[HN Gopher] Decoding the Peloton
___________________________________________________________________
Decoding the Peloton
Author : _ihaque
Score : 147 points
Date : 2021-01-06 15:23 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (ihaque.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (ihaque.org)
| pkulak wrote:
| 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.
| kcmastrpc wrote:
| https://github.com/ptx2/gymnasticon/pull/12
|
| I've already done this.
| pkulak wrote:
| Starred. Thank you!
| stefan_ wrote:
| You'll be disappointed because despite the outrageous price for
| that hunk of metal, they've totally skimped on the power
| accuracy part of it.
| kcmastrpc wrote:
| The new version of the bike is much more accurate according
| to reviews. However, the signal is now transmitted over
| USB-C, and probably not nearly as hackable.
| heroprotagonist wrote:
| 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 $40/month to show me a web app
| with stats my bike sends it to tell me which days I've used it
| and how I'm doing on my streaks and distance and duration. This
| information can all be stored locally (and is, presumably, both
| before and after you send it to them but only with a
| subscription).
|
| I really hope that decoding the Peloton hardware leads to
| freeing my exercise bike from it's corporate overlords.
| karosass1 wrote:
| This is probably too late if you have already invested into
| getting peloton bike, but at that price and considering you
| don't use classes, I'd rather get decent entry-level road bike
| and a turbo trainer. So I could train on Zwift, which is 20$
| 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
| cerebellum42 wrote:
| Agreed, the prices are crazy.
|
| Quick comparison: Peloton bike EUR 2145 + EUR 39/month - gets
| you courses and indoor riding
|
| or: Canyon Endurace AL Disc 6.0 as an example of a very solid
| entry level road bike - EUR 1299
|
| Kickr Core direct drive turbo trainer (good turbo trainer,
| there are cheaper ones if you go without direct drive) - EUR
| 799
|
| Combined EUR 2098 + EUR 15/month for a Zwift membership or
| something comparable. Gets you excellent indoor training AND
| now you have a bike you can use when the weather gets better!
| Spend the rest of the up front money on a big fan for indoor
| training or clothing for outdoor riding.
| rkangel wrote:
| I really struggle to justify EUR 1300 as 'entry level'. It
| might be entry level for being competitive, but if you just
| want exercise on something decent you can get road bikes
| for half of that. I have bought (good) cars for less than
| EUR 1300.
| FpUser wrote:
| Very practical solution would be to take the old beater
| bike and mount it on direct drive or wheel based trainer
| permanently. Old used bike can be had for close to
| nothing
| hervature wrote:
| I think that it is more effective to think relative to
| absolute luxury. The bikes they ride in the Tour de
| France are $10,000 and so a $1,000 bike is an order of
| magnitude. Same for cars, and entry level car is like
| $20,000. An order of magnitude away from Ferraris and
| Lamborghinis. The $100 bike that most people think are
| entry level just simply are not worthy of being called
| exercise/riding material. You will spend more time doing
| maintenance (fixing the chain and derailleurs) than
| actually riding the bike. For those that aren't in the
| biking world, the components (not the frame) is where
| most of the money goes. These cheap bikes are only worth
| it if you never change gears which is ok for the majority
| of people but then you may as well just get a fixed gear
| bike.
| breakfastduck wrote:
| 1299 is not an entry level price for a bike, goodness me.
|
| Unbelievable that the peloton costs that much, what
| benefits do they actually offer over any alternative?
| cols wrote:
| 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.
| darkwizard42 wrote:
| 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.
| rconti wrote:
| 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 :) )
| _ihaque wrote:
| 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).
|
| 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.
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| 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.
| umeshunni wrote:
| Peloton has a web browser and there have been hacks to make
| games run on the browser.
|
| 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 wrote:
| Their demographic is people who do "Spin" (SoulCycle,
| Orangetheory are good examples), which are (usually) intense
| group sessions led by an instructor.
|
| So they are mostly emulating that experience.
| matsemann wrote:
| 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?
|
| [0]: https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2020/12/shift-smart-trainer-
| firs...
| somedude895 wrote:
| 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.
| usrusr wrote:
| Just get an indoor bike with ANT+ FEC if you want to avoid
| the real bike + trainer form factor, plenty of those
| available (e.g. the Wahoo Kickr Bike).
