Lights on!

Now that days are shorter and the winter is coming, I need to change how I train on my bike.  Sure, I can continue to ride after work, but that means riding in the dark, potentially in the cold and the rain.  While I still sometimes do that, the reduced visibility to cars and the chance of encountering skunks, mountain lions and other creatures of the night makes it an unattractive option.  I can opt to do nothing or do some minimal training on weekends, but at my age I’ve found the best way to lose weight is to keep it off in the first place.  I also want to be in shape for some of the early season rides I like to do in the spring.  This all means that I need to set up a pain cave to train indoors, but instead of calling it a pain cave, I just call it a garage.  I leave the pain cave to my orphans.

Better than a skunk or a mountain lion I guess.

To get started I needed some kind of trainer.  At the low end of the spectrum are plain old rollers, but they seem boring and require some actual skill to get started and maintain balance.  At the other end of the spectrum is a full on system that will blow air in your face, adjust the tilt of the bike to fully simulate speed and going uphill, and allow you to rock back and forth, and cost thousands of dollars.  If I had unlimited money I’d buy one.  But then again, if I had unlimited money I would stop working, buy a house on the French Riviera and ride whenever and wherever I want so there would be no need for a trainer.  

Instead I use a smart trainer from Wahoo, which I chose for a number of reasons.  First it varies the resistance based on the road you are “riding” in the fitness app (more on that later), so when going uphill, pedaling gets harder, and when going downhill, pedaling is easy.  This makes the ride more interesting.  Second, it is relatively inexpensive.  One downside of the less expensive model is that it really tears up the rear tire, but I purchased a cheap rim and mounted a leftover tire for this purpose.  The third reason I chose this trainer was that it folds up for easier storage during the months I’m not using it.

Cheap and simple to expensive and fancy.

Man does not train by trainer alone.  I would get bored pedaling in the same spot for more than a few minutes without some visual stimulation, so I use an app that gives a first person view of a ride on the screen and simulates the terrain.  The most popular app is Zwift.  People seem to like it for the social aspects.  You can ride or race with other people online, but I don’t like people and the graphics and scenery are like a video game, which I don’t like.  At the hard core end of the spectrum are apps with super macho names like SufferFest, FulGaz, or RideSoHardYourAssBleedz (Cascadia Software), which must be aimed at people a little more serious than me.  Instead I use Rouvy which uses real video and has rides from all over the world including routes that are used in professional races.  With this app I’ve “ridden” on every continent except Antarctica and it was a godsend during COVID.

Now I have something to look at, but viewing the app on the phone is not a great experience, and sweating on my laptop doesn’t seem like a good idea, so I have a cheap TV and stream the video from my phone to the TV via Chromecast.  There are other ways to do it like connecting an HDMI cable from a laptop to the TV, connecting a cable from an iPhone to the TV, and some fitness apps are even available on Apple TV, but this is what works for me at a relatively low price.

If I had known you were coming by I would have cleaned up a little.

OK, I have the trainer, the app, and the TV, what else is there?  I like to listen to podcasts while riding so I have some headphones.  I could use speakers, but the trainer makes a lot of noise so headphones work better.  Initially I used some cheap earbuds from work, but my sweat destroyed them.  Now I use bone conduction headphones because not only are they sweatproof, they also leave your earholes open, which makes them good for riding on the road while maintaining awareness.

Speaking of sweat, without a breeze to evaporate it, I drip all over the place.  It was actually pretty instructive to see how much water and salt I lose while cycling even on a cold day.  If I was cycling in the house I would put a mat under the trainer so I don’t damage the floor, but I’m in the garage with a cement floor, so I go without.  There are special covers I could put on the bike to protect it from sweat, but I find an old towel works just as well, and I rinse the bike with leftover water from my water bottle when I finish my workout.  If I had an extra fan lying around I’d probably use that to evaporate the sweat before it has a chance to drip.

Now that I can train all year, I can enjoy the fruits of my labor.  There’s nothing my wife likes more than to see a hot, sweaty, half naked man emerging from the garage like the cover of a Harlequin Romance.  When she sees me she can’t help but squeal, “What are you doing?  You’re dripping on the floor!  I just cleaned it this afternoon!  You stink too!  Go take a shower!  Gross!”  Maybe I’m not getting any extra action, but at least I’m staying in shape.