• We recap the earnings call.
• Peloton will now be available on Amazon.
• The Peloton Prophet has in-depth details on the Rower.
• Updates on the class action investors’ lawsuit.
• Dr. Jenn – Portion control while at work.
• Anna Greenburg has a baby!
• Ross Rayburn on sleep meditation.
• Robin Arzon invests in Happy Viking.
• The UK studio is planning a Carnival Celebration this weekend.
• T-Pain released his Peloton “audition” tape.
• Angelo has tips for managing cravings.
• Bootcamps are going to look a little different.
• Birthdays: Kristen McGee (8/31)

 

All this plus our interview with Jamie Brooks.

—

Watch the episode here

 

Listen to the podcast here

 

Peloton Bike & Guide Now Available On Amazon Plus Our Interview With Jamie Brooks

We’re not at home.

We are in Dallas, Texas. We are at Podcast Movement. They have this cool booth here. You can record while you’re at the show. They have these neat little booths. People are going to be like, “What? We didn’t get to go.”

When we saw that they had all the equipment there, we’re like, “Why should we make our lives harder? ” We had time to get signed up for, so we signed up for the times and here we are. If you’re watching us on YouTube, it’s going to look different because we’re sitting side by side, which is weird. Anyway, there’s all that. What pray tell do you have in store for people?

First up, we’re going to recap the earnings call. That’s number one. We’re going to have a major visit from the Peloton Prophet. If you are a Patreon member of our bonus episodes, you already know all about our Peloton Prophet visit. We also have an interesting discussion on lawsuits. We have a visit from Dr. Jenn. We’re going to talk about portion control at work. There’s all the usual instructor news we got to cover. We have a visit from Angelo, and we’re going to talk about managing cravings. There’s a bunch of In Case You Missed It type things.

Before we get to all that, shameless plugs, don’t forget we’re available on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart. While you’re there, follow us so you’ll never miss an episode. Maybe leave us a review. That’s always nice to see and helpful to the algorithms. They like to teach us that here. We have a Facebook page, Facebook.com/TheClipOut. While you’re there, like the page, join the group. You can sign up for our newsletter so you can get all the links and things sent directly to your inbox. You can do that at our website, theclipout.com.

We have a Patreon. As we mentioned earlier, we had a bonus episode with all sorts of information about the rower and lots of detailed information. We wanted to get that to people as quickly as possible. We put it out as a bonus episode and it will be in this episode. You’re not missing things. You’re still going to hear it, but you’ll hear it a little faster. You also get ad-free content over there. Patreon.com/TheClipOut is where you can find all of that. Finally, you can watch these on YouTube at YouTube.com/TheClipOut. It’ll be a little extra grainy because we’re using the Mac Book camera. There’s all that, let’s dig in. Shall we?

We shall.

—

We got done listening to the earnings call. I have had phone-in, but you actually listened. It’s very dry.

There was a lot of interesting information there. Let me start by saying that I am not a fan of Barry but I do have to say this is the best call that he has done. Something has unclenched within Barry. He sounded more relaxed and we talked about it while we were listening.

Do you think that’s because he’s gotten more comfortable in the role or do you think he’s more comfortable with the trajectory of the company?

I definitely think it’s the trajectory of the company.

I tend to agree because he has operated at this level for a good chunk of his career. I wouldn’t think earnings calls freak him out at this point.

When we recorded, I would have said that this is going to be the worst earnings call Peloton has ever done. I ended up feeling more confident after this call than I have in the last three calls. The reason being is he had calm rational explanations that made sense to me. He was very clear. He didn’t talk down to people and he was open and transparent. It was a little different feeling. Putting how I feel about him personally aside, the reason that I felt like this was a good call was he talked about the strategy behind the strategy.

Let’s start with Amazon. That’s the big news. He talked about why they moved to Amazon. They moved to Amazon not to replace retail. He says that it’s because as the world continues to be uncertain, we don’t know where people are buying stuff from. We got to be in as many places at once as we can. The reason that they are not putting any equipment besides the bike on Amazon is because the Bike+ and the Tread aren’t ready, which is exactly what we talked about. We were right about that. That’s cool.

What I found interesting is he said that they’re doing the bike because it’s the only one that end users can set up themselves. If you go on Amazon, it offers you options of them coming in and setting it up for you.

Amazon also requires that you have an option for drop shipping. It has to be an option to be a partner with Amazon. He said that too. He said, “If you want to be on Amazon, you have to offer a way to drop ship. You can still use Amazon to set it up for you. It’s an option, but you have to have the other option of just dropping it off. It is interesting.

Especially when they’re not charging for the set-up.

They’re not charging for any kind of setup. There are a lot of people that have said this, including myself. I don’t want to act like I’m not one of these people. What is this going to do to the brand of Peloton? Barry spoke about something that I thought was very interesting. We have always heard John Foley talk about better, best. That has always been better, best. Now, Barry said, “Good, better, best. That’s the strategy.”

At first, I thought, “Is that just verbal?” You tend to think I get to see him falling into the rhythm of saying good, better, best, when he really means better, best, but he said it multiple times.

He did say it multiple times. He didn’t get into this super in-depth, but my brain took that and flipped it around and said, “If that’s true, Amazon is now good, and better and best are your Bike+ or your Tread. You’re still going to have these high-level items. I still think the rower is going to end up on Amazon.

It sounded like their long-term goals were for everything because he talks about redesigning the bike and presumably the Bike+.

He said they had to do a design cycle. Interestingly, he never mentioned Tread+, not one time.

He said that the goal was to reduce the weight.

That does not bode well for Tread+ returning. I’ll just say that.

At least, not being on Amazon. At the price point that’s going to be at, maybe that makes sense.

It might or maybe that’s a premium product that people can get and it’s just going to cost a lot more. That could be too. Eventually, it’s going to come back but it’s going to cost a lot more. Is there anything else on Amazon that we didn’t talk about? We might circle back. There’s a lot to talk about here.

That’s all that comes to mind.

Let’s talk about the rental program. The rental program he talked about was incredibly successful. I have been viewing all of these pricing changes and the rental changes because some days they have the Bike+ on there. Sometimes they don’t have the Bike+ on there. It seems like chaos. When I hear Barry talk about it, this is the turning point for me.

It sounds like A/B testing.

He’s like, “Basically we’re going to throw a bunch of shit at the wall and see what sticks.” I’m on board with that, Barry. You got me. That makes sense to me. You’re not just sitting there stagnant waiting for a year and then maybe something changes, and then you change direction. I actually respect the man for being like, “We need to be quick. We need to be nimble. We need to be able to change stuff. Part of that is throwing a bunch of stuff at the wall and seeing what sticks.” You got me. I’m on board.

Getting back to the rental thing, there was so much interesting stuff about that because he was talking about when they put the Bike+ back into the rental program, he said that over nine weeks, it grew 35% just by adding Bike+ in and adding some marketing dollars to it. He said that without adding the marketing in, if you look over thirteen weeks, it was 74% growth by just adding Bike+ in. That tells me that people want to rent the Bike+. They’re interested in it. They’re more interested in the Bike+ than they are in the bike. That’s what that told me, which I was fascinated about.

I thought it was interesting about the renting thing. I always thought that renting a bike is more like, “I got a vacation home. I only need a bike for a few months.” They see it more as it’s a value proposition like it’s another version of an installment plan.

Whether or not you follow the metrics of the Peloton class is not important. What matters is that you are having fun. Click To Tweet

They do. It also sounds like that’s skewing younger. They said that it’s skewing younger. That makes sense from a financial perspective, but also that it’s more female, which they were surprised at. Overall, it has the effect of adding to their Tam, which is amazing. That’s cool. I’m curious about the fact that you can’t be a current Peloton member to do those rentals. You have to be a brand new person.

There is no, “I’m going to rent one for my vacation home.”

No. That’s what we talked about. You could probably get around it. There are ways like putting it in your neighbor’s name or whatever. It’s possible, but it’s a lot of work. I’m sure there are people doing it. Don’t get me wrong. That was super interesting. It sounds like that is going to be a big part of the growth strategy in 2023.

