by John | Nov 22, 2012 | Latest News
Amy and I want to wish you and your families a Happy Thanksgiving!
We were spoiled today with what started as a reasonably nice day. Our buddy Randy (far left) convinced us to try one more ride outside before hanging up “The Bus” in the garage rafters for the season.
One word of advise for any of you trying to sneak in a late season ride. When the Weatherman says; “on Thanksgiving Day the temperature will plummet from 55° to 40° at one o'clock and the wind will go from naught to 20 mph in your face at one o'clock, believe him and plan your ride accordingly 🙁
by John | Nov 8, 2012 | Instructor Training, Latest News
We started the Ultimate Instructor Class Profile contest as a way for talented Instructors to show their stuff. Creating interesting class profiles, that go beyond the basic Indoor Cycling movements and intensities, is hard work.
Our first contest introduced you to 5 motivated Instructors who delivered some very well designed class profiles.
And for Part Deux the next batch didn't disappoint and I'm very excited for you to meet each of them 🙂
It's with great pleasure that I announce the winners of the Ultimate Instructor Class Profile contest.
Fourth runner-up: Mark Peterson from Davidson, NC
Race Day profile
Profile Description
For the love of the Road Race! The inspiration for this ride was the recent Pro Cycling Challenge in Colorado but the ride is generic in the sense that you could do this ride as a stage of any Cycling Race. The objective of the ride is to educate my students on the sport of Bike Racing, entertain and to provide some of those moments of lung splitting, leg busting intensity that is Road Racing!
Mark won $250.00 in prizes including EpicPlanet.tv’s new Race Day Video: Pensacola Stage Race
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Third runner-up: Christine Nielsen from Head of St. Margaret's Bay, Nova Scotia
Going the Distance profile
Profile Description
This profile was developed as part of a series to show that endurance classes can be as engaging and informative as rides with higher intensity. This class gives the instructor an opportunity to simultaneously address effort management, pedaling mechanics and related form issues, universal mental challenges and also introduce some outdoor bike safety topics.
Christine won $250.00 in prizes including EpicPlanet.tv’s new Race Day Video: Pensacola Stage Race
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Second runner-up: Kathy Palkaninec from Cooper City, FL
The Vicious Cycle profile
Profile Description
This ride was created after researching metabolic conditioning sequence and how to burn stubborn body fat. I found the Ultimate Cardio Sequence by Shaun Hadsall. His explanation and sequence based on science inspired my “vicious cycle”. The name of the game is Intensity first.
Kathy won $450.00 in prizes including a CyclingFusion.com — Online Certification voucher ($225 value)
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First runner-up: Kristen Dillon from Hilton Head, SC
PUSH YOUR THRESHOLD profile
Profile Description
As an instructor on a small island off the coast of South Carolina, we have VERY flat roads. As a result, many outdoor cyclists who live here spend much of their training time on speed building. It is important to note that both the outdoor road cyclist and indoor cycling enthusiast can benefit from this workout. To improve speed, riders should work at their anaerobic threshold. Both experienced and new riders can use this ride to improve speed at threshold.
Kristen won $300.00 cash and $250.00 in prizes
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Grand Prize Winner: Traci Kann from Westminster, MA
Ladder Stepdowns – A Descending Interval Workout profile
Profile Description
This ride was inspired by a running workout described in “Runner’s World” magazine a few years ago. While the workout in the magazine was designed to be done on foot and not on an indoor bike, and while it was presented a bit differently than this ride in terms of timing and the total number of intervals, the basic concept remains the same. The premise is to experience a range of paces from common road race distances, from the marathon to the mile. As the simulated race distance decreases, the intensity of the interval increases.
For her winning submission, Traci won a total of $1,315 including:
I'm really proud of everyone who stepped beyond their comfort zone and submitted their entries to the contest.
We will be recording and publishing these winning class profiles in the coming months so stay tuned.
by John | Oct 27, 2012 | Instructor Tips and Tricks, Latest News, Spotify
So this morning I'm poking around on the internet and checked on what Chris Hawthorne had going on over at her Chrispins Blog. Chris is part of our ICI/PRO team of contributors and has a unique talent for creating excellent Indoor Cycling Class music playlists. She's also an excellent communicator and you'll find her tutorials on using Spotify very helpful.
