The last stop of the tour has come and passed. Don’t worry, there’s no reason to boo-hoo. Put down your handkerchief, good sir. Another tour will come again someday. In the meantime, buy yourself the DVDs and take your own virtual ride on your own bike, right in the comfort of your own home, in your Mr. Clean boxer shorts. No bike? Find a facility in your area that offers virtual ride classes and take a trip with the group.

Gene and Paul preceded this final event with a real meal at a real restaurant. No Subway or gelato as meal replacement today. They even stayed in a real hotel, in the heart of a real city - clearly going all out for their last stop of an oppressively long tour.

The last facility was (and still is) located in Minnesota. You know Minnesota - the birthplace of Judy Garland and Bob Dylan, the place where the pop-up toaster was invented, the place where the sweet tones of the state song “Someday the Vikings Will… Aw, Nevermind” can be heard throughout the great snowy hills. The facility was also the smallest they visited, but as long as diamonds remain a girl’s best friend, good things will continue to come in small packages. Outside it was a reportedly balmy 31 degrees, a near tropical heat wave in December for the fine residents of Minnesota.

Pedal Indoor Cycling Studio was a quaint little boutique style nook packed full of goodness. Indoor cycling is all they do, and wouldn’t you know, they already had four screens on their wall in front of the bikes. Having experienced with sub-par virtual ride cycling dvds in the past, they were excited to try our new product and see how it differed. On top of that, the lovely John MacGowan of Indoor Cycling Instructor Podcast stopped by to take the class and interview Gene in person about the project, the mission and whether or not he’d saved any more people’s lives lately. The above link will take you to John’s website, where you can find the interview magnificently captured in YouTube form.

So, back to business, Billy. The club (hereby known as Pedal) was in the process of soundproofing their facility, as they are located in the bottom of a residential building. They had acquired special permission to bust out the subwoofer and extra speakers for the event, allowing Gene to rattle the floorboards with his booming chants of enthusiastic motivation and effectively utilize the wonderful music that exists on the DVDs. There was a good turnout that included several instructors, and as usual, the crowd really got into the experience.

One of John’s friends from the DC area traveled to the Minneapolis area and attended the event. She is the one noted as the “leaner” in the YouTube video. Her previous experience with other virtual ride DVDs was negative, and she was interested in seeing how we are different. Long story short; she was pleased. As were the other attendees, who had a good time and provided us with great feedback after the class. Gene publicly thanked Paul for all his support and dedication in the most embarrassing way possible, as is Gene’s style, and thus concluded their voyage.

Having completed quite a journey, the fellows headed to the airport for the final flight back home to Pittsburgh. Arriving at the wrong terminal at the airport, they had a true Planes, Trains and Automobiles experience. Thankfully, after a Home Alone style hustle through the halls (TWO movie references in this paragraph, folks), a ride on the light rail and cardiac arrest, they made it and got back to the Steel City at around 1am.

Cue the pig, because that’s all, folks.

The fellows finally enjoyed their last bit of road driving on Day 10, as they traveled from the Los Angeles area down to San Diego. En route, they stopped at a shop full of hundreds of beach cruiser bikes and looked around. Gene’s brother and nephew, people who don’t particularly do indoor cycling, also joined them for the day and for the following demonstration.

There was a yoga class scheduled immediately before their demo, so the team had to set up and get things assembled a few hours prior, go get some food (probably Subways and gelato) and return. When they did, they found 30 anxious, hyper bikers waiting to get inside.

As you’ll notice in the video, the demonstration at Fitness West in San Diego was a unique night for the Global Ride team. Why, you say? Watch the video and you won’t ask such silly questions, that’s why! It was because the room was not full of typical health club-goers. These weren’t indoor cyclists who were treading an alternate path for their daily workout. In fact, they weren’t fitness club members at all. No, sir, the people at Fitness West were from the San Diego Bicycle Club. Many riding on trainers instead of Spin bikes, these were true outdoor cycling organization folks who came inside to give our new method of training a try.

The class was handled as a steady state heart rate environment. The purpose of such a thing is to maintain a consistent heart rate through the entire ride. This is impossible for people to do outside, as they have to deal with weather, terrain, traffic, and all the other start-and-stop problems that get in their face. However, it is super duper important and imperative for supreme cardiovascular development - and something that outdoor cyclists should do. Thus, the wisdom of Gene Edward Nacey was conveyed upon the masses through the majesty of indoor cycling, with a little help from his digital projector. Needless to say by now, all the cyclists enjoyed the ride more than they thought they would.

About 1/3 of the attendees were actually wearing heart monitors. This was surprising, as it is such a great tool for people to wear, and that number really ought to be higher. Doing a steady state heart rate ride (say that 10 times fast) did encourage a few people to go buy heart monitors, as you’ll see in the video. They saw the benefit and realized that they could have more efficiently trained during the class. It adds an essential level and control and, well, monitoring to the training. It helps you train smarter, not harder - and that’s always a good thing.

