Author: Brygs

Pedalgate? Broken Peloton Pedals

Broken Peloton Pedals: freak accidents, or the start of “Pedalgate?”

UPDATE (May, 2023): Several years on, Peloton is now doing more to alert customers to the need to periodically replace the pedals, with reminders now within the application itself and more information on the website (including this handy “Peloton pedal setup guide” that covers both replacing pedals and setting the tension of the clips). While one might be tempted to conclude that this new emphasis on pedal maintenance suggests that Peloton knew there was a problem, that is not a good assumption. Companies should always be encourage to make their products as safe as possible, and if new safety measures are viewed as admission that products had been unsafe, that would obviously create a chilling effect on those efforts.

UPDATE (Oct 16, 2020): Two and a half years after this post was written, Peloton is recalling pedals on 27,000 bikes sold between July 2013 and May 2016.

Recently, a Peloton rider posted an emergency room photo of a painful-looking laceration to her ankle, which she blamed on a broken Peloton pedal. She reported that one of the pedals on her Peloton bike had sheared off while she was riding. Soon there were literally a thousand comments to this social media post, with some other riders telling stories of broken pedals, and the question was in the air: are Peloton pedals dangerously defective?

This week, Peloton responded with a post that said, in part:

We have no reason to believe that the recent issues flagged in this group were caused by a product defect. Every model of pedal ever included with a Peloton Bike has been tested and certified as compliant…. That said, pedals on any stationary bike need to be replaced on regular basis…

This is where I started to get interested. Is that true that pedals need to be replaced on a regular basis? Most bicycling resources do not list pedals as wear items (like brake pads, tires, or even chains). Do they need to be replaced? Did the fact that Peloton specifically mentioned “stationary bikes” mean that they’re different in this regard?

Before I attempt to provide my thoughts on the subject, let me state firmly that I claim no special knowledge or expertise, and you should not consider calling me as an expert witness at your product liability trial. This is armchair analysis, but hopefully thoughtful armchair analysis.

The Defense’s Argument: Peloton has exercised due care to minimize broken pedals

Email from Peloton regarding pedal failures

So, let me start with the most obvious question, whether or not one should expect a bicycle pedal to break and whether or not they should be considered “lifetime” components of a bike. The answer is that if you ride your bike enough, eventually your pedals will break. This is pretty basic materials science. What you have, in the pedals, is a metal rod that is subjected to a shearing force repeatedly (once per RPM, and maybe even twice if you want to consider the effect of the “upstroke”). Man has not created a material that will last through an infinite number of cycles of stress. Pedals break, as do crank arms and any other component that is stressed when you ride.

So, if pedals don’t last forever, we’re left to ponder the expression “regular basis,” as in, “pedals on any stationary bike need to be replaced on a regular basis.” Peloton didn’t exactly specify what they mean by “regular basis”, but elsewhere on the site they recommend replacing them every 12 months. I did a bit of digging to see if any OEM bike or pedal manufacturer has a recommended interval for replacing pedals, and while I did see other notices that pedals do suffer from stress fatigue, there is very little in the way of guidance as to what the right interval is. In fact, I found only one (bicycle) manufacturer who even ventured to give a number, and theirs was 5,000 miles. 5,000 miles in 12 months is not a completely unreasonable number (I’m on track to do that myself this year), particularly for a bike that is shared.

So, my informal investigation seems to lead to the conclusion that Peloton is probably OK here. They say that their pedals have been tested and certified, meaning that they meet the minimum acceptable standards, and that should be enough to protect them in court. Whether they did enough to educate their users that pedals need to be changed out occasionally is something for the lawyers to argue.

