Simply the Best: A Tina Turner Tribute Ride

The legendary Tina Turner (née Anna Mae Bullock) passed away today at the age of 83 after a long illness. For decades, Tina Turner’s music has become an integral part of indoor cycling classes around the world, and for good reason. By using her powerful voice and timeless hits, instructors have inspired their riders to inject energy, motivation, and determination into every pedal stroke. For me, personally, the track that I feel this motivation the most—to the point that it gives me chills when I ride to it—is “Better Be Good To Me.” Tina Turner’s music has undoubtedly left an indelible mark on the world of indoor cycling, serving as a testament to the enduring power of music in fitness and beyond. 

As soon as I heard the news this morning, I knew I was going to scrap my planned class for tomorrow and put together a tribute ride. I have only once in my teaching career used just one artist for a class, and I didn’t do so in this playlist. While the majority of the songs are Tina’s, I also sprinkled in a few artists whose careers were heavily influenced by Tina Turner. You can read about some of those artists here. 

I’m very happy with the way this ride has turned out and I’m excited to share it with you. There are three blocks of work, mostly moderate to hard, with some surges to very hard. The work segments are a mix of flats and climbs. Below is how the ride looks in the StagesStudio program.

If you teach this tribute ride or if you change any of the songs, please let me know how it goes or what you changed in the comments. 

Note: if you followed the Spotify playlist I posted in the ICA FB group on Wednesday evening, May 24, you’re going to want to follow this new one below—it has the same songs but I changed the title after the fact, and when you do that, you’ll be unable to follow that original playlist anymore. So, I created a new one with the new title.)