I'm excited to attend the MINDBODY FitPro Conference in Los Angeles at the end of this month for a bunch of reasons. Are you planning to attend?
Please say hello if you are at the Friday morning networking breakfast. Or, if you're not afraid of heights, at the Saturday evening party up on the helicopter pad. In between you can text me 612-868-0064 so we can meetup.
There's a good chance you'll run into me at the Spinning® booth where Performance IQ will be showing off their display system, connected to the new Spinner® Blade ION indoor cycle with power. I don't have all the details yet, but it sounds like Performance IQ will be integrated at some level into the Spinpower education program. Very cool and I'm excite to hear what studio owners have to say when they see it in action + get their thoughts about using rider performance data as a retention tool.
This all connects with your MINDBODY Online system!
Tae Yoo and Mark Davids from Performance IQ invited me to attend this year and are sponsoring my trip. Thanks Guys 🙂
There are a number of workshops featuring Josh Taylor, Natashia Iacovelli, Marci Williams and others. I'm waiting on a response from Josh to know if there will be any power based classes and will update this once I know more.
Studio owners can partake in a ton of informative business sessions. Here are a few I'm hoping to attend:
Corporate Wellness: Making it Your Business — David McAtee
Join David McAtee, Sales Manager for MINDBODY Exchange, to review the latest trends in the corporate wellness market and learn how to promote your practice through the new MINDBODY Exchange.
Connecting the Dots: How to Build a Breakthrough Business– Rick Stollmeyer
Join MINDBODY Co-Founder and CEO, Rick Stollmeyer, for an inspiring discussion of what it takes to build a business from the ground up. Rick will share his own entrepreneurial journey from garage start-up to global leader, highlighting the “dots” every entrepreneur needs to connect before a business can truly break through the barriers to success.
Creating, Cultivating and Living Your Brand in the Fitness Industry — Jessica Matthews With a plethora of information and services out there, what makes you or your business different from the rest? The road to becoming a recognized and respected name in the world of health and fitness begins with identifying and embracing who you authentically are, clearly establishing what it is that you uniquely offer, and ultimately building trust and maintaining the loyalty of those that you interact with. From leveraging your knowledge and skills to optimizing your reach and enhancing how you communicate your message, discover how to establish and grow your personal brand while inspiring others to live happier, healthier, fitter lives.
You can download the full schedule, session descriptions and register here. You can save 20% on the registration fee using the coupon code READY4FITPRO
Jim Karanas – a true artist of Indoor Cycling Education.
Stuff like Jim Karanas' death is really hard for me. I felt compelled to write something, a eulogy of sorts that would express my feelings about Jim. My appreciation of him as a person, my respect for him as a fitness professional and my admiration for him as an artist. He really was an artist. The articles and Podcasts we've published here easily demonstrate his incredible passion for fitness and skill at communicating what he knew with others.
I spent the better part of yesterday trying to come up with the words to put in this post, that expressed how I felt about all of this – unsuccessfully. This morning I woke up frustrated that I still couldn't form the words that accurately conveyed how I felt.
I think best when I'm aerobic. So this morning I went out for a ride. Nothing intense. Spent most of the time enjoying the morning JRA (Just Riding Along). Not sure where I was exactly, but I began to understand my confused feelings… starting with;
I was really upset that Jim and I had kept rescheduling a phone call for over a month.
Now we'll never connect. I was frustrated with myself that I hadn't pushed Jim harder to connect with me. Too easy to accept that he was too busy or out of town to connect. But then it wasn't ever about me – Jim's focus was on the business needs of Team ICG – The Indoor Cycling Group of North America.
In December of 2011 Jim and Team ICG became sponsors of ICI/PRO. Their goal was to introduce our readers and listeners to their brand of Indoor Cycling education and promote the new MYRIDE+ virtual ride system. As I rode along I realized that Jim being too busy to return my call was a good thing – they had achieved some of what they intended when they signed on 🙂
Having sorted out my initial anger, a song came to me; Ian Hunter — Michael Picasso which was Ian Hunter's very moving tribute to his friend/guitarist Mick Ronson after his death from cancer in 1993.
Mick was a true artist. IMO (and many other's), without Mick Ronson's arrangements and guitar work, no one would know the name David Bowie today. Mick's early work on Bowie's breakthrough album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars established Bowie as a superstar. Bowie rewarded Mick and the rest of band by publicly firing them all at the height of the band's popularity.
Like Mick Ronson, Jim Karanas was a passionate artist who worked tirelessly for others. I felt it fitting to apply the same nickname to Jim, that Ian Hunter had given to his friend.
