisconsin project, which on the surface is a program of embarking on at least one exercise/adventure trip a month. But the project goes deeper than that simple goal. Underneath those adventurcizing forays is an intention to bring greater focus to all areas of my life.

And riding a bike through winter savagery indisputably enhances your ability to focus. There really is one goal. To get where you are going in one piece.

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On Feb. 3, I plan to participate in the Bike Across Bago 2018 event, a 20-plus mile (32 kilometers for you readers outside U.S. borders) ride across the ice of Lake Winnebago. 

I'm looking forward to that ride with equal parts anticipation and fear. (Anticipation + fear = fun adventure, I hope.) I estimate that ride will take me somewhere between 2 and 3 hours, more if I fall through the ice and have to swim. To complete this challenge without ending up in a pit of misery, I need a bunch of cold-weather training under my belt.

The lowest temperature I've ridden in was –14 degrees. I wore wool pants, tights, wool socks, sweat-wicking technical shirt, wool top, downhill ski parka, ski helmet and ski goggles. It took me 20 minutes to gear up for a 15-minute ride. It was not comfortable. The tip of my nose felt like a rat was gnawing it, and my feet, despite thick wool socks, started to tingle.

I would like to think that toughing it out through outdoor winter workouts will pay fitness dividends. Science tells us that cold weather put extra strain on the cardiovascular system. Blood pressure increases as blood is diverted from the skin surface to keep the core warm. Muscles tighten and are forced to recruit more-than-normal fibers to get the work of biking or running done, which diminishes endurance. 

My hope is that my body will respond to this extra work by becoming stronger, and thus faster and more efficient when moderate weather conditions return. 

However, I sense that working out indoors at a higher intensity level likely is a more efficient way to build actual fitness. A warm body is a relaxed body, and a relaxed body can be pushed hard safely, a key step if getting into better shape is your goal.

I suspect, for instance, that I would likely be a better, stronger cyclist if I regularly participated in a good, solid spin class instead of riding through tacky salt-and-sand laden streets to work. I certainly would be safer; I've fallen twice when I hit a patch of ice. (Talk about stupid: It was the same patch of ice, and fell on it both going to work and coming home.)

And Lord knows that there are plenty of new and interesting ways to get your fitness on indoors nowadays.

But ... I would miss the twisted, weird pleasure I get when facing the winter cold. If you bike successfully through the brutality a jagged northern wind on a sub-zero morning, you feel like a conqueror. I'd like to think it connects one to all of humanity throughout the ages, from Ice Age hunters to astronauts dealing with the unimaginable cold of space (-454.81 degrees, the Internet tells me).

Yeah, winter cycling is dumb. But it's a primal, fun kind of dumb.