SoulCycle – LongLegsBigCity

Last weekend I went to Charleston, South Carolina to visit a friend. Surprisingly, it was a trip with girls that did NOT include a bachelorette or a wedding. These are few and far between. It’s a true unicorn nowadays in my 30’s. The issue, of course, was… if there are no wedding plans, then what are the plans!? A week before our trip, my bestie and I who were going together started a group text asking about our possible activities. If we didn’t need a black-tie-optional dress, what do we pack?? My friend told me she was planning a full itinerary and she would email us later in the week.

The itinerary included mostly relaxing and flexible plans (pool, beach, happy hour), but the one thing that required pre-planning was a Spin class. There is more background here – the reason I met my friend who lives in South Carolina was because she used to take my Spin classes, 11 years ago, at University of Florida! We knew we had to make Spin happen. My friend was dying for me to try out her favorite South Carolina instructor, Sam, at Cyclebar.

I was excited to try it out because I had never been to Cyclebar. They don’t have any in New York City, but I had heard people around the USA talk about it. From what I had heard, it was a mix of Soulcycle (BARF!) and Flywheel (YAY!). When we got to the studio, the staff there asked where we were from, and told me that our instructor, Sam, used to teach for Flywheel. Already, I was excited. However, we had written to him on Instagram the day before and requested a heavily-hip-hop class and he hadn’t replied, so it was a wild card!

The studio had self-locking lockers, and they wrote my name on the front of the locker to welcome me. They also included a free water bottle and magnet, which I think is supposed to go on your car, but it now lives on my fridge #NewYorkerLife.

The studio itself was awesome. Very modern with stadium-style seating and two huge flat screen TV’s mounted on the wall above the instructor. Also, it said “CycleBar” in red backlit neon lights. Cool touch. I sat in the front row, which is always weird for me because I am not used to being able to see myself in the mirror. When I teach, I generally stare at everyone else! It’s weird to stare at myself. I know I say I sweat a lot, but DANGZILLA. Good thing the lights were turned super low the whole time. Also, good thing the bike next to me was empty because I stole the towel off the empty bike halfway through class. When you’re a sweatzilla you need at least two towels per class.

Speaking of the actual class, it started with a warmup to Touch the Sky by Kanye, and Cyclebar Sam played the music video on the flat screens along with the song, which was amazing! I love spinning to old Kanye, despite his recent crazy shenanigans. The music throughout class was awesome. When Sam started playing Everyone Nose by N.E.R.D., I turned to my friend and screamed “YASSSS.” The Jamz. The only thing I can complain about with the music was that it was all remixes and had some EDM mixed into the regular song. My friend’s fiancé said he specifically liked that about CycleBar. It just goes to prove that you can never please everyone. I like to Spin to the original versions of songs so I can sing along to them in my head. To each his own.

I can see why people said CycleBar like Soulcycle, because there were a few times when we did pushups, and tapbacks, and other weird non-spinning exercises. Also, there was an arms section where we used body bars for about 4 minutes. Most cycling studios do this nowadays, although there are mixed reviews about whether it is effective in any way at all. Luckily, Cyclebar Sam didn’t say anything like “spin through the pain and reach Nirvana” or whatever B.S. they are constantly spouting at SoulCycle. (I really hate that place, if you couldn’t tell.) It was much better than any SC class I had ever been to. Also, the monitors on the bikes help to make sure you are never or rarely going above 120 revolutions per minutes, which is one of my least favorite, and least safe things about Soul.

Cyclebar is similar to Flywheel in that they have a leaderboard that shows everyone’s statistics, if you opt in (a little homage to the GDPR regulations). The good thing about the leaderboard is that it isn’t up there the whole class, so it isn’t very distracting. The bad thing is that it isn’t up there the whole class, so you don’t always know who you’re trying to beat! I started out the class in 4^th place, but I was determined. Also, I was never sure exactly how much I should be turning the resistance up. At one point, Sam told us to turn our resistance half a turn. Then he told us to do it again. I was at Gear 21, and I was thinking “dang, this is really hard.” Turns out, I was pushing myself crazy hard. My friend who is a religious CycleBar-er said she didn’t even know it went up to Gear 21!

