Roadman today I want to talk to you about the indoor training…
Roadman today I want to talk to you about the indoor training revolution that is Peloton. Let's cue that intro! The big question is this. How do we use cycling as a tool to improve our health, our happiness and our longevity? That is the question and this podcast will give you the answers. My name is Anthony Walsh and welcome to the Roadman Podcast. Rol-man, tree sleeps till Christmas, oh my god, I'm getting so damn excited. I really do not know how you pitch thing at the start, don't I? When I listen back to a podcast, I'm like, oh, bro, cop yourself on, what's that weird high pitch here? But it's just, you gotta roll with it. Just my signature. I'm nailed to it. For right or wrong, my signature is my signature. Yeah, look, I might have to look at change in the signature. I listen back to it, it's cringy. Isn't the internet a weird place now? Like I don't have any kids, but you know, maybe at some point down the line I will. And isn't it weird to think that they're gonna be able to listen back to this podcast now in this moment and it's kind of making me all of a sudden very aware of this Peloton review, in case Peloton blows up. Like Peloton is an indoor training revolution. It's a public company, I think at IPL at around $26 and it's up at about $156 at the moment. It has a wave of investors, users and toozies behind it. I want to talk to you today about Peloton, who would say it before, I got to use it last week and I'm going to jump into that and talk to you about how I found it. Pros, cons, good, bad, value from money, all of that stuff and not so in-depth in-depth review as you'd expect from a Roman Boyz podcast. Before I jump into all that, Let's get me some of that hype, bitch shit. Over on Patreon. I'm going to try and take this serious because this is the most important. Cover yourself on, you're a professional man. This is the most important part of my podcast. Look, it's coming into the Christmas. Boy me a beer over on patreon.com forward slash Anthony underscore watch. The link is in the boil. A beer keeps the show on the road into the new year when I sit down and I have my new year sort of just review. I'm heading away for a little bit at New Year. I'll talk to you about that later in the week. Got some amazing stuff lined up for that. It's a bit of a vacation slash work all into one and blending in together. But when I sit down to review it all and I look back on the podcast or what's been a whirlwind, how will I look back on the year? And Patreon is definitely one of the things I'm gonna consider. So please do consider, if you're enjoying the podcast, supporting the podcast and make sure it's still about. Okay, folks, let's talk about Peloton. You are looking at an investment of 2300 euro to buy the Peloton bike. And on top of that, you're going to cough up $39 per month for the rest of, as long as you decide to keep the Peloton bike. I was going to say the rest of your life, but that'd be some serious lifetime value from Peloton as long as you choose to do it. Now, I think it's important at this juncture to understand why Peloton has blown up so much. Because I think our podcast as well, this podcast is sitting in a space which was very intentional at the outset when I sat down to think about what I wanted to create. I typically don't dig deep into, you know, I watched the cyclo cross race at the weekend and one of my favorite ones at the weekend. Vanderpaul came out on top, awesome race, one of the best ones of the year. I don't dig too deep into pro cycling with the exception of the big tours because this podcast, the intention is to be a catch-all podcast and not our own little exclusionary club which cycling typically is. I've talked to the founders of companies, software companies in cycling, bike manufacturers in cycling. The problem is, all of these companies are playing a little game of musical chairs with users and the audience.
