KoS Quest - The O.G. (completed! 🥹)

[CPT_A]

Two THREE SUF goals in the bag for 2022. Completed my first Century in MANY years yesterday. Trained all summer on the Century Plan, felt good.

So here’s where we stand:

Nuclear Tour of Sufferlandria

Century Race

Knighthood Quest

Complete Badge Quest

With that in mind, and with my KoS prep plan loaded up, I hereby advise and announce that in six weeks time I will be storming the castle to complete my Knighthood quest, which I’ve dubbed “KoS - The O.G.”

Why “The O.G.”? Well we’ve all seen that folks personalize the KoS quest to make it meaningful to them - favorite videos, etc. I thought that I would try something a little different and - to me - very interesting.

So with assistance and feedback from @David.McQuillen.KoS and the Minions, I grabbed my Shovel and headed to A Very Dark Place in search of GvA’s mystical book of suffering to find the ORIGINAL 10 videos, with an idea to do a KoS quest based on the original release dates.

That’s right, folks, my KoS quest will consist of the ORIGINAL 10 VIDEOS, IN ORDER OF RELEASE, AS GOD, GvA, AND @David.McQuillen.KoS INTENDED!

I give you the official, original 10 Sufferfest releases. The O.G.:

#	RIDE	TIME	TYPE	TSS	IF	RELEASE DATE
1	The Downward Spiral	0:54:00	speed	80	0.94	9-dec-2009
2	Fight Club	0:56:00	mixed	70	0.87	10-jan-2010
3	Revolver	0:49:00	speed	67	0.90	14-apr-2010
4	Angels	0:55:00	climbing	72	0.88	29-aug-2010
5	The Hunted	1:02:00	climbing	73	0.84	19-nov-2010
6	Local Hero	1:25:00	mixed	109	0.88	20-jan-2011
7	A Very Dark Place	0:49:00	speed	65	0.90	5-oct-2011
8	Hell Hath No Fury	0:54:00	sustained	84	0.89	13-nov-2011
9	There Is No Try	0:49:00	speed	68	0.91	31-oct-2012
10	The Wretched	0:46:00	climbing	60	0.88	7-dec-2012

Will it suck? Yes, yes it will. Am I a little intimidated? Yes, yes I am.

Thanks to the Minions for helping me figure all this out. More to follow on the SUFF history front…

#embracethesuck

[Gerald]

Ooooh, what a beautiful idea!
Always love a good story - and your idea of considering the release dates - wonderful!

All the best!

[Craig.Quarmby]

Congratulations on the Century! And the Quest? Great idea - you’ve really got us all looking forward to this one!!!

[jmckenzieKOS]

Stop making me drool. That looks very much like my list from my DO. Here’s to an ‘interesting’ day.

[DarrenWCKam]

That list looks really awesome and painful to say the least, but we are with you on this.

All the best in the prep and the quest! See you in 6 weeks time!

[DameCristy]

Angels and The Hunted together?!?

You’ll crush it!

[CPT_A]

@DameCristy

Angels and The Hunted together?!?

As. God. And. Grunter. Intended.

[DameCristy]

@CPT_A

As. God. And. Grunter. Intended.

I mean, you’re right, of course! Who would question the wisdom of GvA? Or the, er, kindness of his intentions?

I’m so glad I get to watch!

[Glen.Coutts]

All I can think of when I see this list and consider the order is:

[CPT_A]

CAUTION: LONG THREAD!!! (You have been warned.)

So follow-up to the quest post, for the history nerds out there. Turns out this wasn’t as straightforward a request as you’d think - the Minions and I really had to dig.

I ended up taking a deep dive into the Internet Archive to research Sufferfest going back to it’s inception as a cycling blog ca. September 2008. Actually had a lot of fun working through the years. Here are the highlights:

• Blog originally launched on Wordpress around Aug/Sept 2008. First workout, called “Workout 1” (soooo clever GvA!), debuted on or about Sept 14th…
  

  

• Second workout, “Sufferfest Indoor Cycling Podcast 2”, described as “Pyramids, TT and Intervals” debuted around Oct 27th…
  

  

• also switched platforms and was first available on iTunes.

• Workout #3 came out around Nov 16th, also with a description, but still no names: “Breakaway, Climb and Sprint!”…
  

  

• also TSHIRTS! (and a mug):
  

  

• Workout #4 released ca. Dec 14th, and finally a name!: “Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now”…
  

  

• Finally - for the blog - Workout #5 came out around March 3, 2009, and was titled “Glory Days of Tears and Pain”…though I couldn’t find a breakdown of the workout.

So there you have what I dubbed “The Legacy 5”, the legendary predecessors of all we know and love:

1. “Workout 1”
2. “Pyramids, TT and Intervals”
3. “Breakaway, Climb and Sprint”
4. “Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now”
5. “Glory Days of Tears and Pain”

Sadly, as best we could tell, the original videos are lost to the ages, but I’d like to think that at least some of them morphed into the initial releases from the Sufferfest platform, which brings us to:

• The “original” Sufferfest.com website launched ca. Dec 12, 2009, with The Downward Spiral. Also bonus first use of IWBMATTKYT!

