I’m not good at bike riding – when I attempt it I’m that wobbly person holding on for dear life, trying not to fall off.
I’ve been to a few spin classes over the years and consider my fitness OK, but I always need help clipping the shoes into the pedals. Do I keep up with everyone else? No.
So when I was offered the chance to test out Peloton’s new Cross Training Bike+ for four months I feared the only things I’d have to write about would be embarrassing.
But I was curious about trying a fitness product that retails full price for $3899 and has a $65-a-month membership fee.
Would it improve my fitness?
How often would I ride it?
What changes would I notice in my body?
And the biggest one of all: Would I finally be good at cycling?
But it turns out the most significant benefit of all was one that didn’t even cross my mind before starting the whole experience.
I think that’s partly because I didn’t realise how bad this area of my health had become or how it was impacting my life: My lack of sleep.
I’ll explain more below …
Inside my struggle on the first go
When the delivery man comes to set up the equipment at my place he tells me he has been in the job for a long time.
At the beginning of delivering Pelotons he often had to pick up returns within the 30-day free trial period.
But now that rarely happens, he says, despite the membership fee, because of all the classes on offer and how engaging they are.
I put in my username, connect it to my Wi-Fi, and I’m ready to go.
I’m ambitious (and in hindsight unrealistic) and set my workout schedule to ride every day.
Once I figure out how to clip in the supplied shoes to the pedals (on my own!), I’m ready to go.
I’m getting virtual high fives from people all over the world who are riding at the same time as me and have been alerted to the fact I’m a new person in the Peloton community.
It’s exciting and I want to keep going but my legs feel like they are on fire and I give up, half way through.
I log off and decide to try it again another time when I have more energy.
After a couple of busy days at work that moment arrives.
I strap in and pick the shortest 20 minute ride option to ensure I finish this time.
There’s a “leaderboard” on the side of the screen where you are competing against other people all across the world who have done the same workout as you.
It is strangely motivating – similar to what you’d feel in a real-life class with the pressure of having other people in the room.
I remain down the bottom of the rankings, which is humbling, but not surprising.
But the end of the 20 minutes I’m dripping with sweat.
On a high from the achievement, I decide to do a second cycling class later that day.
This one goes for half an hour and for a moment I’m beating a US rider with a username along the lines of ‘grandpa of five’.
One of the things I’m most impressed by is all the super-fit riders on the leaderboard who proudly share they are aged in their 50s, 60s or 70s.
Their fitness is incredible and shows getting older doesn’t have to mean slowing down or being inactive.
The instructors are funny and relatable, telling personal stories about what they did over the weekend, the biggest challenge or failure they had faced in life, or reminiscing about being a Millennials.
What about the weight classes?
I was actually surprised you could do weight classes with a bike.
But the massive screen swivels to the side (this feature has been “enhanced” on this new model).
It means you can watch the instructor on a mat in your own living room.
There’s even a movement-tracking camera that alerts you if your form is wrong.
I lay the mat out on the ground with the weights for a 10 minute arms-focused class.
It logs your repetitions which is good for accountability when it starts to burn.
There were a few glitches where it missed a couple of my reps.
When I asked Peloton about this it told me there had to be 1.4m by 1.8m of unobstructed space.
I have a coffee table near me, so this may be the reason why.
“Beautiful, beautiful, glorious, keep going, keep going,” the prerecorded instructor says.
When I’m doing a push up, the machine tells me to lower my hips.
The next day my arms feel very sore and I can barely move them.
The big surprise to my health after four months of riding
I didn’t lose any weight while having the Peloton – and that wasn’t really the goal – but I was surprised by how much healthier and better I felt overall.
The main reason? My sleep improved dramatically. Like really dramatically.
I have a fitness tracker and my sleep quality, quantity and consistency is always terrible because I get up at 5am to go to work out classes and I stay up late a lot of the time.
But with the Peloton I could sleep in until 7am, do a quick 30-minute workout, then jump in the shower, which was always needed because of how much of a sweat I worked up with each ride.
If I slept in even more and ran out of time for a morning workout, I often did them at night, sometimes as late as 10pm.
That meant on my smart watch, my fitness age went from two years older than my real age to five years younger … a whole seven year difference in only four months.
I am also proud to say that I moved up the virtual leaderboard each time I did a class and continually smashed my personal best scores.
The last one I logged, I was ranked 225th for output out of 750 riders. Not bad for someone who started out down the bottom.
I’m actually shocked to say I like bike riding now. I looked forward to every ride. Could I even be good at it finally?
My verdict?
I loved how the Peloton made exercising easier to fit in exercise. That was the biggest difference I noticed over the four months. There were plenty of features to keep me motivated and I pushed myself really hard every time I used it. But, although there is a virtual sense of community, I missed the social aspect of being at a gym. For most of us it isn’t possible to afford both, so it is something to weigh up, depending on your needs.
Disclaimer: I was loaned this bike free of charge for three months, but paid for the last month of membership after there was a delay in it being picked up.