It has been nearly six months since Shannon’s magnificent buffet of indoor cycling and group personal training started. In that time, many have come and gone, but there are three of us who have been there consistently. We’ve dropped weight and built strength — a lot of strength. My primary purpose for all of this was to maintain the cycling fitness I worked so hard last spring/summer/fall to achieve. It turns out I did more than maintain it. I’ve improved upon it — big time.

My expectations were that I’d be able to start the season feeling OK and that it would take less time to build back up. Instead, I discovered I’ve got a lot more power on tap, I can ride much faster and I can pedal at a higher sustained cadence. My form has also improved. All those lunges and squats and dead lifts with heavy kettle bells has paid off. So has all the core work. Pretty amazing gains considering how little time was involved (2x per week for 1.5 hours).

People in our riding group who weigh 100 – 150 pounds less than I do are having to work hard to keep up and I can now take the strongest cyclist in our group in short sprints. I know that once we add meaningful amounts of climbing back into the equation (and when the rest of the group gets back into shape) things will level out. But for now, I’m enjoying the mismatch.

Yesterday, one of the other folks from Shannon’s class joined us on a 43 mile ride. This was her first bike ride of any distance ever. She was riding a bike that probably weighed double that of some of the other rides in the pack and she had NO PROBLEM keeping up. I don’t think this would have been possible for her to do in October. At the end, she was nothing but smiles.

Update: We’ve kept going training with Shannon while also adding more miles  the road. Last weekend I busted out my first century ride — no problem — and it is still May!