Think of an at-home fitness class and you probably picture yourself doing lunges on your living room carpet in front of an 80s aerobics video or trying to copy yoga poses from an Instagram fitness guru. But New York-based Peloton, which provides online spinning classes via a luxury exercise bike, aims to bring a more high-end fitness experience into people’s homes.
Peloton launches in the UK, its first expansion outside of the US, on Tuesday. Its product consists of two parts: the bike, which users purchase, and a monthly video class subscription. The bike is a stylish spinning bike with an in-built 22-inch HD touchscreen. Users can choose to stream video classes from Peloton instructors live or catch up on more than 10,000 recorded classes on-demand.
The company appears to have found a lucrative niche, receiving a valuation of $4 billion after raising a $550 million Series F funding round in August. Founder and CEO John Foley says that Peloton is profitable and considering going public. “Like you would guess, we are thinking about an IPO, but we haven’t laid out the plans and timing yet,” he says.
Ahead of the UK launch, Peloton opened a pop-up store in London’s Covent Garden to demonstrate its product. Here, bikes are set up in fake showrooms, to give a sense of how they might look in someone’s trendy London apartment. I try one in the “bedroom”. I put on a pair of wireless headphones, clip the Peloton shoes into the pedals and choose an on-demand class.
Classes are organised by music genre and vary from five to 120 minutes long. I select a 20-minute pop class by instructor Alex Toussaint. Toussaint is something of a celebrity among the Peloton crowd, with 30,000 Instagram followers off the back of his popular routines. Later, he tells me that one of the keys to a good class is the playlist. “I’m very big on song placement,” he says. “You want to make sure it has its peaks, its downs; you want to make sure you have recovery time – things like that.”
On my bike’s screen, I watch Toussaint from several camera angles as he instructs a live class in New York to music by Drake and Alicia Keys. At the bottom of the screen, I can see my bike's resistance – adjusted via a knob at the front of the bike – and my “cadence”, or rotations per minute. Toussaint energetically shouts out what numbers I should be aiming for on each measure, increasing the resistance and occasionally breaking out into sprints. I can also see my “total output” in kilojoules.
As I take the class, other Peloton users join the same one. I can see their usernames at the side of the screen, and their total output (the idea being that you can arrange with a friend to check into the same class at the same time and compete on scores). A user from Brooklyn who goes by the moniker Willryde4pizza joins while I’m mid-spin and “high-fives” me by pressing a button next to my name – the Peloton equivalent to a Facebook poke.
It’s a smooth ride, but it certainly doesn’t come cheap. The Peloton bike itself costs £1895, plus a £39 per month subscription for unlimited video classes – rather a lot more than the traditional image of an at-home fitness class. Kevin Cornils, Peloton's managing director of international, says that the idea is to bring a “boutique”-style spinning experience à la SoulCycle into people’s homes. The company’s main target customers, he says, are time-poor individuals who already enjoy such classes once or twice a week but would ideally like to go more often.
CEO Foley insists that it’s not just for wealthy tech bros. “A schoolteacher who feels like they’re going broke going to the boutique fitness classes might invest in the Peloton bike because of the value over time,” he says. He calls the bike a “family investment” that the whole household can use (multiple users can share a subscription). “With gym memberships, you need each person to have a membership,” he says.
The company expects to find some differences between the US and UK markets. Cornils says that the boutique fitness genre is not as advanced in London as it is in New York, although the UK has more of a road cycling history. Foley says the company recognises the need to produce local classes and content: “We want to make sure that the British market feels like this isn’t an American brand pushing our sensibility in to their country."
In 2019, the Covent Garden pop-up store will transform into a studio, where UK instructors will stream and record their own classes. “Things are different,” Cornils says. “Music is different, the style of teaching is different – Americans tend to be maybe a little bit more enthusiastic in their way of instructing.”
Peloton is set to launch its next product, a treadmill, later this year. Called Tread, the treadmill has a US price tag of $3,995 plus the Peloton monthly subscription. If the bike is Peloton’s answer to SoulCycle, the treadmill is its go at Barry’s Bootcamp. Foley describes it as a “portal to a full body experience,” with Tread classes including circuit-training-style exercises as well as running.
Back on the bike, I finish Toussaint’s class covered in sweat, having achieved a total output of 95. I’m pleased – until I see that Willryde4pizza has clocked up almost double that.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
