BRYGS

Category: Peloton

  • Peloton’s Calibration Problem

    If you’ve been a Peloton member for any length of time, you probably have been hearing about “calibration”. Not from Peloton, no. They hardly ever mention it. It is a topic in social media, though, and it seems that there is a widespread problem that Peloton may have no way of getting on top of. Potentially a couple hundred thousand of these bikes are essentially out of whack, and there’s no obvious fix.

    What is meant by “calibration”?

    Calibration, broadly, relates to the data coming back from the equipment that is used (either directly or as part of a calculation) to give the rider feedback on his or her efforts. Calibration could involve the measurements of cadence, heart rate, etc., but when you hear “Peloton” and “calibration” in the same sentence, it is the bike’s resistance that is the topic.

    If you need a quick refresher on cadence, resistance, and the other Peloton metrics, click over to this explanation of Peloton cadence, resistance, and output.

    Resistance is the measurement of how difficult it is to turn the Peloton flywheel, and is displayed as a percentage. You’d think that this would be essentially linear, with 0 being no resistance and 100 being complete resistance, and that 50 resistance is twice as strong as 25 resistance. If that were the case, this would be a fairly short post.

    Resistance, the mystery metric

    What’s really important to understand is that resistance is at the heart of pretty much everything else that is measured (besides time and heart rate). I’m speaking specifically of power generated (watts), work done (kilojoules) and calories burned. These metrics (particularly the second) are the means by which Peloton riders compare themselves to one another. If resistance is not accurate, then there isn’t much left in the metrics you can trust.

    So, how reliable is the resistance number? That is the million dollar question. There is evidence to suggest that some bike’s resistance numbers are questionable. In fact, there is far more evidence to show that bikes’ resistance numbers vary greatly than there is evidence that there is any uniformity to resistance at all.

    Graph showing 100% resistance - and more
    This user rode more than two minutes at 100% resistance (and, evidently a short time ABOVE 100%)

    Exhibit A: Social media posts in which people talk about how challenging a ride based on how many times they got to 100 resistance. Now, by definition, 100% resistance means that the wheel is completely resisted. That is, it cannot be turned. If it can be turned, then it is by definition not fully resisted. Yet notice the results graph in the accompanying photo in which the rider apparently rides for two minutes at 100% (and then proceeds to exceed 100%, at which point I guess the bike should actually be forcing your pedals backwards, or something).

    There are many anecdotes about broken bikes that show 100% regardless of how much resistance is actually added, but it’s probably safe to assume that they are a pretty small minority. If, however, there are some percentage of bikes that people can pedal at 100% resistance (with difficulty, as the proud social media posters note), it begs the question of whether your 100% resistance is the same as my 100% resistance.

    Giving %110

    It’s like the koan-like question: how can we be sure that when I see the color “blue”, the color I see isn’t the one that you’d call “red”? I know something is blue because it is the same color as other things that I also identify as blue. But I have never seen anything with your eyes, and I have no idea what the color blue looks like to you. I only know that something is blue because I compare it to other things I call blue, and things are only more or less blue compared to my internal frame of reference.

    We face the same dilemma when it comes to resistance. Compared to the color example, it is a bit easier (but not so easy) for me to determine if your 40% resistance is the same as my 40% resistance. If it’s wildly different, then I can perceive of the difference, but if it’s close, then it’s not likely I’d be able to discriminate, say, between a few percentage points.

    Resistance is futile at the Peloton mothership

    I have personally ridden on about five Peloton bikes, and I’d have to say that the ones I rode in the Peloton store, my own bike at home, and my brother’s bike all felt about the same to me. The bike I rode in the Peloton studio, on the other hand, was conspicuously easier than any of the others. Yes, maybe I was pumped up for the ride at the Mothership (SO to JJ!), but I don’t think that accounts for the difference. The PRs I set that day still stand, and my next best effort isn’t close. Although I have no data to back it up, I am convinced that the bike at the Peloton studio was the “easiest” bike I’ve ridden.

    This is where “calibration” comes in

    This all comes back to “calibration”. Calibration is the act of accurately setting the measuring devices, and in the case of these bikes, is performed at the factory. Presumably, there can be some change over time (“drift” is what it’s called) or calibration could be affected by jostling that occurs during the delivery and installation of your bike, so the calibration tools are included with your bike when it is delivered to you. (Anybody have their bike calibrated by the installers? Didn’t think so. Anybody want those guys making adjustments on your bike? Didn’t think so.) I won’t go into the specifics of calibration, but you can do an internet search to find Peloton’s own instructional video. I’ve been through the video and, in my humble opinion, their process still includes a fair bit of subjectivity that could lead to variations even across “calibrated” bikes.

