Categories: Defining MomentsLa Vie VelominatusNostalgia

Training: The Fourth Bridge

The Forth over the Firth in Scotland

Before the New Year, it was my ride up Haleakala. At present, it’s Keepers Tour: Cobbled Classics 2013. Before Haleakala, it was one of the various Cyclocross races and before that the Zoo Hill Time Trial. The targets change, but throughout my life as a Velominatus, there always seems to be a goal looming over the horizon which spurs me on. Training, for its endless nature, is like painting the Forth Bridge in Scotland: it takes a year to paint and you have to paint it every year.

In contrast to my opinion of painting a bridge, training is something I fundamentally enjoy. Lucky for me, I love training for the sake of training; I don’t feel any compelling need to do a particular ride in any particular time. What I do feel, however, is the need to do any particular ride in a better time than I have previously. I’m fortunate to delight in the process of finding form and fitness, of getting better. I love seeing the improvement; I love setting incremental goals and reaching them through the elementary process of working towards them.

Cycling, in this way, presents me with an incredibly rewarding outlet for that bit of my nature that lives on seeing marked progress. In every walk of life, things are complicated. The deeper we wade into any endeavor, the more embroiled we become in the mechanics of staying afloat – to say nothing of actually moving towards an end. Yet, Cycling is simple; put in the work and the results come.

The more complicated my life gets and the more conflicted my priorities, the more I find I love Cycling for its elemental simplicity. Set a goal, make a plan, follow it. There is no one to look to but yourself. There are no external dependencies. There is only the endlessness of The Work.

Vive la Vie Velominatus.

frank

The founder of Velominati and curator of The Rules, Frank was born in the Dutch colonies of Minnesota. His boundless physical talents are carefully canceled out by his equally boundless enthusiasm for drinking. Coffee, beer, wine, if it’s in a container, he will enjoy it, a lot of it. He currently lives in Seattle. He loves riding in the rain and scheduling visits with the Man with the Hammer just to be reminded of the privilege it is to feel completely depleted. He holds down a technology job the description of which no-one really understands and his interests outside of Cycling and drinking are Cycling and drinking. As devoted aesthete, the only thing more important to him than riding a bike well is looking good doing it. Frank is co-author along with the other Keepers of the Cog of the popular book, The Rules, The Way of the Cycling Disciple and also writes a monthly column for the magazine, Cyclist. He is also currently working on the first follow-up to The Rules, tentatively entitled The Hardmen. Email him directly at rouleur@velominati.com.

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View Comments

Ron says:

Feb 13 2013 at 2:42 pm

I've fallen off rollers once too, OT goal in a hockey game & I got excited. Thankfully it wasn't too bad.

VeloVita - Even though she was born and raised in eastern NC Caroline somehow has only the slightest bit of Southern accent. I'm not sure why, maybe because her and her mother watched so much damn BBC? Someone she came out of there normal. She has friends from that area who did things like compete and beauty pageants competitively. She is definitely a keeper, as I'm not the easiest to get along with and she takes (most) of my antics in stride. I still haven't convinced her to let me hang bikes in the new house though, but I'll keep at it. For now they sit in my very own bike alcove, so I can't complain too much.

I miss some things about winter but pretty much being able to ride outside every day of the year is livin' large for a Velominatus.
Ron says:

Feb 13 2013 at 2:47 pm

@Buck Rogers

@Nate

@VeloVita

I am no maniac on the rollers but find I can do a sufferfest on them. I don't stand up for efforts, but can otherwise get a very good interval workout. They are twitchy, but got more manageable when I adjusted the wheelbase-you might want to try this, key is to get the front roller directly below the front axle. You might want to check this. It's much more bearable than the resistance trainer.

I am definitely in the minority here but I actually love my rollers. If it weren't for my Doc's orders I would be riding them at least twice a week. I love setting up a youtube vid of an old pro race, usually in Italian or French and turning on the fan to cool me down and spinning. I ride for hours on them and it really doesn't bother me.

You should probably give lessons in how to pull this off, as most folks hate riding them. Could be a really great business. Buck's Zen Roller Riding.
frank says:

Feb 13 2013 at 2:50 pm

@Buck Rogers

@Ron

I don't eat green beans because they squeak on my teeth & the effect is like nails on a chalkboard.

Buck, ouch! Highest weight ever? That hurts. Thankfully we had to lift lots of weights in college & I now am far below that highest weight; if I get to that again I'll be looking like Lampre Man in my kit, and my V-jersey is already snug in the arms as it is.

Yeah, I hit 77.5 kilos the 1st of Feb and said, fuck it, no booze or candy until I get back down to 71 kilos even, which was my weight 19 years ago when I graduated undergrad. Bit of a wake up call for me.

My wakeup call was feeling skinny until I had my picture taken with a recent Giro winner. I'm not used to looking morbidly obese.

