152: Peloton Stock Hits Record Highs plus our interview with Brendan Dunn

Last Updated: January 18, 2023By Crystal OKeefe (#ClipOutCrystal)Tags: Eating Healthy, Finding Your Community, Healthy Lifestyle, Peloton, Peloton tribe, Personal Fitness

Peloton stock soars as more people workout from home.

One our listeners (Tammy Lynne) is a frontline worker and was featured on the local news.

Philly-based triathlete and app creator sings the praises of Peloton.

GQ has a list of the best treadmills.

Tunde went live with Venus Williams.

The Food Bank for Chicago is raising money.

Your chance to win a FREE Tonal.

Our next Zoom call is scheduled for Friday 7pm CT/8pm ET

Peloton dropped a new collection.

The Prophet has predictions about the NEXT collection.

All this plus our interview with Brendan Dunn!

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Watch the episode here:

Listen to the podcast here:

Peloton Stock Hits Record Highs plus our interview with Brendan Dunn

I don’t even know what day of the week it is anymore.

It’s Wednesday for us. It’s Friday for those in the audience.

That’s if you read this right away? If you read on day one, you get a gold star.

We’re handing out fewer and fewer gold stars these days. You aren’t commuting.

There’s definitely a difference.

It tends to even out throughout the week. I’m not getting 5:00 AM notices when I’m late, I’ll put it that way. I used to get emails at 5:00 AM, “Where’s the episode?” There’s no more of that.

Now, you’ve got to be careful because if you’re too late in the day, you’ll get those notices, but now they’ve been day-drinking. They’re going to be a little sassier than they used to be.

Don’t get sassy with me. I don’t want any sassiness.

I was like, “I don’t know what to do if I can’t be sassy.”

That’s your gig.

The only pants I own are sass pants. Enough about that. What do you have in store for people?

With Peloton no longer doing the live rides, the news has dropped off considerably.

Which means the way this will probably work out, there will be one of the weeks where we have a 30-minute interview.

This might be the shortest episode you’ve ever had from us.

Those first couple were pretty brief by today’s standards.

We’ll see. We’re going to talk about Peloton stock. We’re going to talk about some fun stuff going on in the community and some of the things that the instructors are up to, a new collection and a tiny little visit from the Peloton Prophet.

I was thinking since this one might be shorter, like earlier episodes, just to harken back to the early days, I’m going to call it Peloton.

I don’t know how many readers we have from back then.

We lost them all.

I know that we didn’t because we have had people tell us that they’ve read to every single episode. I don’t know if they’re still hanging in there because we’re 152.

That’s what we have to look forward to. Shameless plugs, don’t forget we’re available on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast and wherever that may be. Be sure and subscribe, so you never miss an episode. You can also follow us on Spotify, just to have some redundancy in these times of crisis.

It’s good to have more than one plan of action, as we’ve all learned.

We’re on Facebook, Facebook.com/TheClipOut. While you’re there, like the page, join the group and of course check out our brand-new website. We did get someone that messaged us.

I got a message from somebody. They were looking for a guest and then I told them who the guest was and then they were like, “I love your website by the way. It looks really good. I like the white background.”

You can check that out at theclipout.com.

It’s two people out of thousands who listen and read, that checked it out.

There is all of that. Let’s dig in, shall we?

We shall.

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Peloton stock is tearing up the joint.

Have you seen it?

Beer and pizza taste much better than water and strawberries. Share on X

At one point, it got to $35 a share?

$35.61, it closed at almost 37 today. It went up almost 12% today, 11.7%.

Was there something specific that goosed it?

No, but there is a theory and think it’s a good theory. I’m going to go ahead and give credit to John Mills because he’s the one that said, “I think it’s a good theory.” That the official earnings call is in a few weeks, on May 5th I think is what it falls on. He was saying that it makes you wonder how much is already out there in anticipation of that, what’s leaked so far. In other words, it’s going to be a great report, which we know it’s going to be a great report. We know there’s going to be a huge growth, but we also think this might be the call where big announcements get made that are coming. At least it’s going to be hinted at timing-wise, even if they’re not on the call.

You’ve got to figure even without having an information leaked, there are some very obvious front-facing metrics like, “We used to be able to deliver a bike in one to two weeks, and now it’s going to be a month.” That’s not Corona-related in terms of they can’t make deliveries. It’s that the demand is so high.

The interesting thing though is that if you think about when the date falls, if it’s truly May 5th, think about when that is. It’s right after what would’ve been homecoming. If the people on Reddit are correct that they’re going to stream all of this stuff over that weekend and be announcing it. We know all that is leaked out there on Reddit, and we don’t know whether or not it’s true, but from what I’ve seen in the past, they’re getting that information from an actual Peloton employee. It seems like it is true. It seems like this timing is not crazy, that two weeks before we’re seeing the stock just shoot up. I don’t know, we’ll see.

