Quick Profile: In Honor of Mountains

I created this profile, “In Honor of Mountains,” to celebrate International Mountain Day on December 11, but, of course, good climbing profiles with great music can be used any time of the year. It’s always a joy to know that something we love to simulate in our cycling classes has been given its own day to be honored.

This climbing profile consists of three climbs of about 12 minutes each. There is a short downhill/recovery in between the climbs and a few flat roads at higher cadences to bring you to the base of the next climb. Almost all of the songs are based on the theme of mountains and being “on top of the world.” 

Below you will find the profile “In Honor of Mountains” along with the Spotify playlist and PDF. You can find our general Spotify playlist called “Mountain/Summit/Climb/On Top of the World” in this Theme Ride Thursday post. There are 160 songs if you want to switch out any in this profile or create your own. 

“Moving Mountains,” by The Brevet

Clarity paint me bright, like stars in the dark of night
And open up the sky, now meet me by the mountainside
Where there is a fire in my belly and beast in my mind
That keeps trying to tell me to strengthen my spine
All through this life, there comes a time to move a mountainside.

Hold, my hand
And lead me over this strange land
‘Cause this great unknown, was meant to be found
Oh-oh-oh, it’s calling me now, now, now

Open the doors
I’ve been here once before
But wasn’t really sure what I was looking for

Mold, my soul
Into something to uphold, a book untold
So won’t you unfold these pages now
Oh, ’cause they’re crying,
and they’re calling out saying, “hear me now”

I’d love to hear how your riders enjoyed this ride. Please leave any comments below and let us know if you found some other powerful songs for climbing.

NEW in 2022! For my mountain day theme ride this year, I told my class I was going to give them a ride that was entirely climbing (outside of warm-up and cool-down). So to help prepare them, over the previous month I introduced longer and longer climbs. I modified my original profile “In Honor of Mountains,” took out the recoveries, and added more climbing songs. I kept five of the tracks with the “mountain” theme, and added some inspirational songs, including a few rock classics (I have a demographic that loves rock, so the addition of “In the Air Tonight” is for them) and of course, a couple of inspirational electronic/trance tracks. 

For my coaching, I am taking some of the ideas from the “Energy Magica” profile posted above as well as many of the strategies for strength in my series on that topic. Of course, I’m adding a lot of mental focus coaching that includes the concept of flow. 

For now, it’s available just as an Express Profile which you can download below as both a PDF and Excel file (so you can make your own changes if desired), along with the Spotify playlist. If you teach this new all-climbing ride, please let me know how it goes!