Hacker News Reader

Comment by spyspy | Hacker News Reader

My sides. I have friends working there that have tried getting me to apply. Glassdoor reviews indicated their backend interview is unnecessarily difficult and I have little faith in their business model. How many people are willing to spend thousands on an exercise bike? Let alone one that requires a $40/month subscription? It feels the same as Blue Apron - the market is people rich and lazy enough that don't want do the first half of the work (go to the gym or the grocery store) but still want to do the hard part (actually cook and exercise).

View on HN

This bike is for people that don't want to go to a gym and/or don't have lots of time to leave the house on a daily basis. You can also finance the bike so the hit isn't so bad. Additionally, there's no extra charge for multiple accounts (up to 10), so if everyone in the house uses it, the cost makes more sense.

I work out of home and this is the only way I get consistent exercise. My fitness has gone up tremendously as has my quality of life. It's all about what motivates you to take your health seriously... this bike does it for me and a lot of other people. It's really hard to put a price on that.

Semi-related, I just got a $400 Oculus Quest and burned 1900 calories playing Beat Saber yesterday (as calculated by Apple Watch's "Other" workout type).

Much cheaper purchase and fun enough that I can enjoy playing it for hours a day. I have an (admittedly shitty) exercise bike, and will probably be using that a lot less now.

If anyone's looking for a home fitness gadget, give that a look. I'm told BoxVR is a better workout than Beat Saber but I haven't bought that yet.

>I just got a $400 Oculus Quest and burned 1900 calories playing Beat Saber

That's an absurd claim by your apple watch. An hour of expert level beat saber is closer to 360 calories.

I have a hunch that it's overestimating because you wave your arms around a lot, but 360 seems like an underestimate. Average heart rate in 70% to 80% range, and I'll have higher than average calorie expenditure because I'm overweight.

EDIT - did a comparison against Runner's World's calorie burn calculator, and the calories/hour burn rate lines up with a leisurely 11:30 minutes/mile pace based on my weight.

It honestly seems about right.

https://vrhealth.institute/portfolio/beat-saber/

This source puts 6 Kcal/min on the low end of the range for an idealized 60 Kg individual, but your estimate is close.

tl:dr; 6-8 Kcal/min (360-480 Kcal/hour) for a 60 Kg individual

You burn 1900 calories running 2/3 of a marathon. I hardly think you were able to achieve that in an hour playing a VR game.

More than two hours. Looking at the Runner's World calculator for a comparison:

Inputs are: 1 mile, 11:30 minutes/mile, 210 lbs weight

Gives back 159 calories for a 1 mile run, 829 calories per hour.

My Beat Saber workouts yesterday tally up at 830 calories per hour and the amount of sweating felt in the ballpark of running an 11 minute mile. I don't think the watch's estimates are that outlandish.

https://www.runnersworld.com/training/a20801301/calories-bur...

Again factoring in that I weigh 210 lbs, their calculator also says a marathon would be upwards of 4100 calories for me. 1900 calories clocks in at less than half of a marathon.

It’s certainly possible to burn 800+ calories per hour for a couple hours. Normal, actually, for someone doing athletic training. (E.g., anyone training semi-seriously for any kind road race is doing this at least once a week.)

But I’d pretty surprised if you did it without training to build up to it. You could have developed the aerobic capacity through other activities, but I’d have thought various muscles would be unprepared and would be giving you rather strong pain signals. If you nevertheless pushed through that, I’d think you’d be SORE AF today and barely able to move.

Or maybe your activity confused the calorie model your Apple Watch uses.

Not that it isn’t great exercise.

I exercise bike pretty much daily (typically 30-60 minutes), so my arms are flimsy but in terms of cardio capacity I'm not in awful shape. My arms are definitely sore today.

That's apples to oranges. A regular runner who runs a few times a week could do 11:30 minute miles just fine. Someone who just started running would have much difficulty doing an 11:30 mile period let alone sustaining that pace for two hours.

My Garmin Fenix 3 (with HRM strap) reckons I used 2600 and 2900 calories for my 2015 marathons at about 190lbs. 4100 seems excessively high.

Found another reference that estimates 3600 at 210 lbs, so maybe somewhere in the middle:

>According to the Cleveland Clinic Center for Consumer Health, a runner who weighs 130 lb. will burn 2,224 calories during a marathon, a 165 lb. runner will burn 2,822 calories and a 210 lb. runner will burn 3,593 calories.

https://www.livestrong.com/article/302836-how-many-calories-...

