• John Mills joins us to discuss Peloton accounts disappearing without a trace.
• Harvard Business School asks if Peloton can “push through the pain.”
• Peloton’s new strength device has been canceled.
• Jenn – When the bike has lost its luster.
• Peloton renegotiates $1 billion worth of obligations.
• Peloton sweetens employee incentives.
• Apple Watch now connects to The Guide and Lanebreak.
• Multiple brokerages rate Peloton a “moderate-buy.”
• Instructors were at Essence Fest.
• Susie Chan completed an ultra marathon.
• Christine D’Ercole to host a panel at Broadway Con.
• Emma Lovewell was featured on Full Time Travel’s IG.
• Matty Maggiacomo welcomes Pixie Aventura on Out Loud.
• Adrian Williams got a new car.
• Angelo has tips for finding the caloric balance for weight loss without robbing yourself of fuel.
• The latest artist series spotlights David Guetta.
• Shape Magazine talks to Tiffani Theissen about her Peloton usage.
• Mashable reviews the Tonal.
• Whoop has data on working late.
• LG TVs are getting a fitness app.
• ICYMI – Arms With Tunde

All this plus our interview with Ian Wichman

—

Watch the episode here

 

Listen to the podcast here

 

Peloton Cancels An Upcoming Product Plus Our Interview With Ian Wichman

I was thinking we haven’t talked about in a little while the meetup that we got going on in St. Louis.

It seems like it was going to take forever to get to when we first set that up. Now it’s not that far away.

If you live in the area or if you don’t, if you don’t mind making the trip, that’s cool too. October 15th, we’re getting together for some yacht rock. If you like yacht rock, we have a show for you. It features Firefall, Orleans, The Babys, Walter Egan, John Ford Coley from England Dan & John Ford Coley. England Dan is no longer with us, and Peter Beckett from Player, Baby Come Back. It’s an evening of yacht rock classics.

What’s great about a show like this if you’ve never been to one before is that with all those bands, it’s not like it’s a nine-hour show. Peter Beckett got 2 or maybe 3 songs that you care about, not to be mean. He’ll come out and he’ll play those 2 or 3 songs, and then he will get out of the way. Walter Egan will come out and play his 2 or 3 songs.

Here’s the thing you need to explain when you say that. They all use the same instruments. You’re not sitting there waiting half an hour in between these sets. It’s a quick change.

In the industry, we call that sharing back lines. They don’t have to set up a new drum kit or anything like that. They just swap out some guitars and then they’re good to go.

It makes this party atmosphere because they come out, they play, and they have a lot of fun with the crowd. The next one comes out, they play, and they have a lot of fun with the crowd. It keeps it moving.

There are a few intermissions because we’re there to sell beer.

Absolutely, Tom. I don’t want to mislead people. I mean it keeps it moving. You’re not just sitting there.

It is a great way to see a show. It’s like other shows like the Happy Together Tour. They do stuff like that. Anyway, we would love to see you. If you want to check it out, there’s information about it in the weekly newsletter. You can find information about it in the Facebook group and all those places. It’s a relatively inexpensive ticket and we have a suite. You will have a suite with some food and whatnot while that lasts. It’s not all you can eat buffet, calm down. We would love to have you if you’re in the area and you like your yacht rock. Who doesn’t like the yacht rock?

There are a few people that are crabby about it, but it’s a lot of fun. You should come out.

What pray tell do you have in store for people? You got two major stories, big exclusives, right?

That is true. We had a visit from the Peloton Prophet. If you were a member of our Patreon community, you already know. You got an exclusive bonus episode and you would know before everybody else. We will be talking about what the Peloton Prophet had to say. We also have a story about some crazy shenanigans happening with people’s accounts disappearing. They did nothing wrong. We will be talking about that.

We also have a ton of news about what’s going on with the instructors. There are some new features that have been added. We have a visit from Dr. Jenn, and she talks about what happens if the bike has lost its appeal. It’s hard to believe but for some people, it feels like it. We have MetPro. Angelo visits and we talk about finding the caloric balance for weight loss without robbing yourself of fuel. We also have celebrity sightings and tons of things like In Case You Missed It.

Before we get to all that, shameless plugs. Don’t forget, we’re available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, iHeart, and TuneIn. Wherever you find a podcast, you’re going to find us. While you’re there, be sure and follow us so you never miss an episode. Maybe leave us a review. That’s always helpful for the people who come along after you. You can also find us on Patreon, Patreon.com/TheClipOut. For $5 a month, you can get the episodes entirely ad-free if that’s important to you.

If you want extra stuff and bonus content like the aforementioned exclusive visit from the Peloton Prophet, then you can sign up for a slightly higher level. You can also sign up for our newsletter at theclipout.com. Check out our YouTube channel at YouTube.com/TheClipOut and our Facebook community, Facebook.com/TheClipOut. While you’re there, like the page and join the group. There’s all that. Let’s dig in. Shall we?

We shall.

—

Joining us once again, he’s back, it’s John Mills. How’s it going?

What is going on?

We are glad you’re back.

Our previous week was crazy. Our schedules didn’t quite mesh up. We had to sneak out and see a movie, and then we had a work thing, but we got to see Thor.

We got to see it early. I didn’t see the first Thor. It was delightful. If anybody out there is like, “I’m not a Marvel movie person,” I can take them or leave them. I enjoy some of them. Thor is fun. It’s a fun movie.

Everybody’s going to the movies. My mother-in-law, during the pandemic, was locked in the room with a sealer around the door. Nobody can come in. She went to the movies. Everybody must be going out.

What pulled her out?

I don’t know, but when she went to the movie, I was stunned.

You were like, “It’s over.”

We’re two weeks away from trying to take our backup vacation.

Let’s see if we’ll make it without COVID to this one. Let’s see if we get to go this time.

Everybody is on pins and needles, and that needle is a vaccine needle, just to be clear. Diving into Peloton stuff since that’s what people are here for. Apparently, some people’s Peloton accounts have been completely disappearing.

I can already hear some of the old-timers being like, “What did they do?” Nothing. Overnight, it went away. There is no explanation for it. We have confirmation of this happening to two separate people. Both of these people were long-time Peloton users. Both of them have their accounts completely gone. Here’s the worst part. Peloton doesn’t know why and they can’t fix it. It’s gone forever. There’s nothing they can do.

Can you imagine? John, I don’t know if you would feel this way, but my entire identity is now wrapped up in Peloton since 2016. I have three podcasts now. I don’t even know how I would live if my account were gone.

If they lose their workout history, do they also lose their leaderboard name?

Yes.

If the game is gone, shouldn’t they be able to reclaim it?

In theory, but it still shows it’s there.

It still shows it’s there but they can’t reclaim it.

Yeah. There are two different people. One of them didn’t talk about their leaderboard name changing. One of them had to completely change their leaderboard name to be able to get in. They had to completely change their leaderboard name and they lost everything with workout history. This particular image doesn’t show. In the comments, there were lots of back and forth. It was the exact same issue. Peloton has no idea why. Keep in mind that the people who answer the phones for tech support are like the first-level person. They’re reading a book. They’re checking through whatever they’re told to check through.

They’re not even Peloton’s exclusive employees. They theoretically work for multiple companies.

We know Peloton was using that company at some point. We don’t know if they still are, to be fair, since they lay off 2,800 employees. I have no idea if that means they’re more likely to use those companies.

I would think more because you use that company so you don’t have to hire people.

It’s very possible. I’m not saying you were wrong, that’s for sure.

Barry has got a plan, but what has he been doing?

I have a thought. John, you could blow this thought out of the water because I know you have more actual experience with IT. I was a project manager, which means exactly one thing. I know what needs to get done. I don’t understand how it works. I don’t understand how anything works between A, B and C, but I will tell you this. There’s another image about the outage. If you go to the outage page, Peloton is doing a phone system enhancement.

