164: Pelothon 2020 Announced plus our interview with Ty Audronis

Last Updated: July 15, 2020By Crystal OKeefe (#ClipOutCrystal)Tags: Peloton Community, Peloton Instructors, Peloton Rides, Peloton Swags, Tour De Peloton, Tour De Peloton Community

Pelothon 2020 is here. Who’s team are you on?

Echelon challenges Peloton’s patents.

Peloton welcomes a new Head of Music – Gwen Bethel Riley.

Peloton stock hits yet another high. (This is not a repeat.)

Whoop now integrates with Strava.

Dr. Jenn Mann talks about what to do when your partner isn’t supportive of your workout regimen.

Our FightCamp contest continues.

Soul Cycle is setting up tents in the Hamptons.

Tunde is launching her own line of lipstick.

New Artist Series – The Grateful Dead.

All this plus our interview with Ty Audronis

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Watch the episode here:

Listen to the podcast here:

164: Pelothon 2020 Announced plus our interview with Ty Audronis

Have you recovered from our big house concert?

I have recovered boy. That was a lot of fun.

Thank you to everyone that showed up. It seemed like everybody had a good time.

We had some deep, meaningful conversations. I’m glad that it ended up being a smaller group because it was like Shannon and Jamie had said during their concerts that people self-select who really wants to be there. It’s super important to them. I think because of that, it made just for some really great conversation.

I also think there were a lot of people that didn’t know what to expect and just roll the dice. It seemed like everybody was happy with what they got.

Thank you to those of you who gave it a chance, gave it a shot.

Maybe in the future we’ll give another one shot sometime, who knows? What do you have in store for people this week?

We are going to talk about Peloton. We are going to talk about new crap that Echelon is trying to pull. There’s a new Head of Music at Peloton that we’re going to talk about, a stock market update and some other good stuff, including our FightCamp contest.

Before we get to all that, shameless plugs, don’t forget we are available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google, wherever you get your podcasts, you can find us. While you’re there, be sure and subscribe so you’ll never miss an episode. If you would be so kind, maybe even leave a review, that would be so delightful. We might even read it on the show like this one. This is from DayOldNews. That’s what their screen name is. They did not leave their leaderboard. They said, “Just got my bike and went searching for a podcast to enhance my entrance into this new exercise world. These hosts have so much fun together and do a great job of blending breaking news with informative, fun interviews of riders. They include a great question about tips for newbies that has been helpful for me.” That is nice to hear.

I think that might be the first time anybody’s ever said that.

That’s great that it’s getting utilized in that fashion. “There is a lot of terminology that I’m trying to catch up on so it would be awesome if occasionally they could reiterate what things like HRI or Power Zone are for this clueless newb, but very much enjoying what I’m learning.” That is fair.

That’s good feedback.

HRI was Home Rider Invasion, which is now Homecoming, and Power Zone is just a way to utilize the bike that’s very mathematical and scientific, and focused on advancing you further in your physical achievements.

You’ve learned so much from doing this podcast, Tom.

Denis Morton is a big one for that, right?

Yeah, there are four instructors that do it now. It’s like Olivia, Christine, Denis and Matt.

If that’s what you’re looking for, you can go check them out. Also while we’re in the shameless plugs, don’t forget we have a Facebook page, Facebook.com/TheClipOut. While you’re there, like the page, join the group. It’s a great way to stay up to date on stuff throughout the week. Sign up for the newsletter at theclipout.com. If you just can’t get enough of us, we’ve got another podcast all about Tonal called The Superset. That’s available in all the same places. There’s all that, let’s dig in, shall we?

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Pelothon 2020 is upon us.

It starts July 13th 2020. What is it?

All I can think of is a largely forgotten film called Americathon.

I don’t know what that’s about, and it sounds boring.

It’s not.

Do you remember back in January 2020, Peloton came out with this thing like join a house? What they did is they took all the instructors and they broke them down into six houses. All of a sudden, and I’m pretty sure it was all of a sudden because of COVID, it just stopped. Nothing else happened with it. They were all like, “Choose a house,” and then people chose a house.

They chose a house and they had a shelter in place.

Unfortunately, we did not get to shelter in place with the instructors we chose. Just my feedback about that was that I was frustrated at the time because the way that they divided the instructors was your favorites were all spread out.

Which I’m sure is purposeful.

I know, it’s irritating. You’ve got to pick. I ended up not picking any of my favorites because of that. I don’t know, does that prove something to them? Is it purposeful?

I doubt they’re drilling down to figure out who signed up for which house.

Fast forward now months later, and we’re going to do this new thing called Pelothon. It’s the same teams from the houses or it appears to be the same teams from the houses. Oliver is gone, so it’s a little bit different. We have a couple new instructors. Starting on July 13th 2020, you’re going to be on this team if you opt in. You have four weeks of challenges. Every week is a different challenge. All of the proceeds from this go to benefit World Hunger. Every time you ride or you complete a challenge or whatever, a dollar goes to one of these four different World Hunger organizations. They’re going to highlight one of those organizations each week. Basically, that’s all you’ve got to do. You can go and check on your team to see where they are in the standings each week. The first week it’s super simple. The first week it’s like you take a class with each one of the instructors on your team. I do want to point out that they have recommended class times each week. What they did is they’re like, “This team meets at noon Eastern on Fridays.” I’m just giving an example. Nobody can do that. There are some people who don’t have jobs, great for you. They didn’t choose anything for people in the morning or in the evenings. It’s all in the middle of the day. The earliest one was 7:00 AM, which most people have to get up and go to work at that time.

Do you think maybe the next week will be a different time?

No, I don’t. It’s like you’re supposed to gather with your team if you can. It’s just a suggested time. This is one thing that I wish they would get better at is communication. The way that they communicated it makes it seem like you can only join the team if you’re going to take a class during that time. This has only been up for an hour. I have answered the question twenty times, not even joking and that’s me, not Peloton. If they would just spell that out better for people on the frontend, because people they don’t want to join a team and not get points for their team.

They don’t want to damage their team. If your team doesn’t hit their goal, they actually spread world hunger.

The reason I bring that up is you can work out any time. You do not have to work out at a certain time. That was just a recommendation so that the people on the team could all gather and high-five together and stuff. I think it’s the last week, you have to give a certain number of high-fives. It’s all very doable stuff. Another thing that’s coming up a lot is this is going to be really hard to do in conjunction with the Power Zone challenges. I think people have to choose because there are so many things. For me, it’s a no-brainer because it’s Peloton’s first challenge on the Bike and it’s for a great cause. It’s not just for some random thing going into somebody’s pocket. This is actually benefiting someone. It’s a done deal. The cool thing is they haven’t announced this yet anywhere. I didn’t see this come out in an email. I want to make sure that I mention here. Each team has a water bottle on sale in the shop. They’re ridiculously expensive, they’re $32 a pop. Some of the proceeds, I believe it was 20%, go to each of these organizations. You’re giving money to a good cause. I know you probably don’t need another water bottle. I didn’t either, but you know I had to get one. I knew you’d be shocked. It’s been up for an hour and I’ve been hearing, “Why don’t we have tanks? Why don’t we have tees?” I don’t know why they didn’t, but I also don’t know that they won’t. It doesn’t actually start until the 13th, so maybe they will do it in phases. Somebody asked about badges. I saw there will be a badge at the end for your team.

