Happy Ultimate Cycling!!

Not much happening since Jan 1, 2012. No New Year's resolutions. I don't believe in them. They always seem to die down in February anyway. I have goals and one of them, of course, is IM Canada. The second one is getting engaged... haha. Anyway, talking about IM, we're in the middle of off-season base training. Don't let the words "off" and "base" fool you. It's still 8 hours of training per week. I know it's not a lot compared to the real IM training but still it's something. I started the year with the Ultimate Cycling class. A week before the class started, we did a heart rate test. You start with 120 HR and increase 10 beats every two minutes until you can't go anymore. Based on my HR test, my max is 198. I also found out what my zones are. Last Tue, 1/10 was my first class. I felt really good and strong cycling for 90 minutes. There were about 30 people in the class. I was debating if I wanted a new trainer or not. I don't want to spend more than $150. That means I need to find a used one. After the first class, I decided to wait a little longer before deciding to purchase a new one. I didn't hate the one that I had but I didn't love it either. The trainer wasn't stable and I'm only 100 pounds so I can't imagine if a 250 pound dude uses the same trainer, it had to feel even more unstable. Or... maybe the other way around, putting more weight on made it more grounded.

Thursday was the second class of the week. This time I noticed we had more people than Tuesday. The program lets you sign up for a once a week class instead of twice a week. For new comers, the 2 sessions per week is $250, 1 session per week is $200. I thought about it. It's so not economical to choose the second option. Plus if I want to get the full benefit of the program, I really believed I had to do 2 sessions per week. This session had the same sets/ drills as the first one that we did on Tuesday. But oh man... my legs felt wobbly, it was more difficult to increase my HR, at the end I felt a little jittery. I don't know why. The only thing different was I split my lunch on Tuesday. I ate half at noon and the second half at 3.30PM, then a Cliff bar at 5.30PM. I may have to do that on Tuesday and Thursday to keep my blood sugar more even through out the day. This time around I really hated my trainer. I felt I was going to fall off the bike if I didn't hang on to the handle bar. I looked at it from the side, it was pretty level. One time I was going to get on it, and it was wobbly and I almost fell. It was not good.

After the class, I went home and felt so hungry, so I ate a lot. I shouldn't do it but I was starving and a little frustrated from tonight's class. I guess food made me better. I know it sounds so bad... like I'm a food addict. I went online and checked Craig's list for any used trainer. And there was one. I never heard of the brand before. It's Minoura RDA80. What's different about this trainer is a rim driven trainer. The resistance contacts are with the rim of the wheel, not the tire itself, so it doesn't eat up your tires. From the reviews, I found out it's a good trainer, quiet and very stable. It's Japanese made. For some reasons, most of their make are good quality. The seller was asking for $150. She bought it from Reality Bikes around $280. She just used it around 10-20 times. I felt it was a good asking price. I emailed her right away. I know trainers like this will go fast. I even said that I could stop by on Friday night after work if she was available.

She said she was coaching all weekend but would be home at 3PM on Sunday. Great! I got cash before I left. I hope she would budge on the price a little bit but I was willing to pay $150 if she didn't.
I brought the bike with me, so I could take a little spin and make sure the trainer was stable and quiet like the reviews said. Sure enough, I took a few minutes spinning, I was hooked. It was smooth. I asked her about the price again to see if she was willing to take $130 cash. She was fixed on the price which I would do if I were her. It was a done deal. $150 for the trainer. I was excited and can't wait to use it on the next class.