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Peloton S-1

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Re: Peloton S-1

#161

Post by tempsy »

etjossem wrote: post #158
RobPfeifer wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Affirm loan product for peloton is 0% only (with no late fees in any circumstance).

Instead of $1,995 up front, it's $3,783 over 39 months due to a subscription contract bundled with the financing. This is a very clever way to claim "no interest" but actually charge 27% APR. There are absolutely customers who buy this but can't afford it.

If you didn’t buy the bike on financing you’d still have to pay the subscription if you wanted to use it as intended. Not sure why you’d consider the subscription an interest-like fee. The only criticism is if you stopped using the bike before you paid it off then yes you would be paying subscription fees for all the remaining months you never used.

For what it’s worth, according to the S-1 they stopped bundling the subscription as part of the bike financing in 2018, so people are just financing the bike alone now.

Re: Peloton S-1

#162

Post by tempsy »

isoskeles wrote: post #121
etjossem wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely this. A bubble doesn't look like one until it pops, so you can't just say "everyone's buying $2000 spin bikes, everything must be fine." For starters, Peloton does a majority of its sales through Affirm and other consumer financing instruments, and books them as revenue. It's more accurate to say "everyone is buying $2000 spin bikes using 30% APR installment loans." In the risks section, Peloton says that…

When is Affirm going public? I want to invest in that.

If you want exposure to similar businesses look at Afterpay or Sezzle...both publicly traded already.

Re: Peloton S-1

#163

Post by tsmarsh »

ska wrote: post #64
gamblor956 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Radical idea: Peloton's target market is the kind of person who is willing to spend $2000 on an indoor spin bike either as their primary mode of exercise or as one of many bikes they own. Especially people who want to spin during times of inclement or excessive warm weather. The Peloton may not make much sense to people living in pleasant cycling meccas on the West Coast, but east of the Rockies the weather is a lot…

On the other hand, if you already have a decent bike a trainer or a set of rollers is a lot less than $2k...

Kinda? Maybe?

I think its a mistake to think of a spin bike as a bike. There is peddling, and you can get most of the same experience out of a turbo, HR, PowerMeter, but then you are also putting the frame and peddles through really weird force profiles as you spend time bouncing between the front and back of the bike.

I mostly ride PowerZone, for which a turbo, hr and power meter would be perfect, but if you like the ‘dance’ classes you might want to look for a more ridged machine, you really have to be able to trust that its not going to break on you.

Re: Peloton S-1

#164

Post by tsmarsh »

cellis wrote: post #90
jgys wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> compared to driving to e.g. SoulCycle or a spin class Radical idea: rather than choosing between a $2,000 stationary bike for your living room or burning a bunch of fossil fuels to move yourself and your 2,000+ pounds of motor vehicle to a gym to ride somebody else's stationary bike, you could just buy an ordinary bike and ride around outside. You could probably even buy a indoor trainer for your ordinary bike as w…

I have 2 trek bikes, one carbon fiber. I love cycling at high speeds. Unfortunately because of awful drivers I can’t do this. So yes, I use the Peloton, in addition to cycling to work and around the Bay Area ( but at lower speeds ;) )

I’ve spent a fair amount of the summer cycling around european cities and you can’t get even close to kind of work out you get on a peloton. What I’m realizing is that all of the years where I assumed that because I was cycling to work that I was at least doing something was completely false.

45 mins on the peloton is a completely different thing to even 45 minutes out in the country.

Re: Peloton S-1

#165

Post by tsmarsh »

agiamas wrote: post #148
jdm2212 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least in the US, trying to ride a bike outdoors in a lot of places is a good way to get yourself killed by a car. I've spent the last 5 years in NYC and SF (which are both very bike friendly). I bike rarely and pretty cautiously, but even so all of my closest calls with getting killed by a car have been on a bike.

Copenhagen is bike friendly. Amsterdam is bike friendly. NYC and especially hilly SF are neither bike friendly. At best they are bike tolerant :)

On vacation in Copenhagen right now. OMG is it bike friendly.

Re: Peloton S-1

#166

Post by thrav »

pattisapu wrote: post #65
uptown wrote: post #11

Under the risks section: "We derive a significant majority of our revenue from sales of our Bike and a decline in sales of our Bike would negatively affect our future revenue and operating results;" What many people don't know is that you can access all their classes using your own exercise bike and their apps, paying a little over 1/4 of the normal monthly subscription fee. The limitations of this approach is that y…

I have it and I like how the whole package works together -- in particular, how certain teachers are very careful to show how to keep good form for your back etc. When I see a guy on the same exact machine as me, showing bad form like a slightly curved back or whatever with the heels, and then correcting to the proper form, referencing the same bike, on a giant Android tablet in front of me, that is very helpful. And…

“You can do everything an iPod can do with a _____ for a fraction of the price.”