There's the same audience. One year they're buying a servellow, the…
There's the same audience. One year they're buying a servellow, the next year they're buying a giant. One year they're using the train and peaks, the next year they're using today's plan, they're on Velocion out or on Rafa tomorrow. It's the same users. No one's grown. The market is staying the exact same. The total capitalization money in the entire cycling ecosystem is the same. The distribution that's just changing from one party to the next. That's because we're not bringing in new users. Now I say that, I'm talking macro level. There's obviously new people joining the sport, but it's roughly I would guess on the same sort of scale that people are leaving the sport. So we haven't got this huge growing ecosystem in our sort of cycling, the least side of it. I'm trying to differentiate, but there's not really a word from what I'm trying to say. If you think about the Pareto principle, that 80-20 principle. I think 80-20 is probably a fair division for we have 20% and they're the elite guys. They have objectives in maybe multi-day sportifs like whole fruit, New Yorka tree one too even, they're racers or they're aspiring racers and they compete in events, they're serious. They know the difference between a Shrami top and a Di2. They're serious elite guys, they're willing to spend over 3,000 you were on a bike in their ride as many days as they can and it comes on holidays with them all the time. That's our customer avatar for that 20% section. But we have a whole other world out there that I'm trying to make this podcast friendly to as well and that's the 80%. That's the world of people who commute into work in the mornings. That's the world of people who pack SoulCycle Studios all across America and who trowign into spin classes to do push-ups and all sorts of weird shit and they're into our cycling bikes. That's the 80%, that's the masses and for a company like Peloton that's where the money is. So when I'm given this review that's what you need to think about that this isn't the product for the 20%, this is the product for the 80% and for the first time a company has started to bridge that gap, the Dem and Us gap, it started to bridge them and started to onboard new users across into our world. So what have they done and how are they achieving this? Because that is no small feat and it's why they have that crazy soaring stock price and huge valuation. Even you look down to the pedals and the shoes. The pedals and shoes are both peloton branded pedals and shoes and they're clipping pedals and shoes and for this audience people coming in to try cycling for the first time, this is potentially a first time ever using pedals and shoes. Now I know it's something for a lot of you guys, going pedals and shoes seriously, but that's a real thing, I remember crashing a lot at the start and my girlfriend's only recently started and I've had a couple of friends recently started and working with them getting started and pedals and shoes and it's an obstacle and it's daunting and it stops people coming across into our 20% elite world and Pelton have introduced their own clip in pedals and shoes on an indoor bike which I think is a super move and really helps that transition coming across. Now if you think about the bike, the bike is really a spin bike with a big flat screen and taking an iMac but touch screen on front of it. super slick. Like, next level slick from anything that's in the elite world. Or 20% world, the slickest stuff is gone is with and Strava. Take way way slicker if you haven't used it. But the bike is a pretty bog standard spin bike. And what's initially jumping on it straight away, one of the frustrations for me was it doesn't fit. It's wrong. I I can lift the saddle up and down, the handlebar height goes up and down, but I can't move my stem. Like, I'm stuck and fixed on one stem position where I probably needed a dynamic stem like the new Wahoo Kicker indoor bikes. It seems like that would have been a simple thing to add, very inexpensive, not sure what it didn't do.
I'm sure they split tested this and maybe there's a reason to cause…
You know, I'm sure they split tested this and maybe there's a reason to cause more problems with setup for people. when you jump into the interface, it's mainstream. This is Beyonce is teaching one of the classes. Like Beyonce, trust me, Beyonce is not in your weird virtual avatar, Swift World. Beyonce is up on Peloton and she is teaching a class. And yeah, it's just, it's so slick. And but the problem with it is you have so, so much choice when you go in there. You've all these different classes, you can choose from loads of instructors. They're all really good-looking people. It's where the good-looking people go to hang out. It's their chillin', the good-looking people all chillin' together and the good-looking bars. That's where they pull these people from, all lookers. And you go in there, but it's almost overwhelmed. I would compare it to going on to Netflix. And you know what I feel when you're coming home at the end of the day and you flick on Netflix and you're tired and you're like, oh fuck, what am I gonna watch on Netflix? and you just end up spending like 20 minutes frustratingly flicking through, because Netflix have such a shit algorithm for suggesting relevant new content, that you just end up flicking, flicking, flicking, watching 5 minutes or something, turning it off and reading a book. That feels a little bit like, I've only used it once, so maybe that's critical of it, but that feels a little bit like what's going on, and it struck me that, it needs to be less like Netflix movie and more when you're in like, Narco season 2 episode 2 then you turn on Netflix you know next up it's narco's season 2 episode 3 episode 4 boom boom boom it needs to be more like that that I'm on a track that I'm on a rail that I'm starting out in one place and it's bringing me to a destination because when I get on to Peloton as I'm putting myself into the boots of the 80% here when I get on to Peloton I'm looking for an outcome I'm looking at my outcome is most likely I'm looking to lose fat, I'm looking to be fitter. Now, there's no outcome, there's no, it's just kind of, it's passing the time, it's getting fitter, but am I getting fitter? What metric am I using to judge if I'm getting fitter or not? And that'd be one of my criticisms of it. But largely, that's just a criticism of this whole space that we're not really on any track moving towards something, moving towards a goal. And the reason that that's a very difficult proposition to solve is because it's really hard to keep us on track because we all, the track is the template and tracks like with these type video courses, they just don't, they don't do enough to understand the nuances of everybody's individualities. So maybe I'm a shift worker, maybe I'm after picking up an injury two sessions in, maybe I was out on the piss last night because it's coming under Christmas and now I'm dehydrated. So if I was out on the piss last night and now I've to go up and I'm on the equivalent of Nerco season two, episode two, whatever Peloton's session is coming up, it doesn't know that I've been on the piss last night. This is actually just one of my gripes full stop at the moment with tech and hardware, software, two different worlds that they're living in. We've got a bunch of wearables on the one hand. We've whoops, or rings. We've Apple watches. We've Apple phones in our pocket. We're Apple held on them. And we're gathering massive amounts of data around the steps we're taking, where we're going, how we're sleeping, the quality of our sleep, our heart rate variability. And that all lives in world ecosystem number one. And then we have world ecosystem number two, which is training, bikes, like Zwift plans, trainer road plans, Peloton plans. But yet the two never meet. Ecosystem one that knows that I had a shit sleep doesn't talk to Peloton and say he had a shit sleep, make us training different, adjust it, give them an easier session, give them a shorter session, give them a detox session, give them a recovery session. I want to wake up and I'm gone, this is turned not into a Peloton rant.
