Want to use your iPhone or Android based device to schedule your next Indoor Cycling class?
There's an App for that® 🙂
I added the ® because Apple has trademarked that phrase.
Studio owner Bill Pryor has created an App for his customers at Spynergy Wellesley, Bill's Indoor Cycling Studio outside of Boston Mass. Spynergy customers can download the App for free, quickly review the class schedule and easily signup for a future class. The part I love most is how it adds the event your calendar, so there's no excuse for missing the class.
The App is made by TempoXSports and they can build a custom App for your Club or Studio if you're using MINDBODY Online to manage registrations – which is about everyone as far as I can tell.
Here's more about it:
The app your clients see will be similar in feel to what they are used to from booking through their browser-based systems. Your app will let clients easily perform the following critical tasks from their phones
Sign-in to their MINDBODY existing account
Set up an account if they are new
View your schedule
Sign-up / reserve spots (reservations auto-posted to calendar / ical)
Read teacher and class descriptions
Check their account (visits, schedule, attendance, purchases)
Purchase any packages you are selling through MINDBODY
Our Cycling Studio Owners will want to check this out ASAP…
For years we've promoted Working Fitness Vacations – where you, the Instructor, teache a few fitness classes in exchange for a very low cost, Caribbean vacation. Hundreds of Instructors have followed our recommendations and have really enjoyed their all inclusive vacations.
Now there's TripTribe.com. They specialize in assisting fitness professionals who want to take a group of clients (your tribe) on a fitness retreat. For leading these trips you, the Instructor, will be paid as the Trip Tribe Ambassador!
To learn the actual scoop on these trips, I asked the marketing representative at Trip Tribe if she'd connect me with an Ambassador that I could interview…
Coach Kelly McCormack owns Club Inhale Exhale in Billerica, Massachusetts. This past May she traveled with a group of her clients to a ranch in the mountains of Costa Rica. It sounds like everyone had a great time and best of all, the check TripTribe.com sent her at the conclusion of the trip paid all of her expenses🙂
Listen to my interview with Kelly to learn if this would be something you could do with your tribe.
TripTribe.com offers dozens of exotic locations across the world, in a wide range of pricing, including;
Go here and create a free profile. Spend some time working with their retreat planning wizard to get an understanding of the possibilities. Then I'd encourage you to call and discuss your ideas for a group trip with one of their advisors.
Would a few of these recumbents make your class more inclusive?
Would you agree that Indoor Cycles are a poor method/modality of exercise – for some populations?
There's a long list of people who would never consider participating in our classes, or even riding an indoor cycle alone at home. There's a bunch of reasons:
Physical limitations
Obese/overweight
Existing injury
Just plain afraid of that skinny, little, bicycle saddle 🙁
So, would it make sense to add a few recumbent cycles to your studio?
The reason I'm asking is because I met a great guy at this past IHRSA convention. John Kennedy's company, Cascade Health and Fitness, manufactures that recumbent cycle pictured above. He shared his idea to incorporate recumbent indoor cycles, into a traditional indoor cycling class, to accommodate people who won't or can't ride a conventional Indoor Cycle. I'll admit, at first it sounded like a crazy idea to me. But the more I thought about the potential to make our classes more accessible I got excited.
That would mean more butts-in-seats = people exercising. I'm all for that!
The first place I can see recumbents making a positive impact is in Parkinson's Cycling Classes. Parkinson's Cycling Coach Kathy Helmuth has taught me that many people suffering with PD have physical limitations.
The symptomatic relief that comes from cycling isn't available to someone who can't ride a typical cycle. A recumbent is completely different; a big comfy seat that sits low and a step-through frame that anyone who can stand should be able to mount. I think this could be a way to make PD cycling classes more inclusive. Awesome!
What about your run-of-the-mill cycling class? Would a recumbent work there too?
I've got no idea, so let's find out!
We're conducting an experiment
We're looking for two studios to participate in a trial to see what happens when you add a few recumbents to a cycling studio. John has offered two of their recumbents at no cost + you'll keep them in the end.
In exchange they're asking that you:
Install the recumbents in your studio and make them available in as many classes as possible.
Experiment with different class formats, profiles, cuing, etc. You'll be charting new territory here and I'm happy to help you as much as possible.
Actively promote this new accommodation to your customers – running the trial to see what happens for two months.
At the end of the trial you will be interviewed by me on my podcast We will explore what worked and what didn't, your ideas for improvements, etc…
You'll provide a few short video interviews, where you discuss these classes with your actual participants.
Joe Ducosin in the middle of Biggest Loser contestants O'Neil Hampton, Pete Thomas, Sunshine Hampton and Jessie Atkins.
ICI/PRO member Joe Ducosin invited Amy and me to a special event at Cycle Quest Indoor Cycling Studio, Joe's new studio in Eden Prairie, MN.
The event was a kick off for the Minnesota Tour de Cure, a fundraising ride for the American Diabetes Association. It featured Biggest Loser contestants O'Neil Hampton, Pete Thomas, Sunshine Hampton and Jessie Atkins.
All four are very inspirational and Amy and I thoroughly enjoyed meeting and riding with them.
During the break between the two classes held that evening, I had the chance to talk with Biggest Loser season 2 at home winner Pete Thomas and convince him to be a guest on a future episode of the Indoor Cycle Instructor Podcast.
Amy's interview with Pete is below and includes some footage from the class lead by these incredible Losers 🙂
About 10 days after hitting a SoulCycle class on a recent day off, Barry’s Bootcamp owner Joey Gonzalez got a phone call. It was a lawyer for the mega-popular cycling brand issuing a message: don’t come back.
