My exercise bike arrived in the mail late one evening last spring and after a few hours of assembly, I was ready to go. Now most people would have invested in some cool biking gear including air wicking shirts, biking shorts and light weight shoes, but I instead kept it simple. I wear a cheap t-shirt, gym shorts and socks (no shoes). 

Almost every exercise program that I found on the internet uses a complicated formula that mixes high resistance and fast pedaling followed by cool down periods. I don't know the science behind this, but I wanted to measure my progress through consistent resistance and speed on the bike. Therefore, I set the resistance on my bike at 3 (out of 8) and left it there. I then set a pace with the goal to not deviate from it. Not conventional, but I think that it works best for me. 

As an engineer with 25 years of working experience, I like to be thorough when undertaking an activity (my wife calls it "being a huge pain in the butt"), so on my first day I created an Excel spreadsheet to track my progress. I track the minutes I spent on the bike, mileage completed, resistance level, average miles per hour and progress notes. 

Next I set my goals for the next three months. By the middle of August, I wanted to consistently ride 15 miles per workout at a pace of 90RPMs. 

My first ride on May 8, 2020, was going to set the pace for my exercise plan, so it was a big day for me. 15 minutes for a total of 3.75 miles was enough for me. I was tired and breathing heavily.