Profile: In Honor of Mountains to Celebrate International Mountain Day

I created this profile, “In Honor of Mountains,” to celebrate International Mountain Day on December 11, but, of course, good climbing profiles with great music can be used any time of the year. It’s always a joy to know that something we love to simulate in our cycling classes has been given its own day to be honored.

This profile consists of three climbs of about 12 minutes each. There is a short downhill/recovery in between the climbs and a few flat roads at higher cadences to bring you to the base of the next climb. Almost all of the songs are based on the theme of mountains and being “on top of the world.” (Note: there is a new version below that is one long climb.)

Below you will find the profile “In Honor of Mountains” along with the Spotify playlist and PDF. You can find our bucket playlist called “Mountain/Summit/Climb/On Top of the World” in this Theme Ride Thursday post. There are 170 songs if you want to switch out any in this profile or create your own. That post also has numerous quotes about mountains you can use in your tribute to mountains ride as well as links to a plethora of ICA climbing profiles. 

The lyrics to “Moving Mountains” by The Brevet are perfect for this theme. 

“Moving Mountains,” by The Brevet

Clarity paint me bright, like stars in the dark of night
And open up the sky, now meet me by the mountainside
Where there is a fire in my belly and beast in my mind
That keeps trying to tell me to strengthen my spine
All through this life, there comes a time to move a mountainside.

Hold, my hand
And lead me over this strange land
‘Cause this great unknown, was meant to be found
Oh-oh-oh, it’s calling me now, now, now

Open the doors
I’ve been here once before
But wasn’t really sure what I was looking for

Mold, my soul
Into something to uphold, a book untold
So won’t you unfold these pages now
Oh, ’cause they’re crying,
and they’re calling out saying, “hear me now”

NEW version for 2023! For my mountain day theme ride in 2022, I decided to turn it into a ride that was entirely climbing (outside of warm-up and cool-down); I took out the recoveries and added more climbing songs. In 2023, I made a few more changes, adding a new warm-up song and moving a few other songs around (see—every profile can be a work in progress!). As usual, you can decide which version you prefer and use mine as a foundation, adding your own personality and music preferences.

A ride like this truly needs to be an inspirational experience on the bike. I take some of the ideas from the Energy Magica profile, which asks riders to visualize the mountains and nature around them and draw energy from them as they climb. I also employ many of the strategies for strength in my series on that topic. We’ll be focusing on mental strength and the concept of flow. 

It’s available as an Express Profile (1-page spreadsheet with minimal cueing) which you can download below as both a PDF and Excel file (so you can make your own changes if desired), along with the Spotify playlist. Make sure to download the original so you get all the great coaching. If you teach this all-climbing ride, please let me know how it goes. Climbing with no recoveries is a daunting concept to many instructors and their riders—I love hearing success stories from instructors who guide their riders through this experience for the first time. 

Leslie taught this class in January 2024 and let us know how much her class loved it! Remember, you can honor mountains any time of the year. 

I’d love to hear how your riders enjoyed this ride (either the three-climbs version or the one big climb). Please leave any comments below and let us know if you found some other powerful songs for climbing.

7 Comments

  1. This was so fun! Thanks for a great profile, one big climb was A great challenge for my group. I live any theme that celebrates mountains!

    1. Author

      thank you, Meghan! My class really enjoyed the one long climb profile as well.

      After class, I told them, “now that we’ve taken out all the reds and the blues (outside of w/up & c/d) I’m going to put them all back in for Monday’s class!” 😉

  2. We really enjoyed this celebration of mountains profile, Jennifer! I adjusted a few songs, primarily to accommodate the upcoming holidays and rider preferences for some holiday flare. The ride was fun, challenging, and went quickly. Riders commented that they covered more distance than they typically do in a 60 min ride. We use Keiser M3i bikes, so distance reflects power. More distance over time means their average wattage was higher. Great profile! Thank you!

    https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4T1rH6DGQ9GerQHyHeYxCO?si=L72HQ6hRQfCpoZC1sPNYsA&fbclid=IwAR0ZykDP6NMoWdSdV7kUlZ0W8tLsChV_m8a8xqP7YpyKdXSkULfyz-BQDZE

    1. Laura,
      I love your playlist. Thanks for sharing.

  3. I see you included a song by Zayde Wolf in this playlist who I really like. It’s not necessarily mountain related, but I have used 2 of his others songs: Golden Age and Walk through the Fire. They are both energetic and uplifting.

    1. Author

      I love Zayde Wolfe! I’ve used quite a few songs in ICA profiles. But these two I was unfamiliar with so thank you so much for sharing, Dayton.

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