Ultimately, I ended up in 2^nd place for the class, behind the one man in the class, a big guy sitting in the back row. I was spying on him in the mirror, vying for first place. Damn you, “Marshall A.”! Oh well. 2^nd is pretty darn good. Plus, they sent us our stats to our email after class and it said I burned 965 calories!! HIGHLY doubt that is true, but it made me feel better about consuming 10 Truly hard seltzers later that day! Overall, I’d definitely recommend Cyclebar. The staff was friendly, the atmosphere was fun, the leaderboard makes for friendly competition, and it was a great workout!

I hate SoulCycle. Hate is a strong word, but it is justified. When I say this to people, they often ask me why, to which I answer, “I could write a whole blog post about it.” Well, here you are.

Full Disclosure: I haven’t been to SoulCycle in a year, so some of these things may have changed, but I highly doubt it.

So why write about it now? I keep seeing the trailer for the movie I Feel Pretty where she falls and gets a concussion during SoulCycle, to which my first reaction was “they were clearly making her spin too fast while standing out of the saddle, which is why she fell. That should never happen.” But at SC it does. In fact, I’m not sure why SoulCycle has been promoting the movie on their own Instagram, given that the whole premise is that they let a participant do something incredibly unsafe on their watch.

Many things that shouldn’t happen, happen at SoulCycle. Here are just a few of the things that shouldn’t happen in a spin class. Not ironically, they are also the reasons I hate SC.

The Music.

Music is the main reason I like group fitness. I love working out while jamming to some great hip hop or singing along to the newest pop. It’s great to have the music blasting with the freedom of not wearing headphones. But at SoulCycle, you’ll never find yourself jamming or singing along. That’s because they only use remixes. Almost exclusively. I once talked to a friend who taught SC (no, I didn’t excommunicate him because he worked there), and he told me they encourage the instructors to use remixes and other obscure versions found on the cloud to give participants an experience they couldn’t replicate on their own. But what’s the fun in listening to a remix I don’t know?? Just when I’m about to jam to the chorus of I Wanna Dance With Somebody, there’s some techno bridge. No thank you. Give me the original any day.

The Bikes.

Guys, I teach for a YMCA. The bikes at my non-profit institution should not be drastically better than the ones where you pay $35/class for the privilege to ride on them. But they are. At the Y, our bikes are on lease, so we get a new version every 12-18 months. At SoulCycle, they just replaced the bikes last year (2017) for the FIRST TIME since they were founded in 2006. 11 years. That is mind-boggling to me. How they were selling 11-year-old technology at $35/class while Peloton has literal ipads and live-streaming on their bikes for less, is baffling. Especially in an age where the bubble of niche fitness is finally popping, and studios are reducing their prices, I couldn’t believe people would pay for that crap. The bikes made a lot of noise and the ride was the opposite of smooth.

Tapbacks.

These are dumb. The end.

Weights.

This has become customary in almost all niche cycling studios, but I still hate it. According to a Business Insider piece about why someone stopped going to SC (I guess I’m not alone!), a writer said SC got “a failing grade for exercise physiology and biomechanics” and that “the whole idea of working one’s upper body while pedaling a stationary bike is not only counterproductive,” he wrote, “it can be physically detrimental over time, according to several experts I talked to.” And from the same article, Jennifer Sage, a master-spinning instructor with a degree in exercise science wrote, “You’re probably going to burn less calories because your power output is going to drop.” I agree wholeheartedly. If you want to lift weights, go to a BodyPump class or to OrangeTheory where there is a dedicated section for weights.

The Color and the Smell.

I know you’re already thinking, “Wow this girl really hates this place. She has something to say about the smell?” But the smell is a thing. In fact, SC loves to open their doors to street and you can smell that grapefruit from a block away. It’s like Subway. Both the gross smell permeating from the subway TRAINS and the crazy bread smell permeating from the Subway SANDWICH spot. SC literally makes their own candle. Although I’m not sure who the hell would want to bottle that and put it in their home.

And the YELLOW. So. Much. Yellow.

The Heat.

