“I think she's talking to you John” was the response from Mad Dogg's Tony Berlant, as we both watched a very excite women running toward us. Tony and I were enjoying an adult beverage during the reception at last fall's MindBodyFitPro convention in LA when the women confirmed who exactly she was addressing:
YOU (she's now pointing at me) John Macgowan… YOU TAUGHT ME TO USE SPOTIFY!
A big hug completed my formal introduction to ICI/PRO member Charla Goodnight. What followed was an hour long conversion with one of the most passionate Indoor Cycling Instructors I've ever met. Charla explained to me how she had benefited from the information she had received here and how she was at the conference to finalize her equipment and studio management software decisions for her new Indoor Cycling studio – Time Trial Cycle in Naples, FL.
Well the big day is this Friday, March 21st and I'm very excited for both Charla and her business partner Carter Wheeler.
Here's how they describe their new studio
When you enter the friendly doors of Time Trial Cycle, judgment and fear are left behind. Offering expert coaching and a variety of classes for all ages and fitness levels, the only person you have to be better than is who you were yesterday.
As the premier indoor cycling studio in Naples, we offer:
Stadium seating with plenty of elbow room to grind up the hills
Audacious sound system and LED lighting
Top of the line Star Trac Blade Ion bikes that provide constant display of RPM’s, Heart Rate, Calories Burned, Speed/Distance and Power.
Two massive flat screen TV’s to track your performance on the Performance IQ board
Post-workout reports emailed to measure your progress
Changing rooms, shower, spa quality amenities and alkaline water tap
Charla and Carter appear to have done a good job promoting their launch – today they were featured on the local Fox morning show and this Naples newspaper ran a great story about the new studio.
It’s “Time” for Naples to pedal its way to an unrivaled indoor cycling experience as Time Trial Cycle, Naples’ premier dedicated indoor cycling studio, celebrates its Grand Opening on March 21. Taking place from 5:30 p.m. -7:30 p.m., the event will celebrate “Fitness, Food & Fun” and will be co-hosted by Fit Nation Magazine. The stunning high-tech studio, located at 3080 Tamiami Trail N, offers indoor cycling classes for all ages and fitness levels.
Guests at the Grand Opening event will enjoy complimentary food, beer and wine as well as door prizes for the first arrivals along with a raffle. In addition, the event will feature two competitions: one for athletes to compete to win the “Time Trial Cycle Most Power” Award as well as a “Self-Proclaimed ‘Couch Potato’ Competition” in which participants challenge each other for 10 minutes. Participating event vendors include Collier Family Farms, Helen Jon Swimwear, Megan Rose Boutique, Femme Couture, Blue Martini, Naples Pathway Coalition, Endurance Sisterhood, Pizza Fusion, and Organically Twisted Food Truck. RSVPs are requested to info@TimeTrialCycle.com.
With regular classes kicking off on March 22, Time Trial Cycle will continue its celebration with a special offer of participants’ first class free, as well as a special price of $99 for a month of unlimited cycling.
I met up with Charla and Carter at the ECA conference in Fort Lauderdale and had lunch with them both. I see them as having very complimentary personalities and feel they're going to have a very successful fitness business.
Bill Pryor has an interesting article in the latest addition of Club Industry's online magazine.
Indoor cycling isn't what it used to be, and for traditional health clubs, as well as the hundreds of brand new dedicated cycling studios popping up around the world, this is turning out to be a good thing. Technology and innovation, especially in electronics and fabrication, are revitalizing the venerable indoor cycling workout in dramatic ways while reducing the headaches and costs that club and studio owners dread.
Using Technology to Measure Performance and Motivate
Outdoor cyclists have long had access to tools such as Computrainers that allow them to measure and analyze their efforts. For indoor cyclists, these kinds of tools are a recent addition, and club and studio owners are finding them to be an effective way to build and grow attendance. Dozens of studios are using performance metrics technology in their group exercise cycling programs, and many more are coming online soon.
Performance Metrics for Cycling Classes
In just the past few years, most major bike manufacturers have started offering metrics capabilities or consoles as a built-in feature or as an add-on option in their top bikes. These systems provide the rider with some combination of performance-related metrics: pedal cadence, heart rate, power (watt) output, calories burned and estimated mileage. In some cases, this information also can be automatically transmitted and stored for later viewing. Several third-party suppliers and web developers have built systems to measure, present, store and track performance data. In essence, this information can now be viewed in several important ways:
On each bike. With this, individual class visitors can view real-time data, and class instructors can coach to that data.
In front of the class on a monitor. Classmates can see their own performance data as well as data on fellow class participants.
After the class on the web (data tracking). Performance data can now be stored online so riders can view and compare historic performances.