He also talked about there was the refurbished program. That was doing very well also. Those are small numbers that he was talking about, but it’s important that it’s doing well. It was interesting because when somebody asks a question like what are going to be the most important drivers of growth over the next year, he talked about in this order, the renting, the rental, and the refurbished. He threw the rower in there, which I thought was interesting. He also said that the rower is going to be expensive. When the CEO tells you that this rower is going to be expensive, watch out. I think we got a $4,000 rower on our hands.

Do you think it’s that little or are they going to be more?

I think it’s that expensive because an average rower like Hydrow and other stuff like that is around $1,200 to $1,800. I think they’re coming out with an incredibly premium product. They seem to think this is going to be the best rowing product on the market. In a little bit, we’re going to talk about the Peloton Prophet visiting us. We have a bunch of details about the rower. According to Barry, this is the best premium rower out there. It’s going to completely change the experience. They seem to think it’s it’s everything. He also said that he wasn’t sure how it was going to resonate with people paying that much. You could also see the pricing strategy change on that, going back to throw everything at the wall and see what sticks.

They talked about they’re going to continue to right-size the company to match our run rate. That means you could see more cuts that could happen. They are not taking that off the table. That is absolutely still on the table. Somebody asks, “How many stores are you closing?” “We don’t know.” They are taking it day by day, which could be good or bad, but I like that they’re proactive in their strategy but they’re reactive in if it’s not working, change it. I do think that is necessary at this point.

It was also interesting to me that as they talk about going forward, that strategy of we’re going to have the rower, we’re going to have all these other things. He talked about content in our instructors. He used the words crown jewel. He feels like that is the best thing they have going. That is their differentiator from everybody else in the market, which I agree with.

That explains why with all their cuts, you’ve not seen one cut in the level of instructors. In fact, they keep bringing on more.

They will continue to because we know they’re hiring people for the rower or they’ve already hired them. That’s happening. I think that gives us a very good clue. We’re not going to see cuts with instructors. Something catastrophic would have to occur for us to get rid of instructors. I love how I still say us, but it’s nice because I’m saying us again. It was the first time I felt good about anything in months. It’s weird because I’m like, “They put it up on Amazon. That’s the end of the world.” Now I’m like, “It’s not so bad.” It’s very different. I feel better. I’m like, “This isn’t so bad.” They’re being thoughtful about things. I’m shocked that I feel that way, but I’m glad that indicates our instructors aren’t going anywhere.

They talked about the studio. Somebody asked the question, “Aren’t you going to have more people in the studio?” He was like, “We might have more classes in our current studios. We’re not adding more studios. It’s too expensive.” For all of you that keep hounding about this West Coast studio, it isn’t happening. Let it go. It’s not going to happen at least in the foreseeable future. I mean this current world we have. Who knows what will happen five years from now?

I thought the Precor stuff was interesting.

I’m glad you brought that up. Somebody asks about Precor. Barry said two very differing statements. The first statement he says is, “We told you that if it’s not connected fitness, we’re not going to focus on it.” That sounds pretty bad for Precor. Ten seconds later, he said, “They have been incredibly helpful with our commercial business. We haven’t been focusing on it.” Year over year growth was 35% on commercial and they’re not even trying. What happens when they put marketing dollars behind that?

I thought it sounded very positive. I was like, “That’s weird,” because it seems to me as a novice that putting more Peloton in hotels. John Foley used to always talk about how they felt like when there was a bike in a hotel, it sold bikes because people would sample it and then they go buy one. You would think over time, if you can put Precor into the position to make Peloton bikes just ubiquitous in hotels as people swap out or upgrade their equipment, the obvious choice would be to put a Peloton.

Many people are going to have Peloton. Many travelers are going to have Peloton. We’re in Dallas and you went down, they had five Peloton in the hotel. They were all full. Those are people who probably have Peloton at home now and they wouldn’t use them on the road. It’s also a great way for people to sample. I think the idea that Precor is working well for them bodes very well for Peloton as a whole long-term.

It’s a whole other revenue stream. They basically said, “We’re not going to talk about it right now. We’re going to have a lot more to share soon.” I think we’re going to see in the next six months, we’re going to hear more transparency and more understanding about the long-term like what Precor actually do. They seem to be happy with the acquisition. They seem to be happy with how it’s going in general. Hopefully, we do hear a good report and it continues to go well. I think that’s only good for them.

I get that it’s not necessarily connected fitness because they sell a lot of other products. I know Stairmaster is probably a brand name, but things like that aren’t connected fitness. It seems to me that if the company is sitting there making money, why would you get rid of it? Unless you just need an infusion of cash and you can sell it and move on.

When they talked about their right sizing, they said that regardless of what occurs in the next year, they’re going to keep $1 billion worth of cash. That’s happening.

It’s like the financial strategy you and I have. We like to keep $1 billion on hand.

It’s like pocket-changing.

People are like, “Now we know why there are so many ads.” It’s because we have $1 billion on hand.

We’re joking.

Is there anything else in the call?

I think we hit it all. We hit Precor. We talked about Amazon.

Should we touch on the CFO’s response?

Barry handpicks the CFO. They worked together at Netflix. He brought her in. I miss the other one. I don’t even remember what the question was anymore. The person asked the question. It was, “Out of all the things that you have done in reductions versus the raising of the prices, which is going to be more impactful to the bottom line in the next year?” It was pretty straightforward.

Barry had to explain it to the CFO. That’s not a good sign and it does not fill me with confidence. Even after he explained it, he went on to answer a different question and came back to the CFO to answer the question. She still was like, “Let me understand what you’re asking.” It was awkward. It was the exact opposite of how it used to be. He used to sound like he didn’t know what he was talking about and the CFO had it all.

They gave her extra time to answer like she had an IEP.

That’s what it sounded like. She did end up answering it, sort of. I don’t even remember what the answer was. It’s like, “This year we’re going to see a lift from raising the prices and who knows what’s going to happen next year.” I guess from all these stores that they will be closing or the changes that they’re making with the last mile, it sounds like we’re not going to see any of the financial impacts of that until 2023. As you make those changes, you then have to go over to this other place and take money out of that place to then cost money over here.

I thought it was interesting when they were talking about the closing of the stores and the savings. One, you wouldn’t see any savings on that until 2024. He added that he would ideally like to see no savings from that. He would like to take all that money that they save and roll it into marketing. It tells me that even though Peloton is a ubiquitous name brand at this point, akin to Coke or Pepsi, they still feel like throwing marketing money at the wall produces sales.

Not only that. I don’t know if you’ve heard this part, but he talked about brand awareness. He said that out of all the products that people have in their homes for Peloton, 94% of them are bikes. I believe that too. He then talked about brand awareness and he was like 20% are aware of the tread. He talked about the app, 4%. Fitness as a service, we didn’t touch on this part of it. This is the last part we should probably talk about. He talked a lot about fitness as a service. You can absolutely bet your ass that you were going to see Peloton on other things. I don’t know what that’s going to look like. I have no idea who’s going to be having it. He loves the idea of everyone out there using Peloton on their app.

He said that was a huge driver. That was a huge increase year over year. He feels like that is the place where they need to dig the deepest. They need to lean into that. He wants to lean into that. He wants to lean into the rental program. He wants to lean into the Precor acquisition in 2023. All of those things will be growing and he felt like the app is the biggest thing. He also talked about the key there is personalizing it. He talked about that right now, when you log onto your bike, it says take these classes. He’s like, “There’s a little bit there. It’s stuff that you interact with instructors you’ve taken.” He’s like, “Most of this stuff we should do.”

 

He wants to make it like Netflix.

He literally said that. He was like, “What made Netflix the best is that when you log into it, it’s like, “Here are things we know you’re going to like. We’re going to serve you up at these examples because we know.”

“You like True Crime, here are 90 things about serial killers.”

I do love that about Netflix. It’s true. He talked about Spotify. It’s the same thing. I love the fact that when I do build a playlist, it’ll be like, “We know what you like so much. Now we can magically add tracks you probably didn’t think of.” They’re right every time. I’m like, “I never even thought about that one.”

It frustrates me a little bit more in the entertainment world because I will do a lot of different things. I don’t want to just get the same thing fed to me over and over again. I don’t tend to go past that first screen on Netflix. I am wondering how much content is out there that I’m not even touching, but from a fitness concept or ecosystem, I feel like it makes infinitely more sense because if you’re focused on strength, “Here’s more strength.” If you’re focused on cardio, “Here’s more cardio.”

