One of my all time Far Side favorites…
Holy schnikes! It’s been about one month since my last post. So, what have I been up to? Work and training. Yep, that’s about it. Exciting life, huh?
Most of my training has been in the condo basement using the Computrainer (I can’t officially ride outdoors for a few more weeks). Although it can be incredibly boring and steamy (75 degrees F in July vs 55 degrees F in January), the Computrainer has many advantages to biking outdoors.
I don’t need to worry about traffic. Food, water, and the toilet are easily accessible. Plus, I can virtually (pun-intended) ride just about any course in the world (I have yet to try Alp d’Huez). The biggest advantage to the Computrainer is the ability to use it as an ergometer. Do you need to pedal 300 watts for your workout? No problem. The Computrainer applies this force to your rear wheel. Can’t hit 300 watts? It stops. This feature ensures that you get in the exact workout that you had planned. There’s no cheating in this mode.
One new program, Ergvideo, uses the ergometer feature to create virtual reality programs customized to the rider’s needs. I’ve been using Ergvideo for about one year and it’s become an integral part of my training. At first, I was just using the Computrainer 3D courses, but found that Ergvideo added an element of training I was missing. It’s kind of hard to explain, but having a real life course to ride and having to generate a certain wattage synergize to create a very powerful workout. I still need to get around to writing a complete review, but here’s a little taste of one of my Ergvideo workouts.
Lake Placid With A Champ
The ride description says that Greg Reain (2006 Canadian CX champ) storms this course. They aren’t kidding. I rode about 1:30 hours of the course at sub-threshold and nearly died. Well, not really, but I hit glucose exhaustion pretty bad. I hadn’t done a ride this hard in several weeks, but I really needed it. Here’s a graph of my workout. Using Ergvideo, I could have ridden at an easier wattage, but I chose to ride mostly in threshold. I don’t even want to know how I’d feel if I’d ridden the full 2:30 hour course.