They are saying that they’re working on this improvement to their phone system. There’s a whole lot of things like some of the phones aren’t working, etc. I know this sounds like a stretch because what the heck does a phone system have to do with leaderboard names, but I’ve seen some weird crap in IT happened like X affects Y even though they’re not related in the slightest. Do you think it’s possible that one is making the other happen?

No.

He didn’t even pause to give you a moment of like, “Let me ruminate.” He’s like, “No, that’s dumb.”

 

He’s a dream killer.

I understand the phone system but I don’t think that’s it. I’m struggling with it though because clearly, this is production data in their production environment. That’s what I’m struggling with it. Did someone accidentally do something against their production environment?

They are doing a lot of tests right now. Maybe somebody did a test in the wrong environment and it failed.

I don’t get it. Uncle Barry was talking about moving things through their environments. There was some type of issue with that. Are they doing something in trying to correct that which causes it? I don’t know.

I don’t know either because if you look at the rest of their outage page, supposedly there are no outages. There’s nothing else going on. This is the only thing that they have been talking about for the last few days.

That is some strange stuff. You think they would have redundancy. You think they would have a backup. I don’t get how it was gone and they can’t get it back. The part about we can’t get it back throws me.

It kills me. It’s like years of your life are gone. Your Peloton identity is gone.

I’m coming up with a milestone. I’m literally within three rides, and I don’t ride as much anymore. I only ride like 3, 4 or 5 times a week. I have under twenty rides left before this milestone for the last few weeks. Now I’m down to 3 or 4 rides. Can you imagine, tomorrow I’m about to do this milestone and it says one ride?

You get another t-shirt though.

What’s worst, John, is it says you don’t exist. Yes, you could get another t-shirt, Tom, but that is not the point.

I can’t even imagine if you couldn’t have the leaderboard name ClipOutCrystal on there. It would be a phase-four panic attack.

I don’t know what would happen, but it would not be good. I would turn into one of those Karens. I would be calling to talk to a manager. I would be emailing. I would be emailing Jayvee. I would be emailing Barry. I would be like, “John Foley, I know that you’re not the CEO anymore but you must fix this.”

You’re like, “Suit up. You’re coming out of retirement.”

When you told me about this, that hurt me to my heart. It would be different if you’re a new rider.

It will still suck. It’s years of your life. That’s the part that kills me. For this woman, it was four-plus years gone.

That’s a little painful. That hurts my chest a little bit.

Honestly, their posts were both pretty okay.

They were tamed with it. They’re like, “This happened and that sucks.” It would be more than that. I would be upset with that.

Since two people posted, I wonder how many people this happened to.

That’s the question. I asked you that, “Is it more than one?” If there’s more than one, then it’s probably not just two.

You would think you would see a lot more if it was very widespread.

Here’s another theory. What if they were deleting people out of the system that no longer use Peloton and they got a little trigger happy? Could that be a thing?

Here’s what it is. For years, I’ve been saying how they need to institute a sexy people filter.

Are people getting blocked for not being sexy?

“Sorry guys, you didn’t make the cut.”

“We’re trying to figure out how to tell you. We just don’t have you contact us directly.”

It’s like the circle shows up in his bed. They were like, “You’ve been blocked.”

“I’ll talk to you offline. You can decide if you want to communicate this.”

On the upside though, no one can ever pester me about having to ride the bike again, because I will not make it happen.

The customer service at Peloton is fantastic. Share on X

Did somebody set up some data conversion that’s supposed to get rid of the people that don’t ride anymore, and whoever wrote that, wrote it wrong? Maybe it’s that.

What would the metric be? As long as somebody is still paying their membership, what do you care if they actually ride or use it?

We’re brainstorming, Tom.

We’re throwing back and forth here. We’re trying to figure it out.

It will be interesting to see if this happens to more people. As long as it’s not you. John, I hope it doesn’t happen to you either.

I need to get up tomorrow morning for this milestone.

I hope it doesn’t happen to you, but I don’t have to live with you.

I’m praying, Tom, that this does not happen specifically for your sake.

Thank you. I’m very scared.

You should be. You thought waiting for that tread was miserable. I don’t even know if I can live with myself as upset as I would be. I’m already worried. I would only wish this on a few people.

They are out there. If next episode we’re The Click Out, you know what happened.

I would only wish this on a few people but that’s up to you.

If you’re listening, you know who you are.

Moving along, Harvard Business School was musing about the future of Peloton and had an article about, can the company push through the pain?

When I hear that, I think of a woman birthing a baby like pushing through the pain. I’ll be honest. I didn’t read this very well. I saw that it was an article in Peloton. You have to scroll if you want me to provide any commentary.

There are a couple of things about this article that are interesting to me. One, I’ve been talking about this with some friends, about how we thought at some point, there’s going to be a case study on this whole Peloton thing. I guess here it is. Also, I always felt that the problems that Peloton ran into were related primarily to forecast. They didn’t forecast.

For me, it all boils down to that. I know that there are problems with the Tread+ and that hurt them and the CPST stuff. In this article, they talked about that commercial back in 2018 and 2019. That seemed to help them. They talked about Mr. Big and all that. I don’t think it has anything to do with any of that. I think these problems are very specific to coming out of the pandemic and forecast. That was their problem.

Another way to say that, and we’ve said this before, is trying to be everything to everybody. One of Peloton’s strengths was that they tried to do everything in-house, but you can’t be an expert on everything and still be lean and efficient. That’s the exact opposite of what every lean efficiency model has ever shown. It’s those things together. We can’t be the masters of the tread and the bike, and logistics, doing our own delivery, and doing our own building of the bike.

I get that all those things were problems. I know that there were problems with fulfilling orders and manufacturing. I agree that they were problems, but it wouldn’t have been this dramatic had they been able to forecast better, even if they were trying to be everything to everybody. I think that was the root of their problem. The article mentioned that they couldn’t fulfill orders in the middle of the pandemic.

Nobody could.

That’s where I’m at. Nobody could. I remember I was all excited when they said, “We’re going to do air freight.” I was like, “There’s air freight?” Now I’m thinking they probably could have done what everybody was doing. It was like, “You’re going to have to wait three months, four months to get your bike.”

People are still waiting for cars. In fairness on the forecasting thing, in the middle of the pandemic, there’s no historical data from which to pull to forecast your way out of something like that.

To John’s point, you’re right. You can’t forecast your way out of that, but is that the right time to take a gamble? It was a gamble. You don’t know how long it’s going to last. Maybe instead of leaning into it, but hindsight is 20/20 on the other hand too. If it had worked, we would be like, “He’s an evil genius.”

That’s where I’m with you on that too. It’s a once in a lifetime type of deal. Maybe this is going to be because they were in a leadership position in this space. They were ascending and people start drinking the Kool-Aid. They’re swimming in $100 bills. Your head gets started swelling like this. Maybe it happens to all of us. Does that happen to all of us?

I can’t imagine. I’ve never been swimming in $100 bills but I would love to try.

I want to light my $100 bills with $20 bills.

I remember one time, Tom, we were talking about this. John, I think you were on when he was talking about how he pictured John Foley sitting at his desk like Scrooge McDuck. He was counting his dollars like gold bullion.

It was crazy. 2020 and 2021 were nuts. That was some crazy stuff. Wouldn’t you have to be the shrewd type of business leadership people to be able to even be in some ballpark of appropriate forecast in that world?

To pull back whenever everything around you is saying go forward. The other side of that is when did that shakiness start to show and how quickly did they respond? We don’t know.

 

The responses all kept turning wrong. The lowering of the bike price didn’t work.

There has been some confusion.

It is interesting to see that a place like Harvard is digging into it. It makes you wonder what other analytics they’re running in the background that we will see in the future.

I hadn’t seen that until you showed it to me. That’s some interesting stuff there. It is exactly what we had been talking about. These entities are now doing their own case studies on the whole path that Peloton took.