I don’t remember. Do we actually talk on the podcast about the Reddit stuff? I don’t know that we did.

We did talk about it. It’s just been a few weeks. As a quick refresher if you’re like, “What are you guys talking about?” Quick refresher is that a picture of the monitor was leaked, the new one that we’ve been talking about. It is supposed to go to the rower and the smaller tread. You can quickly remember that because it’s the last three letters on this model of the monitor, TTR, and that stands for Tiny Tread and Rower in my head. That’s what it’s rumored to be for. It’s a joke. In all seriousness, the rumor says that we were supposed to be getting this all announced over homecoming and that they’re still going to be streaming these live talks. As these live talks come out, they’re going to be still announcing these things even if it’s not going to be done with the pomp and circumstance that was expected. There was some other stuff like there’s a new social feature.

It’s hashtags and there’ll be a lobby where you can meet and take on-demand rides together with other people.

I think it was all rides that you could gather in this lobby area and all start at the same time. Also have hashtags so you can find your groups. It’s going to be another way that you can find all the people that you ride with easily. That’s all coming. That’s all rumored to be coming according to the Reddit information.

We shall see.

That is not from the Prophet, I just want to say.

Just in case it’s not right.

I think that they actually have an employee leaking this information. The Prophet is very artsy. The Prophet comes up with what they come up with in a unique and very, what’s the word?

A divining rod.

It’s not just like somebody feeding them information is what I’m trying to say. It’s from a different source. I want to make that clear for Peloton because if they’ve got a leak, I don’t want them looking over here for the leak. Look elsewhere.

There was an interesting news story about a Peloton user.

This is an amazing story about one of our Peloton superheroes, Tammy Lynne. Tammy Lynne works at a hospital right on the front lines, right in the middle of New York City. It’s Northwell Health, I believe, so it’s in Long Island, if you don’t know where that is. What she does is she will go in two rooms with people that are affected by COVID, and she will sit with them and stay with them and pass along messages from their loved ones because they can’t be there with their loved ones while they’re sick. It’s people like this, they keep the world going in times of crisis. We need to send our love and support not only to Tammy, although she certainly deserves it, but everyone in the medical community that is out there working their tushies off every day exhausted. Thank you sincerely from the bottom of our hearts for everything you are doing.

If you want to see the new story we’re talking about, you can find it at our Facebook page, Facebook.com/TheClipOut. In Philadelphia, there was an interesting story about a local, to them, triathlete. He also designs app.

I think he has his own app.

It’s called This App Saves Lives.

I don’t know much about the actual app.

What it does is you download it and it can tell when you’re driving, and then it rewards you with various vendors they’ve partnered with for basically not interacting with your phone while you’re driving. Then you earn points and then you can cash them in, like at the orthodontist where they give you points for brushing your teeth or something.

That’s a really cool idea. What if I use my voice commands to tell my phone something? Does that count? Because I’m not sure I can make it through a trip in my car without talking to my phone.

I don’t know if that’s allowed. I haven’t downloaded. I honestly don’t know if that’s allowed or whatnot. They’ve partnered with Shake Shack, Urban Outfitters, stuff like that.

This is all about Ryan Frankel, who’s the founder of this. Also he is a triathlete, but not just a triathlete. He’s an IRONMAN triathlete. I think that’s pretty cool. This whole article is about how he’s training because it’s difficult to train in the normal way that he was before. He’s had to change up his entire routine. One of the things that he has done to change it up is get a Peloton. I think that’s pretty cool.

There are lots of stories like that at the moment of people that are like, “I’ve got a Peloton,” or lots of tweets from people that are like, “Okay, I caved.”

I get it. When you think that you don’t need it, it seems like it’ll always be there. Whenever you have no other options, it becomes a lifesaver. I know I’ve said this before, I don’t even know what I would do. I don’t know. It would not be healthy for both of us.

My health would be endangered.

Everyone’s health. Everyone in my striking distance would be in health danger.

It’ll be interesting to see. We don’t have the official article, but you were talking about it earlier about how locally Gold’s Gym is closing every location in St. Louis. They’re done.

For those of you who may not have a lot of Gold’s Gyms, to put it in perspective because this shocked me when I saw the numbers. There are 24 Gold’s Gyms in all of the State of California. There are nine in the St. Louis area. It’s a pretty heavy populated Gold’s Gym. They’ve been around forever. I’ve lived here a long time now and I cannot ever remember there not being a Gold’s Gym. That’s a big one for the St. Louis area.

