jyl

The spin classes at my gym are for non-cyclists.

Usually there are "hills" which are 10+ minutes standing at 90 rpm (that's my estimate of the typical person's cadence) and "sprints" which are 2-3 minutes standing or seated at 110 rpm, then weird non-cycling stuff like "jumps" getting on and off the saddle every 4 revolutions, "pushups" on the bars, pedaling backwards, etc. If you follow the instructor's resistance instructions literally (turn knob X turns to the right) you'd end up with the pedals locked solid, so I notice that most of the people are not even touching the knob when the instructor says "a heavy half turn to the right".

This threw me off the first couple times. On the "hills" I turned the knob every time I was told to and ended up trying to push something that felt like going up a 15% grade in 39 x 21 - for 10 minutes at 80 rpm - yeah right. On the "sprints" I went into an all-out 300 meter sprint and was locking up thirty seconds later - and the sprint had another 3 minutes to go. Meanwhile the cute girls were spinning effortlessly, wrinkling their noses at this spastic old dude in the funny clothes having a heart attack in the front row . . .

So I learned. On the "hills" I turn the resistance to what makes sense to me - equivalent to a 10% grade at 39 x 21 - and pedal the cadence that I'd actually do up that grade - more like 60-70 rpm - and sit down more than I stand. The rest of the time I work on what I want to - one day it might be spinning low resistance at 150 rpm to get my pedaling action smoother, next it might be intervals, etc. I ignore the non-cycling stuff.

With that approach, I like the spin classes and get a good workout. A better workout than I could safely get in one hour on the road at that time of day (midweek rush hour, just to ride from my work or home to a good hill or non-trafficky stretch of road would take 20 minutes).