We should have them on and do a round table because they probably don’t know the history as intimately as we do.

They are probably trying to figure out, “We need to figure this out so we can forecast when monkeypox hits.” I’m a glass-half-full kind of guy. John, thank you so much for joining us. We greatly appreciate it. Until next time, where can people find you?

They can find me on my Facebook page or group, Run, Lift and Live. They can find me on Instagram @RunLiftAndLive. They can find me on TikTok, Run, Lift and Live, or they can find me at RunLiftAndLive.com.

Thank you.

—

Joining us once again is Dr. Jenn Mann, licensed marriage, family and child therapist, and Sports Psychology consultant. You might want to check out her app called No More Diets. Ladies and gentlemen, it’s Dr. Jenn.

How are you?

We’re good. Lyn Kaye came to us and she says that she never thought she would say this. Since she started to do more strength training, she now finds it difficult to get on the bike and ride. Riding now feels like a chore and she has to make herself ride. Do you have any thoughts on that one?

Yes. This one is a pretty simple suggestion. Start with the ride and do the strength afterwards. Do the thing that you like the least first. You get it out of the way and you know that you will always do the thing that you like the most. I always start on days where I do HIIT cardio, which I hate as you know. I can’t stand it, but I feel like it has made such a difference in my strength and my endurance. I keep doing it. I start with that because I know that the bike is my reward. When I get to get on that bike, I get to sit down and listen to music and enjoy myself. I would recommend starting with the thing that you like the least and moving to the thing you like the most.

I feel good about myself. That’s what I used to do when my mom made me eat peas. I would eat my peas first. My mom would be like, “Why are you eating the peas first?” I’m like, “Because they’re hanging over my head for the rest of the meal. I can’t enjoy the good stuff.”

That was food though. Just a side note, if you don’t like peas, I don’t think you should eat peas, period. You can find other foods that have the same nutrients that you probably like a lot better. I don’t do it for that. There’s one other thing I would say for Lyn. If you’re not liking your rides, then I would look at what other kinds of rides could you get. If you like the strength, then do maybe arms and intervals or one of the classes where it has the briefer rides and the briefer arms. There are some that are like four minutes of arms, and then four minutes of riding, and it goes back and forth. There are others where you get two arms sections in 45 minutes. That’s a lot harder if you’re not enjoying your ride.

Look at breaking it up with some of the strengths training integrated, or even a bootcamp class where you’re alternating back and forth. You know me. I’m very music base. I pick most of my classes based on music. Search for some music that you like. See what classes have that because if it has that song that you like, it probably has other songs that you like in that genre. Start searching for your rides a little bit differently. If you’re doing Power Zone, then maybe do some low impact or vice versa. Shake it up a bit and try some new instructors to get you outside of what you’ve been stuck on.

That makes total sense. I like that a lot.

There is no other healthy food that I would eat. For normal people, that’s good advice. For me, there’s nothing on my plate.

If you’re someone who’s eating kesar and you know that’s a good source of protein, then you can find protein elsewhere.

Eat a bowl full of Flintstones vitamins. Those were the original fruity pebbles.

I’ve heard that kids these days still like Flintstones. Flintstones are still like recommended, which is so funny.

That is hilarious. I had no idea.

I was reading an article the other day about fruity pebbles because that’s who I am. They were like it’s weird because a lot of kids would have no idea who the Flintstones are other than they have the cereal or vitamins. They’re not watching the show anymore.

I think you could do a whole conversation about how many brands are like that.

Thank you so much for joining us. Until next time, where can people find you?

On social media, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat. Everything @DrJennMann and I always post my Peloton workouts on Insta Story.

Thank you.

—

For our Patreon subscribers, you are already aware of this. You’ve got a little advanced tip-off, but I will let you run with it because the Peloton Prophet visited us. This is quite the scoop.

Thousands upon thousands of people bought bikes in the last three years, and I'm sure many of them want to go to the studio and meet the instructors. Share on X

It’s an interesting one. I heard from the Peloton Prophet that a product has been canceled officially. There have been a lot of rumors lately about the rower being the one that got dropped. I have been very skeptical of that because of the timing. I am immediately like, “Is it the rower?” No, it is not the rower. It is the strengths product or the Tonal-like device. It’s the magnetic one that’s supposed to rival Tonal and it is canceled. It’s impossible for it to ever make money so it’s not happening.

I wonder how they arrived at that, that it’s “impossible” for it to make money.

That’s a fair question. As we talked about in the bonus episode, Tom, it’s possible that making a profit is not the same as, “This isn’t a good time to be putting our money into a new product when we’re trying to get lean.” That’s one of my thoughts on that. It’s like, “We need to focus on our core.”

It’s not a good allocation of resources at this juncture.

I don’t know if that’s true. I wasn’t right about any of my theories of what had happened with the disappearing names. Let me be clear that these are just theories. It could be something like that. It could also be that they have to start from scratch. They are going to have it manufactured and do all the things to start from scratch. That is too much money and it’s going to take 3 to 4 years to get an ROI on it based on how things are looking.

They need to look better than that quicker.

The interesting thing is that all these people are out there waiting for this strength device, and not buying the Tonal or whatever other item they want.

A lot of people are sitting on their hands wanting this because nobody wants to have two subscription services if they can avoid it. They’re like, “Even if it’s not as good as Tonal, if it’s good enough, then I don’t have to pay another $50 a month. You got me.” Now it’s not coming at all. The thing that you mentioned in the Patreon episode is that this was never an announced thing. There’s no reason for them to unannounced something that they never announced. There’s going to be a lot of people out there thinking that it’s still coming when it’s not. If it is, it’s very much on the back burner. It’s years away.

I was told it is never happening, but who knows? If you’ve been thinking about a Tonal, now maybe is a good time. Here’s the other thing. Tonal is raising their prices soon. I’ve been told that it’s going to go up $500 a pop. That’s coming from Tonal employees. I’m not spilling any secrets or anything because they want people to make sure and get it. You know how salespeople are trying to finalize their sales. That’s out there too. I don’t know when that’s happening, but I know it’s happening. That’s something else to consider.

Didn’t they buy a company?. They acquired a company that was already manufacturing something similar.

What happened to those people? Do they stay there but now they’re working on something else? Do they go back to what they were doing?

That world is so cutthroat now. I can see it being like, “Thanks. Here’s a box to put your things in.”

I would love some insight if anybody out there has any real information. Send it to me, about the employees. Also, I want to go back to the rower for a second because there have been lots of rumors swirling about that. I was told by the Peloton Prophet the reason that items came down off the website. Remember I said that I have a feeling it has something to do with marketing strategy because they didn’t get rid of everything. They left some mentions up. I was told it’s because of music rights. Their music rights expired for the video that was in it.

That seems odd.

Why did you do it with a song that you only have rights to for fifteen seconds?

If you knew the clock was ticking, just pick a different song.

Maybe they just built hype and they didn’t care.

They might have looked at it as if it’s a social media post that’s three weeks old, who’s looking at it in anyway? Just weirdos like us.

We’re the only ones. There are five of us, and John. The other thing is the Tread+. This isn’t as much of an update as it is thoughts from the Peloton Prophet. The Peloton Prophet felt that it was very possible that the Tread+ may never come back simply because they want it to go away. It didn’t go well. If that happens, they think that you’re not going to get any update about that either. It’s just going.

It will never be mentioned again. It’s like on Happy Days when Richie’s brother Chuck went upstairs at the end of season one. He never came back down. He didn’t even show up in the second to the last episode where Richie got married. He didn’t show up to the wedding.

That means that I have a collector’s item. I will be keeping it.

It could be like Lisa, which was the computer that Apple made before Apple. That computer goes for big bucks now. It was their precursor to their Macintosh. There are not that many of them out there and they go for big bucks. I can’t wait to sell that. That’s our 401(k) you’re running on.

