Thinking about buying your first Sufferfest, but not sure which one is for you?

First of all, congratulations for refusing to accept boring trainer workouts, bad music and lame video. And good for you that you want to drive yourself into the ground racing against the pros. Well done. Let’s see….where to start if you’re not sure which to buy?

• You are: Someone who has never done a Sufferfest, aren’t super-fit and isn’t ready for intervals at nearly maximum effort. Start with: Fight Club. The efforts in Fight Club aren’t as intense as in the other videos, which tend to have shorter intervals. There are a lot of attacks in Fight Club that could make you cry, so just ignore them during the first few times you use the video and gradually introduce them.
• You are: A super-fit racer who knows a thing or two about Suffering and is training to race. Start with: Fight Club. The attacks are great race simulation. Then go for Revolver. Then do them back-to-back.
• You are: Looking for high-intensity, structured intervals to make you go faster. Start with: The Downward Spiral or Revolver.
• You are: A lunch-time warrior and have only 60 minutes to get on that bike, workout and take a shower. Start with: Revolver. The workout is about 45minutes (you’ll be very glad about that as the workout is very intense), so you’ll have time to get into the shower and back to the desk.

If you’re still not sure, just drop me a line at david @ thesufferfest and I’ll help you out!

After much procrastinating, I finally found a free day to set up an affiliate program. A lot of blogs have been kind enough to write reviews of The Sufferfest and refer traffic. I wanted to set up this program as a way of saying thanks. So, if you’re interested in becoming an affiliate of The Sufferfest, and selling Sufferfest videos from your site, check out our affiliate program here. It pays 15% for every order you refer!

For me, it was the final climb up to Mt. Everest base camp, on the Tibeten side. After several days on the road, the terrible surface, my bloody ass, a headwind, burning sun, nearly 6,000m altitude and sheer exhaustion brought me as close to crying as I’ve ever been on a bike. You?

Time to show the world you know how to suffer. Check out the T-Shirts and, uh, underwear at The Sufferfest shop.

http://thesufferfest.spreadshirt.com/

I rather think it conveys the pain quite well….

The new Sufferfest logo.

It’s the ‘off season’ for indoor training (at least in the Northern Hemisphere), so things around Sufferfest Studios have been a little quiet. I’ve been adjusting to life in Singapore, the family is settling in well, getting my head around the new job (loving it!), and generally being occupied with things other than dastardly sinister training videos. So, aside from a bit of customer service here and there, The Sufferfest has taken a bit of a back seat.

I’ve been out on the bike, but not on long training rides – rather, I’m commuting to work and back by bike…and I’m loving it. The traffic on some roads is a bit dicey, but for the most part its a great, energizing ride through some great jungle and urban landscapes. On the days when I have to take the bus, I’m fairly heartbroken.

That’s slowly changing. I’m starting to put together the workout for the next Sufferfest, which will be a bigass climbing monster. I want to see if you can keep up with Contador. The plan is to have it out in September, with another one close behind in October. I’ve also been working on a logo, some t-shirt ideas, finally getting the videos onto DVD, and figuring out how to set-up the website for more products. It’s still weekends and evenings work when the family is asleep, but it’s great fun.

To keep up-to-date with the action, be sure to follow on Twitter @thesufferfest. And thanks for all your support of The Sufferfest – I love hearing from you guys. I hope your road season is going well and you’re getting nice and fit for the trainer season! : – )

Whew, in between moving to a new country, starting a new job, having a second kid and trying to ride my bike from time to time, I managed to squeeze in another Sufferfest video. Revolver was just released today. It’s a remake of an old prototype Sufferfest I did early last year called “Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now.” Revolver uses the same workout, which is based on 15 one-minute intervals with one minute rest in-between, but with much different footage and music. And taunts, of course. It’s 45 minutes long, as I wanted to do something which would fit into a lunch-hour workout and still allow enough time to shower and get back to work.

Whew. Here’s the trailer for the upcoming Sufferfest, Revolver, due out in a few days. It’s a 45 minute workout, featuring a warm-up, warm-down and 15×1 minute intervals with only 1minute rest in-between. It’s perfect for those high-intensity sessions when you’ve only got your lunch hour to hit the trainer. Of course, you’ll be blown for the rest of the day, but it’s worth it…

If there’s anyone out there who is still wondering if these really are the BEST FREAKING BEAT DOWN you’ll ever get on the indoor bike, below is a smattering of reviews from blogs, magazines and podcasts from Canada to New Zealand and so much inbetween. No more excuses for not Suffering to your full potential. Sorry.

