SoulCycle paying Instructors $130 a class may sound like a lot to many of us, but it will be closer to minimum wage once Peloton Cycle studio opens in NYC this fall.
Teach to a full house of 50 riders and expect to receive $500.00 for your efforts. This isn't a typo - this outfit is planning to compensate Indoor Cycling Instructors up to $500.00 a class. Teach a regular schedule of 13 packed classes a week and you'll be interviewing stock brokers for ideas where you should invest your $300,000 annual compensation.
Want to work for Peloton Cycling? Check to see if they're hiring here.
Update 10/1/2013 - I have an interview up with Peloton Cycle's COO Tom Cortese where you can learn a bunch more about their plans.
From a Well and Good in NYC article
To that end, Peloton has borrowed a lot from boutique studios and what riders are addicted to, starting with the charismatic instructor. “Instructors who can command an audience and have great fitness knowledge are arguably like actors, they should be paid as such. We”™re tripling what the going rate is to work at a studio,” says Foley, adding that with this platform, Peloton teachers will become “global celebrities, capable of reaching thousands of riders at a time, instead of 50.” (We”™re expecting defections any second now.) - I'm assuming they're referring to defections from SoulCycle & Flywheel - John
Peloton's goal here, as I see it, is to recruit the very best 10 Instructors... not just the 10 best Instructors in New York, but the 10 best Instructors from anywhere on the planet. $300k should be enough of an incentive to motivate just about anyone to pack their bags, move to a new gig and start teaching in the Big Apple.
How can they afford to pay Instructors so much?
The financial "Holy Grail" for Peloton is delivering on-demand classes to home users riding their new Peloton Indoor Cycles. This bike looks very cool/well designed and they recently raised over $300,000 using Kick Starter to fund the design and early production.
Created by John Foley, the former president of Barnes & Noble eCommerce, Peloton has built a sexy at-home bike that won”™t look out of place in your high-design living room. It comes with a 22-inch tablet-like, touch-screen monitor that allows you to ride along with live classes at Peloton”™s 50-bike studio in New York City (opening in Chelsea in the fall), or stream one on-demand.
So your potential class size is limited only by the number of those new cycles they sell.
I'm dying to learn more about all of this; the new Indoor Cycle, the technology, their plans for the Peloton Studio... everything. I'm working on getting a representative on the Podcast ASAP.
P.S. Peloton is accepting applications 🙂
John is a member on the AFS (Association of Fitness Studios) Advisory Council.
Holding certifications from; Schwinn, Heart Zones, Team ICG and Life Time Fitness, John's held regularly scheduled cycling classes between 1998 and 2015 when he moved to Florida.
When the weather permits, you'll find him riding and leading outdoor groups by himself or with his Tandem partner (wife) Amy.
The concept is great (enviable, even), but when I watched the video, I saw a number of riders bouncing in the saddle, presumably riding with insufficient resistance. As an instructor and studio owner, I am concerned that with this model, more and more people will be taught improper cycling form. — When students come to my studio from other places, my instructors are often faced with the challenge of having to explain why bouncing in the saddle is ineffective and even dangerous. I just hope that the top ten instructors Peloton hires are more than just fit performers but also have knowledge of cycling and proper form.
Corey,
In the real world – as you know – indoor cycling is a business. While I’m sure your instructors are top notch and always help riders with form, at the end of the day you have to pay the bills.
This Peloton model is yet unproven but Soul Cycle’s well published success is testimony to what the market is willing to pay for such rides. (at least the NYC/LA markets)
Yes, bouncing in the saddle suggests very low resistance. Improper cycling form, sure. Worth alienating a customer for, never.
You have the unique opportunity to take the best of both worlds to make your fortune. Don’t let a little bouncing stand in your way.
I see this opportunity a little differently.
Perhaps the bike alone may be enough to start a revolution in indoor cycling. If their power setup is similar to Keiser’s (eddy current resistance with NdFeB magnets) and they have an open, robust software environment, I can see wirelessly networking 20-40 bikes in a studio and having the riders compete on a scaled Watts/kg level with crazy/cool interactive graphics on those android tablets.
From the kickstarter page, it looks like these bikes are cost-competitive with the M3+ and seem to offer a lot more.
Let them have their “soul cycle” type instructors on the internet. We can use this tech in our studios to teach tomorrow’s cycling class today.
Steve I’m thinking about the technology the same way – it has the promise to connect everyone in the room together and potentially more completely with a virtual ride.