Spinning is fixed-wheel, single-gear indoor cycling, which sounds boring but I can't recommend it too highly. Being in a gym full of exercise bikes is like being in a stationary peloton. Alongside you is everyone from ironman triathletes to flabby desk jockeys, all hammering away on equipment that consists of no more than a heavy flywheel and pedals.
Spinning was invented as a poor-weather training technique in Los Angeles (where else) by a cyclist preparing for the 3,000-mile Race Across America. It was the fitness phenomenon of the 1990s in the US, and is still enormous in LA, which is where I got sucked in during a working trip when I was finding it hard to fit exercise into my day.
Despite the relentless sunshine, LA is a car town and road running is a miserable mix of smog, concrete and funny looks - nobody walks in LA.
So it was I ended up at spinning classes in hot gyms all over town. The first was at Equinox on Sunset Boulevard, where 50 people cycled together in a darkened room lit only by UV light - the sort that shows only teeth and dandruff. Next, a gym called Train just off Sunset where a waif-like model on a platform demonstrated technique, while an ageing rock chick sporting tattoos, a shock of crunchy yellow hair and a voice steeped in a million fags egged us on to a soundtrack of Green Day and Aerosmith. "Wooh," she'd bark, "Yeah. If this don't make you feel high then you need stronger meds [drugs]."
At a place in Venice called YAS (Yoga and Spinning) a bunch of rock-thighed fitness freaks cycled so hard that veins pulsed like angry cobras at the side of their faces.
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Pedal-to-music health club classes are not something cyclists like to mention. But I'm going to admit it. Spinning is now an intrinsic part of my continuing cycle fitness. Last year, until I bought my first proper racing bike, I did almost all my triathlon training on spinning bikes - thanks to a combination of bad weather, a crap bike, having nowhere I could really get my head down without fear of being killed on the road and, yes, an urgent desire not to be alone.
If you take classes taught by cyclists there is also something more than fitness free of rain and traffic lights to be gained. There are two ex-national cyclists, one Polish, the other Czech, who take classes at my gym. You can pick up great training tips about good body positions for general riding, sprinting and climbing.
It's not ideal, in terms of recreating the surprises and mental agility required of cycling on the road, but it beats sitting at home looking at the rain.