Spinning my wheels

I rode my bike indoors yesterday. While visiting her parent’s house, my wife found an old, unused CycleOps in the basement. She decided to bring it back to our apartment for us to borrow (for an undisclosed length of time).

The weather was crummy. Forty degrees. Light rain.

So instead of facing the elements, I decided to attach the rear wheel of my inherited Corsaro road bike and go for a spin in the comfort of our living room.

The resistance nob on the machine is broken, so I shifted into higher gears until I started to feel my legs burn.

(All I want are beautiful calves like Phil.)

Less than fifteen minutes in and I had worked up a pretty good sweat. The trainer was shaping up to be one of our better parent-acquisitions.

As I shimmied off the saddle and hobbled my way into the kitchen for a glass of water, I was suddenly struck by the irony of my new setup. Here was a perfectly good bike—the most efficient machine ever designed for human transportation—and after all that effort, I hadn’t gone anywhere.

I spent a quarter hour spinning my wheels.

Why? Because it was cold outside and I didn’t want to get wet. I didn’t want to be uncomfortable.

Sure, I still got my cardio for the day. But in some ways it felt cheap. Almost undeserved.

Instead, I could’ve braved the weather and put some real miles on my tires. I would’ve come home, wet, cold, and filled with endorphins feeling like an accomplished badass.

But I didn’t.

Does it really matter? In this case, not really. I’m riding my bike because I think it’s fun and it provides a great workout. But it sparked a prompt for this post that I thought was worth sharing.

Every great accomplishment in life requires going outside of your comfort zone.

There has to be a chance you could fail. A risk you might get rained on.

Otherwise, you might work really hard, but not have much to show for it at the end of the day. In other words, I don’t think it’s possible to reach your full potential until you’re willing to risk discomfort.

I’ve made up my mind to stop peddling in place. I’m a fan of the CycleOps. But until I see snow on the pavement, I’m gonna push myself to do the real thing.

One more thing…

I can’t possibly write a post about spin cycling without linking to one of my favorite TV scenes of all time.