by John | Mar 15, 2012 | Engage Your Students, Giving Back To Your Community
Randy Erwin promoting MS150 participation at our club
I'm not sure about where you live [wlm_firstname], but we are having a glorious spring here in Minneapolis… and suffering the consequences 🙁
Last Sunday, of my typical 40 indoor participants, 25 or so decided they would rather enjoy the sunshine and ride outside. I can't say I blame them and I was actually a bit jealous being stuck inside. Based on how nice it is supposed to be the rest of the week, I'm guessing that this coming Sunday will be more of the same.
So what to do?
Might I suggest finding a way to keep connected with them, outside?
As a followup to Christine Nielsen's two excellent posts about planning and training to ride the 183 mile Cabot Trail, I thought I should share how we have created a team to participate in a local MS150 ride.
Did I say “we have created”? I should have said “he has created”
He; as in Randy Erwin, a good friend of Amy and mine who's also our MS150 team captain!
Amy and I first met Randy as a rider in our class a bunch of years ago. The cycling bug bit Randy quite late in life and now his passion for indoor and outdoor cycling knows no bounds.
Sensing Randy's excitement for riding outdoors, Amy had originally invited Randy to join our earlier MS150 team The Psycholers and he was hooked! Fast forward a few years and chronic knee problems forced the original captain to quit and dissolve the team.
Enter Randy – he was having too much fun every year not to jump in as the new team captain. But Randy wasn't content to just continue this as things were, he (if you knew him you would understand this part) wanted bigger = we needed a sponsor. And Randy found us one in the form of a local bike shop FreeWheel Bikes.
The actual sponsorship was a bit unique; FreeWheel provided a Chef for the weekend, his assistant, and most importantly transportation of our bikes from Minneapolis to Duluth where the ride begins. In exchange for their sponsorship FreeWheel was on display all weekend in the form of a very fast (and long) paceline lead by your's truly, my very strong Tandem Stoker Amy and Randy tucked tightly behind – with another 40 or so close person friends making up the rest of the train.
Bigger for Randy is a fluid thing. What was cool and impressive last year became so 2011 this year. Bigger this year equals starting an official Life Time Fitness MS150 team. His goal (bigger is better) is to have the largest team on the ride this year, which will need to be over 250 riders. I'll keep you updated.
Keeping connected with your class this summer doesn't necessarily mean it will only come as a result from your efforts. You're class has a few Randy's. Next class pick up your head and ask who would be willing to help you put a team together.
Let me know what happens when you do 🙂
With our Captain Randy at the start
by John | Mar 12, 2012 | Engage Your Students
Hate isn't the proper word… detest is a better way to describe my feelings toward my first Monday 5:45 am class after the Daylight Savings switch. Nothing more, just wanted to express that.
by John | Mar 11, 2012 | Music, Spotify
One of Julz Arney's Playlists
Slowly but surely, Spotify is catching on within the Master Instructor community. And with good reason. There isn't any better way to share music playlists.
I'm sure I'm not alone in asking for a playlist at the end of a training – which I'm sure can be a lot of extra work for a MI. Now all they need to say is “friend me on Facebook and you will find my profile in the People section of Spotify.”
Couldn't be easier and adds a touch of self promotion:)
Here's a few that I found with shared playlists:
All you need to do is click the Subscribe link next to the persons name.
Who am I missing?
Send me a friend request if you're an MI using Spotify and I can add you to this list.
by John | Mar 7, 2012 | Instructor Training
Why are there so many different types of bicycles?
I realize that this is a bit rhetorical, but I'm asking it anyway so you answer the question for yourself .
Now you may have thought; Because there are so many different types of people… or maybe because people have different abilities, personalities, needs, desires, objectives and preferences. The bicycle has been around for over a hundred years, you would expect it to; evolve, change and diversify, etc... to meet the specific needs of those who will ride them.
Wikipedia lists over 100 different types of bicycles. Really, I counted them 🙂 The page titled List of bicycle types has links to many including all of what we would consider common bicycles; Road, Mountain, Hybrid, BMX and Tandem. And many uncommon; the Sideways bike, Hydrocycle, Footbike (think Fred Flintstone), the Tredle Bicycle and my favorite; the Clown Bike.
There are bikes designed for different sports; Road Racing, Downhill, MTB, Track and BMX. Bikes that are powered by your arms, core (rowing), legs pushing, legs pulling, just coasting and of course legs peddling in a circle.
Some bikes are ridden sitting up, leaning forward, some sitting or laying down. Bikes designed for one person, ridden by two (in any conceivable arrangement), three or more.
Specialty bikes for traveling through a large warehouse, a night on the town, a cruise on the beach or a 1,000 mile tour.
There's a bicycle for darn near every different ability, personality, need, desire, objective and preference.
But what if there was only one type of bicycle, that could be ridden only one way?
What would it look like?
Who would decide?
Would you buy or ride one – if it didn't match your ability, personality, need, desire, objective or preference?
Or would you just decide to walk?
by John | Mar 6, 2012 | Spotify
PRO member Marc Schlosberg alerted me to a new feature in Spotify; Gapless playback and adjustable Crossfading for when you play music directly from your computer. No, this doesn't work on your iPhone 🙁
Update – 6/25/2012 crossfade is now an option on your iPhone and I'll assume your Droid has it as well. Open Spotify > Options and slide how long a crossfade you would like.
I'll be checking if it does on a Droid and let you know ASAP.
Here's how to get to it:
- Open Spotify on your computer
- Got to Edit > Preferences
- Scroll down and you will see the new options.
I've been playing around with it and found that a 10 second crossfade works well. Many of us have used this in iTunes as a simple substitute for MixMeister. Now if we could only set the song start and stop time.
