One-legged biking

Our triathlon training plan calls for single leg drills during some of our biking workouts which basically means you ride the bike using only one leg. My workout today called for 4 40 second single leg drills; I rode for 20 minutes, did my single leg drills, and then rode for 10 more minutes. Overall the workout was great; I rode nearly12 miles in just over 30 minutes. The single leg drills however were not that great. Riding a bike with one leg sounds easy enough, but it's much more complicated than it sounds. The first issue is what to do with the other leg during the drill. At first I tried to just keep it on the pedal without using it, but quickly figured out that it wouldn't work so well that way. After that I decided to put the leg I wasn't using on the inner bar of the bike during the drill. Now even on a stationary bike in a gym this takes more balance than I really have. I didn't actually fall off the bike but I came much closer than I would admit if I were telling this story face-to-face. I felt absolutely ridiculous. Luckily my bike was in the corner and no one was really paying any attention to me, so it was ok. Hopefully these single leg drills get easier because I'll have to do more of them as the weeks go on.