Blog Reviews

• Recommended by Cycling Weekly!
• ‘Big in Road Cycling’ Neil Browne, of ROAD, gets his ass kicked by Fight Club.
• Interview and rave reviews on Veloreviews Podcast!
• Fantastic review on the world’s biggest cycling podcast – TheFredCast.com!
• Top marks for suffering from PodiumCafe.com!
• For Whom The Cowbell Tolls rings loudly for suffering!
• Quadrathlon, one of the best blogs in the world, takes on The Downward Spiral..
• Roadcycling.co.nz calls The Sufferfest the ‘must have training companion.’
• The Noodelator explains how her video got in Fight Club and why she loves The Sufferfest.
• Ciclirati blew out a tire on Lap 3 of Fight Club, but still calls our videos ‘must have!’
• Fit Mom loves the Sufferfest – Read what a former pro mountain biker thinks of The Sufferfest!
• Phil’s Bike Blog found it made an hour pass quickly!
• Karen Popplewell at Etape 2010 used Sufferfest to work harder than she ever had before!
• Bicycle.net says you need to get The Sufferfest!
• Triathlon Sam though it would be easy...she was wrong!
• Mike at CogSnob – Riding with Power to The Sufferfest!
• Denmark’s Cykelportalen – Loves The Downward Spiral!
• Site of the week and top marks from The Velocast Podcast!
• Staring at a blank screen and a pool of sweat on the ground.
• Rob almost threw up his meatloaf.
• 2x FIVE Thumbs up from BikeRumour.com!
• 9/10 for both ‘Performance’ and ‘Value’ from Road.cc

Cycling Weekly in the UK just put The Sufferfest in their list of ‘Top things to do this month.’

It’s a real honour to be in that list, as Cycling Weekly is a top mag. I have to thank Lionel Birnie, who tested The Sufferfest draft version of The Downward Spiral and gave me some great feedback on how to improve it to its current form.

I think I dreamed of being on the cover as a Tour de France winner, but being there as The Sufferfest is the next best thing! : – )

The videos have been for sale for about two months now, and it’s been really fun seeing word spread about them. And seeing them spread around the world! I thought you guys might enjoy seeing the countries that have, so far, bought the videos. Here they are, in order of number of videos sold (top of list is country that has bought the most, bottom the one that has bought the least):

• USA
• UK
• Canada
• Australia
• Switzerland
• New Zealand
• Spain
• Ireland
• Germany
• Norway
• Finland
• France
• Netherlands
• South Africa
• Italy
• Qatar
• India
• Ecuador
• Hong Kong
• Sweden
• Denmark
• Puerto Rico
• Japan
• Brazil
• Singapore
• Thailand
• China

Hey, where is Belgium? Don’t you Belgies ride indoors? Or are you scared of The Sufferfest? Hmmm?

Happy New Year Everyone! Wow, what a great 2009. Thanks for supporting The Sufferfest. I went into this with quite a bit of worry and risk, but confident that this was the best work I could do, that it was the best way to motivate yourself to punish yourself on the bike, and that it was better than the other cycling DVDs, videos, etc. out there. You guys have been wonderful in your feedback and encouragement. Thanks.

So, what’s in store over the next few months? Well, I’m going to take a few weeks ‘off’ working on videos as the family and I are moving from Switzerland to Singapore next week (!). I’ve changed ‘real’ jobs, and that career is taking us to Asia. We’re super excited about it. It’s going to mean some really busy, hectic times, and that means that The Sufferfest will take a backseat for awhile (although I’ll still work to provide the best service I possibly can for anyone who needs it!).