I’m going to run it into the ground.

That sounds like everybody’s 401(k)s right now.

That is that. Do with that what you will. I just want to reiterate one more time about the tread, and that is their feeling. There is no actual proof behind that one. The rest of the information that I provided was coming from actual information that the Peloton Prophet has. I just want to be very clear. Those are two different kinds of things.

—

We now return you to your regular Peloton news already in progress.

I got another little tip. Apparently, the company meeting that Peloton calls the all-hands meeting took place on June 30th. The new supply manager named Andy supposedly has re-negotiated a $1 billion obligations down to $400 million worth of obligations. Let me say that again. Peloton owed $1 billion worth of obligations, and it is now at $400 million. I don’t mean loans necessarily. It could have been like, “We agreed to this much supply over the next two years,” or whatever. That’s my guess on where this is coming from. They had supplies on order like agreements for things and that was going to total $1 billion. Now it’s only going to a total of $400 million.

What kind of bonus do you get for that? You can get an extra jelly of the month subscription come Christmas or something like Clark.

 

We could probably check in the little SEC filing.

If he even gets half a percent of that, and he should. If that’s accurate, he saved them $600 million. That guy needs a little something in his check at the end of the week.

Agreed. The other piece of this though is that leadership thinks that because of this and some other factors, they will be cashflow neutral during the back half of fiscal ‘23. That started July 1st. Given how bleak things have been, I feel like this is super positive news. I’ve had people ask me questions like, “What does this mean?” I know it’s overexplaining for some people, I get that. This is for people who don’t understand. The cashflow neutral means that they were in a deficit and now they’re going to be breakeven.

They went from drowning to treading water. Now we need them to swim.

That’s the back half of fiscal ‘23. Since fiscal ‘23 started in July, we’re looking at six months from now, we should be able to see financially cashflow neutral. We do expect this to show up during the next earnings call.

Perhaps, that’s related.

This is that extra something, something.

They’re not all named Andy. CNBC has reported that Peloton sweetens employee pay incentives as it fights to boost morale and stage a turnaround.

If you scroll down a little bit, it gives an idea of a real quick overview of what they’re getting. The eligible employees are going to be able to access their equity earlier. Instead of an equity grant, Peloton’s hourly workers will be eligible for a one-time cash bonus. They’re approaching it from two different prongs. That’s a very big deal, both of those. They’re giving them cash. I think that’s deserved. That should be how it goes.

It’s a shame if they can’t do anything for the people that got shit canned since they probably need it more than anybody. Still, it is nice that they’re trying to keep people happy, especially in a time when it’s such a tight job market. It’s also smart business to keep the talent that you decided was worth sticking around, sticking around. We have an Apple watch update.

Apple Watch now connects to the Guide and Lanebreak. It’s finally here.

It seems like it’s so small to play Lanebreak on your Apple Watch though. That doesn’t seem very enjoyable.

No. The heart rate portion now shows up on the screen while you ride your bike.

Gotcha. This is why we have you here.

You were close though, Tom. That’s exciting because whenever they made the announcement that Apple Watch was going to be available over all classes, two seconds later, they released Lanebreak, and then two seconds after that, they released the Guide. Neither of them worked and everybody was like, “Harrumph.” Now it’s back. Now they can say everybody, all of them.

We are getting some updates to Feedback Fridays.

In the past, this has always been on the Peloton official member page. You go and there’s this thread on Fridays where you put your updates like what you want, and then people vote on it.

It’s like, “I want my Apple Watch to work with Lanebreak.”

They then take it and they do what they do. Sometimes you get it and sometimes you don’t.

I want a sexy people filter.

You haven’t gotten that. No check for that.

I would like my account back.

No, denied.

I would like to be a billionaire again, signed, not John Foley.

Denied. Now they have a whole new way and it is a form. You fill out a feature request form and that’s it. I’m guessing this has got to be easier than manually calculating the ridiculous thread that’s on Facebook. Not to mention people keep typing the same stuff.

I got to think that thread turns into people bitching every week. They’re probably like, “Let’s not have every Friday be people telling us that we’re pieces of crap. That’s not a good way to start the weekend.”

If it’s me, I would have done this forever ago. This is so much better, and just the counting of it and the simple sheer volume of feedback they get.

Do you think they will actually read this or is it like when they put the suggestion box right over the shredder?

I truly don’t know. In the past, they have always been good about that, but times are changing. It’s a whole new regime up there.

All of the Peloton instructors have great stories, and all of them are so talented beyond the bike. Share on X

It’s a lot harder to be reactive to your membership when you have millions of them. The amount of data coming at you is like drinking from a fire hose.

It is because everybody has an opinion. It can be something as simple as, “We would like to change the color of our logo.” You would have every thought under the sun. There will be people that would be like, “It needs to not change because of history,” and then you would have other people like, “Red is a bad idea. It never should have been red.”

It’s like, “It shouldn’t be PMS 184. It should be PMS 182. What are you stupid?”

And on and on. I get why they would want to remove it. I think it’s smart. They should have done that a long time ago.

MarketBeat is reporting that a coalition of brokerages is now listing Peloton as a moderate buy.

I don’t even know what to say.

It’s a step in the right direction. It’s a little bit like getting fixed up and they’re like, “She’s got a great personality.” It’s better to steer clear of this.

I haven’t had any all-time low alerts in 24 hours. I’ll take it.

We’ll count that as a win. I think it said 33 brokerages or something. That seems a pretty sizeable consensus.

I’m confused because the headline says moderate buy, but the first paragraph says hold. I bet they changed this at some point.

I guess hold would be the same as keeping it, like don’t dump it.

Buy is buy. Moderate buy means you should get somebody. You should be careful. That’s how I hear it. I don’t know. This is why you don’t take stock tips from us. We’ve said that since the beginning. That was the most confusing segment we’ve ever done.

—

Essence Fest was over and veritable popery of instructors were spotted.

This is my favorite picture out of the bunch. I saw so many and there was Jess Sims, Kirsten Ferguson and Chelsea. It says Chelsea Loves Yoga. That’s her name on Instagram. I was trying to make that into Chelsea Love. I don’t know where that came from. That’s Dr. Chelsea Jackson Roberts.

We did not create another Peloton couple.

Also, Tunde and Marcel Dinkins. I think Ally Love was there too, but in this picture, she wasn’t in. They were all out there from all accounts. They had a wonderful time. They were taking pictures with folks in front of the United Healthcare sign. I think they had an expo about health that was happening at the same time. They had their own special hair and makeup that got done. Marcel, I saw her videos. She was cracking me up because she did all these videos saying, “Here was our day one. Here was our day two.” They had a whole room where all the ladies went in and got made up. They had to do it one at a time or two at a time. It was quite the ordeal.

Can you imagine if you’re a Peloton fan and you’re at Essence Fest? People get so excited when they meet one Peloton instructor in the wild and suddenly, here’s a whole gaggle of them.

You would lose your mind. They had a meetup with the Black Girl Magic Peloton edition. I thought that was neat that they were there. Many people got their pictures taken with all of the instructors. How exciting is that? Nobody has been able to do that since 2017 or 2018. What year are we in? It’s super fun.

Susie Chan completed an Ultra marathon.

I had to highlight her. She’s awesome. I follow her on Instagram and she did 50 kilometers at one time. That’s a lot of running. Congrats to Susie Chan.

This has to be super exciting for Christine D’Ercole. She’s a big fan of Broadway and she’s going to be on a panel at Broadway Con. I didn’t know there was a thing. Now I’m like, “I want to go to Broadway Con.”

Maybe next year we’ll go to Broadway Con. Christine is doing a talk on a panel. It’s called the power of self-care through self-talk. She’ll be joined by other people. If you’re lucky enough to go, let us know how it was. You can get tickets. They had a link posted and that will be posted in the newsletter. You’ll probably see it before we have this conversation.

