by John | Jun 30, 2021 | Instructor Tips and Tricks
When a student asks what they should purchase for Indoor Cycling Shoes, what do you recommend? Do you have a place to send them? Does your club sell Indoor Cycling Shoes?
If you're only using them for Indoor Cycling classes, then a shoe with a recessed SPD cleat is the best choice. Often refered to as Mountain Bike shoes, you'll find they are easy to walk on and won't scratch the floor. Every pedal you will find and a studio these days will have a SPD on one side.
Here are links to a number of suggestions at Amazon.com which has as good a pricing as anyone and you can't beat Amazon's easy return policies.
Indoor Cycling Shoes for Women
Indoor Cycling Shoes for Men
I ride a lot outdoors and prefer a conventional “Cycling Shoe” that has an exposed cleat – I have used Look cleats on all of my road bikes. My feet are very wide and flat. After suffering with ill fitting shoes in a “regular” width for years, I finally broke down and purchased a pair of Sidi Mega Road Cycling Shoes
. Yes I know they are expensive. I've had mine for at least ten years and other than looking a bit faded, they are as comfy as ever.
I should add that I wear my Sidi's with Superfeet supportive insoles that prevent my feet from rolling inward, which takes a lot of stress off my knees.
This post has more suggestions and recommendations for the best indoor cycling shoes for wide feet.
Originally posted 2010-06-19 09:51:02.
by Karen Casler | Apr 25, 2021 | Instructor Training
JANUARY 10, 2017
I received the following text message from a customer…
Your new employee Boomer Rose. He has a history of drug use. On supervised probation. Everyone deserves a second chance. We all make mistakes but just want you to be aware.
MEET BOOMER
Boomer works at TheBarn.
************************************
I used to be 300 pounds. I used to be an alcoholic. I used to be addicted to heroin. I used to be homeless. I have spent time in jails and rehabs. I have spent half my life unable to look in the mirror hating the person I was. Those days have passed, however, they remain fresh in my mind. Now I am a grateful recovering addict. A proud member of a 12-Step Fellowship. A proud member of TheBarn.
I’ve spent a good portion of my morning reading articles debating what Indoor Cycling should and shouldn’t be. In one of the articles, Karen Casler of CB CycleBarn® discusses her childhood, constantly searching for a place to fit in and trying to find acceptance. As an adult, she yearned for a place where others like her could find a safe environment and where they could be themselves. A place that no matter what or who they were … they BELONGED. It is under that principle, that CB CycleBarn® … aka … TheBarn was born. I too have spent most of my life trying to find somewhere that I felt accepted. The moment that I walked into TheBarn I found that place. A place that is more than just an Indoor Cycling and Fitness studio. A place that I take pride in being a member of. I walk in everyday proud to be apart of the primary purpose: Bettering ourselves “one pedal stroke at a time”.
NOW … LET’S BACKTRACK
I had never met Karen Casler before February of 2016.
I had known that we have a sister for most of my life and that she had been given up for adoption at birth. I almost came to tears on the Jail phone in a pod full of 50 strangers when I heard the news that our sister had used DNA to piece together her past and to find us. 3 Days later, on February 5th, I was released from Jail. It was my first stint in Jail and it was Her birthday. When the offer was made for me to move from Virginia to California in November of 2017 I didn’t even have to think it over. I instantly agreed.
Looking back, the decision was somewhat crazy considering Karen and I had just recently met each other and collectively spent less than 24 hours around each other our ENTIRE LIVES. The opportunity to get to know my sister and her family was one that I simply could not pass up. I packed my whole life in a suitcase (36 pounds in total) and left my 4-year-old son and everything I have ever known behind. I awoke on January 8th and looked out on the Pacific Ocean for the first time in the daylight I felt as though I was dreaming. “I don’t deserve to be here” I thought to myself.
That morning Karen and I loaded into the car and headed off for my first trip to TheBarn. In the car on the way there we talked and she mentioned “I bet you would be a great cycling instructor.” I agreed with her. Coming from a theater and athletic background, it might be a possibility but I didn’t take it seriously. At TheBarn, I took my first cycling class. I clipped in and within the first 5 minutes I realized this was It. This was the CHEESE I had been looking for. A dark room, filled with loud music, full of people silently moving together. Working together. For the same common purpose. To better ourselves. That first class I was able to check out of my life and all my wrong doings for 45 minutes and everything that was weighing on me disappeared. It was just me and the bike. Nothing else mattered.
FAST FORWARD … 7 WEEKS
Today is February 26th.
I have been in California almost 2 months.