Jim Picasso
I'll let Mr. Hunter communicate the rest…
P.S. I'm also upset that I can't find a picture of me with Jim. If you happen to have one, I'd really appreciate you sending it to john@indoorcycleinstructor.com
I can’t find even the slightest bit of humor in the irony. This weekend, I finished editing Jim’s post on Jeff Wimmer’s passing. Jim’s tribute was moving, as I would have expected.
A few minutes later, I got a call that Jim, who was at a show in Brazil presenting Myride+ demo rides as only he could, had died of a heart attack.
I had to deliver the news to a number of people close to Jim, first and foremost his wife Angela. The calls couldn’t have been comforting because I couldn’t stop crying.
I’ve known Jim since my early college days. He was a diamond in the rough back then, but turned himself into the most impressive figure in the fitness industry. Many who read this will know I’m not exaggerating, that everything that’s been said about Jim is 100% accurate. Many fitness pros are more famous, but none is better than he was. When Jim talked about training, everyone listened.
Jim was my mentor. Among numerous other things, I learned from him how to teach Performance Max, one of the outstanding and unique programs Jim created, in the way he originally envisioned it. It meant so much when he said I was the best student he’d ever had.
Jim recently left PMax because his schedule got too full. The program is still in existence, but its soul has been replaced by statistics. Jim had that mind/body thing down and brought it to training as no one else ever could. I worked hard to stay true to it, but Jim was an impossible act to follow. The owner of PMax said about my attempts, “Jim does it better.” Of course, I knew that, but I never stopped using Jim’s classes as my blueprint. Why not emulate the very best?
Jim was my best friend, as well as my ex-husband. We remained so close over the years that it actually popped into my mind for a moment to call him when I needed to share this terrible news. Yikes.
The reactions of the people I’ve told have been as grief-stricken as my own. Jim touched many, many lives and in a profound way.
My entire family died within the space of a couple of years, and without Jim’s support I’d never have gotten through it. His departure leaves an alone-ness that might be difficult for most to comprehend.
I’ll dare to say that Jim was in many ways the best thing that ever happened to the fitness industry. In some ways, he was the best thing that ever happened to me.
I woke up on August 19 to read that indoor cycling enthusiast and specialized mechanic Jeff Wimmer was dead. Some of us have been in the business a long time and should expect that people around us will die; it’s part of growing old. Still, when someone as notable as Jeff Wimmer leaves us early, the enormous gap can’t be filled.
Jeff was what the cycling world calls a “wrench”. He fixed bikes, specifically indoor cycles. He taught for a while but, like a few other talented instructors, gravitated toward cycle construction, design and repair.
Jeff performed work for ICG and for me on several occasions, and I encouraged his employment in years-long contracts when I worked for Club One and Frog’s Fitness. Anyone who has taught indoor cycling classes long-term knows that the industry had much to learn in the early years about maintenance of a group fitness product. Until we rode indoor cycles, no group exercise equipment beyond the stereo and the microphone ever had to be maintained. Suddenly, we had bikes that needed servicing and quickly deteriorated if your club didn’t employ a wrench.
Jeff made a lot of us happy with well-tuned bikes that felt great — not to mention the many member complaints from which he spared us. If Jeff worked on the bikes, we knew every day we taught that the ride would be as smooth as new blacktop.
Jeff did far more than repair bikes; he refurbished them. I guess that’s called “green” these days. He created a business, Studio Cycles, for restoring and reselling indoor cycles, which enabled many customers to purchase top brands at a discount. Unlike top manufacturers, though, Jeff did all his own installations. He never shipped a bike and let someone else put it together. Those of us on the product side of the business know the importance of a quality installation. No matter how good the manufacturing is, if someone who doesn’t care about the bikes puts them together, there’s a good chance they’ll break down prematurely.
I feel the greatest contribution Jeff made to indoor cycling was what he did online. In all our industry, there’s no more prolific a blogger than Jeff was. The Internet features dozens of videos of Jeff discussing bike design and maintenance. He had a reputation for being merciless — but fair — in his evaluation of indoor cycles, and his positive endorsement could always be counted on to help promote bike sales.
The last contract I hired Jeff for involved an evaluation of a customer’s bikes that were in disrepair. True to his nature, Jeff was so upset with the obvious lack of maintenance that he sounded off to the customer onsite, creating a difficult situation for my colleagues, the customer and me. The thing is Jeff was right. The customer did need to be set straight about taking care of the equipment.
Jeff was passionate about bikes.
Riding the road can be dangerous, particularly if the equipment isn’t properly tuned. Obviously, danger is considerably reduced with indoor cycles. But the good feel of an indoor cycle is the main factor that enables us to share our passion for riding bikes with our students.
