The production values on all the Global Ride DVDs are excellent with superb cinematography, stunning scenery and enjoyable music. As well, they are the most realistic virtual rides around. The ride is shot from the cyclist’s speed and perspective, so you see exactly what you would see if you were cycling the highway in real life, with no shots of other cyclists.

Each DVD offers four different coaching tracks, with the choice of American, Italian and Australian coaches, plus a live track from a spinning class using the DVD. So you can ride with a different coach each time, choose the one whose personality and coaching style appeals best, or soak up the energy from a spinning class. All the coaches coach in real time as they ride with you; you can hear them breathing hard and the grinding of their bike on the road. Or you can select the “music only” option and just enjoy the music and scenery.

“Maui Rollers” starts off with a satellite image of the USA, which pans over to Hawaii, then zooms in on Hawaii as the satellite image morphs into a map so you can see exactly where the ride starts – very cool! After a warm-up, the workout starts with a steep uphill ride in the early morning to a track called “Kissed by Morning Rain”. Adding to the verisimilitude, the camera lens is spotted with rain. I trained with the US coach, Gene Nacey. I wasn’t surprised to learn that Gene is a Certified Heart Zones Cycling Coach; he kept me in my target zone all the way through the ride. The ride, including the warm-up but excluding the cool-down, lasted for 45 minutes, but seemed to go by a lot faster.

This DVD includes a bonus yoga workout which focuses on stretching out all the body parts which get so tight on the bike.

The Global Ride Hawaii series is so great you’ll probably want to buy the whole set – Global Ride: Hawaii Series Virtual Cycling Dvds Boxed Set

Product Description
This DVD is a combination of three separate sections of one road: Hana Highway. If you like to ride on rolling hills, you ve just found heaven. While there are some longer climbs here, by in large there are plenty of opportunities for recovery and speed. Because of the variability of rolling terrain, this DVD lends itself to multiple approaches in coaching objectives, and each coach has done just that; chosen a different objective. Enjoy one coach s approach on Monday, and come back Tuesday for a completely different experience.

This DVD features a bonus 30 minute yoga for cyclists section following the ride.

Contributing coaches includeGlobal Ride founder Gene Nacey, Italian coach Marzia Cozzolino and Australian coach, winner of 40+ competitive medals, Gary Suckling.

Click Here to see more reviews about: Global Ride: Maui Rollers Virtual Cycling DVD

Many of us hearty die hard idiots who live in the ever changing climate that is the Upper Midwest tend to ride all year, no matter what. We are a macho breed and we tend to put off training indoors if we can help it. However, I tend to want that little extra riding that even my adventurous nature can handle outside. That, and teaching indoor cycling classes for the University of South Dakota always have me looking for new ideas. Enter the Global Ride Video Series.

I have many of the Spinerval DVD’s and a few of the Carmichael Training Systems DVD’s. While each of these are focused, outstanding workouts, the one thing I get sick of is watching sweaty people on bikes over and over. I’m one of those sweaty people working out, I don’t need to be reminded by looking at it over and over again. Again, enter the Global Ride Video Series.

My review of this product is two-fold: for my indoor cycling class and for my own personal indoor training. My final rating at the end will be two separate ratings because of this.

The series I received was for Hawaii. Three DVD’s each set up for different workouts, and each with amazing backgrounds of riding various roads in Hawaii, usually from a first person cyclist view which I found very attractive. Once in awhile they would flash back to the cyclist as they were riding, but the focus was on the scenery and the workout, not a suffering cyclist.

Another thing I found interesting was the various audio options. You can either just watch the video, watch it with light background music, or your choice of three different instructors, including an actual class scenario. Having audio options to match the mood you are in is a great thing. Some days I like shutting my brain off and just allow one of the instructors instruct me and some days I want to “rock out” so I turn off all audio and just use my own music.

One of the most ingenious thing I found with these DVD’s are the non-cycling training at the end. Each DVD had a different workout specifically geared for cycling. The 30 minute sessions include Strength, Yoga, and Pilates. I’m always looking for cross training that still focuses on cycling and this fits the bill nicely.

This is a brief review, but as you know, I don’t like long posts as I feel most people don’t take the time to read it all anyway, so I cater to the people with short attention spans like me! My review from the standpoint of a cycling class instructor is 9.6 out of 10. There are a few things I’d like to see like maybe a countdown of how much time is left overall and between potential segments of training (hills, flats, etc). I know that Global Ride is continually looking at feedback and are implementing them in future “rides”.

For personal training, I’d give it 8.9 of 10. I’d lean more heavily on the timing feature here. Often I have a limited time to ride, so it’d be nice to grab sections you wanted to focus on, which you will after watching these enough times. These workout DVD’s, like any workout DVD’s, are only as good as the effort you put into it. If you don’t think it’s too hard, do what you have to for your needs. Same on the other end of the spectrum: If it’s too easy, gear up a bit and make it hurt.

Overall these DVD’s definitely make my Christmas list. Just having to not stare at sweaty people in a studio makes my rating on these DVD’s jump exponentially. I look forward to more versions, especially riding in other countries. I think Global Ride has found a wonderful niche in the Cycling DVD arena. I’m very impressed at their willingness to take ideas from ordinary people to better their upcoming versions. I have nothing but high praise for these DVD’s. They are trying to make indoor training bearable, and doing a great job. Ride on Global Ride!

* Virtual rides through exotic locations from the rider’s perspective
* Multiple selectable coaching tracks from international coaches
* Licensed commercial music – no royalty free junk
* Bonus 30-minute pilates training specifically for cyclists
* High quality, unique video footage

Product Description
This boxed set contains all three Global Ride Hawaii Series DVDs: Maui Rollers, Oceanside Ride and StrenDurance Hawaii.