I think if you ever worked out at Gold’s Gym, if you ever had a trainer there, you should call him up and rub it in their face because of all the times that they were like, “Don’t quit. Keep pushing.” Suck it, Gold’s Gym. Who quit now?

That’s not fair. It’s too soon, Tom.

Sorry. I thought that was shocking. I don’t think gyms are going to go away, but I think you’re going to see a lot fewer of them. A lot of these people that are buying this equipment, they’re not going to go back.

I have seen numerous articles and people posting about the fact that they can’t even get regular free weights anywhere. You can’t find them on Amazon. You can’t find them on Craigslist. They’re nowhere to be found. They’re flying off the shelves faster than people can replenish the stock.

I saw an article, and it might’ve been on John Mills’ page. They said that a store, I don’t know where, said they’ve got 16,000 pounds worth of weights, and it was gone before noon.

The numbers are insane. Those people are not going to spend all that money and then keep going back to the gym, or it will be a change capacity. Something will be different. When the world gets back to normal, it’s not going to look the same as it did for many industries. I think the fitness industry is a big one.

Planet Fitness partnered with iFit to try and like, “We have online classes you can take now.” I think they’re trying to retool themselves for the at-home gym mentality because they see the writing on the wall too.

I don’t know of a gym chain that hasn’t tried to switch it up in some way. Everything is about at-home now. I think it’s funny because all of these people completely dismissed Peloton when they first opened. They first started selling bikes and now, everyone’s hopping on the bandwagon. There’s going to be varying degrees of success. I realize that the current circumstances pushed them into that.

It’s an extreme moment in time in regards to this particular industry. I would also say that I don’t think the Coronavirus has caused the workout at home craze. I think it’s just accelerating.

I would completely agree with that.

The technology has gotten to the point that it’s too convenient. I think as more and more people crunch the numbers, they’re realizing that this is cheaper than the gym and way more convenient.

There are tons of companies out there now. There’s Tempo that has a similar thing. It’s like a Mirror. On the back of it, you can store your weights. Then there’s also that new one that I can’t remember the name of, that combines Tonal and Mirror and something else altogether into one. Probably Tempo would be the other one that it compares it to. It’s got electromagnetic weights. My point being is it’s all this connected fitness. Can you imagine trying to start a business like that now?

You are playing Catch-up in a big way.

Not just Catch-up, the world is in a complete crisis. Even if you’re going into a niche area that wasn’t saturated a year ago and now is, people need to stop. It’s out of control. It’s craziness. There’s so much uncertainty. I can’t even imagine personally trying to start a business like that now. That sounds terrifying.

GQ had an article about the best treadmills.

They mentioned different treadmills. It was basically a review about a whole bunch of different treadmills starting with best for your money. It was Woodway because they’re like the Rolls-Royce of treadmills. Right below it was the Peloton. It’s like running on a cloud. I don’t like to run outside. It has spoiled me.

They were big fans.

They named some other treadmills too.

Tunde did an Instagram Live. She had a special guest.

Technically, she was a special guest on Venus Williams’s Instagram. It was the other way around. Venus Williams was actually interviewing her. They did a little Q&A for 10 or 15 minutes before they started the actual workout. Venus Williams has her own brand and called EleVen by Venus. She had Tunde on and they talked about all kinds of different stuff. A lot of the stuff that you can hear on Tunde’s interview that she had with us, it was a lot about her background and how she got into fitness and things like that, which we covered in our interview. If you missed this, you’ll still be able to read it in our interview. Also, Tunde did a fifteen-minute arm workout with her. It’s two of the ladies with the most bad-ass arms on the planet. That’s mean going in. I don’t know fifteen minutes could last that long. There were triceps for days like they just went on and on. No wonder Tunde has the arm she has because if that’s what she does in her apartment, I should do that too. I should just sit and watch TV and do nothing but arm workouts. It was a tough workout. It was cool to see though. There were tons of people online. At one point, there were almost 1,000 people watching live, which is pretty cool.

That’s a lot for something like Instagram Live. It’s very much in the moment like you just stumble across it. It’s not like it’s a television show.

I wanted to point out that if you had been paying attention to any of the Instagram Lives by the instructors or stuff that they’ve done like with Good Morning America or like this one, there’s a lot of weird people that pop onto this stuff. I’ve been very sheltered by the Peloton community. I am shocked by the number of people that hop on and try to flirt with them while they’re doing a workout. What do you think is happening? Do you think they’re going to stop and come over and read the screen because you were like, “You’re so hot?” What do they think is going to happen? What is the point of that? What are they trying to do?

I don’t know. It’s like in the old days when guys catcalled girls on the street.