After driving all night from Bethesda to Atlanta, then doing a 2 hour stint at Jeanne’s only to have to spend that much time on the road again was a bit grueling. Paul did most of the driving. In fact, poor paul drove for 20 hours separated by just the 2 hr stop in Atlanta. (Rumor has it he drives like a crazyface - Rumor also has it Gene tends to doze off at the wheel). The Olympia Fitness Center demonstration was another one in the morning, so rest was needed for an early rise. This demonstration was to be one of the most important - as it hosts one of the largest indoor cycling rooms in the country, so the champs made sure to eat their Wheaties before going.

The room inside Olympia was unfortunately just like JBT’s room - a multi purpose room with windows to the outside that brought in a lot of light that was hard to block from hitting the screen. This time, blocking the light was even more difficult than the last time, and at times Gene even got “lost” on the road, not knowing exactly where he was in his ride sequence. It was quite difficult, and there was more light than you would normally find entering a typical Spin room or home. The good news was that with almost 100 bikes full, there was so much energy in the room, it didn’t much matter - the room was filled with phenomenal energy taking them through every turn. This excited Gene to great heights.

I have been informed that Billy Garcia needs to get a special mention. He helped Johnny G (the creator of Spinning) in the early days of the company, and has been in the cycling business for a very long time, with a lot of students that never miss his classes. At Olympia he served as an avid supporter of our cause. Most importantly, he was incredibly impressed with the virtual ride DVDs. In fact, after he reviewed them, he couldn’t wait to call Gene and ask if he would return for a big charity event where we would show these DVDs back to back for the entire event - a sort of “Video Spin-A-Thon. I have no doubt that Gene accepted, because this is the sort of thing that powers Gene’s heart and keeps him going. Billy agrees that the DVDs could be the next big trend in indoor cycling, which is something we have been trying to stress since the inception of Global Ride Cycling DVDs and Cycling Fusion. See? We’re not a bunch of crazies.

Billy invited Paul and Gene to his house to look at one of the new RealRyder bikes (bikes that tilt and move while you ride, which sounds terrifying) that he has been consulting on, and they had a great conversation about how the two worlds of outdoor and indoor cycling need to come together - especially as it relates to teaching the indoor classes.

The fellows barely made their flght that night out of Miami, having to spend about an hour getting through security, but eventually did and enjoyed a much deserved day off in Denver - doing nothing but catching up on emails, reading and watching the Steelers beat up the Cowboys. Take that, Tony Romo.

Here is the overdue video from the Bethesda club. Enjoy!

There is something about the proverbial “road trip”.  Is it the adventure of new places, new faces, or just that we can’t wait to get away from the same-old, same-old.  Is it memories of taking those family vacations, mom & dad driving all night, you playing games and annoying your big brother in the back seat, or does it instead conjure up more Chevy Chase’s “Vacation” memories than you’d like to think about.

Well I’m writing this blog post from the co-pilot’s seat in our rented mini-van/road show vehicle.  We will drive to N.Y. City for 3 Global Rides in Brooklyn over 2 days, then it will off to Boston, DC, Atlanta & Miami before we leave the car and fly for the remaining itinerary out west.

I’ve prepared my opening comments, and so I thought I’d share them here:

My name is Gene Nacey.  I am the founder of Global Ride Video Productions.   This has been a labor of love for me and my team for about 18 months now.  We believe that video in general will be the next big trend in Spinning® or Indoor Cycling studios across the country.  More specifically though, we believe the virtual ride will be what provides the catalyst to this movement.

While I know we are not first, and more companies are jumping into this space even as we launch our first series, we are not just targeting cyclists training at home, but these DVDs are also designed specifically for Indoor Cycling or Spinning classes as well.

This is because we are not just a video production company, but we also have a training center in PA as well.  We are a group of avid cyclists in both the indoor and outdoor environments, and we see these DVDs as much more than just selling discs.  We are on a mission to bring the world of Indoor Cycling or Spinning® together with the world of outdoor cycling of all types – road riding, mountain biking, even rail trail riding.  It’s our desire to see the indoor only crowd experience the freedom and adventure of the open air, and to show the outdoor cyclist how much fun training indoors can be, and how much stronger a rider they can become with good indoor training.  We think the addition of video can really be the bridge between these two groups.

When we finish the ride, I’ll tell you a little more about the DVDs and our new website Cycling Fusion where we are attempting to build an online community of those folks who have discovered the beauty and power of both worlds of cycling – indoors and out!

Starting tomorrow, we will let Jeff do our daily updates, and upload small YouTube videos of each location where we show the DVD.  You’ll like his writing style much more than my “get to the point” aproach.