One Problem Solved

So I just hoped off the rollers for today’s ride and now need to decompress. Even if I wanted to go to sleep soon it just won’t be possible, any time I ride at night it takes a few hours to slow the body down and fall asleep. My normal routine is to go to sleep at a reasonable and get up and riding by 5 at the latest, especially this time of the year when a lot of riding is done on the rollers. If I’m riding by 4:30 to 5:00 I can get in 1.5 to 2 hours, take a shower and ride in the car to work with Ade. This lets me help get everyone out the door, get my big ride in and then lets me sneak in a shorter ride by riding the bike home after work (Ade gets off early for school pick-up).

This week the routine got messed up though with a rough Monday night and no energy to get up and ride Tuesday morning. So Tuesday’s ride was at night, causing today’s ride to be at night, which indicates tomorrow will end up being a night ride. Oh well, fit it in when I can.

I did try something new today with the rollers that worked pretty well, a towel under the rear rollers to create extra resistance. I stole the idea from Jeff K who was even nice enough to post a picture of his set-up for me. Rollers are great because they make you work on balance and think a little while riding. This is as opposed to a trainer where you are bolted in and there is no skill or balance required. The problem with rollers has always been getting enough resistance for hard efforts, but the towel did the trick. I was scheduled for 6x6 minutes of tempo riding and usually to get near or into my heart rate for this zone I’m in the biggest gear and spinning about 100-110 rpm. I haven’t been able to do any zone 4 or higher work on the rollers. Tonight zone 3 work was in the 53x16/17 which means I’ll have gears for zone 4 (not to mention more towels if needed). This little trick makes rollers work for nearly all indoor workouts (out of saddle sprinting is tough, I can do a few pedal strokes out of the saddle but it needs to be steady).

If nothing else checking out blogs gives a few ideas to solve problems like this. Thanks Jeff.