This is an awesome video and soundtrack!
If you have the capability to play videos from your portable device or computer this one would make a fantastic climb! These “Jet Packs” that run off of a Jet Ski would be so incredible to ride. Imagine what it would be like to fly?
The track is “You Can Fly” from a band called MAMS – who don't show up on any of the traditional music sites, so there's no Spotify link this week. A very solid 60 RPM climb that you can use this weekend 🙂
Cameron Chinatti excitedly emailed me about a discovery she made while reading The Power Meter Handbook: A User's Guide for Cyclists and Triathletes which is a new eBook from Endurance Coach Joe Friel. In this new ebook, Joe lays out a simple formula that you can use to “ballpark” a student's FTP Functional Threshold Power (or your own for that matter) giving everyone a little more clarity about the first step in creating Power Training Zones. Do we need a new acronym here… PTZ?
Cameron adds a bunch of additional detail during our interview and ICI/PRO members will see a link below to the spreadsheet tool Cameron created that does all the math for you 🙂
We're trying to understand the accuracy of this method and need you to add your experience if you can.
ICI/PRO is the independent resource for Instructors wanting to teach effective and entertaining power based classes. If you aren't seeing the link to the tool below click here to become an ICI/PRO member.
[ismember]Right Click > Save AsHere to download the FTP Tool. [/ismember]
I'm guessing that by now you've had members/friends/family/co-workers who recognize your passion for cycling and have asked you; “so what do you think/feel about Lance Armstrong?”
They obviously don't have to explain their question any further… you already know exactly what they're talking about.
My response has been; “it's complicated… do you have a few hours to discuss it?”
Not knowing where to begin, I'm inclined to start by explaining my need to separate Lance Armstrong the fallen man, from Lance Armstrong the idea and the effect Lance Armstrong the idea had on me and millions of middle aged men like me.
Lance made the idea of identifying ourselves as a cyclist cool. It gave us (40-60 year old men) an activity we could do together… and feel good about it. It became acceptable to wear brightly colored cycling kits (without feeling like a dork) and form-up on regularly scheduled group rides. Occasionally we even communicated – that is when we could breathe.
The idea had us focused on our fitness, largely because we dreaded the thought of being dropped by our group. Many of us came off the couch and completely changed our lives, in pursuit of the idea.
The idea gave us a chance to compete. As men, many of us have innate need to compare ourselves with others through competition. Sure, we knew there was no way we could every ride in the Tour de France, or even hang with the “A” group, but the idea gave us the motivation to try. We signed up for bicycle races by the thousands and trained our hearts out… with the idea we could beat someone. It didn't matter who… just someone. When that wasn't enough many of us expanded into multi-sport racing and although we probably can't remember where we placed at the finish, we can explain in great detail the catching and passing a few in our age-group during the bike leg of a triathlon or who we stayed ahead of at the end of a field sprint in a Cat 4 Crit.
Am I disappointed that it appears that Armstrong cheated? Absolutely. Do I find myself suppressing some admiration that it took so long to catch him? Yes, and I'm sure I'm not alone.
To paraphrase the title of Armstrong's best seller; It's not about Lance. My perception is that the idea has grown so large, has so much momentum, that what's happening to Armstrong today really doesn't matter. Millions of men around the world have adopted the idea completely. The recent events surrounding Lance Armstrong have become little more than a footnote.
Beyond that, expressing any more of this in writing exceeds my ability to type fast enough to keep up with my thoughts.
I'd be very interested in what your response would be in this situation.
Why isn't there a low cost handheld device just for Spotify? There isn't – I checked. But why not? OK, that's a dumb question. With about a Gazillion iPhones/iPads/iPod Touches and Android devices in the market already, why would a company create a device that's specifically designed for Spotify? But not every Indoor Cycling Instructor owns a Smartphone. Those that don't may not because of the costly data plan, they have a company issued phone with use restrictions or they just have no interest in becoming addicted to 24/7 technology like the rest of us 🙁
I get emails from these Instructors frequently and see posts on Pedal-On.com asking the same question; I'd love to use Spotify to deliver my class music… does it work on my iPod Nano? The answer is no by the way. So I'm thinking there's a potential market for a low cost, portable device that runs the Spotify App, without the added cost of a $40.00 a month data plan. Not finding one… I made one. I'm calling it the SpotiPhone and you can have your own for about $75.00 + $9.95 a month for Spotify Premium.