Emma Lovewell was featured on the Instagram channel, Full Time Travel.

They did this thing about ten of the best places to travel. My Hometown is what it was called. They had a whole bunch of famous people and one of them was Emma Lovewell in Martha’s Vineyard. How cool is that?

That’s crazy for Martha’s Vineyard to be your hometown.

I know. I can’t even imagine.

Coming up on the next episode of Matty Maggiacomo’s Out Loud is Pixie Aventura.

That looks cool. I love Matty’s series.

 

It’s a clever idea. I’m glad he’s doing it.

This one takes place on July 6th. Make sure and check it out. If you haven’t seen it, go check it out on his Instagram.

—

Joining us once again is Angelo here to answer your fitness and nutrition questions.

It’s great to see you again.

It’s great to see you too. Right out of the gate, we have another question for you. This one comes from Brandi Roses. She wants to know how to balance. She doesn’t know how she should be balancing calories to consume, she wants to lose weight, versus the amount of exercise that she does. She feels like she’s either eating too much or not enough, but she doesn’t know how much is enough. It’s basically everything.

That’s good. That’s a very common question, Brandi. You’re doing exercise because you know that’s going to help contribute. You’re also wanting to include calorie control or diet manipulation to enhance that fat loss effect. The research is very clear on it. Your diet is going to be at the greatest impact on your total body weight, hands down, well beyond exercise. However, they have proven conclusively that exercise has a critical impact on the maintenance of weight loss. It will enhance fat loss and weight loss.

It will cause a little faster weight loss and fat loss, but especially it will contribute to the maintenance of the pounds that you lose via dieting. Therefore, keep doing both. With that said, I would recommend, Brandi, without knowing more details about you, go all-in on the exercise. If you’re doing Peloton, if you’re doing Tonal, if you’re a runner or whatever you’re doing, go all-in on the exercise. Start with that and fuel your body adequately to get yourself into a good routine. Likely, you’ll be in weight maintenance during that kickoff period.

Once you’re there, Brandi, or you may already be there, then start to systematically reduce your caloric intake. You can’t look for a specific number. People want me to say, “It’s easy. You need 1,400 calories,” but the truth is 1,400 calories may be way too low for you. It may not be enough to trigger fat loss. Start by identifying where you’re currently at now. At MetPro, we use a technical process called baseline testing, where we get highly specific in determining where you’re at.

We start with a real simple meal plan where we can parse your metabolism. We compare it to the average median against other clients who have been of the same demographic and the same activity level to see where you are at specifically for your age and gender activity level. From there, we come up with a starting reduction to trigger fat loss. While you’re not going to be able to do it maybe with that level of specificity, the basic principles can still apply. Start decreasing until you observe weight loss or fat loss.

If you start noticing your clothes are fitting or looser, regardless of the scale, keep going with that. Don’t over-reduce. Don’t over-cut calories. A lot of the fads and the gimmicks out there apply the methodology of a little restriction is good. A lot is better. It doesn’t work that way. The data clearly shows that when you reduce your intake or when you diet, a good diet or bad diet, when you restrict intake and start losing weight, the problem is your RMR, Resting Metabolic Rate or resting energy expenditure decreases with that.

Except, what the data or research is showing is it’s not just decreasing in step with you becoming a smaller person. The decreases are even outpacing what would be expected from weight loss or pounds lost. Don’t be in a hurry to force a reduction in RMR or resting metabolic rate. Just reduce as much as is needed to trigger fat loss or weight loss and stay there. That’s why the slow and steady approach does work best.

If you’re working with us at MetPro, you would also have strategically scheduled periods of recovery, where we actually increase your intake to make sure that RMR doesn’t drop too much, but on your own use common sense and assume, is this diet sustainable for me? You’ll know it’s not sustainable. Here’s the first thing that will happen. Your mood and motivation start to dwindle. That’s your first indication long before it actually even hits your energy levels. Second is you find you’re cutting back or you’re not exercising quite as long because you’re not able to recover, and you don’t have quite as much endurance. That’s the second sign.

The third is you’re walking around doing little and you’re feeling fatigued, then you’ve gone way too far, so start modest. A good rule of thumb is to decrease maybe a couple of hundred calories, 150 calories even, to start a decrease. Maybe include in that about 30 grams of carbohydrates and start there. If that isn’t triggering, you can always decrease it a little more. You don’t have to wait six weeks. Decrease and see where you’re at a week or ten days later.

Don’t decrease, wake up the next morning and go, “I didn’t lose weight.” You will not know the next day. You’re going to have to give it some time. I’ll give you a little peek behind the curtain of some of the science at MetPro. When we are parsing or evaluating somebody’s average metabolic rate, we use a drag or a tail of nine days. I look back nine days. Even if you wanted to get more accurate, I would actually look back 30, but I can get a pretty accurate baseline by taking the last nine days, and then averaging your daily body weight.

What you’re going to find is if you do that, that’s about your average where you’re at. You’re going to be able to see real trends up or down, good or bad. Take averages over time. Keep the exercise consistent and slow reductions in calories, starting with carbohydrates or sugar if there’s excess in your diet. That’s going to give you the biggest bang for your buck, Brandi, in getting started with manipulating calories and carbohydrates for weight loss while exercising.

Thank you very much for all of that. If people would like personalized help for their fitness goals, where can they find you?

We would love to help them at MetPro.co/tco for The Clip Out.

Thank you.

—

We have a new artist series as we do practically every week these days.

It’s David Guetta.

I had no idea what David Guetta look like. I didn’t think it would be like the guy that sells me my car insurance.

Do you know who he reminds me of? Mitchell from Modern Family, because of the glasses. I think it gives him that overall look.

I don’t know if he has red hair but in this picture, it looks red. David Guetta, if that’s your jam.

Lots of people are excited. There’s a whole bunch of them too. There are like nine classes. You have all kinds of opportunities.

He does so many remixes and stuff. It’s a little bit of a cheat because you can do so many different artists because he does those sorts of things.

—

I feel like it has been a bit since we’ve heard from Michelle K.

You'll figure out your pace. You’ll figure out the cadence. You'll figure all of that out over time. Don't stress it and just get on riding. Share on X

She’s so quiet lately.

She then comes back with Tiffani Thiessen. I’m so old. I didn’t realize she wasn’t Amber anymore.

Remember those days, Tiffani Amber Thiessen. Now she’s just Tiffani Thiessen.

Apparently, she digs her Peloton.

Michelle K got to not only talk to Tiffani Thiessen but she got to talk to her about Peloton.

Did she get to talk to Andrea Barber?

I don’t know. Michelle K has interviewed a lot of people. She may have. Let us know Michelle K. This is a fun article though. Lots of little good tidbits in here about not only her feelings on Peloton but also all kinds of things like Pilates, sleeping, HIIT, etc.

—

Mashable had a nice write-up about Tonal. They did a review of it and were fans.

They say that the bottom line is Tonal is like an at-home personal trainer that gives you weight recommendations, helps you fix your form, and tracks all your progress. That is a good summary. That’s all you need to know.

That’s exactly what it does.

It does everything. It’s worth every penny.

It worked for me. That and MetPro.

That’s a good combo.

While we’re talking about other connected fitness stuff, LG TVs are getting a fitness app. How many people use the other things baked into their smart TVs? You use that for Netflix, news, Hulu and stuff like that, but all that other stuff.

Our refrigerator is a Samsung and it has Bixby on it. I don’t ever use Bixby.

Once every six months, I’ll be like, “What is all this other stuff on here?” I’ll click through it and be like, “Never mind.”

I use my phone for all of that, but I love seeing the inside of my refrigerator. That’s pretty cool.

—

People love Tunde Arms.

