SportsGeezer

One Third of Hotel Room Surfaces Harbor Cold Virus

Geezer has some good news for germophobes: they're right to worry about cold germs, at least as far as hotel rooms are concerned. The BBC reports on research conducted at the University of Virginia that looked for contamination by the common Rhinovirus in hotel rooms and found that the virus was easily transferred to 35 percent of the surfaces touched. Door handles, pens, light switches, TV remote controls and taps were all found to be contaminated as much as 18 hours after first contact. BBC reports that Rhinovirus contamination of the sampled surfaces - 10 each in 15 hotel rooms - ranged from 0-80 percent, and that people who touched the contaminated surfaces during everyday activities, such as answering the telephone or turning on the light, had a 50 percent or one in two chance of picking up the virus. The rate went up to 60 percent when surfaces had become contaminated just an hour earlier and down to 33 percent when surfaces had been contaminated for 18 hours.
Read more from the BBC.

For Business Travelers, Some Special Fitness Help

It's possible that your employer has yet to sign on with a corporate wellness program that offers specialized advice to help business travelers resist the deep-fried foods that line our nation's airport terminals, but believe it or not, some employers have done so. Writing for the New York Times, Christopher Elliott reports that as health care costs rise, companies are looking at new ways to make their employees healthier, and business travelers are particularly at risk for medical problems. The new programs, writes Elliott, do more than educate frequent travelers about the dangers of a sedentary lifestyle punctuated by deep-fried meals. They use online journals, Web-based support groups.What are they? Elliott gives us the names of two such programs. ComPsyche, whose program is described in the Times, and SparkPeople.com, which, Elliott reports, offers 24-hour Internet access to personal trainers and nutritional guidance.

Hotels Compete to Pump Up Fitness Centers

Christopher Elliott, travel columnist for the New York Times and for the excellent travel site Tripso, reports that hotel chains have finally figured out that pumping up fitness facilities can help pump up their guest visits. Elliott tells us that Hyatt, for one, has hired Life Fitness, which makes the Lifecycle exercise bikes, to furnish its gyms with new equipment such as the latest high-tech cardio and strength-training equipment. For guests who prefer to take their exercise outside, the chain is  offering a Fitness GPS Forerunner Armband that monitors your heart rate and the distance run, and in this case but is programmed with the hotel's coordinates, so runners can find their way back to check out.
Elliott reports Hyatt competitor Westin Hotels & Resorts recently teamed with Reebok to create its WestinWorkout program, a $12 million upgrade that includes added treadmills, cycles, elliptical trainers, medicine balls and yoga mats, and Holiday Inn Select has signed a deal with Nautilus - the makers of Bowflex, Schwinn Fitness and StairMaster - to develop on-property fitness centers. Read more from Elliott in the New York Times.

Skiing the King's Trail in Sweden

There are two reasons there are no lift lines on Sweden's  King's Trail. 1.) There are no lifts.  And 2.) there are far too few people to stand in line, even there were lifts. Each winter, fewer than 2,000 people hit this sun-bleached cross-country ski trail, which traverses 265 frozen miles, all of them above the Arctic Circle. This New York Times piece gives us the lowdown on these vast and largely untrodden highlands, where the Swedes, typically, have constructed a network of cozy huts for those worthy souls willing to ski 12 miles to find a bed. Planning ahead, the Times tells us, the founders of the Swedish Touring Club began designing the "Kungsleden" in the 1890's, to encourage tourism above the Arctic Circle. More than a century later, the Times' piece may persuade a handful of adventurous people to give it a try, especially if they click through the Photographer's Journal that accompanies the mainbar. Find more here.

