Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Decoding the Peloton

ihaque.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 117 posts

Re: Decoding the Peloton

#51

Post by kevstev »

ramphastidae wrote: post #12
hombre_fatal wrote: post #6

I was floored when I realized the Peloton has no games and it's closed to third-party developers. It seems to just have group classes which couldn't be less interesting to me. I'd ask "what were they thinking?" but it apparently sells like hotcakes, so it's me who's out of touch.

Peloton is a fad and will be dropped for the next exercise fad in 2-5 years, just like SoulCycle was. For now, they are feasting.

I said that exact same thing, and passed on an offer from them- 4 years ago. I am not exactly kicking myself- at the time I was not an exercise bike enthusiast, and my few trips to Soul Cycle with my wife really turned me off- and regardless, I ended up landing a more lucrative role, even factoring in what stock grants would have been worth. About a year and a half ago, the wife bought a Peloton, and I rolled my eyes about our new expensive coat hanger, and I am currently on a 42 week streak.

I don't think you can pass this off as a fad- Soul Cycle first hit the scene around 2009, its still around- and they have just released a bike and service as well. Other look alikes have come on the market as well- Tonal and Mirror being the biggest. This is looking less like a fad and more like they were the leading edge of a smart exercise equipment industry.

Sure the specific piece of equipment that is in vogue might come and go, but I think Peloton is here to stay. This doesn't mean that gyms are going to close in the long run, but workout equipment as a service is a class of product that I feel is with us for the long haul.

Re: Decoding the Peloton

#52

Post by throwaway2245 »

0x1F8B wrote: post #31
chrisseaton wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I was floored when I realized the Peloton has no games and it's closed to third-party developers. It seems to just have group classes which couldn't be less interesting to me. I don't understand what you thought the product was? It's an exercise bike. You do exercise classes on it. It's not a games machine. What were they thinking? They were thinking it's an exercise bike.

This is a grouchy reply. The OP obviously isn't trying to get Tekken running on a Peloton. You can imagine "games" in this sense being competitions played out via the bike, so time trials, race tournaments, etc. Compete with your friends (or others) to get through a race comparable to Tour de France stages -- something like that. Aside from survival, there is no greater motivator for pushing oneself physically than c…

> Aside from survival, there is no greater motivator for pushing oneself physically than competition.

That depends.

If you're trying to develop a habit of regular exercise for your health (intrinsic motivation), competition (extrinsic motivation) is just as likely to be harmful to your goal.

In my personal case, removing the competitive element was extremely helpful for me to start doing regular exercise for its own sake.

Re: Decoding the Peloton

#53

Post by eplanit »

hombre_fatal wrote: post #6

I was floored when I realized the Peloton has no games and it's closed to third-party developers. It seems to just have group classes which couldn't be less interesting to me. I'd ask "what were they thinking?" but it apparently sells like hotcakes, so it's me who's out of touch.

Doom on a bike could become a thing, I suppose.

Re: Decoding the Peloton

#54

Post by ubermonkey »

I'm a pretty serious road cyclist, so I get LOTS of questions about training, and about Peloton in particular, which is weird because serious outdoor riders are not really Peloton's market AT ALL. It's always been for spin people, and spin classes are their own thing entirely.

Certainly SOME of my riding pals do spin during the week, but most of them are doing structured workouts using TrainerRoad or TrainingPeaks or Zwift and a smart trainer attached to a real bike. (Mostly, it's their old bike, because cyclists nearly always have more than one bike.)

Indoor training for cyclists has, for the last 15 or so years, generally been focused on power targets. You do some fitness tests to determine your maximum hourly wattage, and then your workouts are expressed as a series of X minutes at Y% of your max power, etc.

This is tedious if you're using an old-style, fixed-resistance trainer, because you're watching the clock during the intervals and then shifting on the bike to achieve higher or lower levels of resistance in order to hit the right power target at a reasonable cadence. Honestly, this SUCKS.