    So, how do you trust that the resistance numbers (and, by extension, the all-important output numbers) are the same from bike to bike? This would seem to be nearly impossible to know. To accurately determine if the amount of effort needed to turn one bike’s flywheel is equal to the effort required for another bike one would need additional equipment, such as replacement crank arms or pedals with power meters built-in. Of course, THOSE devices would need to be calibrated, too!

    As it is, I don’t believe anyone has an accurate picture of the amount of variability there are in the power calculations across bikes, and I don’t believe there is really any way that Peloton could measure and correct for this, even if they wanted to. 

    The good news is that if you bear in mind that your true competitor is yourself, then none of this should really matter. Your own bike’s resistance calibration is not likely to drift significantly over time, so if you are now cranking out 30% more KJs this year over last, you can be pretty sure you’ve made some serious progress. 

    As for me, I just assume that anyone ahead of me on the leaderboard needs to get their bikes calibrated.

    — #LeftShark

  • Peloton and METs

    Following up on my post about the Peloton display numbers (and a little arithmetic regarding Output), a visitor to the site asked about METs, so I thought I’d post a follow-up….

    Calculating METs is unfortunately considerably more difficult than calculating output in kilojoules. Well, it’s not that it’s so difficult, it’s that the level of precision is much less. METs are fundamentally different from metrics like power and output. Power is power, regardless of who you are. Lifting a ten pound dumbbell a foot in one second takes about 13 watts, and it doesn’t matter who you are. Find any person or machine that can output more than about 13 watts, and it can lift the dumbbell. (More about power and output in my post about the Peloton metrics.)

    Metabolic Equivalents, or METs, on the other hand, is a measurement of the amount of energy exerted, a more complex topic than merely work done. Remember when you first got your Peloton bike and you PR’d almost every ride? Part of that could be explained by a quick elevation of your fitness level (you ex-couch potato, you), but a lot of it had to do with your improved efficiency. You learned the bike and, as you got more efficient you could do more work with the same amount of effort (or, you were able to do the same amount of work with less effort.)

    How to Measure METs

    To really measure METs the way they were intended to be measured, you’d need to know how much oxygen you are consuming during the exercise. If you don’t have access to a lab, that’s not something you can measure directly. In that case, there are other MET calculators that substitute other metrics that can be used as proxies for oxygen consumption, such as calories burned (don’t get me started on calorie calculations! If I ever have enough free time I’ll do a blog post on that.)

    I personally am skeptical about the ability to use METs for something like a stationary bicycle. Since body weight is a factor in the calculation, it would seem to me that heavier athletes have an easier time of things on a stationary bike as opposed to an actual bike. I’d suggest you stick with watts and kilojoules, which are much easier to measure accurately (if your bike’s resistance is calibrated, of course, which it’s probably not… but that’s my next post’s topic).

    Formula for METs

    I don’t want you to go away empty-handed, though, so I will offer a MET calculator that uses something that Peloton does give you to work with: Watts. It may not be as accurate a calculation as one that actually measures oxygen consumption, but it’ll work well enough if your goal is to try to track your fitness gains over time.

    The calculation for (approximate) METs, then, is:

    METs = 1.163 * watts / kg

    (Kg being body weight in kilograms)

    For the arithmetic-challenged, I offer this handy online form:

    Watts:
    Weight (lbs):
      


    I’m not entirely sure how useful all of this was, but hopefully if you are really into METs and a Peloton rider, it’ll give you want you were looking for. Cheers!

    Update: After this blog post was created, Peloton introduced their “Strive Score“, a metric that attempts to measure individual effort (as opposed to output). Check it out.

    — #LeftShark

  • Your Peloton Screen – Resistance, Cadence and Output

    Your Peloton Screen – Resistance, Cadence and Output

    Or… what do all those numbers mean?

    In this post, I’ll explain what all those numbers are at the bottom of your Peloton bike’s screen. Well, partly to share my zeal for the Peloton bike, but partly to draw attention to my fundraising for homeless animals. If you like this post, please consider a donation to Main Line Animal Rescue. Thanks!

