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I’m the first to admit that I’m pretty much clueless about the intricacies of cycling in its various forms: road racing, time trials, criterium races, cyclocross and so on. I’m also not even a very good cyclist. In fact I’d go so far as to say that to call me a cyclist would be somewhat premature. While I rode a bicycle a lot when I was younger, was insane enough to attempt a 60 mile cycle tour after quite literally not having exercised for 6+ months (I completed it) and actually enjoy riding a bicycle, to call me a cyclist is a little bit of a stretch. For those you wondering about “younger”, yes that does translate to last century; actually, its fairly significantly last century, but I digress …

In my unremitting descent into masochism I’ve continued to feel the burning need to completely, utterly and totally work over every aspect of my body that hasn’t yet felt pain and to discover new and exciting ways to inflict grievous musculoskeletal carnage on myself. Periodically wreaking havoc on my rotator cuffs from lifting weights barely scratches the surface of my desire for pain. Meting out punishment to my ITB via running is only a physical malaise. Gasping for breath on the elliptical trainer just doesn’t cut it anymore. No, I’ve been wanting to go way beyond simple physical discomfort. I’ve had a hankering to enter the rarified atmosphere of combined mental and physical anguish.

And so I bought a bicycle trainer.

Yes, I am now the proud owner of a brand new instrument of torture - the CycleOps Fluid2 trainer. Whoever designed this particular Machiavellian device should be elevated to the status of High Priest and Chief Inquisitor of the Spanish Inquisition; no other title befits someone who has found a way to cause both body and soul-destroying pain at the same time. The rack is as nothing compared to this throwback to barbarism.

You see, the trainer has made me watch DVDs. Cyclocross DVDs.

In Dutch.

My eyes have been glued to the TV as some off-screen commentator enthusiastically screams “Ze is zeker de toekomst” as an unknown cyclist passes the camera. Not content with battering me with unintelligible discussions, the DVD has been attacking my sense of self-worth by showing me cyclists cycling uphill on mud faster than I can go downhill on asphalt.

And that’s only the beginning. The fiendish devils also included a training video with Robbie Ventura taking you through a criterium race. Now picture me, cycling neophyte, trying to keep up some insane cadence and match effort with those lunatics taking part in the US National Criterium Championships. I think I must have expended more emotional angst and wept more in that torturous hour of diminishing self-value than in the entire previous six months. Whoever came up with the idea of selling a video to inflict emotional distress on someone who is already undergoing severe physical battering is my new idol. Congratulations, you misanthropic fuckers, you’ve succeeded in your goals. You have my undying admiration.

Tonight it’s the gym. Tomorrow it’s round 3: trainer vs. trainee.

The descent continues …