456: Peloton Expands Into Commercial Fitness Market

Peloton Expands Into Commercial Fitness Market

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Transcript:

Crystal: Welcome to the Clip Out Podcast, episode 4 56. This is Crystal O’Keefe,

Tom: and this is Tom O’Keefe. It was a fun one to type 4, 5, 6.

Crystal: It was yeah do, do.

Tom: I just did it just like that with that little flourish. 4, 5, 6.

Crystal: Did you put your hand in the air when you I

Tom: did.

Crystal: Wow.

Tom: With the full flourish.

Crystal: Wow.

Tom: I am like this.

Even when people aren’t watching.

Crystal: Oh, I know.

Tom: That’s the takeaway. That is the [00:01:00] takeaway.

Crystal: I am lucky enough to know that.

Tom: So. It’s kind of an old school episode.

Crystal: Yeah,

Tom: we got an interview this

Crystal: week. We do? Yeah. What a great interview. Um, we talked to Jim Felling and he is a, he is a retired New York City.

Firefighter.

Tom: Yeah. He, because he, they put ’em all out,

Crystal: all, my God. He was

Tom: like, nothing left for me to do. New York is fire free.

Crystal: But, uh, they do the entire fire department there’s several of them that get together and they do this bike 3, 343 miles for the 343 firefighters who were killed in the line of duty during.

September 11th and they raise money for people who are veterans and might need a home or might need modifications on their home due to an injury they sustained. Uh, what a very cool event that they do. Yeah. But also just all of the logistics that go into it for sure. And just an amazing group of [00:02:00]people.

Tom: Yeah.

Crystal: So.

Tom: So that is coming up on the back end of the episode.

Crystal: Yes.

Tom: Just like it used to be.

Crystal: Just like,

Tom: yes. So, but I guess other than that, what pray, tell do you have in store for people this week?

Crystal: We are gonna talk about several changes that Peloton has been putting out this week. One, uh, an update to Peloton profiles and we also are going to talk about new, people that are coming into the company.

Tom: Okay.

Crystal: We’ve got a new chief content and member development officer. We have a interim CFO. We’ve got new launching of products we’re gonna talk about, we’ve gotta talk.

We’re going to also talk about who is Peloton targeting and why and where they have just recently shown up doing business. We had questions about, um, not to mention where the most recent race that Peloton showed up. Uh, we also have several pieces of news for the instructors who got engaged, who has a new baby to show off.

Cool. Uh, we also have, uh, several stories [00:03:00] about instructors, things that they are doing outside of Peloton. We have artist series to talk about.

We also have huge tonal news that is related to Peloton. Oh. And no, a purchase was not made. Oh. But it’s a fascinating connection. Ooh, nonetheless. And then of course, we’re gonna talk about,

Tom: it’s been a rollercoaster of emotions.

Crystal: I know. We’re also gonna talk about all the new content that you need to be checking out.

Tom: Okay. Well, before we get to all that shameless plugs, don’t forget we’re available on apple Podcast. iHeart. Tune in Spotify. Wherever you find a podcast, you can find us. While you are there, be sure and follow us. So you never miss an episode? You know, I list all the, I was just thinking, I list all the podcast platforms every week.

I never say overcast.

Crystal: You don’t,

Tom: but I should say overcast.

Crystal: Why don’t, why do you leave overcast out? ‘

Tom: cause I hate them. Do you know what they did? No.

Crystal: Do they

Tom: I, no. They, I’m pretty sure they’ve never heard of us. But surprisingly overcast I think is our second most popular platform.

Crystal: Well, that’s fascinating.

Tom: Yeah. So, um, [00:04:00] so Hello Overcast listeners.

Crystal: Hello.

Tom: They feel very seen right now,

Crystal: I’m sure.

Tom: Yeah,

Crystal: I’m sure you’re

Tom: like, Ooh, I’m an overcast listener. You just said hello to me. Good day to you, Tom. Anyway. Also overcast. Yeah, you can get it there. While you’re there, be sure and follow us. You never missed an episode.

Maybe leave us a review. Super helpful. Greatly appreciate it. You can, uh, also, if you wanna support us with more than your ears, you may do so over at patreon.com/the clip out. It’s $5 a month, a poultry $5 a month. And what do you get for that $5? Oh, it’s an embarrassment of riches you get. Ad free episodes, you get early episodes and you get all sorts of bonus content.

So, it sometimes are longer than the main episode because it’s true. We chatty,

Crystal: we do.

Tom: And

Crystal: what’s on the bonus this week?

Tom: What’s on the bonus this week? Gyms hit a significant milestone. We’ve been talking about the expansion of gyms in the marketplace.

Crystal: Mm-hmm.

Tom: [00:05:00] And they hit a very, to me, jaw dropping milestone.

Crystal: Okay.

Tom: We will talk about that over on the bonus. We’ll talk about, uh, we got a new segment we’re introducing called douche bags in the news.

Crystal: There’s so many to choose from. Fitness

Tom: back, surprisingly. This one is nonpolitical, but it’s about a guy who decided to run a 5K in an airplane bathroom

Crystal: jerk.

Tom: Yeah. And then finally, T Day’s book came out a while back. Yeah. And we have a source on where you can get that book

Crystal: signed,

Tom: signed. For only $10.

Crystal: Yeah.

Tom: So that’s a hell of a deal.

Crystal: Yep.

Tom: I mean, it’s a good deal even if it wasn’t signed but signed for $10.

Crystal: Absolutely.

Tom: Yeah. So we’ll talk about that over on the bonus.

And you can also, uh, follow us on Facebook at facebook.com/the clip out while you’re there, like the page, join the group. Don’t forget, we’re available on YouTube. youtube.com/. The clip out [00:06:00]and then, uh, finally we throw a lot of links and stories at you throughout the episode. You can have all of those sent directly to your inbox on a mostly weekly basis, depending on if I remember, there’s a good chance I won’t this week.

Crystal: Yes, we will be traveling.

Tom: Yeah. But, uh, but I’ll try, but no promises.

Crystal: We get it.

Tom: Yeah.

Crystal: Are you making excuses?

Tom: I know you can do [email protected]. Okay, there’s all that. Let’s dig in, shall we?

Crystal: We shall.

Tom: Peloton profiles are now showing your real name?

Crystal: Yeah.

Tom: Your home address,

Crystal: not your home address,

Tom: your phone number?

Crystal: No.

Tom: Your social security number for men. Your penis size for women. Your preferred and some man preferred. You know what I’m saying? Whole something. They’re getting personal over there.

Crystal: Well, it’s.

It’s so fascinating because [00:07:00] a while back Peloton had, like, they had added a lot of information to your public profile, but now your entire name shows up. So if you have your first name filled in, your last name filled in, it’s all gonna show up and it’s gonna show your location. If you have that filled in right now for me, like.

Back in the day for people who are newer to Peloton. Mm-hmm. You may or may not know this ’cause not everybody does it anymore. We used to all send messages to the instructor via the location. So let’s say you had your 500th ride today. Yeah. You would be like 500th ride today. And you know, that might get the instructors attention to give you a shout.

So for the location, I always say the clip out podcast because unless I do have a, a milestone that day, right? And I happen to be on a live class, which is very seldom. But, um. Now people actually put where they live. Yeah. Shocking. Um, and so that can show up. Now it doesn’t show up on the leaderboard, but where it does show up is on teams.

Mm-hmm. So if you’re in a team with [00:08:00] somebody and you click on them, you’re gonna get all their information that’s that’s visible on their profile and that’s gonna be their real name. Their location. There is no opt out. But what you can do is go in and change the information in the first and, and last name blink.

So for instance, instead of Crystal O’Keeffe, I changed mine to Crystal and then the last name is something else

Tom: to Nia Business.

Crystal: Now that’s not that big of a deal for me. But the problem is, I think for a lot of people is they didn’t have a heads up. This was coming. Right. So it, it shows your public information, even if you didn’t want people to know you had a Peloton or what classes you’re taking.

