Time To Break Out The Trainer

After

 Before

With the amount of snow on the ground and the falling temps it's time to break out the trainer for the bike and take to indoor riding.  Agrrrrrh.  I loath indoor trainer riding, however it helps to combat the Christmas cookie and other holiday fare indulgences that have been going on for over a month.  Also my "seat" stays conditioned to a saddle and I can avoid the early season ouchies from having been off the saddle for months.  Another plus is that it helps to make me stronger for the coming year, contributes to overall fitness and helps out with my arthritis and keeps me flexible.  Now if only there was some way to imitate the birdies singing, the wind in my face and the fresh spring, summer and fall scents I'd be in heaven.  For now I'll have to be content with summer dreaming.  Step one was to get the regular tire off and install the trainer tire.  Since I don't change flats that often I always take pictures to help me ensure that everything goes back the same way it was before I took the tire off.  Tomorrow I hook it on the trainer and I'm ready to tackle spinning my way to health.

Here is a shout out and big thank you to Shaun Bhajan owner of Hometown Bicycles in Brighton Michigan who kindly opened the store for me and swapped tires out on my wheel.  The store is closed between Christmas and New Year's and he was busy painting the shop but went out of his way to open up and do this repair for me, at no charge to boot!  Shaun goes the extra mile day after day for his customers, that's why he has such a successful shop.

Trainer tires are extra skinny and hard for me to get on and off of the wheel rim.  Thank you Shaun!

2011 Recap, Stats and Other Ramblings

As the 2011 outdoor riding season came to a close for me, I've compiled stats from the year and share them with readers.

Outdoor Riding Season 2011
Total Miles rode  1213.85
Total Hours riding  143.84
Total Days riding   147
Total Weeks of riding  35

The outdoor season started on March 21, 2011 and my last ride of the year was on November 26, 2011.  There was a week in April where we had a late winter storm with snow and there was no outdoor riding at all.  It's official we had the wettest year on record and I am not a rainy day rider so weather plays a big role in Michigan outdoor sports.  Of those 35 weeks days of riding ranged from 1 to 6 days per week with most weeks falling into the 5 day range.  Rides were nearly an hour in average and that is time spent moving on the bicycle.  Actual time out was considerably longer due to rest time, stopping for conversations and photography, exploring on foot and sightseeing and minor repair work.

A forum that I frequent had an indoor riding challenge (TE December indoor riding challenge) and I managed to eek out just a tad over 8 hours on an indoor trainer.  Indoor riding on a trainer is loathsome but a necessary evil to keep up with fitness and not lose the gains that I spent the summer achieving.  It comes with living in a climate that has severe swings in temps and gets snow covered in the winter.  The upside is that regular riding through the off season months allows me to hop back on my bike outside in the spring without spending time getting acclimated all over again.  Keeping up a healthy heart rate and aerobic fitness allows me to expand on my goals for the coming year, push a bit harder and achieve more.  This year my speed picked up from the previous year and hill climbing improved, however I have a long way to go with hills.

The Team Estrogen forum is continuing the challenge into January and that will help to keep me motivated.  I look to outling goals for 2012 and posting them here as a committment for the coming year.

Lastly I am posting a link to a fun post in a blog that I follow from a fellow bike rider in the UK.  Mixedbabygreens is the blog and I thought this little video was so cute it just tickled me, hope you enjoy it too. Mixedbabygreens bicyle bell choir playing Auld Lang Syne

I hope that each of you had a great year of bicycling!  I thank the readers of this blog for your patience in following with my ramblings and adventures and wish the cyclists out there to have a smile on your face and the wind at your back.

Turkeys, Trails, Trees and Tires

Thankgiving with my niece and nephew

Christmas Tree up Thanksgiving weekend

On the trail at Kensington

So we have a big variety in a weeks time.  Thanksgiving with turkey and the trimmings and all the family, the long holiday weekend, an evening reserved for putting up the Christmas Tree and with the nice weather I was able to get in a two good bike rides on Friday and Saturday.  I spent Friday afternoon at Kensington and Saturday at the Huron Valley Rail Trail and boy did if feel good and invigorating to be outdoors enjoying the weather.  Of course living in Michigan where the weather can do an about face in a heartbeat, today we woke up to a winter wonderland with a fresh covering of snow.  Where I live we got about 3-4 inches (I haven't heard the official report yet).  So in a weeks time we go from outdoor riding with no jacket to snow.  One week ago today I spotted a barefoot waterskiier zipping across the lake while I was out on a bike ride.

I love it!

I do believe that outdoor riding is over but I've said that before on this blog and then we continued to have mild days enough to get out a few more times.  Likely I won't be posting my yearly totals yet in case we get that "one more nice day."   But the handwriting is on the wall and I am reserving tonight to get my trainer tire on my old bike so I can be ready for indoor training riding.  In fact I signed up for a indoor December challenge so now I am committed to a certain time spent on the bike and I intend to make good on it.