- (upbeat music)
- Okay. As I said, we're gonna talk
about setup of the bicycle
on the cross trainer.
This cross trainer is a CycleOps.
It's a great trainer.
Like I said, I've used it for years now,
and it's as good as the day I bought it.
- How much does this weigh,
would you say Brad?
- The CycleOps is...
We probably got about
10 to 15 pounds there.
- Okay.
- Okay? It's a real nice unit.
It folds up.
- Oh yeah.
- In the case of the wintertime,
I easily put it on a shelf.
Get it out of the way.
Or if I'm gonna transport it,
and you simply bring it out, like so,
set it down by your bike,
and you're ready to go.
Back in here, the way these work,
there's a hydraulic system in here
that creates resistance.
There's a cooling fan here
that blows air over it,
so it stays cool.
And that's all the things
that make this long lasting.
You don't have to worry about oiling it,
or any maintenance at all.
It's all done.
- Really?
- Preset. Yeah. It's a wonderful unit.
- How long have you had this, would you say?
- I'm thinking about 60 years now.
It might even be more.
One thing, Bob,
is when you
look at your bike,
there is one thing you have to have
is the proper axles on the bike.
And if you look here in the camera,
and Bob, you too.
See how this is rounded here?
- [Bob] Mm-hmm.
- [Brad] If you have the axle that has
a nut in the bolt,
it's not gonna work.
Most bikes... This is an extremely common axle.
If you have a bike, that's a few hundred dollars.
Okay? It's got the cam easy quick
release where you can pull this off.
Just open this up, like so.
Okay. Loosen that up and you can
take the tire off if you get a flat.
I've had many flat tires out
on the road and you can change it
once you get good at it.
You can take the tire off, change inner tube,
get back on your road within 10 minutes.
Takes a little longer for beginners,
but you don't have to worry about that
in this case.
- [Bob] All right.
- [Brad] So once you make sure you
have the right axles,
if you don't know just go to a bike shop,
they're very familiar with this.
They'll tell you exactly
what you need to do.
Once you have the right axle,
it's very easy.
You simply...
Put one side in here.
Okay? Line up the other axle here.
There's a pre-adjustment here,
with a screw
and a thumb locknut here.
I've already adjusted it,
so it's the right distance.
And what happens?
- [Bob] Do you need any tools?
- [Brad] Well, I do use a channel lock
or a big pair of pliers to tighten this down.
- [Bob] Okay.
- [Brad] Okay. But you can just do it by hand.
You just do that and you can
rotate that in and out,
'cause the axle lengths
do vary a little bit
from bike to bike.
- [Bob] Sure.
- [Brad] So once you get the right length,
which I already have,
then you simply tighten it up.
Can you tighten that with your?
- [Bob] Sure.
- [Brad] I'm stuck with my bike here.
There you go.
- [Bob] Oh, I'm... that's more than
a vice grip could have done.
- [Brad] Oh yeah, you are
strong like bull. Yeah.
- [Bob] (laughs)
- [Brad] Us therapists,
we got the shortcuts.
Now, if you look at this,
there's a lever here.
See how that goes in?
So that's like on a cam motion.
So you get your nut adjusted.
Okay.
And once you do this
a couple times, it's really easy.
You can do it by yourself.
- [Bob] Okay.
- [Brad] Line it up there
and simply push.
- [Bob] Oh yeah.
- [Brad] And lock it in.
It's done and we're ready to go.
Okay. The next step is
getting on the bike
and get a feel for it
and how it's gonna ride.
Once you have it set up,
back here, there's different varieties here.
This one simply has a big thumb screw,
I call it, and you just it tighten up.
Once it touches, you go
another few turns
so that you get resistance,
and you engage the resistance
mechanism to the back tire.
Okay. And then once you're there,
you simply get on the bike.
Now, one thing.
I use what they call
clipless back pedals.
I don't know why they call them clipless,
'cause they actually clip.
But they do.
And you, if you listen,
I'm clipped in.
Okay. There's a good reason for that.
And once I get on the bike,
I'll talk a little bit more about that,
but that's a clipless pedal.
To get it off, you simply
rotate your foot,
and pull it right off.
If you do not rotate your foot,
you're stuck in there.
Okay. I do have another shoe.
This is another variety from
my other bike that I have.
It's just another variety of pedal,
but it's the same thing.
This particular shoe, when you go to a shop,
They'll give you all kinds
of information on what kind of clips to buy.
If you want to avoid clips,
you do not have to have clipless pedals.
You can stay with your flats.
In other words, your standard flat pedal,
and you will still get
a great workout with this. Okay.
The difference is,
let's get on this,
and start up here.
And these do take a little bit
of time to get used to.
And on the trainer's a great time
to learn how to get
in and out of the clips.
Okay.
So here I am.
Now what you want to do is
go through shifting.
I work in the front ring there,
I'm in the biggest gear.
Middle gear, and what we call the granny gear,
or the real small one.
Serious bikers kind of poo poo that.
They say that's for the wimp, so to speak,
but I like mine down the hills.
And then you're gonna go through
in the gears on the back.
You can hear it shifting away.
You can see the tire's spinning.
Okay. Everything's working just fine.
So I'm ready to go.