Uphill battle.

Let’s just get one thing straight right now: I am not a cyclist.

I am so NOT a cyclist that I initially typed “cycler”. That’s how non-cyclist I am.

So you can imagine what a foreign experience it has been for me to actually partake in a spin class. I’m not out of shape by most definitions – at 5’10, I’ve never really seen the other side of 170 lbs. (with the exception of pregnancy), I don’t smoke, and my drinking habits only lightly cross the line of “crippling dependency.” But since embarking on my new employment a few months ago for an organization that A.) stresses health and wellness and B.) gives me a free gym membership, I figured, what the fuck. Let’s get on a tiny pretend bike.

My first venture into spin class happened to fall on a day on which I was getting past a nasty cold, and had a lingering cough that would flare up if I inhaled, let alone huffed and puffed through spin class. But illness be damned, I had committed myself to doing spin class that day. So I chugged half a bottle of children’s Dimetapp before leaving for the gym, and hoped for the best.

It’s bad enough to be known as the new person in a spin class. It’s worse to be known as “the new girl who puked purple nightmare all over spin class.”

Moral of the story: don’t do spin class after chugging half a bottle of children’s Dimetapp. You will puke. I don’t care how good of an idea it may seem; you will puke. And terrify all the children coming out of swimming lessons. Just sayin’.

More than my faux pas, however, is the fact that the majority of people in spin class are, in fact, insane – if for nothing more than the fact that they are getting on a tiny pretend bike and pretending to go up pretend hills on their pretend bike, and are insane competitive assholes while doing it.

Somehow every time I go, I wind up next to the triathlete who is training through the winter and thinks we’re in some sort of race. Chill, dude. I am not going to race you up a pretend hill. I am not going to sprint faster than you. I am just trying to keep this tiny pretend bike’s tiny and very-real seat from breaking some unknown second hymen because CHRIST these things aren’t made for an ass like mine.

And even if – and when – you DO beat me up the hill…way to go. You beat the chick who puked purple all over the place last time and then pretty much crawled away from the class like Lucille Ostero in the vertigo clinic. (+2 to anyone noting that Arrested Development reference.)

Going into an established class is like being Forrest Gump on the school bus on the first day. Everyone has their assigned bike, officially or not, and everyone bikes next to the same person. Everyone knows all the bikes and all their tiny nuances. So I don’t know who I’m going to piss off by getting on this bike here. I don’t want to step on any toes, clad in tiny little shoes that snap onto the pedals all like whatthefuck. So I’m just going to stand by this bike here, all noncommittal, and see if anyone comes and looks especially annoyed by it before 9:15 when the class starts.

Or one day I came in, and lingered by a bike, put my tiny backpack down and put my entirely-insufficient water bottle in the rack when the girl next to me said, “Careful, that one’s finicky.” Like this means shit to me. I mean, is this a horse? Does it have a stubborn streak? Is it easy-going? I don’t know, I don’t even know what she means by this, but I nod solemnly like I know what this means, and I go stand by the bike over there in the corner instead in my non-committal pre-class bike considering stance.

When I don’t vomit, I spend most of the class cursing the instructor, who for all intensive purposes is probably a delightful woman, but for those 45 minutes she can GO STRAIGHT TO HELL ON HER TINY LITTLE BIKE. The instructor, the stupid uncomfortable seats and my crushed pelvic bones all say, “Stand with the class as they go to position 2!” and my glutes – and my mouth hole – are screaming, “JESUS TAPDANCING CHRIST NO!!!”

Ricky Martin’s pelvic thrusting “Living La Vida Loca” is not going to make me get off my ass and try to stand while pedaling for 5 minutes. It’s just not. So I sit in the remedial corner of the cycling class and pedal the entire time, pretending to increase my resistance along with the class while we go up this so-called “hill,” when really I’m just pedaling slower so the instructor stops yelling at me.

I am not a cyclist. I don’t know why I keep going to spin class. My vagina hurts.

I just keep repeating that to myself the entire class. I think it makes the triathlon guy next to me uncomfortable.

But still I press on, up the hills and down the hills, increasing resistance and decreasing resistance, because I love the thrill. I love the challenge. I love the wind in my hair and I love being yelled at and berated in front of a group of people.

No, no I don’t. I’m just an idiot on a tiny pretend bike with a bruised ass and an apparent case of Tourette’s, because as long as I claim that, they can’t throw me out for “unwholesome language.” SHITFUCK DOGBALLS.