    Before I begin, a little disclaimer: I am not a Peloton employee, spokesperson or programmer. I am a computer programmer (for whatever that’s worth), and a total nerd. If I had any inside information into Peloton I would also have agreed in the past not to disclose or discuss it.

    THE PELOTON DATA DISPLAY

    Peloton Screen Image

    Understanding the various numbers on your Peloton bike display is key to understanding how well you’re doing. You really can’t compare your numbers to someone else for various reasons (mostly having to do with the sticky issue of Peloton bike calibration), but you absolutely can compare your numbers to your own past numbers (assuming you’re on the same bike, again because of calibration.)

    Since you’re reading this post, I’ll skip over the part where I tell you why I think it’s important to understand these numbers, and instead dive right in. I’ll go through the numbers in rows, left-to-right within each row.

    CADENCE (the big number on the left)

    Cadence is how fast the pedals are turning. It’s not a measurement of how fast the flywheel is turning (which is irrelevant.) A cadence of 90 rpm means that you’re turning the crank in a full 360° circle 90 times in one minute. Cadence in Peloton classes will never go over 120 (their lawyers don’t want you tipping over the bike!) or below 50 or so. (As an aside, it’s extremely uncommon to exceed 120rpm riding out in the real world.)

    BEST CADENCE

    “Best cadence” is how fast you were turning the crank at the instant you were fastest. It is not a particularly useful metric (IMHO), so it’s shown smaller than the current cadence.

    AVG CADENCE

    “Average cadence” is (as the name says) your average cadence over the entire ride. This number gives you a good idea about how fast you’re pedaling (more on the speed metric below). Note that some rides, such as interval rides, will have a higher average cadence that others (such as climb rides). Cadence by itself is not really a measure of fitness, but on the real road it’s good to be able to pedal fast, and as you spend more time on the Peloton bike you’ll probably see your average cadence increase across similar rides. The Peloton screen also sometimes shows green or red triangles to show if your average cadence is rising or falling over time (not over the entire ride, but rather the past few seconds).

    OUTPUT (the big number in the center)

    The “Output” calculation indicates how hard you’re working at the moment. It’s computed based on your cadence and your resistance (described below) and is measured in watts. Output is a measure of power, not work. Those two things may sound like the same thing, but they’re definitely not. When we speak of power, we’re talking about how hard you’re working at any given moment. When we talk about work, we are talking about how much you’ve done, total.

    Output, here, is measured in watts, and is an instantaneous measure of how hard you’re working at the moment. To see how much work you’ve done since you started the ride, you have to look lower on the display. In the world of Peloton, work is what determines where you are on the leaderboard, and is reflected in Total Output. We’ll get to that (or just click the link and be done with all this preamble).

    BEST OUTPUT and AVG OUTPUT

    Just as with cadence, the screen shows you the peak and average power over the ride. Peak power might give you bragging rights in your family, but it’s not very meaningful for the Peloton rider. Average output is directly related to your leaderboard, but it’s easier to use Total Output for that purpose (the relationship between the two is detailed in the Total Output section below). As with average cadence, the screen will show green or red triangles to show you how your average output is rising or falling over the short term.

    Your average output predicts your total output. I’ve published a chart showing the relationship between wattage and output that you can use to see if you’re on track to meet your output goal.

    RESISTANCE

    This is probably the least scientific metric on the board. Resistance reflects how hard it is to turn the crank. It is measured in percent, with 100% being the maximum. Theoretically, you should not be able to pedal at 100% resistance, but due to the magic of badly calibrated bikes, some people can put up huge output numbers doing just that. As I said before, you can track your progress over time, but you need to be on the same bike to do it (and the reason being the wildly varying resistance of each bike).

    From a practical perspective, it’s pretty simple. A larger resistance for a given cadence requires more power, and that is reflected in the output numbers.

    BEST RESISTANCE and AVG RESISTANCE

    Similar to best and average cadence and output. Not much more to be said about this. Fun fact: if you push down on the big orange knob to stop your bike, you’ll also see your “best resistance” turn to 100.

    SPEED

    This number reflects an approximate speed over land if you were riding a road bike. You will see that it’s not merely a reflection of your cadence, but rather a combination of cadence and resistance. Just as you could put your road bike into a high (easy) gear and pedal your butt off without going too fast, or switch to a low (difficult) gear and go much faster while pedaling slowly, the speed metric here takes resistance into account. It’s approximate. (Anecdotally, many road riders (including yours truly) report that the Peloton’s reported speed –and, by extension, distance, are a little higher than expected.)