You could take it one step further because in my personal training aspects, what I wanted to be able to do is go, “You’re working on running. You’re trying to get fast. Here you go, Crystal. Here are the things you should be doing. Here’s the strength you should be taking. Here are the classes you should be taking to drive home your goals.” That’s what I wanted to be able to do. I’m hoping they take it there, but it sounds like that’s quite a bit down the road. They aren’t there yet, but it’s coming.

They also talked about that as that fitness as a service, you’re going to get more, depending on how much you pay. They said they’re going to figure out the pricing for the app as they go. I hear that as like right now. you can get the app for as little as $12.95 a month. If you want to have access to strength, rowing, boxing and on and on, that price might go up. If you want to have access to the metrics, that price might go up. If you want to have access to have things given to you so that, “Here are the examples,” like the AI we were just talking about, that price might go up.

They’re trying to figure out the best way to do that and what people are willing to pay. I think we’re going to continue to see prices go up and down. I think we’re going to continue to see marketing go up and down. I think we’re going to continue to see things tried and changes made like these live bootcamps. You’ll hear about that later. Those went away. They’re now trying to add other stuff.

Everything is in flux and will continue to feel chaotic because they’re trying to figure out what works. My favorite line that he said was, “I can’t pretend to tell you how successful it’s going to be or which one of these initiatives is going to work, but I can tell you, I am confident that in conjunction like in working together, they will work.” I actually had confidence in that.

It’s interesting to watch it play out.

Hopefully, this doesn’t confuse you too much compared with the rest of what he said.

I was down in the Amazon thing as you were. I look like a genius now. I don’t like the word genius. I prefer visionary. That’s it for this segment. We will now return you to your regularly scheduled Clip Out already in progress.

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Big news in the world of Peloton and presumably in the world of Amazon as it was announced that they are partnering up. You can now purchase a Peloton bike, the Guide, shoes, and I guess eventually merchandise.

I believe apparel as well. I don’t know if the apparel is up yet. I thought the apparel was up as well.

I typed in Peloton and Amazon, and I didn’t see any apparel. I saw a bike, a Guide, and a pair of shoes.

At least for now, there is no apparel, but apparel will be coming. It is important to note that it is the regular bike, not the Bike+.

You have a theory on why you can get a bike, but not a Bike+.

My theory is that they have on the Bike+ that swivel screen. I think that it’s slightly more complicated, but not like it takes a rocket scientist, I don’t mean that. They’ve been tinkering around with putting the regular bike out there for people to be able to do home delivery and put it together themselves. I think that has been a work in progress and I don’t think they’ve had a chance to do that exact same process with the Bike+ yet. My theory is they’re going to try to perfect it on the bike, then we will be seeing it on the Bike+ somewhere down the road.

I thought it was interesting that when you go to Amazon, it lists that delivery is free.

I know everybody is thinking that delivery is free because you don’t need to put it together. You can still put it together yourself. Tom looked into it to test out the different options. Not only was the version free that you had it delivered to your doorstep and you deliver it yourself. Also, if you choose to put it in another room, they deliver. All of those options were free.

It was up to two flights of stairs up or down. Anything more than that, presumably, is extra. I had an epiphany. I wonder if delivery was listed as free because we are Amazon Prime members.

I don’t think yet. There was nothing in that article that indicated that Prime members at this moment would be treated any differently. That doesn’t mean that it’s not and I didn’t catch it, but they didn’t say anything about that. Wasn’t it shocking that they said in the article that 500,000 searches were done each month on Peloton in the Amazon search engine?

Within Amazon itself, there are 500,000 organic searches for Peloton every month.

That’s an incredible number. I don’t like the optics. My gut says, “Ew,” when I hear the optics of like it’s available on Amazon.

It’s weird because we buy stuff off Amazon all the time.

I know but the problem is it was a week that Barry said, “We’re going to raise these prices so we can make the brand a luxury brand again.”

I was going to go down the same avenue you are, which I don’t necessarily think it’s aspirational in Amazon.

That’s the problem I have with that. It’s not even that it’s being sold on Amazon. It’s the fact that one week you raised the prices because you want to be aspirational and now, you throw it up on Amazon. Those two things don’t match. They don’t make logical sense together. Having said that, I think when I hear that many searches are being done organically, it would be dumb of Peloton to not put the items out there on Amazon and keep thinking that we need to move forward. Also, it’s a convenient excuse.

I’m lazy in that regard. If I see something on Amazon, even if it’s a few dollars more, a lot of times it’s easier to do it on Amazon.

I also meant that it’s a convenient way for Peloton to simultaneously close down all these retail locations, and then throw these stuff up on Amazon at the same time. They’re making it seem like they weren’t connected, but they clearly were connected. There was forethought that went into it.

It’s clearly a precursor to store closures. It’s like, “You can go on Amazon and order it easy peasy.” I also think it’s interesting or I feel like it’s worth pointing out to Echelon that this is what it looks like when someone has a partnership with Amazon.

Amazon announces it.

When it comes to your Peloton leaderboard name, choose something inspiring and makes you happy. Click To Tweet

There are also lots of news articles. I guess they had news articles for about twelve hours until Amazon pumped the brakes, “Who are you?”

That in a nutshell is my biggest problem with Echelon. What’s also interesting in this article is that Kevin Cornils said that he’s going to look to other retailers for similar deals to extend its reach. Do we have a Best Buy situation? Will we see it in Costco or are we going to only see it online? I should also mention that when you looked it up to see how much it costs and everything, that was available in the St. Louis area where we live in the suburbs. There were people that were looking at other areas. I saw one person posting on The Clip Out. I don’t remember who, but they said they live in a rural area in Colorado and they could not access the Amazon deal.

If had ordered one today, we could have had it by Saturday.

You said the Guide could have been here tomorrow.

They said between 4:00 AM and 8:00 AM, and I was looking at it around noon.

That’s incredible. What will be interesting to see is whether Amazon can deliver better than XPO. I mean bring it into your house and put it together. Will Amazon use a third party that we don’t know about yet? Is there some kind of third-party deal? Do they have a three-way deal where it’s like XPO, Amazon and Peloton? There are so many things we don’t know. I saw somebody say, and I thought it was a good question. We’re never going to know the answer to it, but how much is Amazon getting out of every single bike? They’re never going to tell us that information, but it is an interesting question. You need to back out of it.

This gets you out of having stores, even if they get a little bit more than you maybe would have wanted. If you don’t have to have a store open, you don’t have to have all those employees. Obviously, if they are an employee, they got a commission.

Amazon is better at logistics. That’s what they do.

We should also say that the stock market positively loves this.

It went up 20%, which sounds so good but it’s not.

That’s a good job, but when you look at the stock price, you’re like, “It went up 20% and it’s at $11?” They’re on Amazon now. Ultimately, it’s a good thing. It does seem like a little bit of a mixed message in terms of it’s aspirational, but it’s on Amazon. I do think if it brings you any peace, Crystal, you can think of it like maybe this is leftover from John Foley’s democratization of fitness. You could get it on Amazon.

I don’t think it is because it all came from Kevin and it came from Barry. There was no mention of John, and John is in Mexico right now. He’s on vacation according to his Instagram. Not that I’m stalking him because I’m not, I just happen to see it in my feed. Jill and I have the same birthday, so I assume they’re on a birthday trip. I have mixed feelings about it. I want the company to succeed and I want them to be around and I want us to have the content and I want all those things to happen. There are going to be things that happen that I’m not a fan of. It irritates me that everything I feel is squeaky, the stupid stock market is like, “yeah.” Stop it. You guys are the problem. If it weren’t for the greediness of the stock market.

They just get rewarded with weird things sometimes.

It’s not really their fault. I just want somebody to blame right now.

—

Subscribers to Patreon already know this information, but here it is for everyone else. The Peloton Prophet came by and gave us all sorts of details about the rower. This is super in-depth. This is way beyond what we’ve heard so far.

This is important that you guys know because this is not based on us trying to see an instructor posting something in the background or one of the people who make the rower accidentally leave the specs laying out on their table or something. This is based on a person who has actually used it. They are saying that I was right. I have to start with the fact that I was right. Back when they showed that half-a-second clip of Adrian on the rower, do you remember that I said, “That looks like it stands up?” I see that it has a foot on the bottom, so it doesn’t fold. It stands.

