That being said, Kurt makes a wired computer that calculates watts based on its known resistance algorithm, which they have posted on their website.

I find it mostly realistic to ride, but I’m a tad skeptical of the assumptions Kurt makes about road grade and weight’s effects on speed… which tire speed is the basis of calibrating watts.  I flat out think they are wrong… but I’m using the watt display to measure improvement, not accuracy… and for $50, it’s a steal if it displays watts consistently.

This article was not intended to be an advertisement for Kurt, but rather a gripe about the absurd boredom associated with indoor training.  Let’s face it, riding an indoor trainer is about as much fun as watching grass grow.  In order to make it more pallatable, I offer the following suggestions:

1. Arrange a place to watch TV/DVD’s.  Whether it  be a laptop, or surround sound theater, watching the tube can help some people
2. Break up the daily routine with intervals, personal challenges, or a game.  With the watts meter, I can play games like… how long can I stay above 400 watts? or without watts say… 26 mph.  Whatever the high water mark is for you, I’d encourage you to stretch yourself on the trainer and make it a challenge… which helps to make it fun
3. Spinervals, et al.  Using a spinervals workout a couple times per week to break up the monotony of endurance rides will help you.  Spinervals can cause suffering beyond belief if you push yourself hard enough, and can help you build more mental toughness.. apart from the mental toughness it takes to hop on a trainer each day, and stay with it for your prescribed amount of time.
4. Speaking of time… Don’t quit early… no matter how bored you are.  You’re only cheating yourself.  Let your mind wander if it must, think about how well you’ll place in your first race this spring!

Yes, indoor training is not for the weak.  If you found this article using a search engine, I feel your pain, brother… I feel it.

Let me start off by saying that there is a time and place for all things, and typically the time and place for spinning class is for someone who is trying to maintain fitness, or challenge themselves, or to have fun! Spinning class is NOT a valueable training tool for anyone more serious than a clubber. If you are blessed enough to attend a spinning class that has spin cycles that measure watts, heart rate, speed and distance, then by ALL MEANS use these as a training tool. Just be sure to attend classes that fit your training routine, and that you get the right balance of endurance, interval, strength, and recovory rides.

In my experience, I’ve found spin class to be entertaining, and can be a great way to challenge yourself…. but without the numbers, you can’t use spin class regularly. You need to be able to measure your improvements…. period.

Modern stationary bikes have all the measurement criteria that one should need for training, and many of them work with your HRM’s transmitter (if it happens to be a Polar!). I reccomend these stationary rides for serious training, although you’ll get lots of funny looks from the spin class atendees and pretty much everyone else in the club.

I think I scare people when I ride the stationaries!

I’ll be pumping out 350 watts and sweat will be pouring off my face onto the equipment, My breath will sound labored and I have a look of a man possessed. This is a contrast to what most people consider to be a health club workout… but if you can get beyond the freak factor, the data that you can record from a stationary far exceeds most of our own road equipment. You should be using it in the winter to get your game on for the spring.

The Health club stationaries are not at all perfect. There is a problem with comfort on most of these stationaries. You sort of feel like you’re riding your grandma’s Schwinn cruiser with dog basket and 3 speed. You end up working slightly different muscles sometimes if the bike doesn’t have all the proper adjustments (saddle fore-aft being the primary). My final complaint about many stationaries is that they don’t have clip in pedals… even for SPD.

Once again, at the health club it’s all about balance. Spinning class has it’s pros and so do stationary bikes. Don’t forget to hit the weight room while your there, but that’s a different subject for a different day.

~Craig

We’re left with only the nutters and die-hards out on the roads, and the rest of us riding either the couch, a stationary/trainer, or attending spinning class at the local health club.

In the coming weeks I’ll go over each of the above, including the madness of winter riding in Minnesota, which I’ve done a bit of.

Keep your chain on

~Craig

Couple that with the post-RAGBRAI “I never want to see a saddle again” mindset, and you won’t touch a bike again until September :]

But I’m thinking about riding the Amish Harvest Tour to Cure Cancer in September. The weather should be nice and cool, and the scenery should be beautiful. Anybody else up for a day of rollers?