Videos were released on a regular basis after that. Some other highlights:

• The “bleeding eyes” SUFF logo first came out in late August, 2010.
• A big website revamp in Sept 2012 first broke the rides into categories (climbing, racing, etc.), intro’d streaming previews of the videos, and first assigned each ride it’s logo/icon.
• “Knight of Sufferlandria” was (most likely) intro’d around July 2014.
• another revamp in August 2014 incorporated Tri and Running workouts, as well as debuting the “original” Sufferlandrian crest. FUN FACT: Sufferfest released ONE (and apparently ONLY one, that I’m aware of) triathlon video in March 2014, Chrysalis, which I’m told has apparently been lost to the ages. Also the first FTP test The Rubber Glove (yikes!) launched.

Finally, around Sept 2015 GvA/@David.McQuillen.KoS launched the modern streaming platform, subscription plan, and hosted video streaming, though the “purchase and download” option remained for legacy videos until Nov/Dec 2016.

For all those who’ve gotten this far, here is the @David.McQuillen.KoS, GvA and Minion approved canonical release order for the original SUFF videos:

1. The Downward Spiral
2. Fight Club
3. Revolver
4. Angels
5. The Hunted
6. Local Hero
7. AVDP
8. Hell Hath No Fury
9. Extra Shot
10. The Long Scream
11. There is No Try
12. The Wretched
13. Blender
14. Rubber Glove
15. Violator
16. ISLAGIATT
17. Chrysalis
18. Half is Easy
19. Nine Hammers
20. The Rookie
21. Elements of Style
22. DAYT
23. TBTITW
24. TGTTOS
25. The Way Out
26. Power Station
27. Thin Air
28. Igniter
29. The Omnium
30. The Best Way is Blended
31. Told off By Angels
32. Open 60
33. Open 30

One of the great remaining mysteries is the Tour of Sufferlandria. The first references I could find to the ToS were from late 2014, for the 2015 ToS, which was announced on the website in January, 2015. But we just rode the 10th Anniversary this year, so the first ToS SHOULD HAVE been in 2013, yet I can’t find any reference to those first two years.

EXTRA BONUS for sticking with me: ORIGINAL LOGOS!..

Consummatum est.

[CPT_A]

@Glen.Coutts

All I can think of when I see this list and consider the order is:

[TrapMeSuf]

That’s an awesome read! Thanks for the hard work and sharing it with us!

[JamesT]

The course for the 2021 Knights’ IWBMAT Tour was the first ten videos in order of release. Could have saved you a bit of research if you’d known about that… but then you’d have had to have done your Knighthood to know about that so

Enjoy your ride, a fine list.

Oh and there was definitely a 2013 ToS. I’m certain of that because I used the route for my Knighthood!

[CPT_A]

@JamesT

The course for the 2021 Knights’ IWBMAT Tour was the first ten videos in order of release. Could have saved you a bit of research if you’d known about that… but then you’d have had to have done your Knighthood to know about that so

Enjoy your ride, a fine list.

Oh and there was definitely a 2013 ToS. I’m certain of that because I used the route for my Knighthood!

Good update, thanks! Yeah that might have saved me some time, but then I wouldn’t have learned so much interesting history!

I will be interested to learn more of the secret Knight’s lore if/when I pass through the gates. No idea such a thing existed. Hope you’re not in trouble for leaking!

As for the ToS mystery - yup, I know they existed…have found all the posters, including for 2013 and 2014. The mystery is that I couldn’t find any mention of the 2013-14 editions indexed anywhere!

FTR, I love all the early posters. One of my goals for next year is to collect all the posters (somehow) and do the stages for each so I can feel entitled to hang them up in the pain cave.

Would also love to know about the “Sufferlandrian National Day”

…and whatever the heck THIS is about!

[CPT_A]

More history, for the newer Sufferlandrians…

Am assuming these are all “official”, but not certain. Happy to crowd-source the archives to those in the know.

[jmckenzieKOS]

Who owns the copyright on these images? I would like to add them to my collection.

[CPT_A]

I’m sorry I don’t know. I would assume Wahoo owns them now, but a few have artist’s imprints on them, so they might hold an IP interest? I posted 350x500 cut-down versions of the originals for forum purposes.

That said, the majority (if not all) appear to be available for purchase (still) via Redbubble. But I know how the Wahoo folks feel about that site from this past year. Honestly don’t know where else you’d get them from, though.

[Glen.Coutts]

Redbubble was the site where the official ToS and other posters came from as well as tshirts. Nearly ALL of the rest of the SUF merch has basically been pirated and this now includes the posters. Not sure what Wahoo’s take on this is.

It seems that there is no longer any official SUF posters or shirts on redbubble anymore and the designs by GvA no longer show up in the store while old orders just return 404 not found errors.

[CPT_A]

For those of you that used the KoS training plan, when you got to the long, multi-ride weekends, did you do them as normal, or dial them down to simulate the knighthood attempt? (Have a stack on tap today that includes Violator. Was considering testing different effort levels, from - say - 75-90%).

[JSampson]

@CPT_A My recollection was that some were already set at 100% and others dialed down. Looking at my calendar I see a day with Violator, HHNF and GOAT. It appears that all of those were all at 100%.

The next long day was with Butter, Blender, Local Hero, Rookie and Trick. I don’t have notes but believe a few of those either had Coach instructions to dial down to a certain percentage or were already preset at a lower intensity.