Two Hours

Tuesday the 24th July, 2012 was a voyage into the Abyss. On that day, I rode on a trainer for 2:01:20. Here is a recount of that event.


I rode the HC climb of the Springbrook on Thursday, then a loop of the Tomewin on Friday. Friday was windy, gusts up to 40km/hr and a baseline of 34km/hr. That's not strong enough to blow you off you feet, but if you were to look out your window, you'd think, geeze, it's pretty windy.

Perfect skirt weather!

But I went out knowing that I was stronger from all my climbing and also because Helen was returning to celebrate my birthday and I wouldn't get any riding in until Monday. Bike riding that is...

My body was getting raped by a southerly that made the first 30 minutes of my ride horrible. Laughably horrible. But then I turned to the west and things got better. Then I turned to the north and everything was great! Then I turned to the east and things got worse. Then I got home and it was over. I sacrificed a lamb to the gods to stop the wind so that we could enjoy a weekend at the beach. They must not have received my lamb.

Sacrifice them all!

Monday rolled around and I didn't ride because that wind was still hanging around raping peoples bodies. And by raping my mean it was still blowing at a solid 35km/hr; and I had just spent three days banging my pelvis up against another pelvis, intermittently broken up by banging it up against a tailbone; so I was a little tired.

I woke on Tuesday hoping that the wind had gone and things were optimistic as it sounded quiet through my window. Feeling quite smug I went out for breakfast and discovered that it was still as windy as Brynne Ecclestone's skull.

I love old wrinkly cock because it tastes
like money

Anyway, I decided to ride on the trainer as I had procured one from my aunt and I didn't want to fight the wind as I had done all weekend.

Not being in good form persuaded me against doing any real efforts and I just wanted to ride my bike really. As I was setting up, I figured today might be a good day to go for two hours, so I grabbed an extra towel but still only one bottle for some reason. I wasn't really convinced that I would complete more than an hour though as I've tried twice before only to hit that 45-50 minute mark and crumple like a paper cup in the fat folds of a massively obese person. It happens like that pretty much every trainer session where I watch each second until 1:00:00 displays and then get all smug and spin just a few more seconds to try to convince myself that I wasn't just waiting for the 1 hour mark. Does anyone else hit that mark and punch the eject button so hard Mike Tyson circa 1994 calls you up to organise a sparing session?

Mike Tyson will eat your children.

So with no real plans, just the hope that I might feel like riding, I got on and started a 10 minute warm up. I had almost no resistance set so I could spin my legs at higher cadences. I've received constructive criticism from a number of people that my sprint looks like a banana tree - it starts out as a small corm, and grows into a tree some time later. Not that I think sprinting is cool, I much prefer the rouleur style of cycling, but I wouldn't want to limit myself at any facet of cycling.

Paolo Bettini - better than Jens Voigt

Take the Schlecks as an example of limitation. Who remembers Liège-Bastogne-Liège 2011 where two brothers, failed to use any tactical, numerical or genelogical advantage they had to beat Philipe Gilbert. Here is an example of two riders with such limited cycling nous and ability to do anything other than ride really fast up a hill. Great work! Good job!

Another prime example of this is: Jack Ryde-Smyth. (I've changed his identity so as not to hurt his feelings) Remember this guy? He kept telling us he was saving himself for the sprint. What sprint? It's 12 months later and there hasn't been any sprints. His catch cry since he learnt to speak was "The fisherman always nets something" (I've also changed his catch cry to avoid everyone working it out) Nets what? Mediocrity? A top ten? I've hardly seen him sprint and when I have, it was against a girl. Did he attend the Sprinting School of Tyler Farrar? What a fucking waste of a Cervelo that guy is. Claims to be a sprinter but has he ever won anything? I think he won a stage of the Tour last year? Well, so did Andy Schleck. We all know his pedigree.

I got this from the unit outline

Jack Ryde-Smyth was the Dux of his class I found out, Tyler thought he might make the pro circuit. I quizzed him on that, he replied: "I gave him a saddle that didn't fit, knowing that it would hinder his performance just enough so he wouldn't make it."

So, back to whatever my point was, one dimensional riders sure suck.

I'm not even sure that was what my point was...

Back to riding on my trainer...

This does not even reflect for one second what it's like to ride on a
trainer. Note the deep dish wheels, what a douche.

In the back of my mind, I wanted to complete a 2 hour trainer session just for the notoriety. Ever since hearing about Jongerward doing 3 hour sessions while in gaol, I've always wanted to do it. Just for kicks, you know. Also to hit the 2 hour achievement on the Cycling Achievement Chart.

It's not finished yet

After 10 minutes, I just put it into a big gear and spun it for another 10 minute block. I just kind of stared out of the garage at the street and houses across the road. The wind was blowing the trees and it was sunny. I counted the neighbours trees and tried to line of sight find what objects were directly ahead of me.

Boring, right?

I focused on my pedalling technique while listening to a random selection of music in my headphones.

I dreamed of a cycling cave in my future house. An air conditioned room with massive tv and an integrated stereo system with massive Focal Utopia floor speakers and a Denon amp. Ohhhhh sheeeeiiiitttttt.

PS: These speakers are 2m tall, weigh >100kg and cost $250,000AUD.

Side note: If someone gave you these speakers for free, you would still need 2x $20,000 power amps to run them and $2000 worth of cables.

Anyway, I did this 10 minutes on, 10 minutes off routine until that dreaded 45 minute mark. That quitting feeling washed over me, but I quickly wiped it away and just laughed it off. I literally did, I though, nah, I don't want to ride the trainer again (this week), let's just do this thing and laugh about it in the morning.

I convinced myself that I would only do an hour and a half in the beginning; and that I would build up to the 2 hours over a few days. I struggled for motivation and at 45 minutes, I thought, oh man, I'm only half way. Then I thought, fuck, if I do two hours, I'm not even half way yet. I flushed that from my mind and hit another hard 10 minute period.

Just after the hour ticked over my aunty showed up and that broke my waning concentration perfectly. It took my mind away from watching the clock, which is easy to do when you're counting efforts and waiting for that cool down period. I finished my third 10 minute on/off set and started a 2/2, 3/3, 4/4, 5/5, 4/4, 3/3, 2/2 minute on/off set. I ran out of time for the final 4 minutes and started my cool down. I did some 20 second sprints in the 4/4, 5/5 and 4/4 sets just to break it up. The floor was so slick with sweat that when I did the high cadence sprints the trainer would slide forward! I stopped because I didn't want to have an accident.

The final 8 or so minutes I just cruised and I didn't even pay attention to the clock. Although it felt like the longest 8 minutes ever, I was glad for it to be over.

The whole session is laughable now. It wasn't a hard session by any means and I had just completed two hours. I wanted to get off and have some lunch so bad.

I stuck my helmet on and completed my customary lap around the block to cool off and get some bike feeling back, which made me consider that if I had just gone out into the wind I would be coming home now and would probably have done a harder ride.

I flushed that out of my mind as well. No need for that nonsense!

DONE!