A lot of people, um, felt that like a heads up would’ve been nice. Yeah. A way to turn it off a way. There

Tom: are lots of celebrities that use

Crystal: Peloton. There are, but you know what’s interesting? I think that there, you must be able to completely make your profile private and it doesn’t show up because I looked for some of those celebrities and they did not come up and they [00:09:00] were like verified celebrities, we know Right.

Are on the platform,

Tom: you know for sure. That

Crystal: Absolutely.

Tom: Kevin Hart has a Peloton

Crystal: or they’ve changed their names.

Tom: Yeah.

Crystal: You know, but people in general would’ve liked that. Heads up to know. Yeah. That’s really the biggest deal. So I don’t know. Um. There are people that are like, what’s the big deal?

You’re on Facebook and you say, well, yeah, here’s the difference. I signed up for Facebook knowing Right. It would be out there. Yeah. And that, that was,

Tom: and you can set your profile to private.

Crystal: You totally can. It still shows your name out there. You could still see a person’s name Yeah. On what they put on their Facebook profile.

But a lot of people don’t even use their real names on Facebook anymore. Yeah. So I think that people who are incredibly dismissive of this are rude and arrogant and. They can go suck it. And

Tom: some people have issues with stalkers. Exactly. Or abusive exes. Like there are lots of. Very reasonable, non paranoid reasons that you might want to keep that information to yourself or

Crystal: Absolutely.

Tom: At a minimum.

Crystal: Absolutely. I mean, [00:10:00] when you’ve had somebody send crap to your house and you didn’t ask for it, and you don’t know where they got your address. Yeah. It makes you paranoid a little bit.

Tom: A little bit, yeah.

Crystal: Yeah. So for all you people that act like it’s no big deal, I’m really glad your life has been shaped so that it doesn’t bother you.

Yeah. Maybe be a little nicer to people who it has,

Tom: it’s probably not their brand.

Crystal: Oh, I, I am very well aware that it’s not

Tom: So, uh, Peloton has announced a two new positions, right?

Crystal: Yes. Well, no, I mean, you didn’t, you don’t have these together, so I guess,

Tom: yeah, I was just like, why don’t I have these

Crystal: together?

I don’t know. Here, I’ll fix that. Okay. Now they’re together.

Tom: Thank you. Peloton has announced a new chief. Content and member development.

Crystal: Yeah. I was really caught off guard by this one. Um, we have Sarah Rob O’Hagan, who was

Tom: Oh, the Irish,

Crystal: who was announced on St. Patrick’s Day.

Tom: Oh,

Crystal: I feel like that was purposeful.

Tom: Feels a little on the nose

Crystal: does, right?

Tom: Yeah.

Crystal: They were targeting, I’m surprised she’s not wearing all green in this picture.

Tom: Have a holding a shamrock.

Crystal: [00:11:00] Right.

Tom: Don’t patronize us.

Crystal: She’s got that pot. Pot of gold though. Yeah, because she does join Peloton.

Tom: We’re hoping.

Crystal: Yeah. Here’s hoping Sarah. Yeah. Uh, but she is going to be the new chief content and member development officer.

That is interesting. For a few reasons. One. This is going to replace Jen Kotter, who is going to be staying on a Peloton until August 1st. So Jen Kotter has been the chief Content Officer for seven or eight years. Like a long time.

Tom: A long time. Especially in that world.

Crystal: Yes,

Tom: people.

Crystal: People come and go.

Tom: People come and go.

Crystal: I mean, it was a very startup vibe. And anyway, so, so Jen Kotter is leaving and this position is replacing that position. But also adding member development in there. So kind of signaling that like we, this position is going to be bringing in more interaction. Yeah. With the members. You can’t help but think that.

Tom: Yeah.

Crystal: So that’s [00:12:00] interesting as well. She is going to be officially joining Peloton on April 1st, but uh, they announced it on. St. Patrick’s Day.

Tom: Gotcha.

Crystal: So, I’m kind of fascinated by this also. You know, here’s to Jen Kotter. I know she’s gonna be around till August, so I’ll probably say this again in August, but she has been a delight to have it Peloton.

She’s been a huge advocate for the instructors. Mm-hmm. And I also feel like. She has been an advocate for members and when people have reached out to her with like concerns about things, she’s done what she could Yeah. About those. Absolutely. And, and so she will be missed and I will miss her.

Tom: Yeah. I’m

Crystal: hoping

Tom: she returns at some point, just because I have like 45 Welcome back. Cotter jokes lined up.

Speaker 5: Oh, I

Crystal: bet you do. Yeah,

Tom: I

Crystal: bet you do.

Tom: I’m sure she’s never heard any of them, I’m

Crystal: sure.

Tom: Yeah.

Crystal: Yeah.

Tom: So she’s like, not like. 40 years. What you like a hundred?

Crystal: Don’t worry, she’s not listening.

Tom: That’s [00:13:00] probably for the best.

Uh, Peloton has also named a new interim CFO Ske bag. Did I say that right?

Crystal: Sure.

Tom: Okay. Um, apologies if I did not.

Crystal: This is also interesting because Shakib has been named interim CFO. He’s been at Peloton for several years. Yeah. In a different capacity. But you were mentioning today that Shakib was, has come up before.

Speaker 5: Yes.

Crystal: And uh, I don’t remember all the specifics. We’ll have to go back and, and revisit that story. Yeah.

But it had something to do with a person who, uh, had felt uncomfortable at meetings after October 7th. Yeah. Right. And after the events that occurred that day. And, uh, there was some issues with HR and not allowing that versus allowing that. It turned into a whole thing. I don’t think that’s been resolved yet.

I don’t, I think that’s still winding its way through the court system.

Tom: I, I think so,

Crystal: but, uh, yeah, that’s where we’ve, we’ve specifically heard his name before. I’m sure he’s done other things.

Tom: Yes. I’m sure [00:14:00] that’s not the only thing on his LinkedIn.

Crystal: I, I, I’m pretty sure. Pretty sure. Yeah.

Tom: But, uh, he is your interim, so.

How does this work? Does that mean he’s got a shot at getting the

Crystal: It definitely does. Typically the way interim works I have this situation going on at my current job. Mm-hmm. Right now. Uh, typically the way interim works is that your name is in the hat. It doesn’t mean you will definitely get it

Tom: right,

Crystal: but, I mean, if they trust you with it in the interim.

Tom: Yeah. It’s kinda what, unless you just don’t want it and you’re

Crystal: Yeah.

Tom: And you’re stepping in to bridge a gap,

Crystal: which I’ve seen happen before. Absolutely. Yeah. That has happened. And sometimes, like you might be doing another job at the same time and like you’re only doing it to help out.

You have no interest in doing that. So it’s kind of a way for both sides to kind of give it a try.

Tom: Yeah.

Crystal: Uh, but also, I mean, if, if, you know, there are other applicants, I suppose. That, that are like, just blow that out of the water, right? You never know. You never know. You just never know.

Tom: So Peloton is launching a line of commercial products.

Crystal: Yeah, this is, I [00:15:00] feel fascinating. So Peloton is actually at the HFA show today. Yesterday, and today. So 17th and 18th of March.

Tom: Okay.

Crystal: And that’s really where they kind of announced this, that they are going to be putting out. A bike and a treadmill. No mention of row, no mention of other products.

Mm-hmm. Also thought that was interesting.

Tom: Yeah.

Crystal: That are specifically built for high traffic gym environments. Now they already have a pro series that Precore does. Right. But this is going to be Peloton name brand and it’s going to be it’s going to be a. Partnership with Pre-core and Peloton, and it’s going to be shipping in late 2026.

It will be available in the us, the uk, Canada, Germany, Australia, and Austria. That is huge because even when, when they’ve had some of these products that they have not been available in all of those places, right? So like, uh, the RO for example, is still not available in the uk. So the fact that their commercial will be the commercial bike and treadmill will [00:16:00] be

Tom: right

Crystal: in all of those countries to start.

It feels notable to me.

Tom: Yeah. It’s also fascinating that they would have both pre-core and Peloton commercial Well.

Crystal: They have a pre-core pro, and now this is gonna be a pre-core commercial series. So here’s what I think is happening. The Pro series, I looked into this pretty closely yesterday. Mm-hmm.