Of course, I won’t be able to leave my baby – or you – for too long and am already formulating what’s to come.  I intend to have two more videos out this ‘off season.’ Most likely (although ya never know), they will be:

• Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now (Remastered) – By far, the most popular of the prototype Sufferfests was Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now. The 45 minute workout, which included 15×1 minute intervals was a simple, brutal workout that seemed to really appeal to the savage in you. I’m going to redo that video, probably making it 20×1 min, with new music and new footage from the UCI.
• Climbing workout – With three interval based workouts out there, I want to provide something with longer, lower intensity efforts. This is starting to take shape as a 90minute video with a bunch of tempo work and some long 6-8minute climbs. This will use ASO footage. I want to use Tour de France, but it costs five times what other races cost (yes, that’s right) and I really have to have a good think about it. If I go with Tour footage, which is looking likely, the price for this video will have to be higher than the other Sufferfests. Hopefully the longer duration will make it worthwhile. Still have to come up with a catchy title…. ; – )

One should come out at the end of January and the other at the end of February. Which one depends on how things come together with getting footage, music, etc. I’ve not decided on soundtracks yet – rock or techno or one of each. Any preferences guys?

Otherwise, I also hope to get a decent logo done, and a few t-shirt designs done (any good designers want to work with me on that?). Those things won’t be tackled until the videos are done, however, so they probably won’t happen until March or April…just in time for the Southern Hemisphere winter!

Well, that’s it for now. Keep that feedback coming. And I sure hope you’re planning on doing the Sufferfest Double Challenge on January 2nd, slacker.

Here is what Suffering looks like. Andrew, based in Germany, sent me his heart-rate profile chart after doing Fight Club. It gives you a pretty good sense of what you’re in for if you’re doing the workout. You can see the nice warm-up, then the rather moderate first lap (look how long it takes him to get his HR up, though!), then the four serious laps of racing – all with a HR above 170! And why aren’t the tops of those bit efforts flat? Because of all the surprise attacks – and you can see that Andrew was working incredibly hard on those (and after them) – especially lap 5 during the final couple of attacks and the sprint for the win! Whew. Makes me wince in pain just looking at it.

(Click picture to enlarge)

The average person gains 5lbs/2.5kilos over the holiday period. I’ve gained a bit more than that, I think, despite my best efforts. So, time to do some work and set the right tone for 2010! I’m issuing a challenge to see who out there is real Sufferfest material! Here it is:

• Date: January 2nd
• Challenge: Ride Downward Spiral and Fight Club back-to-back in a 2hr indoor cycling purgatory
• What you have to do: Anytime on January 2nd, get on your bike, have plenty of water near-by, 2 clear hours when you won’t be interrupted, your computer/ipod/iphone or whatever you watch the videos on, and get moving. You need to ride the two videos in the order above, with no more than a 5 minute break between them.

Yep. That’s right. That’s what I said: both of them, back-to-back in the same workout. This challenge scares the hell out of me, but I’m gonna do it! Who’s with me? Who is going to suffer like a dog, burn some calories, and do an epic session that your friends and family will talk about for the entire season (“You want to know why they just won that race? Well, back in January, there was a little double-Sufferfest challenge that was completed and that set the tone for the whole off season….”)

Either leave a comment on this post, or at the Facebook Sufferfest fan page so all of us know who will be Suffering that day! When you’ve done the challenge, come back here or to the Fbook page and let us know how it went! Right Off to have another piece of chocolate cake…it’s not Jan 2nd yet, you know!

I’m constantly so impressed with what people are getting out of The Sufferefst. And humbled that these videos have had such a profound impact on how people train indoors, in fact the very way they think about indoor training. I thought I’d share some of the emails I’ve received lately:

–

” I am a 59 year old avid cyclist and I hate Winter when I am forced to use an indoor trainer. I despise training on an indoor trainer. However, I have all your free podcast training videos and have bought your two commercial products for for some reason by watching your videos I can force myself to actually work out on a trainer. I could not get a good workout on the trainer without following your videos. I absolutely HATE training on an indoor trainer but your videos somehow transform the workout into something I look forward to do despite how very hard they are to do. I do not know why watching you your videos inspires me but they do. Great job on making a dreaded task become something rather fun.”
David, USA

—

Re: Fight Club. I am speechless. Called it a day after lap 3. At least I’ve got something to aspire towards. You are one very sick individual.

Bradley, Scotland

—

“Picked up the first video after seeing it on bike rumor and did the workout today – BRILLIANT!  The execution is spot on and integrating the trainer workout into actual race footage is a great idea – honestly I don’t know why it has taken so long.  Over the past 15 years I have spent countless hours on the trainer punishing myself while watching old race coverage on the VCR and cranking music, but having the workout synced with the action brings it to a whole new level – keep them coming.”