I don’t think that will ever end. That’s for their friends, and so maybe that’s what this is too. Maybe these people are starved for attention that in a completely random environment where you know no one else, it’s good to stand out by being a douchebag. I don’t even know.

Does anybody even engage with that?

I didn’t see anybody engage with them. Every time I’ve seen it, everyone has ignored it. It’s always the same person who does it over and over again. Is there something wrong with you?

It’s always something that they think sounds nice, but it’s really like, “Hey, pretty lady.”

It’s something like that. I got distracted because I’m trying to watch the workout and then I’m like, “How many times is this dork going to do this? How many times are they going to keep trying to get the attention of the person who’s doing it?” I sit there and count, then I’ve lost count of how many reps I’m supposed to be doing because I’m watching this idiot.

Do a rep for each time he says that. You’ll have Tunde arms in no time.

It’s a good plan.

Put a positive spin on it.

Maybe I should start engaging with these people and just be like, “What’s up, fella?”

I don’t think they would find that creepy. I don’t think you can just do that. The food bank in Chicago?

I mentioned this and we talked about the fact that there was a group. It’s actually Kelly Warner. There’s a whole group of people that wanted to raise money for the Chicago food bank, like Peloton did for the New York City food bank. They have a group all set up and it’s a Facebook group called Chicago Food Bank Rider. You can go to it and you can set up a pledge, so that any ride you do for the month of April, you can pledge to do a dollar a class. You can pledge as much as you want, but my point is as little as a dollar class that you do in April, all of that money will be going to the Greater Chicago Food Depository. They also have a fundraiser link that you can go to as well. It’s a cool thing. If you’re like, “Who can I help? I want to give money. I want to help people. I have extra,” not everybody’s in that position right now and I get that. Please, no pressure. If you are in the position where you can and you want to, this might be a great option for you.

Our Tonal contest is past the halfway point.

It is getting down to the wire.

This is week six? There are only two or weeks left after this because we’re doing for eight weeks. You need to go to theclipout.com/tonal. We have a little doodad gadget thing there. You can enter, you get to answer a question. We make it pretty easy. It’s not too terribly difficult. Some lucky reader is going to be walking away with a free Tonal. We’ve had tons of entries. If you think about it, in the grand scheme of things, it’s a fairly small pool of people.

I did the math. You have a very good chance of winning. I am shocked at the number of people not entering. We have that a lot of entries. When you think of what a huge prize this is, it’s a lot of people that haven’t entered. It’s a pretty small pool. The chances are good. The cool thing is the only thing you have to do is answer that question.

You can increase your chances by doing other little very easy things like following Crystal on Instagram or finding Tonal on Facebook, and it’s right there. It’s super simple. If you haven’t entered yet, each week there are new opportunities. Don’t feel as if, “It’s been going on. There’s no way.” It doesn’t. Maybe we should stress this too. It doesn’t cost any. This isn’t a raffle. It’s a contest.

This is through the generosity of Tonal. You pay nothing. You just go and spend 30 seconds of your time and you might be a winner.

You could win a free Tonal. It doesn’t cost you anything to enter, except just a smidge of your time.

I know that Tom said this, but I want to clarify that there’s a new question each week. Even if you’ve already entered, you can keep entering each week.

Maximize your chances to win and let Crystal rave about her tonal. Run by theclipout.com/Tonal for your chance to win. If you’re reading this on Friday, which would be April 17th, we’re going to do a Zoom call that night. We’re going to do that at 7:00 Central, 8:00 Eastern, something else Pacific. We’ve been doing these and they’ve been fun. It is also nice because I know since more and more people are at stay-at-home orders or shelter in place or whatever your neck of the woods is calling it. You’re probably getting a little stir crazy and talk to other people. It’s a great way to hang out for a bit.

Bring your Friday night drinks, bring your Friday night snacks and hang out with us. Whether it’s five minutes or an hour, it doesn’t matter to us. You’re not going to hurt our feelings. We’ve got people dropping in. We’ve got people dropping out. It’s all good. We’re going to have a great time. In case I forget to put it out there, the password is nuggets.

Why did we come up with that one?

Because Gina did it.

Gina shares my love of nuggets.

Finding the right Peloton tribe can be very inspirational for you. Share on X

Gina thinks your love of nuggets is hilarious. I have to tell a little quick story about this. Hopefully, Gina doesn’t get mad at me for sharing this. It’s her Business Zoom account and they have told her she can share it with family and friends. It’s cool, she’s not doing anything against the rules. What she did not realize was that changing the password for this meeting meant that it changed the password for all meetings. She had somebody email her and asked her for the password.

She told them, “Nuggets?”

She did. That was funny.

If you’re bored on Friday night, swing on by and say hi. We’d love to have you.