The pro series is meant for places like hotels and things like that. The commercial series is specific for gyms, for gyms, where that’s all they get is people working out on it. Now, I realize at a hotel when a, when you have a treadmill, it’s only for people who are coming in to use a treadmill, but you still have probably a lesser degree of that.

Right. It’s not, it’s not, if, let’s say a 24 hour. Fitness, you’re not gonna have 24 hours at a hotel of somebody constantly using that. Right. Even if that’s

Tom: an option, it’s just not the, realistically, the way they get utilized.

Crystal: I’ve been in a lot of hotels where I’m the only person in the gym. Yes. And, and that’s not unusual.

So I don’t think that they’re used in quite the same way.

Tom: Yeah.

Crystal: But it will be doing the [00:17:00] same thing. In that it is going to pair Precorp’s industrial grade hardware, which is something they excel at. Mm-hmm. And taking Peloton software platform and putting them together. And it’s so funny to me that it took five years to get here because I so clearly remember having this conversation when they bought Precore.

Tom: Right.

Crystal: Their reason for buying Precore at the time was all about logistics and shipping. Mm-hmm. So. The focus was completely different, but I, I’m surprised it took until now, right? To be able to push this out when it’s so obvious.

Tom: It’s such an obvious low hanging fruit kind of a thing,

Crystal: but it’s also really good.

Yeah. Especially given what we’re gonna talk about on the bonus episode

Tom: for sure.

Crystal: This is really, really good timing.

Tom: And I’ll also say we call it long, low hanging fruit.

Crystal: We do.

Tom: But my guess is behind the scenes,

Crystal: it’s probably not that easy.

Tom: It’s easier said than done. Right? Like, it’s like I, yeah, like

Crystal: so much is

Tom: all I can think about at the arena.

I get a call like every six months where somebody’s like, you know, you should do hockey. And I was like, I’m like, oh.

Crystal: Never

Tom: thought, well, I totally forgot that we made ice. [00:18:00] You know, it costs us like $1,400 an hour to run ice. Right. So do you wanna pay that for your ice usage? Oh no, you don’t. So like, yeah, I think that while it seems like an obvious choice, my gut tells me there’s a lot more moving parts behind the scenes that we are unaware of that make it.

More difficult than it would seem.

Crystal: I completely agree with that. It’s, it’s always really easy to say, not so easy to do. Yeah. There’s a million moving parts, if nothing else. The financials behind it, because when you have a company that’s Precore and you have a company that’s Peloton, yeah, yes. You may own both, but they have usually, typically they have a completely separate.

Everything. They have a separate balance sheet. They have a separate, you know, accounting structure. And so even just the logistics of making all of that work can be a lot larger than it seems.

Tom: Yeah. Especially at a giant corporate level.

Crystal: Yeah. Like, but, but again, it’s interesting because they came out with the pro already, so you would think that, and that was just this last year, right?

That was new this last year. So hopefully [00:19:00] this is, you know, a broader. Roadmap that we are continuing to see Peloton show up where we don’t expect them. Right. To show up in unique places and to get Peloton and in front of as many different kinds of people as possible.

Tom: Absolutely. Speaking of different kinds of people, mm-hmm.

It sounds like Pelotons next big move will be targeting GLP one users Now. Before you yell at your podcast delivery device. They are not, that’s

Crystal: not, we are just bringing the message.

Tom: We are just messengers. Please calm down. But like they’re not necessarily, they’re not trying to get people to take GLP ones.

No, they’re saying if you are utilizing a GOP one, they’re going to target you because you need to include exercise and not just take the shot to lose the weight. Like you, there are things you need to add for your own. Health and safety.

Crystal: Yeah, and it was interesting because they talked about this at South by Southwest and they talked [00:20:00] about this at the same time that they also talked about they’re gonna be leaning into treadmills.

They’re not necessarily linked. So let me unlink them for this discussion. Uh, the GLP one users specifically is for. Peloton already has a holistic view of exercise, nutrition all the different kinds of exercise you can do built into the system. Mm-hmm. So if you join Peloton, especially if you haven’t been part of it before, you’re gonna be able to do everything from breathing, yoga all the way to strength and all different kinds of cardio.

Right? So you’re getting a huge breadth of options right in one fell swoop with one subscription charge. And the other piece of that is, you know, people have said to me, well, if you’re using a GLP one, isn’t it super important that you do strength? It is. Mm-hmm. And, and so that’s where the treadmills piece is not necessarily connected.

It is important that you exercise in general while using. A GLP one. It is also very important that you do strength as much as possible because when you start [00:21:00] losing weight rapidly, you are absolutely losing muscle mass. Yeah. Not necessarily more muscle mass than you would lose during any other kind of dieting, but you’re still losing it.

Right. And you must, you must focus on strength. That’s very important. Yes. When it comes to the treadmills, the other aspect of it is that they just feel that they have not set their marketing on that as much as they could, which kind of. Goes to what we just talked about with the pre-core piece mm-hmm.

Where it’s gonna be put in more gyms and things like that. There are a lot of people who just see Peloton as a home equipment. So being able to kind of rewire Right. That thought process to be like, no, we’re gonna put treadmills in all these different places, including gyms. That’s where the treadmill growth comes in, not specific to the GLP one users.

Tom: Yeah. So, and there’s a lot of people who like to use both. Absolutely. Who like to use their home stuff and a gym. And so yeah, you might even already have a tread or a bike at home, but you go to the gym for some other reasons and now while you’re there, you can hop on a treadmill and you can [00:22:00] knock out two things at once and log into your account and get your.

Work your way towards Legend.

Crystal: That’s right.

Tom: You feel like you’re wasting it wasted. That run. Peloton is announcing a new series. We’re not entirely sure what this is, but, uh, it’s called Off Air.

Crystal: What we do know is that Peloton recently dropped a, a teaser for it.

Tom: Yes.

Crystal: And uh, it had a whole bunch of different instructors and other Peloton employees, and they were on a Zoom call and they’re, they’re kind of like talking about how they’re all gonna start doing each other’s different jobs in different departments to get a better idea of how Peloton works.

Yeah. It seems like it was lightly scripted, but not like in a. Reality series way. Yeah. Or like a, you know, like a TV show way, but it had a little bit of like direction to it. Yeah. And then there was also obvious improving and ad-libbing as it went through too.

Tom: Like the Larry David show,

Crystal: very much like the Larry David show.

Really good. I’m looking forward to the new Larry [00:23:00] David show, by the way. Yeah. His new

Tom: sketch show.

Crystal: Yeah. Yeah, I heard it just dropped. So, that is kind of where we’re at. It’s gonna be dropping on March 23rd. That’s when the first episode is. Mm-hmm. We have no idea anything else about it?

Yeah. Is it gonna be a podcast? Is it gonna be some kind of TV show? Brands? That is a new thing, by the way. Brands are doing scripted shows now. That’s like a huge thing that’s happening. Yeah. And so there’s so many questions about what this could be, but it’ll be really fun to find out together.

Tom: Absolutely. So, pelotons next country,

Crystal: well, we don’t know.

Tom: Are they invading Poland?

Crystal: I don’t think anybody’s invading Poland

Tom: yet, but just give a time

Crystal: what we

Tom: be our 53rd state.

Crystal: No comment. But what we do know is that Peloton is now registered. In Poland.

Tom: Interesting.

Crystal: It is interesting. And, uh, we, we see that they have it doesn’t expire for a little bit and, or, uh, I’m sorry I said [00:24:00] expire.

I meant to say it incorporated on it incorporated in late 2025. The third quar the fourth quarter of 2025. And, uh, we also see that there is a director of engineering there. So. Kind of interesting. Is that another place that we’re gonna be building things? Does this mean this is where we’re gonna be selling things now?

Yeah. It’s. It’s hard to know. It’s hard to know. Maybe for all I know Pre-Core has another, another office in Poland. Yeah. And that’s what this is. I don’t know, but it, we do know that that director of engineering just joined very recently and they are looking to increase their team, uh, looking for a backend software engineer, end software engineer, and in software engineer in testing.

So, fascinating.