Now that I’ve concluded that, based on the currently available evidence, that “Pedalgate” is not a thing, let me argue the other side for just a minute. If I were the prosecutor, my case would be based on the following…

The Prosecution’s Argument: Peloton could have done more to avoid broken pedals

Peloton pedals may be certified as meeting at least the minimum performance standards required, but consider this: Peloton knows (or can know) with astounding detail exactly how much stress is being put on those pedals. Every RPM is counted, and the power being applied to the pedals is calculated at least as frequently as every RPM. Peloton should be able to tell you precisely how many stress cycles your pedals have been through, the magnitude of the stress, and how many more they should withstand. For all intents and purposes, the Peloton world is one giant laboratory for such things. With the sort of data they collect, Peloton could alert customers that it is time to change their pedals, just as your car reminds you to change your oil periodically. With the sort of data at hand, one could argue that there should never be a pedal failure, because there are no unknown variables. Any pedal that fails in the field is presumably not a pedal that would have passed the certification tests, and by that logic Peloton would have some responsibility in selecting pedals that they know (or should know) cannot withstand the workload.

I’ll update this post if there are any noteworthy developments. Until then, be warned that Peloton expects your pedals will last about 12 months. In the past, they have offered free replacements after the first 12 months of ownership, but it is unclear if that policy will continue.

Can I change my Peloton pedals myself?

Yes, you can. Changing out the pedals on your Peloton bike is no more difficult than changing the pedals on your road bike. For the Peloton pedals (at least, the ones on my own bike), you need a 15mm wrench. [UPDATE: It seems that since this original post Peloton may also be using pedals that fasten using an Allen wrench (probably 4mm), so you will have to examine your pedals to determine which you have.] Other pedals will go on with a 15mm crescent wrench or possibly a large Allen wrench, depending on the manufacturer. Remember that the left side pedal is threaded opposite the right pedal. The reason for this is because the designers don’t want your pedaling motion to be the same motion that unscrews the pedals. In the unusual case in which your pedaling transfers right to the post, you’d want your pedaling to tighten the pedal instead. Be sure to apply some grease to the threads so you can unfasten them a year from now (particularly if you put your bike on your lanai or the deck of your yacht where it’s exposed to the elements).

Your local bike store might be the best place for an inexpensive set of decent quality pedals. I don’t know what Peloton will charge to sell pedals to you, but I wouldn’t expect that to be cheap! (To be fair, Peloton has been good to me regarding broken parts including a buckle on a shoe and the somewhat dubiously designed water bottle holder.) If you change from the stock Peloton pedals, be prepared to change your cleats, too, even if your new pedals are made for delta cleats. My aftermarket pedals didn’t quite fit the Peloton-supplied delta cleats. Anyway, none of this is particularly expensive or difficult to change.

Update: April 2020

I have seen a number of anecdotes, both here and elsewhere, that suggest that pedal problems still remains an issue for Peloton. It’s difficult to know how widespread the problems are because, of course, everyone who doesn’t have a problem is not online tweeting that everything is fine.

I have noticed that the accounts of pedal failure that I’ve encountered since my original post seem to involve pedals that were incorrectly installed as opposed to pedals that may have a defect in manufacturing. It’s possible that these pedals were simply cross-threaded during installation, and if that were to happen the pedal could fairly easily work its way loose from the crank arm (and it would not be possible to reattach it due to bad threads either on the crank arm, pedal or both). Another cause might be over-tightening of the pedal at the factory, which could damage threads. A third (in my opinion) less likely scenario is substandard metals used in the crank arm and/or pedal.

EVERY 3 TO 5 RIDES: Tighten any loose pedal with the included 15 mm wrench. Pedals should be tightened to 25 lb-ft of torque. Turn clockwise to tighten the right pedal and counterclockwise to tighten the left pedal.
— PELOTON owner’s manual

On the other hand, I have not heard recently of pedals that literally break off, as in the case(s) that started “pedalgate”, which I think is a good sign. It’s not that you can’t be injured by a pedal that comes away from the crank arm in any event, but at least without the fracture there would not be the sharp edges that apparently caused some of the lacerations that were reported early on.

I’ve had a couple of requests for instructions on how to replace the crank arms on your Peloton bike, so I created a post for that, with an official Peloton video.

