Allen Jones from EpicPlanet.tv Indoor Cycling DVDs is in town this weekend to film Amy and me on an Epic Ride! This will be the first Epic Tandem ride and will feature us riding “The Bus” – our Trek Tandem. We will be riding with our friends Tony and Jean who are a very accomplished Tandem pair.
Our ride begins in the historic Mississippi river town of Red Wing, MN. We will be riding east across the river and then follow the river south on the Wisconsin side with great views of the river bluffs and Lake Pepin.
For you music history buffs, our route takes us through the little town of Bay City, WI which (at least by my understanding) was where the dart landed on the map, thrown by a member of Scottish Pop Band The Saxons, giving them their new name – The Bay City Rollers.
The ride ends with a particularly nasty climb up the side of the bluff to a fantastic location looking out over the river valley. This Map shows our journey.
Besides running Cycling Fusion Indoor Cycling, Gene Nacey also produces the Global Ride series of Indoor Cycling Class Videos. One of my favorites is the Pittsburgh Dirty Dozen climbing race. It features 13 “bring them to their knees” climbs that are perfect for your next climbing class. The countdown timers show the length of each interval as well as the length of each recovery.
Gene just sent me a link to a story about the Pittsburgh Dirty Dozen done by Pittsburgh TV station WQED. It has a lot of detail that you could use to really spice up your class narrative. I suggest saving it for the recoveries, no way you will be able to talk during the actual climbs, if you ride with your class like I do 🙂
If you talked to any of my frequent participants and asked; “how would you characterize John's class?” the reply would probably be something like; “add load”, “we're going up!”
So you can understand why I loved teaching to (and my class loved riding to) this new Indoor Cycling DVD from Epic Planet – Epic Austin. Thanks for sending me a promotional copy Allen. It is the first video that I have seen that matches my style of class with a series of climb intervals that come one after the other and depict the actual grade of the road.
ICI/PRO members can get their 30% discount code using this link to the Member Discounts page.
Here, in the hill country west of Austin TX, is where Lance Armstrong learned how to ride and developed his incredibly climbing abilities.
These training videos from Epic Planet keep getting better and include more options that help an Indoor Cycling Instructor. Epic Texas Hill Country now has a “Just the ride.” option that skips the intro slides and goes right to the ride. This DVD is 125 minutes long but you can choose to play just 45 minutes or select different segments of the ride to play. I personally like this feature. Being able to start the video in different places keeps it fresh for my students – John
They made this DVD just for me!
OK, not really. But it is exactly what I have asked for; a long climb without a bunch of distractions. I need to thank Allen Jones from Epic Planet for sending me a sample of this DVD – a small perk of this job 🙂
If you asked a frequent participant of my Indoor Cycling Class, “what is a typical class of John's like?” They would tell you “endurance training with long efforts with lots of load (resistance).” In other words, long climbs! This new Indoor Cycling DVD, Epic Tucson, from Epic Planet is perfect for this type of class. It starts with a short warmup and then up, up, up! The whole climb is over an hour. I used it today (I subbed for Amy so she could sleep in). Because we were not at the top by the end of the official class, I asked “who wants to stay to see the top?” More than half stayed and we finished it. I'm doing it again tomorrow if you would like to come.
Here is the Trailer. You can get your own copy Here
Update: Allen Jones just emailed me with a $10.00 discount off Epic Tucson if you use the coupon code ICI at checkout. Good until Dec 24th 2009