Tom: Yeah. We shall see what that turns into.

Crystal: We shall.

Tom: Peloton is partnering with Hoka at the Hackney Half Marathon.

Crystal: Yes. And we’re gonna have not one, but two instructors that are gonna be running it is going to be Hannah Frankston and Susie Chan will both be [00:25:00] there. I don’t know much about the Hackney half Marathon.

I do know it takes place in May. It’s uh, this year it’s gonna be Sunday, May 17th. Supposedly it is UK’s most recognizable mass participation. One of their most recognizable mass participation running events. It goes through East London lively crowds and has a festival style atmosphere. Um, so it sounds, and to me, very similar to how the New York City Marathon feels.

Yeah. So that is coming up and I think this is kind of also related to Peloton increasing. Treadmills. Mm-hmm. And really pushing on the runners, like getting more in front of people who run. And also running in the UK is on the huge growth spurt right now. The participation is up by across the continent, 349,000 compared to a year ago.

So That’s fascinating.

Tom: Yeah.

Crystal: And this is an interesting statistic. Peloton says that more, more than 300,000 [00:26:00] of its members today have already used the platform to train for a race. Isn’t that fascinating?

Tom: Yeah, absolutely. Well, coming up after this, we have instructors in the news. We’re gonna tell you who got engaged, who’s showing off a new baby, and who got a promotion at their side hustle.

So set tight.

Tom: Logan Aldridge has gotten engaged.

Crystal: He has, uh, he got engaged to, uh, Natalie, who is now his fiance. Yeah. They have known each other since the first grade.

Tom: What?

Crystal: Yeah. He said in his caption let me pull it up here. I wanna get it just right. My first love, first kiss. You were always the one I knew at the moment.

I saw you in first grade.

Tom: Doing what it took so long. I’ll ask, I’ll say what all the women were thinking. That’s nice and all, but you’re like 38. What took so long? Hopefully [00:27:00] Logan doesn’t listen.

Crystal: Kind of thinking he doesn’t.

Tom: Don’t pull this as a clip. Whatever you do now, it’s for sure gonna be a clip

Crystal: damnit, but congratulations to Logan and Natalie.

That’s really exciting and uh, people were just thrilled to see it. He’s been very lovey dovey on Instagram lately. So seeing this, in fact one of our eagle eyed tipster slash helper bees. Sorry, I was thinking of your new name for them. Um, they, uh, they spotted, there was a sunset picture that was posted before the actual engagement and it said, and they said, oh, this is for sure giving engagement vibes.

And I kid you not, three hours later the engagement was posted. So we’ve got a couple of investigators on the team.

Tom: Alex Kowski is showing off his new baby.

Crystal: Yeah, this is. Fabulous because when I, I’ve talked about this before, how these instructors are just having babies and not like telling us at all, like

Tom: surprise, like where’d that 3-year-old come from?

Crystal: Right?

Tom: Yeah.

Crystal: Well, obviously men can pull [00:28:00] that off easier than women can, but Alex has never becausecause. We’re

Tom: better at keeping secrets.

Crystal: Because you don’t show a pregnancy because you’re not,

Tom: oh, yeah. That would also play a role.

Crystal: Yeah. Yeah. You think, um, now Alex has never mentioned on social media or posted a picture or anything about his baby.

What was, you know how this was, this came up, is that when they did the teaser for the off air piece? One of the tiny little snippets in there is Alex feeding his baby.

Tom: Yeah.

Crystal: While they’re doing, they’re filming it makes you wonder, did he even know that that was gonna be used? Yeah. You know,

Tom: like surprise

Crystal: or was it a surprise to the instructors?

So, uh, the whole thing was, was kind of, uh, interesting and funny, but like Alex is, he just seems like a really great person and like obviously he wants to keep his private life private.

Tom: Yeah.

Crystal: But congrats to him and his family.

Tom: Jess Sims was promoted to commentator for the NCAA March Madness Women’s Basketball Tournament. [00:29:00]

Crystal: Yes. And uh, according to my notes here.

She is going to also be doing the game calls versus the court side reporting that is in the sports world, a promotion.

Tom: Okay.

Crystal: I did not know that. Of course, Nikki shared that with me.

Tom: Yes. It’s sports. Yeah. So we’re unawares.

Crystal: Yeah. But I thought that was really cool.

Tom: Absolutely. Good for her. Yeah.

Crystal: And they put out a big press release and stuff about it too.

So ESPN did.

Tom: Yes.

Crystal: So neat.

Tom: Uh, Robin Anne’s media tour continues.

Crystal: It does, yeah. She, this week has been on Kelly Clarkson and the Drew Barrymore show.

Tom: Those are big things to be on.

Crystal: They sure are. Yeah. And they both have cooking segments, so it’s been fun because she’s cooking her actual recipes while on there.

Or at least for one of them. Yeah, for the Drew Barrymore. She was, I don’t know if that actually happened on the Kelly Clarkson show.

Tom: Gotcha. Well, her publicist is earning their keep.

Crystal: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. She’s been on a real roll.

Tom: And, uh, speaking of book tours, SAMO is plotting a book tour of his own.

Crystal: He is, and he [00:30:00] is asking, he has been asking for people to weigh in on what cities they would like to see him which kind of

Tom: Evansville, Indiana,

Crystal: which kind of makes everyone think that he’s coming.

To America. Yeah. To do a book tour and, or at least with part of it, part of the book tour. And, uh, will he be teaching in the United States? In the New York location? Yeah. I don’t think he ever has taught. Okay. In the New York studio?

Tom: Yeah.

Crystal: If he has, I don’t recall. So, um, I hope that he does, because that’s

just

Tom: fun and you are Pelotons institutional memory.

Crystal: Well, I mean, it’s perimenopause up there. I don’t know. It’s a little, it’s a little fuzzy, but I don’t recall him ever teaching there. So

Tom: my head’s a little fuzzy too.

Crystal: That’s all

Tom: I got left.

Crystal: Uh, so hopefully you put in your. Your bid for your city and we will see shortly where all the different places he will be attending.

Tom: Paducah, Kentucky.

Crystal: I would’ve put St. Louis in, but I already know it’s not gonna happen. Yeah, it’s not gonna be the Midwest people. It’s gonna be,

Tom: if it is, it’s Chicago.

Crystal: Yeah, exactly. [00:31:00] It is gonna be the East coast and maybe the west coast.

Tom: Yeah,

Crystal: that’s about it.

Tom: Okay, The latest artist series features per

Crystal: It does. It does.

Tom: Is that how you say it?

Crystal: I guess so.

Tom: Because it’s a German artist, it’s so they can pronounce it all sorts of weird ways.

Crystal: They could. Yeah. It’s,

Tom: they’d be like, oh no pea, make a kine over here. I don’t know. Germans do whatever they want.

Crystal: Um,

Tom: just ask Poland.

Crystal: This is a part of kind of a new thing that Peloton has been doing mid month. They’ve been announcing these smaller. Artist series. But they have been specifically German, right? Or they’ve been specifically

Tom: so they’re smaller to us.

Crystal: Yeah. But in German, but to

Tom: Germans.

Crystal: Not

Tom: necessarily

Crystal: in Germany. Not in Germany.

Yeah. I think that’s,

Tom: and Germans still remember per mania. All the kids were running around with little kitty ears.

Crystal: Well, that sounds adorable.

Tom: It’s crazy times.

Crystal: Uh, so not familiar to us, but I [00:32:00] think it’s really cool that Peloton is doing this. I remember years ago we had a whole conversation with Gail Fine.

Who works in the music industry. Yeah. And we talked about that. Peloton had this amazing opportunity to take these, these really cool bands and songs that are popular in other countries and put them on the platform and get ’em in front of people that they normally wouldn’t be in front of. It’s new

Tom: music to.

Crystal: Yeah, exactly. So, uh, it’s really cool to see them doing that. Also, we will be seeing this month, Carol g going to be, uh. Another artist series.

Tom: some. Interesting news from the world of Tonal.

Crystal: It is. Yeah. So Tonal has worked with Tony Horton several times and they brought him back. So he is, he’s doing another installment, I believe. There’s a couple of different programs that Tony is gonna be doing. So that’s exciting to tonal people. Also they brought in a total of four new instructors, so Tony is one of those.

