The Sufferfest: Nine Hammers

Christmas came early last week with the release of two new Sufferfest rides! One is a newly updated Angels (which I hope to review later this week). The other is Nine Hammers, which tries to break you with nine VO2 and Threshold intervals. The ride opens with a classic Sufferlandrian adage: “choosing a way to Suffer is like choosing which hammer to hit yourself with.” (The only acceptable reply to this, of course, is: “why choose? Can’t I just hit myself with ALL the hammers?”) The Nine Hammers is a Sufferlandrian rite of passage (although, according to the minions, the UN has labeled it quite inhumane). 

Length: 60 minutes

Format: nine VO2 and Threshold intervals, each one ranging in time from 3:00-4:30, with generally about 90 seconds recovery in between. Here’s a breakdown of the hammers:

Music: unlike the music in most Sufferfests, none of the songs really stood out or made an impression on me. Not bad music, just not as in-you-face or as motivating as in most Sufferfests.

Footage: the race footage is from the Tour de Romandie and Tour de Suisse. My favourite footage was during the recovery stages, courtesy of the Col Collective and filmed in the mountains of Italy and France.

Difficulty: 8/10. You push hard during the hammers but you get a lot of recovery time in between.

Other Random Thoughts: this won’t be one of my favourite Sufferfest rides. I’ve already mentioned the “meh” music and the race footage wasn’t as exciting or as exhilarating as in other Sufferfests. The whole ride felt a bit monotonous: push/recover/repeat. There wasn’t very much to distinguish one hammer from the next. My favourite Sufferfests have strong storyline and I missed that in Nine Hammers. Not a bad ride by any stretch—I just have much better Sufferfest workouts in my collection to see myself reaching for this one very often. 7/10.

I leave you with my favourite caption from Nine Hammers :)