Virtual Active: Argentine Patagonia

   Argentine Patagonia was the final ride for me in Virtual Active’s Bike Series 2. It was a great one for me to finish with as it’s a highlight of the series.  It’s led by another new trainer, Barry Druschel. Barry has a bit of a nasally voice and at first I was worried that it was going to bother me and be an issue. But I didn’t even notice it after the initial few minutes and I think Barry might be my favourite of the new trainers in this series as he’s designed an absolutely fantastic ride.

Length: 55 minutes

Format: Argentine Patagonia is a “peak performance, maximum effort cycling workout” that Barry says will “test your endurance, strength and power as a cyclist”. He’s not kidding—this is definitely the toughest ride in the series. The 11 x 5-minute stages contain a variety of drills—you’ll do tempo training, Tabata training, off-road riding with high resistance, power intervals, standing accelerations, etc. As you can see from the profile below, there’s a lot uphill terrain and the final stage consists of three hill sprints (more on that under “Difficulty”):

Music: I haven’t been overly impressed with most of the music in this series but I did really enjoy the music in Argentine Patagonia. It was motivating and mostly upbeat, except for two tracks near the end which were almost trance-like (in a good way). Barry makes good use of the music, often telling you to pedal to the beat (or even faster than the beat).

Footage: one of my complaints about this series has been that a lot of the footage is very similar. (And this isn’t the fault of Virtual Active—a lot of the terrain in one part of South America just happens to look awfully similar to other parts of South America).  But this didn’t bother me with Argentine Patagonia for some reason—I think because the production team did a great job finding as much variety with the terrain as they could. Or maybe because Barry makes each stage seem so different with the various drills he chose. Yes, there’s still a lot of riding alongside a lake with mountains in the distance, but there’s also gorgeous shots like this:

And this:

     Glaciar Perito Moreno is one of only three glaciers in Patagonia that are growing. The history/geography/trivia dork in me loves these little tidbits of knowledge (which is one reason I prefer doing the guided rides to the unguided).

Difficulty: as stated above, this is a “maximum effort” ride and probably the toughest in the series. The tempo and tabata training are difficult but I think the final stage is the toughest, especially as it comes at the end of an already-tough ride. The final stage has three hill sprints that have you in a high gear doing a standing run for 15 seconds, keeping the same gear and sitting for 15 seconds and then recovering. If you’re in a high enough gear, this is extremely challenging. Although this is a challenging ride, Barry does a fantastic job of pacing the ride so that you feel challenged rather than defeated. 8.5/10 for difficulty.

Other Random Thoughts: I honestly can’t think of any negatives with Argentine Patagonia. It has a variety of drills and skills, fun music, a great level of challenge, gorgeous footage and an awesome trainer. It’s as close to perfect as a spin workout can get. I was going to give it a 9.5 but I really can’t think of a valid reasonnot to give it a perfect score. So 10/10 it is!