Smart trainers take that out of it by dynamically adjusting the resistance for each segment during the workout, so all you really have to do is keep pedaling at the desired cadence (typically 90-95 rpm); sometimes it's harder, and sometimes it's easier. You don't have to manage anything. It's awesome. (I watch bad movies on the trainer now.)

The Peloton, as I understand, doesn't dynamically adjust its resistance. I'm baffled by this, given how home training is for go-fast cyclists, but maybe that's just not a thing spin people want.

Re: Decoding the Peloton

#55

Post by Cthulhu_ »

hombre_fatal wrote: post #6

I was floored when I realized the Peloton has no games and it's closed to third-party developers. It seems to just have group classes which couldn't be less interesting to me. I'd ask "what were they thinking?" but it apparently sells like hotcakes, so it's me who's out of touch.

You'd think building a competitor would be easy; build a bike with bluetooth i/o and an app for phone, tablet, laptop, smart TV etc. And open the API for developers, so they can hook their games up to it as much as they please.

I'm guessing Peleton is winning at the minute because of it being an integrated unit and having the marketing.

Re: Decoding the Peloton

#56

Post by _ihaque »

ubermonkey wrote: post #54

I'm a pretty serious road cyclist, so I get LOTS of questions about training, and about Peloton in particular, which is weird because serious outdoor riders are not really Peloton's market AT ALL. It's always been for spin people, and spin classes are their own thing entirely. Certainly SOME of my riding pals do spin during the week, but most of them are doing structured workouts using TrainerRoad or TrainingPeaks or…

(Author here)

The Peloton also has power zone training similar to what you mentioned. With the instructors nattering on in the background, occasionally rotating the dial isn't so bad.

I believe the newer version of the bike does have automatic resistance control, though.

Re: Decoding the Peloton

#58

Post by ramphastidae »

kevstev wrote: post #51
ramphastidae wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Peloton is a fad and will be dropped for the next exercise fad in 2-5 years, just like SoulCycle was. For now, they are feasting.

I said that exact same thing, and passed on an offer from them- 4 years ago. I am not exactly kicking myself- at the time I was not an exercise bike enthusiast, and my few trips to Soul Cycle with my wife really turned me off- and regardless, I ended up landing a more lucrative role, even factoring in what stock grants would have been worth. About a year and a half ago, the wife bought a Peloton, and I rolled my eyes…

SoulCycle basically collapsed and is just starting to come back from the brink: https://www.vox.com/the-goods/22195549/soulcycle-decline-reo...

Its success was mostly due to its novelty and exclusivity. After a while, copycats and their push for growth did them in.

Peloton is the same. They are first to market and have cultivated a level of exclusivity, but there is nothing unique about them that other businesses can’t copy over time (it’s already happening — most exercise companies now have their own Peloclones).

Re: Decoding the Peloton

#59

Post by xxpor »

ubermonkey wrote: post #54

I'm a pretty serious road cyclist, so I get LOTS of questions about training, and about Peloton in particular, which is weird because serious outdoor riders are not really Peloton's market AT ALL. It's always been for spin people, and spin classes are their own thing entirely. Certainly SOME of my riding pals do spin during the week, but most of them are doing structured workouts using TrainerRoad or TrainingPeaks or…

Automatic resistance control is the big difference between the bike and bike+

Re: Decoding the Peloton

#60

Post by Wheaties466 »

_ihaque wrote: post #56
ubermonkey wrote: post #54

I'm a pretty serious road cyclist, so I get LOTS of questions about training, and about Peloton in particular, which is weird because serious outdoor riders are not really Peloton's market AT ALL. It's always been for spin people, and spin classes are their own thing entirely. Certainly SOME of my riding pals do spin during the week, but most of them are doing structured workouts using TrainerRoad or TrainingPeaks or…

(Author here) The Peloton also has power zone training similar to what you mentioned. With the instructors nattering on in the background, occasionally rotating the dial isn't so bad. I believe the newer version of the bike does have automatic resistance control, though.

yes the bike+ is advertised as being able to do that. But I haven't figured out how to take advantage of that.
Post reply on HN