Okay.  Like I said in the flickr page for this photo, headwinds bring out the worst in cyclists.  Nobody likes a headwind, and some people are weak enough that they’ll just latch on like remoras to stronger or larger cyclists, except this is just a parasitic relationship.  We call them sandbaggers – losers that just tack on to a paceline and fade away when it’s their turn to take a pull.  Tandems are an obvious target – sitting behind one automatically makes you #3 in the paceline, and they knock down a /ton/ of wind.  They’re generally not nimble enough to shake sandbaggers, either.  Apparently Team Rhubarb had had enough, and posted the above sign.  We spotted this outside the tire dip in Bellevue, and it may have made RAGBRAI for me.

But our sandbagger story is a little less amusing.  Apparently he’d been following Jess and I, who had been riding two abreast into a headwind.  My hearing sucks in those situations, but Jess says he’d been there for a long time.  I had Jess take point real close on me, so he’d be following me.  I was about to do something stupid (like jam the brakes) so first I yelled at him to “go sandbag someone else!” He wittily replied, “what for?”

Luckily we came across a watermelon stand and stopped instead.  But I was about fifteen seconds from giving him a five second warning and jamming my brakes.  I was tired of dealing with idiots that day.

I say that day because we had spent the first fifteen miles nearly being run into the center line crack by a bunch of assholes sandbagging a tandem.  Wouldn’t want to lose their precious standing in the “paceline”

Mothers, don’t let your children grow up to be sandbaggers.

Seen on the road in hampton, ia – the “Vicious Cycle” bus.

Good thing we’ve christened Team Livewrong :]

taglines:

• “it’s okay, we hate you too”
• “you can’t fix stupid”
• “ride hard, die young”

unfortunately, livewrong.org is taken.  teamlivewrong.org sound okay to everyone?

I woke up at 5:30 and went to the can.. lo and behold all the buildings were locked up so I had to go down to the porta-john forest. I suspect the proliferation of fish fry eating that happened the night before, but people were really taking their time in the 15 johns that were available. I was in line until 6:20. It was sick.

I left Dyersville at about 7 and rode like a friggin maniac until Bellevue, where I arrived at 9:40 AM where I met Sandy at the edge of town.

This was very hilly for Iowa, and the wind wasn’t helping me much.  (route here)

Some Day 7 pics here

Here are some numbers on my 3 days of riding RAGBRAI

crashes: 1
times I was passed (when riding my pace): 2
minutes in line for the john: 60
waffles eaten: 1
protein bars eaten: 6
pace lines cracked by me: 3
pounds gained: 6 — hopefully water
new tents bought becuase the one we borrowed was too small: 1
people we met from out-of-state: dozens
times little kids waved to me as I rode through their town: a zillion

All in all the numbers looked good, and I think I’m going to try to do this again next year!

The ride this day was pretty fast. Dave and Jess left without me due to my long lavatory wait and my not getting up early enough for a 15 minute wait with my eyes watering and legs crossed.

I caught up to Dave and Jess and after quite some distance, I saw a pace line that looked about right, so I grabbed on and quickly realized that I had to drop them. I rode the bejeezus out of the new bike and was having a good time, but noticed my front derailleur needed some tuning. I stopped near Dundee and paid a mechanic $1 to adjust the tension (with his wrench, not the thumbscrew)… then it happened.

I clipped in with my right foot, said ‘Rider On’ and and started to come on, when out from nowhere came this gal around the corner who was also coming on and she cut me off, leaving me only the pavement as an option (battle wound here).

I hit the first aid station in the next town and still rode the hell out of the bike until Dyersville.

Campground was great! It was in a playground so the boys had a blast and we ate the fish fry for supper.

Day 6 photos here

Jess flatted out and I rode on to Independence by 11:00 and set up camp at the riverside park.

We met a whole gaggle of folks there like a Respatory Therapist from Sarasota Florida who gave me a spiffy Do-Rag with skulls and crossbones on it (pictured here, two days later)

Also met a hoard from Vermont, one of whom had a ‘thing’ for pregnant women apparantly.

The cool thing about RAGBRAI is not the ‘Tour de Corn’… it’s all the little kids and old folks in the small towns that wave at you when you come through… it’s all the small communities that welcome you with open arms… and its all the other riders from all over the country (and world) that ride and camp beside you. RAGBRAI is really really cool on my first impression.

Day 5 photo album