Regardless, my main takeaway is that I’m going to burn more calories with this than I was without it.

1lb of fat is approx 3500 calories. How realistic is it that you dropped over half a pound of fat playing a VR game?

It's not realistic to expect the amount of fat lost from any kind of exercise to be anywhere near the total amount of calories expended, though. There are biological limits to fat metabolism that just can't be avoided.

That’s not how it works.

Everyone else is saying how absurd the 1900 calorie claim is, and comparing it to other types of exercise, but even if it is the much lower 360 calories, most sedentary gamers are more likely to do this multiple times per week than say, run a marathon, or even start doing a program like C25K. That's a huge win in my book...

I mentioned in other comments (and edited a bit with more accurate numbers), but I'll put it here too: the watch worked it out to 830 calories/hour and Runner's World says that's equivalent to me running at 11:30 minutes/mile based on my 210 lbs weight.

I've only gone running once this spring so I don't have a huge dataset (lots of walking and exercise bike instead), but the one run I did was a 10:30 mile. So I'm not especially fast, but 11:30 is a slow pace for me and feels reasonable as a beat saber equivalent workout.

Downside, the Quest's foam face-interface gets absolutely drenched in sweat. I need to get a sweatband and a wipeable pad replacement as soon as VRCover catches up on their backorders.

Even as an exercise bike owner who can hop on that for a workout whenever I want to, I've never gotten home from work and said "You know what I want to do? Exercise bike for more than two hours."

Compared to half an hour of exercise bike and two hours of Overwatch, I think this will be a huge deal for fitness.

Genuinely curious - how long of a session is required to burn those 1900 calories?

That was split over three sessions totaling 2:17, and is for me being 5' 10" and around 210 lbs. If you're skinnier than me you'll probably burn less.

It was a good chunk of my evening and my arms are pretty sore today, so I don't plan on doing that all the time. But I'll absolutely do it more often than I run/bike 1900 calories.

I've been playing "Space Pirate Trainer" on my new Quest and was shocked at how worked-out my legs felt afterwards from dodging incoming shots by squatting/leaning.

I had similar results with "Police 911" in the arcade in the early 2000s. Fun times!

That must have been a lot of Beat Saber...running a half marathon (13.1 miles) burns fewer calories than that.

I broke this down in another comment, but trusting Runner's World for a calorie calculator, a half marathon would take me 2080 calories (at 210 lbs). So a little bit less than that.

Average calorie burn was 830 calories/hour, which they say is equivalent to me running at an 11:30 minutes/mile pace.

In terms of effort expended, important to note that this was three sessions over the course of the evening, adding up to 1900 calories and 2 hours 17 minutes.

So it was something like running 4 miles 3 times with an hour and change break in between, which is probably an easier feat than doing it in one shot.

My arms are still sore and I don't plan on doing that every day, but it was definitely a workout.

Can confirm - BoxVR is a killer workout if you take it seriously. Of course, you can cheat and barely bunch to register a punch.

> as calculated by Apple Watch's "Other" workout type

I don't trust that at all. Apple Watch will give you several "active" calories a minute sitting still if you start an "Other" workout.

I don't understand how you save time not leaving the house... Doesn't it take just as much time to go on a ride outside?

Not a fun way to exercise if you live somewhere like NYC.

Or weather wise, anywhere in the northern US where it's cold and snowy for from November to February.

Fair enough, but I'm not sure that NYC would keep me in the house for exercise.

I live in the mountains of Colorado, but will always prefer exercising outdoors, even in winter. I tend to modify my exercise for the time of year and weather. In winter it tends towards running and skiing. Summer is for biking (and more running). I like to have variety of activities (helps to build up a diverse set of strength) and the simplicity of walking out my front door. (Without a monthly fee)

Previous years I've done running in the summer, but I hate it in the winter. Motivation to work out has been a hard enough barrier, so once the air gets too cold to breathe comfortably I'd pretty much stop.

Exercise bike was a game changer last winter in terms of getting me to stick with regular workouts.

New Yorkers just stop at the gym on their way home from work. The net time difference is close to zero. However you also have the opportunity to actually meet other people at a gym.

Closest gym with spin classes is 30 minutes away. I also tend to do my classes between 11pm and 12pm, something not possible at any gym. The sessions are tightly controlled so I'm getting the workout I need. I don't have to deal with cars, humidity or any other variables riding on the road. To be honest, I don't understand why people bring that point up so much.

