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.

I’ll say one thing straight up: this was Gene’s favorite demonstration so far. Not because it was in his favorite city, in his favorite club, or had his favorite equipment (not to say those weren’t true, but he didn’t say it). It was because of the atmosphere. This club, by a landslide, had the best and most energetic group of attendees to date. They were the loudest, the most involved, and the most excited - whooping and hollering more than a gaggle of apiphobic 9 year olds locked in a van full of hornets.

But first things first, Chuck. The boys stayed at Gene’s cousin’s house in the LA area, a coconut’s hair down the road from Sony Pictures. (A super-decorated picture of this abode is in the Flickr gallery to the right). The club of the evening, Pedal Spin Studio, was only about 50 miles from there. Living up to LA traffic’s reputation, they never traveled more than 30MPH and spent two full hours making the voyage. That should be enough motivation in itself to be pumped for the demonstration - at least it got them out of the car.

Pedal Spin is centered around Spinning, if the name Pedal Spin didn’t already fire a cannon of obviousness straight at your forehead. They offer indoor cycling and a yoga-Spin hybrid; a unique blend of the two fantastic fitness forces. The location in Rancho has only been open about 4 weeks, making it the youngest of all the stops hit on the Global Ride Tour. What they lacked in size they made up for in character - and lighting. They had an insane number of lights - every type you could imagine - to light the room in every possible way. Except normal light bulbs…

Once the show got started, people were into it right from the warmup. The event was very well promoted and the club reached out to outdoor cyclists to bring them in, which allowed Gene to demonstrate the product to a few outdoorsies who had never before come to an indoor class. If you check out the video, you’ll see how this went. The post-ride interviews are awesome, and completely reflect the mission of Global Ride and Cycling Fusion. One of their indoor instructors now wants to ride outside. (He’s the extremely vocal fellow you will hear in the background of the video. So much so that Gene referred to him as a co-coach.) There was an outdoor rider who talked about the effectiveness of the ride. The responses really speak volumes to the movement we’re trying to ignite… and Gene didn’t even have to pay any of them. Much.

Though there were only 18 bikes in the room, they were the most involved group. It didn’t even matter when Gene’s mic went dead halfway through the show thanks to the insane energy. Good work, everyone.

After things got wrapped up, they headed off into the California evening. Noticing that Gene’s ears were perking straight up, Paul discovered that his Italian sixth sense sniffed out the trail of a tiny authentic gelato shack in Culver City. The location was a cross between 50’s retro and supermodern decor, and thus gelato became their dinner. If only they sprinkled some Flintstone vitamins and minced garlic on top, it might have even had some nutritional value. Unfortunately, Flintstone vitamins aren’t an Italian seasoning, so Gene isn’t interested.

Join us tomorrow for another fireside chat as the fellows hit their second to last Tour Destination in the great city of San Diego. You stay classy.

The sun was out. Jeanne’s Body Tech was deliciously positioned against the horizon. The Spinning room was not a unique entity, but an area of a larger gymnasium of athletic goodness. The lights were on. This was the first time doing a virtual ride in a room that wasn’t dark. It did make the presentation a bit more difficult, but it was no big deal. Everyone was still into it. Everyone had a great time and was very enthusiastic. And Mr. Gene Nacey learned some very valuable information…

1/3 of the attendees in the class had never done an endurance ride. Now, to many people, that might not be a heart-stopping figure of numerical insanity - but it is to someone like Gene. And for good reason, mind you. And here’s why:

Global Ride DVD series are designed to be more than just following a camera riding down a road. They were designed and filmed on the backs of solid cycling principles. As we’ve said before, the mission of the DVDs and the Cycling Fusion website are to bring together the two worlds of cycling - indoor and outdoor - through community and information. The DVDs follow cycling principles used by real outdoor cyclists, on the real road, in real situations, for specific purposes with accurate training and development. The fact that 1/3 of the attendees of this class had never done an endurance ride proves that this type of product and informative community is needed. And here’s why:

75% of cycling-based training should be endurance training. The video we showed at Jeanne’s Body Tech was an endurance ride. The people were BEAT, but loved it. A lot of clubs do not do endurance rides at all (big mistake). They are normally boring, long, and horribly challenging. But here, we were able to show people what an endurance ride really can be. And not only that, but that an endurance ride can be fun and enjoyable as well. All of this was one of our inspirations for getting into video in the first place - it gives people proper training and eliminates excuses for not doing the hard stuff. If you can make an endurance ride fun, you can do anything.

The club was fantastic and the people gave us excellent feedback. The owner was thrilled and very excited to start a video Spin class. Another success! A big thank you to everyone at JBT.

Next stop: Miami. Saturday’s Miami demonstration was scheduled for 9:00am. Thus, the boys drove all day, out of Georgia and into Florida as fast as they possibly could. And here’s why:

Paul stole a mug at Waffle House.

We’re having problems with our video from Bethesda. Actually, it’s having problems with us, as YouTube keeps claiming it’s a duplicate of another video every time we attempt to upload it. We’ll get it on here as soon as we’re done punching YouTube in the ear and making fun of its sissy thigh-cut shorts it wears to play tennis.

However, despite YouTube’s attempts to thwart our video fun, you shall still receive the chronicling of the day’s antics. Do you feel lucky? Do ya?

Well, Gene and Paul felt lucky (notice the insane effectiveness of that segue) when Gene remembered he knew some people in the Boston area who had formerly joined him on a cycling voyage. This gracious pair of people put the two Global Riders up for the night before traveling to Bethesda, providing them comfort, espresso, and clean shorts. They were quite grateful for the hospitality, and a picture of the folks with the Global Ride dream team is available in our Flickr gallery to the right.

The next few days would offer a lot of driving. When they finally arrived in Bethesda, they felt tiny entering the mammoth mouth of what Gene described as a “little city” of fitness; Bethesda Sport & Health. Swimming, racquetball, indoor sports, outdoor sports, everything one human being could possibly desire all under one very sizable roof. Upon locating the indoor cycling room, another surprise was to be had: an all children Spin class was in session! This was a pretty cool sight, as it was something that Gene had formerly attempted to hold at Global Ride, but neither Gene nor Paul had ever seen a children’s class with so many attendees. It turns out Sport & Health has a regular childrens’ Spin club, which is really a fantastic idea.

The performance went extremely well. The energy was high and the crowd was a wonderful mixture of people - all ages, indoor cyclists and outdoor cyclists. The audio recording from the session will likely become a selectable audio track on the DVDs, serving as a fourth selection to the already present Italian, American and Australian accent coaches. Hopefully we can get the video up soon and you’ll be able to take a look at this great location and fantastic class.

Concluding the demonstration on a high note, the fellows had an insanely delicious and hellishly spicy tex mex dinner. Gene ended his evening painfully removing his contacts thanks to cayenne sweat.

Olé!