Tom: Yeah. He’s like a guest instructor,

Crystal: not permanent. He’s guest instructor. Instructor a. He’s not a permanent instructor. I don’t think anybody can afford Tony Horton. Full-time. Full-time. Yeah. Yeah. And [00:33:00] the fascinating part, and the part that’s a connection to Peloton is that he also added Alexandra Mack, who happens to be Adrian Wilson’s.

Adrian Wilson. Adrian Williams girlfriend. Isn’t that fascinating?

Tom: That is fascinating.

Crystal: I thought that was really interesting.

Tom: Which makes me wonder, will we get some candid of Adrian Williams on a tonal. Since there will probably be one in his orbit.

Crystal: I don’t know. I’ll be on the lookout.

Tom: Yeah.

Crystal: I, uh, to be honest, I haven’t really followed Alexandra Mack.

I’m, I’m really bad about following the instructor’s, significant others.

Tom: Mm-hmm.

Crystal: Um, like I feel like I follow enough people.

Tom: Yeah.

Crystal: You know, I

Tom: also don’t wanna get a restraining order.

Crystal: Well, there’s that

Tom: again,

Crystal: never had a restraining order. I know some people that should have one. Yeah. But, um, the. I don’t know.

I only see Adrian post pictures by himself, or like with friends. I hardly ever see a picture of him and his [00:34:00] girlfriend. Yeah. I feel like they keep their lives very separate on social media for that purposely. Yeah. Yes. It feels very purposeful. Yeah, it feels like they, they do that purposefully. So I’m, I will be curious to see.

I mean, it doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen behind the scenes, but I don’t think we’ll see him on it.

Tom: Yeah. And we also had, we should say another. Tonal Coach Exit

Crystal: we did. Yeah. Tim Landito, which I was really sad about. Yeah. Tim’s really great guy. Super nice guy.

Tom: Absolutely.

Crystal: And uh, he will be missed, but I kind of feel like.

Tonal kind of got rid of all their coaches again, like they did?

Tom: Yeah.

Crystal: They just a few years ago,

Tom: did it a little more slowly this time.

Crystal: Slowly and much better for optics. I mean,

Tom: agreed.

Crystal: It was rough last time. It was real rough. I mean, it’s never good. Uh, and I hate to see anybody leave, especially if it’s not by their own choosing.

But I, I hope it works out for tonal because. I feel like they’re a really great company. I feel like their product is amazing.

Tom: Yeah.

Crystal: And I hope that they are here for a very long time.

Tom: Same.

Coming up after [00:35:00] this, we’ve got content, so many classes in the world of Peloton for you to choose from, and we will help you right after this.

Tom: It is time for the TCO top five. You have told us your favorite classes and now we will say them back at you. Number one, your favorite eighties ride.

Crystal: Yes. And this was taught by Leanne Sby on March 11th, 2026. Now that is when it dropped. Fairly certain she did not come back from maternity leave just to film this class.

So I’m pretty sure this was prerecorded

Tom: in the can, as they say in the industry.

Crystal: That is correct, yes. Uh, but we have. A little quote here from Charlie Spillane who says Leanne’s 30 minute, eighties ride. She is always so joyful, and the playlist was fire.

Tom: Okay. Uh, number two, your favorite outdoor run.

Crystal: It was a 45 minute outdoor run, and it’s a run club that was taught by Jocelyn Thompson Brule, and it dropped on February 20.

First of this year and Christina Ro [00:36:00] said, what are you gonna do when things get tough? I loved this run outside, chose it based on the playlist, and I found it to be a better experience than I expected. Amazing music that keeps you going. Excellent coaching and pace targets. Very doable outside. I highly recommend this, those.

This for those training a race or a marathon. Jocelyn talks about how to keep the focus even during unexpected, I’m not training for everything, but could transfer her words to my current life moment bonus. This is the class Hannah Frankston takes when she runs outside. That is, um, leaderboard, little powerhouse.

And I just wanna say mm-hmm. To those listening who know Christina, she’s been going through a very rough time with major losses in her life. And we are thinking of her and send her lots of love.

Tom: Number three, favorite real route.

Crystal: This was taught by Christian Vanderbilt on March 10th of this year, and it was the brand new Paris Mountain Real Route.

Larry Wellborn. Nominated this class and he said he grew up about 10 minutes from Paris Mountain. So it was [00:37:00] interesting to hear him talk about the rides and the, the ride and the points of interest. It was tough, but doable. And I set a new p PR mostly due to a new FT FTP test I took recently. Christian is a great instructor.

Tom: Uh, number four, your favorite Rolling Hills ride.

Crystal: This was taught by Sam Yo. Uh, and it was on March 14th. Annie Townsend Townsend, uh, nominated this class said. Best class of last week was Sam’s 30 minute Rolling Hills, a tough class with a great playlist and fabulous fitness based plan. On top of that, some fabulous words as Sam, from Sam as he approached his 47th birthday with attitudes to age and getting older wise words.

That man is almost as old as I am. Yeah, that’s not right. He looks like 20 years younger. Damn.

Tom: Uh, and finally, number five. You’re Unst stackable. It is a long run.

Crystal: This was taught by Mariana Fernandez and it was also on March 14th. A lot happened on pie Day. It was a 60 minute [00:38:00] outdoor run club. Stephanie Lottos nominated this class said one of my new favorite runs was Mariana’s 60 minute long run.

Not only did I receive two birthday shoutouts, run, Steph, run, stuffy, run, uh, the playlist and her demeanor were on point. Like always, but there was a special relaxed vibe to this long run. It was that feeling that you’ve put in the work now enjoy the doing the thing type vibes. I should also add the Swifties will love this one because she played two Taylor songs, one of which was all too Well, the 10 minute version, and she let it play uninterrupted New fave.

Long run for sure. Oh, Stephanie, I’m gonna have to put that on the list.

Tom: Taking a look at this week at Peloton, we have all sorts of stuff for you. Well, we don’t, but they do. But we say we ’cause it’s a membership.

Crystal: That’s right.

Tom: We’re all,

Crystal: We’re all part of,

Tom: we’re always here. That’s,

Crystal: that’s right.

Tom: Yeah. We’ll start with a spring recovery with the aforementioned Samuel.

Crystal: Yes, uh, it is this week. It’s going to actually be debuting on March 20th. So this Friday, the same day as our podcast will, [00:39:00] it’ll be on demand. And, uh, this is going to have, of course, Sam’s coaching style, but it’s also gonna be a nice low impact transition into the spring season.

Tom: There is a new percentage hike.

Crystal: Yes, there are actually a few of them, uh, taught by John, Rebecca, Kirsten, and Mela.

Tom: A focus flow for runners.

Crystal: This one is taught by Zacharias and is a 45 minute focus flow for runners. That’s a really long one. That sounds delightful. I’m also a little scared because Zacharias is known to be really tough.

Like good. Yeah. Amazing. Not everybody can keep up. And I am that. I am that anybody.

Tom: Uh, and an r and b Pilates,

Crystal: this is taught by Greta. It is gonna be dropping on the 19th. And that is going to, I think that’s her first r and b Pilates. I don’t recall seeing that before. So that’s fun.

Tom: And then taking a look at the TCO radar classes that we’re, oh, [00:40:00] tracking that we think you should be as well.

We have week three of Women’s history month.

Crystal: Yeah, all new classes that are going to be dropping this week.

We’re gonna have a 20 minute country ride with Hannah Corbin, alternative rock ride with Christine. There’s gonna be that r uh, there’s gonna be a different r and b yoga flow with Chelsea, and then there’s gonna be finally the two for one ride with a Saul and Mela that was supposed to be back on March 8th, got taken off the schedule and is now going to be premiering on March 29th.

So I’m excited to take that class and can’t wait to see it show up.

Tom: And St. Patrick’s Day might be over, but as long as you’re a drinker who loves bad poetry and

Crystal: or has an O apostrophe in your name,

Tom: yeah. And hates snakes. It’s always St. Patrick’s Day in your heart and there are classes for you.

