End of the Season
So this is how the season ends — not with a bang, but with a whimper. Not with a spate of bad weather, but with a week that was warm and pleasant but demanded I finish some aggressive yardwork I had embarked on (take that, dogwoods!), and then another week that would have been fine except for how incredibly sick I was, and then a weekend of Nutcracker craziness, and now cold and rain and malaise. Normally I like to get at least a symbolic ride in on Thanksgiving week, after which I’m willing to admit that I’m not likely to do anything serious on the road before St. Patrick’s Day – though there will always be those delicious thaws that demand at least a quick 20K. But it didn’t look like that was going to come together this week, and today it was so overwhelmingly wet that I didn’t even want to ride the garage, so I brought the rollers into the downstairs hall and rode the hallway for a quick 45 minutes.
Rollers are not a trainer, on which you bolt your bike and start some pedaling and watch some TV. Rollers demand balance, strength and a commitment to continuous pedaling, because there is no freewheeling on rollers. It’s not like being on the road, because you have to keep constantly pedaling in order to keep from falling over, but it does deliver a nice workout and helps to make your pedal stroke smooth as glass. Every bit of bad form shows up on the rollers, and the slightest twitch changes how your bike is balanced, so riding the rollers is a great way to learn to keep that upper body quiet, keep the legs in a smooth rhythm, and keep that line. But it’s still not the same as riding the road, so even with a couple of podcasts loaded up and ready to go, it’s hard to keep committed to pushing those pedals forward. But that’s what winter means around here, and unless I want to lose the absolutely spectacular form I enjoyed all summer long, the kind of form that laughed in the face of Taborton Road, that thought nothing of hot 50-milers to Galway, then I’d better get on those damn rollers and keep some legs over the winter months. Besides, St. Patrick’s Day is not that far away.