Two Wheel Blogs

It seems like only yesterday I threw a leg over my bike and declared it was time to put in a whole slew of nice, easy winter miles. I've lost count of the hours and miles since then. Mainly that's because the last 3-4 weeks have been strictly indoor riding; and I just can't bear to tally up miles and hours and cadence and power for every ride.

They're all the same. Climb on, warm up, crank for an hour or so, and cool down. If I had to guess I might say I've been getting between 7 and 10 hours a week on the bike. Not bad, considering the brain-deaded-ness of it all.

Earlier this week I received my latest training tool, a Quarq powermeter. I gotta tell you, installing that thing was a breath of fresh air compared to all the SRM's I've installed over the years.

Install a new BB. Install the crank. Install the pedals. Turn the crank to waken the Quarq. Put the Garmin in find-a-friend mode... Done. I think it took me longer to write this description than it did to do the install.

One of my hours of this week's training was, bet you can't guess, on my TT bike trying out the Quarq. The Quarq was flawless, but you knew that would be the case. The real story was how ridiculously painful riding in that position was for that hour. OK, for 55 minutes.

The first 5 minutes were just fine. After that, misery. In fact, I don't think it was even 55 minutes. I bet I stopped 6 times to adjust the saddle, or my left cleat, or the right, or both.

It might be another month before I get the courage to ride that rig again.

Don't bet on it.