Profile: Queens of Rock—Fast Flats, Fierce Surges, and Powerful Climbs

The playlist for this exciting, challenging profile features an all-star lineup of female rock artists. While this profile works year-round, it’s especially perfect to spotlight during Rocktober!

This ride consists of five segments of work, each focusing on different aspects of strength and speed. Riders will encounter:

• Fast flats in the saddle at moderate to quick cadences
• Progressive ramp climbs
• Leg surges, accelerating quickly against existing resistance at varied cadences
• One song with gradual accelerations

Surges, or short bursts of leg speed, will intensify your ride. 

What’s the difference between surges and accelerations? While often used interchangeably, in this profile, I identify surges as quick speed increases, while accelerations are more gradual. In the final fantastic working song—a rock classic that will have your riders smiling—you’ll accelerate from 77 to 93 rpm over 20 seconds, and again over the final minute. The gradual nature of these increases makes them accelerations rather than surges.

Here is what this profile looks like in the Stages Studio system. Even if you don’t teach with a system like this, this image can give you a good visual of the short, sharp intervals. Most of the orange, red, and maroon spikes are leg surges; a few are from added resistance. In this color scheme, blue is easy (Zone 1: w/up, c/d, recovery), green is somewhat easy (Zone 2), yellow is moderate (Zone 3: tempo), orange is hard (Zone 4: where FTP resides), red is very hard (Zone 5: VO2 max), and maroon is anaerobic (Zone 6). 

To shorten this profile from 60 minutes to a shorter duration: Remove one segment. Feel free to switch the tracks around to fit your class duration and song preference while keeping the general progression of the profile objective.

Two Versions of this Profile Below

Since some of the surges in this profile may seem complicated at first glance, I’ve provided two formats to help you feel confident in coaching them. First, you’ll find a detailed profile with in-depth cues for each song, including empowering coaching that ties into the energy of the music and the artists. Second, there’s the Express Profile, the shorter spreadsheet version with just the essential cueing. You can download and customize the spreadsheet in Excel or Google Sheets, and swap out songs or add more cues as needed. Once you try this profile, you’ll find it’s not as complicated as it might seem—just let the music guide you!