Tunde does have some sexy arms. Now you too can have arms like Tunde. She did the original program. It started on the Guide. It was one of the exclusives. Seven weeks is up. You can now build your arms on all of the Peloton platforms.

It has been released into the wild.

Seven weeks of waiting went like that. I’ve heard a lot of people doing this one, and Emma Lovewell’s Crush Your Core Two.

Everybody talks about her arms. It makes sense that people were chomping at it a bit.

—

Joining us on the show is Ian Wichman. How is it going?

I’m good. How are you?

We are good. We are glad to have you here. You are considered an OG, correct?

Both my wife and I. We’ve had our bikes since April ‘15. We weren’t part of the original fourteen OGs who consider themselves the true OGs. I remember it like it was yesterday. They had a pop-up shop in East Hampton, New York. We happened to be in East Hampton. We walked into the shop and thought it was a great concept, but we didn’t buy it. This was the summer of ‘14. Both of our jobs changed requiring us to only be able to exercise at home at odd times. My wife said, “Let’s do it.”

 

I had never taken a spin class before. I’m saying, “I’m going to give it a shot.” I immediately embraced it. The day we got it delivered, I logged on. I rode a Jess Throwback Thursday ride and I never looked back. I found the OPP first and my love of the rides. The OPP brought me in and I was addicted immediately. It took Lisa a bit to navigate into it and then the OPP sucked her in, along with the rides.

Do you remember how many people were on the OPP when you joined?

A few hundred tops and you knew everybody. I was hoping that this wouldn’t become like, “It was so good back then.” I don’t want to be that guy, but it was so good back then. You knew everybody and many of us made the way to the 23rd Street studio and we all knew each other. Even if you didn’t live locally, we knew each other because there were so few of us. You would get multiple shouts a ride because there were only twenty of you on a ride.

I remember that first Christmas. It was mid-December and a lot of people started getting them. You would see the numbers creep up and there would be 100 people on the ride. You would be like, “Wow.” Post-Christmas, there would be 200. That was probably in ’15. The next year was 1,000 after Christmas. It skyrocketed. It was great. Everything has got to get bigger for it to succeed, but it was great.

Was there any hesitancy when you were looking at the bike in terms of like, “What if this company crap the bed? Now, what do I do with this thing?

I never thought of that. For the amount that it costs and I know the buy-in is excessive, if you think of a gym membership over the course of the year, it’s not all that different. To make the investment valid, you needed that to last a year or so. I didn’t look at the financials. I didn’t think about it. I figured they have money to get going.

That’s a good point. If you do crunch the numbers, you only needed a year to eighteen months.

Especially with two of you using it.

I once did the math and I equated after a year. In the first couple of years, my wife and I were riding 6 to 7 days a week. There was one day, it was either Tuesday or Thursday. Jenn would have an 8:00 ride for 30 minutes, then she would have a 9:30, and then she would do a 30-minute ride. Maybe it was a 45, 45, and then a 30-minute ride. The Jenn’s crazies will do triples because there’s only a handful of them. Jenn would reference, “It’s good to see you back.” We did so many rides in our first couple of years that it paid for itself so quickly.

Now the company is big enough that it can crap the bed, but it will still be around.

You don’t have to worry.

Due to that warranty I got, we still have the same bike. The original bike we had was ultimately replaced within the warranty period and that bike has lasted. We did an upgrade on our tablet at one point and we thought about getting the swivel but ultimately, we got the Guide and it provides the same purpose. We bought the tread but when it called for to deliver it, we did the measurements. It was 6-foot or 7-foot or whatever it is. The dropped ceiling in our basement can’t accommodate it, so we couldn’t take the tread. We did an early tread bootcamp in this old tread studio and loved it. I thought about getting the updated tread but our basement still can’t accommodate it.

You live pretty close to the studio. Where exactly do you live?

We live on Long Island.

I’m not asking for your address, just to be clear.

Can you introduce us to Billy Joel?

I’m related. My mom was three years ahead of Billy Joel at Hicksville High School growing up. Everybody has gotten 3 degrees or 7 degrees of Billy Joel as I’m sure everybody in Jersey does for Bruce Springsteen. We do live close and especially during the summers, although all year round, there’s a whole group of us who would get together in the city and we would all go for Jenn’s rides, 1 or 2 of them. We would then all go for brunch. There’s a big group of us who did it forever until ‘20.

When the studio opens the rest of the way, do you think that group will get back in together?

In ‘18 and ’19, it became much harder to get bikes. Back in the early times, you can walk in. They would sell credits. They would sell flights, but on weekdays, they would just walk in and get a bike early. When you bought a bike, you would get ten free studio rides and we would exhaust those quickly. You learn the process. In the studio, you can get bikes if you want to get on. We do it all the time, but it got very competitive to get into one of Jenn’s rides on Sundays. The bike was like a burner. Somehow Jenn would wind up in the front of the bike every week.

She got invited to the soft opening too. She still got the touch.

There’s a whole group of people who were first studio riders. For years, didn’t have a bike. Eventually, she got a bike, but she was a studio-only rider. There are a lot of them.

It’s funny how you bought a bike because you got tired of having to fight to get a bike in a real-life class, and then you turn right back around and do the same thing.

The 23rd Street studio was great. I equate it to Shea Stadium, which is a local New York reference. The Shea Stadium was a dump but as Mets fans, we loved it. The 23rd Street wasn’t the nicest bike studio, but it was great. I worked in the city at the time. When I was in the city between appointments and I was in that area, I would go to the studio and hang around. Eventually, Jack’s Coffee took over the concession and then somebody else came in after that. You would sit down and that’s when you got to know the riders. DJ John Michael was always there. All the instructors were there and we would sit outside and would hang around with Cody before the rides. It was great. He knew everybody back then.

In ‘18 and ‘19, it got tough. They would have guards making sure that fans didn’t come up onto the stage and then they escort the instructors out. I remember in ‘16, a group of Jenn’s riders got together on her birthday in the studio and surprised her. That was a meaningful time. We hang around with Jenn outside the studio with the birthday cake.

It’s like when people talk about Greenwich Village in the mid-‘60s. It was like, “Dylan would walk in and there be would Paul Simon.”

In this case, Alex is Dylan and Jenn is Carly Simon. She would probably hate that reference, by the way.

Calling her Carly Simon, do you think?

Yeah. I’m trying to think of some female performer in the ‘70s who is huge.

It’s in the middle of yacht rock so you would think she’d be okay with it. I would think so. You said that you had never taken a spin class before. Were you fairly active in other ways before you got the Peloton?

 

I was active. When I got the Peloton, I was probably in the best shape of my life at that time. I got the Peloton and went crazy on it. I rode all the time and I got in even better shape, but I was always active. I played old guy’s softball. Every now and again, I would play soccer. I tried to keep active.

Did you say you played old guy’s softball? Is that what you said?

I shouldn’t have said it. That’s redundant. It’s softball once you’re a competitive college D1 softball player. Once you graduate college, you’re officially an old guy’s softball player.

I did not know that. That is new information to me.

Kudos to the D1 or D3, the college softball athletes. They’re true athletes. I and the people who I play with might have been athletes. Now, we’re just getting by.

Are you still using Peloton? Do you still workout?

I use that. I use the Guide. I like to ride live runs. If there were no live rides, I went out for a run. I rode over the weekend to the Kendall Toole classes. I started with Kendall who I love and she did a great Father’s Day ride. I rode Matt Wipers’ Power Zone endurance run on Saturday. I’m completely active. I try to ride every morning. They always have a live ride.

Because of that, I don’t always ride, although I love all the instructors. Alex makes sub sometimes during the morning, but Kendall is usually a 7:30 instructor once a week. Ally used to. I don’t know if that had something to do with basketball season. Christine used to. Selena is always on Monday. I ride with them on the weekends. We try to run on Saturdays if Alex is teaching. I still ride all the time. It’s still my main form of exercise.