What a relief. Let me ask the question that I’m sure everyone’s asking themselves right now. What team are you on?

I don’t even want to say what team I’m on. I am on the unstoppable team. That team has Alex and Chelsea and Matty and Christine D’Ercole. I know I am missing somebody else that’s on that team, but those were the instructors.

It’s not like they can just go look you up and see you, right?

I don’t know. I guess they can because it’s a hashtag. You can see on the hashtag. If you’re following me, you’ll see it anyway. If you’re not following me, you don’t care. If you’re not following me, then you won’t have any idea about any of this and you didn’t care about the question in the first place.

We did talk about this, this is a little side note, about people who follow you. If they have followed you recently and you have not followed them back, you’re not being a snarky bitch.

I’m not, I have reached my limit.

They won’t let you follow any more people.

You can only follow 2,000 people on your profile. I’ve reached my limit. I can no longer follow other people. I would have to de-follow people to follow people. If you really care about me following you, reach out. I know there are people that I follow that don’t care that I’m following them. If it’s really super important to you, reach out to me.

I just wanted people to know that if for some reason they did and they’re like, “She won’t even follow me back,” this is why.

That is why. I am not ignoring anyone.

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This story broke right as we were sitting down to record. That worked out nicely.

Thank you, John Mills.

Echelon launched a new salvo in the Peloton-Echelon battle, which will one day be a Netflix docu-series.

You might remember, Peloton sued Echelon for basically stealing the idea, the look, how it sounds, everything. They do that with everybody. They’ve stolen it from Mirror. They’ve stolen it from treadmill makers. They’ve done it to everybody. They have a rower now. It’s not just Peloton is my point. Echelon can’t come up with their own ideas. They go and steal from everybody else. What’s the deal here? What are they saying now?

They are saying that basically the patents that Peloton is claiming to have and are trying to protect are really patentable. They’re not very patent-y. I think that’s legal speak. They’re basically saying that these are just concepts, not actual patents of mechanical specifications or technological advancements.

I don’t think that’s true or they would have already won.

They didn’t technically win, they settled. The article says that there are two ways these things can be hashed out. You can either go to court and battle it out, let a judge decide or a jury I guess if you go that route. Or you can go to a patent appeals board, and the patent appeals board tends to be more friendly to patent challengers than a court of law is. My guess is there have been a lot of issues over the last years with patent trolls. I think they’re sensitive to that these days. A lot of people felt like if they had gone to the mat with Flywheel, that they might not have won that. It was not as much of a slam dunk as you might think, according to this article, for whatever that’s worth. We will see. I’m not a lawyer, but there are also a lot of things working in concert here, in terms of the accusation of them ripping off their patents. The fact that they’ve made their bike look pretty much just like theirs and their leaderboard and their commercials.

Let’s not forget, this is the same company who I believe Peloton had to issue a cease and desist because their entire breakdown of all the details, whenever you compare them and contrast them, they totally lied about everything.

Then you also see them doing this to other companies. They have their versions. If you look at it holistically, while those individual patents might not be enough to build a case on their own if you make it part of a larger picture. They even said in the article that there are still lots of other ways for them to lose this. Even if Echelon wins this patent argument, that’s not like the case goes away. There are still lots of other things. There are plenty to fight about.

There are always plenty to fight about. It’s funny, there are companies that I really respect and there are companies that I really don’t like. This goes beyond competition to me. The way that they operate their business is just slimy. I don’t like how they operate their business. The way that they run their business does not seem like it matches my morals and I don’t like it. I wish them nothing but the worst. I hope Peloton decimates them. I hope all the other companies go after them and run these people into the ground because they are bottom-feeding jerks.

When you look at it, you don’t see one thing that looks like unique, that didn’t pre-exist somewhere else.

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Peloton has a new Head of Music.

It’s Gwen Bethel Riley. People keep getting this confused and thinking that DJ John Michael was Head of Music. He was never Head of Music. He had a completely different title. I only say that because it makes it seem like this person was replacing DJ John Michael. That’s not the case. He’s the Associate Producer of Music or something. He has an entirely different title and he’s doing his own very cool mix. He’s fine. It’s interesting because she has a background in video games, so we’re talking Xbox. She also comes from Disney consumer products and interactive media. She was the head of business affairs there and sourced in licensed commission music and global talent for games consumer. She did a whole bunch of stuff. Video games were among her specialties. This is interesting because Riley has been there for about a year and there are now three Disney classes. People find that interesting. As soon as I posted this, people were all over it. I’m saying people reached out to me immediately telling me that there have been recently Disney rides. I guess maybe she could help with that because she went on to say in a different article, this one’s from Variety that talked about her taking over this new position. She had been at Peloton for a year. She goes into this new position and she’s been working on all these partnerships with music.

A lot of these artists collaborations we’ve seen, she’s had a direct hand in. Part of the cool thing is this other article that was in Forbes talks about Gwen talks about why artists should take Peloton for a spin. There was some really interesting stuff in here. One of the questions was, “What have you learned during the past two years with these artists series?” Gwen said, “We do a lot of rides around an artist catalog or a music theme. Our instructors create narratives around these events. They’re not just doing a 30-minute HIIT workout programmed around Lady Gaga. It also happens to be personal to that instructor about the first concert they went to or something fun from the music video that brings the music alive.” In some cases like with Billie Eilish or Lizzo, sometimes the members haven’t had a chance to listen to them. It’s like bringing this whole new audience to the artists. That’s pretty exciting, which I know as riders, we’ve all speculated about, but this is proof of it.

I’ve been saying that for years. I was like, “This is a great way to help break an artist to a different demo.”

They talked about what’s next for the series. Gwen says that they’ve accelerated those artists rides up to about one a week. She references that they now have 2.6 million members. They are a digital music program, but it’s not passive listening like when you turn on your Spotify and do whatever you’re doing. This is an active engagement where you’re choosing a class because you scanned the playlist and you liked it. That’s a driver for a lot of people when they’re choosing a class. She talked about that they’re maximizing their partnerships with publishers who have worked hard to come up with agreements with. The author of the article says, “What does the Peloton partnership look like?” They said that it’s time to look at music contacts as partners that they’re looking for interesting touch points. In any given month, they might be talking about Women’s History Month or programming for pride, and that they’re big celebrations and they take them seriously.

This was fascinating this next part. She puts together artists panels. They are not public facing. That is something they’re doing for the company. They did one for Asian Heritage Month. They had Joe Hahn from Linkin Park, and a new and evolving producer, Shawn Wasabi, come in and talk about everything from their fan base to different parts of their heritage. “We talked a lot about technology. They’re designing and using a lot of tech. For that reason, they’re very interested in talking to a technology company.” That was super exciting. They also said that they’ve done a songwriter series, but they’re getting ready to do a DJ series that they’re going to start to create. It’s super exciting about all the new music stuff coming out. I am pumped. I know that was a lot of reading from an article, but I just wanted to share that with you.