Also, my SEO plug-in tells me I need an internal link on this page, so I’ll throw one in here for my animal-shelter fundraiser: TeamK9Buddy. I should also mention my most popular posts, one on the Peloton leaderboard and one that talks about all of the information on the Peloton screen (cadence, resistance, output, etc.)

May 28, 2018
A Visit to Punxsutawney

For the past 132 years, a groundhog in Punxsutawney has been predicting the weather. Based on whether or not he sees his shadow, we will have either six more weeks of winter or an early spring. It’s science.

This year I decided to travel there to get the forecast straight from the woodchuck’s mouth.

If you don’t know me personally, let me tell you that this is not something I would ordinarily have considered doing. For one thing, the forecast is given at sunrise on February 2nd, and I know from years of early morning dog walking that you should expect a pre-dawn event in the middle of winter to be more than a little chilly. What swayed me this year is my brother, who had gone to the event last year and invited me to return with him this year. He’s generally considered to be a fairly smart guy, and if he’s actually interested in going to this thing TWICE, well, I had to find out more.

Driving to Punxsutawney

I drove up through scenic central Pennsylvania, past billboard praising Jesus and coal (though not both on the same sign — yet). Punxsutawney is in the mountains of west-central Pennsylvania, the sort of town that has a runaway truck ramp on each road leading in. The scenery on the five-hour trip was terrific… mostly wooded hills and farms, but I did drive over at least one frozen river that was very picturesque.

Punxsutawney itself is a town of about 6,500 people, small enough that you actually find yourself running into the same people occasionally. Night life, as far as I can tell, centers around a bar called “The Burrow”, not to be confused with “The Burrow”, the actual burrow that Phil lives in, which is a few blocks away. Nothing in Punxsutawney seems to be more than a couple of blocks away from anything else.

I should mention, in case you are not aware, that the film “Groundhog Day” was not actually filmed in Punxsutawney, but rather in a small town in Illinois. Evidently, the square in the Illinois town was more appealing than the square in Punxy (and there is one, called Barklay Square). There was, if I remember my trivia correctly, also something to do with the remoteness of Punxy which made it difficult to develop and deliver the dailies in time. Anyway, if you haven’t been to Punxsutawney, you haven’t seen Punxsutawney.

Despite not being the town pictured in the movie, the character of the real Punxsutawney is actually very much like the one in the film… even more so than I expected. Everyone I met was very friendly, and everyone buys into the Groundhog hype. They take it very seriously, though they don’t take themselves very seriously, so it all ends up just being a lot of fun. It’s like the entire town is having a party.

Off to Gobbler’s Knob

Most of the festivities take place the day before, but the big event itself is held on the morning of February 2nd, on Gobbler’s Knob, a field just south of the town (and not in the square as shown in the movie). Somehow, I always imagined Gobbler’s Knob to be a hill, with Phil’s stump/podium at the top. In fact, the stage with Phil’s stump is actually at the bottom of a hill, which works better because the crowd can gather on the hillside and everyone gets a good view.

The best view is from a cordoned off area in front of the stage, accessible only to those with a coveted “Inner Circle” pass. I had the good fortune to obtain an Inner Circle pass prior to coming to Punxy, which is good because my brother and I lost the finals of the cornhole tournament for which top prize were four of the passes. How did I get my passes, I had the good fortune to have a fellow traveler who thoroughly researched how to do Punxsutawney the right way, which is how I got to the Groundhog Club luncheon and a photo op with Phil, and a room at the better of the two hotels in the town. Top tip: when you go, make sure you have an insider with you! (Oh, and start early. After the forecast on the 2nd, we returned to the hotel to get a hot shower and breakfast. While at breakfast we could hear the receptionist at the front desk fielding calls for reservations for next year’s Groundhog Day.)

