From Travels With a Tin Donkey: (Ottawa, ON, Canada)

Last week on Thursday morning it was sooooo bitterly cold on my ride in to work I was a bit depressed. Although the ride is only 5 kms long, I had to stop halfway through and try to warm up my hands. With double gloves I still had no feeling whatsoever anymore in my fingers since I was riding into a brutal north wind. So when I came home (thankfully it was a bit warmer on the way back), I headed downstairs to the Tour de Basement and returned to Hawaii to really warm up.

I recently reviewed the “Strendurance” DVD here. Global Ride offers two more in their Hawaii series. The next of these, “Oceanside Ride,” begins with a series of still photos to allow you to warm up a bit, then followed by a nice steady state ride that takes you cruising along the ocean for about five minutes. The idea behind this is to get properly set up and riding at a regular heart rate.

Maui Sunset/Moonrise
photo by Kaptain Krispy Kreme, Creative Commons

The next segment, called “Local Treasures,” takes you along a broad, nicely-paved road, with a bike lane or at least a wide shoulder, past lots of palm trees and some pretty nice houses on Maui. We are joined by a solitary cyclist who is clearly exerting himself on the hills. There is a live commentary with a spinning instructor that is fun to listen to if you don’t select music and before you know it at 35:28 the last segment, “Sunset Finish” begins. This is really an exceptional sequence, with soft golden light and some marvellous oceanside scenery. A few little hills and the ride ends with a view of the ocean as the sun goes down. Without the entertaining spinning class, you can listen to some nice music: “the Quest for Heavenly Sound Waves” is a nice trance piece that really gets you into the mood, although the refrain of “Our quest is long and tiresome” is not the case here. Wonderful. I liked this last section so much that I actually repeated it three times during my training ride. Well, I had to since the ride ends at just under 42 minutes.

After the ride, you can take a break and the switch into the additional 30 minute training sequence. “Oceanside Ride’s” special feature is a half hour of Pilates training. I had never tried Pilates before but I do a lot of core workout stuff in my training program as I am convinced that strengthening the mid-section pays off in climbing on the bike. The instructor offers a pretty straightforward program that looks effective but simple to do. I tried a number of the exercises and will include this workout as part of my regular training as well.

Sure beats freezing on the ride to work!