Of course, only one of us was carrying a brown paper bag full of booze.
Marcus says:

Feb 13 2013 at 2:55 pm

@frank

Your real wake up call should have been your weirdly long arms. That bag should be full of bananas.

Do your armpits ever get itchy?
Sauterelle says:

Feb 13 2013 at 3:01 pm

@Marcus

@Sauterelle

@Nate

@VeloVita

I am no maniac on the rollers but find I can do a sufferfest on them. I don't stand up for efforts, but can otherwise get a very good interval workout. They are twitchy, but got more manageable when I adjusted the wheelbase-you might want to try this, key is to get the front roller directly below the front axle. You might want to check this. It's much more bearable than the resistance trainer.

I'll have to try that one too. My front roller is a little farther forward. Maybe that's why I can't stay on the damned things. Yeah, I'm sure that's the reason. Haha.

Having your front axle slightly behind the roller axle is typically the recommended position. Having the axle directly on top puts your bike at a slight upward angle - your rear wheel rests on two rollers so is slightly lower than an axle placed directly on top of the roller axle. However even when directly on top, the handling is still fine.

Any handling problems with the axle slightly behind wont be the fault of bike position (one guess as to where the problem may lie if it aint the bike) - the handling fun only begins when you start getting your wheel axle ahead of the roller axle!

Best thing to do to improve handling skills on rollers is practice doing things like taking one hand off at a time then the other, etc etc. You should find your core engaging more to balance the bike instead of your hands - which is what you want. And whenever you are fucking about on them trying to improve balance, try riding faster, the faster you ride, the easier rollers are to balance on...

And you don't necessarily need to stand up to do hard intervals on a trainer! Only time I ever stand up on rollers is to give my arse a short break. And I dont stand up too high...

Disclaimer: I have fallen off rollers. It fucking hurts.

Thank you for the advice!
Nate says:

Feb 13 2013 at 3:16 pm

@Marcus

@Sauterelle

@Nate

@VeloVita

I am no maniac on the rollers but find I can do a sufferfest on them. I don't stand up for efforts, but can otherwise get a very good interval workout. They are twitchy, but got more manageable when I adjusted the wheelbase-you might want to try this, key is to get the front roller directly below the front axle. You might want to check this. It's much more bearable than the resistance trainer.

I'll have to try that one too. My front roller is a little farther forward. Maybe that's why I can't stay on the damned things. Yeah, I'm sure that's the reason. Haha.

Having your front axle slightly behind the roller axle is typically the recommended position. Having the axle directly on top puts your bike at a slight upward angle - your rear wheel rests on two rollers so is slightly lower than an axle placed directly on top of the roller axle. However even when directly on top, the handling is still fine.

Any handling problems with the axle slightly behind wont be the fault of bike position (one guess as to where the problem may lie if it aint the bike) - the handling fun only begins when you start getting your wheel axle ahead of the roller axle!

Best thing to do to improve handling skills on rollers is practice doing things like taking one hand off at a time then the other, etc etc. You should find your core engaging more to balance the bike instead of your hands - which is what you want. And whenever you are fucking about on them trying to improve balance, try riding faster, the faster you ride, the easier rollers are to balance on...

And you don't necessarily need to stand up to do hard intervals on a trainer! Only time I ever stand up on rollers is to give my arse a short break. And I dont stand up too high...

Disclaimer: I have fallen off rollers. It fucking hurts.

What we really want to know is if you have fallen off the rollers in front of your wife and all her friends.

Also, anyone, yourself included, who rides rollers should be banned from doing tris, on account of your bike handling skills will be too good for the field.
strathlubnaig says:

Feb 13 2013 at 3:29 pm

@Ron can't be a Leaf fan then.
King Clydesdale says:

Feb 13 2013 at 3:47 pm

@Buck Rogers

Not to far away from you actually, starting out with the March 30th edition of this training series in Coxsackie: https://www.bikereg.com/Net/17728

Later in the summer I'm planning on doing the Capital Region Road Race and Albany Criterium the same weekend. If you are interested in any of those events let me know.
Marcus says:

Feb 13 2013 at 4:14 pm

@Nate I once fell off rollers in a mate's cinema room whilst admiring Jessica Biel's breasts. What did I learn?

1. Riding on rollers in a dark room is a risky pursuit.

2. Admiring said Ms Biel for extended periods can move you too far to one side of rollers.

3. Puncture wounds from mate's kid's plastic Star Wars toy being embedded mid-thigh really fucking hurt. And get easily infected.

To be clear, I am doing one tri, and one tri only (an ironman in 6 weeks time) just to tick it off the list. At this stage it looks like i will be walking the whole fcuking marathon due to chronically fucked calves from being an old inflexible cunt.
Marcus says:

Feb 13 2013 at 4:26 pm

@King Clydesdale

Coxsackie. Hilarious!