I can’t even remember what the competitors were, because none of that matters if it’s not effortless to use.

Re: Peloton S-1

#167

Post by pattisapu »

pattisapu wrote: post #65
uptown wrote: post #11

Under the risks section: "We derive a significant majority of our revenue from sales of our Bike and a decline in sales of our Bike would negatively affect our future revenue and operating results;" What many people don't know is that you can access all their classes using your own exercise bike and their apps, paying a little over 1/4 of the normal monthly subscription fee. The limitations of this approach is that y…

I have it and I like how the whole package works together -- in particular, how certain teachers are very careful to show how to keep good form for your back etc. When I see a guy on the same exact machine as me, showing bad form like a slightly curved back or whatever with the heels, and then correcting to the proper form, referencing the same bike, on a giant Android tablet in front of me, that is very helpful. And…

Okay, my grammar still sucks. But anyway, let's talk more about form, in language as in life.

In my 20s I had injured myself several times, from lifting and running around Ann Arbor. After one extreme and almost paralyzing injury I went to a neurosurgeon.

The neurosurgeon gave me the choice of surgery or strengthening my core and perfecting my form in exercises going forward.

Fancy exercise stuff is cheaper than surgery.

Strictly speaking the best exercises are all completely free.

There are a lot of comments here smirking about bikes that go nowhere, etc. If you think a stationary bike is "unnatural," pounding pavement does not seem all that different.

The point is good form. There are many rivers to that ocean.

Re: Peloton S-1

#168

Post by pattisapu »

thrav wrote: post #166
pattisapu wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have it and I like how the whole package works together -- in particular, how certain teachers are very careful to show how to keep good form for your back etc. When I see a guy on the same exact machine as me, showing bad form like a slightly curved back or whatever with the heels, and then correcting to the proper form, referencing the same bike, on a giant Android tablet in front of me, that is very helpful. And…

“You can do everything an iPod can do with a _____ for a fraction of the price.” I can’t even remember what the competitors were, because none of that matters if it’s not effortless to use.

I was a naysayer about smartphones/iPhones -- why would I want all these things globbed into one thing instead of my beautiful modular setup now?

Here, too, I thought -- it's an Android tablet bolted to an exercise bike.

Not saying that either the Peloton or the iPhone were epoch-shattering brilliances. Just noting that, as you suggest, sometimes putting together things that used to be separate is, well, a good and useful thing.

Re: Peloton S-1

#169

Post by dlkf »

gamblor956 wrote: post #47
Alex3917 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the surface this is basically the Juicero of fitness equipment. If you want a good piece of workout equipment, buy a Concept2 erg. If you want a bike, you can get a carbon-frame bike for the same amount of money and then just get a trainer for it. Ostensibly there is zero reason for this to exist. The one argument in its favor is that youth sports are usually very heavily subsidized by masters sports. So if you we…

This is nothing like Juicero. Peloton addresses two real needs in the exercise marketplace: home-based classes, and high-quality exercise machines. It simply combined both into one product. There is huge demand for the former, especially from white-collar workers with high demands on their free time, and a a fair amount of demand for the latter. At $2000, a Peloton bike is $1000 to $2000 cheaper than the cheapest car…

> There is huge demand for [home-based classes], especially from white-collar workers with high demands on their free time

I suspect people are overestimating this part of Peloton's market. All the people I know who spin value being a part of the community: the camaraderie of working out with other people, chatting after the class, etc etc. It's more like going to church than going to the cinema.

Re: Peloton S-1

#170

Post by stefan_ »

spunker540 wrote: post #149
stefan_ wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In particular, Peloton's target market is overwhelmingly female . You won't find it in this S1, but this alone is why you can straight up disregard everything you will read on HN today about their business model. No, it turns out women don't buy carbon bikes, a standalone trainer, wrench a cassette on it, put the bike on, hook up a tablet somewhere, install a power meter, ... it's the ole "rsync is superior to Dropbo…

I think your rsync-dropbox analogy is a good one, but I also found your statement about how it's a gender thing to be somewhat sexist, (it almost sounds as if you're implying that rsync is for men and dropbox is for women because in general men are more inclined to do difficult things than women).

It's not prescriptive, just descriptive. Obviously women are capable of doing all of that, and many do. But 25+ years of road bike (and other weekend warrior pursuits, MTB etc.) vendors trying to target specifically women have not seen remotely the success that Peloton had in reaching them, and there a lot of non-technical reasons in there, too.
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