    Although I have not nailed down the exact formula to my satisfaction yet, I’ve spent more than a little time contemplating and investigating how the peloton bike calculates speed.

    DISTANCE

    Shown in miles, and is a computed field reflecting speed x time. Straightforward, but only as accurate as your speed measurement.

    TOTAL OUTPUT

    Finally! This is the number that determines your leaderboard status. If there is a metric to track over time, it’s this one. Total output is the Peloton measurement of how much work you have done on your ride. For many people, this is the only number that matters.

    HOW PELOTON CALCULATES OUTPUT

    Where the big “Output” number in the middle of the screen shows your power at a moment in time, “Total Output” shows work. Work is power x time. Let’s dig into this (warning: light arithmetic ahead!) …

    Your Total Output is shown in kilojoules. A kilojoule (“kj”) is 1000 joules. A joule is one watt in one second. So if you pedal consistently and have an average output of 100 watts, you will do 100 joules in one second.

    100 watts x 1 second = 100 joules

    A little simple arithmetic shows that you’ll do 1kj of work in ten seconds pedaling with 100 watts of power:

    100 watts x 10 seconds = 1000 joules = 1 kilojoule (also written 1kj)

    Double your power to 200 watts, and you’ll get that 1kj in only five seconds:

    200 watts x 5 seconds = 1000 joules = 1 kj

    So, you see, the work you do (the kj) is directly related to both how hard you’re working (your wattage, computed by your cadence and resistance) and how long you are working. You can increase your total output by working harder, working longer, or both. The Total Output number is shown both here and also on the leaderboard, and this is what determines your leaderboard position. (Note that the leaderboard value may lag just a bit from the number on the bottom of the screen, but that’s just because the leaderboard is refreshed less often).

    CALORIES

    Of course you want to know how many calories you’re burning! Well, good luck figuring out how this one is calculated. There is a special sauce here known only to the Peloton programmers, but they have told us that it includes (and I quote them): your age, height, weight, gender, and heart rate (if you use a heart rate monitor).

    If you were a Pelotoner before October 2017, you’ll remember the good old days when you could burn massive numbers of calories on the bike. Early adopters soon realized that the Peloton calorie counter didn’t agree with people’s fit bits, Apple watches, etc., and Peloton felt compelled to change their secret formula to bring their numbers more in line. How accurate is it? I have no idea.

    One important thing to know about calories is that your body weight is one of the factors in the calculation, so if you lose more than a couple of pounds while using the bike, you have to periodically go into your profile and update your weight there.

    So, that’s it! Everything you wanted to know about all those numbers on the bottom of your Peloton screen. 

    Thanks, keep Pelotoning, and throw me a high-five if you see me out there!

    — Your friend, #LeftShark

    UPDATE: By request, I’ve added a little information about Metabolic Equivalents, or METs, for those who are trying to figure out how many METs they’re getting out of their rides. I’ve also started on a journey to uncover how the Peloton bike calculates speed.

    UPDATE #2: I have created another post to discuss the Peloton Strive Score metric.

  • Visit to Peloton

    or…. My trip to the Mothership

    Next time you’re in Manhattan, you really need to try out the Peloton studio, located in Chelsea. I headed to the Mothership this summer for my first in-studio ride. If you are anywhere near NYC, I would definitely recommend you give it a try, and if not, well, here’s at least one person’s experience…

    I happen to live in the Philadelphia area (Go Birds!), so it was very easy for me to take the Keystone Amtrak train up to Penn Station. From there, it was maybe a 15 minute walk to the Peloton studio. Piece of cake. The funny thing is, when my wife (#ExcellentBird) was doing our advance scouting, she called the studio and was given the impression that it was a rather long walk and that maybe we’d want to get an Uber or cab. I would hope that anyone planning on doing a spin class can walk a half dozen blocks to get there.

    The Peloton Studio

    The studio is in the Chelsea area of the city, a fairly nice area as cities go, I suppose. I noticed that there is a macaron store and at least two donut shops on the same block as Peloton, so anyone who is interested in practicing self-licensing will have no trouble there.

