Cycling music is like none other — it has nutritional value and feeds your soul. But it takes time and effort to find extraordinary tracks, and instructors often become stagnant, relying on the same music they taught years ago.
Back by popular demand, ICI/PRO is collecting a list of your favorite tracks for 2013! While all the songs may not represent your style of teaching, I encourage you to learn the “language” of a different genre — be it the sheer intensity of an instrumental, the verbal play and urban rootedness of mainstream hip-hop, or the beautiful vocals of new Indie artists. In the words of Frank Zappa, “Your mind is like a parachute….it works best when open.”
Feel free to incorporate tips on how you teach each song, including terrain, rpm’s or inspirational cues. As a subscriber to the ICI/PRO newsletter, you’ll receive this highly coveted list once the tracks are compiled and alphabetized. And for you Spotify fans, we'll create a playlist just for you.
Below are 3 of my favorites — Enjoy!
Jaytech/Steve Smith — Stranger (Kyau and Albert Remix)
Beautiful piano just before midpoint is perfect teaching moment…buildup…add gear until legs begin to bog down then powerful standing climb for remainder of song.
Sultan & Ned Shepard featuring Sia/Usher/Martin Solveig — Walls (3LAU Vocal Edit)
Uplifting finish line track with two 30-sec intervals/sprints
I'm not sure if this is the correct version, but it's pretty good – John
ATB – Believe in Me (A&T Remix)
These and more are compiled on our 404 Top Indoor Cycling Tracks list. Grab it by joining as a free PRO-VisitorICI/PRO Member.
Today's free track is included on Chris Nielsen's Going The Distance Audio PROfile class playlist – but isn't available on Spotify. It also works very well following last week's recovery track = communicates a very intense segment in your profile.
As you listen to Medieval, you may hear yourself telling the story woven into the music. Powerful horses approaching and then running through the village square, then continuing cross-country. Unrelenting in their speed as they cross a vast distance, until finally reaching their destination.
The artist is Etnoscope and you'll find a number of powerful 70ish RPM tracks there on Spotify.
What constitutes the perfect mid-class recovery song?
For me it needs to combine a mid 90's cadence, something everyone can connect with and a fresh/fun vibe – almost playful maybe?
Nothing too complex, confusing or heady.
A song that says; take it easy, just enjoy your time here right now… because it could will really suck a few minutes from now, once we get into our next effort 🙁
Direct download of the mashup Lazy Boxer & Naive Tales or click the Download button on the player to go to their facebook page, like them and download it there.
Laggard, Noun – def: one who's hanging back, or falling behind.
I admit it. My internal, unspoken motto has been, ‘if it isn’t broken, don’t fix it’. I did not walk until I was 16 months old- crawling was fine with me. What can I say?
As you might imagine, John has made fun of my music ‘process’ for years. Here is generally how it went:
Gather CD’s, or order and wait for them from the library
Listen through them on impossibly long commute to day job
Note good songs
Download to itunes
Make playlists on itunes
Burn playlist to CD
Just recently, download playlist to ipod
I started to feel the pain of my laggard like ways. Much like I must have felt when I finally started to walk, I felt the need to update my music process.
My jump into Spotify-land has been so much fun. No more having to order CD’s and wait for them to come in. No more downloading and burning.
The process is so simple. The details on getting started are here. I love to go to Spotify, put in a band or song name and have ALL the titles pop up. I love that my playlist is on my phone. No more CD’s (this is only a problem when I drop my phone in the toilet!) Even more than that, I love saying to my students, ‘If there is a song you would like to hear in class, just let me know and I can pop it into a future ride, no problem!’
Thank you, John, for making fun of me and ultimately making me feel enough pain to update my music process. I am so happy.
If you have not tried Spotify, do. I think you will like it!
I've described her at times as the Human Metronome for good reason – the girl knows how to follow a beat.
And yes, when she and I dance, she leads.
As the Senior Group Fitness Instructor here, Amy has skills she's developed from teaching and cuing aerobics classes that can benefit both you and your participants.
One is how she will introduce a Waltz to help those of us who are rhythmically inept learn to hear, follow and pedal to the actual beat of the music.
Listen below to Amy explain why a adding a few Waltz tempo tracks to your playlist could potentially help those Laggards in class finally “get it.” At the end we've recorded Amy's actual presentation to her class so you can learn how you might introduce a Waltz to your students.
NOTE: Chim Chim and the two versions of Kiss from a rose we've used may be the most universally known tracks we're aware of.
Like a good man-a good flat is sometimes hard to find 🙂
Got one for you this week though. Daughter Abby (our oldest) is STILL home from college and asked me to listen to this artist, as she is going to her concert in February.
She reminds me a bit of Alicia Keyes. Lots of soul and great musicality. Quite new to the music scene, her first album was released in October 2012, so you might not have heard of her… yet.
My latest profile is 3 climbs to AT with a flat in between. We are not recovering on the flats, but simply going back to ‘base’ watts at high zone 2/ low zone 3, which we established early in our ride. I have been using ‘Til the Casket Drops’ by ZZ Ward for one of the flat roads in between the climbs. At 3:06, and 88 rpm’s, it is the perfect back-to-your-base motivational flat road tune.
