Ceolwulf

Concur, fluid trainers are the way to go for normal trainers. Road feel is much better.

Late response - this forum doesn't exactly move fast, and I haven't signed in for a while, but - I'm on Zwift pretty often; it's my thing-to-do in winter. Absolutely love it. You will not regret. I went from just barely being able to stay on the trainer for an hour, providing I had a good training video to ride to - 45 minutes was the absolute limit if just watching a TV show or something - to now an hour on the trainer flies by, and feels like I actually went for a ride. Plus there's more hills in Zwift than there are outdoors here in Manitoba (doesn't take much). So I think training on Zwift is actually better training than outdoor riding, or can be at any rate. The variety of scenery and terrain is really good now too, with a choice of flat routes (riding underwater in a clear tunnel!) to hills to a pretty proper mountain. There's the London and Richmond courses too but the less said about those the better ... Watopia is designed to be a cycling paradise, so not many real life courses will measure up. Well, riding in London a few times is nice for the novelty. You don't need a smart trainer, although it's definitely nice to have. A normal trainer and a speed sensor, as long as the trainer on their list for virtual power (most are); or a power meter on your bike with any trainer or rollers; either way also works well. If you do decide on a smart trainer I can recommend a Tacx Vortex Smart like mine for a good budget option. It's limited to simulating about an 8% gradient, but for the price I don't think you can beat it. I have a hard time imagining how any cyclist hanging out at a place called "Nerd Fitness" could *not* be riding in a virtual world/game, given the chance edit - and I just saw on the other thread you're on it already that's okay, hopefully this info is useful to someone later.

I did take that course this last weekend. Fell off five times (was ok, the water was warmer than the air). Loved it! It's pretty easy until you start the more advanced turns etc. Thinking now about getting an inflatable board. Tower seems to make a good one and it costs about as much as a stitch-and-glue kit for a wooden board which I was also considering.

Nuts, fruit, jerky. Think though you'll soon find you're forgetting to eat them.

I just bought a canoe this year so I won't be getting one right away, but I'd love to. Looks like a lot of fun and a good workout. I might end up building one. There's an intro seminar put on by a local outdoor shop coming up in a month or so that I think I will take in just to see how it is.

Thanks for the replies. I'm concluding I'm probably best off waiting till I can move somewhere more civilized. Plenty of other stuff to do in the meantime.

I use rollers sometimes. (To be honest I absolutely hate exercising indoors so I usually X-C ski instead. But every now and then I hit the rollers.) They're not nearly as tricky as they look, and riding on them is far more like actual cycling than one of those horrid wind trainers. Just start in a doorway so that you can instantly steady yourself if you need to. After a few goes you won't need it. A post or something beside it is good though, helps with getting situated and underway. You can't really sprint on them or stand up and pedal. The roller frame doesn't move so if you try that you'll probably fall off. Well, you can sprint pretty good as long as you stay seated. High gears help. There are actually such things as "free motion rollers" that have the frame mounted on secondary wheels with springs and a track to keep it in place while allowing front to back motion. Those you can stand up and pedal on. They're pretty hard to find and expensive but if you're a little handy with tools you can turn a conventional set into free motion rollers easily enough. Check on youtube for some examples. Incidentally if you do fall off, the imagination suggests that you'd go shooting into your TV at a high rate of speed, but in reality nothing that dramatic happens you don't really have any momentum so you just topple over. Well, presumably you put a leg down and catch yourself first. Not a big deal. Resistance depends on the roller diameter, the flexibility of your tire, and the air pressure in your tire; since essentially the deflection of your tire is the only source of resistance. Smaller rollers, higher resistance. I don't really advise the very small rollers though; I think roller riding is more about developing good form, a nice smooth fast spin, as well as a reasonable amount of cardio, rather than a hard high resistance workout. After a winter spent on rollers you'll be riding very straight and smooth on the road. The Bike Nashbar house brand rollers are cheap and good. Don't need higher end ones unless you're planning to spend a lot of time on them. Maybe even then.

Some good stuff here too: http://www.fatburningman.com/category/recipes/ They also just released an iOS recipe book app which I got, and there's some really good stuff in there, lots that doesn't look hard to make, and some good snackables

Should be fine. It'll handle a bit sluggishly though. If you can test it first that'd be best. paddling.net forums are full of helpful people. See you on the water

Haven't tried a blender yet. I'll have a go.

I don't know what witchcraft you people are using but I absolutely cannot get these things to hang together, just get banana scrambled eggs every time

I've yet to do this myself because I only two days ago got the app (Paprika) I want to use, but some recipe organizing software will generate shopping lists based on what you want to make. Then you can just figure out what you want to eat that week and have the program do the rest.

With a bowl of the 9% Greek yogurt, topped with a few blueberries and cashews, I'm barely even hungry by noon. Lower fat yogurt not as effective.

