Fear of the elements

Spring is officially here, and as of this writing, I’ve spent about 70 hours on my bicycle since the beginning of the year – all but six of those in the comfort of the Great Indoors. There have been a couple of days when temperatures in the 50s have drawn me out onto the roads of northeastern Indiana, but for the most part I’ve felt no compulsion to get dressed in cold-weather gear and unhook the bike from the trainer.

Although I grew up in central Pennsylvania, it’s been 25 years since I’ve lived in a cold climate. Most of my winter-weather riding of years gone by was done during the era of helmetless pros, down-tube shifters and LeMond-Fignon rivalries. But now, after a decade in Southern California, followed by 15 years in Southeast Asia, anything below 55 Fahrenheit feels downright Arctic to me.

Another deterrent to outdoor riding has been the unsullied cleanliness of my recently purchased Specialized Tarmac: I want the bike’s open-air voyages to be thoroughly enjoyable rather than clouded by thoughts of spending 45 minutes removing salt and grit from the sparkling-new drivetrain after the ride. It’s inevitable that the Tarmac (and I) will be exposed to elements other than sunshine, but not just yet …

In the meantime, I’m riding four or five days a week on the indoor trainer, pedaling furiously for 90 to 120 minutes at a time without actually going anywhere.

One or two days a week, I use the Zwift cycling app, which does a fine job of deluding me into believing that I’m actually progressing along smooth, idyllic roads free from motorized traffic but clogged with fellow athletes from around the world. There’s plenty of incentive to ride hard – from speed, distance and wattage displays; to constant admonishments to “close the gap” on the rider just in front of me; to real-time comparisons between my fastest times up the hills and my current leg-burning effort to make it to the top, even as the resistance on my smart trainer ramps up in accordance with the steepness of the grade.

The rest of the time, though, I ride old-school, pedaling on my indoor trainer while staring at my Garmin and listening to music on my headphones. I do this when I want complete, distraction-free control of my ride, without Zwift’s built-in inducements to ride at a higher intensity than planned. (I readily admit to being mentally weak in this regard – my competitive spirit makes it difficult to temper my efforts.) Three days of Zwift in a given week, and by Sunday I’m suffering the effects of severe fatigue. But intersperse a couple of Zwift rides with two or three careful, heart-rate-controlled sessions on the good ol’ analogue trainer, and by the end of the week I feel like I’ve struck a good balance between hard efforts, base aerobic endurance and recovery.

This schedule seems to be working for now, and switching between Zwift and more archaic indoor training methods helps keep everything from growing stale. For the time being, I’m still mostly dedicated to riding inside, but I have my eye on the weather forecast, waiting for the perfect confluence of sunshine, warm temperatures and free time to get out on the open road.