    We arrived about 45 minutes early for the 11:30 ride we planned to take. That’s earlier than anyone should need to come, but it’s just how it worked out with the train. At that time of day (at least, that day, a Monday), the midday rides were walk-in rides. You can’t make a reservation, but then again they didn’t cost anything, either. (In fact, a conversation I had with a fellow rider suggested to me that you don’t need to be a Peloton member to drop in for the walk-in classes. Free spin classes for non-subscribers seems like an incredible deal to me!) And since we were so early, we got the prime bikes to be seen on camera (that’s me, #LeftShark, front and center on Denis’ 11:30am 7/9 ride and again on JJ’s 12:30am ride the same day. #ExcellentBird is to my left).

    You enter through a small gift shop, which features the same sort of Peloton merch you see offered on the website. You may wonder how much fashionable workout wear one actually needs considering that we’re all generally alone in our basements while spinning, but considering the prices in the shop (and the frequent emails we get showing off all the new styles) I have to assume that it’s a profit center.

    Beyond the gift shop / storefront there is a reception area. This is a short hallway with a something like a concierge station on the right. Ahead of you is the blonde-wood wall with the Peloton logo cut out of it that you see in everyone’s photos (including the one accompanying this post). Turn to the left at the end of this short hall and you are in the waiting area.

    On the wall to your left as you enter the waiting area, a flat-screen TV broadcasts the current ride in more or less real time (actually a second or two behind — you can hear the sound coming from the studio, and it’s a bit out of sync). There are few small chrome and black leather sofas in the room, and riders waiting for their classes sit here and there to kill the time. In the far corner is a table where you could set up your laptop and get a little work in as you wait.

    The waiting area also has a bar that offers up all sorts of beverages with exotic (and probably caffeinated) ingredients. I did not avail myself of it (and I didn’t see it get much use while I was there, but then again it was mid-morning on a weekday) so I can’t really comment on the dining experience.

    Beyond the waiting area is a hallway that leads toward the back of the building. On the left as you walk down are the large double-doors leading to the studio. On the right is the locker room, and at the end of the hall is the “staff only” door leading to, among presumably other things, the “green room” for the instructors.

    Overall, the look is New York Modern, with a fair bit of Apple Store-style blonde wood, and everything seems to be well maintained. The locker room, in particular, seems to be fairly new and both clean and well-lit. It doesn’t have terribly high capacity, considering that at the end of class there are conceivably fifty people looking to shower, but it seems that many of the riders show up in their riding clothes and leave that way — perhaps they’re locals.

    One thing that struck me when visiting was the number of people on staff at Peloton. I had really expected a much smaller crew: maybe one person in the room to hand out towels, another working the cameras, and the instructor. I didn’t make a count, but there was at least one person in the storefront, two at reception, one barista, and a half-dozen or more people with “staff” t-shirts doing everything from tidying up the locker room to standing watch outside the studio door. Understaffed this place was not.

    Setting up… don’t forget, you’ll need your password to log into the bike!

    The In-Studio Ride

    About ten minutes before the class was to begin, one of the staffers at the studio door invited us in. We made our way into the room, which felt more 3D than I expected. The instructor’s bike is on a podium (I think that’s obvious to the at-home rider) and there are three rows of bikes (about fifty or so in all), with the back two rows also on risers. Again, you can see all of this on the videos, but the multiple levels is more striking in person.

    The room is cold, which is no bad thing considering how many people can be in there and that everyone’s working up a sweat. It’s also as loud as a nightclub, and that’s probably the thing about the in-studio ride that surprised me the most.

    Well, actually, the thing that surprised me the most is how small all of the Peloton instructors are. They’re teeny! I have taken a lot of Denis’ “beyond the ride” classes, and when he is standing alone in a room there are no reference points to measure size except his body proportions. I figured Denis was going to be a giant, when in fact he’s just about my height (5’8” or so). He’s pretty chiseled, too (and I’m not), so although I came in thinking that he was going to be huge, it turns out that he could probably effectively hide behind me. Strange.

    Jennifer Jacobs was even smaller. And near the end of our visit, Jess King walked by me in the hallway, and I wouldn’t be surprised if she was the smallest of all. The way the studio and cameras are set up, it is very difficult to judge such things. I would have bet that all of the instructors were at least my size, but now that I know how tall I am relative to the cutout in the wall in the entryway I can see that at 5’8” I might just be taller than any of them!

