Will the winter do me in?

[Jo-n-NY]

I agree with KSH. Although I do use the trainer during the winter or whenever I find I cannot get outdoors. I have done this for 4 years now and when the outdoor riding season came back I did not feel like I was beginning from square one again. I didn't loose much of my fitness level.

Now just knowing that, it really does not bother me to get on the trainer. If I get the feeling that I really don't want to go on it, I just pedal at whatever speed for half an hour. The speed usually automatically pics up. Kind of mind over matter that I am not going to give it my all, and my motto that something is better than nothing.

~ JoAnn

[tprevost]

I just wanted to add that I'm going to start doing spin classes this week (going to the Thursday class ). There are several newer riders (Brandy and Tiff, from this forum) that started out extremely strong and are able to whip out really long rides... and a lot of that strength comes from what they built up in those spin classes! I started riding earlier than they did but I just don't have the leg strength (thus the spinning class and some additional weight training) so they blew by me on their first few times out!

Seriously; its a great mid-week option!

trac'

[li10up]

KSH, thanks...that's reassuring.

I am NOT a morning person so I doubt I'll be getting up an hour early to ride. I may try a spinning class again. So since I'll only be riding on the weekends what should I do to get the most out of those rides? So far I haven't been good at having a "plan." I ride with others so we just go as fast as we can over the route we decide to ride. Over the last month or so I've increased my avg. speed on our typical route from 14.x to 16.x mph. I have been so excited about that. Last night's ride avg. was 16.6 mph!!! Not long ago I was puzzled why I couldn't seem to get up to 15mph for an average. Then, all of a sudden I'm riding 15.x to 16.x mph as an average...18-24 mph on the flats. It's like I just peaked all of a sudden. The thought of losing that makes me sick since it took me all summer to get there.