As I'm reading through her latest post: Anything Could Happen Cycling Mix and I see what looks like a screenshot of her latest playlist. “That's nice” I think… but then I realize it's not a screenshot at all, but an actual Spotify player where someone can listen to each track, the whole way through > even if they aren't a Spotify user. I stand corrected – you need to be a Spotify user for this to work.
“HOW THE H.E. DOUBLE HOCKEY STICKS DID I MISS THIS?”
And then I smiled to myself and did a little nod.
That's exactly why I asked her to be part of our team 🙂
Here's the player that Chris had added to her post:
How cool is that?
I'll be adding these Spotify Players to each Audio PROfile this weekend.
P.S. I'm assuming that everyone can see the player above, regardless of where you are located. Please leave me a comment below with your location so we can confirm this.
by John | Oct 1, 2012 | Featured Studios, Latest News, Member Spotlight
I'm a very “random” person – just ask anyone who know's me – in that I'm not one for long term planning. That's why I so enjoy operating ICI/PRO… when I discover or hear something (or someone) that sounds like it would be of interest to you, I post about it or try to schedule an interview.
I find not knowing what tomorrow will bring very invigorating.
Stressful at times to be sure!
But as a whole, watching all the new developments in Indoor Cycling and communicating them to you is very motivating, and the randomness of it all fits my personality.
But I understand that some many of you prefer order – and we are working very hard to bring order to the massive amount of information we have amassed here over the past for years – as of today we have over 1,000 posts published 🙂
Behind the scenes we are developing a new website with our primary goal of making ICI/PRO a better resource for members; i.e. making everything easier to find. Not an easy task to be sure.
For example, this morning I was focused on ensuring that all of our 20+ informative articles about using Spotify were actually findable, if you click on the Spotify category tag in the information at the top of each Post.
They weren't, but are now.
Another part of our planned redesign will be a place to feature Indoor Cycling Instructors and the Studios where they teach. With nearly everyone owning a digital camera, we'd love a short video of you walking us through the place where you teach. Nothing fancy, maybe just a minute or two of you saying hello, telling us the name of your club, where it's located, showing off your studio, introducing us to your boss/manager/club owner, etc…
I'm sending out an email this morning to ICI/PRO members explaining the details.
Stay tuned as we continue to bring order to my randomness.
by John | Sep 8, 2012 | Instructor Training, Latest News
Our mission here at ICI/PRO, is to act as a platform to elevate talented people in a way that benefits both them and our members.
We have a number* of new contributors climbing on and joining the ICI/PRO team this Fall.
Let's start by introducing you to Instructor Christine Hawthorne!
I met Chris Chrispins over at Pedal-On… or better put, I discovered Chris by followed a link to her website – chrispins1.wordpress.com and then proceeded to steal a bunch of her music suggestions and use them in my classes 🙂
Pretty soon I was trading emails with Chris and then had the privileged to talk with her about the possibility of joining our team. Beyond Instructing she's a Kindergarten teacher, wife and mother of two boys!
There's a real magic to organizing music in a way that will communicate your passion, while engaging your students. If you are on Spotify you can experience Chris' talents – and understand why I'm so excited to have her on board.
ICI/PRO members can look forward to Chris' first post this week about her earlier experiences with using the Spotify Premium version with her iPhone App.
*Legend to John speak: I tend to use; “a couple” when I mean two, “a few” to describe 3 and “a number” when there's four or more.
by John | Aug 28, 2012 | Latest News
We recently completed a survey of ICI/PRO members and got a huge amount of feedback that will help us better meet your needs, as we roll along here in year 4 of ICI/PRO.
One standout was the 82% positive response to the question “would you be interested in a full transcription of the Podcasts?” We received a number of additional comments the said you felt you retained more by reading along with the recording of the Instructor's presentation.
You're the Boss and your wish is our command 🙂
So now I need to know how you would like them delivered to you.
I've used this recent Podcast, featuring Larry “Link” Russell as a test. Have I mentioned that he's presenting for ICI/PRO at the SCW Boston Mania conference this Fall? More on that soon.
I'm not sure which you'd prefer, so I've included both a PDF transcription you can download and print along with including the copy at the end of the post. Please let me know if you prefer one or the other or both, by leaving a comment below or on the Podcast post.