It’s also great to get a peek behind the scenes of what goes into an artist series and the thought process. I think that’s fascinating. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Peloton with music artists be similar to MTV when it first started. When MTV first started, it was when they said, “We want to play videos.” The record labels were like, “How much are you going to pay us to show this video?” They were like, “You don’t charge a radio station for the record. We’re not going to pay for the video. You provide it to us.” The record labels were like, “Here’s a counter-offer, go F yourself.” Then they were like, “We’re not going to pay for anything.” All of a sudden, they were breaking artists. Like Duran Duran, part of the reason Duran Duran got played so much just was because they could get it for free. All of a sudden, that becomes a huge top 40 hit and the record labels were like, “Maybe you’re more important than we thought.”

“Now we get it.” That seems very likely on the table. Both of those articles spoke to that and without saying it so bluntly. I think that artists are starting to catch on to that. I know it’s been almost two years since we went to that event where they said, “We’re going to have an artist series,” and it was going to be Cher and Madonna and Paul McCartney. Look how many artists have come out since then with their collaborations. It’s been amazing.

We also know a lot of the artists got a Bike or Tread. They already did it.

I want to mention something else. It’s not really news, but I wanted to mention it because we had a lot of people bring up the fact that during Steven Little’s interview, F bombs were bleeped. I wanted to let you know that we have a production company that is making it possible for us to have two podcasts. They are the ones that edit the podcast. We have a thing that we have to do when we load it up to iTunes that says we’re clean or explicit. Since we say that we’re clean, they are trying to keep it that way. They don’t reach out to us for every cuss word and say, “Can we leave this one in?” I think the reason that one was left in is because I think like you’re allowed one just like you are on TV. They could have missed it. I don’t know. I didn’t ask them because it wasn’t that big of a deal. You all crack me up that you are so stressed about us bleeping out the F bombs.

I remember when I was in radio back in the day, there was a commercial and it was a national spot. They bleeped it out. What they were trying to say was, and it was for Ozzfest and it was, “When Ozzfest comes to town, it’s going to be the fucking shit.” They bleeped out F but they didn’t bleep out shit. It ran for two weeks before anybody noticed. You hear the first bleep and you just assume the other one got bleeped. Then finally we were like, “Wait a second.” Then there was the time Interscope sent us This Slim Shady EP and the radio edit. The whole album was completely edited for radio. Whoever was in charge of editing it had no idea that you couldn’t say shit on the radio. They left in every single one. That was a lot.

For all of you that’s asked, nothing’s changed. We haven’t changed the podcast. It was just lack of communication because the people who edit, who do a wonderful job and we thank them by the way, there’s so much stuff that they take out and make it sound good for you guys. You just don’t even know.

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This is becoming a weekly segment. We had another stock market high for Peloton.

I just felt like I had to say something. This is crazy up to $63 today. So far today, the highest it’s gotten is $63.08. It’s just been going gangbusters. The next Earnings Call is August 12th. I am looking forward to hearing that. That is going to be great.

I think the whole Earnings Call is just going to be 45 minutes of John Foley giggling.

I think it’s just going to be one mic drop right at the beginning. They’re going to sound giddy, that’s for sure and they deserve it.

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Joining us is Dr. Jenn Mann, Licensed Marriage, Family and Child Therapist and Sports Psychology Consultant. You may know her from VH1’s Couples Therapy with Dr. Jenn or VH1’s Family Therapy with Dr. Jenn, her long running radio show, The Dr. Jenn Show. She’s written four bestselling books including The Relationship Fix: Dr. Jenn’s 6-Step Guide to Improving Communication, Connection & Intimacy, and throwing this one in, a five-year national team member of the Rhythmic Gymnastics and Sports Psychology for USA Gymnastics. How about all that?

I’ve been a busy lady. What can I say?

You’re finding time for us.

Because we share an obsession for Peloton.

I’m so glad we do.

Two out of three isn’t that bad.

I’m getting very tired of me talking about my spin class and Olivia did this and Matty did that. I had to talk to someone else who’s on the Bike. I’m always ready to nag you to get on the Bike.

That’s a good lead into this week’s topic, which is not to say that this is what’s happening specifically, but what to do if your significant other is less than enthusiastic about your workout regimen or a jerk.

You say not so enthusiastic about your workout. Are we talking about the kind of partner who is like, “I wish you wouldn’t work out, come sit on the couch with me and watch TV,” or like, “I love to do rowing, but I don’t want you on your bike. Come row with me?”

We’re talking about the one sitting on the couch.

The first one, the one that’s almost actively or passively-aggressively sabotaging your exercise efforts.

What do we do with them?

In a situation like that, the first thing to do is to address that concern about the sabotage, to be able to say to your partner, “I love you and you love me. All the studies show that my exercising is going to make me live longer. I feel like you’re not supporting me doing something that is going to add longevity to my life. What’s going on? Why might you be making that choice?” The part two is also to ask the question, “If your working out has changed something in the relationship, what is it?” Is it maybe now you’re neglecting your partner because you’re spending hours working out? Then you’re talking with your friends who are working out like you and you’re ignoring your partner. Or is your partner threatened that maybe you’ve gotten really fit and you’re feeling really good about yourself and it’s changed the dynamics in the relationship? What’s going on in the dynamics of the relationship and to look at both sides of it. Not just be like, “He’s a jerk, he’s sabotaging me,” but instead just say, “What shifted our relationship that might not feel good to him or her? What might I be doing differently that might be bringing up things for him or her that might make him or her not want me to workout so much?”

This is bringing up a lot of stuff for me. My ex-husband actually, he was selfish. He wanted my attention all the time. It was a very co-dependent relationship. I met him when I was super young, so I didn’t really know how to extricate myself or make it healthier. I don’t really know how to add onto your question, but when you were talking, I was seeing my own experience.

What you bring up is really important because what happens in a relationship is that we have a lot of unspoken agreements. It sounds like part of the unspoken agreement with you guys was that you give him this attention and this focus and you neglect yourself. That was probably something that you didn’t think twice about that because you were young, you didn’t know better. It sounds like it was your first big relationship that you went along with that. At some point, you probably had a realization like, “My self-care is suffering. This doesn’t feel good. This doesn’t feel like a loving choice to myself or to the relationship. This feels like obligation. This feels probably controlling.” In most relationships that lasts more than a year, there ends up needing to be some re-negotiation spoken or unspoken about the dynamics of the relationship.

I was on Instagram where people were posting about how Peloton has changed their lives and how it’s changed themselves, and how it’s changed their energy and their this and that. When you take on something that becomes something that you’re so passionate about, that takes time, whether you’re working out 20 minutes a day, 1 hour a day, 2 hours a day, whatever it is, it causes a ripple effect. Part of that ripple effect is the relationship. When you add something to your life, whether it’s Peloton or art class or photography or training for a new career or working new hours at your job or a baby, all of those things, even when they’re good things, they cause shifts in the relationship. It means that you have to renegotiate the dynamics of the relationship. To be able to say like, “I hadn’t really thought about it, but now that I’m working out an hour a day, it probably feels like a loss to you that you’re not seeing me as much, or that I’m really focused on this. That must be really hard for you.” Sometimes even having empathy for your partner can help change the dynamics.

