Resistance

Every winter, the trainer comes out, dusty and cold, from its spot along the side wall of the storeroom. Whether yours operates on principles of magnetism or fluid dynamics, the trainer is an unwelcome sight, like bars on a prison, a reminder of captivity. You will clamp your bike into it, and it will hold you to the floor as you pedal and sweat in your lonely cell.

Whining through sprints and intervals, and clanking through mock climbs, the trainer is a poor substitute for the open road. Not only does it not vary as much as a real ride, but it deprives you of natural bike movements, whether that is canting through obstacles or swaying up a standing climb.

However, the real problem with the trainer comes not from the trainer itself, but from the fact that you have to exercise indoors. Cycling is meant to be an outdoor sport, and the stifling heat of a long indoor session is the most depressing part of indoor training. Even with a good oscillating fan set on high, the amount of perspiration you lose during a long indoor session is remarkable. This is because the evaporative cooling you experience on the road is optimized when the air moves all around your body, over the cylindrical shapes of your arms and legs, and around and across your back. With a floor fan or even multiple fans, a high percentage of your body's surface area doesn't receive a breeze, so evaporative cooling is greatly reduced, leaving you gasping in a pool of sweat.

These associative memories of indoor training make the appearance of the dusty trainer all the more dreaded. You can feel your dry skin crackle at the thought of soaking in a film of sweat, and you recall the towels and jerseys drenched in last year's Tour de Basement. You shudder. But, no matter how you might resist, you realize that you have to press onward.

For, odd as it seems, an unpleasant indoor training session is, ultimately, better than nothing. By the end of it, and after the obligatory shower, you feel a lot better, and you know you've invested in your fitness again. It will pay off. You will ride farther and faster this year. Resistance is not futile.

Bike Lust

Lust is sustaining, because it is fundamentally hopeful. Even in the cold, dark, isolating winter, the mind and body need enticement, excitement, and arousal. During pleasant weather, cyclists can gain and sustain an upbeat attitude with rewarding rides and beautiful mornings on the road -- but bike lust is all winter's isolation and chill leave. The prospect of acquiring a new bike, whether realized or not, can help the avid cyclist survive the season when snow, ice, cold, and winds combine to deprive him or her of the basic pleasures of cycling.

Bike lust comes in different flavors, from the wholesome to the lurid.

Wholesome and publicly acknowledgeable bike lust is the tempered and balanced admiration of a nice bike of less than $1,000 that has a modest componentry and is made, usually, of aluminum. Wanting one of these is like seeking a hug and a kiss on the cheek -- socially acceptable, no signal about further intentions, and low-risk.

A less temperate mode of bike lust includes sexy black carbon weave in erotic arcs and bends, draped with an unseemly amount of componentry. Or even the sleek and frosty titanium, which titillates with gorgeous welds and a soft, matte finish that glows with youth and vitality. Gazing upon these beauties, salivary glands begin to fire, pupils dilate, the pulse quickens, and blood is shunted to your hands as they grasp for your wallet.

Catalog companies know how to exploit bike lust, sending their thick, glossy editions as winter's nadir is reached, making the lonely, trapped cyclist yearn for contact with these enticing fresh and nubile cycles. It is not a mistake that both cycling catalog promoters and "Sports Illustrated" exploit February. We're simply more vulnerable to being plied by gorgeous, curvy, and seductive shapes. And girls in swimsuits are nice to look at, as well.

Infatuation is the next step after lust, and this is a dangerous transition. The object of your lust is now clear, and singular. You think about a particular bike constantly, you may have touched it in the store, and you remember how you approached it -- how it felt, how it responded as you lifted it, how its clean drivetrain beckoned -- and you contemplate the electricity of that first, furtive contact. It becomes an obsession, and you must have it.

If you hold out, however, you may find that, as the weather improves and the roads become available yet again, your current bike feels great, and the familiar joy of riding returns. Its little idiosyncrasies charm you yet again, the shared stories you have and the quirks emerging from years of repairs, maintenance, and miles. One warm day with some tailwinds, and your infatuation dissolves, your lust is vanquished, and your love for your current ride returns in full force.

Or perhaps you indulged, and are riding your new bike. It is then that the charade is revealed, as bike lust returns soon enough. Did you buy carbon? That titanium rig that just blasted past, with its icy skin and smooth ride, looks pretty good. Aluminum? A nice carbon downtube flashes some weave, and your head is turned. The lesson of lust is reinforced: as the famous TV line goes, "Sometimes the wanting is better than the having."

Sick

You get sick during the winter. No matter how optimistic you are as the season of minor and major ailments approaches, how many oranges you eat, how many times you wash your hands, how short you keep your fingernails, how well you dodge the phlegmatic, or how hydrated you keep yourself, an errant germ will wend its way through your defenses and bring you to your knees for at least a week.

Illness affects every dimension of your life, and reliably gives you time to cogitate on each aspect as you lie aching in bed, strung between immobilized exhaustion and bitter resistance. For cyclists, losing lung and muscle power during an illness can be alarming, especially at the physical nadir of winter. Missing rides can be demoralizing. Losing valuable training sessions can set you back.

Some illnesses are mere nuisances, like a head cold can be for a cyclist. The rule of thumb is often stated that if the symptoms remain above the neck you can ride. It's when the lungs begin to fill and myalgias make muscles weak and painful that you need to stop what you're doing and lie down. I don't know how much I trust this. I've had head colds (above the neck) that have made me want to medicate and rest exclusively. To me, if you feel like a ride, you are probably OK to ride. Otherwise, rest and recover, and fight another day.

Riding with a head cold can isolate parts of your aerobic system for analysis unlike anything else, as your clogged nose makes mouth-breathing necessary and you realize how that passive 20% extra you get from a clear nose makes riding at intensity possible. It can also make you more mulish, giving you increased stamina and stubbornness, perfect for long, cold rides in the winter.

When I'm sick, I'll often see things from a different perspective. It might be the virus disrupting my brain, or it might be the time of recovery giving me extra mental cycles to consider the different dimensions of life. In any event, I often leave a severe cold with a slightly different agenda than I entered with it. I also gain a renewed appreciation for the support systems I rely upon but take for granted when I'm well.

For me, the sign that an illness is over is the day I find myself with boundless energy and drive. These super-charged days always strike me as remarkable, and I wish I could time them to correlate with days I actually need them. Riding in a state like that must be amazing.

Illness is like a long, uncomfortable car trip or airplane flight -- it seems interminable when you're in the middle of it, endless and agonizing at times. Yet, when it's over and you have emerged, the memory of it vanishes nearly perfectly, erased from your mind as you reorient forward into the future and become engrossed by the activities around you. You emerge in a different place than you started, and have nowhere to go but forward.