FB just informed me that I finished the first ToS 10 years ago. I guess we did “all 14 videos”. A shame it is gone.
7 Likes
It seems so long ago… I bought my first Sufferfest videos the day after the tour was announced on TrainerRoad…
Good memories…
4 Likes
Right- individual and group versions. and the warning about not using the individual version for group purposes. I’d forgotten about that. There used to be reviews of them online too. It was fun then. I still use the videos, but something has been lost.
3 Likes
I also remember the Sufferest videos from back in the day. A guy i raced with ran a cycling gym, and we would get on the old Racermate Computrainers (you can still probably find those things on ebay, if you hit them with a truck they would survive) and hammer along to the videos that he got under the group / commercial-use license.
I see why folks say that something has been lost but i don’t really blame SUF or Wahoo, i see it as a consequence of success. Not just for SUF itself but for the indoor training “revolution” that it vanguarded (not sure if that’s a word).
Like for example, back in the day, there were not as many options in terms of winter training if you were in a cold climate. There weren’t as many trainer options, not nearly the same depth and quality of content of videos. You could go to the gym or spin classes, but in my experience, plenty of folks weren’t doing much at all during the winter.
enter SUF, it was awesome. You got to hammer hard a couple times a week and for many folks you’re guaranteed to be better off vs. what you were otherwise gonna do. The training didn’t have to be perfect, it didn’t have to be all that scientific, and it didn’t last all that long so essentially telling people “just go hammer!” was totally fine because they wouldn’t burn out; after a couple of months, they’d be back out on the road, intensity would decrease and volume would ramp up and they proceed on their merry way.
nowadays though, folks are training inside much more, in fact some do it exclusively. Folks have other options. Folks are demanding training plans that take them all the way through an event prep or even, all the way through a season. if you’re prepping people for a whole season, and the opportunity cost is a lot higher because of all the other options, training has to be better thought out (just go hammer not gonna cut it). Training has to be yes, easier, because you’re doing it all year and not just for two months (so again, just go hammer, gonna be counterproductive).
So it doesn’t surprise me at all how things have changed.
13 Likes
All good points.
I think smart trainers and ERG mode have also taken some of the fun out of it. When it was just RPE, it was like playing pretend when you were a kid, when you could lose yourself in your fantasy world. ERG mode is like being an adult- you lack imagination and just “get the work done”.
I’m going to go Team Scream now…
5 Likes
I don’t mean to take away from the original SUF by saying training didn’t have to be all that well thought out. I just mean, volume was gonna be low, so if you had a plan that engaged you and got you to go HARD (and i totally agree with losing yourself in the intensity and fantasy), you would improve.
You are, of course, welcome to put your trainer in level mode and display only the RPE data field. Maybe it’ll bring the spark back.
5 Likes