In the winter, putting on (and then taking off) the winter clothes plus rinsing the salt off the bike when I get home adds 10 - 15 minutes to the ride.

And while I don't really don't enjoy riding stationary bikes, there is some appeal to getting in a fake ride on a stationary bike in my living room when it's 35 degrees and raining outside. Or 90 degrees and high humidity.

Not leaving the house regularly is a serious quality of life issue. That is most certainly not going to be addressed by the purchase of a stationary bike.

I was just referring to the fact that I work from home and put in about 10 hours per day behind a computer. Sedentary life is hard to avoid for programmers even though I'm into athletic activities. The bike allows me to get in a class during lunch, after work or late into the evening. The rest of my free time is spent with my family- driving to the gym 30 minutes away to take their classes would take away an hour of my free time just in driving.

Why not buy a real bike and a direct drive smart turbo trainer? At least you could ride the bike outside too.

Because they are not as good. The Peloton bike uses earth magnets for the resistance so changing levels is seamless. Your bike is directly communicating with the class HUD and you can see how you are performing against your own stats and against others in the class, real time or historically. It's a completely different experience than messing with a trainer.

I've never used peloton but I would be very surprised if any of the mid-top end direct drive smart trainers weren't vastly better than an exercise bike. They also use magnetic resistance up to 2000w in some cases with seamless transitioning. There is nothing apart from greed that stops peloton from offering their classes to anyone with a smart trainer. You get all those stats on an ipad/laptop/phone with other smart trainers and according to reviews the power readings are not very accurate on a peloton bike. Really seems like a win for marketing over reality.

> How many people are willing to spend thousands on an exercise bike?

A lot, myself included. My wife and I gave it to each other for Christmas one year, right before our daughter was born.

At the time when we were new parents, it was perfect. We could exercise quietly without waking either the baby or each other, all without leaving the house.

Now that our daughter is older, we still use it albeit more infrequently in the summer when we both like to go out and run. However, the digital classes offered in the app are great for running & training. For me personally, it was easy to get stuck in a rut of just plodding along and not really improving my fitness. Having the coaches in your ear telling you what to do works well for me.

I know people who love spin classes. They're not just buying an exercise bike. They're buying a really nice bike, and membership in a global community of people who also love spin. It really does seem like getting to go to a spin class any time you want, in the privacy of your own home.

I have way more than $2k in outdoor gear, because my favorite exercise is trail running and climbing mountains. If riding an indoor bike was my thing, I would seriously consider a Peloton.

I didn't say there was zero market. Obviously people are buying the things. But this is an IPO we're talking about. I'm questioning the long term growth of what I see as an expensive niche product.

You made a pretty inflammatory comment: "the market is people rich and lazy enough that don't want do the first half of the work".

He's just explaining that there is a market. It's probably an enthusiast market as well as wealthy people that can make this an impulse buy, but the opportunity for growth is to convince a much more general market to finance the bike and justify the monthly costs like they do their cable/streaming bills.

I understand you didn't want to interview for the job, I get not wanting to work on a product you don't care for... I just think your other comments made little sense and seemed more inflammatory than anything.

Sorry it wasn't meant to be inflammatory, brevity is hard. But has any fitness fad ever threatened the cable industry? I don't see anyone cancelling their netflix subscription in order to afford this thing. But based on all the responses claiming there's "tons" of market I'm still inclined to disagree. The market seems to just be people already really into cycling (either outdoors or spin classes) and are currently pouring money into those hobbies. Maybe it's a wildly bigger market than I imagine but if I was putting my money on it, and we're talking about an IPO here, I'd say that Peloton's best growth will soon be behind them and they're trying to cash out while they can.

I wasn't suggesting that people cancel netflix or cable, I was just saying that this expense could fall into a similar category. I personally am willing to spend a certain amount of money towards my health each month if it's effective.

"The market seems to just be people already really into cycling" This is not true, I see tons of people that are just getting into spin/cycling for the first time. I think the primary customers are people that don't mind using a bike, need to be motivated and have busy lives.

We'll see what happens, but I think there's a lot of growth to be had, especially if they try and compete with Tonal.

Don't worry. Once the bike is a few years old they will release a new online training program that's incompatible with the bikes they have -- but compatible with the brand-new, $3500 retail Peloton model.