We arrived at Gobbler’s Knob at around 5AM, and the entertainment was in full swing. My hat is off to every entertainer there, but particularly to the people who played stringed instruments in fifteen degree weather. I don’t like playing when it’s below sixty degrees, but there was a guy playing mandolin (and playing it well) while the rest of us were clutching our chemical hand warmers inside our thick insulated gloves. At about 6AM, a belly dancer, barefoot and wearing about as much clothing as a captive Princess Leia, entertained the crowd. That’s commitment.

If you haven’t seen the movie “Groundhog Day”, stop what you’re doing and go watch it now. It is one of the best comedy movies of all time. Being a comedy, there really was no imperative to get anything at all right about the Groundhog Day event, and so I was surprised to see that it was closer to reality than I expected. The one single thing that struck me as totally off was the time of day: Phil’s prognostication comes at first light, meaning that all of the preamble occurs in the pre-dawn hours. In the movie, Phil Connors (Bill Murray) arrives on the scene for his report in broad daylight. In reality, we’ve all been freezing in the dark for hours before Phil makes his appearance. The emcees did a good job keeping everybody distracted, singing versions of “Margaritaville” and other classics with customized lyrics for the occasion. The audience cheered, partly because they were entertained, partly out of appreciation for the effort, and partly because there was little else to do. At about 6:30 AM there was a fireworks show which was very impressive, even better than the 4th of July in my town which has a considerably larger population.

Daybreak came at 7:24AM sharp. Phil directed Bill Deely (President of the Inner Circle, and whose name, when said twice, sounds quite a bit like a tag line for a certain light beer ad) to the appropriate scroll, and he announces six more weeks of winter (it’s almost always six more weeks of winter). Even before he did, you could hear murmurs in the crowd: “[Phil] picked the winter scroll!”

A Long Run for a Short Slide

And, like that, it’s over. By 7:30, the town is emptying. A few return in the summer for the Groundhog Festival, but for the most part that’s it until the next February 2nd.

I went to Punxsutawney without much background or expectations. I didn’t even know before I went whether it was “Groundhog” or “Groundhog’s” Day. I left having experienced one of those things that everyone hears about but that very few people actually do. Would my life have been complete without this experience? Of course. Nobody really needs to stand in a field for hours in fifteen degree weather to wait for a groundhog under pretty much any circumstances. But I do honestly feel richer for having had the experience. Despite being world famous, Groundhog Day in Punxsutawney has a small-town intimacy that can’t be fabricated, and once I got the feeling back in my fingers and toes, I was glad I went.

February 12, 2018
Fly, Eagles, Fly (Eagles Fight Song) Sheet Music

As a courtesy to my fellow Eagles fans, who hopefully will have many chances to sing it tomorrow, I give you some sheet music and chords for the Eagles fight song. A couple of years ago I looked around the Internet for this and never found it written down, so I decided to fill the need.

This is unofficial, and could contain errors. I do not know who wrote this song or if anyone owns the rights (I don’t know how old the song is), but I’m not claiming ownership. If you’re the owner and object to this posting, contact me through the “contact” link on this page.

February 3, 2018
On Being an Eagles Fan

I am an Eagles fan. I used to call myself a “big” Eagles fan, but to be honest, I’ve never painted my face green. I’ve never gotten on an airplane to go see a road game. I haven’t rewritten my will to ensure that I’m buried in my Randall Cunningham jersey. I’ve met people like that, and I’m afraid that calling myself a “big” fan seems like a form of cultural appropriation. I’m just a guy who has had season tickets for twenty years. Just a guy who sits in occasionally sub-zero temperatures to watch my team. Just a guy who has hugged at least one drunken stranger after a win. I’m just a regular fan.

Despite my admittedly falling short of the “fanatic” definition of “fan”, I do feel qualified to tell you that it’s not easy being an Eagles fan. Not easy at all.