Even if you just want to drop in, drop in. We have everybody introduce themselves at first. If you walk in the middle of that, just give it a minute. We’ll get to you.

If you don’t want to introduce yourself, you don’t have to. We get a couple of people just lurking. We think they were Echelon employees.

They just stayed dark. No pictures.

We might make fun of you, we might mock you, but no one will see your face turn red. The new collection came out. What did that cost us?

To look nice is not free.

You always look nice to me.

Thanks, that’s because I spend money. It was not cheap. I did have referrals and I did use them. There was a lot of stuff that I needed to get because it was the new Spring Collection and it was pretty. I also had to buy the new Carbon38 outfit that was out, the white with the gold snakeskin. That is all their fault. It was on sale and it was a 20% discount. Then you could also blame them for that because I wouldn’t have bought it without the discount.

They got you a discount?

No, they just had one, which I used and it was great.

I see that The Prophet has a prediction about another collection.

No details on when this collection will drop, but it appears that it will be a collaboration with Adidas soon in the coming months.

Everyone has that to look forward to.

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Joining us is Brendan Dunn. Brendan, how is it going?

I’m well, Tom and Crystal. How are you?

We are so excited for this interview and the opportunity to talk to you. I don’t know if you’ve ever had a chance to listen to the podcast on a regular basis, but I always start with the question, how did you originally find Peloton?

I’ve been familiar with Peloton for a few years. Tom, I want you to take note here. As any wise married man would say, “It was all my wife’s doing.” She had been in spin class for a couple of years. I had dabbled in biking a while back. She had hinted that maybe she wanted this as a Christmas present so she wouldn’t have to go to this spin gyms and things like that. I decided for my health and for what she wanted to be a perfect Christmas present so I got that for her and I for Christmas of 2019.

Getting your wife what she wants for Christmas in this case helps your health on two levels.

You’re pretty new to the Peloton community. Can you give us a little background on where you were in your fitness life? Were you super fit or not fit at all? Had you been fit before? Tell us about that.

I was absolutely in the worst shape of my life. I was reasonably fit growing up. I was a high school athlete. I played soccer and baseball. I ran a lot, but I never had good eating habits. As soon as high school ended, the pounds started pouring on. I got through college and probably weighed about 260 most of my twenties. When I get to about 28 years old, I realized I needed to make a change. I lost about 70 pounds. I kept it off for about a year or so. It was a great time in my life. I remembered something that I’m sure, Tom, you’re familiar with. That beer and pizza tastes a lot better than water and strawberries.

I’ve always been so grateful that I don’t like the taste of beer. It’s bad enough the way I eat. If I liked beer, it’d be game over.

The beer and the pizza called you back?

They did. I fell off the wagon hard. I’ve always eaten like a five-year-old. I eat chicken fingers, pizza, hamburgers. It’s garbage. I used to eat Pringles for breakfast half the time. If it wasn’t Pringles, it was donuts. I’ll still have them once in a while, but right now I’m in a good place. It was around Christmas time was my worst health-wise. I was about 273 pounds. I couldn’t walk up the stairs without being winded. I couldn’t bend over to tie my shoes without being winded as well. I could barely pick up my kids. I couldn’t run outside with them. I couldn’t get down on the floor. I was in a very bad place.

It sounds like the uncomfortableness of not being fit. There’s overweight, then there’s uncomfortable overweight. That seems to be a trigger for a lot of people like, “It’s time for me to do something about this.”

The few times that I’ve lost weight or tried to lose weight, I didn’t weigh myself, but every time I did put my stake in the ground and start a diet or a health plan, I always weighed about 265. You know where your body is and I felt awful about it. This time I was even at my heaviest at 273 so I knew it was time for change.

There’s probably something almost, for lack of a better word, magical about as you start creeping up towards 300 that you got to be like, “I’ve got to rein this in.” It feels like a point of no return. It always did for me. The most I weighed, I got close to 260. I’m 5’7” in heels. That’s a lot of weight. It’s great if you could find a woman who has a Jason Alexander fetish or something.

When anybody’s uncomfortable, I feel there’s like, “I have to buy bigger clothes,” then there’s, “I can’t do something I wanted to do.” Sometimes that can be this moment of, “I would like to change this now,” can be enough of a factor.

I had two of those moments. I was at Sesame Place with my four-year-old. I had gotten a ride and the bar barely closed. I had to suck it in almost to the point where I couldn’t breathe. The seatbelt on an airplane barely reaches on and I’m like, “This has to stop.” I sat January 1st with my Peloton as my date to make changes.

When I went to California for work, the seatbelt on the plane was barely fitting. I realized I was sitting on it, but I had a moment of panic. I’m like, “I’ve been good. What’s happening?”

