If we liked breathing stale, recycled air, we’d all take up a sport like wrestling or indoor fly-fishing. But we love the feel of a gale on our faces. We cherish the smell of cow manure filling our nostrils with its almost tangible grittiness. We hold scared the privilege to breathe in diesel fuel while doing hill repeats up l’Alpe d’Huez.
But such whimsy is not for every day. Occasionally, we find ourselves faced with the prospect of an hour of solitude upon the wind trainer or rollers, where our sport is transformed from a glorious experience of powering ourselves along with only Nature for company to one where a ride of 30 minutes is barely tolerable, 45 seems like a lifetime wasted, and 60 minutes is more than most of us can even consider enduring. 60 minutes on the trainer at a leisurely pace or a 4 and a half hour death march up a barren, heat-riddled climb? I’ll take the 4 and half hours every time, thank you very much.
We all have to do it, and there are even some redeeming qualities to be had. You get better at Rule #5, for one. You develop a more magnificent stroke, for another. Whatever the redeeming qualities, we all have our way of coping. Jeff in PetroMetro returns with his view on how to make it suck just a little bit less.
Yours in Cycling,
Frank
—
Either due to life-threatening weather or poor scheduling of life’s lesser priorities (see Rule #11), we Velominati spend a little time each year riding indoors. Whether one enjoys a ride on rollers or a trainer, and no matter if one methodically spins (as all good recovery ride specialists do), grinds out intervals, or practices ways to improve one’s magnificent stroke (scrape the mud off your shoes, scrape the mud off your shoes…), death-by-boredom is always a possibility. I’m not one to go for videos, or read books, or hook up to a computer. Call me old fashioned. I like to meditate on the V with only the voices inside my head screaming for mercy from the pain of a complete lactic acid meltdown.
Or, sometimes I like a little music.
Back in the Dark Ages, I used the yellow (sweatproof) Sony Walkman to play my favorite homemade training cassette tapes. But in our modern days of inexpensive digital storage, and with the brilliant invention of the “shuffle” command on my iPod Nano, I have some seven hours of musical motivation to keep my indoor sessions lively and loud.
I thought I might start a little conversation regarding favorite training tunes. Now, I know ALL of my fellow Velominati strictly adhere to Rule #62 when riding outside. And of course, we prefer strict adherence to Rule #9, but, as I stated above, shit happens.
While I have eclectic taste, I don’t fancy Al Green, Buck Owens, or Duke Ellington when loving a Rule #5 beatdown. No. I tack to the loud and fast. My preferences are punk and “classic rock”. (It was just rock when I first heard it.) So here’s a little flavor of my indoor training selection, in no particular order.
Hate to Say I Told You So“”The Hives””from the album “Your New Favourite Band”
Tick Tick Boom“”The Hives””from the album “The Black and White Album”
American Idiot“”Green Day””from the album “American Idiot”
The Rock Show“”Blink 182″”from the album “Take Off Your Pants and Jacket”
I Fought the Law (Live)””The Clash””from the album “The Clash: Live at Shea Stadium”
Batman Theme“”The Jam””from the album “In the City”
Communication Breakdown“”Led Zeppelin””from the album “Led Zeppelin”
The Real Me“”The Who””from the album “Quadrophenia”
Rock Around the Clock“”Ten Pole Tudor””from the album “The Great Rock’n’Roll Swindle”
Of course there are many, many others. But I offer these few picks-to-click to perhaps start a little discussion and get some musical ideas for my next indoor shopping spree at the V and Dime.
A-Merckx
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View Comments
Pedestrian selection how about
United by pete and the pirates
Son of mustang ford by Swervedriver
Angel of death by slayer
Any drum and bass and any breakbeat would be a start too!
I'm sitting here thinking about rides and watching you tube videos, most notably Metallica. What the fuck happened to those guys? Fight Fire With Fire was on my TT soundtrack, but before that, my warm up tune before cross country races in HS. Then (later) 'Some Kind of Monster'? Kinda like Elvis and LeMond to me.
@scaler911
They were all awesome until they cut their hair and released that album called Choad.
I'm all for short hair (news flash, the sixties are over, cut your fucking hair), but rockers should keep their hair long.
Saw Soundgarden a few weeks back, and Chris Cornell has redeemed himself somewhat by growing his hair long and he looks like a total badass again.
Speaking of which, Slaves and Bulldozers is a great climbing simulation turbo ride song.
Ooh yeah! Got the rollers cracked! Was trying to get going in the garage using a workstand for balance but the bike went the other way every time I moved my hand across and down. Moved them inside this evening and put them in a doorway. Still abit hit and miss but now spending nice long periods upright and unsupported. Need to relax my shoulders and arms a lot though!
Winter training here I come. I may have to work on the entertainment side of things as I'm certainly smoother while I'm looking ahead and not thinking about falling off.
@Chris
It's a challenge the first couple of times right enough. I like to stick on a DVD which reminds me, next time I have a few quid, Cycling Weekly have some cycling DVDs that might be good watching.
Any suggestions anyone?
@snoov
I've got an old surround system to stick in there along with a dvd player. Just need a decent sized telly and it should be quite the place to be. Got a a Guinness Surger mounted on the work bench for post ride recovery drinks!
Need to shop around for some cut price box sets but like you I'm on the lookout for good cycling dvds. A trip to The Works, I think.
@Chris
If you are like me, don't try to watch racers bombing an alpine or dolomite descent whilst trying to stay upright on rollers!
I've heard that the SufferFest titles are pretty good because they use actual race footage instead of filming a room full of jokers on spin bikes. They are priced pretty well, and are a direct download instead of having to wait for a physical disc to arrive. I'm going to purchase one tonight and see if they are any good.
@mcsqueak
Read a pretty cool revew of their latest offering over at GS Gazzetta. Seems to be an acceptable method of flogging oneself during days where Rule 9 observance would be suicide.
@Mikael Liddy
I wound up downloading the "Revolver" video from Sufferfest. Basically it was something like 8 mins of warm-up, 15 1-minute intervals with 1-minute breaks, then a 4 minute warmdown at the end.
Overall pretty entertaining... made the 45 minute trainer session fly by. There were audio cues so you knew when to start and stop when not looking at the screen, but the creator of these had a pretty funny sense of humor and threw in some funny taunts and whatnot. Pretty good music too. I was certainly tired at the end, and I was sweating buckets. A longer warmup would have been nice, but I can figure that out on my own next time.
I'll probably buy a few more since they are so cheap and mix it up with a two or so a week after work. Better than what I was doing last year, which was trying to just do my own boring workouts on rollers, but more often then not just skipping using them all together.