RPM 47

There two releases this time that I was excited to do - BP74, and RPM47 (lots of 4's and 7's... hmmm...). RPM 47 was the first release to take place on the second day of filming.

This time, unlike at the last quarter, I was booked in for certain and knew I was going to get a bike. Even better, this time, I'd said to one of Stollery's blog readers to come up and say Hi at the filming, so unlike the last filming, I wasn't alone! I even had a couple of people I knew NEXT to me, how awesome is that!

Now... have any of you ever wanted to see the RPM studio in its full filming glory?

There you go.

Ever wanted to know exactly how close those bikes are to each other?

There you go. (They were actually further apart than last time!)

Now, the first time I showed these pictures to one of my friends, they said, "How very illegal of you!" I took these when the camera wasn't rolling; before class had started. So don't worry, no rules were broken in the making of this blog post.

The presenters this time around was the seasoned team of Glen, Dan and Sarah.

I'd never had a chance to ride one of Dan's classes before until one rehearsal before the filming whereby I made a fool of myself. I was jabbering to Reymond about one of the Combat tracks, and then excitedly tried to demonstrate the move... completely forgetting that 1, I was wearing cycling shoes... 2, the floor was concrete... and 3, the floor was covered in sweat. I literally went skating, and Dan did his very best not to call me a moron. I wouldn't have blamed him if he did!

Before we were allowed in the room, he was such a sweetie - he had a box full of electrolyte tablets and came up to every person and offered them one for their drink bottle. I took an orange and ginger one and I tell you what, I appreciated it. I haven't seen that sort of generosity from any presenter before, and it was really, really lovely.

One little whinge I'll have. All of the locals were asked to seat themselves at the back, away from the cameras, so that the internationals could fill up the front row. I can understand this, since they've travelled a long way, and there's more restriction in an RPM filming than with other filmings. However, I was disappointed to see that there were several people in the front row that clearly had never done an RPM class before... or had done very few. I know I saw at least one person get on and start pedalling backwards! I was a bit annoyed by this - I would much rather a passionate international seat themselves up the front rather than just a plain 'international' who was there because the camera was and didn't have any special enthusiasm for the program.

Anyways. There is always one trainwreck of a filming each quarter. Last quarter, it was BJ52+. This time, it was RPM 47.

We firstly had to refilm the warmup, and then, when we were finally into the swing of things, midway through track 3, all music was cut off abruptly. Glen even said, exasperated, "Oh you're shitting me!!!" The reason being? The track 3 in RPM 47 is one of THE. HARDEST. RPM tracks I've ever come across. It and track 7 are massive highlights for me. To have to stop halfway through was a huge kick in the teeth.

Even better? The delay turned out to be around 15 minutes until we got restarted. What had apparently happened was that a fuse had blown on one of the speakers, or circuit failure had occurred or something. What it meant was that we were going at three-quarter volume, and it took some time for it all to be fixed.

When we finally got restarted, we were cold and had to go straight into what is supposed to be one of the big working tracks. I know that the buzz the second time wasn't as awesome as it was the first, since everyone had had a taste of how hard it was!

Glen, Sarah and Dan were awesome, and it's a shame that something out of their control resulting in the filming being so fragmented and disjointed... which is not how an RPM release is supposed to be experienced.

And again, the RPM clothing that the team were sporting looked awesome. Out of all of the official LM clothing, the stuff that's been designed for RPM and Vive look consistently awesome.

As for RPM 47 itself?

There was a lot of disappointment in RPM 45. And while RPM 46 seems to have been getting a better reception (I personally like some of the tracks in RPM 45, with track 1 becoming my most favourite warmup ever), there was still concern over the longevity of some of the tracks. In recent releases, the releases have been full of top 40 songs, and there's been a bunch of worried RPM instructors out there - wondering how recent releases will stack up long term, tracks such as Evacuate the Dancefloor and Burn it to the Ground will stand up to tried and true tracks like Night Train.

Some of the innovation that has been present in BP74 has trickled over into RPM47. I was talking to Sarah the first time I saw RPM47, and in my head when I was doing track 3, I imagined Jaci at New Lynn. I imagined her thrashing the hell out of it, and track 7. Both are tracks which I believe will go on for a very long time. I'm so impressed, happy, and relieved that they are in this release. Some of the prayers of RPM instructors worldwide have been answered with this release. Whether it will be a crowd pleasing release remains to be said. I know that personally, I am a fan.