Cullen, USA

—

“I’ve just completed my first go at the Downward Spiral… It was the fastest hour I have ever spent on the turbo, even though there were
moments when time clearly went backwards…! Truely awesome – you are clearly very evil – I look forward to more Sufferfest vids! I didn’t expect to swear at a video, but all I can
say is that be the end of my “bonus” intervals, it was a good job the kids were fast asleep – they would have heard some very bad words!!!”

Gareth, England

—

Just wanted to say thanks for the inspiring training video its absolutely amazing, you really earned the name sufferfest. It really is like the personal coach I’ve always wanted and I’m gonna kick some bodys ass next year and your training film is going to make that possible.”

Andy, Ireland

—

“You are seriously doing great work. I ride myself into places I can’t go by myself with your stuff.  I just did Ironman Arizona and had a 5:05 bike split.   I have four kids and not a lot of time to train so my two times a week sufferfests made the difference. Absolutely the best indoor workout I have ever done.”

Rico, USA

—

“I only began cycling last June, so this is my first experience riding indoors. Before I engaged in your Sufferfest videos I feared I would lose the fitness I had built this summer, but I was most joyously mistaken. As I embrace the feeling of utter exhaustion upon completing a ride, your workouts ensure that no matter how inclement the weather, I will always have a realistic option to outdoor riding. The Sufferfest has also  improved my pedal stroke, as the ability to pedal nonstop while indoors has allowed me to focus more on power and efficiency. This has resulted in improved performance on the road, as I have been able to complete my regular course almost 1/2 mile an hour faster than before.
My most appreciative thoughts for Sufferfest are reserved for the financial aspect though. I have suspended my gym membership in order to ride my own road bike on a trainer, thus saving me roughly $80.00 month (minus $10.00 for the Downward Spiral, and the $130.00 for the trainer of course).”

David, USA

Fight Club is a very, very hard workout. If you don’t come out of it beat to hell, then you didn’t ride hard enough. And even if you did come out beat to hell. you probably learned a bit about your efforts that might make you ride it differently the 2nd time, and the 3rd time, and the….

But, that’s the beauty of Fight Club (and The Downward Spiral for that matter) – it takes time to figure it out. It’s not the kind of workout you’re going to get bored with. I’ve done it several times now, and I’m still figuring out just how hard I can go, what it takes to recover from the sprints, and what kind of effort I should really be putting into the recovery if I’m going to get through the entire workout.

Of course, if you’re going to use the video all off-season, then it helps to have some other ideas on how to workout to it. Variety is the spice of suffering, you know.

Alternative 1: Don’t ride the whole thing – Do 30-45mins of endurance pace riding listening to music or watching some other video. Once you’re fully warmed up (and bored), go straight to Lap 1 of Fight Club, and do a couple of laps to add intensity to your workout.

Alternative 2: Don’t go with the attacks – The Fight Club is hard enough without trying to follow the 23 surprise attacks that are sprinkled (that doesn’t seem like a hard enough word, ‘sprinkles.’ Must come up with something more suffering like) throughout the workout. If you’re just starting to build some intensity into your riding, then don’t do the sprints, and concentrate on doing the TTs and Climbs to your best ability.

Alternative 3: Only go with a few of the attacks – Either drop the sprints in the TT sections or the climbing sections, or for an entire lap.

Alternative 4: Turn each lap into one big climb – Each lap is 4:00 of TT and 2:30 of climbing. Turn it into 6:30 of climbing by keeping high resistance and slower cadence (about 75) the entire time. Trying to follow all the attacks at this kind of resistance is gonna be suuuuuuper hard.

Alternative 5: Gradually ramp up effort – Do lap one at an effort level of 5. Lap 2 at effort level of 6, Lap 3….and so on.

You might have some other ideas on how to get the most out of Fight Club. If so, please let me know and I can add them here!

I’m not sure about you, but I suspect you might be a little like me: married, two kids, job, hobby that takes about as much time as a job, lots of personal interests that take up time and, oh yes, cyclist with aspirations of greatness that will never be realised because I don’t have enough freaking time to train!

