h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Today I took part in an event to raise funds for building a school. It was 'spinning', that is to say riding bicycles that go nowhere inside a gym. It was the first spinning class I've ever had. I had to do it for an hour. There was an instructor at the front, but the very loud music meant we couldn't really hear what she said but I just did the sort of thing she and the others did. Most participants were girls much younger than I ... indeed I think for that session I was the oldest participant. At any rate being in a room with so many nice girls did wonders for my testosterone. I think I did pretty well, I kept up for the entire time and wasn't even particularly tired afterward. It was ages since I've last ridden a real bicyle. In my dreams I still cycle a lot, though, if that counts for anything. I do train, lifting weights three days a week, walking to the grocery store and back - carrying my groceries on the return trip - a couple of times a week, and a few other vigorous activities also. So anyways, after me our team's next session was taken by a girl even younger than the others - the eight year old daughter of a friend of mine! She did well but didn't exactly follow the instructor's lead. My friend and her children are very fit, they cycle for real a lot - they often come to visit me riding their bikes from their home many miles away.

My big concern on *starting* the session was the seat. For a man, a bicycle seat is, depending on the design, not always a kind thing, and these weren't well designed. Maybe that is why most participants were women. But mercifully for a lot of the class we 'stood up' off the seat.

I was also interested to experience that we used different stances ... leaning forward, very upright, crouched down and so forth ... which gave different muscles, even upper body muscles, work.

I wish I had money to join a gym, I think I would like this sort of thing more regularly.

That's great, Willem, I love that, especially your descriptions of it. heheh. I see these cycling sessions in the gym, I do wonder about the guys with the narrow racing seats, youch! haha, but I watch people cycling up the hills and down the hills and over mountain ranges and halfways across the world, and all on a screen in front of them, looks great!

My Dad used to worry about us going to a gym, he thought we should harness our energy for gardening, or farming, , he never could figure all that energy going nowhere, walking up virtual hills and things, bless him, he was from a different generation.

cc

This sounds really cool, Willem.

Bicycles look like fun, but I have the broken teeth to prove I can't do it.

I haven't tried to ride a bicycle since I almost landed in the Rhine - no, I tell a lie, Elektra made me try, and then she had to ride the tandem by herself. Don't do this in the Netherlands, they laugh at you.

Hello Cactuscafé and Dmitri! Cactuscafé, these bikes didn't display nice pictures ... in fact they didn't display anything at all. We're not that technological over here!

In the old days we lived right on the edge of the wilderness, and I could go hiking towards the north, east or south and could walk there over fairly rough countryside for hours, which I'm sure was good exercise. But these days the suburbs have expanded so much that there's just a small bit of wild countryside left towards the east. I don't like walking or jogging in the suburbs much, but like I said I do walk to go shopping a lot. And my yard and garden is small, so there's not a lot of physical work to be done, so I do my exercises and stuff to keep me going. I can do a lot here at home but it would be nice to work out at a gym again just because there you get to meet and do stuff with other people, not alone.

Sorry to hear about your cycling woes Dmitri! I also have an exercise-induced chipped tooth, but this was because of me losing control on an exercise and slamming into a steel bar that was part of the device I was training on. Bicycles, though, I've not had trouble with - got my first one when I was five years old or so back when I lived in Pretoria, and drove bike to school all my school days and even had a bike when I was at University in Pretoria, rode it from hostel to class and also into the city centre and so on. But my bicycles kept getting stolen there, so eventually I had to settle for walking wherever I wanted to go, except when I managed to catch a bus. Buses were not always reliable back then ... wonder how the situation is today.