4 Feb 2017

Spin doctors: a global peleton

From This Way Up, 12:15 pm on 4 February 2017
Peloton instructor Jessica King

Peloton instructor Jessica King Photo: Peloton / Twitter

It's a spin class with a difference – 80,000 bikes, 250,000 riders... and it's all happening in your own home.

Peloton is a growing exercise empire based in New York that offers its users online spin classes hosted by a studio of charismatic, photogenic spin instructors.

Steven Kurutz of the New York Times has been to the Peloton studios in Manhattan and Simon Morton asked him what makes it unique?

Although there are live people pedalling away in the class, Peloton's focus is very defintely on its online audience.

These subscribers pay thousands of dollars for a special bike and access to live classes, and a library of thousands more edited and tailored to their needs with images and music.

They can even interact and compete with their friends in other cities – so it's a social network where sweating is encouraged.

"The instructors are encouraged to break the fourth wall by looking directly into the camera and talking to the at-home riders, whose names and hometowns appear on a computer tablet affixed to their bikes and everyone else’s"  - Steven Kurutz in The New York Times