Crystal: Yes. There was a 20 minute, this was live, uh, taught 20 minute St.

Patrick’s day ride that was taught by Christine. There was also a hit cardio with Logan that was on demand. Marcel Dinkins taught a 20 minutes [00:41:00] St. Patrick’s Day run, and a full body strength that was 20 minutes with Jocelyn that was also on demand.

Tom: John Hoskin is heading back to PSNY.

Crystal: Yeah, he’s gonna be there this weekend. Um, and he’s gonna be teaching classes like Friday and Saturday and Sunday. They’re awful. There are no wait lists. I checked a lot.

Tom: Also Christine Deley has an alternative rock ride.

Crystal: Yes. Well, this is part of her Women’s history month. That’s week three that we

Tom: mentioned. Okay, gotcha. So it’s probably all female,

Crystal: I would say. Yes. Yeah.

Tom: Tracy Bottom. And

Crystal: I was thinking Alanis Alanis.

Tom: Yeah,

Crystal: that’s who it popped into my head. It could just all be Alanis.

Tom: Uh, Sundays with Love is Back.

Crystal: Yep. It’s dropping. Uh, this Sunday is gonna be her first one back and it will be, so that’s March 22nd. If you don’t know the date

Tom: and Ash Pryor has a long row for people.

Crystal: Yes. This Sunday, 45 minutes. Whew. That’s a long time on the row. [00:42:00] I like my 20 minutes. For those of you who are good at endurance on the row, that’s very impressive.

I am very impressed.

Tom: And, uh, Jermaine Johnson has a four day split coming at you.

Crystal: He does That is gonna be dropping, uh, later this month. I believe it’s the 27th. Yep, the 27th.

Tom: And it’s reverse week for Matt Wilpert. Think of it as like a Sadie Hawkins ride.

Crystal: Yeah, he’s gonna be doing a 60 minute ride on Friday and only a 30 minute ride on Saturday.

Usually he does phoning it

Tom: in.

Crystal: No. He’s got a live row that morning too. Ah. But usually he does his long rides on Saturday, but because he has the row, he flipped it. So the long day was Friday. Saturday is the short day.

Tom: Gotcha. And finally, world Broadway Day is March 27th. Why? Whoever could be doing. A class dedicated to that.

Crystal: It’s a real mystery.

Tom: It’s a puzzlement.

Crystal: I believe we might be looking at Maddie Mamo. Honestly, we don’t even know if there really will be classes for that. We just know that Maddie is [00:43:00] currently teaching two classes that day and we hope they turn in two Broadway classes.

Tom: I think he would throw a hissy fit.

It was not him.

Crystal: Maddie is never anything but professional.

Tom: Not if you’d rob him of Broadway classes and start handing them out to some Duwell who doesn’t respect Broadway in the same way. He’ll make that known.

Crystal: He will

Tom: Ash Pryor and Alex. Kowski have their two for one row that was on the schedule and off the schedule, and now it’s back on the schedule.

Crystal: So it ended up being a prerecord. And so we didn’t know when it was gonna launch, but one of our Eagle Eye listeners, uh, they were in the class live, and so they, you weren’t allowed to take pictures because there’s no live leaderboard when it’s a prerecord.

Tom: Right.

Crystal: Makes perfect sense. So they did their pictures after and they got a notification saying that they couldn’t release the pictures until the class was live.

And look for your pictures to be live on March 25th. So we can only assume that either March 25th or before we will see the two for [00:44:00] one row. And that is really exciting ’cause that’s the first of its kind. So ah, yay.

Tom: Then finally, Hannah Franken has restructured her hit and hills classes

Crystal: she has, and she’s gonna be using the same structure the rest of the year, which means for people who are trying to improve their conditioning, this is a perfect class for you to take with Hannah over and over again to continue to work on your, uh, endurance your power.

So that’ll be very cool for people.

Tom: So that means we are done here.

Crystal: Whoa.

Tom: But. Because there are no birthdays this week.

Crystal: Okay,

Tom: so we now present you with our interview, which we haven’t done in a while. So here’s Jim Felling.

Speaker 8: Joining us today via the magic of a Zoom tube. We’ll call it that. Sure of zoom tube. We’ll call it that. It’s Jim. Yeah, it’s Jim Felling. How’s going? Thank you for your patience. Hi Jim. We’re a little rusty on these things up

Speaker 7: and hi [00:45:00] guys.

Speaker 9: We are a little rusty.

Speaker 7: You know, I gotta feel that your listeners are used to hearing this whole spiel every time you have a guest on.

Thanks for your patience. All problems.

Speaker 9: We were about to take everything apart. Room we about Maybe he’s just a save.

Speaker 8: What about that?

Speaker 9: You have been a long Peloton. So Jim, you have been a long time Peloton person, long time listener. Tell us a little bit about yourself and your journey with Peloton

Speaker 7: okay. Um, I was in Long Island, New York. I am a COVID Peloton person. I got my bike during COVID. I had to wait almost three months.

But I had been looking at Peloton for a while. I have a very good friend who has one in her garage, who she is every day. And I was like, so you like it? She was like, I write it every day, and she sucked me right into the cult man. So I finally decided to pull the trigger and I was very lucky. I was one of those [00:46:00] people who messaged Peloton on the Daily.

Mm-hmm. Oh, oh deliveries and. Finally, we wound up getting in uh, wow. Quickly. Wow. Into a thousand rides. Yeah. I, uh, she, we the friend who kind of sucked me in, we had a little group called the Peloton Rock Stars. There’s only like five of us. And we would ride together every morning. She was in charge.

She would set up the ride for the day and would, uh, text it to us. We had a little group chat and she would text us to us the night before, let us know. What time ride and everything. And, uh, yeah. And it, uh. Huge help with my training ’cause I hence why I’m here. Um, I do a, a charity bicycle ride every year called the FDNY 3 4 3 ride.

And we ride one mile for every firefighter who died on nine 11. Obviously we don’t do it in a day. You are not riding 343 miles in a day, but it’s a, uh, a multi-day ride that goes from Montauk Point, which is the [00:47:00] farthest end of Long Island and of Long Island, all the way to Arlington Cemetery.

Where we, we finished the ride with a ceremony at a New York City firefighter’s grave who died in the line of duty over battling after nine 11, he was killed in action. So we have a huge ceremony at his grave at the end of the ride. Wow. So.

Speaker 9: You guys, just to be clear, you’re not riding indoor 343 miles.

You’re doing the actual on the road 43 miles. Okay. As a person who’s been hit by a car, that is terrifying. Like.

Speaker 7: Yes. And believe it or not, uh, that’s kind of what brought the Peloton into, uh, my training a lot more was because obviously you, you can’t do it all. There’s gotta be seat time on the road.

And I was training about five years ago. And went to transition from the shoulder to the main roadway. Caught a one inch gap, went over the hands of the bike, destroyed the bike. The bike was outta commission for weeks while it was getting repaired. Luckily I didn’t suffer any major [00:48:00]injuries.

You know, a lot of road rash and bumps and bruins. Thank God. And. Much like you, I said, you know what? I’m gonna do a lot more of this indoors. You know, where it’s safe and I earth that can happen. Uh, yeah. So it, it, it’s training you, you can’t, you know, walk into this and do 300, 4, 3 miles and it’s, it’s much century.

People train for C and this is ultimately three centuries in, in three

Speaker 9: days. Three days. So you cover 343 miles in three days.

Speaker 7: Depending on the logistics. So the, as you can imagine there, there’s about 150 riders who do it. And there are a ton of logistics that go on by it. You know, just support teams and hotel stays and meals, and.

Um, the support team we ride 20 miles at a clip, so every 20 miles is another stop where you can fuddle, grab a bite if you need it. Don’t pee. Do any repairs. Um.

Speaker 10: Yeah,

Speaker 7: well, depends [00:49:00] on the, on the year. We’ve done it in freezing cold weather. We’ve done it in pouring rain more to wanna talk about ever again. Um, and we’ve extreme heat and there are years where you say peeing. Yeah. Yeah. I think once the entire day. ’cause you’re just sweating it out. There, there are certain parts we know that are just gonna be hotter than hot.

