Muesli prepares for Winter Bike to Work Day - Jan 19

Biking anywhere on a cold Chicago winter day can be great fun once you get moving, so long as you've had a solid breakfast and wear your tightly woven dress shirt to lock in the heat. Here's my suggestion for breakfast before meeting at this year's Winter Bike to Work Day, this Friday, January 19.

The Food

Muesli - uncooked rolled oats and fruit
Mix in a bowl:
2 handfuls of rolled quick oats
1 small hand of chopped fruit, fresh or dried
1 small hand of chopped nuts
Soy milk, enough to cover

I like the oats soft and moist, so I soak them with the chopped fruit and nuts overnight in soy milk and loosen it up in the morning with more soy milk. The fruit imparts a very smooth sweetness to the oats when sitting with them for so long. Feel free to heat it up on the stove, too, if you'd rather kick off a cold morning with a hot belly.

In this case, I used dried Calimyrna figs because they looked like softest at the grocer, but plump fresh in-season figs are always tops. Use raisins, dates, or whatever you can easily find. For nuts, I gently chopped up dry roasted almonds that I had keeping fresh in my fridge.

The Cycling Party

From 7 to 9 a.m. Jan. 19, the Chicagoland Bicycle Federation will welcome bike riders to Daley Plaza, Dearborn and Washington, for this annual event, serving hot chocolate and Eli's Cheesecake. There's also a free raffle for prizes from the Chicagoland Bicycle Federation. More info.

Preparing Yourself

Last night I cycled home in the cold, but it was quite fun and not the painful experience some might have thought it to be. If you still feel shy, think about a phrase I once saw in a photo of T-shirt on a roller derby woman: Pain is weakness leaving your body.