I also said, “It looks like it’s 8 feet long,” because it’s Adrian plus 2 feet. I was right on both of those counts. It stands up. It does not fold in half at all, but it does flip up on its end and it is a full 8 feet long. It’s very thin. It’s only 1 foot wide. The only part of it that’s not really thin is the part where the actual screen is. The screen is the same size as the Bike+ and the smaller tribes. Now the screens are going to be the same for all three. That’ll make it easy.

One of the cool things with the rower is that whenever it does stand up, it has this arm that stows the actual handle to do your rowing, and it stows it automatically. It’s cool looking apparently. The other interesting thing about it is that it has form assist. People have been saying, “We’re getting some form assist for a long time,” but it’s not on the road map like for the Guide. It does exist for the rower. My theory on why it does for one and not the other is that there are very few movements that you need to have in the library to be able to correct people’s form for the rower compared to the guide where you could be doing bicep curls or overhead presses. There are a million different movements.

Also, a million different ways to do it wrong.

It’s a lot harder. The form assist apparently is very cool. It’s the little guy front and back. He lives on the top of your screen. It’s up in the upper left-hand corner. It shows when you’re doing the foreign correct and when you’re doing it wrong. Let’s say that you’re growing and you’re using your arms and your legs. Your knees will light up red like you’re not doing that right. If you fix your form, then it will go back to green. I have been told that it’s a little bit distracting because you’re constantly trying to perfect your form, but I’m sure you get better at that as you go. You can tap on the little guy front and back to make him go away.

The other interesting thing is that you get a form score at the end. The little guy front and back gives you a report and he tells you how well you did. He will tell you in which areas you need to improve and which areas you did okay. The only thing that the person who told me about this wasn’t excited about was that in a 30-minute class, let’s just say, you get 1/10 of the output you get on the bike, for example. They think that part of the reason for that is that they go over so much. There’s so much assistance in setting up like, “Here’s how you row. Here’s how you use your arms. Here’s how you use your legs.” In a 30-minute class, they only got seven minutes of actual rowing time. These are early days and they want to make sure that everybody knows how to use it.

They’re assuming you haven’t used a rower before. If you come in having already used a rower or once you’ve done it for a while, you presumably won’t be taking those sorts of classes.

I do think that’s something that’s going to be quickly fixed because it’s not really a problem. They want to have these basic classes for people. They did the same thing when boxing came out. They quickly moved formats and it was fine. We know that Caesar has been the code name for the rower the whole time. There are also Pelican and Goose. We don’t know if those are different types of testing groups that are out there.

You do need to put the mount on the wall for the rower to actually stand upright and be stowed away. At least for the people testing, you needed to put the actual mounts in yourself and they required you to take a video. I think they’re still trying to tweak that. Going back to our Amazon discussion earlier, I believe that is going to be another item where they’re like, “Here’s the rower, put it together yourself.” I think that’s what they’re going to want from people.

They want the testers to send videos so they can see where people struggle as they install things. You won’t be required to send a video.

You will not be required. It’s just the testing people. Whenever you do stow the rower, the entire screen folds all the way down. It looks like a laptop, the way it collapses. It makes it very neat and compact. As far as people teaching, we have confirmed as we were told earlier that Matt Wilpers will be teaching. As well as Adrian Williams, we already knew that. We know there are three more instructors coming. We also know that Matt of course is very technical. He’s always going to be a technical dude. He spends a lot of time talking about forms and drills.

They have forms and drill classes that are about 10 minutes. There are 15, 20 and 30-minute rowing classes. There’s nothing longer than that right now for pure rowing, and then there are 30 and 45-minute bootcamps. At the moment, there are only six. There are also Tabata rowing classes. There are advanced interval classes. During the bootcamps, they do not do as much explanation, which is what you want. It’s what you expect.

There are also music-based classes. Overall, the screen looks very similar, but the high-fives are in a different spot. They’re over at the top. Little guy front and back lives where the high-fives currently are. The leaderboard looks the same. It’s in a different spot now. I guess the high-fives are above the leaderboard. The heart rate monitor, all of that connects the same way. It shows at the bottom. It’s the new layout that you’ve been seeing on the tread and the bike for a few weeks now.

There are no classes with the new instructors yet. Four weeks of testing have been done. They’re saying it’s a total of 6 to 8, which means that it’s going to be out on Labor Day just like I said. The only thing that this person had an issue with was the class format. They felt like it could be an issue for people who have very small spaces because it is large.

It looks massive. Also, the only song they play is, “Row, row, row your boat.”

I also forgot to mention that when they do teach the form like, “Focus on the arms,” they’re teaching those different pieces of it in that 30-minute class when I said there are only 7 minutes of rowing. During the other pieces where they’re breaking down things, the metrics stop. At this moment, metrics stop when you do that. Metrics also stop if you want to take a drink of water. You have to completely stow your handle. When you do that, then the metric stop. They do cue that though. It could be an issue that they need to work out because it’s leading to a lot of lower outputs. They might need to find a way to make things keep moving a little faster.

Did you talk about the fact that there doesn’t seem to be a button on the handle for high-fives?

 

We’ve been hearing all this chatter about there’s a way to use some button on the handle. This person took pictures of every angle of the handle that is on their rower. There is no button. There is no way to do any high-five with the handle out. You would have to stow the handle. It’s not to say that there are no other kinds of testing out there. Maybe Pelican is different from the other Goose or whatever. One has it and one doesn’t, I don’t know. At this moment, the person who we talked to, there’s no handle. There’s no way to actually high-five somebody using the handle.

There’s everything we know about the rower. We know a lot of new stuff.

A lot of good stuff. People are very excited about the rower. I think it’s going to be a hit for Peloton. I hope so. God knows they need one.

—

We have an update on the lawsuit from an investor saying that they were lied to about expectations from Peloton, “We were told the stock price would only ever increase.”

This is a direct quote from the article. “Peloton ‘shocked’ investors by announcing it had revised its full-year revenue guidance down from $5.4 billion to a range at $4.4 billion to $4.8 billion due to declining demand as its customers were increasingly free to exercise outside the home.” As we all know, the stock then declined from $104 to $31.84 on January 19th. It’s been rough since then. The update here is that Peloton has filed a motion to throw the whole thing out. They go through this whole big long spiel which says, “We didn’t lie to you. We told you.”

This is from Peloton. In other words, Peloton told investors exactly what it expects the demand to be and then exceeded those expectations. As soon as Peloton saw signs of slowing demand heading into the traditionally busy holiday season, it told investors and lowered future guidance, “This is the opposite of securities. We did the things.”

I will be very curious to see if this gets thrown out directly. I don’t know if it’ll get thrown out or if it’ll get dismissed. I do think they’re going to end up winning this because they did do the things. Everyone had a shitty year. Look around.

I remember those earnings calls. John Foley was saying, “This is not what we expected.” They were adjusting on the fly. It certainly wasn’t pretty, but it was also not hidden.

The only little hiccup in that is they were like, “We don’t need any cash. We’re good,” and then two days later, they did a big cash fundraising. That was not great. That’s not a good one. That’s not securities fraud either. I don’t think that’s not reading the room. I don’t know. We’ll see.

—

Joining us once again is Dr. Jenn Mann, licensed marriage, family and child therapist, and Sports Psychology consultant. She also has a wonderful app you should check out called No More Diets. It’s Dr. Jenn.

Hello.

We have a person who needs your help. They are looking for help with portion control during work hours. They know that they are struggling to fulfill a void from a very unfulfilling job, but they are still struggling to not eat as they sit there. Do you have any thoughts on what they could do?

For sure, many thoughts. First of all, I love the hunger scale. The hunger scale is that scale from 0 to 10, and 5 is neutral. If you think of your hunger in terms of these numbers and you go up to scale higher, that 10 is so full. Your stomach is going to explode like Thanksgiving full, 6 is, “I can tell I have food in me but I’m not stuffed,” 7 is full, 8 is stuffed, and 9 is pain. Going the other direction, we’re back to 5 is neutral, 4 is, “I think I’m hungry but I’m not sure,” 3 is, “I’m definitely hungry. I know that I’m hungry,” 2 is, “I am starving and I’m starting to get cranky, and 1 is, “I could faint.” Zero is like, “I’m on the floor.”