For one thing, being an Eagles fan means dealing with the Santa Claus thing. Man, that gets tiring. You know that wasn’t the real Santa, right? That wasn’t even the guy they hired to be Santa. That’s all beside the point. The fact is: most Eagles fans weren’t born when the Santa thing happened, fifty years ago. Yet somehow no conversation about Eagles fans is complete without a reminder of Santa and the snowballs.

#EmptyTrophyCase

Then there are the Super Bowl trophies. Or rather, the lack of them. The Eagles are the only team in their division that has not won a Super Bowl. Even Redskins fans, whose team hasn’t won a Super Bowl in nearly thirty years, love to remind us that the Eagles haven’t won a Super Bowl. If you mention that the Eagles have won three NFL Championships (in the pre-Super Bowl era), this accomplishment is dismissed as something that happened in ancient history. Which I could accept, except that the Santa Claus incident that happened only a few years later somehow remains timelessly relevant.

Throughout the playoffs, we are regaled with stories about Eagles fans and their bad behavior (or just plain dumb behavior, in the case of the Super fan who ran into a pillar while trying to rally the troops last week). Stories abound of fans climbing poles (which, we’re alerted, were greased last week), punching horses and bloodying fans of the opposing teams.

Eagles fans have a terrible reputation, but is it deserved?

Hell yeah, it’s deserved. But that’s not my point. My point is that there are literally millions of Eagles fans. Well, at least hundreds of thousands. Some of them are, to borrow the term, “deplorables”. But I want to know: what team doesn’t have fans like these? It seems to me that every one of these stories could be about any team in the league (except maybe the Santa one, which might well be the reason why it gets repeated so often). I’ve been to other stadiums, been to games between two teams not called the Eagles, and I never have to look very far to see the same boorish behavior everywhere I go. I really don’t believe there’s anything all that unusually awful about Eagles fans, but I guess it fits a narrative. That is, the same narrative that dictates that any broadcast from Philadelphia include a video bumper of a cheesesteak being made and a shot of the Rocky statue.

A lot of people are just fine with the narrative. It makes them feel special. A lot of Philadelphians embrace the image, and although I find it a little tiring, well, maybe that’s just me.

Rather reviled than dismissed

I secretly believe that there really isn’t much to distinguish the fans of one team from the fans of another. I think about that every time I see a T-shirt that says something like “If you’re not playing Eagles football, you’re not playing football” or something like that. You know there are 31 other shirts out there for each of the other teams. It is difference without distinction. I think most fans understand this, or at least sense it, and as a result are eager to embrace anything that sets them apart, even if it’s a negative.

So, let them carp about Santa abuse. Let them turn their noses up at our horse-punching ways. Come SuperBowl Sunday, they’ll be cheering right along side us. They will be Eagles fans, too. Because the alternative is another Lombardi trophy going to the Patriots. And who wants that?

Here’s my background on the subject of this essay, so you can decide how much credence you want to put into the opinions I present.

I’ve been an Eagles fan for a long time, and a season ticket holder since I relocated to the area about twenty years ago. So, yeah, I feel about as qualified as anyone to comment on the Eagles fan experience. If someone out there with green face paint wants to disagree, well, I’ll defer to him.

January 29, 2018
Is the Tread What Peloton Really Needs?

Last week, fitness startup Peloton (you’ve seen their commercials) announced their second product, an Internet-connected treadmill called “Peloton Tread”. This is a pretty dramatic step (no pun intended) for the company, but (pun intended this time) are they putting their best foot forward?

I’m not an expert in the fitness industry, and I’m not even much of an athlete. That said, I’m an active (bordering on fanatical) Peloton rider and I’ve been following the company closely. I’ve become a big fan of the Peloton bike in the past six months since I worked it into my daily schedule. I’ve seen some big gains in my fitness (my doctor was very impressed) and on many days the 45 minutes I spend on the bike are the best 45 minutes of the day. The $2K cost of the bike plus the $39/month subscription, while extravagant by my tastes, has been worth every penny.

So, I’m definitely a fan, but that doesn’t mean that I necessarily agree with every move Peloton makes. And I’m not all that enthused about the Tread, at least not yet.

