I have felt the same concerns. It is the inevitable creep of a marginalized product to appeal to the masses for the sake of profit. I already miss the Sufferfest pre Wahoo. Eventually it will be Pelton light using only Wahoo branded equipment. Until then I plan on shedding the Holy Water as a true Sufferlandrian warrior with as much pain and suffering as I can stay conscious for.
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Doesn’t any company need profit to allow them to invest in their product, in this case, securing video rights, developing the platform (Android, anyone?), etc.?
Of course they want to appeal to a wider audience.
I really don’t share the opinion that this is some slippery slope down towards a lower grade product.
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Your argument would be more convincing but most of the new releases are GCN, low budget Inspirational Films and no vid rides requiring a lot less investment in licensing.The last ride released for the tour was Norway. Film but no soundtrack and really only effective for an ERG mode setup. I for one hated that. Also been able to use the app without a phone of either variety for 5 years.
They also replaced a more specific and detailed training calender, Training Peaks, with a very limited version of their own. As long as they keep releasing things like Attacker, Nine Hammers and Downward Spiral, AVDP its cool. I get a wide variety but most of the new stuff has little attraction for me. That’s just my opinion and every one is entitled to theirs.
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I have a dumb trainer and really enjoyed Norway.
Of course. I hope I didn’t imply otherwise.
Hate to do this but… I love SUF as is. There’s other ‘flavors’ out there for those that choose. That’s fine. Please don’t dumb-down SUF the way (here’s where I hate to say it) much the way GCN seems to be ("Today’s video is how to properly fasten your bike shoes!!) I love SUF!! Keep bringing it, GVA!
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Norway was an interesting “proof of concept” video, but basically it comes across like riding with your friends outside (random pace increases etc) or, dare I say it, riding Zwift. There’s no structure to it. On the other hand, Cobbler is absolutely brilliant in concept, execution, video, music etc. I really, really wish they’d make more like that- the original Sufferfest videos were created from the inspiration of riding structured workouts while watching great races, and I wish they’d get back to that. I could think of more than one Strada Bianche I’d watch 10 times while killing myself. I’m just afraid that the “classic” sufferfest videos are too much of a time and resource suck for Wahoo, and they will inevitably vanish.
Yeah, I wish there were more “classic” Sufferfest vids being made. I think adding some race sims like Norway is cool, but I got bored with it pretty quickly. The GCN and Inspirational vids are only useful to add a bit of variety to your structured intervals - overall they are boring and don’t offer much over the competition. Same for the No-Vids, but even more boring.
Overall, I think this “progress” makes the app less different from the competition. I really like 4DP, but now TR has adaptive training coming out. If “Wahoo SUF” keeps putting out bland stuff, I’ll just switch to TR and play my own music/watch my own stuff. But if the Sufferfest delivers more motivating, hilarious, entertaining, and excruciating visits to Sufferlandria, then they can keep having my money: I love that stuff.
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The Inspiration workouts helped with the specific complaint about all the regular videos being used with reduced numbers as recovery rides which many felt were confusing and also watered down the SUF videos. A lot of people here are now complaining about the content of the Inspiration videos. I’m not really surprised because you can’t please everyone, tho it did remove the previous complaints, especially when new users were complaining that the hard workouts seemed to easy, when in fact the issue was that they were reduced intensity and the users didn’t see the attached coaches’ notes.
Attacker, Cobbler, and Recharger were also released last year. What do you all think of those? I don’t see too many complaints about them. Those are pretty standard typical Sufferfest-style workouts including Fluffy and the standard in-jokes (and then some).
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I’m still new to SUF but Recharger is one of my favorites. I’ll ride it randomly for some extra volume or swap it for a standard recovery ride (yes I know it’s more intense than just a recovery ride, but I can’t help myself sometimes).
The music, story, humor, coaching, etc are all just great. It’s such a wonderful pick-me-up.
My favorite regular workout has been The Shovel, which I think is also relatively new.
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This, @emacdoug.
For example, as I said in the TOS thread this year, as a former racer, I 
Norway, and would love more in-race style sets. I was surprised to see the “negative” comments towards the new introduction. Norway and Team Scream are two of my very favs.
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No.
I like the broad mix of videos. I loved Norway and right now my favorite is The Omnium. As a former track racer now living somewhere with no track access, I would love more velodrome videos.
And as a long time Apple shareholder, I don’t mind that there’s no non-APPL app. I’d be very h$a$p$p$y if the whole world were on the Apple platform. 
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For me, what the app is called doesn’t worry me. As long as the workouts and plans remain and grow then it can be called Anything
Not really worried about random words in some of the workouts (interestingly for my own attention span I haven’t noticed - must pay attention). But similar to above as long as the workouts are there and provide me with a good set of options then there can be as many laser goats and extra intervals as they want.
The voiceovers. Team scream is excellent, so I’m good with these. Though I don’t do the GCN ones as much that’s fine as no one is saying I have to. I just use the ones I want to.
Android. That’s not related to recent app changes in any way.
Agree that the message on flag etc was clear.
So for the first stuff - makes no difference to me, for the last bit about the flag and colours I agree.
Thanks for asking this - made me think !
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We all have our thing. Glad we have it at all the tech these days is pretty incredible. Now off the phone and back to the flogging station!
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Thanks, everyone. True, you can’t please everyone. I just hope that the app I love doesn’t change too much, because there is nothing else like it out there.
Overall, its a fantastic product that has made me much, much faster over the past 4 years.
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SufferFestivus for the rest of us.
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The Sufferfest is only going to continue getting better over time. This isn’t driven by a corporate marketing team. It is driven by people who are passionate about cycling. The science teams are led by coaches who have won world titles and coached others to world championships and records. They know how to win and they know how to train others to get there. They aren’t trying to appeal to the masses. They are trying to remain the best app on the market for training. In order to do that, they have to continually innovate in both breadth and depth of their product. Honing both their videos and their training plans. Change is inevitable, necessary and good. Just like water stagnates if it stands still, so does a company that rests on its laurels.
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I agree, Team scream is excellent.
Thanks for the link to this podcast, it was great. Very cool to hear from the founder, and definitely made me want to stand behind the Sufferfest (as I do love it) more after I listened to it.
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So some people like the new Inspiration videos, some don’t.
Some like the race videos like Norway, some don’t.
Some like the humorous videos like Revolver, some don’t.
Some like the GCN videos, some don’t.
Surely if there’s something you like, you should concentrate on the things you like, don’t ride the things you don’t like, and celebrate the choice, not complain about the things you don’t like so much existing.
And if SUF gets more customers that can only be a good thing as they’ll invest more money creating more of all sorts of workouts and plans, including the ones you like.
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