Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Rollers...

I didn't get the chance to ride yesterday or last night because of the rain, which was a bummer because my legs felt really great- though I could feel a touch of tendinitis building in my left knee and the rest was welcome.

Tonight, after my daughter went to sleep, I slipped into some spandex and headed down the stairs and out to the driveway with my rollers under one arm and my Speciale Fixed in the other. Riding rollers is not exactly what I like to do when I want to ride, but it better than not riding at all... and riding rollers on my fixed gear is all the better. There is a certain Zen that comes from riding rollers when you find that sweet spot in your pedal stroke where you can accelerate or decelerate with total smoothness and fluidity and the back of the pedal stroke feels as smooth as the front/ bottom. In a one hour ride on the rollers- which is nearly all I can stand before losing my mind... even on my fixed- that sweet spot in the pedal stroke seems to show up about 30- 45min into the workout. From there, reaching the end of the hour (or slightly more) seems to be very easy and painless. It is during these moments that I go back to my teenage daydreams of becoming the first American Merckx...



Needless to say, I didn't reach that dream... but at least I can ride a bike the same color!


Tim

4 comments:

Linda said...

Yeah, I can get up to the same RPMs on rollers as Merckx did...NOT!

James T said...

No handed on the rollers. Nice Tim!

Anonymous said...

that scene from La Course en Tete is very cool. eddy also had enough bikes in the garage that he really wasn't worried about dumping a liter of sweat down his headtube...

Anonymous said...

It all just does my heart so much good, seeing you without braces and pins protruding from everywhere.