It’s the worst when you think you’ve been losing. When you got Peloton, was that like inspirational to you or were you like, “We got it, let’s try it out?”

At the beginning for the first month, I was into it and probably doing 4 or 5 rides a week. I’m slowly feeling good, gaining power and strength and losing some weight too. I was eating healthier. Early February came and I saw myself going to old habits, waning a little bit, only riding maybe once or twice a week. You can just see I was doing one a week to keep my week straight going, which is sad. I was still eating okay, but falling into some bad habits, having a pizza on the weekend, slowly creeping back into that old lifestyle. Peloton at first was an inspiration, but then my old ways came back.

It’s difficult when you’re being good and you take a little break. It’s so easy to let a cheat day turn into a cheat weekend. You come home on Monday and you’re in a hurry. You’re like, “It’s already been two days of this. What’s one more?” The next thing you know, it’s back to the weekend.

The next thing you know, I went from 190 pounds back up to 273. It’s absolutely my story.

Fast forward to this Humans of New York page. How did that come to be? How’d you find out a way to do that?

It was by chance and circumstance. I was waiting for a train in Grand Central Station in New York, on my phone and minding my business, and Brandon Stanton who runs the page, came up to me. I’m surprised he did because I’d been told I have a world-class resting bitch face. Why anybody would ever approach me is beyond me. He came up to me and as a New Yorker, I was skeptical because I figured out somebody asked him for money. I had a crooked eye. He said, “I’m a former journalist. This is my page.” He had his phone out. I knew it. I’ve been following this page for years. He then asked if he can interview me. I said, “Absolutely.” His first question was, “What’s your biggest fear?” I immediately answered, “My morbid obesity,” which he was taken back by. He didn’t think I looked. He said, “I don’t think you’re morbidly obese,” but I told him my doctor would disagree with that.

We had probably about a 45-minute discussion about what it means to me to be obese and my fears about it. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the page and the story, I was worried that I would die at an early age because of my health issues and I wouldn’t be there for my kids. I have a four-year-old and a one-year-old, two boys. I wouldn’t be able to be there for them growing up, support them and be everything that they need. I was in a bad place, falling back into old bad habits, even though I had a good start with Peloton.

Maybe not everyone’s had a chance to read it, but I know that the response ended up being pretty overwhelming. Did you know going in that it was going to be like that? What did you expect? What did you think would happen?

I’ve been following with this page. My post has 232,000 likes on Instagram and Facebook together. I was a bit nervous because even though I know it was overwhelmingly a positive site, I was worried for myself that it would bring attention to my family or you’d see a lot, “You’re fat. You’re lazy. Sell the Peloton. Get over yourself.” The response was very positive. I don’t think I looked at the comments because I was afraid until the next morning. It came on a Sunday night. I was worried for my family too, if my wife would approve of it. My wife and family was very positive about it. My friends and everybody have been very upbeat about it.

That’s cool if people were nice about it, but that page is pretty uplifting. It only probably weeds out a lot of the douchebags.

They have eight million subscribers to that page. Telling the stories of New Yorkers and a lot of people can relate to my story especially.

Who hasn’t struggled with weight, wanting to eat a certain way and not being able to? I don’t know anybody ever that has not struggled with those things. It’s to varying degrees in which they have struggled.

Have there been any responses that stick out to you?

The one that stuck out the most, there are several of them. It’s just what we talked about, the, “I can relate, this is me, don’t feel bad for yourself. I’m in the same boat as you.” That inspired me to get back on the Peloton, get my mind straight and overcome some of my health issues.

I heard that you were adopted by the XXL Tribe.

Yes.

Tell us about that. How did that come to be?

Like any good Millennial, my wife and I spend way too much time on our phones. Within probably an hour of that post hitting, since my wife knows everybody, somebody in the XXL Tribe tagged my wife because they know her and they said, “Tell your husband, get in here.” I was in the XXL Tribe within probably two hours of it being posted in. It’s been life-changing, that group. They say it’s the nicest place on the internet and it’s almost weird how nice it is in there. We talked about my resting bitch face. I’m from New York. I have a little bit of an edge in me. I was a little skeptical, but these people are the nicest people on the earth. Within those first two hours, I had over 400, might even been more responses. I replied to everybody. It’s been a magic carpet ride with that group ever since I’ve been there.

Besides them being nice, why do you think that that had such an effect on you and getting back on the Peloton?

