Slightly interesting things from the turbo

Photo from before Christmas. For the horticulturalists, the geraniums are still doing well and the hyacinths have just come out but they are blue when they were supposed to be white

Thanks to sciatica, a fall, skiing, Christmas and bad weather (yes, I know, excuses, excuses) it’s 3 months since I rode outside. However, now the sciatica is 95% OK,  and thanks largely to the 6 Nations Rugby and the FA cup on TV, I have done 4 one hour sessions on the turbo trainer in the last 6 days.

It’s going quite well but it’s early days in getting back into the cycling groove – very necessary with the White Horse Challenge 10 weeks away and the ride out to the alps only 5 months off.

Two (slightly) interesting things from training on the turbo:

• first, listening carefully, I can certainly detect a ‘lopsidedness’ in my pedalling. I guess I don’t pedal efficiently at the ‘flat spot’ when the pedals are around 6 and 12 o’clock. The result is that the noise of the turbo is more of a whoowhoowhoo instead of a whooooooooo (if you know what I mean). I guess that a smoother action will be much more efficient so I’m trying hard to deliver that as I don’t have much else to focus on (other than the sport).

• secondly, I’ve noticed the effect of adrenaline. Without intending to, momentarily, I certainly pedal a bit faster when something really exciting happens on the TV. It’s not obvious from pedal speed but the change in the note from the turbo is certainly detectible. Happily, with England scoring 7 tries on Sunday, I had some good opportunities to observe this phenomenon.