The Best Damn Mountain Biking in California

Because it's a safe bet that Tom Stienstra knows more about the wilds of California than any other outdoors writer,  when Stienstra tells us that the best mountain biking in that relatively capacious state can be found at the Wilder Ranch State Park, just north of Santa Cruz on Highway 1, Geezer politely accepts the judgement. As this piece in the San Francisco Chronicle (Stienstra's day job) reports, the park's  7,000 acres include 34 miles of bike trails-- some easy, some, such as the Wilder Ridge trail that climbs 1,000 feet, not so easy. The climbs, Steinstra tell us, "are rhythmic pumps, followed by cruises through the flat spots amid grasslands, chaparral and cypress woodlands....At an overlook above one cove, we spotted a sea otter on its back, grooming its whiskers and fur. As the sun dipped below some distant cirrus, a squadron of pelicans sailed past." Read more about Wilder from Tom Stienstra.

Are These the Ten Best Mountain Towns?

There is plenty of room for debate about the relative merits of what Men's Journal is calling the "Ten Coolest Mountain Towns."  A quick rundown: Whistler, BC, Sandpoint, Idaho, Valdez, Alaska, Livingston, Montana, South Lake Tahoe, California, North Conway, New Hampshire, Park City, Utah, Telluride, Colorado, Davis, West Virginia, and Lake Placid, New York. Whatever.  The jaunty service piece gives us several good reasons to book winter vacations in any of these resort towns. But what do you think? Click on the "Comments" function and tell SportsGeezer readers about your favorite mountain town. Or read more in Men's Journal.

Fitness Changes Travel Menu

Tubing through a cave in Belize, kayaking in the bay off Progresso, Mexico; snorkeling, scuba diving and biking-- these are all offerings of seven-day Carnival cruise out of Galveston, and they are offerings, according to this piece in the New York Times, that would not have been on the menu a few years ago. The reason they're here now, says one travel company honcho, is fitness: Today's travelers have the endurance for adventure, and they want to put that endurance to good use. The real gold here is the Times'  multimedia slide show, with an audio track by freelancer Christopher Solomon that is as informative as his text. Read and see more.

National Geographic Adventure Magazine Names Ten Best National Park Lodges

One of them, described as a warren of tent-cottages that overlooks the Caribbean, costs $75 a night, with $12 for each additional person. Another, with marbled baths and ponderosa pine panelling and set in Yosemite National Park, costs $379. Eight other lodges are priced between the two. They include floating cottages on a lake in Washington, a log and mortar lodge on a mountain top in Tennessee, and an Alpen-stye hike in lodge deep in the backcountry of the Montana Rockies.  All are among the ten lodges in National Parks chosen in 2005 by National Geographic Adventure Magazine. And all are worth the hike, the price, and even the wait for reservations. Check them out.

Working Out Between Flights

Because Graphic designer Kevin Gillotti hates wasting time between flights, he started searching for gyms that were near enough to airports that he could  pop in for a quick workout. Then Gillotti had a better, and more generous, idea: he starting listing those gyms on a website that he calls, plainly, AirportGyms.com. Airport Gyms lists more than 50 health clubs that are within a hop, skip and jump of airports in the United States and Canada.  Most cost a few bucks, usually $5 to $15, for use, but in Gillotti's opinion, it's money well-spent.

Why Boulder Rocks, and Why You Want to Go There

Really short, really informative, and really nicely-written, this description of Boulder, Colorado as  a "front range Shangri-La" is a SportsGeezer Trifecta. Writing for the New York Times, Susan Enfield Esrey tells us that Boulder "blends hardcore athleticism, latter-day hippie sensibilities and university-town liberalism - often melded into the same Teva-wearing individual."  "On any given day," writes Esrey, "you're never far from a preternaturally fit resident burning up calories like crazy: knots of Lance Armstrong look-alikes clotting the bike lanes; wiry climbers toting crash pads; indefatigable young moms towing helmeted toddlers in bike trailers. " As usual, the Times offers credible advice on Where to Stay, Where to Eat, What To Do During The Day, What To Do and Night, and more. In the end, it's all about adrenaline, and that's OK. That's OK.