Four weeks ago, I celebrated my 1st year in recovery. Today, I am 399 days clean. I work at TheBarn. It is a place that is more than a job to me. I spend my time working, going to meetings, being active in my new church and getting to know Karen and my new family. The experience has been the greatest blessing I have ever received. Being apart of TheBarn Family brings me a feeling of pride I have never felt. After much thinking the past few weeks I have decided to embark on the journey of becoming a cycling instructor. The thought I brushed aside has now become a reality. I’m driven to help others who are like me, to find a healthy outlet for their addictive personalities in their recovery. My goal: to offer fun, safe and donation based rides to those suffering from the same disease as me. To give others a healthy way to release the same emotions and endorphins that we found with drugs and alcohol. The ability to safely work on our Mind, Bodies and Spirits. I have found in recovery it is important to focus on all three. The first thing you should do when you get clean, is change everything. I am excited for this adventure, humbled at the opportunity and grateful to be apart of TheBarn family. So here I am, outing myself to the masses as an addict. Hoping that those that are struggling know that they have someone safe to reach out too, and somewhere safe to work on themselves. It’s about progress not perfection.
I sit here watching the waves of the Pacific Ocean crash against the shores of Calafia and reminisce on the events in my life that have brought me here, to THIS place, paradise. My story isn’t over yet. This is just the beginning.
Never Alone. Never Again. Never The Same.
I found TheBarn.
By Boomer Rose
Originally posted 2018-02-28 12:52:23.
by Christine Hawthorne | Oct 19, 2020 | Instructor Training, iTunes & Spotify Training, Spotify
As an indoor cycling instructor, you already know that music plays an important part in creating an exceptionally motivating class.
But sometimes, searching for new music and developing playlists can be time consuming and costly. Since iTunes came out with its social network, Ping in 2010, I’ve had great success finding music and sharing songs and playlists there with other instructors. In fact, I may have been happy to stay with Ping forever. Then I heard a rumor that with its new upgrade this fall, iTunes will be dropping Ping. I can neither confirm nor deny that rumor, but it did scare me enough into looking at other music options.
That’s when my search began for a new music-sharing site that would offer me the ease of finding new music, putting my playlists together and sharing them with other instructors. I knew about other social music sites such as MeeMix, , Maestro.fm, and Last.fm, and I had dabbled in Spotify before, even recreating some of my iTunes playlists and publishing them there. I had never really explored Spotify enough to see all that it had to offer though.
With the possibility of Ping not being available to me any more, I knew that it was time to jump in and give Spotify another try. This was around the same time that John contacted me to write some blog posts here at ICI/ PRO. I mentioned to him that I was dabbling in Spotify, and he said it would ‘change the way I use music in my indoor cycling classes.’ As music ‘junkie’ and someone that had become pretty adept at creating playlists, sharing them and using them in my classes, I was sure that he was exaggerating.
As the next few weeks went by, I continued to explore Spotify, upgraded to ‘premium’ membership status and gained more confidence using it. I also installed the Spotify app on my new iPhone. In that short time, I have almost completely stopped purchasing new music in iTunes and cancelled my $12.99/month eMusic account. I’ve also begun to stream my playlists in my indoor cycling classes through my phone. Amazing, really, if you stop to think about it. I’m still working out the kinks in this area, but overall I’d say it’s going quite well.
To say that this was a challenge for me would be an understatement, because I consider myself just a bit technologically challenged, and I will admit that I found Spotify difficult to navigate at first. I am not someone that picks things like this up easily. I’m guessing that a lot of you reading this are in the same boat. I’m still working on learning how to use Spotify to it’s fullest potential. While I know that I am only using a small part of what’s available to me as a premium member, I’ve already decided that John was right. It already has started to change the way I’m using music in my classes.
Let me begin by telling you a few of the things that I already love about Spotify:
- It’s inexpensive. I know what you’re thinking. How is $9.99 a month for a premium membership inexpensive? Here’s how: You don’t have to purchase music anymore. You have thousands of songs available for you to use. Between my monthly eMusic payment and my iTunes purchases, I was spending well over the $9.99 that I am paying per month for Spotify.
- It’s simple to create playlists. This part of the process is actually very similar to iTunes, only much simpler. You can browse new music, see what others are listening to and create your own playlists in less time than if you had to download them and drag them into your playlists. In just a few clicks, you have everything you need at your fingertips.
- You can share your playlists: Kind of like sharing playlists on iTunes only you can actually sync an entire playlist to your device and use it in your own cycling class. Sure, on iTunes you could purchase entire playlists easily, but it would cost you anywhere from fifteen to twenty dollars or more. With Spotify, you have access to thousands of songs and playlists and you can use as many as you’d like.
While I’ve learned a lot about Spotify in the few short weeks that I’ve been exploring it, I still have so many questions about it. I’m quite certain that I have not even scratched the surface of all that it has to offer me as a cycling instructor.
