Saturday proved to be a lackluster performance for our first indoor time trial event at Cool Breeze Cyclery. The class was crowded with seven riders. Some newbies (congrats to each), some seasoned vets and one of the newbies just happened to be my wife Jennifer.
I saved myself from buying her a bike by simply adjusting my Scott S20 Speedster that I have had a few years now. So far Jennifer has only been able to ride indoors to a few training DVDs and is starting to get used to changing gears and more importantly unclipping. Maybe by spring we will get her on the road.
The first ride was only a six mile sprint. Something about the Computrainer just makes it feel like seven or eight miles. I managed to cross the imaginary line at 17:11. Several guys that rode in earlier class events finished in the low to mid 15s. Good for them :-). I’m pretty sure this short ride was more to get a good measurement of where all the riders fit in. Once we see all the times, we can group the riders together and see who we are competing with. Hopefully my sandbagging performance pays off . hahaha. No, Honestly, I thought I pushed myself about all that I could. Definitely nothing worth bragging about. One thing for sure, it sure beat sitting on the couch.
I do want to do a little bragging on Jennifer’s performance however. Man, she really impressed me with a time of 19:15. This was her first ever time being on a computrainer and probably 3rd time on my bike. She does participate in a weekly Spin Class at the local YMCA. But all of us riders know that there is a big difference once you are on the real bike. On the way home from Cool Breeze, Jennifer admitted that she died two times. Just one look at her red face and I knew she gave it all she had. She managed to give herself a pounding headache. I gave her one Cliffbar power gel block and it went right away. Then I broke the news about next weeks ride being two miles longer. 🙂
I plan to check with the staff and riders at Cool Breeze to see if anyone would mine If I made a couple of videos of the indoor rides. I think it would be pretty cool to capture the agony and pain in the riders faces. Then they can show others what indoor bike training is all about.
Kudos to Sarah Matchett for coordinating the event series.
See ya next week.
JFinn a.k.a Cycling Guy