Thursday, February 14, 2008

Must... resist...

So I've got a training plan now, using Training Peaks. This time of year involves weight training, cross training and pedaling drills. The pedaling drills need to be done on the trainer, both because of how they work and because it's a drill just to ride a bike in the ice and snow and not freeze. I hate the trainer. I hate it with a fiery passion. A minute on the trainer is like an hour in hell. I've given up on it, I just can't stand it. I'm still doing cross training, weights, starting some running to get some cardio in. But I'm really falling behind, and it would be nice to get some kind of pedaling drills in without having to resort to the trainer. What would be a good way to get high cadence drills, one-legged drills, leg strength drills, etc. going? Duh - riding fixed! No choice but to spin smoothly when going down, and it's easy to use leg strength when going up and stay in the saddle, easy to use mainly one leg on a fixed gear, etc. Perfect solution right? Except my old Fuji (that was bought new in the late 80s!) was stolen out of my garage shortly after I converted it from single speed to fixed last winter. Fcukers. But I can barely scrape by now, especially after being bad and buying a CX bike last fall, and I really don't need another bike in the stable. But damn am I lusting after the Soma Rush! Fixed, fairly aggressive geometry for a "do it all" frame, could even use it at the track if I wanted. I have lots of parts sitting around to build it up. But you know how it goes, just like with the 'cross frame: "oh maybe I should get a new headset to go with it, and these old brakes don't quite fit, and I'll probably need a longer stem" - pretty soon you've run up the credit card again. >Sigh< Good thing I told girlfriend to lecture me whenever my fancy turns to thoughts of steel. In the meantime, I'm dusting off the Pacer for Hell Week.