Walking in the woods is good for the body and soul in equal proportions. Last summer I was out to Vancouver Island and did a tiny bit of the Marine Trail along the coast, Juan de Fuca Park. Now hiking that whole trail is something I must do someday.

My solution has mainly been cross country skiing.

Try them Hawaiian style: https://www.evernote.com/shard/s284/sh/b1ed209b-9a06-453d-a859-fb6a537a8db4/493a4285c8d80e4b619e2ef881d3f58b

When they close the lid, then you're too old.

I have this idea that I'd like to start Tai Chi. Unfortunately I live in the middle of nowhere and the closest instructors are an hour and a half away. Is it at all practical to learn from books/videos or will I just be teaching myself bad habits?

For really long days, clip-on aero bars would be worth considering. That way there's next to no pressure on your hands at all.

My commute is pretty short; takes me about 25 minutes, taking it easy. Which I always do because there's no showers at the office. I use my old mountain bike, with slick tires and fenders on. (It hasn't rained once on a day when I'm biking in (most every day) after I put the fenders on. I think they're a magical rain ward.) It's still a lot easier to hop in the car. But a co-worker who lives close to me and I have a bit of a challenge going - whoever rides the most over the summer gets a gift card to a local bike shop. We're exactly tied now and the thought of falling behind is just about unbearable so we ride every day re: knee pain: as a general rule if the front of your knee hurts your saddle is too low; if the back hurts the saddle is too high. It doesn't take long for that to show up. Luckily it also doesn't take long to go away once you've corrected the problem. Cycling is actually one of the best things you can do for knee joints. Also, make sure you're not pushing too hard in a high gear; you should be pedaling at around 90rpm, give or take. It'll feel too fast at first but you'll soon get used to it.

Yeah, my breakfast is normally 7am or so, so this would be 13, 14 hour window.

I've not really tried intermittent fasting at all to speak of, except for two full days a couple weeks apart, which did seem to work well, not that you can tell much from that. But reading more about it, it seems what a lot of people do is stick to an eight-hour window every (most) day. The body burns fat more whilst in a fasted state, so expanding the time during which one is in a fasted state helps; also, one usually just eats less with two meals a day, which is clearly something I need to do. Now for the most part people skip breakfast, eat lunch, eat supper before 8:00, and call it good. What I'd like to try though is eating a bigger breakfast, then not eat again till quite late, 9:00 or so. This would have some advantages for me, I think. It would increase the fasted-state time during which I'm awake and burning more calories than asleep (granted that being motionless in the office doesn't burn a lot). It would mean my evening moving-a-lot-at-a-slow-pace workout would be done as fasted meaning more fat burned. It would mean I'd be able to take more time making a nice supper (I do enjoy cooking but I resent the quantity of time it takes especially at the beginning of my evening). But the biggest thing is it would give me my lunch hour to study/read and not have to waste time eating, and not being in a panic every morning to make a lunch! This is seriously the bane of my existence! Anyone tried a regimen like this? any input from those of you who do intermittent fasting regularly?

Hey all, So, hmm, how much of my life story do you want? Let's briefly touch on elementary school, where I was always the chubby kid who couldn't run well - ok enough of that, on to college age where I was the guy that cycled 30, 40, 50km as an everyday sort of thing, but was still flabby - then got into bodybuilding for a while and was about to make some decent progress with that and quit - then kind of flailed about doing some cycling occasionally and even winning a triathlon as part of a relay team, alternating with not doing much of anything, and then last year I started running a bit more seriously and finished a half marathon, and my "recovery" from that has lasted about till now - as you can see I have trouble sticking with things! but last year was the first time I'd really had any health problems, with chronic upset stomach that the doctor couldn't diagnose (big surprise there ... usually they can only diagnose things once it's way too late, in my experience). I tried different diet approaches. Being strictly vegan was sort of working and sort of not but more not. Also I was constantly hungry. A few months ago I decided to try paleo/primal and that seems to be the answer for me; upset stomach is pretty much gone, and I lost weight without really trying. Having said that though, when I started I was at the heaviest I'd ever been (226) and now I've dropped to 206 and seem to be stuck there, whereas my ideal bodyweight is more like 175. I've started cycling again, also canoeing, but still inconsistent (summer is too ridiculously busy) and no strength training yet. So I seem to be out of the starter zone but lots of leveling up left to do. 39 years old now and I really can't depend on things to take care of themselves anymore. General nerdery, well, I'm mostly into language learning for the past few years, slowly getting better at Japanese, seeing new patterns, having the strange become familiar, understanding new things is what recharges my brain every day. Hoping to start Italian soon as well. Used to play quite a bit of MMORPGs, more WoW than anything else but also touching on LotRO, Perfect World, DDO, etc. Not really playing at all anymore though, no time. Also really want to get going with classical guitar again, and also learn the lute ... most days I feel like the White Rabbit, "I'm going to be late, I'm going to be late!" Anyway good to be here and hoping to help where I can and get help where I need