A lot of them said that, “I’m in the same boat as you. We can relate to you.” It’s a good question because if I had never found the XXL Tribe and I went off of the Humans of New York page, I probably would’ve fallen back into where I was earlier. I would’ve got on the bike for a couple of weeks, thought I was in a good place then gotten back to old habits. Nothing with my health would be where I am now without the XXL Tribe. It’s very inspirational. Somebody commented in one of my posts, “We hunted you down so we could inspire you. Now you are inspiring all of us.” I have an obsession with that group. I comment in there probably more than anybody. There’s a red heart next to the like button. I didn’t. All I do now is click the red heart 100 times a day.

I didn’t know it existed. Now I comment on almost everybody’s post that I see. What I’ve done is some people have reached out to me and said, “Can you help me become accountable to myself?” I have private conversations with several people in that group to just follow-up with them and see how they’re doing each day. For me, it’s totally changed my outlook on everything. I like to think of myself as a born again, nice person. Not that I wasn’t nice before, but I was a little snarky in some places. I unfollowed all the bad pages in Facebook and covered all those bad conversations with people on life. I’ve been on a nice trip and nothing’s going to change with that.

What I said about Peloton when I first got on the Facebook groups that were related to Peloton, I was like, “This community has restored my faith in humanity.”

That’s the perfect statement. Richelle Martin who runs XXL Tribe, I spoke with her a bunch of times and I can’t thank her enough for getting me in there. People probably think, “Is this guy all right? He’s commenting all the time.” Some people would probably think I’m annoying in there, but I have so many people that say, “Thank you for being inspiring to me. I’ll post my rides, try to get people out when I’m riding.” Half of the people are like, “Great. I wasn’t going to ride now, you inspired me to run with you.” I found that group life-changing. If I have any advice for anybody, even if you’re not in Peloton, join that group because you’ll find inspiration everywhere. I told you that my friends are like, “I don’t have a Peloton. Why would I join a Peloton group?” It’s the best thing that’s happened to me in a long time.

I’m glad that’s had such an effect on you.

My favorite thing to do with that group is give the drive by high five. My wife yelled at me and said, “Stop giving high fives. The kids are running around the house.” I mentioned to somebody if Peloton would hire me for eight hours to sit there and give high fives, I would do it. That’s how much I enjoy inspiring people and cheering them on. It’s been a life-changing experience for me.

We interviewed Kenny Bania. He was mentioned at the homecoming ceremony. He was called out for having the most-high fives ever. You have some competition.

I don’t know if I’ll beat him in the high fives, but I’ll definitely win the most hearts given in the XXL Tribe’s Facebook page. I’ll take that.

How is your wife doing with the Peloton in all of this? What are her thoughts? Is she riding? Is she enjoying it?

She is. She’s much stronger than me and stronger willed than me. When I gave up for a week or two there, she was still going strong. I was on a bender for a while. I rode ten days in a row. I took a day off because my legs felt like cement. My wife has been going strong with Peloton ever since she’s gotten it. She loves it. She’s seeing the health benefits as well.

You guys haven’t had it that long.

I have 30 rides and I’m down probably 27 pounds since the start of 2020. It’s clearly working.

What does your wife think about your newfound relationships with Peloton XXL Tribe as I know it can quickly take over your life and your house?

It’s a bit of an obsession of mine. I like to tell her that I went from a normal fat guy to a Z minus list celebrity fat guy. She’s fine with it, but I’m a little worried myself. The people are worth it. Everybody in there has been so welcoming to me. Anything that I can do to help inspire them puts a huge smile on my face. I’m glad to do it.

When you're struggling, lean on your tribe to get you through your bad days. Share on X

It is an obsession because I’m certainly obsessed with it. It’s been a few years, but there’s not a healthier obsession to be had. If you’re going to be obsessed with something, it’s the way to go.

I can’t agree with you more. This makes no sense to me, but it makes all the sense in the world at the same time that this happened to me. I can change my life. If you would have known me before, I feel like I’m Tony Robbins trying to inspire people. It’s a strange place for me to be in. I’m loving it and I’m loving helping people and myself get to where they need to be.

I know that you have found a lot of love within the XXL Tribe and they are a wonderful tribe. Because the OPP is scary, find other tribes too. There are ways to increase the Peloton obsession, believe it or not. You’re early in, but there are tons and tons of ways to increase that Peloton obsession.

I’m in Denis’s Menaces. I’m slowly weaning myself onto that group. I’m like, “Do I need another obsession here?” It can get out of control. It’s a good place to be out of control.

Is Denis your favorite instructor?

As a father of two kids, we don’t have favorites. I would say early on he is. I’ve ridden with most everybody. I haven’t had a bad instructor yet. They’re all great. I liked Denis’ catchphrases or whatever. He has a million things he says. I love it. I like his music taste too. He’s been my favorite, I would say.