|
| Peloton isn't a hardware company, it's a company that sells
| streamed sessions with hot spin instructors. The hardware is
| merely tool for them and creating an ecosystem of competitors
| on top of the hardware is a definitive non-goal for them. But
| hardware companies do exist.
| onion2k wrote:
| 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.
| thebean11 wrote:
| Nintendo absolutely would allow it. There are many CoD games
| on Nintendo consoles.
| InitialLastName wrote:
| This. Playing CoD on the Wii (with the rifle Wiimote
| holder, circa 2008) was astonishing. It really felt like
| the next step from the arcade shooters and Duck Hunt in
| terms of the fun/immersion balance, in a way that had been
| missing from a generation of games.
| matsemann wrote:
| > "people who want serious exercise equipment to focus on
| exercise"
|
| I don't think that's Peloton's moat at all. For that there
| are much better alternatives. This is for casual gym goers.
| gfxgirl wrote:
| 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.
| ramphastidae wrote:
| 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.
| Hates_ wrote:
| 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.
| rconti wrote:
| Will it be around in 20 years? Probably not. Does that make
| it a fad? I don't know. I've had one for 4 years and I'll
| certainly be riding it for another 4. That's good enough for
| me. I tend to be allergic to fads and trends, but as long as
| one is happy with what they get for the price paid, what's
| the problem?
| kevstev wrote:
| 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.
| ramphastidae wrote:
| 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).
| kevstev wrote:
| Interestingly, I have something of an inside view on
| this- my wife was one of the early enthusiasts, and I
| guess you could accuse her of being one of the "cliques"
| discussed- I have been to an instructor's house, a friend
| of ours is a publicist of sorts for someone prominently
| mentioned in the article, she will be in the wedding of
| someone she met at Soul that used to work the front desk
| (and I guess _not_ coincidentally loves bright red
| lipstick) and would frequently have her bike moved to the
| front row.
|
| She used to spend a jaw dropping amount on Soul- it was
| her favorite activity to take her clients to. Around the
| time they IPO'ed, she felt a change- the expansion took
| her favorite instructors out of her favorite studios, and
| often even out of the area as they helped open up
| locations in LA, Miami, etc. The new ones never had quite
| the same magnetism- which is of course subjective- most
| people have their personal favorites, and while there was
| some overlap, this could differ substantially from person
| to person. They used to give gifts to their top riders at
| the end of the year in the form of free classes, that
| went away, replaced with "charitable donations" and
| eventually just dropped altogether. Top instructors tried
| to branch out on their own, some successful, some not,
| but the point being is that really it was over expansion
| and IMHO brand dilution, which I guess you could call
| exclusivity (though I personally feel its a bit different
| than just exclusivity) that really sent them into a
| downward trajectory. She went from taking 4-5 classes a
| week, to mixing in Cycle Bar and other studios, to
| finally in October 2019 just deciding to get a Peloton.
|
| All that said, they still had 1.62 million rides in
| 2019... which while down from ~1.8, that's not exactly a
| fad or a dead business- I actually thought their drop
| would be far bigger to be honest. Personally though I
| feel this was less of an effect of a fad, than the more
| typical story of the bean counters moving in and pursuing
| growth and next quarter's numbers at the cost of the
| quality of the brand.
|
| To be honest that article was quite eye opening- I guess
| what I thought was a unique experience and fandom by my
| wife was something that the culture carefully cultivated.
| hedberg10 wrote:
| You can ridicule fads, but I think it's interesting. I know
| people will pay a reasonable price for a product they might
| not even need, but an unreasonable price? How the hell does
| that happen?
| koolba wrote:
| When they're trapped in their homes, gyms are closed, and
| they have disposable income from not being allowed to
| travel, the range of "reasonable price" expands quite a
| bit.
| hedberg10 wrote:
| Good point. But the company was doing quite well before
| the pandemic, no?
| beaconstudios wrote:
| it's a spin class you can do from home. Plenty of people
| already pay high prices for spin classes, and it adds the
| convenience of being able to participate from home. It
| makes sense that it would be popular, especially among
| the middle class demographic spin classes are usually
| aimed at.
| ghaff wrote:
| Fads (at all price classes) are interesting. There are
| definitely products/activities that become very popular for
| a time and then just sort of fade out for no discernible
| reason.
|
| One good example is in-line skating/rollerblading. It was a
| very popular activity--at least in urban areas--a number of
| years back and it just sort of petered out. You rarely see
| someone skating these days.
