Let me state that I am, quite frankly, amazed to be writing in praise of indoor cycling. In the past decades of my cycling career, when short daylight has forced the choice of indoor cycling or no cycling at all, I've reluctantly set my bike on the stand, acutely aware of how much I prefer fresh air and freedom. Nowadays, I actually look forward to indoor cycling.

With the help of a few new training tools, which I'll describe, I've begun transforming indoor cycling into inner cycling. For me, indoor cycling is no longer a poor substitute for the open roads and trails. It has become an indispensable ingredient for penetrating deeply into the inner world of body/mind integration. It has become my preferred pathway for exploring the deepest power patterns of cycling technique.

As far as I'm concerned, this inner exploration is the frontier of ultra cycling. One of the greatest hazards of our passion for riding long is the tempting ego trap of glorifying the ordeal aspects. If we take pride in seeing ourselves as a rare breed of agonistic athlete, tougher by far than most, hard enough to endure, we're unlikely to feel free to explore the realm of easy.

Power that's hard won is acceptable to agonistic pride, whereas power that comes easily is questionable. If we start hearing seductive whispers promising economy of effort in the realm of easy, the ego stridency of tough talk will drown them out. If we're too attached to seeing those great distances as an ordeal we're tough enough to endure, we'll miss seeing them as a pleasure we're free enough to enjoy. Indoor cycling, when it becomes inner cycling, can give us the freedom to enjoy what I refer to as patterned power.

When it's more than just a poor second to being out on the roads covering real miles, indoor cycling can actually bring benefits attainable in no other way. Ultra cyclists must think in terms of developing phenomenally efficient technique, since even small amounts of squandered energy add up over the kinds of distances we cover.

In a later article I am going to discuss flexibility, mobility and the residual benefits of power, here I will discuss a few high-priority topics. The first is single leg pedaling. (See the Penseyres article on Cadence, UltraCycling, Mar. 2001, p. 23.)

I view single leg pedaling as an alternative training technique that allows increased strength of the important hip flexor muscles ó the psoas and the rectus femoris. With increased strength of these ancillary "lifters", we are able to give the primary muscles like the quadriceps, hamstrings and glutes a rest, thus helping to balance fatigue while increasing overall power output. Cyclists who have worked to strengthen their hip flexors by doing one-leg pedaling have experienced impressive results. In our work with the CompuTrainer Spin Scan program, which we use to monitor the efficiency of pedal stroke, we see far smoother test scores on cyclists who have isolated and trained these muscles.

My favorite tools for accomplishing this task are the independently ratcheted Power Cranks (www.powercranks.com). Recent Ironman triathlon winner Tim Deboom and former pro MTB champ and Ironman contender Steve Larsen use them in training. The powerful Canadian national cycling team uses them. Perry Stone, who just broke the Ride Around Australia record twice in the last two years, also trains with them. Single leg isolation on a trainer is helpful, but Powercranks can shorten the muscle learning curve ten fold. I recommend them to any cyclist looking to improve the balance of his or her stroke.

Another area of the body that is usually ignored by cyclists is the core muscle group. All other forms of strength training for cyclists should be secondary to increasing the strength of the abdominal, oblique and erector spinae muscles. These are the overall body stabilizers that allow us to remain in a comfortable tucked position for countless hours without a lot of upper body movement that wastes energy. A strong core will also help us immensely in climbing. It will help stabilize the whole scapular region, which are big fatigue areas for ultra distance cyclists. Every training program I write, both on line, and in person, starts with core strengthening.

I am a strong believer in a multiplicity of techniques for combating fatigue. Strength alone is not enough. In ultra cycling, we have to think outside the box. An example is the work of Ian Jackson, the iconoclastic coach who seems to live full-time outside the box.

In 1982 I was asked to team up with Jackson to give the talk at the Ironman Triathlon carbo-loading banquet in Kona. I used Jackson to demonstrate proper positioning on the bike, and then we opened things up for questions. At this point, Jackson surprised everyone in the crowded banquet room, including me, by stripping down to his tri-suit. It was a thin white Lycra body stocking, with his bike sponsor's logo across the chest and back.

In the 2000 Sydney Olympics, these body suits made a big media splash, but back in 1982 Jackson's daring costume blew many minds. There was method to his madness though. He said something all ultra endurance athletes should pay attention to. "I want you to appreciate what this does for me," he said. "The smooth pressure of tight Lycra gives me highly amplified body feedback, and the volume will be turned up even more after I do my full-body shave tonight. The rich patterns of body sensations make it easy for me to stay constantly tuned in. They help me stay deeply absorbed in the interwoven patterns of breathing and movement, and that deep absorption facilitates incredibly efficient technique."

