Dungeon Upgrades and New Pavement
Friday I decided to clean up the trainer dungeon. It's an annual ritual that mostly involves removing the multiple layers of sweat and dust that cover everything, then sorting the various bike components that I carelessly threw in there during the pavement season. When there's roads to be ridden, I don't have the time to be organized.
This season I decided to add a twist to the usual stack of DVDs that keep me motivated all winter. Last year I noticed my interest in DVDs I had viewed hundreds of times had somehow been diminished. Odd. Since they no longer make them because nobody will buy them anymore, I was forced to look elsewhere.
Zwift is what I came up with. It's basically an online multiplayer cycling videogame. You connect your trainer and whatever other electronic goodies you have to the program, and you ride virtual courses with people all over the world. Since it's still in Beta, the courses are limited, but right now the Richmond World Championship road race course is up. Interesting to see the place I went to college in digital form. Looks a lot less ghetto than I remember, but apparently they've cleaned the place up in the last 25 years. I jumped on the trainer for a quick spin in jeans and a t shirt, and was soaked with sweat after about 20 minutes. Yeah, this might work.
The steady rain ended and the roads started to dry, so I headed out to the non-virtual world. I had no particular destination in mind, but ended up climbing Potter Valley. The plan was to do the traditional course and then turn around once I reached the gravel that connects it to Upper Potter. The only problem was I never reached the gravel. Sometime in the last couple days they had paved the road, and I rode around in circles not sure what I wanted to do. One of the Evil Empire's Dark Lords, Jamey Stull, came riding up the hill, so I decided to ride along. He was riding a cross bike in preparation for the upcoming season, and was climbing with relative ease while I wheezed and gasped my way to the top. Fit people really piss me off like that. At least there was a light mist falling, which helped alleviate some of the heat generated by all of my fat rolls rubbing together. We reached the top and then explored a freshly-paved offshoot, before Jamey rode off down a gravel road and I descended on the more civilized pavement.
On my way down I ran into a team mate, Tim, who was doing repeats of the climb in preparation for whatever fat bike race he was planning on dominating this year. I don't have a fat bike, so one time was good enough for me on this occasion. Plus, the wife was expecting me home and didn't want to burn any bridges there. Yeah, that sounds like a plausible excuse.
Maybe tomorrow...
This season I decided to add a twist to the usual stack of DVDs that keep me motivated all winter. Last year I noticed my interest in DVDs I had viewed hundreds of times had somehow been diminished. Odd. Since they no longer make them because nobody will buy them anymore, I was forced to look elsewhere.
Zwift is what I came up with. It's basically an online multiplayer cycling videogame. You connect your trainer and whatever other electronic goodies you have to the program, and you ride virtual courses with people all over the world. Since it's still in Beta, the courses are limited, but right now the Richmond World Championship road race course is up. Interesting to see the place I went to college in digital form. Looks a lot less ghetto than I remember, but apparently they've cleaned the place up in the last 25 years. I jumped on the trainer for a quick spin in jeans and a t shirt, and was soaked with sweat after about 20 minutes. Yeah, this might work.
The steady rain ended and the roads started to dry, so I headed out to the non-virtual world. I had no particular destination in mind, but ended up climbing Potter Valley. The plan was to do the traditional course and then turn around once I reached the gravel that connects it to Upper Potter. The only problem was I never reached the gravel. Sometime in the last couple days they had paved the road, and I rode around in circles not sure what I wanted to do. One of the Evil Empire's Dark Lords, Jamey Stull, came riding up the hill, so I decided to ride along. He was riding a cross bike in preparation for the upcoming season, and was climbing with relative ease while I wheezed and gasped my way to the top. Fit people really piss me off like that. At least there was a light mist falling, which helped alleviate some of the heat generated by all of my fat rolls rubbing together. We reached the top and then explored a freshly-paved offshoot, before Jamey rode off down a gravel road and I descended on the more civilized pavement.
On my way down I ran into a team mate, Tim, who was doing repeats of the climb in preparation for whatever fat bike race he was planning on dominating this year. I don't have a fat bike, so one time was good enough for me on this occasion. Plus, the wife was expecting me home and didn't want to burn any bridges there. Yeah, that sounds like a plausible excuse.
Maybe tomorrow...
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