Wednesday, November 16, 2011

The Adventure(les)s of an Indoor Cyclist

The daunting months of winter have arrived to suck the cycling marrow out of me and to asphyxiate the air in my pneumatic aspirations. I can well imagine cold, blizzardly nights, city roads virtually impenetrable, nary a car in sight. Certainly I can still ride a bike outside in the winter. I did buy snow tires recently and plan to try them out soon. But I do not plan to ride the summer distances. Still, I feel the need to ride my bike. Of course, this is not a new problem for snow bound cyclists. (Val will no doubt be talking about his Pugsley (I am envious). What options do I have except to pull the trainer out of storage, set up the bike and go nowhere as fast as possible?

To spin, or not to spin, that is the question:
Whether tis nobler on the body to suffer
The highs and lows of outrageous weather
Or to take indoors a bike that is station
And to peddle without moving? To stay, to ride
No more: and by a ride to say we end
The cold, and the thousand natural shocks
The flesh is air to: tis a consternation
Devoutly to be avoided. To stay, to ride;
To ride, perchance to dream—ay, there’s the rub:
For in that ride of station what dreams may come
When we have kept off this winter fat
Must give us no pause—there’s the prospect
That makes calamity of so long winter.

My consolation is found, however, in knowing the woes of winter cycling have been perennial:



(Picture purloined from the internet)

2 comments:

  1. Why no mention of a simple spin class? Peddling frantically to the grooves of bubblegum techno whilst producing an unseemly amount of sweat is not to your liking? Alas. It does keep the winter corpulence at bay...

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  2. I'm trying to imagine a Victorian spin class: Men with handlebar mustaches, top hats, tweed, furiously assuming the "hover" position on machines like the one above. At least their music was probably better . . .

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