Sexy Pace

Last summer my daughters started a relentless campaign to get a Peleton bike.  I think it was summer, the seasons in Southern California tend to blur into each other, compounded by the Covid cabin fever that has had us all locked in our homes and considering a move off the grid and going full Ted Kacszinski.  

My oldest daughter even offered to pay the $40 monthly fee for the classes and app and such. 

And so I cut a deal with them. 

If my freelance gig turned into a permanent position or a lengthy extension, I would pull the Peloton trigger. 

Well, apparently I fooled the people that have me writing all kinds of digital things I know nothing about and extended my stay. Consequently, as promised, we joined Peleton Nation.

Like so many others, I got hooked. 

The bike, and its incredibly small footprint, is tucked away in a nook in my younger daughter's bedroom. I love being able to run in there, clip in and knock out a 15 or 20 minute high intensity, cardio workout at any time of the day. 

Even between Zoom meetings. 

I also love the Apple-like friendly User Interface. It's intuitive. It's clean. And it's addictive. Particularly for a numbers geek like myself who likes to chart progress and compete against past performance.

But...and you must have seen this coming, holy shit, Peleton people are fucking annoying!

I made the mistake of adding the Peleton group to my Facebook page. This is where folks gush about Cody, put in their music requests and go on endlessly about hitting the Century Mark, as if there were some kind of magical cardio achievement for riding a bike 100 times. 

I know I can delete myself from the group, but I do enjoy tossing some snark into some of the discussions and I do enjoy seeing some of the incredible weight loss transformations. The chance of getting back to my triathlon weight is nil, but seeing how others are fighting the good fight will often stop me from having a third beer or going back for seconds and the other half of a tomahawk steak. 

And then there are the instructors, a group of impossibly attractive, impossibly positive and impossibly cloying that has me reaching for the MUTE button. That is, if there were a mute button. They talk so damn much. And all of it is such platitudinal nonsense.

"You can do this."

"I'm here for you."

"Discard all your doubt."

"If you want results, you have to put in the work."

"Let yourself go."

I'm a self-motivated 44 year old fat guy, I don't need some 22 year old club hopper telling me all about her life struggles, emotional victories and goals for success. Tell me where to set the Resistance, the Cadence you want, and shut the fuck up. Please.

Yesterday, I made a Peleton life changing discovery. 

There's an instructor from Germany, her name is Irene Schulz. She's easy on the eyes. I particularly like her minimalist Bauhaus-type tattoos. But the best thing about Irene is that she does classes in her native tongue.

Meaning, she can jabber on with the same empty motivational bullshit as her American colleagues, but it's all Germanic gibberish to me. There's even a small chance that by sheer immersion, I might even pick up some stray phrases in Deutsch. I already got: Threinz, Deinz, Einz. 3, 2, 1.

The best part of Irene's classes happens when coming off a big climb or a speed interval and she commands her class, often in English, to let off on the resistance and enjoy 30 seconds of recovery. 

Or, as Irene so charmingly puts it...

"Sexy pace."

Yes. Sexy pace.