by John | May 12, 2013 | Instructor Training, Latest News
Confirmation of a job well done!
Moms are awesome – I realise that although raising kids can be a thankless job at times… there are moments that make it all worthwhile 🙂
This is college graduation weekend for older daughter Abby. Amy and I are very proud of how she has grown into a self sufficient, hard working young women.
It's not a surprise to me. Abby had a fantastic role model growing up.
While watching this very confident graduate receiving her diploma, I couldn't help but think; I'll bet Amy's parents watched a near replica of this and felt exactly the same way as I do now. There's no mistaking Abby and Amy as anything other than mother / daughter.
Abby and her housemates hosted a big after-party at their favorite tavern. The place was packed and I must of heard 50 times – YOU MUST BE AMY, ABBY'S MOM!
Amy and I will be heading out on the “Bus” (our Trek Tandem) later today after it warms up. My plan for the ride has me doing more than my share of the work – but I'm not sure Amy will be soft pedaling for very long. When there's work to be done, Amy has the tendency to step up and hammer whenever and wherever she's needed. And I appreciate that.
by John | Mar 26, 2013 | Latest News
Sorry for the outages yesterday.
We've made some substantial changes to the back end of indoorcycleinstructor.com to accommodate our growth in members and site traffic.
Depending on where you live, we were back up last night around 6:00PM Central Time – the Internet is the most complex thing on the planet and it takes quite a long time for the changes we made to work their way around the world.
Can you see a difference in the time needed to load/access the site?
We were specifically focused on improving the experience for our Mac users running Safari browsers. If you're on a Mac please let me know if you see our pages loading faster.
Along the way I learned that the speed of your Internet browser (IE, Chrome, FireFox, Safari) has a huge impact on your online experience. Some browsers tend to display bit's and pieces quite quickly as the different parts of the page download and display. Others tend to wait until they have a large percentage of the data and then POW – you see everything at once.
Best I can tell, Google's Chrome is the over-all fastest. My experience with Chrome has me recommending it as a replacement for the two standard browsers found on computers; Internet Explorer on PC's or Safari on Mac's.
Chrome is available for both and it's free.
by John | Mar 23, 2013 | Instructor Training, Latest News
Las Vegas IHRSA was exhausting, consuming and exhilarating, all at the same time. With the exception of enjoying some adult beverages outdoors with Bill Pryor and Barbara Hoots on Wednesday night, between Tuesday night and Friday morning I never stepped outside the convention hotel.
There's an unbelievable amount of both time and money being invested specifically toward Indoor Cycling. The shear amount of new models, new technology and new education that I saw tells me that major & minor manufacturers see Indoor Cycling as a huge growth opportunity.
A very exciting time to be an Indoor Cycling Instructor for sure 🙂
I'm working on a number of articles/reviews about my experiences this past week at IHRSA and first wanted to give you these quick, random bits from the show.
- Sales are good! Every major manufacturer's representative I spoke to had positive things to sale about the health of the market.
- Lots-O-Watts: Club/studio purchasing agents had their pick of Indoor Cycles with power indication from; FreeMotion, Keiser, Schwinn, Spinning and Wattbike. There were also a few that were brand new to me or prototypes on display including; POWERbahn, EVO and Monark from Switzerland that uses Rotor bicycle power cranks.
- My favorite quote from the show: “Indoor Cycling is a completely different sport from outdoor cycling. It's frustrating to me when people pull ideas from some outdoor cycling coach or training program and try to apply them to indoor cycling.” Angie Sturtevant – Spinpowerâ„¢ Program Director / Power Specialist Master Instructor.
- Attendance: The place was packed. Every vendor I asked said they were impressed by the attendance – and they weren't just North Americans. I heard a lot of; “no speak English” when I approached participants.
- Most talked about subject: Soul Cycle's /Flywheel's influence on our industry. I was asking every participant I could find their thoughts on the state of our industry. At some part of many conversations one of those two brands was mentioned. Not always in a positive tense, but there's no doubt that the successes of Soul Cycle and Flywheel are well understood and on the minds of many.
- Get ready for an avalanche of new Indoor Cycling technology: FreeMotion launched the new commercial / club quality Tour de France Indoor Cycle where the Instructor can control the pitch of everyone in the class 🙂
- No batteries required: It's a simple thing and it may sound insignificant, but the self-charging power meter on the new Spinner Blade Ion was really impressive. I'm going to bet they will close sales with big clubs based on this feature alone.
- New players coming: TriCore Indoor Cycling is the educational & certification programming that compliments the quite interesting EVO Indoor Cycle.
by John | Mar 20, 2013 | Latest News
Updated 3/23
I had a chance to walk through the show as exhibitors were putting the last minute touches on their booths and shot a few pictures.
I'll be updating this post as I get each file uploaded this morning – Internet is very slow here.
I felt like Charlie walking through Willy Wonka's chocolate factory – everywhere I looked it seemed there was something new I had to take a picture of.
This fitness model could have been Jillian Michaels' younger sister – I didn't ask if she was.
Yes those are gear shifters like on a real road bike. This new Tour de France bike has 30 “gears” and I thought they were awesome.
iPod stand for Cameron's FreeMotion S11-9 Instructor Bike
New handle bars for the Schwinn AC Performance +
Cool blue light that glows on the new Spinner Blade Ion – Barbara will love that.
FreeMotion Aero-Bar extension – I know that the Instructors at LTF have been asking for those.
Keiser M3 with Trixter handle bars
MyRide+ ready for Chuck Cali 🙂
Speed Play Cleat Insert for Spinning or Schwinn pedals offering a LOOK cleat option.
