Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Hands Off

Yeah, yeah, yeah: Riding rollers is boring. Right. I've been complaining about it since November.

But today, I'm not complaining. In fact, I'm stoked.

Because today, I did 2 x 30 sec on the rollers.... NO HANDS.

That's right, Velophoriacs.You read right. (Buffing fingernails on shirtfront.) Rollers with no hands, for half a minute -- twice. I could have gone a lot longer, but I was doing intervals today and didn't want to mess with my heart rate. I did, however, whoop with joy. I know people who've been cycling for decades and still can't take one hand off the bars while on rollers.

I hope you won't think less of me for bragging. Given that my training and racing plans have been sabotaged lately by a cold, the miserable weather, and general life stress, I kinda feel like celebrating this little triumph. I'm not sayin' I'm a "hard man," or equating myself with a pro cyclist. I'm just sayin' I can now do one thing that those people do. Which is cool!

I guess it's the old "Look ma, no hands!"

I once saw a video of Lance Armstrong taking his jacket off while on the rollers. It looked disgustingly easy for him, so commonplace that he didn't even bother to try looking casual about it. And I thought, "Well, I'll never do that." Today, it doesn't look so far off.
Now I call that a souplesse surplus.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

WOW! Congratulations! That is VERY impressive. I can't do that - but thankfully I *can* take a hand off occasionally to drink from the water bottle. Pathetic, I know.

Harry said...

Well, buddy, don't be TOO impressed, 'cause I have an update. This morning I was trying another new trick on the rollers. I put it in second-lowest gear and spun as fast and smooth as I could (this really lets me see if my stroke is smooth, cuz if not, bike starts rocking forward and back). I was doing great until I stared at the clock next to me for a second too long (was counting RPMs) and -- TILTCLICKBAM!!OOOOFF!!! Down I went. Pretty humbling after yesterday's achievement.

If you think I'm doing a post about this, you're nuts. Let 'em dig for it.