When you think of Peloton, you think of a bike in your living room that’s ready to help you get a full spin workout from the comfort of your own home, right? After a delay due to the pandemic, Peloton London Studios has gone full circle; they’ve brought the spin class experience to your home, and now they’ve brought that home experience back to the studio.
So I, Kate, FFF’s Comms Manager, and Gabby, Business Development Manager, went to take part in the studio-home-studio class for ourselves.
A quick bit of context, outside of FFF, I’m a spin instructor at Ride Republic, so let me tell you, I was pumped to discover what goes into producing a Peloton class!
Peloton Studios London
Gabs and I headed to the heart of Covent Garden to Peloton Studios London, Peloton’s new state-of-the-art European flagship location, where its boutique fitness classes are hosted and broadcast to the Peloton community, which now totals nearly 7 million members.
It opened in August 2022 and currently hosts member classes on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, for Cycle, Tread and Flex, aka Strength and Cardio. The rest of the week, classes are filmed without an audience.
Walking into the space, it’s immediately clear just how big of a production Peloton is. In fact, there’s over 30,000 square footage of studio and production office space. We were greeted by reception, signed our waivers and given our wristbands allowing entry.
You have to arrive at the studio at least 45 minutes (!) before the class to allow for studio setup. We arrived even earlier than that to have a nosey around, obviously.
Upstairs is a modern cafe for pre and post-ride fuel. You can now find Fresh Fitness Food meals and snacks ready to help you hit the numbers on the leaderboards! Downstairs is a fully kitted out changing and showering space, equipt with Dyson hair dryers and straighteners, so worth a visit just for that luxury.
From here, you can also see into the control room where the team of producers and technicians take what’s happening in the 24-person spin studio and blast it in 4K resolution (i.e. 4 times the resolution of normal HD video) to thousands of eager riders around the world.
The Prep
After swapping my Nike Metcons for cleats (spin shoes, very fetching), we waited to be let into the studio.
A very stark difference between the studio I teach at vs Peloton Studios was the enormous screen above the door playing a slow-mo showreel of Leanne Hainsby, the Peloton instructor who was taking our class. It definitely added to the wow factor of the whole experience. That’s certainly something you don’t find at the start of my classes…
The atmosphere was also unlike my normal studio. I like to think attendees of my class are excited to be there, but this was another level! Among murmurs of fear that they wouldn’t get a good enough seat, we discovered that 3 members had flown all the way from LA to attend this class.
After a briefing on what to do and what not to do, doors opened and in we went.
The Class
Another briefing once in the room, and Leanne made her entry. This is where you get a sneak peek of what it’s like to be an instructor before the cameras start rolling. Leanne had a little chat with those of us in the room and then went through the necessary checks before we jumped into our 30-minute house ride. Think mic and music tests, a test into each of the many cameras in the room, and a live teaser introduction.
The class was split into 3 sections. Big hills, speed workout, huge surges out the saddle: this ride crammed a lot into just 30 mins. There was no choreography (dips, arms-only tracks etc.), just intervals where we pushed the intensity up with moments to recover and breathe, ready to go again.
I put some pressure on myself and was determined to get somewhere near the top of the leaderboard. 5th out of the 24 in the studio and 404th out of the 1,024 taking the class live – room for improvement, but I’ll take it. Less than a week later, the number of people who have taken this class online has surpassed 10k!)
I don’t know what was harder, the class or trying not to look directly into the camera….
The Verdict
The class itself was great, which was to be expected after having taken some of Leanne’s classes via the Peloton App. Hard but manageable and thoroughly enjoyable!
The best part was definitely getting that behind-the-scenes view of how all the moving parts of Peloton come together to bring accessible fitness to people all over the world.
Overall
- Sweat = 10/10
- Endorphins = 8/10
- DOMS = 2/10
- Recommendation = 10/10, a spin class like no other! (except mine…)
Want to take the same ride we did? Search 30 min House Ride with Leanne on the Peloton app. Let us know if you see two very puffed but very happy FFF-ers! And if you head down to the studio, make sure to try the FFF goodies in the cafe.