What you want to do is start eating when you are a 3, which is solidly hungry, not, “I’m not sure if I’m hungry,” which is a 4. You want to stop when you are at 5 or 6. You are satisfied. You could run down the block if you had to or if someone was chasing you. You’re not so full that you are in pain. In a situation like this, where you are turning to food to deal with emotions, boredom, anger, frustration, feeling trapped, and all that stuff, instead of looking at portion control, which I’m not a big fan of, that’s very external. You want to go internal. You want to start to look at how your body is responding to these foods.

Also, sometimes we have days where we’re hungrier than other days where a 3 may require more food to get us to a 5. Another day, it may require very little food, depending on where we’re at. I want to encourage this person to focus on the internal process and get in touch with their hunger. In dealing with this unfulfilling job. That’s another story. If you’re struggling at work to get through the day, depending on what your situation is, maybe you take little breaks. At some point, you go into the restroom and do a five-minute Ross Rayburn meditation, or you go for a walk around the block, depending on what the rules are at your workplace. Maybe you do a crossword puzzle.

Do something to take you out of that. Something that gives you enjoyment and you want to fill up the emotional tank in little ways throughout the day without using food to do that. Food backfires that it’s fun at the moment, but then we end up feeling physically uncomfortable. We don’t oftentimes sleep as well if we’ve overeaten or we’ve eaten late. We end up feeling bad about ourselves because we didn’t listen to our bodies. We were giving our body stuff that it didn’t want, but if we can find other ways to deal with the frustration of the job situation, that’s where you’re best off.

That makes sense. Attack it from both directions.

If the audience is like, “I need a visual,” you can check out my No More Diets app because I have a whole section where I talk all about the hunger scale. I have a drawing of it. If you want to use the app to put in your food, which might help you at work, you can at each meal rate your hunger at the beginning and the end of each meal. I got a little slider on the 0 to 10 where you can do that to help you get in touch with yourself.

What a great idea. That’s wonderful.

I feel like I’m doing a magic trick because I didn’t know when I went with the No More Diet app mentioned at the top of the show. I don’t know what the questions are.

I don’t tell you ahead of time. I like to keep it fresh for you.

I also wouldn’t remember. Thank you so much for all that. Until next time, where can people find you?

I’m on social media @DrJennMann and I post all of my Peloton workouts on my Insta Stories. You can also find me in InStyle Magazine. I have a weekly column called Hump Day With Dr. Jenn, where I talk about sex and relationships.

Thank you.

—

Anna Greenberg had her baby.

I wish that we could share a screen because that is one cute baby. The baby’s name is Noah and she shared it on social media. That baby is so cute and it looks like Anna. They had this one little picture where it had her smile. It looked like her. It’s like their twinsies. It was adorable. It made me smile. Congrats to the whole Greenberg family. I know that dad’s name is not Greenberg. The last name is not Greenberg, but I can’t remember off the top of my head what it is. Just know that I send you all good wishes and congratulations.

From Coach.Nine.com.au, Ross Rayburn talked to them about sleep meditation.

I thought this was cool. I found that he had done an interview with an Australian magazine and talked to them about why sleep meditation is so important and how it can help you feel more rested. All of that is true. Everyone knows that Ross has the best voice to put you to sleep. It’s all good.

There is a new startup company, Happy Viking, which is a special food or superfood thing.

Wasn’t that Serena Williams’s new venture? She announced that she is retiring from tennis. It’s not Serena. It’s Venus.

It says both Venus and Serena Williams.

The whole reason I included this is I thought it was interesting that Robin Arzon is one of their backers. They included that in the press release. They’re like, “It’s included by heavy backers.” They have Michelle Wie, and then Robin Arzon.

No matter what mood you’re in and how hard you want to work, there are always great options to find in the Peloton. Click To Tweet

Also, Kevin Durant.

That’s crazy. That’s a whole new level right there when you’re included in a press release because you invested in Serena and Venus Williams’s new company. I just had to include Happy Viking.

The UK studio is going to have a carnival.

I know it’s a huge deal in the UK and they are celebrating.  They have some special classes. There are classes with Jermaine, Joslyn and Hannah Frankson. There’s a 30-minute ride and there’s a 30-minute walk, and then there is a 10-minute core class. Lots to take and celebrate carnival.

—

T-Pain released a video of his “audition” to be a Peloton instructor.

I don’t think you know the whole story behind this.

He was in a class, right?

He was in two classes actually. It was for the all-for-one music festival. They were doing the T-Pain class. He got a little silly and did an audition. This article will be included in our newsletter so make sure you subscribe. It actually shows this audition. He starts calling out all these people. He’s like, “Let’s do this, James. What the F? Pick it up, buddy. Pick it up. Don’t let Carol beat you. Look at that output. Terrible, terrible.” Suffice it to say, I don’t think we’re going to see T-Pain as a new instructor anytime soon, but it was hilarious.

—

Joining us from MetPro here to answer all of your nutritional questions, it’s Angelo.

It’s great to be back.

It’s great to have you. I know that you can identify with this question because it talks about Oreos. Hear me out. Rob Abramowitz says that having the kids from home from school has been a lot harder to stick with healthy choices over the summer. He finds himself grabbing less healthy, faster options so he can get back to work and keep the kids happy in the moment, trying to get the Oreos out of the house, not through his mouth.

What do we do about that?

Adoption.

Ignore Tom. This is the type of stuff we deal with every day and this is as real as it gets. I have great intentions. Once the kids are home and in the house, I need something that satisfies them. There is a number of ways to go with this. The first thing that I want to say is the foods that are going to be healthy and promote the progress you’re after are also at their core and fundamentally the types of clean foods that you want to create a family food culture around anyway.

I am not saying to deprive your kids of Oreos once in a while. Here’s the typical advice that I give families that struggle with balance there. Take them out for ice cream. Take them out for treats. You need those memories. You need those special occasions and they deserve it. You deserve it. What we want to do is get away from the family and wellness culture of sugar, processed, and basically junk foods being a normal part of our day-to-day. I come home from school. I have some junk food. I woke up in the morning and I had breakfast. Now I have some junk food. I ate dinner. Now I have some junk food.

The kids can get away with it now but if they have that habit all the way through their teenage years, speaking from experience, those habits are so hard. That culture becomes so ingrained. If they can associate those foods and treats occasionally, go out of the house, have them, and don’t bring them home. It’s like anything. My problem is if I go to a friend’s house at events and they have my favorite Oreos out, I can partake and have some self-control. The problem is if I bring Oreos into the house. It’s all over because I eat them by the sleep. Some people say, “I just need two. I’m good with that.” I look at them like they have the third eye.

You’re like, “I’ll take the rest of the package. Thank you.”

My solution is not having that stuff in the house. That being said, I understand the dynamic. You’re not going to go to the pantry and throw out everyone else’s food because you have made a decision that for the next two weeks, you want to try changing your eating habits. I get that. I’m going to tell you the same thing that I would tell any of my friends or family of clients that I’m working with. Have good foods available. It’s the absence of quick healthy foods available.

The issue, Rob, is not an issue of willpower. It is an issue of speed, time management, brevity, and quick execution. I know that definitively as a fact. We get a little sideways because we hear a lot of these shows that are focused on the emotional element of eating, and all of that is true. When I’m working with clients day in and day out, what I can tell you, the number one reason by a massive margin when somebody is inconsistent with clean, healthy food choices is not, “I’m addicted to sugar. I need chocolate. Burger King is my favorite food.” It is, “I got too busy and …” That’s the reality.

Knowing where our battleground is ahead of time, get ahead of that curve. The reason that you’re opting for those quick convenient packaged solutions that are quick and convenient for the kids, and then you’re grabbing it also is because you don’t have an equivalent that’s healthy and as quick. Prepare a bunch of snacks in advance. I had this conversation the other day with some clients, “Here’s a list of snacks, pick.” We went through 9, 10, and 11 different options of super quick, low perishable, convenient, low messy, and very time-managed snacks. They picked out 2 or 3 that they said, “I like this.” I said, “Perfect. I want you to make six of them tonight and text me a picture.”

