Going nowhere fast

Sweetie and I recently purchased a bicycle trainer as a belated anniversary gift to one another.

"I didn't know you guys swing that way," said one wag upon hearing of this.

Huh?

"Everyone knows trainers are torture devices. Yanno... S&M."

He knowingly arched one eyebrow. Nudge, nudge. Eh? Does she go? A nod's as good as a wink to a blind bat.

Riiight...

So anyway, last evening I finally got around to figuring out how to set up the thing and giving it a whirl. No problem, but the devil's in the details. I wanted to be able to tell how fast I wasn't going, but the sensor for my cycle computer is on the front wheel, which doesn't move when you're pedaling on the trainer. So I rigged a spare Cateye Velo 2 to register off the rear wheel.

I don't want it there permanently, so I hunted down some velcro strips and "engineered" it. There's quite a large gap between the seat stays and the nearest part of any spoke, so I cut a block of foam packing material and used it as a shim to position the sensor close enough to the magnet. The wire connecting the wheel sensor to the base is pretty short (the reason why it wasn't used on my wife's handcycle as originally intended), so I used another piece of velcro strip to strap it to the top tube.

It seems to work well enough, and since it's the same model as the one I have on the mountain bike already, I can just move the existing computer head to the rigged setup and continue incrementing the lifetime odometer. However, I'm a bit concerned that the constant rocking motion might be hard on the rear suspension linkages, so I may have to bite the bullet and use the road bike on the trainer. It would mean putting additional wear on the road tires (since I don't have a spare rear wheel for that bike) and buying a new computer that would register off the rear wheel, but those factors are relatively minor when weighed against potential damage to my Stumpjumper.

All that aside, it made for a good workout. I did 30 minutes at an average of 12.1 mph. The math majors among you will have noted that this is only 6 miles, but the difference from riding on the road is that you never stop pedaling. I had an average heart rate of 180 bpm and a max of 190. Others have told me that they hate riding their trainers because it's boring, and I can't disagree with that; but it's better than freezing or not riding at all.

Maybe what I really need is a poster of a cold bottle of Shiner Bock to hang on the wall in front of me while pedaling on the trainer.