You know, the, we, the road, there’s no shade. A lot of Jersey is Jersey. It’s unusual because, because normally Jersey, we, we actually do, so New Jersey, the first thing New Jersey. Yeah. You know what? I will be one of those people who will not, because New Jersey treats us like royalty. So the first day obviously is we go from Montauk point to ground zero.

In Manhattan, we have a huge ground zero, obviously. I do it. Very long story short, I got hurt in a fire, destroyed my knee. I runner used to run marathons. And after many, many surgeries and a lot of, uh, replacements in the knee, the doctor finally said, listen, your running [00:50:00] days are over. You’re you can’t run anymore.

I recommend you take up cycling. So that’s how I kind of got into it. And I lost my brother in the trade center. He was also a fireman in Brooklyn, so I was. Very lost, looking for something to do to honor him and like a miracle from the sky. A message came over the tele printer while I was in the firehouse one day talking about the FDNY 3 4 3 run.

Totally thought up in Firehouse. It’s an amazing, amazing group. There is, other than logistical, uh, stuff, there’s no overhead for us. There are no officers, there are no office staff. Everything inside the firehouse, all setups, all trainings, everything done in Firehouse by guys who are working on that shift.

And that way every dollar goes to veterans. So we raise money for injured veteran. Um. We can do many, many things with the money we’ve made custom back chairs, so it’s basically a wheelchair on, on [00:51:00] tank trains. Oh wow. And that way they could get back out hunting, stuff like that. Custom bikes for them, arm bikes, anything custom made to their specific injury.

If they’re missing an arm, we can set it up so it works with the other arm. If they’re missing a leg, we can set it up so they can press the bike. Uh, act we. Had, um, one year, one of the bikes we made. We had the soldier come and ride the following year. Wow. With his custom bike. Uh, we work very closely, which is our big thing with, uh, building homes, which is another amazing organization where they will custom build a home to the needs of an injured veteran.

And two years ago. Was an amazing, amazing ride. Instead of going from, uh, New York to Arlington, we started and ended in Connecticut, and it was our 343rd home that we had built, and it went to a member of the 3 43 ride. One of the soldiers who came back was missing both his legs. Mm-hmm. And [00:52:00] they built a custom home for him.

He had no clue it was coming. Um, we rode to the house and presented the house to him. So it was like, sorry, like the very teary eye day. It really was this guy me like,

Speaker 8: like how did he, like what if he didn’t wanna live in that neighborhood?

Speaker 7: Well that you

Speaker 8: live here now a problem.

But

Speaker 8: wait, my job is

Speaker 7: here

Speaker 8: now.

Speaker 7: So, um, and he,

Speaker 8: yeah,

Speaker 7: he wasn’t living in, in Connecticut. He was living in Virginia. So it was, it was some logistics to dad said, you know, why don’t you move back up north where we can be closer and stuff? And they convinced him to move up north and he goes, you know.

Gotcha. Okay. And.

Oh yeah it was an amazing day. It many, many amazing days. I have many, many incredible days because as you can imagine, this is 150 New York City firemen, either active or retired who put without fire, you know, what fire like could do at night. You [00:53:00] so to watch guys, um, yeah, exactly. Watch guys celebrate every night in a parking lot or a hotel, and then get on a bike the next day and rather 80 to a hundred miles is quite an amazing

Speaker 9: feat.

I feel like you guys need to, yeah, your things needs to be like IVs out there, a 20 minute stop. Some people are eating, that’s

Speaker 8: some people are peeing. Some people are puking. People are puking.

Speaker 7: Yeah. We’ve definitely had a steep learning curve from our first ride to now what will be our 25th ride this year with the 25th anniversary.

The support team has learned a lot of what we can do and what we can’t do. We, and we first started the first ride was an absolute disaster. Absolute disaster. Oh, it poured the entire time. And when you ride a road bike in the rain. Your tires pick up everything. So we were literally going through probably 10 to 15 tubes an hour all the way to Virginia.

And it got to the point where they took one member of the support team and all he did was drive [00:54:00] ahead to every bike shop he could find and buy every tube they had. That’s all it was. And we’d stop and fix the tube and then we’d get started again. And over the years we started to learn that, you know what this starting and stopping thing is, it’s just taking way too long.

So now we have support trucks that ride in the rear also, and if you get a flat or a mechanical issue, they just pick you up. And you can sit in the back of the truck and fix it while we’re moving. That way the whole ride doesn’t stop. Um, we also have the New York City Fire Riders Motorcycle Club comes with us every single year, and they’re our protection.

They ride, they block off every intersection. They ride next to us to make sure traffic doesn’t get close to us. They, they are invaluable to us. Without them, the ride wouldn’t happen. They are, they’re so important to the ride. And we’ve had a million, you know, I, I won’t say sponsors ’cause they don’t really, you know, we’re not getting money or anything from, but people who just want to come out and help, like Mission Barbecue comes out sometimes during the ride and feeds [00:55:00] us help us out.

We have MAs, massage companies who will come out, uh, some nights and just rub the guys down to help them relax a little bit. Just the overwhelming support. But like I said. New Jersey rolls out the red carpet for us. So the first day from Montauk point to, uh, ground zero, we spend the night in Manhattan at ground zero.

Then the next morning we ride over to Marine three. Um, where we get on the 5 3 43 and they take us over to New Jersey. So the, the bikes all get loaded on a truck. The truck drives around, and then we go over on the boat and then we are greeted with open arms by New Jersey Fire Department and police department.

We, we wind up at the dock there, we get off, they do a huge ceremony, and then we have police escorted entire state. Hmm. We have they let everyone know we have schools who line up on the street to cheer us on as we come by. Um, just police and people get out of our way. Like there’s no, we don’t need anyone to block intersections.

’cause they see the [00:56:00] police come, they all pull over and cheer us. That’s so incredible. It’s pretty wild.

Speaker 9: How, how. Just uplifting, especially world is just so crazy right now. I, and it’s not like it hasn’t been before. There’s lots of ups and downs, I’m sure. It’s just so wonderful to see people coming together for.

Speaker 7: It’s amazing, amazing thing to experience and to date the ride. So to, to be a member of the riding team. Okay. You have to raise money. So that’s how we get our money. Um, we sell t-shirts. We sell raffle tickets. We get a lot of stuff donated to raffle off. So we’ll always raffle off like a big screen TV tickets to a Yankee game.

We do a, a whole night in Manhattan with a show and hotel. All stuff donated to us. Um, so. Again, so much money that could be wasted on office expenses and CEOs. None of that stuff happens ’cause it’s all handled in the firehouse by guys who are working that shift that day. Just, you know, we sell thousands and thousands of t-shirts, a t-shirt, [00:57:00] just every year, so everyone has that t-shirt each year.

Sell challenge coins which are also really nice. And all that money gets raised. To date, we raised over $2 million just from guys doing the ride and selling raffles and stuff. Wait, some, somebody’s

Speaker 8: house isn’t burning

Speaker 7: down. Sorry. That’s, you’re like going off.

Speaker 9: Okay. Okay. So you, okay, so you guys are raising money.

Where do people go? People are gonna hear this. They’re gonna wanna pitch in, they’re gonna wanna help. Where do they go?

Speaker 7: There’s both a Facebook page and a, and a website, FDNY 3 4 3 ride.com. Um, there, there’s a link to the button top says Donate. You can go there, you can purchase challenge coins, donation all through PayPal.

Um, you can buy t-shirts depending if there are some left. Obviously we’re much later in the season this year. So you might wanna wait for the new shirt to come out next year. The ride is happening this year on the 13th and 14th, so starts on September. We never ever [00:58:00] starts. It’s gonna start on September 13th.

You know, I’m not sure they’re still working out the logistics so long. It’s gonna go, they have to figure out plans routes, uh, hotels to stay in. Sometimes we take ferries to get to places we need to be. There are big chunks we try to avoid. We, depending on what they find when they start making the route.

