Final Thoughts on Virtual Active Bike Series 2

            Apologies for the long delay! I am (finally) back to wrap up my thoughts on Virtual Active’s Bike Series 2. The series includes rides through Costa Rica, Chilean Patagonia, Panama, Tierro del Fuego and Argentine Patagonia. (This post won’t include a lot of details for each ride—for more in-depth reviews, check out my review of each individual ride.)

            If you read my reviews on each individual workout, you probably already know that I felt like the rides were too similar to each other to justify releasing these as five individual DVD’s. For example, I think that shorter versions (ie. 35 minutes) of the Chilean Patagonia and Argentine Patagonia rides could have been released on one DVD simply entitled “Patagonia”.  Since all of these rides take place in Central/South America, a lot of the landscape and terrain, while beautiful, is very similar, meaning that after I had completed the series, I had a hard time differentiating one ride from the other.

          

            Here’s the order in which I enjoyed the individual workouts: 

#1—Argentine Patagonia (10/10) is my favourite of the series. A fabulous trainer (Barry Druschel), a wide variety of riding techniques and challenges, the best music in the series and a challenging ride make it the highlight of the series for me.

#2—Panama (9/10). This ride had the most varied scenery (including some urban stages, something that was lacking in this series overall) and, while not being overly challenging, provides a bit of everything.

#3— Costa Rica (8.5/10). This ride has a great trainer (Buddy Mucuha), beautiful scenery (that’s somewhat more varied than in the other rides), the perfect amount of challenge and a good variety of techniques and drills.

#4— Chilean Patagonia (7.5/10). Caroline is one of my favourite VA trainers but this one just feels too repetitive to me—not just in terms of scenery, but also in terms of the drills. Each stage seems too similar to all the others.

#5— Tierro del Fuego (7/10). The trainer in this one isn’t my favourite (she seems a bit robotic) and it’s a lot of seated climbs, which I don’t enjoy too much. But riding along the “End of the Earth” is a breathtaking experience.

           This is how I would rank them in terms of difficulty:

#1— Argentine Patagonia (8.5/10) is a “ peak performance, maximum effort” ride that has a bit of everything—tempo training, tabata training, power intervals, etc. A lot of this ride is uphill and there’s a lot of sprinting involved.

#2—Costa Rica (8.5/10) is an “advanced power ride” and has a bit of everything but the toughest part of this one for me was the two-stage sprint towards the end (8 minutes of 15 seconds on/15 seconds off).

#3—Tierro del Fuego (8/10) is a “strength ride” that is almost entirely uphill. You’re in a moderate to high gear for most of the ride and most of the climbs are seated.

#4—Chilean Patagonia (8/10) is an “endurance ride”, so you’re not working too hard but you’re not just coasting along, either. The challenge in this one comes from doing most of the ride in a moderate to high gear. One of the more challenging stages has you increasing your gear while keeping your cadence the same.

 #5—Panama (7/10) is a “foundation ride” and definitely the easiest of the series.

          So while I enjoyed Bike Series 2, I didn’t enjoy it as much as Bike Series 1. The rides in Bike Series 1 (which I’m revisiting and will review in the coming weeks) are more unique and seem much more varied from one another. The rides in Bike Series 2 are definitely worth having in your collection—I just don’t think you need all five. I think a spinning enthusiast would be best served by purchasing three of the workouts: Argentine Patagonia, Panama and Costa Rica. This would give you three fun, varied and challenging workouts.