For example, here are few things that I’ve struggled with continued to struggle with:
- I’m finding it hard to find other people to ‘follow’. One way to find people is to log in through your Facebook account and follow your Facebook friends that are on Spotify, but I am specifically looking for other instructors and people with good musical taste. No offense to my Facebook friends, but most of them don’t fit into either category. It’s not as simple as ‘searching’ for people by name.
- I’m still learning the whole ‘online’/’offline’ thing. Do I want to stream my music via the Internet, or take it ‘offline’, which is a feature of the premium membership? One lesson I learned: when you are ‘online’ and your iPhone rings during class, your music will pause until you dismiss the call, unless you switch your phone to ‘airplane’ mode.
My goal until my next post is work out some of these kinks and share more of my Spotify experience with you. I would love it if I didn’t have to take this journey into the great unknow alone, so In the meantime, I will put this challenge out to those of you not yet using Spotify premium:
At the very least, try the free membership to see how you like it. If you ‘re ready to make the jump, I promise you that the premium membership will be worth every penny. I would be more than happy to entertain any questions that you may have about starting up with Spotify. If I don’t know the answer, I’ll try to find it for you.
Until then, keep the music flowing!
Here are a few links that you may find helpful:
Spotify
Try Spotify Premium Free For 30 Days!
Chris’ Spotify profile
Originally posted 2012-09-11 15:32:23.
by Gino | Nov 22, 2019 | Instructor Training, Master Instructor Blog, Training With Power
Coach Gino gets an assist from a professional statistician.
Let’s Try This Another Way
After testing 14 different bikes, with 6 of them also being repeat tested at least twice, I was pretty disappointed to see the data I reported in our last blog. This was never meant to be just an academic exercise. This had pure practical motivation. I wanted to be able to do real and reasonable competition in class. I wanted to encourage more tantalizing trash talk among my most competitive riders. I wanted to let some of my “little old ladies” throw it down against some of the guys who think bigger is better. I needed the bikes to be on an even scale to do this in good conscience, and handicapping them against a reputable objectively measured power meter seemed like a no-brainer to do just that.
But alas, the numbers from my work up to this point lead me to a conclusion I simply had not anticipated; that each bike within itself may vary day to day with regards to what power it will display given the same force being applied. This was an assumption that myself and many other “defenders of calculated power” have held on to for these past 4 years or so – that it doesn't really matter if the power is accurate compared to what would be measured with a real power meter, as long as that power was consistent. In other words, we could know if our training was making us better or not by pre and post testing on the same bike. It would simply generate a relative value so we could know if we improved a lot, a little or not at all. Each year at Winter Training we would assign bikes so that we could be assured of this “fact”. This was indeed the fundamental assumption that prompted the entire notion that a handicap could indeed be created, if we had a objective way to get at power simultaneous to seeing the bike's power display.
Unfortunately, as you could see from the numbers reported the last time, they varied so much within the same bike, from one testing episode to the next (even despite painfully recreating the same circumstances of a consistent rider, environment, time of day, method of execution and all the like), that this assumption was not true for at least 50% of the bikes. Undaunted by this surprisingly sad turn of events, I started to ask around for an available statistician that might be interested in this research. I wanted a more experienced extra set of eyes and less personally invested perspective so that they could let me know if I am doing something wrong. Was I measuring the wrong way, perhaps working with false assumptions, not controlling enough variables, etc. I didn’t want to give up just yet — I had already invested too much time and energy.
3 More Bikes Tested, 3 Times Each
One of my regulars referred me to Sarah who is both a cyclist and teaches statistics at a nearby university. We met a couple of times to discuss what I had done so far, and she spent some time and thought on the issue, and created a new protocol. We would focus on just 3 bikes, took them out of commission so no one else would ride them, made sure she conducted/directed me as I rode/tested each bike. These trials would be done on three different days, in random order as generated from a random table of numbers. This video takes us through one of those three sessions.
In the next blog post, we will discuss the results of these 9 trials.
http://vimeo.com/82319421
Indoor Cycling Power Accuracy & Validation Research from Cycling Fusion on Vimeo.
Originally posted 2014-02-19 03:04:24.
by Barbara | Nov 2, 2019 | Barbara Hoots, Featured Articles
Have you ever met someone and liked them instantly? You can't explain why but you immediately felt an emotional bond. I'm not talking about sexual attraction, but rather a genuine and wholesome feeling of fondness and respect towards this person.
In a job interview, you are more likely to be hired if the interviewer connects with you as a person. In a business situation, you are more likely to get your foot in the door and seal the deal if the client connects with you as a person. As a cycling instructor, you are more likely to have students follow you to the ends of the earth and never dream of skipping a class if they connect with you on this personal level!
Although your technical skills may be outstanding, if class size has dwindled it may be time to develop some love-ability skills! The qualities of a lovable instructor can actually be cultivated with these simple tips.
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Originally posted 2010-04-18 12:12:48.