There are still times to this day when you’re apologetic to me for going downstairs to hop on the Bike or the Tread. I have to be like, “That’s fine. You’re allowed to go do something by yourself. It’s okay.”

I think that’s a great example. We also do oftentimes take our history with us in our new relationship and make assumptions about how our partner’s going to react or how we should be handling things. It’s important to have those conversations and to be able to say like, “Tom, sometimes I feel guilty when I go downstairs. Am I projecting? Is this something I’m making up in my head? Is this something that you’re really experiencing?”

Then I would say, “I’m watching. This is the best time to do it. I’m watching the TV. I’m watching The Godfather, take all the time you need.” Thank you so much for joining us again. Until next time, where can people find you?

People can find me on social media on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and even TikTok, @DrJennMann.

Thank you.

—

A little update from the world of Whoop.

I’m really excited about this. Whoop for the first time is going to have an ability to sync with Strava, with your heart rate. That’s a big deal. That’s a whole lot of things working together. Strava has their own issues. They ticked me off. That’s a whole other thing. I’m not going to get into that. This allows you to pull in your information. If you do a lot of different activities, now you’re going to be able to see your heart rate. For example, if I use Strava, I really only use Strava for the Bike or the Tread. Maybe if I do an outdoor thing, that’s it. If I’m doing weightlifting, if I’m doing boxing, it doesn’t integrate. Now, Whoop will allow me to integrate my workout data with my heart rate in it, which if you care about Strava at all, you would know that it has a score that keeps track of what your heart rate did over the week. This allows me to have it all in one place. The problem is it also feeds in from Garmin. There are going to be double digits. I’m going to have stuff coming in from Garmin and from Strava. I’ve got to figure that out. That’s a whole different story. Anyway, it’s cool. Trust me, Tom.

I take your word for it. We have a contest going on.

This one is going fast. We have three weeks left.

It’s probably our shortest one. You only got three more weeks and it’s your chance to win a FightCamp personal gym.

Also one whole year of membership.

You’re good for 365 days.

Everything you need shows up at your door.

It’s pretty simple. You just go to theclipout.com/fightcamp and you answer a question. Every week, that question changes. You can typically find the answers either maybe in an old episode of The Clip Out where we talked about FightCamp a little bit or on their website or YouTube page. Who knows? It will bounce around a little bit, but we’ll give you hints too. Also while you’re there, you have all sorts of opportunities for extra entries, whether it’s going in FightCamp on Facebook or Crystal on Instagram. You could win your own FightCamp, personal gym, especially right now everybody’s looking for something a little different. Everyone wants to build their home gym out because maybe you don’t want to go to a real gym.

One of my favorite things about FightCamp is it comes to your door. You don’t need a delivery person to come into your home and set it up. You can do it all yourself. It’s super easy. I’m going to go ahead and put this out there. I did a video review on FightCamp where I talk about the different ways you can fill up the base. If you’re not sure how you would do that, how it would fit into your home, go check that out. It’s on our YouTube channel. Be nice because it was my first video.

If you want to enter the contest, theclipout.com/fightcamp. If you want to know even more about FightCamp, go to JoinFightCamp.com. The super trendy Soul Cycle is now letting you ride a bike in a tent. It’s a very fancy tent.

I don’t see how a tent could be that fancy.

It’s got a Paisley print.

I don’t know what Soul Cycle is thinking. I’ll be honest. This is a terrible idea. They’re opening a tent in the Hamptons and they’re very excited about it. They’re charging you $50 per Bike, to ride a bike in the hot sun.

My guess is they probably have a fancy air-conditioned tent because it is the Hamptons.

If you want to reserve it two weeks before the class, $65.

Instead of an early bird discount, there’s an early bird upcharge. That’s different.

I think everything about this is a terrible idea.

What’s it normally cost to ride a Soul Cycle?

I have no idea. That could be perfect for the Hamptons for all. That might be normal. People talk about how Peloton or Tonal or any of this connected fitness that you do at home are so expensive and inaccessible. Then they charge $50 for one freaking ride. Nobody says anything about that. What is happening? I’m can’t believe that. $50 covers everything you need for an entire month of Peloton.

You don’t have to pay extra if you buy your bike early. We have some cool news from Tunde.

I am so stoked about this. This article is all about her beauty routine and there are tons of makeup tips in here, which people are super excited about. Tunde is dropping a new lipstick line. I am so incredibly stoked about this. She has the most amazing lip colors. You remember when we interviewed her and she was like, “There are 50 things on there?” I can’t wait to see this lipstick line. I reached out to her. She said it’s going to be a little bit before it goes live. For everyone who’s asked me, I don’t know. I will tell you when I know. When have I ever held back, guys? I tell you things.

You held back in that. You go and buy your stuff first, then you tell people.

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I tell them as soon as I’m done shopping. It doesn’t take me long.

Just $200 later, that’s how long it will take.

That’s like 30 seconds. It’s okay.

Peloton has a new artist series around the Grateful Dead. I love my classic rock and I’ve got to tell you, I hate the Grateful Dead.

They do nothing for me. I cannot stand the Grateful Dead. I find them annoying. I don’t know what it is. I love classic rock, but this one just doesn’t do it for me.

Obviously, lots of people love the Grateful Dead.

There are many super fans of the Grateful Dead. I know Jenn Sherman is one of them. She’s talked about the Grateful Dead and how much she loves them. She is going to be doing a ride. It actually takes place today, Wednesday, July 8th. It will be at 7:30 PM Eastern. Andy Speer is doing a run on July 9th at 7:00 PM Eastern. Kristin McGee is doing a Flow on Wednesday, July 9th at 6:00 PM. I just realized that it says the Yoga Flow will be on Wednesday, July 9th. I’m pretty sure they mean Thursday, July 9th at 6:00 PM Eastern. I know that people are super excited about this and it’s the 50th anniversary of the Workingman’s Dead. You guys enjoy. I’m sitting this one out.

Before we get to this week’s interview, we should probably do a little housekeeping here.

I think that we should. Ty reached out to us this week and let us know that they have changed the name from Tour de Peloton, to simply The Tour. I guess Peloton reached out to them and ask them to change their name because they were using Peloton in their name.

We wanted to point that out that they have changed their name. If you go looking for them and has a different name, and if someone from Peloton happens to be reading, this interview was recorded two weeks ago and they’re not being jerks.

In fact, Ty went out of his way to say how wonderful Peloton was to work with throughout this process. They were top-notch. They were very professional. He had nothing negative to say about Peloton. I don’t want anyone thinking that this is him complaining or anything like that. He had nothing but wonderful things to say. As I say later on, good luck to all of you doing the tours and enjoy it. It’s a cool thing to do. Ty seems to be a really top-notch person. I like how he runs his group. I think it’s really cool how he’s handled everything.