It’s hot in there. Way. Too. Hot. They cram 65 bikes in a tiny room, and then they hold 45-minute classes back to back to back all day long. If you dare to go to an 8 pm class, that means there have already been 200+ people sweating in that room in the past 3 hours. Picture a locker room that is only 200 square feet, and then imagine 300 people working out in it. And sweating on each other. BARF. It does get you sweaty, I’ll give you that. But is the whole point of a fitness class just to sweat? I could do that in the sauna!

THE SPEED.

They spin too fast. Plain and simple. I see SC instructors going 150 RPM EASILY in the saddle, or 140 when they are standing. One of the many things I like about Peloton (here I go again…) is that they advise never to go above 120 RPM. This is a safe speed for a sprint, while still maintaining some resistance on the bike. 150 v. 120 is a grave difference.

The Standing.

Why are you out of the saddle for 70-80% percent of the class? It’s a bike. You sit on the seat. You only stand to get more power, like if you are trying to get up the last part of a huge hill. Spinning was created to mimic outdoor rides, to help cyclists train on the off-season. Granted, a lot has changed since then, and people now ride in SC every week but have never set butt on an outdoor bike. And also, I understand there are some drills we now do in fitness classes that you’d never see outside (switchbacks and jumps, anyone?) But standing for 70% of a 45-minute class? Come on. Also, you can’t spin as fast as they say, while you’re standing, and keep a safe body position. In order to achieve the speed they want you to have, you need to have very little resistance on, as I said above. Add the fact that you’re standing and you’re setting yourself up for injury. Or a fall like in I Feel Pretty.

The Vibe.

SoulCycle thinks they are a yoga class. But they’re a spin class. They can’t decide though. One song you are sprinting at 140 RPM standing out of the saddle, and the next moment you are in the saddle, closing your eyes, because “this song is for you to focus on your inner strength.” Excuse me? I’m not closing my damn eyes in a spin class except to prevent sweat from getting in my contact lenses. According to their website, it’s “so much more than just a workout — it’s a powerful mind-body experience.” GTFO.

In my first SC class, when an instructor told us some bizarre saying like, “Breathe into what’s burning right now. Your body will adjust to this pain,” I literally laughed out loud. It was not received well. SC is a cult, you know. I was almost ritually killed by grapefruit-candle torture.

I didn’t realize this was a normal thing in SoulCycle. There are many articles online dedicated to “motivational” sayings from SC. Don’t get me wrong, I say motivational things in my own classes, but it’s more in the style of Robin Arzon from Peloton, “New Day, New Slay.”

Those DAMN CANDLES.

I know what you’re thinking. Candles? I thought we were talking about spinning! Well, there are candles. Two of them on either side of the instructor’s bike on the podium. WHY!?!??? Really though, why? This is not a séance. There is no Ouiji board here. We are not communing with the Gods here. We are sweating on each other in a too-hot room with not enough air conditioning.

But no, SOULCycle thinks that the addition of candles is necessary for our spiritual community. GTFO of here with that. At the end of class, about 3 songs from the end, the instructor moves the candles from the podium, and puts them in front of the first row. At my first SC class, I was in the front row (kill me), and the only thing I could think of was, “OMG I hope my sweat doesn’t drip off my face and onto this candle to put it out.” So of course I did what anyone would do, and adjusted my posture to a full standing position (we were out of the saddle again… OF COURSE), and put extra pressure on my knees and lower back, just to avoid sweating the candle out. I do not recommend this, but I was nervous! How embarrassing if the candle went out.

The only good thing about the candles is, 2 songs from the end, they blow the candles out, which creates a sulfur dioxide smell, which covers the disgusting sweat and locker room smell that permeates the room at this point in class. It’s like lighting a match to cover poop smells. It works. But only because the smell of burned candle wick covers the even worse smell of sweaty hot humidity.

I wish I could wrap up this blog by explaining why people still go to this class. There are 21 studios in the 5 boroughs alone. But I can’t explain it. I don’t get it! Feel free to try it out yourself and let me know what you think. But be prepared for a hot, non-productive 45-minutes, at a pretty-penny cost.

CycleBar

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I Hate SoulCycle