The New York Times wrote a very good article (What a $4,000 Treadmill Means for the Future of Gadgets) that captured many of the reservations I have, and it’s worth a read. They discuss the price ($4,000) and some of the ways in which the treadmill is different from the bike and therefore might not expect the same level of success.

On top of these observations, I would add one more. When the Peloton bike came to market, they had a model to emulate: the spin class. The Peloton bike faithfully reproduces the spin class experience (so much so that the rider of the Peloton bike is expected to set his or her own resistance via a large plastic knob, where exercise bikes costing much less will do so automatically). You can capture the Peloton bike experience in a sentence: it’s a spin class you don’t have to leave home for. For someone like me, that’s the difference between spinning and not spinning.

Is there an analog for running? Although I am not (nor have I ever been) current on exercise trends, I don’t think there are running classes, where a room full of people come together to run on treadmills, led by an instructor. My own experience with the row of treadmills at health clubs and fitness rooms is that it’s a solitary activity. Each runner has his or her earphones in and is usually watching Headline News on TV, as far as I can tell.

Peloton seems to recognize this, and even in the very first paragraph of their email announcing the Tread to current Peloton members the company asks us to look at it as more than a treadmill:

Peloton Members,

On behalf of the entire Peloton team, I am incredibly proud and honored to announce the launch of our second-ever product, the Peloton Tread™. While we believe it is absolutely the best treadmill ever created, its name and looks are a bit deceiving. Similar to the Peloton Bike™ being #morethanabike, the Peloton Tread is much, much more than a treadmill.

(continues …)

The plan, as it’s been variously described, is that a Peloton Tread workout will be more than running on a treadmill. It will be weights, isometrics as well, so that the workout is not just lower body and cardio (which the Peloton already covers as well). Even the first promotional video, seen on the Peloton website, has as many scenes of our fitness model working out OFF the treadmill. The photo accompanying this article is striking to me because the model isn’t even on the treadmill, instead using it as a $4000 monitor stand.

I am having a hard time getting my head around it: the pitch for the super-expensive treadmill contains the assurance —up front and center— that you will be doing lots of things other than running on the treadmill. It’s a big piece of equipment to be used as a video monitor. And speaking of that, I find it somewhat inconvenient to use my Peloton bike for the “beyond the ride” (off-bike stretches and dumbbell) exercises because the bike itself is often in the way. It’s hard to lie on the floor and try to follow the instructor’s lesson when there’s a large exercise bike in the way. I don’t see that situation being much improved with the Tread.

I hope I’m wrong about that. The “beyond the ride” feature is very compelling and I hope that the new Tread workouts spill over to bike users as well. In the meantime, I am going to be following the rollout of the Tread with some trepidation. Peloton is a quick-growing company with an exciting product in the bike and a lot of potential, and this is a major step that I’m not sure is in the direction that I think they should be going.

What direction do I think they should be going in? I’m glad you asked. If you read my post from last week, Analytics vs. Analysis, you may already know where I’m going. If you haven’t read it, well, you should. Go ahead. I’ll wait. Remember to click on the ad at the bottom and buy whatever they’re selling you, too. Thanks.

To me, the thing that is missing from the Peloton experience is connection. Despite the fact that I’m watching live video, and competing on the leaderboard against real people, I am essentially on my own in pursuing my fitness goals. While the instructors occasionally shout out the usernames of some riders (“Looking good, CrunchyFrog!”), they are really not in a position, with five hundred or more people in the class, to give personalized advice to anyone (even if a spot check of a rider’s stats would be enough to go on). This, I believe, is the next frontier in at-home fitness classes, and it’s going to be a hard one to cross.

