Silliness...in every sense of the word.

Last night my friend Sarah persuaded me to try a “spinning” class at my local gym.

“Is it hard?”  I ask, innocently.

“Not really, it’s like doing an aerobics class, but on an exercise bike…”
 
Before I go on, let me set the scene.  I have absolutely nothing against exercise, as long as it doesn’t make me sweat too much.  I’m definitely a walker rather than a runner…and I am also one of those abnormal people who has never actually ridden a bike before (I never had one as a child, coming from a poor, single-parent family – cue the violins).  But hey, if all I’m doing in this class is cycling on the spot, how hard can that be?

We turn up for the class ten minutes early, as apparently you have to choose your bike carefully.  It’s a tiny room and not very well ventilated, judging by the lingering smell of stale sweaty feet mingled with deodorant permeating the air.  I don’t have to choose my bike carefully at all; I claim the one right at the back.  Sarah reluctantly takes the bike next to mine, letting out a sacrificial sigh as she does so; she’d wanted to be at the front.  Shame, that.

The bike itself is a cold, uninvitingly horrible looking contraption, with its rock-hard saddle and wobbly handlebars, which I try to adjust to my height by twisting the knob underneath.  The handlebars come off in my hands.

The rest of the class start trickling into the room.  I hadn’t been expecting any men to turn up, but there’s one here, displaying his over-pumped muscles in a tiny yellow cotton vest top that looks as though it’s going to rip off, Incredible Hulk style, at any moment…in fact I’m not really sure why he bothered putting it on in the first place.  Still, I’m grateful for his arrival as he single-handedly affixes my handlebars back onto the bike with a winning smile, then jumps effortlessly on to his (the one directly in front of mine) and starts pedalling furiously as if his life depended on it.  Steady on love, the class hasn’t started yet…

A group of forty-something women come in.  The leader of the pack has an aggressively toned and Tango-ed figure, which she is flaunting in a bright pink cycling shorts and bra top combo.  She takes the bike at the very front of the class and also starts frantically pedalling, flinging her arms around in the air as she does so.  The rest of the group chat about who will be taking the class.  “Carlos is an absolute wonder; my thighs haven’t been the same since that last Power Bike class…”  “Mary doesn’t make you work hard enough; she’s a bit too timid, bless her.  Too skinny as well, if you ask me…”

The rest of the class file in one by one and choose their bikes, and finally the instructor arrives, a shy looking stick-thin woman in a plain black T-shirt and leggings (I guess it must be Mary).  She looks petrified of the Pink Lady at the front, still waving her arms madly around as though she’s been demonically possessed.  Mary affixes her Britney Spears-style microphone and we’re off.

It’s not a bad start, to be fair.  The music starts up; it’s a nice old-skool club anthem and we all cycle along to it enthusiastically.  I don’t mind this at all…actually 45 minutes of it should be easy enough, I think, pedalling merrily away in time with the music.

Then all of a sudden we’re told to “up the resistance” – as Mary shows us a little dial on the front of the bike which the further you turn it, the more it’s supposed to feel like you’re pedalling up a hill.  I turn mine round; instantly I’m pedalling up Mount Everest.  I turn it back hastily as Mary politely tells us to get into a standing position on the bike.  Just as I’m getting used to that we have to fling ourselves back down onto the uncomfortably hard saddle…then stand up once again in a bizarre sequence of movements that I imagine looks to the untrained eye as though we’re suffering from some kind of group fit. 

All the while we’re being screamed at to “turn up that resistance dial and burn some calories…wooh...come on!”  I don’t dare do this; instead I just put my hand over the top of the dial and pretend to turn it, wondering how many other people in the class are doing the same thing.  I can’t be the only one, surely…

I really feel like getting off the bike and walking out at this point, but then I take a look over at Sarah, spinning away effortlessly next to me, and I realise why she invited me to the class in the first place, it’s that “competition between friends” thing.  I don’t hold it against her; we all have moments like that, where we feel the need to prove our worth in front of our friends (or is that just me?)  But I decide at that moment that I will finish this class if it kills me.

Not an easy task.  I’m starting to flag already.  Mary shouts at us to bend our arms forward into shoulder presses, still pedalling hard to the beat of the classic club hits thumping away in the background.  The Pink Lady is irritating me beyond belief, gaily shouting out “1-2-3-4…come on everyone!” as we complete each set. If I had an ounce of energy left in me I’d pick up my water bottle and chuck it at her.  That should wipe the stupid, smug grin off her pathetic perma-tanned face.

It also doesn’t help that the yellow-vested Incredible Hulk in front of me has what I can only politely describe as a digestive problem, or to put it less politely, he's constantly farting.  Words simply cannot paint an accurate picture of how it feels to be gasping for breath, in a tiny, steamy, sweaty room, with the acrid stench of the reconstituted remnants of someone’s lunch being wafted into your face as you gasp desperately, mouth open, for air.  If I die and it is decided that I should go to Hell, I will surely end up here, on a stationary bike with an extra-hard saddle, behind this man for all eternity.

Just as I think I really can’t take any more, Mary decides that we’ve suffered enough and we move into the “cooldown”.  The Pink Lady is smiling triumphantly, scanning the rest of the class for any sign of weakness.  Her gaze rests on the chubby, over-sweaty woman two bikes away from me; she’s found her prey and throws her a pitying smile.

We jump off the bikes to do our final stretches and then people either skip merrily or stagger out of the room, depending on whether they were sitting at the front or the back of the class.  Back in the changing room no-one admits that they’ve found it at all challenging; the ladies are all musing on how effortlessly easy it was, all the while wiping sweat from their red, puffed out faces and discussing whether they’re going to have a salad or a plate of steamed vegetables for dinner.  Anyone mentioning that they might have any more than this gets shamed into silence by the rest of the group (“Oh, I don’t know how you do it.  I couldn’t possibly eat a full meal after all that…”)

My former friend Sarah asks me whether I’ll go with her to the class again next week.  I thank her politely, but tell her I’ll have other plans, as I leave the gym and head straight for the pub next door.