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
I know as well as any of you that I've been checked out lately, kind…
Peter Sagan has undergone quite the transformation over the years; starting as a brash and…
The Women's road race has to be my favorite one-day road race after Paris-Roubaix and…
Holy fuckballs. I've never been this late ever on a VSP. I mean, I've missed…
This week we are currently in is the most boring week of the year. After…
I have memories of my life before Cycling, but as the years wear slowly on…
View Comments
Souleur owns no rollers or trainers and have always found it was a waste of good time...sorry, i just buy more wool and baselayers in winter
I do fully participate in music on the road, which i fully acknowledge as my sin in the Rules, and ask for full forgiveness Merckx
yesterday the temps registered 110* on my cpu on the road, which is stupid
Music however fluctuates
-Local H-Bound for the floor
-tommy tutones one hit-867-5309 jenny
-chevelle-mexican sun
and various others that change weekly
BTW: thanks for the others mentioned, i am going to have to pirate a few of those and check them out
@ Jeff in PetroMetro.
I raise you a 'riff-raff' and....
...for when you really want to end up a twitching, acid fried, floor surfing, sweat zombie after the last interval set - Ty Cobb, Soundgarden. Accept no substitute.
@Doug P
Kids, for those of you without "Record Players", you can emulate this by listening to the second half of the MP3's you stole off LimeWire.
Led Zeppelin remains the greatest band ever, though their best song was from their BBC Sessions: Travelling Riverside Blues. Such a groove. Amazing. I think I spent 10 years of my life listening to nothing but Zep.
But, as long as we're talking about groove...Guns n' Roses put out a little-known album called G'n'R Lies...the story I heard is that they were caught unawares that their record deal included two days. A full 12 hours before their second record was due, they staggered into the studio and threw together four live tracks and recorded four acoustic tracks. Patience is off this album. The rest of it sounds like this. Un-be-fuckin'-leivable.
But the best songs are not always the best to ride the trainers to. (Or get phyched up for an outdoors ride, for that matter.) For that, I might choose Pearl Jam's Alive or Rage's cover of The Ghost of Tom Joad.
But hands-down, the best pump-up song is White Snake, Here I Go Again, bitches.
@Joe
Ty Cobb. Soundgarden. Fuckin' RAD. Saw them at the Gorge on Saturday. They were...AWESOME.
There is hardly a place more beautiful in the world to watch a show, by the way.
@Jeff in PetroMetro
My 6 and 8 year boys love "It's a long way". The whole high voltage album is one to suffer to.
@Slash
It's people like you who howl the loudest about being tough and what Rule 5 means boast a palmares that consists of a 50% DNF rate and finish in the back of the pack in those races they do manage to finish.
Have a long look in the mirror and realize the toughest people are the ones that are humble and self-depreciating and call themselves a pussy, but then we find a pictures of them mashing up the fucking Kapelmuur in the V-Kit.
I sincerely hope your mother is OK, but you are still just as much of a twat as you were a year ago. I'd have thought a tough guy like yourself would learn more quickly than that.
Buh-bye.
@Frank - awesome. No other word for it. Love that era. Alice in Chains, Soundgarden, MLB, Screaming Trees, Janes, P-Jam, Stone Temple Pilots. I have made little sick in my mouth listening to all of them. (Actually that goes for both live AND while on the turbo in some cases....)
re the mighty zep, I once had a routine worked out solely around dazed and confused. It peaked when John B comes pounding back in with the phased drums towards the end. I used to keep that puppy cranked to the max. Sadly my downstairs neighbour didn't really dig me launching into it 3 evenings a week and I had to change things up.
Mind you I also had a 1hr gentle spin routine based around 1999 and no-one complained about that...
@mattb
None taken, just trying to get a rise out of y'all with our stereotypes!
Lemon trees? That crap doesn't grow this far north. I'll use it to water my moss garden.
@scaler911
"Besides, anyone here have a video of Merckx riding a 'trainer'? Nope."
Exactly. I do have rollers (minouri) and even use them sometimes but not like Eddy - this is an education in poise, balance, speed ...
For those who haven't seen it:
http://youtu.be/F7K4O7YTLQQ
@Joe
Grunge. What a great era. I lived and breathed that stuff for an age. One of the coolest things about moving out here to Seattle was to go around and check out all the landmarks, like the Black Sun statue by Noguchi.
But back to cycling...I actually avoid riding indoors like the plague. The only time I do it is when I have no choice due to work, or when I need to work on my stroke...nothing smooths out a stroke like riding the rollers or turbo.
Even The Prophet had some bounce in his stroke.