A woman in the back of the room immediately brought up the backside of Jackson's comment. "I'm sure body awareness can be good," she said. "For me though, all I'm aware of from early in the ride is an increasingly painful tightness in my neck and shoulders. It comes from having to keep my head up to watch the road ahead, and it gets so bad that it keeps hurting throughout the marathon. Can you suggest anything to help me?" It was an excellent question. Scanning the audience, I saw many heads nodding in sympathy.

"What you can do is thank Momma Cat," Jackson said. It seemed like a senseless thing to say. I glanced over at him, sending "Earth to Ian" concern through my eyes. This was not a good time to start floundering. I needn't have worried.

"Think back now. Bring up a memory image of a mother cat carrying a kitten. Remember the way she holds the kitten by the loose skin at the back of the neck. Remember the way the kitten hangs down from Momma Cat's mouth, relaxed and trusting, shoulders down, back curved, tail tucked under."

"What you can do when you're riding those 112 miles is to imagine your own Momma Cat hovering over you, with a gentle but firm hold on the back of your neck."

"The pain you're feeling is a sign of muscular lock, and the solution is muscular movement. Holding your head up all the time to keep your eyes on the road will lock up your neck and shoulder muscles. If you can get Momma Cat to help you, though, by pulling gently up at the back of your neck, those chronically contracted muscles will let go. She'll lift the curve out of the back of your neck, and that will release the muscles."

"You've got to be sure that she doesn't keep on pulling up, because then you'll simply be shifting the muscular lock problem from the curved neck position to a flatter neck position. Simply hook her lifting at the back of your neck to the rhythm of your breathing. Imagine that she lifts as you're breathing out and then releases the lift as you're breathing in. Let the image do the work for you."

"The lifting at the back of the neck creates a gentle, barely perceptible stretch. It's a very subtle movement, but as long as Momma Cat is helping you stretch your neck on every outbreath, you'll be able to hold off that chronic tension. There's an aid station every five miles on the ride, and you can use each of them as a Momma Cat reminder. Call on Momma Cat for a while after each aid station. Let that subtle neck stretch be part of full body breathing."

Jackson finished that race in 45th place, with a time of 11:03, which is a much better performance than you'd expect from a relative Ironman beginner. A Time/Life reporter stuck a mike in his face immediately after he crossed the finish line, asking why he was the first athlete who didn't look badly beaten up. Jackson's answer was refreshingly different and is worth the attention of all ultra endurance athletes.

"I just completed 140 miles of breath meditation," he said. "The last few miles of the run were like the champagne bubbles of bliss."

I wish I had had this guy on my crew during my first and only RAAM back in `82. You'd expect to hear about breath meditation and bliss from a yoga adept, but not from an endurance athlete. As I said in an UltraSports article at the time, I consider Jackson "a low key madman with some very refreshing ideas."

Jackson has developed a training tool called BreathPlay. About three weeks before last year's Tour of Tucson, Jackson called me to ask whether I'd be willing to beta test Serendipity, his first BreathPlay CD. Hoping the CDs might contain the secret to that breath meditation and bliss, I said I'd be happy to look into them after the Tucson race. He urged me not to wait. He promised me that three weeks with the CD would make a significant difference in my race performance.

"Use the CD on a treadmill," he said. "Think of your treadmill time as a period of profound relaxation that also teaches you precise and powerful patterns of breath/movement integration."

At Jackson's suggestion, I rested my hands on the treadmill console, so that I could close my eyes as I walked, and thus enter totally into the sensations of breathing and movement. What an amazing experience that first Serendipity walk was. With my eyes closed, I lost all track of time. I became totally absorbed in matching the CD's breathing patterns, and in feeling the repeated focus on core strength. I let myself respond to the coaching input of the voice weaves, and I let the music carry me deeper into the experience. I remember being disappointed when that acoustic energy came to a premature end. Surely Jackson could have made the CD at least 30 or 40 minutes long instead of a mere 20. When I opened my eyes, I couldn't believe that I had been walking steadily for over 70 minutes! The acousticoaching input had led me into a deep meditative state.

Jackson suggested that I use the Serendipity breathing patterns on the bike in the upcoming race. On every outbreath, I would imagine not just the back of my neck, but the whole length of my spine stretching.

I would practice color imagery, visualizing the stretching spine glowing like an ember in a campfire. I would also connect the feeling of the outbreath spinal stretch with the focus of power in my pedal circles. I would imagine that my whole body was responding in subtle but powerful ways to the rhythms of the BreathPlay active outbreath and passive inbreath. I would mentally rehearse perfection of every single breath cycle where the race situation gave me the luxury of that focus.