    One of the larger Peloton employees stood, bouncer-style, in front of the podium, with his back to the instructor. ExcellentBird said to me later she was surprised that it seemed that security was needed for the instructor, but I think what they’re really protecting was the timeline. After all, the instructors meet—unescorted— with riders after class, but in the studio they pretty obviously don’t want you trying to engage the instructors. They have a schedule to keep, and it’s pretty clear that time in the studio drives everything else. There’s more or less 15 minutes scheduled between classes, and that’s just about exactly how long it takes to get the last group out, replenish the towels and water bottles, get the next group in, and get weights handed out, etc. You can hear often in the on-demand rides an instructor talking about taking photos or chatting after class. The key word here is AFTER, once we’re all clear of the studio room.

    I rode bike 7, the one you see to the right of the instructor (the instructor’s left). I can tell you that it is not calibrated like my bike at home. I did two rides that day, one was a PR and the other would have been. I don’t know if the bikes loosen up with use, but it was considerably faster than my bike at home.

    The stripped-down interface of the in-studio bikes keeps your focus on the instructor and not the display.

    The bikes in the studio are like my bike at home, though very well-used. The screens are similar to the ones the instructors used to have, considerably smaller than the ones on the at-home bikes. The screens show you your instantaneous cadence, output and resistance, but no averages, so it’s difficult to gauge your progress against your PR. You also get a leaderboard, but you only see the in-studio riders. I don’t remember if I tried to high-five anyone on the leaderboard, but my guess is that that’s not a feature enabled in-studio. In any case, you have no awareness of your overall leaderboard position or who is riding at home. (The instructor, of course, sees everyone, and can tell who is in studio because in-studio riders are listed in orange instead of white on their display).

    Speaking of high-fives, one of the surprises of my trip was actually how little interaction I had with my fellow riders. My Peloton alter ego is a pretty outgoing guy, generous with the high-fives, following and followed by many. Oddly, the “pelo-fam” vibe didn’t really seem to carry into real life. I mean, this is New York, after all.

    For one thing, the studio is very loud, as I mentioned before. There is no having a conversation with anyone but maybe the rider next to you. Also, there is no way to know who is who. On my second ride, I was a distant second to the top rider (whose name escapes me), and I looked around the room to see if I could figure out who it was but there are no clues to be had. Also, I didn’t recognize the other riders’ names. That shouldn’t be surprising based on the number of Peloton members I suppose, but I ride a lot, and I see a lot of the same people every day. I got the distinct impression that the in-studio crowd and the at-home crowd are not the same people.

    I could be wrong about that, but this impression was reinforced by the one other rider that I did chat up while I was there. I made the acquaintance of Joe who, as far as I could tell, was the only other person doing the morning classes back-to-back. Joe told me he lived fairly close by, and didn’t really seem to me to be into the Peloton culture — he was just there to get some exercise. He did know all of the other gyms and competing exercise venues in the area. All in all a pretty pleasant guy, but not really what I thought I was going to find.

    Our first ride was with Denis, and the actual ride experience was pretty much what you’d get at home, except that you really felt like you had to put some effort in (at least if you’re on bike 7 you do) because if you start phoning it in Denis is literally RIGHT THERE to see you do it. So my PR on the ride was due at least to the fact that I was front and center in the room, no doubt.

    There’s no talking with the instructor, as you might have guessed, but they definitely can see at least to the first row and there’s more interaction that you might think. The instructors absolutely seemed to gain energy from the riders, which was pretty fun.

    After the Ride

    After the class was over we all made our way, post haste, out of the studio. Even the instructors seemed to be hustled out of the room — time is money, people! Once back in the lobby everyone could relax a little. We got a photo with Denis and chatted with him a bit, and I noticed that he hung around quite a while after the ride, talking to others in the lobby. Since I think part of the “journey to the mothership” is meeting your favorite instructor(s), it was nice to see that after all that he didn’t rush off to whatever else he was planning to do that day.

    We hung around for the fifteen minutes or so and then went back into the studio where we were greeted with fresh towels and new bottles of water (I still have my “Peloton Water” bottle as a souvenir). Next up was Jennifer Jacob’s ride, which went pretty much by the numbers (the way Denis’ did). I was pretty gassed after doing Denis’ ride, and wasn’t able to top my earlier effort (though the second ride would have been a PR for me if it weren’t for the first ride). After our ride with JJ it was back out to the lobby for some photos and a bit of chit-chat.

    Mission accomplished, we walked back up to Penn Station (stopping at Whole Foods on the way for something to take with us on the train). We’ve already planned our return trip… in early October, #SaucyDawg and #CrunchyFrog are joining us for a studio invasion.

  • 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.

    Broken Peloton Bike Pedal 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

    Peloton's note to bike owners
    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.)

  • 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.