Rode my new bike for the first time

As mentioned earlier, my OS cleared me to start riding a stationary bike for rehab. The only caveat was to use pain as a guidance for how much I could do.

Last week I purchased an indoor trainer so I could use my own bike as a stationary bike. I got a Kurt Kinetic Road Machine fluid trainer. This thing is awesome.

I also purchased the cadence sensor for my Garmin Forerunner 305 so I could track my workouts. I used this heavily when I was running, so I thought it would be easiest to continue using it instead of buying a whole new computer for the bike. It won't track watts (power) but it will do speed and cadence, and when I ride outdoors it will map my rides, so I'm sure this will be more than adequate for a while.

The first hurdle was figuring out how to get on the bike, given that I have certain rotation and angle rules I have to obey on my right leg. I was able to get my right foot into the pedal clip and use the bike top bar for leverage and swing my left leg over the seat. That worked fine and kept my right leg correctly positioned.

I also had to tilt the handlebars back toward the seat so I wouldn't have to lean over too far to hold onto the bar and change gears. This enabled me to not break the 90 degree rule between my hip/thigh and torso.

I wanted to take it easily (obviously), so I figured 10 minutes, 15 max would be more than sufficient for the first time. It felt great starting off. These fluid trainers are cool! I started off in a mid-gear, big chain ring and 14 or 15 on the cassette.

After about 5 minutes, I figured I would be able to do 15 minutes. I wanted to move to a slightly harder gear for 2-3 minutes just to see how it felt. At about 8 minutes I was starting to sweat. This was great! I love working out and have really missed it. Even though this wasn't a big workout it certainly got the endorphins moving.

At 10 minutes I switched to a lower gear, don't even remember which, but definitely harder. My speed increased a little but the cadence felt about the same. I did that for 3 minutes and then cooled down.

This felt like a major accomplishment to me. Not only giving a good workout for my hip but being on a nice ride on my new bike for the first time. Bikes are much better than when I rode them years ago!

I was grinning ear to ear.