There is a Cube Kathmandu Hybrid bike in my house that is, frankly, having a better time than I am. It is a beautiful bike and I pay for it monthly from my salary. It just sits there looking expensive and well-maintained while I walk past it and feel guilty. We have a complicated relationship.

My lack of cycling isn’t down to laziness, for once. My peripheral vision isn’t what it should be, and neither is my ability to distinguish contrasts. This sounds quite abstract until I tell you that I recently walked head first into a full-length glass window in a busy coffee shop. The whole place saw it and heard it. I am not exaggerating when I say the sound was impressive.

Cycling on actual roads with actual traffic is probably not the most sensible hobby for someone who cannot reliably identify a solid transparent surface directly in front of his face. The bike stays indoors. It looks great there. Very decorative. And a flock of jackets have started to perch on it.

The New England Revelation

I’ve just got back from New England, which was wonderful in every way, including calories. Chicken parmigiana subs. Potato donuts. I approached these not as indulgences but as cultural research. Thorough, committed, repeated cultural research.

And yet. I lost a pound. An actual pound. I walked a lot, the weather was decent, and perhaps the universe was feeling generous. I’ll take that small win.

The weight loss project is continuing. Progress is slow and too often backwards, but a chicken parmigiana sub is not going to be the thing that derails it. 

The Gym Problem

Body temperature makes my symptoms worse. Not effort or not sweating. My optic nerves are thinning and my ganglion cells are dying. When my core temperature rises, my vision gets significantly worse. For me, right now, the gym works against me. Lots of body heat and less than perfect ventilation. I’ve cancelled my JD Gyms membership, through absolutely no fault of theirs, and I’m taking the workout somewhere I can control the temperature.

Enter the Home Gym

Good news: I am the original all the gear, no idea blogger. I have been collecting kit for years, and it turns out I’ve assembled a legitimately decent home gym.

Kettlebells. Barbells. A pull up bar. A treadmill. And yes, a vibration plate, which I maintain has genuine benefits. I won’t be pulling anything on the pull up bar other than a hernia, so the plan, initially, is to hang from it. Just hang. Grip it, dangle, let the shoulders decompress, feel virtuous. Actual pull ups are a conversation for another day, possibly another season.

It’s all here, in my own space, with a window open, at a temperature that doesn’t work against me. No queue for the squat rack, no one watching when I drop a kettlebell.

I should also say that I am a Faster trained gym coach. I know how to programme a workout, I understand periodisation and progressive overload, I have the qualification. What I will also admit is that I have forgotten a significant portion of what I learned, and YouTube will almost certainly be involved before we’re done. The knowledge is in there. Somewhere.

Looking the Part

Before I’ve done a single rep I am already thinking about what I’ll be wearing. All the gear, remember

It might not surprise the regular reader that my brand of choice is adidas. Because if you’re dragging yourself into your own spare room at 7am to lift heavy things and stare at the floor during a plank, you might as well feel good doing it. It does also help that I am part of the adidas blogger community.

A breathable t-shirt is my first piece of gym clothing. Lightweight, moisture-wicking, built for moving rather than posing. Temperature management matters to me more than most right now, so a top that actually does something about it is earning its place. This adidas workout essentials feelready  t-shirt with integrated Climacool technology wicks and disperses sweat for a cool, dry, and hopefully bump-free performance.

Next, it is tracksuit bottoms. I find them more comfortable (and more forgiving) than shorts. I could say I chose these designed for training spaceknit joggers because they are built for high performance, or because of the aeroready keeping me dry, but honestly, I just liked the colour and the word space. The fact they were half price in the adidas black friday sales was also a factor.

I finished off the ensemble with a hoodie. Now, I did mention the open window. I did also mention it is October. There is a brief window, if you’ll forgive the phrase, between “the room is at a sensible temperature” and “it is now genuinely cold in here” where you need a layer. The hoodie is that layer. With a full zip, It goes on, it comes off, it ends up on the pull up bar. I did say the bar was for hanging.

I’m not giving up on cycling or the  Cube Kathmandu. If winter cycling turns out to be the answer due to cooler temperatures keeping my symptoms in check I might get some use out of that beautiful machine, and for that I will need all the gear.