The Cycle Studio: Rollin' Like a Big Shot

I love bikes. No, not the fancy kind with the slim tires, low handlebars and sleek, flat seats (really, whose tush actually fits comfortably on that type of seat anyway?). A mountain bike isn't really my style either. I doubt you'll ever find me "off-roading" on a rocky dirt path with muddy shoes and calves. I'm more of the cruiser-type. You know, the type of bike with oversized tires, an upright riding position and most importantly, lots of cool vintage styling. Add a basket to the front so I can jaunt around with a fluffy white puppy on a perfectly sunny day and I'm in my happy place.

So you can imagine my hesitation when I was told to check out The Cycle Studio - an indoor cycling training facility in Carmel that is powered by CompuTrainer. CompuTrainer is a state of the art multi-rider system that collects and displays data such as power watts, mph, cadence, average watts/kilogram, heart rate and basically everything a "real" bike rider would want to know. Needless to say, I decided to leave my cruiser parked in my apartment garage and give The Cycle Studio a try.

My first class was humbling. I walked in and everyone was warming up on their individual CompuTrainers, switching around fancy gears and pedaling their legs at lightening bolt speed. You know when you are driving in your car on a fall day and you see a pack of riders with the whole get-up - bike shorts, jerseys, clip-on shoes - zip by you? Well, that's what it was like inside The Cycle Studio. And then there's me in my lululemon crops and tank, Asics and pink hybrid bike.

Shea Rankin, the owner of The Cycle Studio and triathlon coach, helped me get my bike set up on the CompuTrainer and explained the different gears and how to adjust them. About every 20 or 30 minutes I would maneuver the wrong gear adjustment and the entire chain would come off and my bike would come to a screeching halt. I was truly an amateur.

All set up on the CompuTrainer for a Saturday morning ride. That's me bopping around in the back left corner.

Shea then explained the course, which can range from customized races with hills and sprints mixed in to actual Ironman races (I think it's perfectly fair to tell people that I once completed Ironman Canada). The CompuTrainer is calibrated to each rider's weight and the fly wheel adjusts as you ride hills. In spinning, you can adjust your own resistance as you see fit. On CompuTrainers, the resistance changes for you based on the course and whether you want to or not, you better adjust your speed and power with it.

At the front of The Cycle Studio is a giant screen with the course and each rider's name, stats and place on the course. You best believe that for my first few rides I was consistently stuck in place number eight, thousands of miles behind place number seven. Number seven, though seated right in front of me, was so far off in the distance of the course that I would have to hop into a motorized vehicle, nay, a flying engine, to ever catch up with him.

The giant screen at the front of the studio with the course and each rider's stats.

The neat thing about The Cycle Studio is that each cyclist rides at his or her own pace. A 20-minute time trial (yes, it's as brutal and ferocious as it sounds) determines your LT (lactate threshold), which then determines your other heart rate zones, starting at Zone 1 or Tempo all the way up to Zone 6 or VO2 Max. So essentially, you are riding at your own skill level and your own ability. But once that competitive streak sneaks in, it's hard to resist trying to edge yourself past the person ahead.

My hybrid bike. Notice the pink accents.

Fancy road bike with slim tires and low handlebars.

For triathletes who want to improve their cycling performance, The Cycle Studio is top notch. Riders can actually race on real courses such as Kona, Louisville and Wisconsin. Most importantly, riders get personalized coaching from one of the best - Shea. Shea has competed in hundreds of triathlons, from sprint distance to Ironman. She is a competitive age-grouper, often winning sprint races and placing in the top 10 of her age group on the national level.

But besides her skills and impressive biography, Shea is warm, welcoming and funny. I am probably the only rider who visits The Cycle Studio with goals just to get a good workout (no plans anytime soon for an Ironman for me), but Shea coaches me just the same as she does her other riders ("core tucked in," "relax your shoulders," "get those watts up") and has the same high expectations for me as she does her top riders.

Bikes in storage at The Cycle Studio. Indiana winters mean riding inside. It's always 68 degrees and sunny at The Cycle Studio!

The Cycle Studio has shown me that with effort, patience and stamina come improved results (in my second time trial on Thursday my LT went up from 164 to 178). I have been riding at The Cycle Studio since last summer and can proudly state that my chain no longer falls off when I switch gears and I'm not consistently stuck in place number eight. After six months riding with Shea and her athletes, I am now a more confident person on and off the bike.

Fitting quote on a wall inside The Cycle Studio.

While I will never be the studio's next "Mindy Nicolet" - who was the Top Amatuer Female in the 2012 Ironman Arizona - Mindy and the other riders at The Cycle Studio inspire me. Athletes like Mindy remind me that there will always be people ahead of you in the race - sometimes by thousands of miles and other times by just a few miles. But you are truly in a race with only yourself - a race to achieve your own maximum watts and then maybe - hopefully - improve those watts over time. Baz Luhrmann said it best in his famous song "Everbody's Free To Wear Suncreen": Sometimes you’re ahead, sometimes you’re behind. The race is long and, in the end, it’s only with yourself.