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.
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.
I'm a road cyclist as well, used Zwift + Wahoo trainer for a few years. My wife really wanted a Peloton so we got one. I've ended up selling my Wahoo and do power zone training on the Peloton. The pedal stroke is smoother, far less vibration and noise. I don't have to worry about keeping sweat off a bike or having a bike on/off the trainer. It's so easy and convenient to get a 45 or 60 minute session in that my FTP is higher than it's ever been.
I came in skeptical but it's been working well for me.
The Peloton, as I understand, doesn't dynamically adjust its resistance.
On a $4K machine? The $800 NordicTrack rower we bought automatically adjusts resistance with their iFit programs. So people were just paying for an exercise bike with a big LCD screen? I'm astounded that they stayed in business long enough to release a second version that fixes this. VC money can fix that problem, but I'm also astounded that anyone actually bought one.
Its a device that you set on the Peloton that does the automatic resistance changes to match the hills in Zwift by using a motor to turn the big red knob. Basically it converts your Peloton into a smart trainer that you can use with Zwift without having to mod your Peloton at all.
Note: I am not affiliated with the project but I have backed it.
I do a lot of power training on the Peloton (had it for 4 years now, been doing power training for.. 2.5?)
I agree that "serious outdoor riders are not really Peloton's market", and it comes across in literally every piece of snobbery about how a spin bike can't simulate real road feel and you'll never get your proper position and couldn't possibly train the same muscles and so on. I just smile and nod. The bike world is full of snobbery.
The older Pelotons do NOT adjust their resistance dynamically, you're right. I wouldn't call it baffling. I only change my resistance a handful of times (okay maybe 10, including little tweaks) during a class. Honestly it's kind of nice having those micro-steps. What else are you doing? It's sort of like people who can't be bothered to use their turn signal. I'm just sitting there pedaling away. I might as well turn a knob from time to time.
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.
Adding games would get "people who want serious exercise equipment that they can play games on" to come to the product, but it might also put off "people who want serious exercise equipment to focus on exercise". In other words, adding games could actually make their market smaller. This is similar to Nintendo's rigourous curation of their platforms - allowing the latest Call of Duty game on the Switch might add a few million in sales, but only at the cost of losing tens of millions of people who like the fact the Switch doesn't have that sort of game. Their market is bigger if they say no to things the market doesn't want to be associated with.
This is a pretty classic problem in product management - you have to avoid adding features what could drive your largest market away from the product.
> 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.
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.
Yes, there are so much incredible bike-software out there. TrainerRoad is fantastic (and check out their podcast!), Zwift is fun (races, group rides), also Sufferfest, Rouvy and others. However, since the resistance of the bike isn't readable or controllable by other software, the Peloton is just for all other usage than the Peloton app just a dumb spinning bike. Instead I'm using a Kickr Core and my normal bike, no lock in there, and much cheaper.
Someone has also now made a physical device to adjust the resistance, so it can be used with other software [0]. I think Peloton really should use ANT+ and open up, would make the bikes usable for many more people. Of course, maybe it's the subscription Peloton wants to make money on, not the bikes?
I'd guess that it's actually a classic razorblades model - the real product is the classes and the bike is just a way to be able to do the classes from home.
It's probably not surprising that a group of tech people tends more towards introversion and exercising alone, whereas the general population likes the group aspect for motivation.
I had one (on a bad recommendation from an SV friend) and sold it, because in addition to being totally closed, the music in the classes is also utterly abysmal.
I dumped it on craigslist and replaced it with a $250 "dumb" spin bike, a $10 tablet mount, and an Apple watch I already had. I don't get cadence data, but I could with a pedal magnet thing if I actually cared.
Their reddit is also heavily astroturfed, which makes me never want to do business with them again.
Kudos to them for figuring out how to make 100%+ margins, I guess. It's just very much not for me.
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.