In some cycling studios, the instructor uses this data as a primary tool for coaching and motivation. In others, the data is there purely for the user to review, and they often can choose the metric of their choice–heart rate, watts, calories burned, etc. In any case, just having this information available is a far cry from the traditional cycling class. Music and cult instructors remain the primary draw for most classes, but performance technology has added an appealing new dimension to the mix.
IHRSA is the big fitness equipment show held each year in the USA. Last year the show was in Las Vegas and I spent a bunch of time riding and comparing a number of new-for-2013 Indoor Cycles with power, including the Spinner® Blade Ion and Freemotion's belt driven Carbon Drive S11.9.
There's more cool stuff coming out this year. I'm excited to see the new power bike from ICG pictured above:
The IC7 Indoor Cycle and its Coach By Color® Power Program brings optimal performance and opportunity to group exercise, team coaching, personal training and even individual use. World-class technology and member-centric coaching will make your program more colorful, more powerful and definitely more original. That means better experiences and better results for your customers to keep them coming back.
Displaying colors connected to zones (Heart Rate or Power) isn't new – but having the console glow where everyone in class and you (the Instructor) can see what zone they're in is very interesting. Zone based colors brings accountability, without the judgement of actual wattage amounts that some riders and Instructors dislike in other group display systems. My hope is that there is a very quick and easy setup process to input the rider's personal zones or thresholds that are tied to the different color zones. If you're concerned that all those lights = frequent battery replacements, you needn't be. The IC7 includes it's own charging system. Oh, and they're promising power accuracy of +- 1% and similar consistency between bikes. I'll know much more by next Thursday.
A little bird told me that Keiser will be showing their new M3 power meter console that now features Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) While everyone else is using ANT+ to broadcast rider data, Keiser's engineers have leapfrogged to the new BLE which consumes less battery power and it will connect with your portable device without a ANT+ dongle.
This year the Senior Group Fitness Instructor Amy is joining me and together we're excited to see all of our IC friends that we typically only get to talk to on the phone or Skype 🙂
Please let us know if you're going to be there and feel free to text me to meetup 612-868-0064
This is just a quick note because some of you asked about this….but my companyZONING Fitness was selected by QVC home shopping network appearance in Philadelphia as a hot new item…they booked me today and I’ll be appearing in 48 hours live from Philadelphia.
The appearance is this Thursday, March 6th at 7:00 am (or latter) eastern standard timelive from Philadelphia. Here's a chance to get the QVC price on our patented ZONING program and the heart rate monitor that I invented and the book ZONING for only $50. Watch it. Tell your friends. Forward this to your friends. Buy when you see that I am on – during the time – if you do, QVC, one of the largest retailers in America will invite me to return – and we can get America fit!
With heart,
SALLY
I'm sure this is very exciting (and a little scary) for Sally and I wish her well with this. She's been a tireless champion for improving the health and fitness of thousands – she deserves this national exposure 🙂
It appears that Sally will be part of the Mornings Made Easysegment Thursday, March 06, 2014 07:00 – 09:00 AM EST.
Cyclebeat is a beautiful Indoor Cycle Studio located in what was an old English pub in the commercial district of London. I couldn't decide which of these pictures to use, so here's the view as you walk in – fantastic… unless you're actually after a pint 🙂
Cyclebeat studio owner Greg Allon joins me to celebrate their first completed year in business! During the interview we discuss their “mixed membership model” (combination of monthly and per-ride payments) and the problems that occur when monthly members book a bike, but then don't show for the scheduled class – which prevents them from selling the reserved seat to someone else.
There's typically a “surprise” in every interview – something that catches me and gets my fully attention. When Greg describes the age demographic he sees in his classes (21 to 30), it's easy to understand why Performance IQ has been so helpful to making his studio a success. So successful that they're planning a Cyclebeat #2 for the near future!
Greg is also having success promoting a corporate discount rate… not by soliciting local business directly, but by encouraging the employees of those businesses to bring the information back to where they work. Effectively creating a little army of sales people to promote his studio – very clever!
Listen to the interview below – or you'll find this episode in our.
UPDATE: 1/29 8:49 CST – I've got my fingers crossed. Hopefully the preventative measures we've undertaken has this current attack thwarted and future attacks prevented!
Log-in access to ICI/PRO was locked down today, in response to a “Brute Force” attack 🙁
The unsuccessful attack had attempted to guess user names and passwords of members here. It looks like they tried over 6,000 times!
Please be assured that the attack was unsuccessful and was limited to just this website and NOT the secure shopping cart service to process financial transactions.
ICI/PRO is run on a very secure (and expensive) hosting platform, that features numerous security measures to protect everyone's accounts.
We'll continue to monitor the situation and respond as needed.