To my pleasant surprise, this unlikely treadmill training made a very obvious difference in the race. It was a typically strong field that included a few US pros from US Postal, Mercury, Saturn and the Navigators. In all, there were over five thousand riders assembled for the start. In spite of missing the key break, I rode with an inner calm, actually feeling stronger as the race progressed. At the finish, I even surprised myself with a strong ninth overall, a feat that shocked many of the young pros in their twenties. I was fifty-three.

Jackson taught me the basics of BreathPlay on training rides in 1981. Even with my rudimentary level of skill, I understood the value of BreathPlay work. I was so impressed by his effectiveness in communicating his revolutionary ideas that I urged USA Cycling head coach Eddie B. to tap his talents for the 1984 Olympic team. Although initially hesitant, Eddie agreed to give Jackson a chance, based on the trust we'd built as coach and athlete through three Olympic games.

The Olympic cyclists, like Eddie, didn't know what to make of Jackson at first. The introductory meeting seemed to start out on the wrong foot when a skeptic in the back of the room loudly questioned the basic idea. "What's there to learn about breathing?" he said. "You just suck air." Jackson responded that BreathPlay skills would help turn dysfunctional air sucking into power patterns based on actively pushing air out. Further, he demonstrated what he was talking about on training rides, dropping athletes half his age on hard climbs. Ironically, it was this same vocal skeptic who approached Jackson with an urgent request when he was leaving the Olympic Training Center. "Don't tell anyone else about this!" he pleaded.

BreathPlay skills are extremely difficult to teach, because the air sucking habit is so deeply ingrained. Jackson worked tirelessly at the Olympic Training Center, giving all the help needed to overcome the power of those deeply ingrained breathing habits.

When Jackson started sending me early Zooming CD betas, which were specifically designed for indoor riding, I was delighted with the results. Although I had occasionally used BreathPlay since 1981, I had never understood it with the clarity and precision the Zooming CD opened up for me.

These CDs make Jackson's teaching readily and widely accessible. BreathPlay is now easy to learn quickly through the acousticoaching process of the BreathPlay Zooming CD. This remarkable training aid helps develop phenomenally efficient spinning skills in the process of learning basic BreathPlay.

"My central idea is simple," Jackson says, "and I believe it's self-evident. A bike stand provides a remarkable training opportunity, if only the rider will have the good sense to bring his or her creative energy to the exploration of the fundamental connections between breathing and pedaling. When you don't have to worry about road debris, potholes and erratic traffic, you can enjoy the luxury of relaxing into the darkness behind closed eyelids, and with that relaxation you can give your mind the perfect opportunity for exploring."

For many, the idea of pedaling any length of time with eyes closed may seem strange, but those of you willing to push the performance envelope may be surprised by unexpected rewards. "The mind is always trying to sort out incoming sense data," Jackson says. "It's always trying to create patterns of meaning in sensory experience. If you cut off external vision by closing your eyes, you open up internal vision. When closed eyes narrow your input down to the sensations of your breathing and pedaling, your mind will automatically seek out the patterns and coherent connections of those two elements. And as the mind sees the breathing and movement highlighted in the darkness, it can more readily intuit the essence of the high-level skills required for pedaling perfect circles of phenomenal efficiency. The end result is that your cardiovascular work and your skill work are at each other's service."

What most impressed me when I started Zooming on my CompuTrainer was the profound relaxation it brought on. Usually, a high work rate will generate a high level of sympathetic activity, but a cardiologist testing the effectiveness of Jackson's CD discovered instead an amazingly high level of parasympathetic activity. What this means is that the breathing technique will enable you to maintain a high work rate with deep relaxation, which is a factor of great interest to any ultra endurance competitor.

The Zooming program typically takes me to such a deep level of relaxation that my heart rate never rises above 145, even while wattage climbed to nearly 400, with speeds approaching 30 mph. Whenever the CD finally goes silent, I would usually find myself so entrenched in the flow that I would continue well beyond the 75 minutes. As I said at the outset, this is not indoor cycling so much as it is inner cycling.

I hope this information whets your appetite for the creative intuitive process. Investigate Ian Jackson's experiments with the future. Free your mind to wander and wonder. Instead of letting yourself be dulled by mindless miles, why not develop a passion for your training? Instead of letting yourself be confined by training conventions, why not get out on the cutting edge with Jackson's iconoclastic ideas? Why not go indoors to connect the dots for phenomenal cycling efficiency?

For information on Ian Jackson's Zooming CD, go to www.breathplay.com or e-mail breathplay@cs.com