That has been a long time. That’s cool that the love of it has lasted that long for you.

Also, the actual piece of equipment. That is no joke either.

The quality is outstanding. The customer service in Peloton is fantastic. I have nothing but love for the company, the brand, and what they do.

You still feel that way even in 2022. I’m pointing that out because sometimes the feedback is that people who have been part of Peloton for a long time don’t love Peloton as much anymore. I’m reiterating that you’re saying, “It has been that long and you still love them.

I appreciate what they missed, but you can’t have that. A company has to evolve. A company can’t survive with 100 buyers.

That is very true.

I’m happy with what they produced.

Things have to change. When we started the show, we recorded it on cassette and we mailed it to people.

We’ve come a long way.

At one point, I was the face of Peloton. I was either in the first or the second home rider peloton boutique photoshoot.

What year did that take place?

I think that was in ‘17. The Mills were there. The Savages were there.

Christina Riviera was there, I think.

Yes, she was. There’s one lady. She’s a strong rider and has an adorable family. She was out riding fully 8 months or 9 months pregnant. She was in the photoshoot also, to my recollection. That was the group of us. They gave me my first modeling gig.

What have you been working on since then?

It’s the only one. Had you not said that, it implies that there were others.

You ruined it.

I’m sorry. I just wanted to tease you a little bit.

I still have to put my book together with my shots and whatnot. I think dad bods are making a comeback. That will be the future for me. I will say one thing. If I can go back to 2015, I fell in love with the bike too much to the detriment of my upper body workout. I didn’t realize that until they started doing the floor exercises. I started doing that and I’m like, “I’ve got super strong legs and I can’t lift anything.” It was about that time that I said, “I’ve got to do other things.”

You should have a well-rounded workout. Peloton says that as well and they always have. I remember one time there was a social media post and John posted something, or maybe he talked to us in person and I just remember this. He said that some people ride too much that they need to do other things because there were people that were bragging that they had done 7,000 rides that week. He was like, “That’s great and all, but you got to do other things.”

I feel like he was calling out Laura.

 

He wasn’t though.

One of the more clever things that Laura did and she is a fantastic rider. Her daughter is great. Laura was the original crazy rider. As many of us were approaching our 200, 300 and 500 rides, she reaches approaching 1,500. The best was she made a point to ride her 1212th ride with Cody because it was the 1, 2, 1, 2 rides. I don’t know if he still does it, but Cody is always rhythm-based. He always used to say 1, 2, 1, 2. She rode her 1,212 rides and I thought that was clever.

Does your wife still ride a lot too?

My wife is in the best shape of her life. She used to ride a lot, but a few years ago, she started doing the floor exercises fairly religiously. She combined it with the bike and she is in fantastic shape. She was the one who wants to get the bike. It was great and she has a host of teachers who she enjoys too.

Do you have a most memorable time when you went to the studio and something crazy happened?

I did go on my birthday one year. My birthday is Christmas eve. I have not ridden on my birthday, but one year I did. It was back when Robin’s 3 for31 had been in December. I went into the city. I rode with Robin and then did my 3 miles right on the East side highway. I went back to the studio. I think we rode with Alex. Jason Rosenberg was there and we took a picture with Alex. This is back when Alex was new to the company. We were on the stage with Alex, which you can’t do anymore. It was a good birthday, but nothing crazy. I remember when my wife did her 100th ride. I couldn’t be there. She did it in the studio. It was Jenn’s ride, I’m sure. The 100th ride was such a big deal back then. I’m sure it still is, but I remember bringing her flowers and putting them into one of the lockers.

You guys were part of the group that was on Good Morning America, right?

We were on Good Morning America. It was a cool morning. Were there forever, but Good Morning America was great.

How long does something like that take? You said you were there forever.

We were there pretty early. The show starts at 6:00 and I don’t know if we were in the 8ht to 9th hour. It still has that hour, but we were there early. I think we probably had to show up at 5:30 or 6:00. It was the same people and many of the same studio riders. It was a nice morning.

I think you can add that to your modeling resume.

I think that counts.

That’s a good idea.

It’s a national television appearance.

That’s my second gig.

When people call you out next time like, “Is there a bit more?” “I’m on national television.”

That was my follow-up.

That’s your jam.

There were a lot of things that were nice. Krissy Blackwood used to come in for her birthday and would invite everybody. She would invite riders to come in and ride on her birthday. I remember in May of ’20. I thanked Krissy and I said, “If this thing is still going on in August, I’m really going to be pissed if we can’t celebrate your birthday in the studio,” and here we are a few years later.

Do you think whenever they open the doors back up, you’ll be able to get in on a regular basis still?

We know that thousands upon thousands of people bought bikes in the last few years. I’m sure many of them want to go to the studio and meet the instructors. Every now and again on the OPP, you’ll see people posting pictures of it. They were walking outside the studio and ran into so-and-so instructors. I think that the demand is going to be overwhelming, plus there are far fewer bikes.

In fact, I got an invite to a lottery for a bike on one of the Fridays. She passed it on to me. By the time I clicked on it, it was over to get in. I think the demand is going to be overwhelming. Because I’m local, once they’re back to seven days, I could probably get in on a random Tuesday where the demand might not be as strong. I don’t anticipate having any shot in the bike when it opens up.

Do you think they’re going to go back to seven days? Right now, they’re only going to have three days. That’s what they’re saying. Some of the instructors have said, “We’re only going to do rides with classes with people on certain days of the week. We’re not going to ever go back to all classes.

I have no idea. I’m so out of the loop. I used to trade messages, “So-and-so is not on the schedule this week. Do you think there’s a problem?” Of course, there never was. It used to be like, “I spoke to so-and-so in the studio and don’t worry, everything is fine.” Somebody knew somebody, but I have no clue what the plan is. I would hope they would. I got onto a ride and I noticed that the schedule wasn’t 7:30. It was 8:00 and Robin was teaching, but I didn’t know why. I didn’t think too hard about it.

Lisa had told me that they were going to have press events. I wasn’t surprised to see people there, but I was surprised to see people there. I wasn’t expecting it that particular day. I’m so out of the loop that I couldn’t even venture but I will tell you, the first few minutes were really good. I had goosebumps seeing people in the studio and the instructors feeding off the energy of the people in the studio. It was good and I missed having riders in the studio.

I completely agree. I didn’t take the live, but I did take that first class with Robin. It was nice to see people back in the studio and feel the energy again. I’m such a nerd about all this stuff. I was so busy looking at how the mirror was positioned and it was different, how there’s a big space behind people and the instructors, and it highlights different people. I was so busy looking at all of that.

This began before the studio closed. If I had to say one thing I am disappointed with, I don’t like how they put John Michael off to the side for the DJ rides. John Michael should be at the center. He should be right next to it. He is so important to those rides.

I love his energy and what he brings to those classes. I agree with that. He should be front and center. Remember when there was that brief time period when they took him out of the classes altogether? It lasted for two seconds.

I remember that. I remember the first time they mic’d him up. For a long time, John Michael did not have a mic and then one day, they gave him a mic and it was awesome. The next time he did it, we went nuts. Everything that John Michael is a part of is better than it is without him. He is amazing. Cody and John Michael used to have a Sunday evening ride at 5:00. It was a great ride. Cody brings in a great group of people from the Manhattan area to come down to his rides. Jess used to have a 45-minute ride with John Michael on Fridays, followed by Robin, and then Cody used to have a Sunday. I used to go to Jess and Robin. Cody had a 7:00 ride or something like that after they cleaned up the DJ equipment. On Sunday, Cody would come in and John Michael would come in as well.

 

I missed that schedule because that was when they had a whole bunch of fun instructors at 6:00 AM Eastern time and 5:00 AM Central.

Also, a shadow Peloton star is John Michael’s partner Brian. He used to be a manager in the studio and he is so super nice also.