What would make this such a challenge is that giving personalized advice is not something that I’ve seen any computer algorithms do well. My Apple Watch sets a calorie goal for me, and if I meet the goal, it suggests a higher goal. That’s not intelligent advice; it’s a five line computer program from programming 101. As I mention in my post from last week, it’s easy to report that I ran 1.71 miles today, but is 1.71 miles good? Will it improve my fitness? Depending on my physical condition 1.71 might be a monumental accomplishment or it might not be noteworthy at all.

Despite all of the metrics and connectivity that the 21st century affords, in the end I am still my own coach (not to mention nutritionist and medic, but one thing at a time…). It is still up to me to understand what all the analytics tell me, to assess my progress toward my goals and to create and refine my plan for getting there. This is where Peloton could really change the game.

Unfortunately, it seems to me that providing these sorts of services would require a lot of manpower. It would be necessary for someone at Peloton (not necessarily the class instructor, but someone) to actually know who I am, what my fitness history and goals are as well as information such as injuries and other limiting factors. My personal coach would also need to be qualified to give me advice, which seems obvious but in practical terms means that the company would not only need to hire people but that these people have special training. I don’t know how many people it takes to produce one segment of Peloton programming, but once the studio is set up I can’t imagine it requires more than two or three. So whether there’s 100 or 10,000 people taking the ride, the investment is fixed (and low). The sort of involvement I’m talking about would require maybe one person for everyone twenty or thirty members, so the more riders you have, the more staff you need. It is not a great equation for making money.

I hope the Tread is a success for Peloton. I hope that the “beyond the ride” offerings continue to evolve and that they’re able to provide a complete home fitness solution. In my humble opinion, it’s going to require offering personalized guidance to their customers, and that’s an expensive proposition. When I see the Tread, I can’t help but feel that they’re avoiding this inconvenient truth and instead attempting to recreate their bike success with a treadmill. Time will tell if this is enough to keep them going.

UPDATE: Entrepreneur Magazine posted an interesting article about the future of Peloton, and the Tread’s place in it. It’s worth a read.

Here’s my background on the subject of this essay, so you can decide how much credence you want to put into the opinions I present.

I am not an expert in the area of physical fitness, and I have no inside information on this company. I don’t have a gym membership, and generally don’t buy really expensive things. However, I do own a Peloton bike and have been a Peloton member for about half a year. I’ve been following the company closely, and have read most everything I can find published about Peloton. Am I right about the Tread? Time will tell.

January 22, 2018
The Difference Between Analytics and Analysis

I am something of a Peloton fanatic. You can find me (by my nom du guerre “LeftShark”) somewhere on a leaderboard every single morning. Coincidentally, I’m also an analytics junkie, and one of my favorite parts of a workout is afterward, when I crunch the numbers to see how I’m doing. Peloton provides all sorts of graphs and metrics, and it’s great to be able to wade through and see my progress over the weeks and months. As a bonus, after the first week of the month, Peloton emails me a review of the prior month.

At the beginning of December, I received my November report. It told me that I had worked out thirty days in November. Below the calendar that had every day filled in, there was a one-sentence commentary on my performance:

This is 1 less day than last month

If you’re thinking: “It should be 1 fewer day”, I applaud your grammar. Still, my point in bringing this up is that October has 31 days, and November only 30. So if I work out every single day for both months, it is inescapable that I will work out one fewer day in November.

When I first read this attempt at insight, it made me laugh, but it also disappointed me a little, because it’s a glaring example of a modern-day problem, that of Analytics vs. Analysis, and is a reminder that we have plenty of the former and far too little of the latter.

For most of human history, a lack of sufficient information was a huge impediment to decision making and planning. By contrast, today we often find ourselves with far more data than we can manage. Pages and pages of data. The problem is no longer that we don’t have enough information, it’s that we have so much information that we don’t know what to make of it. The of-used but suitable metaphor for the attempt to gain insights from a flood of data is “drinking from the firehose.” The providers of the data often try to do some number crunching for us, to help us draw conclusions and help plan, which is where “data” leaves off and “analytics” begins.

