Going Nowhere

It is easy at this point to feel a little panicked, as though my fitness is absolutely static...

The last few weeks have been atrocious, and 45 minutes on rollers in the shed every other night is novel ( actually, not really ) but a little stagnant ( and I don't just mean my sweaty undershirt ).

Timely practice however.  Last Saturday was market day for team750M.

The previous week had been rained ( and snowed ) out - it did actually snow while we were driving down to Margate to peer into Frank's shed for the first time.

This last Saturday turned out to be a glorious day - clear winter sky, beautiful, crisp and cold as only a winter day in Hobart can be.

The image above was taken in the first 5 minutes.  The car thermometer had read 3.5 degrees on the way in, and it felt pretty brisk.  Gav and Craig and I fumbled about with banners and sticky tape, printed images of Oppy and a marquis we had never put up before.

By 9.15 I was turning a wheel.  By 9.30 I was completely sweat-soaked but warm through in short sleeves and shorts, no gloves.

Nice ankle position ( ! )

The amazement of onlookers was the most fun part - as they stopped and stared, looking to see how it was that I was supported.  The young girl pictured above came back for a second look - maybe wondering if she'd catch me out.

You can see Gav there spinning away on the home trainer - I think he also freaked people out momentarily as he'd sit up no-hands to talk to them and they would half expect him to go crashing off.

I found it hard to breathe enough to talk to people, and also necessary to keep one eye on the extremities of the front roller to avoid spearing off into the crowd.  Eye contact in this context not easy, but I did manage some nice conversations with people as they asked about the bikes and what we were up to.

I also managed to roll off into a bloke's arms at one point , as I had been paying more attention to him and what he was saying than I was on what I was doing.

Images are courtesy of Craig's iPhone - organised bunch as usual - and you can see from the middle image just how long the wheelbase of the Malvern Star is.  My road bike sits centred on the roller on the closest ( shortest ) setting.  Here you can see that the Malvern Star is a bit over centre on the front roller, and yet the roller is on the 'longest' setting.

I had to hunt around a bit amongst the moldy old collection to come up with the smoothest and hardest old 28 inch tyres I could find - the new block treads too soft and difficult to spin up to speed.  With modern tyres, it is easy to spin up to high leg revs with no load on the rollers - the old 28-inchers made the experience something like plugging into a headwind - for nearly 5 hours.

I was sore on Sunday - more than I expected to be, but at least I had managed some good muscle building and lung stretching exercise for a change...

Roll on the Tour of Tas...