Jeff embodied the point I made in last week’s post. He was an artist. The maintenance and refurbishment of indoor cycles was more than his craft. You could tell from the way he spoke about Studio Cycles and his work. He approached every bike he fixed as a work of art. View his videos on YouTube; you’ll find them educational. Even more, they’re the legacy he created.
On a personal level, I didn’t know Jeff Wimmer well, but I will miss him. I’ll miss having him pop up at tradeshows to give me his opinion about… well, everything. I’ll miss hearing him tell me that we should have him review every one of our new bike designs before we ever bring a bike to market.
All of us at ICG® honor and respect what Jeff did for indoor cycling and will miss his passion, his blogs, his videos — and, mostly, his drive to help us create the perfect ride for our students.
Rest in peace, Jeff Wimmer. You were as authentic as it gets.
John's Note: sadly, this will be Jim's last post here at ICI/PRO. I heard from Joan Kent that Jim died Sunday of a heart attack. I'm not sure how to respond other than give everyone the chance to hear Jim Karanas one last time. What follows is my very first interview with Jim.
The Senior Group Fitness Instructor and I spent a weekend in Door County WI last month. Lots of quaint little towns to explore along the shores of Lake Michigan. We did what most tourists do as we walked along all the shops and restaurants… we stopped to check out the menus posted along the sidewalk, with the intent of finding the place where we would have dinner that evening.
I hadn't considered it at the time, but if one of the restaurants we passed didn't have a menu posted near the sidewalk, we wouldn't have considered eating there. Without some of the basic information (type of food, pricing, ambiance, entertainment, etc…) we'd never know if they had the best food in town or not.
We weren't looking for anything specific in a place to eat – the best I can tell you we were just looking for some place that fit us. Does that make sense? I guess it follows the; “I don't know what I want… but I'll know it, once I find it!”
So, is your class “menu” displayed somewhere prospective participants can find/learn more about you and your class? Or classes if you're a studio owner/manager?
I'm thinking this menu needs to be more than; “Indoor Cycling with John” which really doesn't tell you anything about me or my class. Maybe I could improve my menu by adding a picture of me and something all flowery and word-smithy like; “Experience outdoor cycling… indoors. Take a virtual training ride with John. Blah, blah, blah” which may or may not be effective. What else could you include?
Beyond your; charming / energetic personality, comprehensive knowledge of exercise physiology and dazzling smile, what else (if they could know more in advance) would be of interest to potential participants to our classes? Or your regulars for that matter?
How about your music!
Consider what primarily gets shared between members about your class:
How hard/easy is her class?She killed us this morning!
Was his music good?We rocked this morning! or What was he thinking with that playlist?
Technology from Spotify and Deezer now gives us the ability to easily share our playlists. Surge Cycle is a studio near me. On their Meet our Instructors page (Internet menu of sorts) studio owner Zion Anderson has posted a sample Spotify playlist of each instructor's class music. Here is Zion's playlist.
Now I think that's an awesome idea… now if I could get Life Time to do something similar.
There is no way we can comprehend the tragedy of Jeff Wimmer's death, and it's left us searching for answers that might be difficult to ever find. In these darkest hours, the pain touches us all in the indoor cycling community, and I mourn this loss as if it were my own.
Jeff was the silent force behind the success of my studio in south Georgia. With a high jobless rate in this indigent community, Jeff donated many bikes over the years without question or expectation of anything in return. The white NXT's that fill our studio, given out of generosity and love, are a tribute to his memory. The legacy of his warmth, tenderness and talent will endure forever.
Barbara Hoots
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John's Note: Jeff Wimmer and his company StudioCycles was a fixture in Indoor Cycling pretty much from the very beginning. I remember him telling me how Johnny G used to purchase bicycle parts from Jeff, all the stuff that Johnny used to build the first prototypes of the Johnny G Spinner.
Jeff brought an incredible amount of passion and professionalism to Indoor Cycle maintenance and the refurbishing of used cycles.
I had the privilege of interviewing Jeff back in 2009. If you haven't heard Jeff before or would like to learn some of the early history of the Spinning program, it maybe fun for you to hear this.
Barbara Hoots wasn't the only person Jeff has helped. You can listen to Studio owner Michael Stadvec describe how Jeff's contribution of bikes made his event; The Tour de Pier a success, in this interview from last spring. I'm going to guess that Barbara and Michael weren't the only two people Jeff has helped over the years.
I'm excited to attend the MINDBODY FitPro Conference in Los Angeles at the end of this month for a bunch of reasons. Are you planning to attend?