Is turned into just an overall mission statement of this new…
This is turned into just an overall mission statement of this new connected utopian ecosystem that I want to live in. I want to wake up, I want my whoop band to track my sleep on my wrist to talk to my peloton bike and know that I had a shit ton of beers last night and a slept crap and I'm stressed out of my bracket because I'm after missing deadlines in work. I want peloton to know and I want to log on and I want to suggest for me you need to do this meditation session first thing in the morning because your heart rate variability is on the wrong side of where it should be. You need to do a meditation session and then you're going to do this core session. You're going to get the cortisol levels down and then we're going to give you all these feel-good hormones and you're going to feel great for the rest of the day. That's the connected ecosystem I want to live in. In summary, Peloton, that was a a wild review. Send this one on to Peloton. I've gone in all sorts of weird directions. In summary, Peloton is a great, great gadget. It's not a substitute for your parameter and your training plan. It's not for that 20% world. If you have somebody who's looking to get into cycling, Peloton I think is something that's going to onboard a lot of new people in our world. The inquisitive mind eventually is going to get to a peak with Peloton and think I need more, I need to understand. Even one example of it is they have a parameter and they've gone to the border of displaying power on the screen. But the parameter is vastly inaccurate. Like I've my own built-in parameter on my legs to this stage from riding with power for the last decade and I know what 200 watts feels like without looking at my parameter. I know 400 watts feels like without looking at my parameter. On the peloton I'm riding at a pace which I I could sustain for maybe four minutes. I would say I was riding a 470, 480 watts. And it's hard, and I know it's hard from experience. And I look down and it's like 180 to 200 watts. Like it's the power meters way off, which in itself isn't a huge problem as long as it's consistent. But it's a problem when you step into the world appear comparison, where if you look at the average power you're generating on the Peloton machine, and then you're starting to cross into the Elite world you google what power is Roglitch doing for a 25 minute time trial you see and go holy shit how is he holding 460 watts for 24 minutes I can't hold that for 15 seconds and you start comparing one to the other and you think it's hopeless it's not hopeless because those two are just comparing apples and oranges but they're both called watts unfortunately this was in in-depth not so in-depth review of Peloton which would have been way better suited to video but You know what, I'm a podcaster today's desk. Folks, I'm back again tomorrow. Continue that countdown with the Christmas, chat to you tomorrow. Hey everybody, it's Anthony again. Really quick, I want to invite you to join arguably the best thing I've ever put out inside the Roadman community. It's a challenge. It's a challenge called a 14-day Kickstarter challenge. So regardless of where your fitness is at right now, this is going to be the catalyst for making a faster and making you leaner. I've created this challenge to take the guesswork out of everything. It's 14 days of training plans regardless of what your level is. There's Masters, Beginner, Advanced. There's meal plans, shopping list and even a video course holding your hand and talking you true at all. So what I recommend you do right now is just stop everything, press pause on this audio and go to roadmansoycling.com forward slash 14 day or check out the link in the bio that's roadmansoycling.com slash 14 day. . . . . . . . . .