| rconti wrote:
| Is it unreasonable? My wife bought the Peloton bike for us
| 4 years ago. What were they, $2k? I think the first year's
| subscription was free, and now she pays whatever the
| monthly fee is. $40, I think, right?
|
| Why's that unreasonable? When I was trying to get back into
| shape and add some strength training, I started seeing a
| personal trainer, which I honestly, probably stuck with for
| too long. Given per-session costs, it was costing me
| upwards of $500/mo. Of course that includes use of gym
| facilities and 1:1 training and advice. Probably one of the
| best things I ever did.
|
| Basic gym memberships have gotta be at least $100/mo. I'm
| sure there are countless people paying $200/mo and up.
| Obviously you get access to a lot more equipment, but you
| have to go there, too.
|
| I just don't see $40/month as a lot. Maybe I'm strange.
|
| Since then, my wife also added a Peloton treadmill to the
| mix, which is over 4k. It uses the same subscription. As do
| the Yoga and stretching and bodyweight strength classes..
| and meditation if you're into that. Both of us, 2 pieces of
| equipment, unlimited classes, on your phone, appletv,
| whatever. $40/mo.
|
| On the average evening we've got the treadmill and bike
| going at the same time and when she finishes with her run
| she's doing stretching and core stuff in the living room
| while I do more on the bike. The subscription starts to
| sound like a pretty good deal. But don't tell them that,
| because we're locked in thanks to the hardware :)
| cosmodisk wrote:
| The demographics for these kind of products is very
| different. It's either those who do have enough money not
| to care about the cost or the so called aspiring ones: who
| don't have money but want to fit in or relate to the better
| off groups. It reminds me when the latest Iphone came out(
| the most expensive version). Guess who bought it? Our CEO
| and a member of my team,who was probably on the lowest
| salary in the company. Peloten is no different to this.
| justjash wrote:
| This is generally what I notice also. Seems to be less
| about riding the actual bike and more about telling
| people you have a Peleton.
| rconti wrote:
| I've actually found most CEOs I know have beat to crap
| old smartphones.
|
| I tend to look down on the classist assignment of folks'
| motivations for buying things. It's almost always
| projection. How many years did we have to hear about the
| "status symbol" of a starbucks cup? If only $2 for a cup
| of black coffee could buy you status, right?
| celtain wrote:
| If you were already spending >$200/mo on spin classes, the
| price of a peloton is very reasonable as an alternative.
| sneak wrote:
| 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.
| dvdbloc wrote:
| And for even more fun, you can use all the money you saved
| not buying a Peloton on an enormous television and spin in
| front of that.
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| It's easy for me to shake my fist at them, but if I think
| about it, maybe their subscription business model might be
| one of the only things that work.
|
| For example, if they opened up their platform, then people
| could just choose other content sources that are free or pay
| money into someone else's pocket, like other group classes.
|
| Otherwise Peloton could try the eShop approach where their
| group classes compete on an eShop where they take 30% of the
| cut, but that market is tiny and still has to compete with
| just using your iPad while you pedal.
|
| On the other hand, I'd consider buying one if there was more
| to do than group classes and maybe I'm not alone. I'm not
| cocky enough to think I know what the masses want, but it
| does seem like their lack of ambition about what can be done
| with the bike could be leaving a lot of money on the table.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > 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.
| 0x1F8B wrote:
| 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 competition. Games facilitate
| that.
| silicon2401 wrote:
| > 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.
| RobRivera wrote:
| but there is a segment of the population that does, and
| thus a market.
| throwaway2245 wrote:
| > 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.
| bluntfang wrote:
| peloton has games built in. you get ranked based on your
| performance for each group class. you can compare yourself to
| previous classes. you can view your exercise history. etc
| cowsandmilk wrote:
| By games, I assume parent was talking about things like
| zwift, which is even called out in the article. Most exercise
| bikes that cost similar to peloton support working with
| external software so you can do things like race on a virtual
| course. And gamification through badges is pretty standard
| exercise fair. My parent's senior community even has
| gamification via small prizes for how many days you go to the
| gym.
| mcintyre1994 wrote:
| FWIW Peloton does have some of that gamification stuff, at
| least for the standalone offering (no bike etc). You get
| badges for taking different numbers of each type of class,
| daily/weekly streaks, total minutes, special events etc.