I got a text back at the end of the week saying, “You were right, Angelo. Even though I work from home, having them prepared in advance made all the difference in the world.” Sorry, I got caught up in my own soliloquy there. Go and slice up some apples, put some string cheese, do some nuts, do some yogurt and berries, and make a little healthy homemade parfait. Get creative and come up with something you like. Make enough for multiple days and multiple family members. You’d be surprised what the kids think. If they still opt for the other options, at least they’re there and available for you. I promise it will make a huge difference. Give it a shot.

I have been using your strawberries with Truvia lately, and I have been on a strawberry kick. I have been enjoying it. I love it. That’s one of my takeaways from your helpful hints.

I find something else that helps is when you buy the Oreos, get the pre-packaged little snack pack of them instead of the big family size of cookies. I know one psychologically, you’re more apt to go, “That gets put in the kids’ lunch,” instead of there’s a big package of cookies sitting there. On the outside chance that you do cave, you grab one little tiny package instead of taking a family thing of cookies. When you do cave, you do less damage because those packages are pretty small.

We can turn him into a MetPro coach.

As long as it’s only advice on Oreos and chicken tenders, I’m your guy.

Everyone has their specialty.

Thank you so much for all that. If people would like this sort of nutritional fitness tips packaged specially for them, where can they find you?

Thank you.

—

Bootcamps are going to look a little different.

Bike bootcamp, specifically. I want to start there. No more live bootcamps. People are wondering what this means. I don’t know exactly what it means, but my theory is no one is taking them live. There are only so many hours in the day that these instructors can record. They’re trying to figure out how to have all the live classes on the weekend with the people, and then record other stuff that can drop throughout the week. That’s what I think they’re trying to manage too.

As a side note, people have been saying, “Why are they not filming in the studio all the time? Why are they not letting people in?” I have a theory that nobody has brought up as of yet. I have not heard this story. People have been complaining that they’re not using it to capacity. They could be using it. We could get more money, but here’s the thing. I think it’s like a weekends-only theory. You know that furniture store called Weekends Only. They save money by only bringing all those people in on the weekend.

I think that’s what Peloton is doing because now you have to have all the support staff to manage all those people and the influx and have the food available and have all this other stuff available. My theory is they’re managing like, “We know these are the busiest days. We know this is when everybody’s going to want to be here the most. Let’s focus on spending money and having all those people there these three days.” That’s my theory. I don’t know, but we’ll see.

 

Anyway, back to this. Sorry, I got distracted. No more live bootcamps for the bike, but now they’re going to release this thing called a collection each week. The first one dropped on Monday. What they’re going to do is they’re going to drop two new classes and then they’re going to pull a class from the existing library. They’re going to put it in the collection that week every Monday. That is your curated classes.

If you take each of those bike bootcamps, you will have a well-rounded strength workout program every week. That is their answer to making sure you have a well-rounded workout. You’re always going to have an upper body. You’re always going to have a full body and you’re always going to have a core. That’s going to happen every week.

People have been very concerned because Jess Sims did not have one of her classes included in the drop. My understanding is she will from now on. There was just a one-off, but they are going to rotate through the different instructors as they pull out those classes from the existing library. The existing library will not change. That will still be there. Nothing changes with that. Potentially you’re going to find classes in the collection that week. You’re also going to be able to find them in the library in two different places. It’s a little different and it’s going to be confusing to people.

The other thing I wanted to make sure to mention about bootcamps is that Jess Sims will still be teaching them. The other big thing people have been asking is what’s going on with Saturday 60s. I know I addressed this before but people are very concerned. I want to say that she’s still teaching Saturday 60s, but she’s going to film it on Wednesdays. I think it’s Wednesdays. I don’t know. She records it earlier in the week and then it gets put out there on Saturday. That’s when it drops. It’s not going to be filmed live.

That’s a lot. They still exist so everybody, calm down.

There still seem to be live bootcamps in general for the tread. The only ones that are moving to this new format that is going to have the collection are the bike bootcamps.

It’s interesting that you say that the prevailing theory is that people weren’t taking them live. It’s odd to me that people who are taking the tread bootcamps are in greater percentages than those taking bike bootcamps.

My simple rationale for that is there are two reasons. One is tread bootcamps have always been a thing. When you think of a tread bootcamp and its existence, it’s always been like I run and then I hop off and I do some weights, then I get back on the treadmill. That’s a format that people are very familiar with. The other thing is that a lot of people have this mental block of getting off the bike, taking off their shoes, and then putting their shoes back on. There are a lot of people that feel like, “I don’t want to do that.”

I wouldn’t do any of it, but if I was doing it, I wouldn’t do that.

It wasn’t a big deal when I did it, but there’s something different in my head like I’d rather do a bootcamp on a treadmill. I can’t even explain it. It’s a block for me. I think it is for a lot of people. I don’t think it comes naturally. However, if you don’t have a treadmill, you want to have bike bootcamps.

—

August is drawing to a close and you can tell because we only got one birthday. August has crazy Peloton birthdays.

It’s all those Leo babies.

August 31st is Kristin McGee’s.

Happy birthday, Kristin.

—

Joining us is Jamie Brooks. Jamie, how is it going?

It’s nice to see you.

I like to start these conversations by going back in time and finding out when you first heard about Peloton. When was that in the world for you?

I’ve had friends that were OG Peloton members. I was a pandemic baby, as I call them. I got mine on a whim. A friend of mine had just gotten a Peloton at the beginning of COVID. She said, “You should get one. We’ll ride together.” I said, “Okay.” I ordered it in April and it arrived in May. I’ve had a blue dot ever since. I’m one of those people.

Don’t worry. We’re fond of those people. I am curious. Was it because of the pandemic itself and your friend pushed you over the edge? Were you contemplating it before and you went for it? Was there something holding you back?

A couple of months before the world shut down, I had started taking a little better care of myself from a health standpoint. I changed my diet and started walking and working out. Luckily, I was already on that path when the world completely shut down. I stopped traveling for work. I was working from home. On March 13th, it was like, “Boom.” I lived by myself so the suggestion of a little bit of accountability when I’m completely isolated would be great. Everybody I knew that had one was obsessed with it. I heard conversations before, so I figured I would take the next step. The rest is history.

You pulled the trigger right away.

Once she said that, I was like, “Perfect. We’ll ride together.” Someone will see me and know I’m supposed to be there and give me a hard time if I’m not.

It’s nice to have that. Before the world shut down, were you working out in any other way? Did you already have your own system of things you did?

I was just walking at that point. I had started getting back to it. I started going back to the gym a little bit and started building the habit and then like, “Boom.”

It would have been real easy to slide back into old habits.

Especially, during the pandemic and you live alone. You had nobody, so sitting on the couch. If you saw somebody else sitting there doing nothing, it might have encouraged you.

There’s the rise of Instacart and DoorDash.

I was pretty shut down. It’s interesting because, during that time, I spent more time with the Peloton instructors than anybody else for so long.

It is a weird thought. We were in their homes.

It’s got to be so weird for them, all these parasocial relationships with people that feel you’re like their family. I know all these things about them. They saved me. They’re like, “Hi.” They’re also lovely. It’s got to be overwhelming for them to be finally meeting people.

I am curious. You’re an admin for Daniel’s Irish Yanks group. How did you make the leap from the bike to the tread? Explain that. When did that happen?

I fully drank the Kool-Aid and completely fell in love with all things Peloton very quickly. I got the bike that arrived in May, and my tread arrived in October. I ordered the Tread+. I had that for a while prior to Daniel coming on board with Peloton.

 

Do you have the big one?

Yes.

I’m trying to figure out, when did they recall those? I thought they recalled those.

You might have gotten the last ones.

I ordered it right when they put the new tread in showrooms for people to try out. I knew I wanted one. I was like, “Let me see if I want the slats or if the other one is okay.” They’re both lovely but I’m like, “I want the one with the slats.”

It’s better for your knees and stuff.

That was my point. I don’t remember when all that happened but I already had it. I’m looking out for it for dear life.

Me too. I do change my mind quite frequently. I have these moments where I’m like, “I don’t know. Maybe I will get rid of it.” At the moment, I am all into keeping it.

Especially now that the regular tread is going to cost almost what the Tread+ used to cost.