It's cheaper than a normal road bike... This past weekend I witnessed hundreds of people compete in a triathlon, each of them riding a bike that probably had tires more expensive than my bike. The top men and women were riding $10,000+ bikes. And they all own multiple $$$ bikes, specialized to the particulars of the course they're racing.

A $2000 Peloton that you can train in for recovery or when the weather is bad? That's a bargain by comparison.

Those people aren't training using 30-45min spin classes. They're on a resistance trainer using TrainerRoad/Zwift workouts mostly based on time-in-saddle.

And yet the global market for high end bikes is pretty tiny. There's been huge consolidation of big name brands under private equity as they try to build full range lifestyle portfolios, none of which are big enough to go public independently, yet somehow this niche combining fitness, stationary biking and home subscription has a big enough market for an IPO? Maybe, but I'm skeptical.

> How many people are willing to spend thousands on an exercise bike?

Tons of them.

I've had a bunch of setups where you could plug in your road bike into a stationary setup, with virtual screen and everything, but the hassle of setting it up was always just a little too much friction.

It'd be the logical N+1 addition to my stable of more expensive road, cross and mountain bikes.

You have no idea how much people are willing to spend on their cycling hobby.

If I want a one hour work-out, going to the gym adds 2 times 10 minutes to go back and from. The bikes may already be taken. Music is blaring out of loudspeakers. There's no training included.

This is not about being lazy, it's about being rich enough to trade time and convenience for money.

I don't understand Peloton because there are smart-trainers available (Wahoo Kickr, etc).

$1000 bike. $1000 trainer. $15/month for Zwift or TrainerRoad.

And you can take the bike outside when the weather is nice.

Or, for a bike enthusiast (or anybody who already owns a bike), the bike is already there. So, it's just the trainer.

Twice, I had something like a Wahoo Kickr. Twice, after repeated use, the mounting mechanism to fasten my road bike to the trainer started to fail or became very cumbersome to use.

When it did work, the tires on the road bike slipped when putting on high power.

In the end, even if it wasn't a huge inconvenience, the hassle of using the system was sufficient friction to stop me from using it, just like the overhead of going to a gym.

There is a large market for tailor-made solutions that are perfect for just one application. (See also: iPad, bike GPS computers, 10 different categories of mountain bikes, ...)

The Kickr is direct mount (remove rear wheel, mount to axle/cassette that are part of trainer). Parts could still fail, but no tire slippage.

Having to remove the rear wheel is definitely better from a slippage point of view, but now you still have the friction of removing your wheel and putting it back and getting your hands dirty in the process.

Maybe I'm just lazy after all...

But it still illustrates how something like Peleton can be appealing for many.

This is definitely not the common path for hard core cycling aficionados... They're far more likely to buy a decent trainer for their expensive road bike than a clunky exercise bike, then compete online not attend a virtual spin class. The people i know use a semi permanent setup for the off season so it's not really a hassle and far more realistic.

I agree with an earlier comment that their target market is the same as meal services, and the value proposition is debatable.

I am a fairly experienced road cyclist and even though I prefer to ride outside AND have a computer-controlled bike trainer, I would consider one if I had the space. I also have several friends who prefer this to all their other options.

1.) It's way easier to get started up without the faff of setting up your trainer. If you have a dedicated bike+trainer this is less of an issue, but that is going to cost a fair amount (something like $1-1.5K) and take up about as much space, and not be anywhere near as seamless.

2.) The coaching you get is extremely rich compared to TrainerRoad and Zwift, both costing $15/person/month. So if you have 2 people on the same account you pay a bit more per person and get better coaching. They are also branching out into strength and other types of video coaching as part of the package.

I initially thought it was useless if you had a trainer for the bike, but I see the appeal now. If the app worked with my wahoo trainer, then I'd very likely buy the service and have it work with my existing equipment.

I see your point that, for you, there's an appeal. But with so many comments disagreeing with me and saying there's "tons" of market I'm inclined to maintain my point. I think the market (and evidenced by the way it's _marketed_) as it stands is not the general public. It's either people who are already paying gobs of money for cycling classes à la SoulCycle or already dishing out money for their cycling hobby. On the topic of a looming IPO, I don't see their growth continuing to accelerate for much longer.

Generally the people that use HN are not the target market for Peloton.

In contrast to your POV, I know dozens of people who do already have Pelton subscriptions, or plan to get some. My office is planning to get 2 or 3 bikes for our exercise room.

