Yesterday, I took a very short spin on my bike. My 1981 Schwinn XR 7 exercise bike. I only lasted for about 100 revolutions. Today, I'll try to double that. I have to ride it when no one is in the house. It makes a racket and is subject to fall apart at any moment.
This bike is unusual because it has over 40,000 miles on it. During its one point something virtual trips around the globe at the equator, it probably actually moved half a mile. I used to have to reposition it when it crept backwards during a spin. Spin, by the way, didn't exist in the lexicon, at least in its current incarnation, in the years that my bike got its heaviest use. In any case, however, it gave me a great workout, up to 30 miles in a sitting, kept my HDL's sky-high and helped me adjust to altitude when we went skiing in Colorado. It never really got my legs ready for skiing, however, a fact that would hit me in the face, or rather, pj pants, when I got out of bed on the second morning of the vacation. I guess my bike wasn't techie enough to affect more than the quads. I hardly knew I had more than the quads to worry about, even though I repeatedly discovered that muscles that come in handy on the slopes do exist in other places in the body.
I would get up in the morning, don the bike pants and a tee shirt -- topped by a fleece when a., it was winter, and b., it (fleece) had been invented -- to get the kids ready for school. As soon as the last person was out the door and the kitchen reasonably clean, I would go upstairs to our guest room where the Schwinn reposed on a small washable rug at the foot of the antique spool bed. (It, the Schwinn, made a convenient rack for out-of-towners.) The same bed, btw, was my ballet barre in the olden days. In any case, I would climb aboard and ignore the discomfort from the seat while compulsively maintaining 100 rpm for the next hour. During that hour, the phone -- one of those early cordless types with a three-foot retractable antenna -- would reside on the book rack, which was never used for its intended purpose (the rack, not the phone). Instead of reading, I would count revolutions and watch the timer and the odometer and sort of zen out.
An advantage of being in the guest room was that I had a great view out the double windows to the west and I could see the driveway on the south side of the house. I never felt isolated or vulnerable while in the zone. (A concept yet to be labeled, but definitely applicable to my sessions.) I craved the activity. And could overlook some serious pain during the rides. I rode barefoot. The peddles had a loose wide leather strap that would have been more useful with shoes, but the effort to put on the shoes was the proverbial straw that would have stopped me in my non-tracks. Even a bout with Achilles tendinitis didn't slow this self-destructive but otherwise healthy endeavor. I just rode the darn thing barefoot and didn't care. I did the tendon stretches and, fortunately, never tore them.
The seat was another point of contention. I developed, with the original saddle, what we musicians would call a violinist's hickey in a rather sensitive spot on the inner thigh. The sore spot evolved, eventually, into an abscess, before I got smart enough to buy a new seat. My internist sent me to a surgeon on the Friday before Easter and Passover (both holidays observed to varying degrees in our household and often involving 20 or more dinner guests). The surgeon, who found the abscess rather arresting as to location and cause, recommended, surprise, surgery. I went home, called our internist back who, having discharged his duty to send me to a specialist, called in a prescription for antibiotics to our neighborhood pharmacy (remember those?) which resolved the infection in due time and kept me away from the creepy surgeon.
Yet another issue that was a constant during the era of my famous ride was discomfort verging on restless leg syndrome - as yet unnamed - in my thigh muscles, especially when I got into bed. I would lie and imagine sitting with my legs in a vat of hot paraffin. The virtual heat would help relax the muscles. A bath was good, but the hot wax concept was more compelling.
The area of the bike around the peddles and the chain cover is encrusted with a coating of rust. I should probably have wiped the bike down after each ride, but it never occurred to me. I found myself producing sweat from parts of the body that shouldn't even have glands. Like the tops of my hands. I rated a good ride when the beads of perspiration on the back of my hands created little runnels that dripped to the floor.
The big question that must by now have been begged by the foregoing (forgive the passive voice) is did I ever lose any weight? The true answer is NO! I figure I burned at least 400 calories in each session, but undoubtedly consumed more when lunchtime rolled around, and rolled around. By the time I had showered, dressed, completed the rest of my morning chores and left the house for a meeting or lunch date, I was completely ready for serious chow-age. I had a pretty decent metabolism, which the workout no doubt assisted, but mostly, the routine made me hungry!
Now, my winter exercise consists of running in place in the house! Is that nuts? Well, probably, yes, but I don't like the neighborhood dogs. The convenience of listening to NPR and running around the downstairs, while noticing dust bunnies and other potential targets for my cleaning obsession, is almost as satisfying as the old zen-outs in the upstairs guest room in Cleveland! But like those pain-ignoring rides of old, the indoor running in bare feet takes its toll on the body! It's an effective means of fusing the discs of the lower spine -- the result of high impact exercise on the aging body without benefit of cushioning soles! This does prove the proverb about old dogs, but we won't touch that!
I've managed to take the ability to ignore pain and discomfort to a new level. However, a week in bed with the flu after Christmas, during which I consumed dozens of Advil, has cured the previously perceived chronic injury! (Don't they put you to bed with muscle relaxants and NSAIDS for spasms?) The real question for me is, what do I do now? I mean, I feel it is my duty at least to make the output of exercise equal the input of chardonnay! (Isn't there an algebraic formula for this?)
Hence, the bike. I'm going to give it another go and hope I don't fall off in a breathless heap, or worse. The speedometer doesn't work anymore, but I think the odometer, which was essential to the compulsion, does. I just didn't go far enough yesterday to move the dials so that I could see without glasses how far my one minute (okay, I wasn't going at my old pace) took me. As I recall, there were slightly more than 200 revolutions per mile, so I guess there's no reason not to resume the old obsessive counting! Maybe I can get up to 3000 revolutions per ride, which was the minimum that qualified me in my own mind as having completed a workout. I feel sure that I won't be killing either my tendons or my butt this time around. Somehow, I think my bike's second life will be more like that of most of its brethren!