Their demographic is people who do "Spin" (SoulCycle, Orangetheory are good examples), which are (usually) intense group sessions led by an instructor.
Seriously, if they created an ecosystem and allowed 3rd party apps on there, that could sprout some really cool stuff like games that might even convince me to get one of those bikes. But yeah, it'd be a challenge to make that as profitable as their current business model.
almost entirely unrelated but I would love some way to play Synth Riders with AR goggles instead of VR. On expert/master levels a good song is a serious aerobic workout but I can't do more than 1-2 songs at a time because sweating in VR sucks. Heck, probably just standing in front of a polarized 3D display with polarized 3D glasses and VR motion controllers would work. I find it extremely fun and would be happy to do it as a workout.
Author here. This work actually dates back from August-October of last year for the most part, but I didn't get to finish writing it up till the holidays. Happy to take questions here or on Twitter (see my profile).
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.
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.
Avid mountain biker here. I like to ride outside 4-5 days a week in good weather when I can. I only own a mountain bike and had been looking all summer for a way to get hard core cardio during the winter months. Also, as a resident of the PNW, this year we experienced horrific fires, oppressive smoke, and awful air quality for a significant chunk of September. This meant no cycling.
Mountain bikes generally don't work too well with trainers so I started looking at spin bikes. I researched the Peloton and honestly, it's kind of a rip off. Huge upfront cost, limited classes for West Coasters (when I looked, anyway), and that pesky monthly fee. You are paying for brand exclusivity, IMO.
I ended up getting a Schwinn IC4 for < $1,000 and no monthly fee. I hook it up to Zwift and an iPad or my TV for structured riding. Overall, I'm very happy with my decision. I would still have preferred the Peloton's integrated screen but at literally twice the price of the IC4 (plus ongoing fees for classes if you choose to utilize them), I just couldn't justify it.
Granted, Peloton Digital classes are more expensive than Zwift, but if you're ever interested, there's a whole culture of folks who use Peloton content on other bikes. Search for "Peloton app riders".
It looks like the IC4 supports power, so I highly recommend doing power training on Zwift, particularly for mountain biking. (I'm an ex-PNWer :) )
Pretty similar to what I did given the weather issues (right down to the Schiwnn IC4 purchase). However, I'm more of a road biker and so definitely haven't felt great about the lack of dynamic resistance but better than not biking at all.
We even had the Peloton subscription for a little while but opted for other classes in the end.
This might be the best place to ask. I recently got a Recumbent exercise bike which is compatible with iFit.
Does anyone know any apps which are able to communicate with iFit compatible equipment without needing to use the iFit app? I've got a 1 year free account with them but after that it doesn't really feel like their all offers enough for the monthly cost. Really just looking to log my workouts automatically to save needing to manually add them into something like Google Fit.
While I applaud this fine hacker job I am curious about practicality of this.
If the goal is to use to use the bike part with the other applications would not it be simpler for user to simply buy any pedal / crank based power-meter. Going this way one can also choose way less expensive spin bikes.
If the goal is to share Peloton Bike with the person who actually uses it as originally intended then power meter I think is still valid and less intrusive approach.
Back in October another hacker and myself spent some time figuring all this stuff out as well and made a more practical application of the results here: https://github.com/ptx2/gymnasticon/pull/12
You can already use a rPI and a RS232 USB device to pull metrics off the bike and transmit those signals via BT.
Wonderful! I've got one of these things and love it, but hate the classes and never do anything but Just Ride while I watch the news. Seems silly to be paying $40 a month, so at some point I want to find a way to get my stats without a connection to a Peloton server.
This is probably too late if you have already invested into getting peloton bike, but at that price and considering you don't use classes, I'd rather get decent entry-level road bike and a turbo trainer. So I could train on Zwift, which is 20$ and imo is more fun freeriding experience. And then for data, connect Zwift with Strava so all of it would get uploaded there for tracking the progress.
