What to wear (and not to wear) in spin class

When I first started working out, I wore anything, and by "anything," I mean shorts and a cotton T-shirt. Over the years, I've started dressing for the specific activity (running clothes for running, cycling clothes for cycling / spinning, yoga clothes for yoga, etc.) and the reason isn't so I can single-handedly support the makers of athletic apparel.

Take running and cycling (or spinning), for example. You'll notice there is a significant difference between running and cycling tops (for women): running -- and other tops for random cardiovascular activities as well as your everyday tank tops -- are designed for the wearer who remains upright, while cycling (or triathlon) tops are cut very high at the neck, providing coverage for the user who is bent over handlebars. On the left, a running top, on the right a cycling (technically a tri) jersey:

It doesn't take much of an imagination to figure out what happens when a woman wearing anything but a top cut high at the neck leans over. In spin class where there are mirrors around the room, it doesn't, in fact, take any imagination at all.

Which brings us to shorts. When you're riding on a saddle that's getting up in there (and that's been up in a lot of theres as is the case in spin class), you want a little something between you and the saddle. Thus, bike (or tri) shorts offer a lot more coverage on the thigh compared to running shorts -- good for preventing chafing as well as separating church and state -- and they're also fairly high cut on the back so they don't gape and leave you with a breezy derriere as you lean over. Running shorts on the left, bike shorts on the right:

Lastly, shoes. Granted, a 45-minute spin class isn't exactly a stage of the Tour de France, so footwear isn't of paramount importance, but a stiff-soled cycling shoe will still give you a more efficient pedal stroke than a (relatively) floppy-soled sneaker. (Again, running on the left, cycling on the right.)

Also, cycling shoes clip in such that the pedal is under the ball of your foot, which generates more power than if the pedal is under your arch. Many people erroneously jam their sneakers all the way into toe cages so that the pedal lands under the arch of the foot, not realizing that it's more efficient to pedal with it under the ball of the foot. (Incidentally, the cycling shoe above is a mountain-biking shoe because I left my spinning shoes in the office. Because MTB shoes are quite heavy, most people prefer to spin in road or triathlon shoes -- not that it matters all that much since you're not exactly going anywhere on your spinning bike.)

In New York City, stores like Jack Rabbit and Paragon sell both running and cycling gear. Paragon also sells their goods online and Sierra Trading Post also sells a lot of running, cycling and triathlon gear at a discount, although they are absolutely the king of junk mail, so if you order from them, be prepared to get a zillion catalogs.

Ironman, here I come

I learned how to ride a bike this weekend. I don't mean I learned how to race, or how to clip in with cycling shoes, or how to work the gears on a mountain bike. I mean I learned how to not fall over while making the bike go forward -- what the rest of the world learns at approximately the age of five. I think I was the only adult Chinese person on the planet who didn't know how to ride a bike.

No one actually believes me when I tell them I can't ride a bike because, after all, I spin. A lot. When I take spinning classes with teachers who don't know me, they inevitably come up to me after class to ask which group I ride with. (I do hill climbs particularly nicely, thank you very much, Versus.)

The last time I tried learning how to ride a bike, my friend rented a bike and took me down to the pier by Chelsea Piers. I tried pedaling (and falling over) several times before getting impatient and strapping on my rollerblades -- a far more successful endeavor. The icing on the cake was when a man in a wheelchair -- he'd been observing me fall repeatedly -- offered some tips. You know you're doing a terrific job riding a bike when you need advice from someone who can't walk.

A couple years ago I signed up for the Nautica-New York City Triathlon, hoping that the race (by which I mean the exorbitant race fee) would force me to learn how to ride. I ended up losing the entrance fee. Finally, sidelined by plantar fasciitis, I decided it was now or never.

I looked up Terry Chin, who's been written up multiple times in The New York Times for his riding lessons for adults. Saturday morning, I met up with my class. Aside from the fact that Terry really gets a kick out of making fun of you -- *exactly* what an adult who doesn't know how to ride a bike is looking for -- the two-hour lesson ended with me (and most of the rest of the class) riding out of Riverside Park.

Sunday, I decided to attempt Central Park, which was possibly not the best idea for my second day on a bike, but I figured, why not aim high? After several false starts (and many startled pedestrians), I was up and running (so to speak). Voila:

You may be wondering why exactly I require a helmet to ride at the bone-chilling speed of five miles an hour, but in the words of my colleague, "It's better to look like a fruit than end up a vegetable."