For some this is a great time of outdoor activities like cross-country skiing, snowshoeing, or just plain rocketing down a hill on a makeshift sled. For others, it’s the dark times, where no outdoor activities make sense for cross training, and time is spent on a trainer or rollers making the best of it. So we pull out and dust off our beloved Ear Candy column to see what’s in who’s ears!
Old man winter is a mean old sonofabitch, ain’t he? Yes, he is. And for this author, I moved west to get away from him, but even in lovely Portland, OR, we’ve been found out, and freshly covered with several days worth of snow and unseasonable cold right through the Holidays. This has in turn lead to a serious uptick in the amount of trainer time we’ve been seeing, which is most unusual for some, and standard operating procedure for others. We scan the continent for input on this curious phenomenon. If it weren’t for music, those of us who log hours on trainers would have long ago gone completely batshit.
I’ll get the party started...and I expect mail from you, so fire it to dave@pezcyclingnews.com and give me your picks for what’s the best tunage for trainer time!
1. Dave Aldersebaes
2. Ironcladcycling.com
3. Portland, OR
4. Listening to: The new darlings of my collection are a San Diego band called Pinback. Been digging their stuff. TV on the Radio, too. I’ve gone country in a purist sense and have been hearing some Doc Watson lately, just to try to figure out how flat picking works. Besides, while either riding inside, or in the winter weather here which is usually sopping wet and cold, nothing like countrified blues songs to make you feel like you’re not alone.
1. Joe Parkin – author “Dog in a Hat”
2. Team...uhhh, Fox Racing Shox and well I am going to team up with Simon Stewart from Western Spirit for the BC Bike Race.
3. Satan Cruz, CA
4. I'm weird. I have never been able to listen to music on the bike, whether on the road, trail, rollers or trainer. The lack of outside sounds makes me paranoid and I'm just j'OCD enough to countdown remaining training time using the play length of each song. Before a time trial though (or time travel, as my Belgian teammate Jim Van de Laer called it) it was all Metallica. Before mountain bike races it was The Jesus Lizard. In fact, there are few days when David Yow doesn't scream something at me.
Read our very cool interview with Joe Parkin here - one of the first American pros to race in Europe.
1. Alan Ziolkowski
2. Cafe Hollander Cycling Team
3. Milwaukee, WI
4. The new Stereolab, Chemical Chords / Nada Surf, Lucky / Ratt, Out of the Cellar / Of Montreal, all of the albums /
Wow, extra props to Alan for breaking out the 80’s metal with Ratt. That’s good stuff. I mean, we are on bikes, the pedals and the tires do go “Round and Round”. Oh, I apologize. That was the worst pun of this young century. I’ll do 20 push ups now. On with the review:
1. Jered Gruber
2. DLP Pro Cycling
3. Innsbruck, Austria
4. Songs that always seem to find their way onto my bikin playlist, and yeah, I like pop music: Amy Macdonald 'This Is The Life', TI 'Swagga Like Us', MIA 'Bamboo Banga', Kylian Mash 'Discobitch', Metric 'Monster Hospital MSTRKFT remix', Jefferson Airplane 'White Rabbit', Bon Jovi 'Blaze Of Glory', Jerry Reed 'Eastbound And Down', RATM 'Killing In The Name Of'
5. I'm in Austria, everything is good.
You can't pay me to ride on a trainer. I'll ride in any weather (or not ride) to avoid the trainer. It's cold and it's snowy in Innsbruck, but it's still better than the trainer. And don't yell at me for listening to music when I ride, I only have one ear bud in.
1. Simeon Green
2. Castelsarrasin /Bouygues Telecom
3. Cadalen (near Toulouse) France usually (currently Mooloolaba, Australia for the winter)
4. Listening to: I have a weird combination of stuff that I usually like to put on "shuffle" and see what comes on. Traditionally I put on some good old rubbish Euro Techno as loud as I can on the trainer, but other tunes in my "shuffle" program include some New Grass Revival (Blue grass redneck music) some pop and comedy French music such as Kamini or Bratisla Boys. Throw in some Paul Simon, stir vigorously with some Prodigy, add a soupcon of Les Inconnus, some DJ Quicksilver, let sit for 20 mins and sprinkle some Eminiem on top and you got yourself an atrocious mix of music that pretty much only I could ever listen to...
1. Seth Hosmer
2. HPChiro.com Racing
3. City: Portland, OR
4. What are you listening to? At work: Soma FM internet radio, either Groove Salad or Space Station. On the Bike: the Killers, Kings of Leon, M.I.A, and a megamix with the likes of Primus, Led Zeppelin, Weezer, Ramones, Soul Coughing...)
Recommended headphones: Shure SCL2 or E2C.
Thanks for the ‘phones rec, Seth! So, if you’ve read the above and thought, “Pish posh! I know better tunes than that!”, then let’s hear you! Send it out to dave@pezcyclingnews.com and we’ll get your name up in lights. Just answer the following criteria:
1. Name
2. Team
3. City
4. Favorite tunes
5. and a new one for the 2nd edition, your favorite winter training beer!
And send along a picture of your set up. Your steed, you trainer, your rollers, your motivation, your fridge, your weather, something to make your submission have some pizzazz to it.
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