He’s related to Jess King though, right?

Brian? I didn’t know that.

I thought somebody told me that somewhere along the way.

I didn’t know that at all, but they’re a great couple. I love them.

I love all their posts. They’re very upbeat and wonderful. I’ve never met his partner, but we’ve met DJ John Michael a couple of times. He’s as delightful in person as he is on the rides and the runs. He is wonderful.

I remember when Peloton wouldn’t let us interview him because they were like, “He doesn’t work here. He’s not an employee.”

Regardless of how they paid him, even riding in ‘15, he was doing DJ rides on Fridays back then, so I don’t remember Peloton without him. I couldn’t imagine Peloton without him. Every once in a blue moon, they would bring in a guest DJ. The guest DJs were great but they weren’t DJ John Michael. They didn’t have the personality. John Michael has such a good relationship with all of the instructors, Robin, Jess and Cody, especially because he has taught so much with him.

He could harness the energy of the rider and the music of the instructor. Whether he’s instructing with Alex or Matt Wilpers, he can take their personality and create a playlist that’s perfect for their personality and their riders. If you were taking a ride with him and Matt Wilpers, it would be a Matt Wilpers ride, only even better.

It’s like Matt Wilpers plus.

We all know he needs help with his music. Even I know that.

He gets a lot of grief for his rhythm but I think he is sneaky though. I think he’s better than people give him credit for when it comes to his music taste and what he can do. He is more dynamic.

I think he’s very eclectic, to be fair. It’s just that people tend to not be as eclectic as he is, therefore, they’re not as appreciative of his diversity of music. You could have seven different kinds of music be in the same ride and that drives some people crazy.

All of the instructors have great stories, but all of them are so talented beyond the bike. We know Ally works at Nets games and Hannah is an aerialist. I have to bring out Nicole. I didn’t find this out on her last ride, but she had the sickest voice. She sang during her final ride and it was unbelievable.

For people here that were new, that’s Nicole Meline. We have an interview with her if you want to go back and if you didn’t get to know her because there are a lot of people that are new that wouldn’t know who that is.

Do you have a preferred instructor?

I don’t. They’re all great in their own ways. I love Alex. I love his music. He’s great. I remember his first ride. I was there for Emma’s first ride. I think I was in the studio for Alex’s first ride, but not Jenn or Hannah. They’re all great. Jenn is like one of us. I graduated from Syracuse. Jenn graduated from Syracuse. I love her music and her people. Everything about her is great. Although I can’t ride with Jenn live because my wife gets the bike when Jenn is live. The only way I would ride Jenn live is if I were in the studio or Lisa was away.

I remember your wife has gotten many shout-outs on rides that I’ve been on. She’s like, “Where’s Ian? Did you get the bike now and Ian didn’t get the bike?”

Ian never gets the bike. I would joke with Monica on rides saying, “Jenn was teaching two classes. The second ride is the husbands’ ride because that’s the night that Bob and I can ride.”

Do you have any advice for people who are just entering the world of Peloton?

I remember many of us, me included, were hesitant to ride our first ride live. Just tap on a ride and just ride and have fun. Don’t worry about it. You’ll figure out your pace. You’ll figure out the cadence. You’ll figure all of that out over time. Don’t stress it. Get on to the first-time ride and you’ll figure it out quick.

Also, if you can ride consistently at the same time, look out for people in your ability because that’s how you get to know each other. Two of my best Peloton friends, early on, I would ride at 8:00 AM New York time. She would ride crazy at 5:00 Pacific time. We were always within a few points of each other. Because there are so few of us, you got to know each other. One day, she pinged me and she’s like, “We’re both geeks. Do you want to ride off of each other and see if we can get each other to 500?”

Sure enough, we started riding with each other 4 or 5 times a week. We eventually both got to 500. If you do that, especially with the high-five feature, you get to know people on your threshold. That’s how you get to know people at Peloton. Even when there are thousands of people on rides, I still see a handful of people. Every morning at 7:30, I know who the 7:30 people are in my ability.

That’s good advice. We didn’t ask your leaderboard name.

It’s boring. It’s @IanWich. It’s my first name and the first four letters of my last name.

The early riders always have boring leaderboard names because everything was available. People are like, “John, what’s your leaderboard name?” “John.”

We took for granted the fact that we could have anything and then chose such boring ones because people are so creative. The whole family, their names are Wiches. Lisa is Lisa Wich. My son is Ty Wich. My other son is Ben Wich. We’re all the Wiches. Somebody stole Susie Beris’ name. At some point, she was @ThePedalPusher.

She’s not The Pedal Pusher anymore?

 

No, she’s not. She’s now @TheTinyTyrant.

Which is also great and appropriate. I love her so much. She’s the best.

Can I tell you a Susie Beris story?

Yes, you can.

Susie Beris, now @TheTinyTyrant, back then @ThePedalPusher. She’s great. Back in the day, I get off the bike one day and on the OPP. Susie Beris, who I didn’t know at all at the time, I don’t know how and why she chose me but she chose to come after me. I would get off the bike and she would post my ride and she would post her being two points ahead of me. I’m like, “She beat me. Good for her. Well done,” but I’m super competitive. I let the first one go and then the next day, I got off the bike and she hit me again. I said, “I can’t have this happening.” Susie is a little older than me. She’s probably 100 pounds dripping wet. I’m like, “How could she beat me?”

I get off the bike. I got right back on the bike. I took the ride in the theater and I posted it. There were a handful of people who got all wrapped up in this. Dawn got wrapped up in this and she backed me as she should have. Genevieve Wheatley backed Susie. I think Jeri Savage backed Susie. A handful of people got behind Susie and there was Susie’s army and Ian’s infantry. It sounds cheesy now, but at the time it made sense. We went at each other for months and one day, I’m in the 23rd Street studio and somebody comes up to me. They’re like, “Are you, Ian?” I’m like, “Yes.” They’re like, “We’re all for Susie.” Susie is great and it was fun. It was one of those fun and early things that would be harder to replicate.

She is a very special lady. I love her very much. She’s wonderful.

Ian, thank you so much for joining us. Before we let you go, let everybody know where they can find you if you would like to be found.

Everybody’s free to follow me. My name is Ian Wich. I’m on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Everywhere, I am @IanWich. I’m on TikTok but there’s nothing there. There’s nothing anywhere. This is as good as I get. There’s little social content. If you’re interested in Syracuse sports, there might be that for you. There’s no dance on TikTok, so there’s no entertainment value there. That’s where you can find me anywhere with my leaderboard name @IanWich.

—

I guess that brings this episode to a close. Until next time, where can people find you?

People can find me on Facebook at Facebook.com/crystaldokeefe. They can find me on Instagram, Twitter, and anywhere on the Peloton leaderboard @ClipOutCrystal.

Unless your account disappeared.

Tom, why? I had forgotten about that drama and now you bring it all back up.

I know it’s fun. You can find me on Twitter @RogerQBert or Facebook at Facebook.com/tomokeefe. You can find the show online at Facebook.com/TheClipOut. While you’re there, like the page and join the group. Don’t forget our YouTube channel, YouTube.com/TheClipOut, and of course our Patreon, Patreon.com/TheClipOut. That’s it for this one. Thanks for tuning in. Until next time, keep pedaling and running.

 

Important Links

• Ian Wichman – Facebook
• Nicole Meline – previous episode
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• Harvard Business School – Peloton Changed the Exercise Game. Can the Company Push Through the Pain?
• Run, Lift and Live – Facebook group
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• RunLiftAndLive.com
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• Dr. Jenn Mann
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• @DrJennMann – Instagram
• CNBC – Peloton sweetens employee pay incentives as it fights to boost morale and stage a turnaround
• MarketBeat – Peloton Interactive, Inc. (NASDAQ:PTON) Given Consensus Rating of “Buy” by Brokerages
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