It's 4pm. Shadows are getting longer by the minute, and the sun is starting to flirt with the horizon. You're still 10 miles from home. Your fingers are numbed by the cold, and they feel blocky against the handlebars. You haven't felt your toes for hours, which is probably a blessing in disguise. Intermittent patches of black ice demand constant focus, and surprises - slick paint, strewn gravel, new potholes, sand and salt - lurk in every corner.
Fun? Absolutely. But only to a point.
Hardmen don't need cycling to be fun. Cycling is suffering, and suffering is beauty, and bloodflow in the extremities is a luxury. It's no big secret... I'm just not a Hardman.
Even as I work on toughening up - buying shoe covers, building up an adverse-weather bike, riding with a group of like-minded lunatics - I am also embracing the beauty of being soft.
There is no doubt that riding outdoors is better, but if we're going to wimp out because of cold and rain and overall softness, we might as well ride indoors, no? And if we're going to ride indoors, we might as well ride in comfort and style. Or so the logic goes.
A Hardman, by the way, upon being forced indoors by ice or sunset or zombie invasion, would not ride in comfort and style. To paraphrase Will (who can at least talk like a Hardman): "We'll set up our trainers in front of a brick wall, wearing blinders and ear plugs. We will put pictures of our enemies on the wall and look them in the eyes and spit in their faces. Vomiting will be the de rigeur end to our workouts."
That's a bit much for me.
Thus and therefore, I have totally pimped out my indoor training setup. Witness the beauty that is the basement:
There is enough room for three or four cyclists, there are weights and crazy inflatable contraptions, and because it's a basement, there is absolutely no risk of overheating.
Funny story... if you're wondering why I don't have the rollers next to the supporting column (it seems like the perfect just-in-case handhold), it's because the column is metal, and rollers generate static, and I really don't like getting a shock every time my elbow gets close to the column.
A man can only watch so many Scrubs reruns before losing his mind, and it would seem that I've reached that limit. TV is... well, it's crap. Utter crap. Fortunately, Netflix makes it really easy to give them your money, so now I have about 50 DVDs just waiting for my laptop.
Despite weighing 10 lbs and being too big for most backpacks, the laptop is quieter than most Tamagachis (remember those? me either!). For when I have company, I bought external speakers (not pictured here), the better to overpower the roar of the trainers.
For when I don't have company, which almost always, I have headphones. Have you ever tried riding with headphones attached to a laptop? If, by some miracle, the cord is long enough to accomodate riding out of the saddle, it's also long enough to dangle around the spokes of your front wheel. No big deal when you're on the trainer (on which only the rear wheel rotates), but a competely different story on the rollers (on which both wheels spin).
Cords are bad. So I got cordless headphones! It's my first bluetooth device, and so far it seems like bluetooth is a giant pain in the ass... but it lets me ride the rollers, listen to crystal-clear sound quality, and avoid waking up the roommates.
Everything is in place now for me to have a good winter. If I don't feel like braving the elements, I don't have to, and that will definitely help me put in the saddle-time that I'll need to have a successful spring campaign.
However, it is imperative that I not fall into the trap of riding exclusively indoors. It'll make me strong, but that fitness will come at the expense of bike-handling skills. Might as well transfer to Army.
And on that cheap shot, I end the post.
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