Welcome to the pain cave. It’s a place no cyclist really wants to be, but it’s a necessary evil if you live in a cold climate.
Each fall when the weather turns cold and wet and daylight becomes scarce, cycling outside is, at best, inconvenient and, at worst, dangerous.
For those who want to keep riding, the best way is indoors. For as little as $150, cyclists can buy a trainer, a device that attaches to their rear wheel, converting their ride into a stationary bike. Voila, winter workouts are instantly as convenient as summer mornings.
Except for one pesky issue. “After about an hour you just want to poke your eyeballs out,” said Mike Brazel, a 49-year-old racer from Federal Way, Wash.
Cyclists are constantly looking for ways to liven up their time on the trainer.
“You do things you usually wouldn’t do,” McGilvray, 26, said. “Like listen to Lady Gaga.”
After 25 years of racing, Brazel thinks he solved the boredom problem with a pain cave that can transport him to Hawaii.
Brazel’s setup includes a rowing machine to change up his workouts, an MP3 player loaded with music and the mother of all trainers — a $1,650 CompuTrainer.
The CompuTrainer attaches to a computer and records a variety of stats, from mileage and wattage output to pace and speed. He can load different race courses from around the world — including the Ironman route in Hawaii — and watch actual footage on the monitor while the computer matches the resistance.
CompuTrainer also offers 3-D upgrades.
“It basically turns my bike into a video game,” Brazel said. “The longest I used to ride my trainer was about an hour. … Now I can ride two or three hours and it’s not too bad.
“I think it was a good investment.” For most cyclists, a CompuTrainer won’t fit the budget. So they improvise.
McGilvray streams videos of cyclocross (a hybrid of road and mountain biking) races free to his laptop via YouTube, then blasts classic rock and what he calls “really bad current pop music.”
Then he fires up a fan to stay cool and cranks out a workout that lasts 30 minutes to an hour.
Luke Brechwald, a mountain bike racer and co-owner of Lacey’s Joy Ride Bikes, has an old 28-inch TV and a fan set up in front of his bike in his home workshop.
Whenever he gets hooked on a TV series, he tells himself he can watch only when he’s on his trainer.
Sometimes he sets up his iPad in front of the bike to watch cyclocross race footage.
While cyclists love to hate their Pain Caves, these spaces have their upsides.
“It’s so much easier than getting all kitted up and going out or riding in the dark,” Brechwald said. “And you don’t have to play the stoplight game all the way out of town before you even start your workout. You can get in there and get it done.”
And it’s warmer. “Of course, I’d always rather be riding outside than inside staring at the wall,” McGilvray said.
©2011 The News Tribune (Tacoma, Wash.)
—MCT Respond: letters@boulderweekly.com