I’m like, “Now I have a collector’s item.”

I love it. I do a lot of walking on it. It’s not even just running. I’ve never been a runner. I’m extremely slow, but I enjoy the classes a ton.

That’s wonderful. That’s cool. How do you balance the bike and the tread so that neither gets jealous?

I’m a big live-class junkie. I make choices depending on the schedule and if I’m going to be home. I’ve started traveling again a little bit, so it’s been harder. Before, I would look at the schedule two weeks in advance to figure out the classes I wanted to take and then backfill with strength or other things from there. I had a whole written-out plan of what I wanted to do. I’m one of those people who love all of the instructors. No matter who you say, I’m like, “I love them.” It’s ridiculous. It’s not just singular people. There are a ton of them I love.

If you see a live class, you’re just going to take it?

I have my favorites, so I try not to miss them. On the bike, it’s Alex, Jess King, and Cody. It’s a little harder because of the time. There’s also Kendall and Denis. It’s everyone.

I don’t know if you know this, but we’re up to 55 instructors. It’s a lot. You can’t do 55 live classes a week. That’s a bit much.

I make it a point that every year, I make sure I’ve taken a class with every instructor. I did that. When I first joined, there was a challenge in my local group that said, “Take two classes with every instructor.” That is the best thing I could have done because I got to try everyone and have variety. No matter what mood I’m in or what I want to do, there are a lot of wonderful options.

How are you sprinkling in Spanish or German classes? How are you fitting those in?

I am a huge fan of Mariana in yoga. I take all of her classes pretty much, no matter what. I know enough Spanish to get by, so that’s not too difficult for me. I’m not good at yoga, but I can understand what she wants me to do. Whether I can physically do it or not is a different question, but I do my best. She’s so encouraging and wonderful. Those classes are good for the soul. I love Eric, Benny and Jeffrey. There are so many good classes. It doesn’t matter. I’ll read the subtitles. You can watch and follow along.

You take the ones that have English subtitles.

I can do without subtitles sometimes. It depends.

How do you know what they’re saying?

You just look and see how fast they’re peddling or if they’re up out of the saddle. I liked themed classes, like Eric’s classes. I’ll get dressed up.

Please know that all of our instructors are wonderful, but if you can’t understand them, how do you know it’s a good class?

Because it’s fun. Whether or not I follow the metrics doesn’t matter. If you work hard and have fun, it’s a good class.

That’s great. I am a little focused on I’ll sit there trying to figure out what they said, and then I miss something and then I’m like, “What were they saying?” I’m off and then I get frustrated. It’s not their problem at all. That is all me.

I do that a little bit more with Spanish because I know some Spanish, especially the numbers that you learn in school. Those jump out, so I can follow that pretty well in a live class. If it’s an on-demand class, then follow the metrics.

That makes sense. I’m sorry to put you on the spot. I was just curious. Take us back to the Daniels Irish Yanks. When did the group start? Did you start the group? Are you one of the founding admins? Tell us all the history.

He launched on August 31st. That was the day the group started, and I joined. I wasn’t an admin at first. I had heard the rumors of him starting through all of you guys and everyone else. I’m a huge fan of all things Ireland. I love it there. I would be motivated by, “There’s going to be someone with an Irish accent.” I showed up for the Irish accent and stayed because he’s awesome. It’s the way he teaches. He’s so encouraging and entertaining.

He’s very charismatic.

He’s good. He pushes me as Alex does on the bike. It makes you feel like you can run through a wall. You try and do something like, “I ran at a ten on the tread. I thought I would die.” He encourages me to try things I would never have tried. Many members of the groups say that. I love seeing posts from people that say, “I did this for the first time ever. I did that.” That’s my favorite thing to see when people are posting that.

You came in as a member and then at some point, got elevated. Tell us about your rise to power.

 

There are three admins now. At this point, we share our brains. We work on everything together. We all have the things that we do. Everything that happens, we constantly are discussing what we want to do and how we feel about certain things. It’s uncanny how we’re all on the same page about things.

If you sharing brains, I’m glad they let you have it for this interview. It would be awkward. I’m curious. How do you level it? Did they see you posting a bunch and they’re like, “You should do this?”

We all were involved. We’re at the classes. There were a couple of us that are now admins that were not initially admins.

That’s neat. What kind of things does the group do?

We encourage people to go to all of his live classes. When he was out and injured for a while, it was important to us to keep people engaged in the group and with Daniel. We plan lots of swarms and challenges every week. Our group has grown a ton. On Facebook, I looked back and made a note around St. Patrick’s Day when he had an awesome bootcamp. We had about 3,600 members, and we’re coming up on 9,000 now on Facebook. People want to be a part of the group, I hope anyway. We try to be super supportive of each other, all positive and emulate Daniel and what’s important to him. We’re encouraging each other, having a positive attitude, having a lot of fun, and pushing each other.

Do you consider Dougal your mascot? I’m curious.

Without a doubt.

That dog is so freaking cute.

Two people type in an Irish accent.

People start using some of his languages. We always will have a wee bit of this. We’ll have the craic. If you’ve taken his classes, you’re familiar. We tell each other and we’ll hear things in his voice in our heads. We’ll type something and you’ll hear it exactly how he says it.

That’s so fun. I love that. Can anybody join the group? Do you need to have basic information that you provide that you get into the group like you got to be a Peloton member?

You need to be a Peloton member. We have screening questions and we look at them. We look at their leaderboard name. We make sure they’re a member and they’re not a bot. If it’s open, we look at their workout history. “Have you taken a class with Daniel?” We ask questions because we want to make sure they’re real people. It wasn’t quite as strict at one point, so we had to do some filtering on that. For anybody who likes Daniel and you’re a member, come on in.

I love Daniel’s classes. He’s another one. With other languages, I’ll do the same thing. I’ll be running, and then I’ll hear him say something. I’m like, “What did he just say?” I had to think about it. The next thing you know, I’ve missed something. I love him though. He’s so funny. When I catch onto what he’s saying, it’s always hilarious.

That means you need to take more classes because you get to be used to listening to the accent and understand it more easily in time. It takes practice.

When he gets excited about something, he starts talking faster. When he starts talking faster, all of the syllables start blurring together. I’m like, “Whoa,” which I’m sure is how anybody feels when I start talking fast. They can’t understand me because I can go fast. You guys also do a lot of charity donations. Tell us about that.

It began organically, which is great. It started back on Daniel’s birthday in February. We wanted to do something for his birthday as a group. That was the first. It was right around that time before then. We were doing our very first hoodies with the Irish Yanks on them. It started off with, “We would like to make one for Daniel and send him something for his birthday.” We wanted to include the groups. We told people, “If anybody wants to chip in to cover and send this to Daniel and make a little thing for Dougal, feel free.” It’s a way to be more inclusive. Anything that’s left over, we’ll donate to a cause in his name.

It just kept coming and we were like, “What are we going to do with all this money?” People want to be included. The demand was crazy. None of us knew of a charity at that point that he was involved in. We went snooping around and digging for something. A little birdie told us, who is one of his very good friends that’s an instructor. She had found out that he had mentioned something and she came back to us after we had initially asked her, “Do you know of anything?”

They didn’t at the time, but they came back and told us. We were able to surprise him with his charity back home. It is an organization in Daniel’s hometown that he grew up volunteering with. His mom has been a volunteer there for years. They work with special needs adults and kids. Lots of them with Down syndrome, but other special needs as well. They have a center there. As with all nonprofits, COVID was difficult for them. It’s something that’s close to his heart.

We found them, donated to them, and made a video for his birthday with a bunch of other things in it like people saying happy birthday and pictures of members. We told him about that donation and surprised him. He spoke about it in the pre-show, saying how surprised he was and how much it meant to him. There were people that didn’t see the initial posts and whatnot. They said, “Can we still donate?” We more than doubled the initial donation in less than a week. We made a little update video for him and surprise him again. We’ve built a relationship directly with the director. We WhatsApp with her and talk to them. We’ve all become invested in it, all the admins. We tried to update the group as well on everything. We’ll let them know like, “This is where the money is going.”

