Spinervals Competition 14.0: Totally Time Trial is a challenging indoor training workout aimed at competitive cyclists. As the title indicates, this program specifically aims at improving your performance in a time trial. Also known as "the race of truth," a time trial is just you versus the clock, challenging you to do your personal best time over a specific course. While time trials are part of many cycle races as well as triathlons, serious recreational riders may also enjoy the challenge of riding a "personal time trial" over a favorite section of road. Either way, Spinervals 14.0 sets out to give you the training you need to get the most out of your ride.

Totally Time Trial is a 90-minute program at a high level of difficulty (9.7 out of 10 on the Spinervals intensity scale). As Coach Troy Jacobson explains, the exercise sets in this program are designed to improve your ability to ride at or even above your lactate threshold for long periods of time. With that in mind, the central part of the workout is a set of four 15-minute efforts with only two minutes of rest between each set.

What's interesting about Totally Time Trial is that it helps riders learn how to warm up for a time trial, as well as how to get the maximum power output during the time trial. After the standard Spinervals warm-up of three 30-second efforts, Totally Time Trial spends even more time on warming up rather than jumping right into the main sets. These exercise sets (five one-minute efforts with short breaks, and a two-minute set of alternating normal and super-high-cadence work) are still high-intensity and quite challenging, but more importantly, they have the specific purpose of getting your legs and cardiovascular system prepared for the all-out effort of the time trial. In this way, Totally Time Trial will be an excellent training tool for competitive riders, providing an example of the kind of warm-up that's necessary for optimal performance.

The four fifteen-minute sessions are the core of Totally Time Trial, and the workout is certainly intense. It's never dull, however: Coach Troy has participants switching frequently between high and low cadence, seated and standing work, and different gears. It's certainly a tough workout, but if you're interested in time trialing, you'll be very pleased.

The program runs as follows:

Riders who are interested in Totally Time Trial will be pleased to know that it complements the earlier time-trial focused program from Spinervals, Time Trial Special. Whereas Totally Time Trial effectively simulates the whole time trial experience, from warming up to riding, Time Trial Special takes a more skills-based focus, working on improving technique as well as improving your anaerobic fitness, so both have a place in your indoor training library.

The DVD

Video

Spinervals Competition 14.0: Totally Time Trial appears in a clear and clean transfer at its original 1.33:1 aspect ratio. The image looks quite satisfactory... not that you'll see much of it, with the sweat pouring down your face and your face grimacing in effort, of course. The on-screen indicators of time remaining, suggested intensity level, tension setting for LeMond RevMaster trainers, and gear ratios are all easy to read.

Audio

The Dolby 2.0 soundtrack is clear and easy to follow. Coach Troy's voice is easy to understand, and stays in a good balance with the background music. Unfortunately, unlike the previous DVD (Tough Love), there's no option for turning the music off and having just Coach Troy's voice.

Extras

There are no special features here. The menu is easy to navigate, listing the different exercise sets, but has the annoying "feature" that it starts playing on its own after a few seconds, even if you haven't pressed "play." The chapters are well placed, allowing viewers to skip or repeat segments of the workout as desired.

Final thoughts

Spinervals Competition 14.0: Totally Time Trial is an excellent choice for serious cyclists who want to improve their ability to ride at high speeds against the clock. This 90-minute program provides an excellent preparatory program for warming up right before doing a time trial, as well as offering a tough, well-focused main workout. If you're serious about time trialing, you probably already have Spinervals Competition 2.0: Time Trial Special, and now you'll also want to add the nicely complementary Totally Time Trial as well. Highly recommended.