Sorry, this kind of turned into rant/preaching, I'm just biased against Peloton
Yes, and the way they try to shame you every time you turn on the bike without a subscription is infuriating. It discourages use, which is not what you want from your exercise equipment.
I never used their classes. Nothing I used had a technical need for a subscription.
But they still want me to pay $40/month to show me a web app with stats my bike sends it to tell me which days I've used it and how I'm doing on my streaks and distance and duration. This information can all be stored locally (and is, presumably, both before and after you send it to them but only with a subscription).
I really hope that decoding the Peloton hardware leads to freeing my exercise bike from it's corporate overlords.
[+] [-] ubermonkey|5 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] _ihaque|5 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] eigthbits|5 years ago|reply
I came in skeptical but it's been working well for me.
[+] [-] mikestew|5 years ago|reply
On a $4K machine? The $800 NordicTrack rower we bought automatically adjusts resistance with their iFit programs. So people were just paying for an exercise bike with a big LCD screen? I'm astounded that they stayed in business long enough to release a second version that fixes this. VC money can fix that problem, but I'm also astounded that anyone actually bought one.
[+] [-] fuzzylightbulb|5 years ago|reply
Its a device that you set on the Peloton that does the automatic resistance changes to match the hills in Zwift by using a motor to turn the big red knob. Basically it converts your Peloton into a smart trainer that you can use with Zwift without having to mod your Peloton at all.
Note: I am not affiliated with the project but I have backed it.
[+] [-] xxpor|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rconti|5 years ago|reply
I agree that "serious outdoor riders are not really Peloton's market", and it comes across in literally every piece of snobbery about how a spin bike can't simulate real road feel and you'll never get your proper position and couldn't possibly train the same muscles and so on. I just smile and nod. The bike world is full of snobbery.
The older Pelotons do NOT adjust their resistance dynamically, you're right. I wouldn't call it baffling. I only change my resistance a handful of times (okay maybe 10, including little tweaks) during a class. Honestly it's kind of nice having those micro-steps. What else are you doing? It's sort of like people who can't be bothered to use their turn signal. I'm just sitting there pedaling away. I might as well turn a knob from time to time.
[+] [-] Graphguy|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hombre_fatal|5 years ago|reply
I'd ask "what were they thinking?" but it apparently sells like hotcakes, so it's me who's out of touch.
[+] [-] onion2k|5 years ago|reply
This is a pretty classic problem in product management - you have to avoid adding features what could drive your largest market away from the product.
[+] [-] chrisseaton|5 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] liminal|5 years ago|reply
[1] https://www.vox.com/the-goods/22195549/soulcycle-decline-reo...
[+] [-] matsemann|5 years ago|reply
Someone has also now made a physical device to adjust the resistance, so it can be used with other software [0]. I think Peloton really should use ANT+ and open up, would make the bikes usable for many more people. Of course, maybe it's the subscription Peloton wants to make money on, not the bikes?
[0]: https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2020/12/shift-smart-trainer-firs...
[+] [-] rkangel|5 years ago|reply
It's probably not surprising that a group of tech people tends more towards introversion and exercising alone, whereas the general population likes the group aspect for motivation.
[+] [-] sneak|5 years ago|reply
I dumped it on craigslist and replaced it with a $250 "dumb" spin bike, a $10 tablet mount, and an Apple watch I already had. I don't get cadence data, but I could with a pedal magnet thing if I actually cared.
Their reddit is also heavily astroturfed, which makes me never want to do business with them again.
Kudos to them for figuring out how to make 100%+ margins, I guess. It's just very much not for me.
[+] [-] Cthulhu_|5 years ago|reply
I'm guessing Peleton is winning at the minute because of it being an integrated unit and having the marketing.
[+] [-] umeshunni|5 years ago|reply
e.g. https://medium.com/@cezarbabin/hacking-the-peloton-bike-to-p...
or even running Stadia on the peloton
https://www.reddit.com/r/Stadia/comments/gj4aut/wireless_sup...
