Review; Cyclefilm Roads to Glory Vol1 & Vol2

It may not have escaped your notice that I spend a fair amount of time on my trainer, a Kurt Kinetic Road Machine, in fact just today I hit the 2000 mile mark, not bad in 14 months! Now when spending that amount of time on a trainer you need something to take your mind off of going nowhere. I have tried several series of training videos my “Go-Tos” have been the Sufferfest videos, for an occasional change I will mix in a 3LC one, I did once try a Spinervals one (never ever again) as well as sometimes just watching a movie. The latter of these, in my mind, equates to junk miles and you’re just spinning with no structure and I try to do this a last resort! So I am always on the look out for something new.

Enter Cyclefilm and the Roads to Glory series. If you are familiar with Cyclefilm they produce the excellent Etape du Tour series that guide you over the Tour De France mountain stages from each year’s race. They also made the highly entertaining and educational Eye Wide Open which I reviewed in 2011 (c’mon Bikes and Girls, what’s not to like!?!) and a few others…I have to confess that I own most of their DVDs (although with the exception of Road to Glory and EWO) I purchased them…so it’s safe to say I am a fan!

Volume 1; Alpine Edition, this is a 140km route featuring climbs over Col de Madeleine, Col de Glandon, Col de la Croix de Fer, Col de Mollard and La Toussuire so yeah there is some climbing! The ride is broken down into 5-15 minute intervals with recoveries and last 65 minutes.

Volume 2; Pyrenean Edition, this is a 197km over Col d’ Aubisque, Col de Soulor, Col de Tourmalet, Col d’Aspin and Col de Peyresourde again lots of climbing!

So on with the review. Your guide for both editions is Michael Cotty a fellow Brit (you did know I was a Brit, right?), Michael is a well-established CX and road racer in the UK and is the guide on many of the Etape DVDs. He adds relevant commentary when needed which includes generic tips, such things as gear checks warming up and cornering and course specific items addressing specific climbs and corners. He manages to do all this without puffing or panting has an easy on the ear voice…I kid you not this is important! In between there is some good old fashioned electronic/house/dance music to keep you bobbing along on the climbs and some more serene laid back tunes for the descents. The camera work is clean and crisp, there are three main angles, from behind looking up, from the front looking back and a first person view using a GoPro. The on screen prompts, which are based on RPE, take a little getting used to, especially if you are familiar with something else and there are no real audio cues., that being said once you know what to expect they are easy to follow.

Filmed in late October, you can tell it’s cold as some of the higher peaks in the background have snow and he is pretty bundled up, what you lose on the clear blue skies you gain in the lack of traffic, the roads are insanely quiet. Of course given the locations the scenery is spectacular, grand European peaks at theIR finest, this is not to be ignored as some training video offer nothing but a view of bunch of sweaty riders on Trainer, motivating? I don’t think so! Finally stick it to the end and watch the out-takes!

So in summary, if you’re stuck on a trainer, which you may well be soon as we rapidly approach autumn and Winter!, my advice would be to always use a structured workout rather than just spin aimlessly for an hour, you wouldn’t do that on the road would you? Both of these provide a well-structured sessions. There is some really good advice/commentary provided along the way, of course you can always turn the volume down and jack up your iPod. There is always something nice to look at, granted not as nice as the Carbon Chicas of Hell Hath No Fury, but way better than a car dealership!

Both DVDs are available online as DVDs currently for GBP15.99 each and available in PAL and NTSC formats (shipping to the US is GBP4) and come complete in a proper case with a really nice collectors handbook.

This DVD was provided free of charge by the good folks at CycleFilm. See previous gear reviews in the tab above. If you have a product you’d like reviewed, contact me at quadrathon@gmail.com.

Tempe Training Camp

With the last weekend being a long one thanks to Labor Day it was another great opportunity to head out to Tempe and get some more time “on course”. Yes it’s a drive; 420 miles or 6-8 hours depending on traffic, yes it’s hot; it topped out around 105f and yes it’s totally worth it! Thanks to some work flexibility we were able to get on the road and stop off for a quick haircut on the way and still be in Tempe before midnight! Just!

The next morning’s plan was to meet at Tempe Town Lake around 5:00am with Thomas and Carl and anyone else who Thomas could rustle up. Two loops of the three loop course or around 75 miles was the plan and to try and get it done before it got too hot. There was six of us in total and we all set off at different paces. I ended up in between two groups and so rode most of the course alone and without an iPod; good mental training. I missed a turning and so added a few extra miles on and had to make a couple of stops for fluids and ice at gas stations but other than that the ride was uneventful. I was pleased that I successfully managed to navigate the nutrition and hydration maze and used Bonk Bars which will be available on Race Day. The last time I was in Tempe was May and I was a little faster overall on the bike course as an average speed this time which is reassuring as this time the ride was an additional 35 miles longer.

After the ride we hit Jamba Juice and refueled. Later in the day we met up with Thomas and his family for pizza (vegan) and beer (?good!)

The next day was a run day and again we all met around 5:30am to hit the run course. This is a 3 loop course around Tempe Town Lake, there is one small hill (150’ climb) which we made sure to run up. There was quite a lot of cloud cover and this was locking in the humidity…I am not sure I have been anywhere so hot and humid and run! A very sweaty 10 miles later I finished, again some ran shorter and some ran longer…it’s just the unsaid rule that we will all wait for each other at the end which we did. It’s good to know that even though I feel like I am melting I can maintain my forefoot form.

I had obviously underestimated the lack of fluids needed despite drinking two handhelds during the run and got a nasty reminder later in the day when visited the bathroom…and let’s just leave that there.

The last day we had no plans to meet and the drive back to LA was the main order of the day. I knew that there was little chance that I would want to workout after the drive so I made a point of laying out my kit the night before and the plan was one loop on the bike course and a run off of the bike.

This time I wanted to really focus on my ride and be “in-myself”. This plan went really well and I rode the entire course a wee bit faster than before and maintained an average HR of only 120 bpm.

Off of the bike I only ran for thirty minutes but wanted to string the two together, I was a bit stiff for the first mile and eased up on the last mile but it was a successful short run. After this and a quick stop at Starbucks we hit the road and headed home!

The weekend totals were a tad over 120 miles on the bike course and nearly 14 miles on the run course…all of it is in valuable as I got a nasty reminder when I went to the Ironman website!

Onwards…

IMAZ training Week 6

Phew, what a great, big week! As mentioned in my last post I headed to Tempe to get some time “on course” and had a blast, but first here’s the weeks digits (sorry it’s two digit posts in a row)! I’ll save you the math; that’s 173 miles and 14 hours and 46 minutes!

Another build week, I veered a little of the plan mostly at the weekend to make best use of my time in Tempe. The bike mileage is up after a long ride on the course and swim mileage is down mostly due to having to cut trips to the gym short to accommodate the kids going back to school. Run mileage has incremented a little but is steady in the mid 20’s.

Next week is the third build week, it’s going to take a bit of shuffling to get it all in but I am sure it can be done, the mid week challenge will be the 2 hour run after an hour’s swim done as a brick. Also there is no rest day so it will be 14 days total by the time I get to my next rest day. With that in mind getting as much sleep in between is going to be critical, no glazing over in front of the TV at 10:00pm and then realizing it’s 11:30pm especially when the alarm goes off at 5:00am!  The 30 day vegan challenge is going well and my energy levels are high…which is a good thing for sure, I am saving my conclusions to the end so you’ll have to wait!

12 weeks to go!