Go for a Spin Around my Mind

I'm not even sure this can really be considered a blog post. It's more just a single thought I had yesterday.

But I guess a blog post can sort of be whatever I want it to be, right?

Anyways, recently I've started taking spinning classes, and one of the hardest things to get used to is knowing how much resistance to put on the bike when the instructor tells you to.

Sometimes instructors will say a "quarter turn" or whatever...but you never really know from what point you should be starting, and all of that.

And then I started thinking about all of the technology we have these days. I actually wrote a post about it awhile back. And I thought to myself, why can they not make spinning bikes that quantify resistance so the instructor can just say "turn your resistance to 10?" They have that for other stationary bikes at the gym.

Now--a lot of times, people think thoughts like that and then they just shrug and go, "well that's dumb. I can't believe no one has thought of that." But, I like to give people a little credit where I can, so I need to bring this a step further. It cannot be true that no one has ever thought, "let's quantify the resistance on these bikes." There must be a good reason for it.

There must not be a demand for it. Maybe it would change the dynamics of spin class. Maybe it is an important aspect of spinning class that everyone is working at their own resistance. Every person has their own effort scale of 1-10. And that effort scale may not correspond with the 1-10 resistance scale on the bikes. So a 6 on the bike for one in-shape person may feel like a 6 on their effort scale. But, for the poor schlub that just started taking the class (that would be me) a 6 on the bike may feel like an 8 on my effort scale. And what's most important about class is how hard you (personally) are working.

Maybe this is just one of those things that's always been obvious for everyone else...but I felt like I had a breakthrough when I pieced this all together.

So, I figured I'd share.

"The distance the shotput goes is determined by the effort you put into it...PERSPIRATION!!"

-Ms. Trunchbull, Matilda