[+] [-] nwsm|5 years ago|reply
So they are mostly emulating that experience.
[+] [-] somedude895|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gfxgirl|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ramphastidae|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eplanit|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] _ihaque|5 years ago|reply
If anyone is interested in building their own PeloMon, a full BOM is present at the bottom of the third post in the series (https://ihaque.org/posts/2020/12/28/pelomon-part-iii-hardwar...), and the GitHub repo (https://github.com/ihaque/pelomon) has both Fritzing board layout files and the source code for the device.
[+] [-] kcmastrpc|5 years ago|reply
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 found here: https://github.com/ptx2/gymnasticon/pull/12
[+] [-] _ihaque|5 years ago|reply
(No thanks for writing your code in Node ;) https://ihaque.org/posts/2020/12/28/pelomon-part-iii-hardwar.... The gymnasticon code was helpful to see before I tracked down the XML specs for the BLE characteristics, though!)
[+] [-] _ihaque|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cols|5 years ago|reply
Mountain bikes generally don't work too well with trainers so I started looking at spin bikes. I researched the Peloton and honestly, it's kind of a rip off. Huge upfront cost, limited classes for West Coasters (when I looked, anyway), and that pesky monthly fee. You are paying for brand exclusivity, IMO.
I ended up getting a Schwinn IC4 for < $1,000 and no monthly fee. I hook it up to Zwift and an iPad or my TV for structured riding. Overall, I'm very happy with my decision. I would still have preferred the Peloton's integrated screen but at literally twice the price of the IC4 (plus ongoing fees for classes if you choose to utilize them), I just couldn't justify it.
[+] [-] rconti|5 years ago|reply
It looks like the IC4 supports power, so I highly recommend doing power training on Zwift, particularly for mountain biking. (I'm an ex-PNWer :) )
[+] [-] darkwizard42|5 years ago|reply
We even had the Peloton subscription for a little while but opted for other classes in the end.
[+] [-] inezk|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] _ihaque|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aclelland|5 years ago|reply
Does anyone know any apps which are able to communicate with iFit compatible equipment without needing to use the iFit app? I've got a 1 year free account with them but after that it doesn't really feel like their all offers enough for the monthly cost. Really just looking to log my workouts automatically to save needing to manually add them into something like Google Fit.
[+] [-] FpUser|5 years ago|reply
If the goal is to use to use the bike part with the other applications would not it be simpler for user to simply buy any pedal / crank based power-meter. Going this way one can also choose way less expensive spin bikes.
If the goal is to share Peloton Bike with the person who actually uses it as originally intended then power meter I think is still valid and less intrusive approach.
[+] [-] kcmastrpc|5 years ago|reply
You can already use a rPI and a RS232 USB device to pull metrics off the bike and transmit those signals via BT.
[+] [-] _ihaque|5 years ago|reply
Power meter pedals are significantly more expensive than the bits that went into this project. (There's a complete BOM in the follow-up post: https://ihaque.org/posts/2020/12/28/pelomon-part-iii-hardwar...).
Also, there's no fun in just buying it ;)
[+] [-] pkulak|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] karosass1|5 years ago|reply
Sorry, this kind of turned into rant/preaching, I'm just biased against Peloton
[+] [-] heroprotagonist|5 years ago|reply
I never used their classes. Nothing I used had a technical need for a subscription.
But they still want me to pay $40/month to show me a web app with stats my bike sends it to tell me which days I've used it and how I'm doing on my streaks and distance and duration. This information can all be stored locally (and is, presumably, both before and after you send it to them but only with a subscription).
I really hope that decoding the Peloton hardware leads to freeing my exercise bike from it's corporate overlords.
[+] [-] kcmastrpc|5 years ago|reply
I've already done this.
[+] [-] stefan_|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] phranger|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] phnofive|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] _ihaque|5 years ago|reply