It has become important to us as a group. We continue to donate. A percentage of any of the merchandise that we sell now goes to them. We’ve been able to send over three different additional checks after the birthday stuff. She was dumbfounded that there are these Americans that keep sending them money. It’s great. I was talking to her and she said, “The members requested a new pool table. We didn’t have any money for it. We had to tell them we can’t do it now. I then got a note from you saying, ‘Here are thousands of euros,’ and they have a pool table.”

Daniel went home for his sister’s wedding. He’s able to take them a new check in person, another installment, play pool with the members, and visit them in person. We love it. We are going to continue to do that moving forward with all of our merchandise sales. We’ll keep the donations. We only want to do that for his birthday once a year. We love the cause but we don’t want to make a habit of asking the group for money. We want to only open it back up again potentially in 2023. Other than that, it will just be merchandise.

That’s awesome. You want them to continue to love to do it.

It’s that saying about all italics becomes no italics. It’s the same thing if you’re always asking. It’s smart that you guys are doing that. I love that you’re using proceeds from the merchandise, which is something that’s going to be organically evergreen. Everybody is always going to want the new merchandise. That’s cool. That’s a great way to do it. What a neat story. I love that he got to hand deliver the check. That’s awesome.

It so happened. We surprised him at first too because all three of us admins were able to attend his first live run in the studio. She happened to have a check available. We knew he was going home, so we’re like, “Here you go.” He’s not super directly involved. He’s still surprised every time. He’s like, “My gosh.” One of the things he said that struck our members was, “€1,000 is like €1 million to them. You don’t understand how much money that is to them.” Every $1,000 we give, I’m like, “It’s $1 million.”

It has a lot of impacts whenever you’re doing something so directly. You’ve become the extra guardian angel of that place. That’s pretty cool.

Our goal is by the end of 2022, we would like to get to $10,000 in total donations for the year. We’re almost at $6,500 now.

That’s very doable. I know you said you would only do that once a year for his birthday, but if people wanted to be able to give money, you’ll let them know. You’ll put something up in the group and be able to explain it.

Right now, all of our stuff is on pre-sale in the store. We’ll open it up, get the pre-orders, and send things out for merchandise. People are constantly requesting, “Can we get a shirt that says this or that?” We don’t want to overflood people with it, but we’re always working on something. He’s always giving us great content and sayings. It’s always something to create with Daniel. The members request it, so we try and make it available.

I can’t believe that his first-class launch was on August 31st, 2021. I didn’t realize it had already been a year since he launched. Talk about the time flying. It seems like yesterday that that happened. You said you went into the studio. You were in Daniel’s first in-person run class. You also took some other classes while you were there.

I made two trips. I was very lucky. When those early classes opened up and they put them on mine, I happened to be in New York for the Blue Crew event and had someone tell me before the world figured it out. I was able to schedule classes, come back, and schedule to be in Daniel’s first strength class, which was a week before the run. I then booked a ride with Kendall. I did those two. I wasn’t planning on doing the run, and I was able to get in. I flew home, turned around 48 hours later, and flew back again like a crazy person because the FOMO was too real. It was so great to be there with my friends and see Daniel. I thought he was going to burst with excitement. He thrives on interacting with others.

He thought you would have another check.

With the ride with Kendall, I pretty much blacked out. The whole experience of being in the studio was amazing. It was like Disney World. Every single person at every touch point was amazing. They’re so nice. All of the concierge and every single person were so wonderful. By the time I got to the bike, it was a hip-hop ride. I had done strength in the morning with Daniel and did a hip-hop ride with Kendall. That was her first ride with members. Probably a lot of your audience knows Stephanie, who I had previously known through Instagram. We met in person that day and rode next to each other. We filed in and I ended up in the front row after having every intention of hanging out in the back.

 

I then get there and was like, “Go into bike five.” What you were talking about is there’s a bike open next to me. We all filed in. I was like, “I would just move over a bike so I could be next to Stephanie.” I figured people didn’t realize that bike was open. I said something to someone that worked there. I’m like, “My friend is on the waiting list. They told her she can come in. Maybe she can have this bike.” They said, “This bike is reserved. There’s going to be a special guest coming to this.” This is the week after Lizzo. I was like, “Holy crap.”

I looked over it, and there was a petite young woman on the other side of that bike. It’s clearly not going to be a celebrity because there’s not a bodyguard. I was like, “It’s going to be an instructor.” Somebody in the room was like, “Maybe it’s going to be Kirsten Ferguson.” Knowing that it was a hip-hop ride, it made a lot of sense. I’m thinking, “I’m going to be riding right next to Kirsten.” I’m already self-conscious about being in the front row. I’ve taken her classes and know she’s so fun, approachable and awesome. That helped. She came running in. It was so much fun. I kept looking around, “Is this life?”

Were you checking out her stats?

Yes. I was just looking because I went into it like, “I’m going to have fun. I’m not going to try and PR on this ride. I’m not going to kill myself.” It was super hot in there. I was like, “Okay,” and looking to be like, “I’m going way faster than her.” I’m going to take it down a notch because of the adrenaline. It was seriously pure adrenaline. I had a milestone in that class, and Kendall gave me an awesome shout-out in the studio. The entire next week, I was getting texts from people like, “I took Kendall’s ride and saw you and your shout-out.” It was fun. I cannot wait to go back. I’m going back the weekend of September 9th, 2022. I got a ride with Cody and Jess King who’s my queen. I’m looking forward to that again. Maybe I’ll remember a little bit more this time.

Don’t black out this time.

Put in a request to have another instructor next to you. That’s how they do it for me. I don’t know if you know that.

All the celebrity instructors come in and sit next to me. That’s how we roll.

The tension will be on them.

If anybody wants to go back and listen to your shout-out, what’s your leaderboard name?

My leaderboard name is PedalToParis. It was Christine who said, “Make your leaderboard name something that inspires and makes you happy.” Paris is my happy place. I love it. At the time, I was on the bike, so it was PedalToParis.

You’re not changing it to RunToIreland.

No. I’m in way too deep.

I guess asking who your preferred instructor is kind of silly.

Daniel is my favorite. There are so many people. I also love Jon Hosking on the tread. He does a lot of walks, which I walk. He’s so entertaining. The joy coming out of him and the way he dances on the tread are so fun, and good instructions. I love his classes. Also, Jess Sims and Adrien. You can’t stop the list. It’s the same thing on the bike like Alex, Jess and Cody.

You’re listing them alphabetically.

She’s got the entire roster next to her.

She was scrolling through OnePeloton.com reading names.

That’s the beautiful thing. No matter what mood you’re in or how hard you want to work, there are great options.

They got an instructor for that.

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

Try everyone and see what you like. Try them more than once. Some of my favorite instructors now, at first, weren’t necessarily my favorite. There would be a ride and it just clicked, and then I’m obsessed with them. Give it a chance. Try everyone. Don’t pigeonhole yourself. Don’t be afraid to take any particular class because you think it’s going to be too hard or something else. Do it at your own level. Don’t compare yourself to other people on the leaderboard. For the love of God, please don’t do that and feel bad about your output when you first start because you will improve, and especially on the bike, everyone’s bike is different. Do your best, have fun, make friends through high-fives, and don’t stress about it.

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

My leaderboard name is PedalToParis. Instagram is @Pedal_To_Paris because someone took the other one. You can find me in the chat in the Clubhouse that John Mills does. I’m there when I’m available. I’m in a million of the Facebook groups under Jamie Brooks. You’ll find me in lots of the groups because there are lots of instructors.

Thank you so much for joining us. We appreciate it.

Thank you. It was fun.

—

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

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

You can find me on Twitter @RogerQBert or Facebook at Facebook.com/tomokeefe. You can find the show online on Facebook.com/TheClipOut. While you’re there, like the page and join the group. Don’t forget our Patreon, Patreon.com/TheClipOut. For $5, you can get all the ad-free content. For a little bit more, you can get bonus episodes. You can be the first to know and then make bets with your friends. You could fund your whole Patreon expense by making bets with people who didn’t sign up for Patreon.

That’s true. You could be like the person who could go and pick out lottery numbers because you would know things before everybody.

How about that? Also, you can sign up for our newsletter at theclipout.com. That’s it for this one. Thanks for tuning in. Until next time, keep pedaling and running.

 

 Important Links

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• Dr. Jenn Mann
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• Coach.Nine.com.au – Sleep Meditation: Does it work and what do you need to know?
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