So they’ll make the route by actually driving it and then they’ll get to places like a couple years ago they started driving the route. Five days before the actual ride and found out they were resurfacing an entire highway that we had planned on using. So everything shifted immediately that we can’t be on this road anymore ’cause there’s no concrete to drive on.

So yeah, a lot of things changed last minute and can. Get pretty crazy with what we gotta do. Um, we sometimes we’ll have to ride 20, 30 miles out of the way to get around stuff, but it all works out in the end. But like I say, logistical mayor,

Speaker 9: the project manager in me

Speaker 7: every single time,

Speaker 9: like I’ve got, I’ve got thoughts Mans

Speaker 8: and the lazy guy in me [00:59:00] is

Speaker 7: like,

Speaker 8: wait, you take a different

Speaker 7: route.

Speaker 8: Like once you get one that works, don’t mess with it. Like,

Speaker 7: yeah. And they make the stops very challenging sometimes, you know, always have a, you know, a bloody Mary stop. Which when you’ve ridden 60 miles, you’re like, anything liquid sounds great. So you count two of them and then you realize, oh wait,

Speaker 8: get a P UI

Speaker 7: under the, surprisingly, yeah.

Yeah, surprisingly it is amazing what the human body can do. It really is. And I was very worried the first time I did it. But I had a lot of advice of things to do, uh, recovery wise with, you know, the death stick, rolling out your legs and stuff and making sure you got plenty of good sleep and see a lot of fluids, um, which was very easy to do.

Um, like

Speaker 10: I’m sure you mean water might be counterproductive.[01:00:00]

Speaker 7: So that was one of the hard things. When Mission Barbecue came, I had never experienced Mission Barbecue before. ’cause we don’t have them up here in the northeast. So I love food and they came and they us one night and did an ama amazing ceremony about how, ’cause their, their whole mission is veterans also.

So they were a perfect fit to, to join us one year. And their food was so good. I just wanted to keep eating and eating. Eating. I keep selling myself. You gotta get on the bike tomorrow. You gotta get on the bike to stop. That’s tomorrow, Jim. I know it’s good, but you have to. Yes. Yes. Exactly. And that’s what I kept saying.

I’m like, it’s tomorrow’s Jim, but you know tomorrow, Jim, you have to ride another 800 miles. Um, I did have one year where as we were coming down into DC I could see the Capitol building. We were close to the end. No, and my seat snapped in half right there. I’m like, ride the rest of this rioting up now.

’cause it was, it [01:01:00] was just too close to stop, you know, if I stopped, that meant I wasn’t gonna ride into Arlington Cemetery, which I was definitely doing. I was, there’s no way I was riding in the back of a truck into Arlington Cemetery. Wow. So I’m like, yep. Last 10 miles standing up.

Speaker 9: Do, do you, do you guys have like a bunch of people waiting at the cemetery too?

Like, are people there or how, or is it like a private thing?

Speaker 7: Well, sure. Obviously we can’t just go into Arlington and go right to the site. Obviously they have people. So yeah, we’ll ride into the entrance where they’ll have buses waiting for us, that’ll truck us over to the actual site of, you know, many pipers who are in the automation.

So they’ll meet us there ready to, to play for the ceremony and stuff, and we’ll layer with and, um. With the logistic nightmare of 343 miles it got to the point where it just got to be too much every year. So we started doing it every other year and then every three years. So those other years we’ll just ride ground zero to Montauk.

And then we’ll along the way we’ll stop [01:02:00] at the hundred sixth Rescue Wing, um, which is right here on Long Island. And we’ll do a ceremony there with all the soldiers. ‘Cause we have a couple fire, we’re also killed there. So we do a ceremony with them. They come out again arms. So happy to have, um, and we, we always try.

We’re always remembering the brothers who died. So every time along the way we have names we read off of all the firemen who died. So we’ll do 20 or 30 names each stop so we can always remember them. Uh, and all those videos. Obviously the Facebooks. Page gets crazy during the ride. There’s always broadcasting live reading names or a stop or, you know, having dinner or ceremonies that we’re doing.

So the Facebook page is crazy during the ride. It’s pretty dead the rest of the year ’cause we’re always planning and stuff. But the actual website is up all year. You can see past rides, past pictures, stuff like that. And during the ride we also track where we are. We have a live tracker, so you can always wear.

Coming into [01:03:00] Manhattan now, so we should be closed. So if you wanna come out and cheer us on, you can see exactly where we’re, you don’t have to stand outside.

Speaker 9: It’s helpful. That’s helpful. And so have you guys already earmarked where the proceed.

Speaker 7: We always have, we have specific ones. We always do.

So one of them we always do is we always sponsor three dogs for America’s Vet Dogs, which is an organization here on Long Island that trains service animals for veterans and first responders. Now that was another great year. About five years ago, one of the sponsored was. Paired up with active New York Fireman, um, really bad PTS.

He’s a military member. So now the dog goes with him to the firehouse first and stuff. Everyone knows him. So, uh, one of our dogs that we sponsored actually made it to him, but every year we spoke with America’s vet dogs. We always work with building homes for heroes, so a big chunk of that money always goes to them so we can continue to build houses and anything else anyone needs.

You know, we don’t [01:04:00] necessarily have to build a retrofit. I already live in that. They can use it to their, their abilities. So yeah, that’s pretty much where the money goes. The time there’s always, you know, other thing that comes along. Uh, someone needs this, someone needs that, and we’re always there.

Speaker 8: And, and how long have you guys, did you say, how have you guys, so like, it started almost instantly.

Wow.

Speaker 7: Yeah. This will be a 25th hour. We’ve been doing it a year after. Yeah. Yep. So it was literally, you know, the guys were sitting around the kitchen table in the firehouse and were like, we wanna do something to on nine 11. What can we do? And the Captain Mike, Alex’s leader of the eight he goes, you know, I, I have a, a crazy idea.

Why don’t we ride bicycles for 343 miles? And everyone looked at ’em like they had six heads, like three foot, are you outta your mind? And where it started? And they said, you know what? Let’s do it. And like I say. We took every punches. The first year it was really, really hard. The first year the first year we even had a veteran [01:05:00] with an arm bike who did it the whole way on an arm bike.

Speaker 9: That’s

Speaker 7: stuff. Whoa. Yeah, just crazy. Yeah. It’s ama what will power will, you know? ’cause they were like, not, we’re not.

Speaker 8: Yeah.

Speaker 7: That’s amazing. We’re gonna make it

Speaker 8: before we let you go. Remind everybody where they can go to, to check it out, to donate money, be supportive.

Speaker 7: So. Yeah, so the website is www.fdnythreefourthreeride.com.

Same for the, the Facebook page, F dny 3, 4, 3 ride. And that’s, there’s a donate button at the top of the website. You can just go there and, Hey, take your money. Yeah.

Speaker 9: And Jim, Jim, what’s leaderboard name?

Speaker 7: Yeah. Uh, my leader book name is Big Jim eff underscore in between each word. Um,

Speaker 9: that is fantastic.

Uh, thank you so much for sharing all of this with us and for all that you have done. The, the firefighting, the raising money, like that’s incredible. Thank you. That’s amazing. No, I think, thank you. Anything else, Tom? Okay.

Speaker 7: Alright.

Speaker 9: Thank you. Thank

Speaker 7: [01:06:00] you so much.

Speaker 9: Alright. Thank you again, Jim. Thank you so

much.

Speaker 9: Of course, anytime. Thanks

Speaker 7: for having me.

.

Tom: So I guess that brings this episode to a close until next week. Where can people find you?

Crystal: People can find me on Facebook at facebook.com/crystal d O’Keefe. They can find me on Blue Sky Threads Instagram and the Peloton leaderboard at Club Bow Krystal.

Tom: And you can find me on Threads in Blue Sky at Tom O’Keefe Jr.

Or on Facebook at facebook.com/tom O’Keefe. You could find the show online at facebook.com/the clip out. While you’re there, like the page, join the group. And of course, don’t forget our Patreon, all sorts of bonus content ad free episodes, early episodes, and we like you a little bit extra. So that’s it for this one.

Thanks for tuning in, and until next time, keep peddling

Crystal: and running

Tom: and rowing.

Crystal: Bye.

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