| They also send a summary email each month showing which
| days you worked out, badges earned, number of
| classes/minutes, and deltas from the previous month.
| alisonkisk wrote:
| Those are all _engagement_ metrics to make you spend
| money, not _exercise metrics_ to make you achieve
| fitness.
| mcintyre1994 wrote:
| I agree, I was responding to this part of the parent
| comment:
|
| > And gamification through badges is pretty standard
| exercise fair. My parent's senior community even has
| gamification via small prizes for how many days you go to
| the gym.
|
| I was just pointing out that Peloton does gamification
| through badges and that it includes an equivalent of days
| going to the gym.
| rkangel wrote:
| 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.
| rconti wrote:
| I didn't want to make (yet another) reply, but I was tempted
| to ask the parent what they were comparing "group classes"
| to. I mean, .. individual classes? You're riding at home. By
| yourself. What's group about it?
|
| Yes, pre-pandemic, there were other people _in the room_
| where they recorded the classes. And likely there are other
| people taking the same class as you, right now. You can see
| where they 're at on the leaderboard. But they're also
| irrelevant to you. You can just ignore it. You take the class
| any time you want, and there's one instructor, and the fact
| that someone in south america happens to be watching the same
| stream as you isn't really relevant to your experience.
|
| I'd say in the Zwift world, where you race other people on-
| screen is more of a "group" experience, but again, both of
| these workouts are highly individual.
| matsemann wrote:
| 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.
| ghaff wrote:
| 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.
| matsemann wrote:
| > 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.
| _ihaque wrote:
| (Author here)
|
| And that's why this exists! (Though it's BLE, not ANT+.)
| boringg wrote:
| Apparently there is a indiegogo or other crowdsourcing
| company that is making a conversion of peloton to allow
| people to use zwift by putting some hardware on top. Not
| ideal but gives the bike more function. Will be interested
| to seee if it's any good. Clearly not as good as my wahoo
| kikr
| _ihaque wrote:
| It wouldn't be too hard to make a modification to the
| PeloMon that allowed this. Right now it is a listen-only
| device, but with an added UART it could just as well
| control the Bike.
| alisonkisk wrote:
| Much more importantly, the bike is a way to lock you into one
| single provider of classes.
| Red_Leaves_Flyy wrote:
| That's an underrated point.
|
| I, and most consumers that've been repeatedly burned, go
| out of our way to avoid products that lock us to them. I'm
| in the market for an exercise bike, but a lifetime of
| $35+/mo for classes, in addition to a $2k+ bike with
| questionable repairability in 1,2,5,10 years, is not
| something I'll ever want.
| eplanit wrote:
| Doom on a bike could become a thing, I suppose.
| liminal wrote:
| 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...
| cam0 wrote:
| 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.
| quercusa wrote:
| What makes a good spin instructor?
| cam0 wrote:
| It's pretty difficult to define, and the definition will
| vary person to person. It's similar to asking what makes
| a good coach? For me it's a combination of energy,
| attitude, verbal clarity, and also a personality that I
| find attractive and pleasant, i.e. the type of
| personality that I'd enjoy spending an hour listening to
| and taking instruction from. Also of course a sound
| knowledge of form, technique, and healthy strategy.
| rconti wrote:
| I'd say simplicity, too. I'm a long-time cyclist and a 4 year
| Peloton owner. I work in tech (obviously) but I frankly have
| only the vaguest idea of what combination of computers and
| displays and sensors and adapters I'd need to use to Zwift.
| And the slack channels I swim in seem to be full of folks
| always fiddling with what kinds of sensors to use and how to
| get them to reliably communicate.
|
| You can just swipe a credit card (or, probably, ApplePay 1
| button purchase) and have it show up at your house and work.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| 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.
| mcintyre1994 wrote:
| That wouldn't be a competitor, unless one of the 'games' was
| a constant stream of extremely slick and professional live
| and on-demand classes with exceptional instructors. IMO
| that's their differentiator.
| Red_Leaves_Flyy wrote:
| Apple, Microsoft, and Amazon have all the resources needed to
| quickly fling out a gamified bike that appeals to more
| segments than peloton. Lost opportunity.
| [deleted]
| ska wrote:
| The product isn't really the hardware, it's the classes. Or
| at least it's the classes + hardware.
|
| Being able to put hardware together that "does the same
| thing" is only a fraction of a competitor.
|
| What you describe might work well for a different market.