Each DVD features a 45-50 minute ride as well as a bonus yoga, pilates or strength training session tailored specifically to cyclists.

Packaging makes a nice box set gift

Global Ride’s Hawaii Rides DVD set is a collection of three cycling workouts followed by three different cross training routines that tie into the spin session on that disc. Each cycling workout follows different scenic roads through Hawaii, offering a visual distraction from the sometimes (usually) boring time spent on the trainer and, if you’re like me, they help keep you focused on riding hard enough. My mind tends to wander, resulting in slower, easier spinning until I snap to. With the Global Ride training DVDs, you have three different coach “tracks” to choose from on each DVD, so you’re reminded to pedal harder, faster or whatever the specific workout requires.

Three of us tried one DVD each. If you typically spend a lot of time on the trainer in the winter, check out what our three testers have to say about the DVD’s after the break…

DVDs can be purchased separately too

Prior to the coaching, there’s a warm-up period that scrolls through photos of the islands. The cycling workouts vary in length, and you’ll get either Pilates, Yoga or Strength Training sessions following the ride. Each of us reviewed one DVD in the set, click on the picture of the individual DVD’s below to enlarge and you can read the back panel in full.

Maui Rollers, reviewed by Tyler (road and mountain biker):

The Maui Rollers DVD follows some of the coast of Hawaii and is, as the title suggests, a series of rollers, but they seem to go mostly up. You have to shift gears to adjust the cadence and effort to match what you’re watching and what the coach is telling you to do, so how much you get out of it is directly tied to how much you put into it.

As mentioned, I tend to let my mind wander and in the past I’ve caught myself staring into space with a pedal cadence of about 20 RPM. With these, I was engaged enough with the scenery and trying to do what the coach was suggesting that I kept the workout intensity up pretty well. In fact, the 45 minute session felt like only 20…and anything that can make an indoor trainer workout go fast gets some kudos. As far as watching this versus DVD’s of Le Tour or something, it’s different, and it has multiple coaching options on each DVD to keep it fresh, so it’s a good alternative when you’re *gasp* bored with watching Lance dance his way up the Sestriere. Even though it was only 45 minutes (plus warmup and cool down), it was a pretty solid workout…the quads were burnin’.

The Yoga section on this DVD is good as a post-workout stretching routine, and it has cycling specific stretches to help open up the hips and stretch the hamstrings and lower back. It’s a fairly long Yoga routine, not just a little something tacked on to say it’s there, and it’s well coached. The only downside is it tends to move a little quickly, especially for those not used to the poses. Here’s a sample video from the Maui Rollers DVD:

Oceanside Rides – Reviewed by Rob (road and mountain biker)

The two best things I can say about the DVD is that the scenery of Hawaii is beautiful and the Pilates bonus feature at the end really works your body. The cycling video part, though, could use some improvement. The entire program feels like someone took a spin class and recorded the audio then combined it with some techno music (which I liked, but not everyone will appreciate). Then they took some jerky home video from a route that someone had ridden in a car, motorcycle, ect. and combined all three together. The result is a video with some cool music, scenery, and a spin class coach in the background that sort of misses the mark as a workout video, but it does provide some cool shots of Hawaii if you have nothing else to watch on the trainer. The video lacks any on screen metrics to tell you where you are like in spinervals or a CTS workout video. Basically you are just listening to a spin class with some cool scenery and music in the background. Finally, the music was louder than the coaches so even if you were trying to follow their advice you couldn’t hear them clearly.

However, I did like the fact you can turn the coaching on and off as well as the music. Also, the option to hear the coaching done in different languages was pretty cool. The Australian chick sounded really hot!!

Editor’s Note (Tyler): I agree about the on-screen metrics. An incline graphic or time-to-finish would help you adjust your effort level…visually it’s hard to tell how steep the incline is just from the video.

Strendurance – Reviewed by Mick (triathlete)

Typically trainer rides are endured in the cold/dark winter days and training DVDs are an attempt to fight the boredom of the indoor ride.

This DVD knocks off the cold of winter with its beautiful scenes of Hawaii and pumps out a workout that makes the most of your time on the trainer. The music gets your legs moving, and the training sets are well coordinated with the beautiful Hawaii scenery.

Riding indoors is more intense and challenging than riding outdoors and requires more motivation. This DVD sucks you into the scenery and takes you into the beautiful Hawaiian landscape and makes staying in the saddle much less of a mental challenge than staring at the wall or TV show. The coaches add to the motivation to keep with it. The workout is challenging and leaves you feeling like you’ve had a great ride and vacation from the dreary days of winter when you’re done.

BIKERUMOR RATING:

The Global Rides aren’t so exciting that you look forward to trainer rides (what is, really?), but once you’ve dragged yourself onto the bike, they certainly make it bearable, and they tend to push you to actually get a good workout in. For that, they’re commendable, and the various workout/yoga/pilates sessions and pretty good, too. However, the quality of the video could be slightly better (there are rain drops on the camera for the first section of the Maui Rollers vid), and it really needs some sort of timing and elevation or intensity graphic to help illustrate what the coaches are saying. Target heartrate goals (as a percentage) or power outputs would also be helpful for those who use such training tools. As is, they’re a good visual distraction with some OK coaching and decent post-ride workouts, but they’re not a very scientific training tool. For the price, we think they should offer a little more technical info and graphics, but if you’re bored with everything else you’ve got to watch, they’re worth checking out. We give them 3.5 Thumbs Up.