Noooo, don’t touch HHNF! I love it as it is.
I did Cobbler for the first time at the weekend as part of a tri plan.
Bravo guys, it’s a great session, and great to have a longer video like this.
My personal highlight was the shot at about 46 minutes as the peleton blasts under the gantry and appears through the dust at the start of the Arenberg. Talk about epitomising power, suffering and the pure crushing of dreams. Then you realise you still have an hour to go!
The workout comments point out that early on it might feel a little easy but to just hang on as you’ll feel the burn. This is bang on. It’s meant to be sub-threshold (IF is 80%) and does that.
As part of the tri plan I had a 30 minute run to follow which I moved and did before Cobbler (I’ve a duathlon as a first race of the year, hence the change in order) so I wasn’t fully fresh but this hit the mark. It also saved me from having to do a close-to-2hour ride outside in this wet and miserable January weather. There’s suffering, and then there’s dangerous.
EDIT: Oh, it also makes me realise how glad I am that I’m not a pro! I know Roubaix is brutal, but still…
L
6 Likes
I did Cobbler last Saturday, what a workout, it’s fantastic, 1h 46’ of suffering with an amazing video to divert your mind from the pain.
In the end it was almost easy because of it.
The only thing I have to notice is the small notes written sometimes on the screen, is it possible to have them as a separate text?
I missed some of them because I was too concentrated on the video.
It is possible to have them for the others video, as well?
1 Like
I have a question about the cadence targets in this video. My experience (and the advice of cobbler gods like Boonen and Cancelerra) is high cadence and speed on the cobbles is key. In the video most of the guys are spinning well above the targets. Riding at those low cadences is not natural to me, unless I am going uphill. On the flats I am almost always above 80 and usually above 90 rpm, thanks in great part to workouts from the 'Fest. So the question, why the low cadence targets? Is there a scientific reason? Am I missing some training benefit by riding this at my own cadence and ignoring the targets?
2 Likes
IMO, unquestionably the best Sufferfest video. I could watch this one without doing the workout! More like this please!! Stade Bianche, Flanders, that Bretagne race. Hell, get some footage of the big USA gravel races, those would work well. Some of the best WC’s would be awesome. Riding like this to LeMond '89!!
1 Like
Sir Neal was joined by Davis Phinney and Alex Stieda for his live ride of Cobbler. They both said that the low cadence was very realistic relative to their experience on the cobbles. Something about weight on the saddle instead of the pedals (or possibly the other way around, I forget!). Not saying that low is right or wrong, just referencing that opinion. Could be that times have changed and will continue to change wrt cadence. Possible alternative reason is that there’s no science to it and Sir Francois just couldn’t find suitable higher beat music to cadence match to 
1 Like
we old folks can handle this low cadence, high torque stuff. it’s the high cadence things that are killer.
Ha, yeah. I found it reasonably OK (physically) at the low cadence. If it had been at 90 or something they I’d have been blown out the back before even getting to the second set of bumpy stuff! Not sure old is the factor though 
1 Like
One of these days I will see if I can get my Tacx Neo Smart in cobblestone emulation mode and ride Cobbler.
1 Like
Did it today as part of All Purpose plan. Whew. Good stuff. Felt like quitting, thought about quitting, didn’t quit.
5 Likes
Somewhat late to the party but I rode Cobbler for the third time on Sunday and it reminded me to come to to say thanks for all involved with this at Sufferfest HQ. It’s an inspired video, with some great little touches - I love the splice of the commentary feed (Phil Liggett and somebody I don’t know) in at some points. The SUFSport graphics add to the polish. Is there a little nod to Revolver in the introduction text?
When the pro’s hit the Trouée d’ Arenberg and “Wipeout” by Mean Dabbler drops… it’s like some sort of supercharge for me. Raaar! Never mind bleeding eyes, it’s bleeding ears once I’ve wound the volume right up (apologies to my neighbours!).
When I finished Cobbler, I jumped straight into Extra Shot. That certainly made the legs sting!
4 Likes
I just rode it for my second time (first time was during ToS 21) today.
It is absolutely one of my favourites. I also get supercharged as it continues, with a crescendo that builds and the last 10 mins are totally awesome. Equally awesome is the impressive puddle of holy water this workout generates.
The music is very perfectly matched. If I could PST myself with music, I’d be using this soundtrack.
Nice work minions, really nice.
4 Likes
Just did this one again this past weekend and what a great workout. Great footage and soundtrack. I love Paris-Roubaix and the velodrome finish.
Keep the footage from the Spring Classics coming!
2 Likes
I just did “Cobbler”. It was the second time. The workout really suits my abilities, especially with the low cadences. It has just the right intensity to make me feel like I may not make it but still being able to churn through.
But this time, I realized some minor issues which could be fixed and therefore the experience could be improved. For example, there are many of these textboxes giving background information about the race and its history. I really like that. But the insertions are not timed well. First, the boxes should be displayed longer. As a non-native speaker, I could hardly read everything through before the boxes disappeared.
Second, some of the boxes coincidently appear when something is going on with changes in power or cadence. This can be distracting, resulting in losing focus on cadence or not getting the texts at all. Third, I think the information could be spread more over the whole workout. Especially in the last 20-minutes block, I had the feeling the makers were running out of ideas to keep the session entertaining. Why not move some of the text boxes that are not explicitly linked to a section in the footage at that time and move into the later section of the workout?
Just some ideas of mine. Maybe you could take them into consideration.
5 Likes
Were there originally a lot more text boxes?
I somehow feel like the first time I did Cobbler that there was a text box at the “beginning” of each section of cobbles. But then we rode it for the TOS there were a lot fewer text boxes than I was expecting.
I thought it was really cool the first time that there was a historical comment on each cobbled section, but I couldn’t read them fast enough and was looking forward to doing it again so I could read them all. But then the next time there seemed to be much fewer than I recalled. I know a number of people said at first that they seemed to go by too quickly. So, maybe some were removed?
I’d like to see a Paris-Roubaix Inspiration video with all that historical info added about all the sections when I’m not suffering and can pay better attention to them all. The limited number of them in the video are still pretty cool, but may need to stay on the screen a bit longer.
Maybe some day they could translate the text into different languages.
1 Like
Just did this for the first time yesterday and I absolutely LOVED it! Longest time I’ve spent on the indoor trainer and wasn’t looking at the clock at all. Great music, great footage. Time to redo my numbers I suspect…
5 Likes
Well that KIND of makes sense, except that if you ignore the music and match cadence with Sagan - any if the leaders really - they are pedalling “much” faster: around 10bpm +.
Of course if you ignore the music the fact the beat of the music matches the cadence doesn’t make sense 
1 Like
Well quite 
, except what I was commenting on was the notion that low cadence was preferable on the cobbles. It was in response to this from Sir JamesT:
Blockquote Sir Neal was joined by Davis Phinney and Alex Stieda for his live ride of Cobbler. They both said that the low cadence was very realistic relative to their experience on the cobbles. Something about weight on the saddle instead of the pedals (or possibly the other way around, I forget!). Not saying that low is right or wrong, just referencing that opinion. Could be that times have changed and will continue to change wrt cadence. Possible alternative reason is that there’s no science to it and Sir Francois just couldn’t find suitable higher beat music to cadence match to
