Here at Element.ly we love singletrack, steep couloirs and the latest in high tech apparel. But we also love great brooks, music, film noire and food.
So, a couple times each month, we’re going to write about what we’re bumping in our headphones on the trainer, what we’re cooking to make us lean and happy, and what books or blogs we’re reading to before we go to bed at night. There won’t be any kind of formula. Just a list of what we think is cool.
Please feel free to make suggestions as well. Tell us what you’re digging and we’ll add it to our list.
The Cindercone / Out of Reception / Van Life
Foster Huntington’s overlapping series of tumblrs document a nomadic life spent traveling the west coast from Oregon to Baja, surfing or skating depending on the waves, and then following the snow when the seasons turn. Adding to the romanticism is the idiosyncratic nature of his updates; this is no series of exhaustive photo-essays full of stylized, self-consciously composed scenes designed to make us jealous. Rather, the minimally-captioned images all feel like inexpert afterthoughts: under-exposed glimpses of tacos on a tailgate or an evening spent fishing the Columbia River. Somehow this all lends it a sincerity that makes the frequent standout shots that much more lovely and has us asking ourselves why it is, exactly, that we don’t have a big garage sale and move into our own rugged adventure-mobile?—Scott Hill
Alone in the Wilderness
In 1968, at the age of 52, Dick Proenneke headed into one of the empty parts of Alaska and built by hand the cabin he would live in for the next thirty years. Fortunately for us, he filmed the experience so that he could edit and narrate this precious testament to the solemn pleasures of industry and solitude. You could almost build a house from the affable, brawny prose of his narration alone, and the long takes of unspoiled lake country call to mind John McPhee’s writing about similar landscapes in Coming into the Country. Especially fulfilling are the scenes of his new house cozying into its first season of snow. This is a great little film to sit down to when winter is close, but not close enough.—Scott Hill
Artisanal Gluten-Free Cooking, Kelli and Peter Bronski
I attribute most of my new Strava PRs to the ten pounds of bread and cheese weight I shed after going gluten and dairy-free earlier this year. This change in diet was not easy, and might have been impossible without the Omission brewery, but it was made much easier by this single cook book. It is the best collection I know of with gluten-free recipes that taste good enough that my family will sit down to them with me, something important to me because any time I don’t have to spend making an alternative dinner is time I can spend being bad at the guitar or getting the dog a run in the park.—Scott Hill
Radiolab—Limits
This time of year, most of my miles are earned riding indoors on a seventeen year-old Computrainer that lives in our guest room during the winter months. We love our old racing partner and all of the oddball courses we’ve cobbled together over the years, and one thing that makes these sweaty indoor sessions even more enjoyable is the chance to indulge in podcasts we have fallen behind on after a long summer with nothing but the wind in our ears. Radiolab is one of the best podcasts going right now in a sea of them, and one episode in particular, Limits has changed the way I suffer for my sport. Explaining research centered in part on the experiences of RAAM riders, this episode suggests that there is, in fact, a way to “will yourself” around the pain in your legs and lungs. It’s worth a listen, and has provided me a kind of Jedi mind-trick I have played on myself many times to great effect.—Scott Hill
Poetry Foundation
Sure, This American Life and podcasts from the Poetry Foundation don’t always have the energizing effect that you might receive from your favorite ultimate workout mix, but they make the experience of sweating indoors and staring at snow for an hour or so a little more enlightening.—Scott Hill
Frankie Cosmos—Art School
Podcasts can’t do it all for us, though. This time of year, it is important to dust off whatever playlists helped us make riding on a trainer possible last winter. Maybe that deadmau5 song no longer has the same effect on you it once did—at least I hope it doesn’t—and surely there are new contenders that can add life to your workout. At less than two minutes, this song by 19 year old Frankie Cosmos is not going to carry you far, and it is not high in the bpms, but it’s so dang catchy and simple and fuzzy that you will be glad when it shuffles into place. Just don’t mind the Bieber imagery in the video. I don’t know what that’s about.—Scott Hill