Ebay has thousands of these Spotiphones for sale.
Well I didn't actually make one… I went to Ebay and found that there are thousands of used iPhone 3G's for sale. A number of sellers with high ratings offer returns (so you can be sure the thing works) and I started placing bids on auctions that were ending soon. I had watched a few and saw that most were selling for around $75.00 so I set my maximum at so the total with shipping wouldn't exceed $80.00. I lost a few by a dollar or two, but won the third. Three days later I had my 8 GB Spotiphone. I logged in with my Apple ID and downloaded Spotify from the App store – be sure to select the older version (4.x) of Spotify. Once I entered my Facebook ID everything appeared; all my music and playlists 🙂 A couple of things to watch out for that I learned through the process:
I limited my bidding to the smallest capacity – 8GB because I was only going to use Spotify so there was no reason for anything larger = more expensive.
iPhone 3G's have a removeable SIM card that needs to be present for anything to work. As it turned out, the person I bought from had been using the iPhone as an iPod Touch so it was good to go. I'd contact the seller to see if it's included before bidding on it.
If you end up without a SIM card they are available on Ebay for about $5 and look pretty easy to install.
The iPhone 3G will not run the latest version of Spotify (5.x) – which includes the Gapless Playback and Crossfade options.
A new iPod Touch will run Spotify (5.x) and of course you could easily run down to your local Apple store and purchase one or order one on line. It would do the same thing, but it would cost you another $130.00 or so + shipping.
I'm not sure if I'm actually going to use my SpotiPhone. It was more an experiment to see if I could find a low cost player for Spotify. I may hang on to it as a spare… or through it back on Ebay. If you'd be interested in buying it from me let me know.
Larry “Link” Russell will be representing ICI/PRO and presenting at SCW's Boston MANIA on Saturday 11/10 and Sunday 11/11.
I need to thank Sara Kooperman with SCW Fitness for extending this opportunity for ICI/PRO to partner with her MANIA conventions. She recognises that we have some very talented people involved here at ICI/PRO and it was with great pleasure that I could recommend Link as a presenter 🙂
Saturday 4-5:30pm ICI/PRO Class PROfile: Ramp, Attack, Sustain
Saturday's ride is Ramp Attack Sustain where the focus is on anaerobic performance. This by no means a beginners ride profile. A solid aerobic fitness base is recommended before challenging this class profile. We will be using two approaches, one is the Ramp and Attack which is a progressive ramp of resistance followed by a all out attack and the other is an all out Attack followed by varying times of Sustained effort of one minute or more. During Attack and Sustained efforts, RPE will be 9-10, thus an all out effort! As with all class profiles of this type, it is recommended to have students train at their own pace and not to exceed the limits of their fitness.
Sunday 10:15am-11:45am ICI/PRO Class PROfile: Lactate Tolerance Workshop
Sunday's ride is Lactate Tolerance Workshop which is based on a 45-60 minute indoor cycling training session only represents one effective way to build up tolerance to lactic acid using HIIT and Tabata style intervals. This style of class is both fun and challenging for the indoor rider where the lactate threshold (LT) is reached and surpassed many times during the ride along with active recovery, to build balance in the energy system and recruit fast twitch muscle fiber. True LT testing cannot be performed without blood being drawn during performance activity, thus we project it in this class as 80-85% of the VO2 Max or your VT2. As with all class profiles of this type, it is recommended to have students train at their own pace and not to exceed the limits of their fitness.
Both of Link's classes are on Schwinn AC Indoor Cycles. Each will feature the Cycling Fusion ClassBuilder iPhone App and Heart Zones Cycling training principles
which is a new eBook from Endurance Coach Joe Friel. In this new ebook, Joe lays out a simple formula that you can use to “ballpark” a student's FTP Functional Threshold Power (or your own for that matter) giving everyone a little more clarity about the first step in creating Power Training Zones. Do we need a new acronym here… PTZ?