Or at least I didn’t. According to the new book by Chris Carmichael, The Time Crunched Cyclist, I can be fit, fast and powerful (his words – I like them!) in 6 to 8 hours a week. Sign me up! I just finished the book (I recommend you get it) and I’ve come to a couple of conclusions about it:

1. I love it. I love what Carmichael has to say here about traditional ‘base building’ workouts being completely useless for time-crunched people.  I never felt I was really getting any faster or stronger when I was doing a that kind of stuff, and always felt that my biggest gains came after a period of lots of intense spinning bike, mountain bike or short road sessions. In fact, Carmichael says that intensity is the key to success and if you can manage 6 to 8 hours a week, with a high-intensity, 12 week programme that he’s designed, you’ll be a better cyclist. He outlines why this is the case, how to get there and how to use nutrition and sensible cross-training to make the most of your fitness. Plus, he’s got an understanding, world-view that says, “I know you want to be a pro cyclist. But you’re not. You’ve got a family and it’s OK if that’s your priority. Really. It’s ok.”

2. The Sufferfest is perfect for anyone following the Time-Crunched Cyclist training programme. Because the workouts in the book are all 60-90 minutes long, and involve high intensity intervals, they are perfectly suited for time on the trainer. Carmichael says it’s ok to deviate from the suggested workouts in his plan, as long as you’re doing the kind of intensity he’s looking for. If you’ve done one of the Sufferfest workouts, then you know it’s nearly impossible to fit more intensity into an hour. Unless you’re bionic. Then you probably could.

So that’s the ‘no time’ excuse for not achieving greatness gone…damn. Now if only Carmichael would write “The time-crunched, slightly lazy, pizza and red wine loving cyclist training plan.” I’d really be racing for the podium.

After spending the past month or so with my current download provider, I’m not happy with either the quality of service or download speed. Some of you have mentioned the long download times to me, and I’ve been listening. So, I’ve been looked around and found a new provider – so far, I’ve been extremely impressed with the quality of their service, and the download speeds I’ve seen in testing.

The new guys are more expensive than my old provider, but I think it’s worth it to give you a better experience. It does mean that I’ll have to raise prices, though. Not by much, mind you, just .50 Euro (about .75 USD). The price increase will take effect as of December 19th, making the videos cost 6.49 EUR for the Individual version and 10.49 for the Class & Group. So, if you haven’t bought it yet, you’ve got the chance to get The Downward Spiral at the ‘old’ price of 5.99 EUR until Dec 19th.

Oh – and the new guys offer two cool options which you can purchase:

• You can also order the video on CD to be mailed to your house (either because you don’t want to download it for some reason, or you want a backup copy)(by the way, this is not a DVD version of the video – I’m still negotiating the right to do that with The Sufferfest)
• One year of download access (in case your machine crashes and you lose the video)

I hope you still find The Sufferfest to be incredible value and that the videos bring you a full season of pain and misery.

Paul C over at Daily Mile and the Sufferfest Facebook group just posted this video of his Bike Torture Chamber – and it features our very own Downward Spiral!

My Torture Chamber from Paul C on Vimeo.

It’s gonna hurt.

I’ve had a few folks who heard about the old Sufferfests from 2008 ask me if they are still around. Those videos, which, to be honest, are not really that good – I’m not very proud of the quality of work on them as they were my first attempts – had to be taken down. The rights owners to the video rightly asked me to remove them as I did not have the rights. Fair enough.

I was able to negotiate and secure the rights to the new ones thanks to the cooperation of these rights holders and upon the condition that the old ones were no longer available. So, if you’re looking for the old, free sufferfests, they are the stuff of legends now (if you have them, I ask you to please not circulate them further as this will not go down well with the rights holders and could compromise my ability to make more Sufferfests).

So, hold tight. The new Sufferfest, Fight Club, will be out in a couple of weeks! I’ll so be redoing Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now in Jan/Feb!

The Downward Spiral features a horse.

You will grow to hate the horse, because you know what the horse means. You will grow to love the horse in an exhausted, relieved kind of way. Because you know what the horse means.

Why a horse? Why not? I could have just had some bog-standard beep or something, but the Sufferfest is not your standard cycling training video. And because you Sufferfesters deserve more…you deserve to be entertained while you suffer. So, a horse. Let’s see what Berg! Attack! features…

David over at Road.CC put himself through the Downward Spiral and gave it a much-sought-after four out of five star rating! He also gave it a 9/10 for ‘Performance’ and a 9/10 for ‘Value.’ Fantastic. Personally, I would have hoped that he would have been too shattered after doing the workout to even write the review. Here’s the first paragraph from the site…along with a line that proves he was well and truly suffering…

“If you like the idea of turbo training but you can’t stand the monotony then there’s plenty of ways to keep yourself occupied, from your iPod to a full VR trainer. But at just €5.99 this 60-minute workout from The Sufferfest is a real bargain, and it’s a session you can repeat without it becoming stale.”