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Joining us is Ty Audronis. How is it going, Ty?

It’s going pretty good. How about you guys?

We’re okay, I reckon.

We can’t complain. There are lots of good things too. I was trying to focus on the positive, Tom. Way to bring it down. Ty, how did you originally find Peloton?

It was Christmas 2017, my then wife and I were walking through the Houston Galleria. I was looking at Teslas and right next door was the Peloton store. She begged me to get her a Peloton for Christmas, so I did. I made her a deal. I said, “If this thing ends up with clothes hanging on it, we’re selling it.” Two weeks later, it had clothes hanging on it. I decided to try it and I liked it.

She didn’t ride it? She didn’t like it?

She didn’t like it and I got it in the divorce.

Who knew that that would be such a pivotal moment? Tom and I each have our own stories about purchases leading up to divorces. That was in 2017, and you’ve been riding the whole time. Once you got on, you never looked back. Have you been all in?

That’s not entirely true. I started riding. I tried it and I liked it. I would ride once a week or once every couple of weeks. Up until February of 2018, I started hanging out with a bunch of riders online. The peer pressure got to me and I started riding more.

We’ve talked about that all the time how the community counterintuitively, because you bought a bike, you didn’t have to go hang out with people. It can pull you in, in a way that you didn’t anticipate.

It’s the most positive peer pressure. If you’re going to have peer pressure to be healthy, that’s a good peer pressure to have.

I had written my fourth book. I like to say that I had a body by author. I started seriously writing. I lost 60 pounds in six months just on Peloton.

Did you change your diet during that time period too?

I did a diet that I like to call OMAD OBAD, which is One Meal A Day and One Bottle A Day of wine. I’m serious. I did it for several months.

Do you only eat one meal a day?

There were snacks. I would eat hard-boiled eggs. I’m also Type-1 diabetic, so I couldn’t go full Keto because that would kill me. Keto for Type-1 diabetic is bad. That’s what got me riding. I started looking through the instructors and I noticed Robin also has Type-1 diabetes because of the little sugar sensor on her arm. I have one too.

One of the audience that we chat with quite often, Eric Goodman, has one as well. Do you have the exact same kind, the little port?

I don’t have the same kind. Mine is part of my insulin pump that gives me an insulin drip.

I find those little gizmos fascinating. I’m a nerd about it. Your fitness level with Peloton completely changed. You then went from one end of the spectrum to the other.

I did my 100th ride a few months ago and I did my 600th ride.

It sounds like you’re all-in.

The Tour has definitely helped with that.

For people who may not know what the Tour is, what is the Tour de Peloton? How did it come about?

The Tour is simple. We have several tours. The original is all 23 instructors. It’s any ride you want from all instructors. The app people don’t have access to change their language options. In their case, they’re doing 22 instructors, but that turns out to be a little longer. Irene’s English ride, her shortest is 30 minutes.

Does that number include past instructors that are no longer or is that current instructors?

That’s every instructor that they have to offer including JJ, Steven Little, and Christian.

Those are all bike instructors.

Yes, they are all bike instructors. Although we are going to be doing a variation. I’ve teased it out a little bit inside of Olivia’s group and inside of our group. If you’ve seen our logo, it has a person on a bike. The new tour is going to be a tour to thread and it’s a person running on the trip.

What inspired this?

I told you that I’m no longer married. On Valentine’s Day, I came home to find my wife gone and my house looked like it had been ransacked. All the bank accounts, including the 401(k) were emptied. On top of that, I had moved out to Texas from California. I was in the film industry and pretty much all entertainment. I’m a musician. I moved out to Texas for her career. There’s no film industry in Texas. It’s completely stranded. It has been rough. I couldn’t find work. I couldn’t even get entry-level jobs because let’s face it, people in Texas don’t like Hollywood people. I’m pretty much typical Hollywood. I could not find a job at all. February 28th, my dad had a stroke on top of all of it. With all this COVID stuff, I couldn’t go and see him. It was severe. He got life-flighted between two hospitals. They didn’t expect that he’d make it. March 4th is my mom’s birthday. I was desponded. I didn’t think I would survive doing the Tour.

I haven’t tried every instructor. I didn’t ride Cody. I only used Christine for warm-ups and cool downs. I’m going to give every single instructor a shot. I had budgeted two hours to do all 23 instructors. I’m going through and I’m like, “This instructor doesn’t have any five-minute classes.” The shortest is 30-minutes. It took me about three hours to get it all done. I didn’t think anybody would want to do it. I thought everybody would make fun of me and say, “Five-minute rides, aren’t really rides.” There’s a lot of that going on out there.

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This is a little different. It’s designed to be a longer thing. That’s a collection of five-minute ride or maybe not all five minutes.

It has a larger purpose. You’re not doing a five-minute ride and calling it your exercise for the day. Although there are people that do that and have valid reasons for doing so. I’m not shaming them either. That’s not what you’re doing.

Granted, there have been days in my past where I’ve only had five minutes to spare, so I’m glad those counted as rides. If Peloton didn’t want them to count as rides, they wouldn’t count them as rides. My opinion is anybody that thinks they shouldn’t, they’re free to invent their own bike. I like to call it the dim sum of rides. I finished that thing up and I posted it in a couple of groups. A woman named Brittany Logan rode right away. She and I have been in the same circle of people. She loved it, and then Jill Federici jumped on. She did it and raved about it. I don’t know if you know who Jill is, but she is an animal. She did her 2,000th ride. I cannot keep up with that woman, not even close. She is an animal on the bike. I asked her, “Do you want to start a group?” We started the group.

That was in March of 2020?

That was March 14th.

How many people do you have in your group?

We crossed 11,000. We’re averaging about 100 new additions a day.

Do you have any tips?

It’s a lot of work. It’s pretty much my full-time job. We started the group. My best friend, Jennifer Barker joined in with the admins and so did Larry Meador. I’m sure a lot of people out there know Larry. Ad Dad is his leaderboard name. He’s the only guy in one of the Mom’s groups. He’s like an honorary mom. Everybody loves this guy. Jennifer found out that I was having even worse financial trouble. She posted to the group, “Let’s help this guy out.” Everybody did and she raised $6,000 quickly. That got me all caught up on my bills and I was providing t-shirts. I thought this group was going to be like maybe 10 or 15 people.

The first version of swag that we did was a picture of all the instructors and it said, “Tour de Peloton.” We figured we’d all have these t-shirts be 10 or 15 people. Peloton wouldn’t do anything about that. It was just a fan group. We hit 1,000 our first weekend. I immediately took that swag off the store and I was like, “No way.” I wasn’t making any profit of it, to be perfectly clear. Everybody started getting on me, “You’re not making any money. You’re barely able to pay your bills. Make a profit of this stuff.” I make no bones about it. The swag, I do make a profit of. That’s what pays my bills. If people want to know one of the reasons why the group is successful, there are a lot of reasons. One of the reasons we’re able to run it successfully is it’s my full-time job.

It’s growing on itself because you keep putting more resources into it.

