by Christine Hawthorne | Jun 25, 2017 | Instructor Training, Music
Instructors: It's been one of those weeks for new music. Some really great tracks that you'll want to use in your classes right away have dropped and I'm going to share them along with how I'll be using them in this post!
To start, Imagine Dragons album Evolve is now released in it's entirety. If you haven't been using the early releases (Believer, Whatever It Takes and Thunder) you should definitely give those a listen. In addition, here are a few more that will come in handy:
I Don't Know Why (climb 61 rpm) iTunes Link
Rise Up (flat road 96 rpm) iTunes Link
Yesterday (faster hill 78 rpm) iTunes link
Mouth of The River (flat road 98 rpm) iTunes link
Fallout Boy has a few new pre-releases and my favorite is this one with it's motivational lyrics (“I've got nothing but dreams inside……If I can live through this, I can do anything”).
Champion (flat road 95 rpm) iTunes Link
Not sure how I'm using this one yet, but I had to include this one by The Killers:
The Man iTunes Link
I hope you enjoy these new tunes to help you officially kick off the summer indoor cycling season! Feel free to share your favorite new tunes in the comments!
by Christine Hawthorne | Jun 18, 2017 | Instructor Training, KEEPING IT FUN, Music
This week's track will bring your class up a slow, steep hill as the rpm remains the same, but the gear becomes more intense with each minute. Bishop Briggs‘ song, River is one that will get stuck in your head long after this hill is over and you'll want to use it again and again. It would also make a great standing climb. (64rpm)
River by Bishop Briggs iTunes link
by Christine Hawthorne | Jun 10, 2017 | Instructor Training, KEEPING IT FUN, Music
This new release from Harry Styles‘ self named album makes a great faster hill at around 74 rpm. It's a totally different sound than you're used to hearing from the One Direction star, and it will definitely rock your next class. Here is Kiwi:
Kiwi by Harry Styles iTunes link
While you're checking out the newest releases, don't overlook this one by Robin Schulz and James Blunt called OK. As with the Harry Styles song, this is not what you're used to hearing from the You're Beautiful singer. It has more of a house beat to it that lends a strong beat to pedal to at 62 rpm.
OK by Robin Schulz, James Blunt iTunes link
by John | Jun 8, 2017 | Best Practices, Instructor Tech Help, Master Instructor Blog, Spotify
ICI/PRO member Dr. Marc Schlosberg is one of those Early Adopters you've no doubt heard discussed in the media. This group is quick to experiment with and embrace new technology. Marc was one of the first Instructors to use Spotify in his classes and he joined me on the podcast to discuss this (at the time) exciting new option for delivering music to our classes. Marc sent me this email yesterday, providing his comments related to my conversation with Chris Hawthorne on Podcast #303
Hi John,
I was listening to the latest podcast and heard about the Spotify syncing issues. I have a couple of suggestions/solutions. I think the reason rebooting all units works to fix syncing is that the newest versions are then installed on all devices. I believe syncing problems develop when Spotify updates and there is a version mismatch. You don’t always know this is the case or sometimes it’s difficult to track that one device has updated, but you haven’t checked the others. Simply shutting Spotify down, checking for updates and updating it, then restarting the program should solve the problem. You have to do this with all the devices you use.
Another roadblock to syncing is lack of space on a device. It won’t tell you you’re out of space, but won’t take individual tracks offline — they stay grey rather than green. It’s a good idea to switch playlists to online only after you’ve used them to preserve space (except for those you always like to have in your back pocket). You could also delete unused apps to make room. My iPhone is 16gb and I’ve run into this problems (and 16gb used to be an unimaginable amount of space). It’s probably less of an issue for those with 32gb and up or Android devices with huge plugin memory — unless the memory is full.
Whoa — it looks like Spotify updated their iPhone interface yet again while I was writing this.
Hope this helps.
Take care,
Marc
Thanks for this Marc! Your suggestion that available storage maybe limiting the number of “off line” playlists is a good one and begs the question; “how can I tell how full is the memory on my iPhone?”
There are a couple of places that will show you how much space/memory you've got left. My preference is to go to: Settings > General > Usage… where at the top you'll see how much room there is for a few more playlists.
This also shows you all the other memory hungry Apps on your phone. One common culprit is your camera's memory and all those pictures and HD videos. Downloading them to your computer and then deleting can free up some space.
Depending on your settings, Podcasts download automatically and can quickly crowd out your favorite playlists. Open your Podcast App select a specific Podcast > Settings > Episodes to keep and select a number to save (Last 2 / Last 5 / ect…) instead of All.
Do you have any other tricks you can share?
Originally posted 2014-04-04 07:53:40.
by Christine Hawthorne | Jun 4, 2017 | Instructor Training, Music
Every instructor needs to have songs like this week's favorite track in their library. Keep this one in your flat road folder and take it out when you are looking for a longer flat road to ride on. Though they've been around for quite a while, I've just recently found Nahko and Medicine for The People and their song Black as Night from their 2013 album Dark as Night. I love the lyrics: “I believe in the good things coming…”.
Riders will even out at around 97 rpm. *If you edit, watch for a few explicit lyrics at
1:19 and 5:09 (nothing a little ‘talking over' won't fix!)
Black as Night by Nahko and Medicine for The People iTunes link
