Despite the glorious sunshine and clear skies today, this week has been pretty atrocious weather-wise, and thus has heralded the unleashing of the turbo for many members of the British cycling community. Synonymous with the self-infliction of both extreme pain and exceptional tedium, the turbo trainer also lends itself to the sort of obsessive goal setting, box ticking and generally anal behaviour that in other walks of life would be considered substantial steps away from sanity. But the turbo aficionado is well aware that such habits are essential if the monotony of pedalling against what is basically just a glorified brake is not to tip one over the edge.
As such, it was with great interest that I noticed on Twitter that Kent-based self-styled “Has been bikie” Flandrian has set himself the goal of doing one hundred hours on his turbo trainer this winter.
This, I thought, was a fine idea. In fact, it had all the ingredients of a truly brilliant plan, and one that I fancied a part of, but it would take some organisation. What could I do to ease the boredom of all of those mind and arse-numbing hours? My collection of cycling DVDs would barely get me through the first ten. It might be time to break out the directors cut of Das Boot…
Anyway, such an undertaking requires a means with which to record the endeavour, so I decided to knock up a tick sheet (featuring a few inspirational lines of verse) to stick on the fridge (or any other suitable surface) that would detail my progress over the hundred hours. If anyone else fancies joining in then download and fill out the form as you go, and I’ll work on designing a suitable certificate for any readers crazy enough to complete the 100 Hours of Turbo.
Click here to download a high resolution PDF of the 100 Hours tick sheet
If anyone fancies a proper printed version of the tick sheet (maybe A3?) on nice paper then drop me a line and I’ll see what I can do.