First spin class of 2012

To legs, the new spin bikes are coming!

5:40 a.m. 1-hour spin class at the North Shore Jewish Community Center
The first spin class of the year was nearly full, but it was a surprise that there were even two open bikes, given the class is usually packed with New Year Resolutioners. All the usual 5:40 a.m. spandex suspects were there led by Margie, the jovial spin class student turned jovial spin class instructor. Margie serves as our mother hen and DJ, making sure we have water and cranking out a surprisingly good mix, including Taylor Swift, the "50 First Dates" remake of Spandau Ballet's "This Much is True," Van Morrison's "Dark Side of the Road," plus some funky Stevie Wonder: "Someone Who Needs Me!" They are upbeat songs you can do-woop to if you want. While it's not the kind of class a really serious roadie might sanction, Margie gives us a really good workout, and keeps it light while we crank up the dial. I usual sweat profusely and zone out, pretending I'm climbing the auto road of Mt. Edith Cavell in Jasper National Park in Canada last summer. I imagine Geoff Hamilton dragging me up the climb, while I complain to him about how difficult it was to have an Insinkerator garbage disposal installed in my kitchen sink. (That's another story best left unsaid.)
Margie was also riding one of the 25 new spin bikes the JCC has been promising it would buy for the class for about as long as Moses wandered the desert. The present bikes we ride on are well past their useful life, with shaky handlebars, brakes that do not work and broken water bottle cages. Some squeak. Some knock. Some have resistance that goes from nothing to Mt. Edith Cavell in a quarter turn. I've had my foot come out of the pedal on more than one occasion. While I love to complain about the old bikes, I give thanks that the higher authority has finally seen it fit to bestow upon us the proper spin equipment at last. Amen. The new bikes can tell speed, cadence, and work with Polar heart rate monitor straps. Nice.
After class and getting the girls to school, I headed down to Phillips Beach to walk the dog, Masha, where a friendly acquaintance gave me a New Year's present, a rare Mows and Blows T-shirt for a lawn mower repair business started by her young nephew. I wonder if the boy could fix my mower next spring? I wonder if he could fix those old spin bikes at the J? Probably not.