It feels good to say that you own a Peloton bike. After months of peering into those enigmatic Apple-style Peloton stores which came into being unsurprisingly in the more affluent areas of London (Knightsbridge, Marylebone and Oxford Street), my wife and I decided to bite the bullet and buy into the Peloton dream.
Like many lockdown fitness devotees, a cancellation of our Central London gym memberships unlocked some disposable income which meant we could afford it. Only just though.
When delivery day finally came, I realised just how heavy the bloody thing is. Peloton had sent what looked like its two oldest employees to haul it up the stairs and into our second bedroom. One looked 70 and the other about 90. Who knows, maybe they both have Pelotons and that’s why they got it up and in position in no time. A great advert.
Given the amount we used to spend on exercising outside the house, the logic was that it would pay for itself, but only if we kept it up. How hard could it be?
As you do with any new toy, we both hit the ground running, or pedalling for that matter, and started doing a 20 or 30 minute session every day of the week. We were blinded by enthusiasm, intrigue and the excitement of witnessing those pounds just fall off. I say blinded because, slowly but surely, six days turned into four (weekdays only), which then turned into three. It has now stayed at three, not three in a row but the three most convenient days of the week.
Aside from spinning, you can do a variety of other classes on the bike by turning the screen around and laying out a gym mat and weights (both provided when you buy a package). I have seen results from the strength classes I have done and now have three or four preferred trainers. But after four months I can feel the apathy creeping in.
I caught myself throwing my dressing gown over it the other day, much to the dismay of my wife.
Could it be true that now I have a ‘gym’ of sorts in my house, it has become more difficult to motivate myself? The effort of remembering to get my kit together and travelling to the gym from my work has now gone. The stress of worrying what equipment will be free no longer exists. The bike only asks for 30 minutes of my day but, strangely, the convenience means I feel less compelled to keep going back to it. If only the same were true of the biscuit tin.
Don’t get me wrong. There’s a tremendous adrenalin rush after a class is finished and the encouragement you get from the trainers is truly motivating. However, my diminishing enthusiasm seems inevitable. I don’t believe I will ever reach the heady heights of 1000 spinning classes, the achievements of which other peloton users are congratulated for in seemingly every class I do.
I was one of the many who contributed to Peloton’s $1.8 billion in sales during 2020. This trend for home work outs has dramatically slowed with the BBC reporting in August that people are ‘heading back to the gym and doing less exercise at home’.
The main thing that keeps me from quitting is not the bike, nor the improvement to my fitness, but the honour of being on this journey together with my wife. You can digitise fitness all you like – and throw every gadget under the sun at it – but it’s camaraderie that creates staying power.
The hour after waking up and the hour after arriving back home has become the ‘Peloton hour’ in our house. What the kit does really well is bring you into a community that you can enjoy within the privacy of your own home and at your own leisure. Only the trainer’s eyes (and my wife’s) are on me, which is just enough of a motivator to keep me hopping back on the saddle, for now.
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