“He essentially said we have a policy at SoulCycle where instructors at other group fitness studios are not allowed to take class,” Gonzalez says. “He seemed half embarrassed.” We reached out to SoulCycle’s public relations team for comment on the policy but did not hear back.
Gonzalez took to Facebook with the news, and his post went viral. (At time of this writing, it had 158 comments and 14 shares.) Other popular fitness instructors, like Natalie Uhling, Darryl Gaines, and Lindsey Clayton weighed in to say the same thing had happened to them. Flywheel instructors jumped in to invite trainers from other studios to come take their classes (“#team”), and tons of people weighed in to rail against the lack of “soul” the policy stood for.
Then I dug in to this story a bit more. The article references this post from rateyourburn.com addressing the same issue. They begin with listing a few reasons why it maybe OK to limit the access of Instructors from competing fitness clubs. I see it as incomplete… in fact, I feel they are missing the real concerns of Soul Cycle completely.
IS IT OKAY FOR FITNESS STUDIOS TO BAN INSTRUCTORS WHO WORK FOR THE COMPETITION?
Why do studios ban instructors employed by competitors?
Trade secrets. We suppose the primary reason studios do this is to prevent competitors from coming in and spying on their ways of business, copying them or stealing their methods.
Exclusivity. Perhaps some studios want to create a country club bubble, where only approved members are allowed within their establishment.
To ward off studio-bombing. On rare occasions, people do show up just to cause trouble. In our opinion, bad behavior is the only justifiable reason to ban a paying client.
Limiting access to your “Tribe”
Paul Harmeling from Full Psycle Studio really opened my eyes about what makes Soul Cycle so successful – how good they are at cultivating a “team” or “tribe” of passionate people who are united by their participation in class. This sense of community isn't just between the customers and Soul Cycle or the Instructor. There are a lot of relationships, both personal and professional, being made between the riders.
You've probably seen this at your club. It's no secret that common interests and activities build trust between people. That trust can lead to relationships that extend beyond the club. Over the years my family and I have chosen to do business with people we've gotten to know at our club;
Claudia is Amy and my financial planner – she's also been a longtime regular in our classes.
Amy first met Craig at the club. He later hired her and we've been friends of Craig and his wife Julie for 15 years.
Morry (another regular) arranged for daughter Abby's interview, which resulted in her current job.
Richard is an Instructor at our club. He's also a C level employee at a company where younger daughter Carly would like to have a summer internship…
I can easily understand why Soul Cycle (or your club for that mater) would want to limit access to their Tribe of passionate, fitness minded people who have the financial wherewithal to pay for premium classes.
Wouldn't these same people be prospective customers for any fitness business – especially a competitor located near by?
Soul Cycle's “Tribe” is really their brand, the “special sauce” that makes them unique and profitable. Using attorneys to protect a brand from competitors isn't really any different from how Mad Dogg Athletic will do the same thing to protect the Spinning® brand from improper use.
I don't know anymore than what's been written, but I would venture this guess; Soul Cycle was concerned that Mr. Gonzalez was recruiting customers for his boot camp business. Neither of the articles, nor the Facebook post, explains how Soul Cycle's attorney would know Gonzalez was an Instructor… unless someone (maybe a class participant?) informed management.
Guess what? Indoor cycling is expanding, and that’s good news for all of us. You are probably well aware that this is one of the most popular group exercises in the world. When they’re done well, these classes are amazingly effective workouts that thrill and inspire participants. While historically, they have been done in large multi-purpose fitness facilities, the exciting news we have discovered at Spynergy Consulting, is that independent cycling studios are on the rise! In 2011 the studio business model really came of age.
We have just completed our first review of independent cycling studios in North America. While there are a relatively small amount, the number is growing, and growing nicely. Our numbers show there are just under 200 dedicated cycling or Spinning® studios in North America, but 40 of those have been launched in the last 12 months alone, and many many more are in the works. There are literally thousands of yoga studios (basically the same model) and we are confident there continues to be huge potential for the committed entrepreneur in indoor cycling.
A dedicated indoor cycling studio for the purposes of our survey, is defined as “a facility where group cycling classes are the primary activity”. Some of these studios do offer classes like yoga or TRX, but their primary activity is indoor cycling or SPINNING®. I have not included cycle-training set up in retail stores or other facilities.
Originally published on the Spynergy Consulting blog, here is a summary of first published data on the independent cycling studio marketplace (remember, this does not include cycling programs conducted at traditional gyms, fitness centers and health clubs).
– Spynergy Consulting estimates there are just under 200 dedicated cycling or SPIN studios in the US and Canada. This number is growing rapidly.
– California has the most studios, followed by New York, New Jersey and Florida
– Other states with 5 or more studios identified include Massachusetts, Minnesota, Ontario and Pennsylvania.
– 26 states have is no identifiable independent, dedicated indoor cycling studio.
– Significant cities where we could not identify a single studio: Atlanta, Portland, Seattle, Cleveland, Sacramento, Charlotte, Columbus, Jacksonville, Indianapolis, San Jose, Memphis, Montreal, Hartford. (Note: if you know a studio in one of these areas please let us know so we can add to our database).
Spynergy Consulting has received hundreds of inquiries from entrepreneurs exploring the dedicated cycling studio model. We have provided business plans, websites and other consulting services to over 110 studio starters and 31 of our clients have launched studios as of this writing. Dozens more are at some stage of launch or development.
