• Spincast – Why Not Thrive?
• Price – Free (and that’s always good)
• Rating – * (out of *****)
• Summary – Live recordings of spinclasses don’t work well as spincasts

I stumbled on a promising-looking collection of spincasts tonight at a blog called Why Not Thrive? Turns out it’s the same group that also has some podcasts at iTunes under the “IndoorCyclingWorkout” label. I checked out a few of them – oddly, they’re hosted at the Internet Archive, and there is a whole host of audio download options.

What seems a promising start, however, is a bit of a let down. The music sounds ok, although a bit dated. The problem, though, is that the audio quality is very poor, and the instructor is hard to make out (although she sounds nice enough). It seems that these are live recordings of spin classes, which never translates well onto a spincast. In situations like this, the instructor doesn’t give enough detail on what to do because the class can see her…and you can’t. So you’re left to muddle around a bit and try to figure out what is going on and what might happen next. It makes it hard to concentrate on what your workout, and a bit frustrating.

Overall, I’d give these a miss unless you’re really in need of some new spincasts. If they can improve the sound quality, and the detail of the instruction, then I think they could be worth revisiting.