May was International Drum Month. When I put together the large bucket playlist of fabulous percussion tracks (now with over 170 songs) that appear in that post, I realized that many of my favorite songs for indoor cycling were in this collection of songs so I knew I had to create a profile with them.
Alas, the assignment was nearly impossible precisely because there are so very many awesome songs to choose from! I spent hours trying to decide which ones to use, and after replacing a few songs, I found myself putting them back in the next day. I decided to create two very different rides, one with shorter songs for an interval profile and one with long climbs using some of the epic longer drumming songs.
The first Pedal and Percussion ride is called Climbing to the Rhythm that you can download below. If you teach this ride, please let me know how your riders enjoy it. You may decide I’m leaving out your favorite drumming song; as usual, feel free to switch out a track or two from the bucket playlist in the link above. Or, if you have a drum-heavy song that is perfect for the cycling studio that I’m missing from my bucket playlist, let me know and I’ll add it.
This 60-minute profile begins with high-cadence leg surges in an extended warm-up, followed by three long climbs. Start with a flat road ramp to lead to the first ~13-minute climb. Recover, and ease again into a 12-minute climb that includes that song with those drums, one in which you will want to ride in silence. Recover, then ease back into an 8-minute climb. The finale is a moderately fast flat that starts easy before some hard pushes (to Z4 or Z5), transporting you to another country. (Shorten the ride by simply taking out one or two of the climbing songs or the second part of the warm-up.)
The second Pedal and Percussion profile needs a bit more tweaking; I’ll post that one as soon as it’s ready.
I used this profile in my class last night (I shortened it to 45 minutes). It was a great workout with just the right intense climbs and breaks to refresh our legs. My class enjoyed the songs that they didn’t recognize as well as those that they did! Thank you for this great ride, Jennifer!