| inezk wrote:
| Amazing work, love this kind of reverse engineering
| _ihaque wrote:
| Thanks!
| kcmastrpc wrote:
| 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 found here:
| https://github.com/ptx2/gymnasticon/pull/12
| _ihaque wrote:
| Yeah! I saw your blog post about reviving your Flywheel and
| decided to finally take this project on. Thanks for the
| inspiration!
|
| (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 wrote:
| 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.
| phranger wrote:
| Great read so far, but part III doesn't seem to be there.
| phnofive wrote:
| Broken link, try: https://ihaque.org/posts/2020/12/28/pelomon-
| part-iii-hardwar...
| _ihaque wrote:
| Argh, sorry! Must have typoed the link in the header. Should be
| fixed now.
| FpUser wrote:
| 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.
| kcmastrpc wrote:
| 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.
| _ihaque wrote:
| (Author here)
|
| 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 ;)
| aclelland wrote:
| 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.
| ubermonkey wrote:
| 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.
| _ihaque wrote:
| (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.
| Wheaties466 wrote:
| yes the bike+ is advertised as being able to do that. But I
| haven't figured out how to take advantage of that.
| entee wrote:
| It's also apparently a closed protocol, so Zwift and third
| party apps can't use it. Maybe peloton will open that up at
| some point, it would bring it a new market. I have a bike
| on a wahoo kickr core and it's great, and I don't have
| space for a dedicated bike. If I did, I'd totally go for
| one of the newer all-in-one bikes (easier, less hassle) and
| peloton is interesting if it can do the same things as that
| hardware.
| Graphguy wrote:
| just click the lock button on the workout resistance (can't
| be live workout)
| matsemann wrote:
| 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.
| _ihaque wrote:
| (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.
| rconti wrote:
| No, and the power output is an estimate from calibration.
| It doesn't actually measure your realtime power.
| eigthbits wrote:
| 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.
| matsemann wrote:
| The direct drive trainers of later years are much much better
| than earlier trainers. The 2018 kickr for instance is much
| more smooth and silent than earlier models. So you may be
| comparing an obsolete $ trainer with a $$$ peloton bike.
| rconti wrote:
| It seems unfair to impugn the peloton bike as being "$$$"
| where a direct drive trainer is only "$" when the price
| difference is far from an order of magnitude, especially
| when you consider that you still need an entire bike to use
| with the direct-drive trainer.
|
| Granted, the direct drive trainers and related software
| have functionality the Peloton does not have, particularly
| the pre-Bike+ peloton.
| rconti wrote:
| There is a ton of crossover. Unsurprisingly, I see quite a
| few serious Peloton riders who "graduate" to direct-drive
| trainers and zwift or whatever, but I see just as many who
| try it and come back, or who migrate from that world TO the
| peloton.
|
| In particular, I hear a lot of complaints about Zwift getting
| really boring. I'm not a gamer, but as a Peloton rider, I
| find the gamification aspect kind of appealing. I like the
| idea of visually racing someone on the screen, I'm
| competitive. It's the most appealing part of the platform.
| Changing gears and attaching my bike to the thing and finding
| room for it, and getting all teh sensors sorted is definitely
| NOT the appealing part.
| xxpor wrote:
| Automatic resistance control is the big difference between the
| bike and bike+
| Graphguy wrote:
| I have the bike+ and the automatic resistance is great.
| Unfortunately only available for on-demand classes.
| rconti wrote:
| 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.
| mikestew wrote:
| _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.
| FreedomToCreate wrote:
| The bike is 2K for the one without a motorized resistance
| knob and I bought one despite this feature because it takes
| me 1 second to turn the knob to the dynamically adjusted
| value on the display.
| rconti wrote:
| It's less than half the price now. That's a pretty big detail
| to get wrong. You may be thinking of the Kickr bike, which is
| much more full-featured, and $3500 (so, still not $4k), but
| doesn't have a screen at all from what I can tell.
| mikestew wrote:
| I'm actually thinking of their treadmill, which _is_ $4K.
| But okay, fine; it 's "only" $2K. My question is just as
| valid: "on a $2K machine? My half-that-price rowing machine
| can adjust resistance on the fly."
|
| Hell, the pricey-but-not-as-pricey-as-Peleton computerized
| trainer I had almost 15 years ago could adjust the
| resistance on the fly. I just figured that was table stakes
| these days.
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