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Decoding the Peloton

ihaque.org

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Re: Decoding the Peloton

#61

Post by matsemann »

ghaff wrote: post #48
matsemann wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not about introversion, it's the format of the workouts. There are so much more that could have been done with the hardware, instead of limiting to this small use case. For instance I bike with my club on Zwift using Discord in a group setting. I participate in Zwift races against others. All social stuff, just different.

All the mainstream exercise gear seems to be pretty locked down AFAIK. In the rowing area, even the latest Concept2 controllers look to be pretty old school though they do seem to have a way to connect to phone apps these days. (Though there still isn't a lot there.) Hydrow goes for the more immersive experience--haven't used one; don't know if it has any third-party support or not.

> All the mainstream exercise gear

Most stuff I use for cycling speak ANT+, so it can be combined as one wants. My indoor trainer, my cadance sensor, power meter, speed sensor, HR monitor, watch, head unit, phone, computer all can send or receive through ANT+. That's why you will find most cyclists oppose the Peloton bikes, they are impossible to combine with existing gear.

Re: Decoding the Peloton

#62

Post by _ihaque »

kcmastrpc wrote: post #38

Nice work. In September / October of last year I was inspired by someone else doing this and showing off they could Zwift with their PTON bike. After some digging around, and figuring out how they encoded the data it was trivial to implement this in a project that was used to keep Flywheel Bikes working. https://github.com/ptx2/gymnasticon The changes I introduced which now include support for the Peloton can be foun…

By the way, do you know if anyone in the gymnasticon community has cracked the meaning of the initialization packets sent at bootup? I have a partial decoding of the first two packets: the second includes bike ID and some other stuff, but no idea on the first.

Re: Decoding the Peloton

#63

Post by liminal »

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.

Sex appeal. Peloton is built on sex appeal. The instructors lead workouts wearing makeup, jewelry and bikini tops (well, the female ones anyway). Vox has an article [1] looking at SoulCycle and it sounds similar: instructors were good looking and exhorted to be incredibly thin. That said, it's a great way to get a good 30 minute cardio workout in.

[1] https://www.vox.com/the-goods/22195549/soulcycle-decline-reo...

Re: Decoding the Peloton

#64

Post by matsemann »

_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.

Does the Peloton have ERG modus? Not only don't I have to mess with gearing/resistance as software can adjust my trainer, but my trainer will also make me keep my power target regardless of cadence. If I spin faster, it will make the resistance lighter such that my wattage stays the same.

Re: Decoding the Peloton

#65

Post by Graphguy »

Wheaties466 wrote: post #60
_ihaque wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(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.

just click the lock button on the workout resistance (can't be live workout)

Re: Decoding the Peloton

#66

Post by Graphguy »

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…

I have the bike+ and the automatic resistance is great. Unfortunately only available for on-demand classes.

Re: Decoding the Peloton

#67

Post by RobRivera »

silicon2401 wrote: post #43
0x1F8B wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 If you're a competitive person. Not everybody derives motivation from competition.

but there is a segment of the population that does, and thus a market.

Re: Decoding the Peloton

#68

Post by cam0 »

liminal wrote: post #63
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.

Sex appeal. Peloton is built on sex appeal. The instructors lead workouts wearing makeup, jewelry and bikini tops (well, the female ones anyway). Vox has an article [1] looking at SoulCycle and it sounds similar: instructors were good looking and exhorted to be incredibly thin. That said, it's a great way to get a good 30 minute cardio workout in. [1] https://www.vox.com/the-goods/22195549/soulcycle-decline-reo...

The Peloton instructors are also universally the best spin instructors I've ever encountered, and I've been to countless spin class in every large US city over the past decade. Some have come close, but being able to have world class spin instructors in my living room has been the huge selling/sticking point for me.

Re: Decoding the Peloton

#69

Post by _ihaque »

matsemann wrote: post #64
_ihaque wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(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.

Does the Peloton have ERG modus? Not only don't I have to mess with gearing/resistance as software can adjust my trainer, but my trainer will also make me keep my power target regardless of cadence. If I spin faster, it will make the resistance lighter such that my wattage stays the same.

(Author here)

There's no built-in mode for constant power. (Nor could there be, on the original Bike that I have, as the resistance control is manual.)

The new one might have it.

At a hardware level I'm not sure how well it would work. Out of the box, the tablet only queries the bike for cadence/power/resistance every 100ms, one query at a time in round robin, so your power reading is only coming every 300ms. However, the bike responds to queries much faster - on the order of 200-300us (https://ihaque.org/posts/2020/12/26/pelomon-part-ii-emulatin...), so an external device could certainly ask for updates faster. I'm not sure how rapidly the micro on the bike itself actually updates its own measurements and what ultimate time resolution is possible.

Re: Decoding the Peloton

#70

Post by Hates_ »

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.

Genuinely curious as to what would have to be different for it _not_ to be considered a fad? Seeing as they have been going for 8 years and, and, after having a quick look, have been doubling revenue for a number of years previous to Covid19.
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