We have a website. We come out with a new clothing line every week or two. We’re going to put metals up in our store. Instead of these badges that you see on everybody’s avatar, they’re going to be able to get metals like you would get from your 5K or whatever.

That is refreshing because there are a lot of groups that are out there. I’m not going to pick on anybody in particular, but there are a lot of groups that they’re not 100% clear about what they’re doing with that money. Why they’re doing, what they’re doing with that money, etc., I find that very refreshing. You’re like, “I’m making a living off of this.” Good for you. I have no problem with that. I support that a million percent.

I was very critical of one of those groups. I think we were both talking about the same people. I was very critical openly about those groups. That’s one of the reasons why I’m very open about where the money goes. I was completely against making any profit until everybody in the group pressured me to. I don’t make a ton off of each item. Everybody is great about ordering stuff. We make some awesome gear. I have a big background in design. I worked for Frog Design during the dot-com. They are one of the top industrial design firms in the world. We designed some killer gear.

There’s nothing wrong with making money off of it. I think where people get a little squeamish is not knowing the details behind it. I have a question. I know this comes up all the time for Peloton or in groups that are associated with Peloton. Are you using the Peloton logo or are you using your own designs that have nothing to do with the Peloton logo?

We are completely our own design. We noticed that in Peloton logo, that P is one problem. Additionally, they have their logo to where they’re all blocked text and all caps. We steered completely away from that. We went with script font. We went with a very abstract logo that has a man riding the bike. It’s very European looking. It’s nowhere near anything that looks like Peloton. In case anybody’s ever concerned about using the word Peloton, it just means group.

You have no idea how much that gives me comfort having this conversation with you. There are a lot of groups that crossed some lines. I know it’s hard because there’s so much demand to have instructor quotes or have that Peloton P on everything. It’s easy to go there. My props to you for steering clear of that and understanding why that needs to be kept separate.

I told you where I used to work. If I ever moved back to California, I would never work again if I got caught up in some copyright infringement stuff. I’ve been very careful about that.

I understand your point. I’m glad that there’s a good reason behind all the things you’re doing. In general, because I love the brand Peloton so much, I personally cannot say enough good things about how you’re handling it.

I don’t know if you’ve noticed in our logo. There are a couple of interesting things that when people look at it closely, it also says, “You are Peloton.” It also says, “Our Peloton.” If you look at it very closely, the U and the R in tour are much larger than the O. The O, U and R is underlined in red.

That’s very clever. I am a little oblivious to things like that. It irritates Tom because he picks up on stuff like that all the time. He has not seen your graphics, but he would have noticed that right off the bat. Me, not so much. I’m completely dense.

My mom used to own a printing company. She would buy the paper from a company called Xpedx. She was shopping with them for years, spinning tens of thousands of dollars on paper. It’s a printing company. One day I was like, “Their logo reads the same way upside down.” She’s like, “What?”

I fell in love with design, especially on logos and doing funny things with text to put hidden meanings in it. When I first saw the cover for the Escape album by Journey. There’s this weird abstract thing that looks like numbers on it but if you turn it sideways, it says journey.

If you’re going to go with cool rock band logo, we’re going to go into the classic rock road. That’s my wheelhouse. The Dio logo, if you read it right, it says devil. There’s also a not very well-known band that was signed to Kiss’ record label Casablanca called Angel. They have a great song called the Tower. Their logo, unlike Xpedx, it’s Angel but it reads upside down the same way. Imagine the thought that has to go into making the word Angel.

I have a tattoo like that. In the Navy, I went and got a tattoo in Tia Juana. It says light right side up, and death right upside down. At least it did. Now, it just says roo-roo.

Is it working to keep you afloat at this time? Is that a good system for you?

I am able to pay my bills. I’m not the only one doing this. Jill, Larry, and Jennifer are all working their butts off. I do want to talk a little bit about Jill’s Tour of instructors in a bit. At some point I would like to be making enough to kick down some cash to the moderators, Michael Garzon and Kelley Harper, as well as Jill, Larry, and Jen. They are working their butts off. I couldn’t do it without them.

That’s a wise road to go down to, making sure everybody’s getting paid and fair. You seem like a very fair person. That means a lot to me. I like fair people. It’s been a good thing for me. I know that there are a ton of different tours. Do you want to talk about those at all?

We’ve got the original tour, which I talked about. We’ve got the Tour de Pelo-Tens, which is the same thing as the regular tour, except you can’t take any rides that are less than ten minutes. Your ride list is still completely up to you as long as you do every single instructor.

I thought that might have been a homage to our first four episodes where we were saying the name wrong.

I think we said something very different. I don’t even know what we said anymore. In our defense, this was before there were stores or online or ads on TV.

There was no media blitz. We had never heard it said.

Keep in mind, we live in St. Louis, Missouri. It’s not like we saw this or heard this. We lived in New York City and walking down the street. We went into the studio.

It’s only been within the last few months that you don’t have to explain what it is to people around you.

Between a few months to a year at this point because the store has been open here in St. Louis for a year.

Maybe a little bit long but before people around here caught up.

We’re a little slower in the Midwest. You’re in Texas, you should know that.

We have three Peloton stores within driving distance of me.

We don’t. It took forever to get ours. You’re in a different area.

After the Pelo-Tens, we have the Tour de Instructors. We have 23 different rides or 23 different tours. Each of those tours gives you a star on the badge. If you’re going the medal route, it gives you a dog tag. Once you complete all 23, you can buy the big medal. Each of those is a specific list of classes and there’s a reason behind it. It’s Jill’s baby. Each one of the instructor tours has in it at its peak, because they’re formed like a pyramid ride or a ladder where it’s 5, 10, 20, and 30 then back down.

The middle one is always a music artists series. You can get your artists series badge for riding that ride. The one I did was Jenn Sherman’s Billy Joel ride. There’s always a little bit of a flavor of climb, some intervals, a warm-up, and a cool down. They’re not structured just as a ladder with random rides. We structure them specifically because we want to give you the accurate flavor of that instructor. That goes back to when I originally did the first tour, which was I wanted to experience every instructor.

When you say that Jill chooses specific classes, what is her thought process beyond time and the music? Is there other rhyme or reason to the classes why they’re chosen? Is it a special ride to her or is it because it has a certain endurance to it or something else completely?

Some of them are rides that are typical of that instructor. I can’t talk about that one because it’s not released yet. Robin is probably the toughest one we’ve done so far, but I believe it’s been weeks since I did the Robin one. There’s a “Together we go far” in there. You get a real accurate feel for the instructor. All of the different types of rides they do. When we did Christine, for instance, we had her Pink ride in there. She’s dressed like some vampire chick. That’s my favorite ride that I’ve ever taken. I’m so glad that she chose that ride. To be perfectly honest, Christine wasn’t my thing. I loved her for warm-up and cool-down. I had respect for her because she’s one of the only two instructors that’s an actual cyclist. It just wasn’t my thing. Riding that Pink ride, I love Christine now. She’s great.

Right there is the best reason of all.

That’s a great example of why you’re doing what you do.

The instructors are starting to notice too. Several of them have commented on our posts on Instagram. I don’t want to call out any names. At one point, one of them mentioned us in one of their posts.