“Needless to say it’s pretty intense, and normally where I’d struggle to leave the 160s on the HRM, on this session I was pushing 178 max. The structure of the spiral means that you can really ramp up the effort as the intervals get shorter. So top marks on both counts.”

You can read the rest of it here.

I designed the Downward Spiral spinning / cycling workout video to beat the living crap out of you. And you’re telling me that, indeed, the crap has been knocked so far out of you that you’re not quite sure where to look for it or if it will come back again. Excellent.

But sometimes you just don’t feel like that. And sometimes you feel like doing something a little different than what the video is telling you to do on the screen. To help you get even more value out of video, I’ve put together a few alternative ways of riding The Downward Spiral.

First, a reminder of how the 60 minute workout is structured:

• Approx 10mins warm-up featuring two 30 second jumps.
• First interval set (with Paris-Roubaix footage)
  • 2:00 min interval / 2:00 recovery
  • 1:45 min interval / 1:45 recovery
  • 1:30 min interval / 1:30 recovery
  • 1:15 min interval / 1:15 recovery
  • 1:00 min interval / 1:00 recovery
  • :45 sec interval / :45 recovery
  • :30 sec interval / :30 recovery
  • :15 sec interval
• 5:00 recovery
• Repeat interval set (this time with Fleche-Wallone footage)
• 4:00 warm-down

The video has you do the intervals at extremely high effort levels – either 9.5 or 10 out of 10 on a ‘perceived effort’ scale.

Alternative 1: Over-unders

On the first interval, bring your intensity level just above your threshold (ie., the point where you would really, really, really rather not talk to anybody). On the recovery sections, rather than recover, bring the effort level to just under your threshold (i.e., you can talk, but you won’t say terribly nice things to anyone). Do this through the whole set of intervals.

Alternative 2: Increasing intensity

If you’re not used to the high effort of serious intervals, gradually work your way into it. Rather than doing the first interval at 9.5/10, do it at 6/10. As each interval comes up, increase your intensity and only get to 10 out of 10 for the last :15 second bit. Use the recovery sessions as normal.

Alternative 3: Accelerations

Do the intervals at an effort level of 8/10…which still hurts a helluva lot. When racers attack on screen, or the camera is working to close a gap, increase your cadence by +10rpms and push to stay with the action. Bring effort back down to 8/10 after attack is finished.

Any other ideas? Post them in the comments here!

The guys (John, specifically) over at VeloCast were kind enough to review a copy of The Downward Spiral and….they suffered like pigs. and gave it their coveted ‘Pick of the Week!’ “You don’t have to think – you just get on and do what it tells you…the music is appropriate and the video is appropriate to what you have to do…it really gets you psyched! It took my mind off the horror of an hour on the turbo, and it hurt like hell! I’m walking like John Wayne today, I’m telling you!”

I’m over the moon about that, since these guys really know what they’re talking about. Have a listen to episode 56, which you can find here or in iTunes. The Sufferfest is covered in the last 5 minutes. Subscribe to their podcast – it’s great stuff!

Rachel and Penny, over at FitMom, just put up a nice review of The Downward Spiral. Penny is a former professional mountain biker, so if we can make her Suffer, then we’re pleased with that! : – ) Here’s a bit of what she had to say!

The guy in charge has a wicked sense of humor and it shows all the way through to the end (you’ll know what I mean at the “end” of the workout). The way the workout “talks” to you is great: from the interval start ring-tone to the screen messages. The actual workout is really darn hard, make that, really damn hard, not matter how fit you are you can always go harder. The music, including the lyrics, keep you going through the hurt. The race situations and racers you’re chasing, bridging and gapping are world class and pull you in to their suffering without making you question whether you should “go with them.”

You can read the full review here.

We’ll we’ve got about 15 entries so far in our Bike Torture Chamber contest! Get your pics into me by Dec 1st for a chance to win some stuff that will help you get through your winter training in better shape, thanks to epicplanet.com, globalrides.com, cyclefilm.com and theveloist.com. Details are here: http://www.thesufferfest.com/bike-torture-chamber/