This year I played Yahoo’s Fantasy Football. After each week’s games, Yahoo would send me a recap of my team’s performance. At first, I was really delighted with the analysis, because it was written in a dramatic, sports-page style: “Jay Ajayi destroyed the competition with 15 runs for 100 yards,” and such. For the first couple of weeks, I looked forward to this recap, but after a couple of weeks, I started to spot patterns in the report. By the middle of the season, I had stopped reading. Most of the “analysis” given was actually very superficial, based on perhaps one number, using canned phrases that more often than not didn’t reflect reality in any meaningful. Some players were alternately praised and criticized in the same report depending on which statistic the algorithm was comparing at that moment.

Of course, I never thought for a minute that there was an actual human being at Yahoo covering my fantasy football team, and I don’t think that anyone at Peloton is reviewing my performance data and writing my monthly report. But the superficiality of this so-called “analysis” shows me how far we still have to go. With the power of computers, analytics are easy. Analytics is just sums and averages and plotting changes over time. It’s the analysis that’s hard, and the part that no one seems to be able to automate.

Professionally, I see this all the time, when dealing with website analytics. Say a web page has a “bounce rate” of 80%. (“Bounce rate” is how frequently a visitor to the web page leaves the site without visiting any other pages). Is that a good thing, or a bad thing? Conventional wisdom is that it’s a bad thing — your visitor is leaving! But what if the visitor found the information they’re looking for? A bounce rate that high might indicate that your web page is perfect. So, it’s either terrible or terrific, and the analytics is not going to tell you which. For that you still need a human, who can take into account the intent of the web page and nuances that would help understand the dynamics of a high bounce rate.

Algorithm-based analysis has gotten better over the years, to be sure, and a carefully written algorithm can lead to insights, even without human intervention. Indeed, a lot of the tasks involved in human-powered analysis are the sorts of things that computers are good at (comparing trends, etc) and it is only a matter of time until the computer-generated analysis become much more valuable. Until then, we need to not confuse analytics with analysis, and we must not content ourselves with the former when we really need the latter, despite the cool charts and infographics that companies are always trying to use to impress us.

I appreciate the analytics. More analysis, please.

Here’s my background on the subject of this essay, so you can decide how much credence you want to put into the opinions I present.

I have about twenty years or so experience working on the web, from back before the days of web analytics (and Google, for that matter). Somewhere in my file cabinet is the Google Analytics IQ certification. I have also spent at least one Saturday poring over my stats from Peloton and Strava, and for better or worse, can tell you on any given day how I’m doing against my weekly and yearly goals.

January 15, 2018
What is this all about?

I created this site in January, 2018 as a place where I could write on a variety of topics. If someone such as yourself reads these posts and gets something out of them, so much the better, but the principal reason for creating the site is just to have a place to write, so I hope you understand if it turns into a collection of seemingly random thoughts on disjointed topics.

I believe that writing is one of those skills that has to be used frequently if one is to remain proficient. Unfortunately, most of the writing I do on a day-by-day basis is in the form of emails and texts, generally very short and usually part of a conversation. This is quite different from essay writing, which is what I’m hoping to practice here on this site. Again, I hope that someone will read these posts and that they provoke thought, or entertain, or inform. But even if they don’t, if I can continue to write, the site will serve its purpose.

So, what will I be writing about? As I said before, the goal of the site is to give me a place to write, and writing itself is the goal, so I’m not going to limit myself too much in terms of subjects. I will no doubt be writing mostly about topics that interest me, such as technology (particularly the Internet, where I work) and society (I am an economist by training, and am interested in what is now called “behavioral economics”). Chances are a few book reviews and other things are going to creep in as well.

So, if you’re reading this, thank you. Ultimately, the purpose of writing is to express ideas to others, and it is nice to think that there is someone out there! I will do my best to write well, and hopefully will pick interesting topics that contribute something to the conversation.

Thanks again, for your interest, and I’m always happy to get feedback.

—Brygs

January 4, 2018