Do you track the popularity of each tour? Do you know which is the most popular, which is not as popular?

You’re going to think I’m a total nerd. We have to sign a registration form so that we can verify who’s ridden the rides. We do spot check to make sure that people aren’t taking breaks because that’s one of our things. You’re not allowed to take breaks between each individual class. When you start on a tour, you go straight through to the end.

My respect for you is going up every time you talk. I am so impressed with you. That’s amazing. Seriously, it’s the little things. I appreciate that about people.

That’s great that there’s some sort of better quality control to make sure people are doing the things that they’re supposed to do. It’s not just a lecture, “We’ll sell you a medal.”

We check and we even check for duplicate entries. We spot check their rides. We’ve had to throw out a couple of people for gaming the system. Our big thing is we don’t care if you’re following the letter of our rules. You have to follow the spirit of them. If people try to get through on technicalities or whatever, we’re like, “Yes, neat. Bye.” That being said, out of the 11,000 people, we’ve only thrown out a handful. People are generally good. Here’s some of our statistics if you’re interested. We have 4,563 total number of tours that have been logged, which means there have been 66,014 classes taken on the Peloton platform using our tours. The 38.2% of those are standard tours, 4.7% are Peloton, Robin accounts for 6.2%, Cody accounts for 15.3%, Tunde is 5.7%, Leanne is 3.9%, JJ is 5.6%, Alex is 6.0%, Hannah Frankson is 2.5%, Christine is 4.5%, Steven Little is 2.5%, Olivia is 3.3%, Jenn Sherman is 1.42%. Those are all of them that we’ve released so far of our instructor tours. All of our members can look at these stats at any given time because they’re up on the website. We use a Google form to register everybody. Using my Excel nerdiness, we programmed all the pie graph and stuff.

Tell me about the badges and the dog tags.

We’ve got three things going on. The badges are graphics that people can put up on their avatar on Facebook or on their profile picture on their Peloton. At first, we were photoshopping those on for everybody. One weekend we got a total of 400 rides each day and we’re capable of doing about 50 that way. We’re like, “No, this can’t work anymore.” We came up with the idea of doing it using the Facebook frames architecture. We created Facebook frames that people can keep piling on the stars or doing whatever. We use an honor system much like the military. In the military, you can walk into a uniform shop on base and you can buy any medal you want. If you’re caught wearing the thing and you didn’t earn it, you’re done. Stolen valor is a big deal.

We also spot check every once in a while. If I’m out there and I see somebody is wearing badges and I don’t remember seeing them in the spreadsheet, I’ll check the spreadsheet. I had one, and the lady was like, “I didn’t know what it meant.” I gave her a chance and said, “Fix it, please.” In general, if we catch somebody doing that, then they’ll be out. For that reason, nobody has been bad in our group. We haven’t had any of the normal growing pains of trolls. We clean people out pretty quickly that showed the signs. There aren’t many of them. People seem to genuinely like the Tour.

It will probably become self-policing that you’re spot checking, but I bet you enough people are seeing it. If they see somebody that they’re skeptical of, they’ll probably do a little checking on their own.

The spreadsheet is there for everybody to see. One of the things that we used to do with badges was when we were Photoshopping, we’d put a little x3 or x4, whichever ride that they did. Some of these people had nothing better to do. They were riding a tour a day. We can’t do that using the Facebook frames architecture. What we’re going to allow is if they rode for regular tours, they can buy for regular medals. An interesting thing also is if you do the tour to Peloton, it counts as an original also because that gives you another original. It’s one of the questions we get a lot when people are doing their badges using the frames. They’re like, “Why can’t I just do a tens? Why does it also give me the original?” People are honest in our group because you earned an original too.

That’s nice that people ask you and that they care. I forgot to ask this when you were talking about the tours, especially the ones that Jill has designed because they’re instructor specific. What happens when Pelo-Tens deletes classes? That happens fairly regularly.

That threw a big wrench into our system with JJ because they purged JJ. We had to switch our order. We rushed JJ to the front of the line and got her out there because we didn’t know if they were going to stop at 71 rides for her because that’s all that she has. If they were going to continue and erase her from existence because there are a lot of rumors out there on how she lapsed. We have no idea what’s going to happen. We rushed to get her out there and we had to change the ride list because several of the rides that Jill had outlined were no longer there. With the thing in mind that if they delete JJ, then that’s going to become a limited edition star. If they eliminate any of the rides on her deal, I don’t want to announce publicly how we’re going to handle that. We will handle it and we’ll be very fair about it.

Based on what we’ve heard, there’s no reason to think that they wouldn’t be fair.

You’ve been very consistently fair.

You said you’ve written four books. What books do you write?

They’re not fiction. The first book I wrote was on doing 3D animation using a plugin called Element 3D Then the second book I wrote was on designing drones for shooting for cinema because I’m also on the advisory board for the Society of Aerial Cinematography. The third book I wrote was on doing video games using a system called Buildbox. The final book I wrote was also a drone book. It was about building purpose-built drones and not all of them are like aerial. One of them in the book is a duck decoy I built that autonomously goes around a pond and avoids obstacles and another one’s like a golf trolley that follows you around the golf course.

You don’t sit still much, do you?

I’ve had this philosophy throughout my whole life that is, “A day that I haven’t learned something is a day I haven’t lived.”

I’m a big movie nerd. It’s fascinating how much drones have changed how movies and television looks. There are many shots that before they cost tens of thousands of dollars if not more that you can now get for a few hundred bucks. You can’t watch an episode of Dateline without seeing a drone shot. Every time they’re like, “This sleepy village.”

The average drone pilot costs $500 to $700 a day. I’m a bit more expensive than that. That’s for the whole day. It was all his own gear and everything. You’re hiring the helicopter and that is about $5,000 an hour. That includes the time it takes them to fly out there. They’re then sitting on the ground. If you want to rent the little mount for the front of the helicopter that’s called a Space Cam, that’s $1 million deposit. It gets very expensive.

A lot of those helicopter shots don’t even look very good. If you watch the opening scene of The Shining, there’s a great shot where they’re driving up the mountain, and it’s a helicopter shot. It’s Stanley Kubrick. The guy knows how to make a movie but it’s the limitations of the technology. You can still tell he’s in the helicopter because they couldn’t completely get rid of that vibration. I’m sure they can now, but in 1980 when that movie came out, they couldn’t. To watch it with a modern day eye, it looks shaky, which is unusual because he’s one of the greatest filmmakers of all time.

Here’s a little bit of trivia for you. Ironically, that movie made the steady cam famous.

I thought it was Rocky. I thought it was the running up the steps and Rocky was the first.

No, that’s going in through the window with the steady cam. The Shining was way bigger deal. It wasn’t the invention of the steady cam, but it made it famous and more mainstream. Also, that same shot you’re talking about driving through the hills. That’s used on one of the many releases of Blade Runner at the end.

Is that the unicorn shot?

They’re driving with the top down convertible through the hills. It’s the same exact shot and the same exact piece of film.

