Patrick Beeson

If you really want to slim down this winter, spend your Sunday afternoons at Fort Sanders Health & Fitness Center's "Tour de Fort" Spinning class.

This hour and a half long event occurs for 12 weeks from 2:30 until 4 p.m. The regular Spinning classes are only 45 minutes.

You'll burn approximately 1,000 kilocalories and, if you're riding as instructed, keep your heart rate around 80 to 85 percent of your maximum.

And make sure to get there early!

I arrived outside the spin room with 10 minutes to spare, and got the last bike available. Luckily it had the Look-compatible pedals -- I would have been out of luck with other bikes because of my shoes.

There was little room to maneuver in the room because of the crowd. Once we began it felt like I was in a packed club with the sweating, noise and over-caffeinated instructor yelling out encouragement while singing along to some of the lackluster songs.

There will be some added twists to the normal class format for the Tour de Fort by means of cue cards and heart-rate tracking, but they weren't used in the first instance.

The music is, for me at least, one of the downsides to most Spinning classes. I wish the instructors would pick out music that has a beat matching whatever tempo we're riding to at the moment.

Also, much of the music is bland mainstream pop, electronic and (gasp) classic rock. A little hip-hop or indie rock would be appreciated. (I might try to put together a mix for them to use.)

But music and atmosphere aside, I'm probably going to stick with this class for weekends I'm not racing this winter.

It's about the only way to stay in shape when you don't want to be on the roads during the cold time of year.