It’s never been my thing to ‘ride’ a bike to a DVD. Normally, it’s in front of a rather effeminate, pretty guy or a beefed up manly looking woman – neither of which the average person wants to become. These people are trying their best, motivating you to get on your stationary bike and ‘pretend’ to be riding somewhere with commitment. Well, it never worked for me. In the past, I’ve needed a group and some competition to get me going, mixed with good, LOUD music – then I’m happy.

Jeff Saporito sent me three DVD’s to have a look at – ”it’s different” he said and I thought OK without much enthusiasm, I’ll take a look and write a review. ”It might not be a nice review” I warned him, ”….not really into this kind of thing”.

So, one lunchtime, I sit with my boyfriend Jim at lunch time and we begin to watch; the following is my honest review of The 3 cd set, Strendurance, Maui Rollers and Oceanside Ride.

The first thing is that the Menu is well done. You have some good choices to make; Music or No Music, which accent do you want the instructor to speak in? American, Italian, Australian and other choices.

Then surprisingly, instead of sitting watching a group looking back at you, you find yourself taking part in a real ride. How do they achieve this? Well, you are basically riding with a headcam on (but clearly done with a vehicle for camera stability). Sometimes you are leading the pack and sometimes following the rider in front on a genuine ride. After a few minutes watching sitting on the sofa, it was clear that I felt like riding along with them and had to watch the DVD’s on my bike and undisturbed.

It was a great workout with sufficient changes of pace and scenery to keep me totally involved in the ride. We chose the No Music option (although the specially composed soundtrack is good and at some stage when you know the routes better, you would likely use the music option more) and listened to the commentaries instead. Used to my kind of Spinning coaching, which is fairly loud and intensive, I found the commentary quiet and rather dull until I was riding myself and concentrating hard enough not to really be listening anymore anyway. I was too busy making sure I didn’t miss the bend and plummet over the cliff top. The scenery is really spectacular. I guess that there would not be a better location in the world for setting a group of cycling DVD’s.

To summarise, if you want a cycling workout that will really grab your attention and get you motivated and involved, this would be a very good choice for you.

Swell Surf Camp, Cabarete – opens November 2009.

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