I’m dreaming of a magnetic Christmas!

What did I want for Christmas? What else but a better instrument of torture? Thus it was that on Saturday, Monado & I went to the Bicicletta (“the bike store of hopes and dreams”!) in Toronto’s North Fairbanks neighbourhood, and bought me a Tacx Flow trainer.

I’ve ridden about 40 or 50 “miles” on it over the last few days. It’s more stable, has a better display, and is more, well, usable, than my previous trainer. I put the old trainer on the boulevard (i.e., strip of grass between sidewalk and curb) in front of our house, and it was gone in about 24 hours.

Candidly, I was at least partly upsold by Henry at the Bicicletta. I’d been sent there by Coach Steve, because his “athletes” allegedly enjoy a discount. Henry pointed out that the Flow can be upgraded with various data-collection and VR add-ons; in aid of this upselling, I mounted a bike on an uprated Tacx and “biked” along some road in Europe, with (and this is really the best part) the resistance on the trainer changing as the “grade” of the road changed. I’ll admit it was cool. Now if only I could have a DVD of the Ironman Wisconsin course!

There’s a video game–like version that you use to steer a CGI cyclist along a CGI road; with the appropriate attachments, you “steer”; for fun, I “steered” my avatar into a wall. :-) It didn’t hurt a bit—unlike my last fall.