Real Ryder Computer – no power/watts yet.
I guess this would be the natural progression – although I'm not seeing it at a Life Time Fitness anytime soon.
by John | Mar 19, 2013 | Latest News
I'm heading to IHRSA today and there's a bunch of new Indoor Cycling related products I'm aware of + a few rumors of new products to be launched this year. I'm really excited to see/ride/experience & hear what other's have to say – and then report back for you.
Beyond all the fancy new stuff – getting some face time with people I dearly enjoy, but see infrequently, will be a real treat for me.
Let's start with the people I'm excited to see at IHRSA:
Since chastising me back in 2009; “John you, and the people you're involved with, are forgetting that people come to our classes to HAVE FUN! – Barbara Hoots has become a great friend to both Amy and me. The girl knows how to generate excitement in a studio and build a following of loyal participants. Barbara was a huge hit at both of our conferences – no one will forget the official ICI/PRO Thong she handed out 🙂 and her Indoor Cycle Studio Design business has taken off into the stratosphere. The women knows exactly what people want in a studio.
The ICG Team – Jim Karanas and his crew of Master Trainers have been a real joy to work with over the past year of their sponsorship of ICI/PRO. They've graciously offered to put me up in Las Vegas, sharing a room with Chuck Cali – I'll let you know how it goes.
Bill Pryor from Spynergy Consulting and I recorded a Podcast back in February 2010 that has launched dozens of new studios that we know of! Bill has a very discerning eye for products and services in our niche that could benefit Indoor Cycling Studio owners – so I'll be following him around, getting his take on what he sees.
I'm not aware of more delightful person than Cameron Chinatti from Stages Indoor Cycling – I'm eager to ride the new carbon drive S11.9 and Cameron has a very unique session planned during the show, but as I'm sworn to secrecy, I need to wait to tell you about it.
Sally Edwards has grown to become a true friend and mentor to me. I'm excited to see her for real and give her a big hug for everything she's done 🙂
Next… Products and Services
MyRide + I'm aware that Jim Karanas and Team ICG is installing MyRide+ video display systems all over the country. I've ridden and even taught a class using MyRide+. I'm very curious to talk with club owners and managers to learn how MyRide+ is improving their classes and if they are seeing increases in their club's member retention and profitability. They have a strategic partnership with Affinitech to provide cost effective, turn-key AV solutions for the video display systems that bring the HD MyRide+ video to life.
The Spinner Blade Ion It's taken a long time for Spinning® / Star Trac to bring an indoor cycle to market that includes power indication. Josh Taylor has promised me a complete review to understand exactly how the Spinner Blade Ion measures power, how it displays data to the user and how did they figured out the “self charging” part. I see from this new video that Angie Sturtevant has left Saris / CycleOps and returned to Spinning as their Director of Power Base (sic) Training – I grabbed her title from the video… shouldn't that be Power Based Training? Either way, Angie really knows training with power, so I hope she's at the show so I can pick her brain about what programming Spinning has in store for us .
POWERbahn – this could very well be the future of Indoor Cycling. I've ridden a prototype of this revolutionary Indoor Cycle (it doesn't have a flywheel – and doesn't need one) and a pre production POWERbahn indoor cycle will be on display at the Spirit Fitness booth. Try as they might, Indoor Cycle designers have never truly replicated what it feels like to ride outdoors. Ask any of your roadies if their road bike felt different than riding indoors, once they get outside. The hills feel bigger, downhills steeper and POWERbahn may have solved all of this and created a near perfect simulator for riding outdoors. Now if they could just find some IC programming to go along with it…
A little bird told me that there maybe a club/commercial version of the Tour de France bike (as seen on TV – I'm told you don't really need to wear a helmet) at IHRSA this year. The TDF bike adds the element of elevation through pitch control forwards (going down hill) and back (climbing) and control of the pitch may not be by the rider?
I'll be posting pictures of all the cool stuff I see and if it works, I hope to do some live interviews on the show floor.
If you have any specific questions for anything/anyone please add them and I'll try to get you some answers.
by John | Mar 9, 2013 | Instructor Training, Latest News, Leading Group Rides
My new “Instructor Bike”
Here's a picture of my new Instructor bike – a VeloVie Vitesse 300 road bike.
Ain't she a beauty?
Showing this stock photo because I don't actually have it home yet. I've ordered it under our new PRO/Purchase Program we've negotiated with the awesome people who own & run VeloVie.com. Mine's coming with Reynolds Attack wheels, not the Assault wheels shown. I am so excited. Can't wait for the snow to melt so I can ride it!
I'm not using the word awesome here lightly – these guys understand how influential you are as an Instructor… a respected leader of people. You're just the type of person VeloVie wants riding their bicycles this summer.
Our partnership with VeloVie is the culmination of nearly 3 years of effort. I've pitched every bicycle manufacture you can think of on the concept that YOU are as valuable a spokesperson as any “sponsored athlete”. You have no idea how good this feels to finally find a company who recognise that many Indoor Cycling Instructors ride outdoors, and we carry our influence with us as we step outside.
VeloVie also understands that many of us aren't wealthy people. I'm very aware of that as well. This PRO/Purchase program extends every penny of available discount to participating ICI/PRO members. There's nothing in this for me beyond the promotional value this program adds to the value of an ICI/PRO subscription.
But it doesn't end with a discount just for you. Participating Instructors (you've purchased a new bike through the program) can offer your students/participants/friends an incredible deal – not quite as good as yours, but still unbeatable anywhere – and you'll be rewarded for your efforts 🙂
Click over to the PRO Purchase Program description page to learn more.
Feel free to contact us with questions.