I’m surprised he let them do that. In 2001, he destroyed the sets so they couldn’t repurpose them for other science fiction movies. I’m surprised that he didn’t have a way to stop them from doing that.

He may have directed and produced it but the studio owns the copyrights. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have Ready Player One.

That’s why he destroyed the sets from 2001, so he didn’t have to deal with that. We got on film nerd stuff.

What else about the group do we not know? What do you want to make sure that everybody knows about Tour de Peloton?

Tour de Peloton, you’re going to hear a bunch of groups say this, but we really mean it. Not that they don’t, but we try to keep everything positive in our group. You’re allowed to express your opinions as long as you don’t bash instructors, the Peloton brand, and each other. It’s a cool place to be. We try to police it to be what we all wish the rest of the Peloton social media was like.

I love that. That’s great to hear. I’ve spent a lot of time in the OPP.

What’s your leaderboard name?

It is TY_U_UP.

Is there a story we should know about?

I run a few different groups. I let one of these groups vote on my name and that was the least bad of all the options.

I’m sure it’s probably not what your parents had in mind when they named you.

My legal name is Tyris. It’s not Tyler or anything like that. Tyris means seeker of truth. My last name means violent death storm so I tell everybody, “Don’t lie to me.”

You are not messing around. At least you’re fair to other people. They have no reason to mess with you.

Those are the people though that they’re fair, but when they feel like you’ve been unfair, it’s on like donkey.

I try to steer. I’ve got a bad rep because one of the groups that I run, some of the people that were in that group went a little overboard. Shall we say in OPP? Because I was the face of the group, I got a bad rep. I do try to be fair above all else. That’s one of the mottos in my life and it made me smile to hear you say that I sounded fair. That’s what I try to do.

I’m curious what group gave you a bad rep?

The name is different now. I can say what the old name was because we run it like a fight club. You don’t talk about it. The old name was a Pelo Underground.

Was it also called Peloton After Dark?

That’s another group. I do know the people in that group. Several of my friends are in that group and it’s very much like After Dark. It is also not Peloton Underground. It was Pelo Underground. We didn’t even know Peloton Underground or some people call it PUG existed when we changed our name to Pelo Underground. We were trying to find an easy domain name.

Which would you say is your favorite instructor since you’ve ridden with so many?

That’s tough. When I went to New York, I’d done the New York studio twice with Jess King, and I love her to death. I have to tell you my favorite is Leanne. A lot of people, she is not their favorite because they say she talks too much or they don’t like her voice. I love her voice and how positive she is. She is gorgeous.

I know what you mean. All the instructors are very attractive. We’re very lucky that we get to watch those instructors. That’s definitely true.

I’m surprised that they’re good on the bike because they’re all dancers. There are no actual cyclists.

It’s the rhythm.

There’s something about ridding in the studio. I did my 300th ride in December with Jennifer in the studio and that was for Jess King’s 2,000th ride. Doing that same ride at home, I don’t do as well as I did in the studio. When you’re in the studio, there’s a whole different vibe.

There’s a theory too that some instructors are good at speaking to the camera and people at home. Some instructors are good at speaking to the room. All instructors have both of those abilities in general, but some of them are super great at talking to the group in the room, and some of those are super great at talking to the people at home. There can be a different vibe. Any kind of special event happening, the studio is lit up with energy. You can feel that energy at home during some special events. Being there in studio does change it from the vibe standpoint.

When starting out in Peloton, do not be afraid to try new things. Share on X

Have you guys noticed the difference in the studio because of Brad? You guys know who Brad is, the guy that dresses in the crazy outfits.

We interviewed him. He’s been on the show.

After he became a thing, I’ve been in the studio before Brad or let’s call it BB and AB, Before Brad and After Brad. They’ve turned down the lights on the people that are in the gallery.

There’s not as much of a spotlight anymore.

You can’t tell definition. I look at me on that 2,000th ride and I am right up in front in the Brad spot and you can’t tell it’s me. Whereas on the old ride that I did, you can totally tell it was me and I wasn’t even close to that area.

I wonder what the new studio will be like because it has such a different feel in general, the lighting and everything. I’m curious what that will look like when we get to see people in it.

That was a bummer for me because the day of my 500th is when they shut that down. I was all set to take Robin’s ride and they shut it down. I was like, “No. I’m 500th.”

They might have saved your life.

How dare they make me inconvenient.

I have it worse than you because I only get to go once a year and now, I don’t get to go at all.

I hope they reopen it. I hope the new normal isn’t like no live rides at all.

Did you see the announcement that they’re going to be starting up rides in the studio again? It’s going to be closed still. They’re going to keep doing some live at home, but also start filming in the studio again.

I love the set. The lighting in there is spectacular. The camera angles are perfect. I love the new low camera angle. That’s always like a risk because you’re worried about being lewd. It’s at the perfect angle to where you’re not doing an upskirt shot. You’re doing this quarter angle. It’s tasteful. It’s perfect.

There are still people that complain. It does not matter what you do, somebody has a differing opinion. I’ve heard mostly positive things about it, but when it first flipped over, there were people that it was such a big change. It took a little bit of adjustment for them.

I rode Robin’s together. We go far the first one in the new studio. I was like, “I love it.”

Do you have any advice for people starting out on the Peloton?

Do not be afraid to try new things. We’ve had several people in the tour that just bought their bike and got it delivered. They jumped right in and did it. It’s all in your mind. Don’t be afraid to try harder rides. Don’t be afraid to push yourself. You’re not going to like it at first. Your body’s going to say, “I don’t want to do this bicycle thing anymore.” Push past that and you will fall in love with it. You’re going to love it. Make sure you eat right and stay hydrated.

Remind everybody where they can find you and your group.

I’m Ty Audronis. You can find me on Facebook. My website is Audronis.com. Toward the Peloton is a Facebook group. We’re not hidden or anything. All you’ve got to do is look for Tour de Peloton. Our website is TourPeloton.com.

Thank you so much for taking time out of what is clearly a busy schedule and join us.

I want to thank you guys for having me on. This is great exposure for us. You guys are a whole lot of fun. I look forward to maybe doing some stuff in the future with you all.

That would be fabulous. Thank you for running your group fairly too.

It’s better than fairly running a group.

Good luck with the job search and everything going on. Maybe somebody out there knows of some ideas for you in Texas. You never know.

That would be great. I’m not opposed to traveling either. I have my own gear. I will travel. Go onto my website and my résumé is there.

Thank you very much.

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That brings this one to a close. What pray tell do you have in store for people next week?

We are going to talk to Tracy Chou. I’m very excited about that. Tell me, where does she work now? Can you remind me? She has her own company.

She’s got an app about how to help prevent online bullying.

She also is known for helping women get noticed in advance in the technology sector. This was one of the most fascinating interviews we have ever had.

She’s really good.

You do not want to miss this.

Until next week, where can people 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’re getting your podcast from, be sure and subscribe, so you’ll never miss an episode. If you can get enough of us, check us out on The Superset, our Tonal-based podcast. That’s it for this one. Thanks for tuning in. Until next time, keep pedaling and running.