One of the things I love about cycling is the fun of riding in a group. It doesn’t matter whether it’s with just a few close friends, a big club ride or even at races, there always seems to be a good camaraderie!
Over the winter I normally spend more time indoor cycling and in the gym. Our gym is being completely refurbished and they have put in a cool new studio with RealRyders so I have been spending a lot of time in these classes, even now the weather has improved!
I definitely feel indoor cycling is more fun in a group or at a spin class
and I think the competitive element plays a part here!
Let me give you an example. A few weeks ago our Instructor had us doing sprints towards the end of the session, it started out with the normal 30 or 45 second efforts and we ended up doing 60 seconds out of the saddle. Just as the 60 seconds is finishing the Instructor calls for another 2o seconds, then another!
Standing sprints definitely make you work much harder on this stationary bike as you are using your core muscles and arms to stabilise the bike, so having to do another 40 seconds after you have gone all out for what you thought was “only” going to be 60 seconds was tough! In fact, quite a few of the class cracked before the time was up.
As soon as we finished the guy next to me said “I wouldn’t have kept going if you hadn’t”. We were both grinning despite having legs like jelly and struggling to get our heart rates back down! It made us both work harder, but was still fun.
I also like catching up on news and sharing a few jokes. It’s certainly more social than indoor cycling on your own in the basement! (I look on that as something you have to do sometimes and we will cover how to make that more enjoyable in a future post).
One last plus point is I think a scheduled class helps keep you on track with your training. So you know you have a RealRyder class three nights or mornings each week at set times and it keeps you motivated to get your indoor cycling hours in!