We did an interview with Denis and I recommend that you go back and read that because he is a super intelligent soulful guy. He and Tom had a whole conversation about books and movies. They got deep. He is super interesting on a lot of levels. He’s a very interesting instructor.

What is your leaderboard name?

My leaderboard name is StevieG96.

How did you come up with that?

It’s strange. It’s fate. Stevie G is a reference to my favorite soccer player. I’m a soccer junkie, even though my body wouldn’t tell you that. He was the captain of Liverpool in England. Stevie G is an homage to him and 96, there was a soccer disaster in the ‘80s where 96 people were crushed to death. That’s Liverpool’s number. They always respect the 96. What I thought was a fate about it was I could’ve picked anything. I could’ve picked my kids’ names and favorite music. Liverpool’s motto is, “You’ll never walk alone.” That translates to the XXL Tribe and the support that they’ve always showed me. I don’t feel like I’m walking along on any day when I’m with those guys. I thought it tied into the group.

Do you have any advice for new people other than go viral?

When I first started Peloton, I’m looking at the followers. I’m like, “I’m not going to ever have any followers. I’ll have maybe my wife and that’s it. Who’d follow me?” The advice that I would have for newbies is find your tribe. I’d say find the XXL Tribe because they are outstanding. There are a lot of good groups. I’ve dabbled in a few of them. Get in there. When you’re having a bad day, when you’re struggling, lean on them to get you through that bad day. If I didn’t find that tribe, there’s no doubt that I would be riding once a week, maybe losing a little bit here and there, but I’d be back to my old eating habits. If you can find people that can help push you and help motivate you and help inspire you, you’ll be much better off in the Peloton community. Some of my family members are like, “Are you going to tell these people who you are?” I’m like, “What do you mean?” I’m a changed person. I overnight went from being a regular person to be the nicest person that you could meet anywhere. I find it bizarre because not that I wasn’t nice, but now I’m like a Richard Simmons cross with Will Ferrell cheerleader.

It does change how you approach the world. Now you want to spread this happiness, this joy you found. You want to share with people. Isn’t it amazing to you now? Aren’t you like, “You need to get a Peloton. It’s life-changing?” Don’t you feel like you have to tell everyone that now?

I’ve absolutely told everyone that now. My friend has been debating whether to get a Peloton. He doesn’t know if he can afford it. I started harassing his wife on Facebook. I’m like, “Have you done it yet?” She’s like, “What are you talking about?” I’m the biggest evangelist for this bike that I know and I can’t think of a better place to be than with Peloton and with the XXL Tribe.

People can find you on social media. Where can they find you?

They can find me on the leaderboard, StevieG96. I have a Facebook page. Brendan Dunn is my name. You can see the picture of Humans in New York as my profile picture. That’s where I am, social media wise. I encourage you to friend me on Peloton. Let’s get out there and ride. I’ll high five anybody and everybody on going for the number one high five spot of the year. Get out there, I’ll see you on the leaderboard and let’s improve together.

Thank you so much for taking time out of your busy day to join us.

Thank you for doing this. This has been awesome and people are going to be super excited to hear from you. You don’t even know how many people sent me your story. They were thrilled to share what you were going through. You touched a lot of people in the community, so that’s awesome.

Thank you for having me on. We’ll see where I go from here, but it’s been a wild ride so far. Thank you.

One more question, are you coming to homecoming?

Not that I don’t want to, but I’ll be in Las Vegas for a bachelor party. Richelle had posted something about something in September. I don’t know what that is or I don’t know if that’s another homecoming, but I won’t be there in May.

It’s probably the XXL Tribe HRI is what it is. I wanted to know because I wanted to make sure we got to meet you if you were going to be there.

If I ever go to one of those, which I probably will since I’m local, I’ll let you know via email or whatever to meet you guys too.

Thank you again.

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That brings another episode to a close. What pray tell do you have in store for people in the next episode?

I’m stoked. We’re going to have Zach Honig on from The Points Guy. He is the editor at large for The Points Guy.

He will tell us about his love of Peloton and give us travel tips in this age of no-travelling?

Yes. It’s a crazy time. Back when we scheduled the interview, we didn’t know this was still going to be happening.

It was just starting to ramp up. That’s what everyone has to look forward to. Until then, where can they find you?

People can find me at Facebook.com/CrystalDOKeefe. They can find me on Instagram, Twitter, on the Bike and of course the Tread, @ClipOutCrystal.

You can find me on Twitter, @RogerQBert or on Facebook at Facebook.com/TomOKeefe. You can find the show online at Facebook.com/TheClipOut. While you’re there, like the page, join the group. Wherever you get the show, be sure to subscribe so you’ll never miss an episode. That’s all of that. Thanks for tuning in. Until next time, keep pedaling and running.