Product Reviews, Suisse Mister

Well... It's answer Friday! But before we go into that and all... Curly would like to talk a bit about a product he just reviewed... and it pretty much sucks. Yeah, I thought it would be a good idear to do some benchmarking on what "other" coaches are doing... so I watched the Totally TT 2.0 Spin-hurl-vals DVD. First off... it looks like they filmed it in an abandoned Shakey's Pizza or Spaghetti factory. Second... Coach Troy looks like a runner and not a cyclist... oh, I can't count anymore... The rider at the back is doing like 50 rpms and slouchin' down on her ride like she never rode a bike before. The feller up front is sweating profusely after like 2 minutes and he looks to be in the best shape. Yet another beef is that they show you the workout format up front and at the end, but nothing during. The shots of the shifting gears displayed in the box that's meant for the hearing impaired is pretty lame and pointless cuz it don't tell you nothin'. If I could re-do the whole thing, I'd take Coach Troy out, the workout people OUT, and start over. Here's how I'd do it.

• First... Objectives of the training ("this video is meant to do this...)
• Layout of the workout.
• Warmup (10 minutes)
• Overall, a small timer of the entire workout in the upper right hand corner... out of the way, but visible
• Each segment has it's own countdown with notation of what segment the user is currently in. (i.e. interval 2 of 5) bottom left
• We'd chuck the gearing nonsense and use a cadence guideline
• Cooldown and stretching (15 minutes)
• All of this would be super-imposed over race footage of the same activity. TT interval... rider TT'ng... Crit-style interval... rider sprinting and cornering. Climbing?? You do a stage of Pantani breaking away alone.
• Background music of course matches the effort... but still... not necessary in case your trainer is loud... just an enhancement.
• DVD must include some "bonus" files for the music to download on your iPod or other mp3 player.

That's it... Just One Thing Training DVDs. Cripes Troy and Carmichael.... Make things people can use for pete's sake!

OK... Name That PRO™ Answer... I noticed alot of Greg Lemonds... nice try folks. We're bagging the video today... it was little lame and too serious for Answer Friday. I will tell you that Andy Hampsten, in his best year ever for cycling... managed to win the Tour of Switzerland in 1986 riding for LaVie Claire. Yep... same year he finished 4th in the TdF and won the white jersey... yep the same year that a French Team (using American riders) nearly scored a full house on the podium if it wasn't for a Swiss rider named Urs Zimmerman who foiled the month for Hampsten. Still, ya gotta love to be Andy that year. 1st in the TdS and then finishing 4th in your first TdF with the best young rider's jersey. Seems like he never rode the same after that. There was always some sort of bad ketchup or stomach issue or lack of TT skills. I think I'll ride this weekend with my old LaVie Claire jersey to honor this answer and perhaps have a little cinghale prosciutto as well... which is fancy bacon for you veggie0tonians out there. Tschüß Tschüß