Peloton is too expensive to see startup-type growth much longer, but they've got something better: actual revenue and a path to profitability (if they're not already there).

It's not "better" coaching, just directly engaged instruction. TrainerRoad/Zwift workouts are tailored to specific goals, whereas spin classes are aimed at general fitness... and I've never seen one that lasted over 45 minutes.

> How many people are willing to spend thousands on an exercise bike?

In an age when wealth is highly concentrated among a few people, you can make a lot of money selling those few people absurdly overpriced luxury goods.

Are there lots of them? Not really. But they have all the disposable income, so...

Maybe you can make a living at selling $50,000 jewelry to the very wealthy, but I'm not sure you can make much of a living selling a $3000 bike to the 1%.

You're not just selling the bike, you're also selling subscriptions. On top of that, there is the gamification of competing with other people/yourself.

People pay for gym memberships that they never use. They also buy home exercise equipment that collects dust for most of its life. Then you have active cyclists that will splurge $5K+ on a real bike and want a way to ride when the weather makes it troublesome. There is a market.

There is a definite market, but like gym memberships it is likely to contract during downturns. The folks I know with Pelotons are cycle infrequently and have a more general regime. As a cyclist I'd be interested to know how many get a Peloton versus sticking with traditional trainers?

Ignoring the all-weather cyclists it'd also be interesting to know how many ride into the shoulders of the season. Most of the folks I ride with have $5000 bikes and they may ride from March to November here in Philly depending on really bad conditions.

DC resident and cyclist. I ride year-round, but in winter I do scheduled indoor group sessions (currently, on Wahoo Kickrs) as the ground tends to be too squishy with the freeze/thaw for the mountain bike (which I prefer to the road bike).

I also own a Kickr at home. My spare mountain bike is mounted on it year-round. Through summer, I do the 30-minute workout program on TrainerRoad (rainy days or when I work late, but I try to do most riding outside).

My issue with Peloton isn't the money. As noted, like many cyclists, I have several expensive bikes. It's the lack of specificity for actual cycling. And the subscription is just ridiculous, when Zwift and TrainerRoad are $15/month for similar software.

You could not go to a gym for 3 years and your membership fees would still cost you less than the $2000 bike, let alone the monthly subscription.

People are paying over $100 per class for yoga and spin classes in major cities.

Genuinely curious - which places charge more than $100 per class?

I have a side business dealing directly with the yoga and spin industry and I've never heard of this. Can you point me to an example?

There are numerous upscale gyms in my area that cost $200-400 per month. The demographic that is considering a Pelaton is probably buying in addition to a gym membership like that or comparing against it.

I built a website to serve the market that sits between and overlaps Peloton and Zwift. It's a human-curated aggregator/review site with a filter so you can quickly find content by type, duration, featured athlete, sport, recommended use. It's free and you can use your existing equipment or even a Peloton spin bike if you grow tired of paying a subscription.

https://slpstream.com/

The site is still at MVP stage so I welcome any feedback on viability, usability, copy, anything that can help me improve it. I want to make it easier, cheaper (free!) and more fun for people to get their workout done from pros to beginners. I also want to help promote the work of the athletes + producers and give kudos to the brands that support that content production instead of buying display ads based on behavioral tracking!

One cool feature apart from the filter is that if you sign up (free, just username/password) you can bookmark favorites onto a personal playlist page to return to later. Another attempt to reduce the friction between thinking about a workout and getting it done.

FYI there are quite a few free guided workout videos on YouTube (GCN is my favorite so far) that are great when you need to do interval training. They are super engaging and high quality. For aerobic base training (lower intensity but longer duration) I like inspiring documentaries or sports events and podcasts or audiobooks for runs outside. I'm adding more to Slipstream every day.

> How many people are willing to spend thousands on an exercise bike?

Apparently, somewhere around 400,000: https://secondmeasure.com/datapoints/peloton-subscriptions-d...

There's a huge difference between an exercise bike and the real thing. Sure you can add online gameplay, but it is a poor substitute.

I'm not sure how much staying power they have. More people seem to like the idea of excerise rather than the exercise itself. Maybe I'm missing something..

I'm surprised that they haven't expanded into rowing, seems like an even better fit. Personally, I think you're better off joining a gym and going to spin class if you don't have good roads near you.

Oh, and seeing that they have packages with bundled cycling shoes did make me cringe. That's when you need to go to a bike shop and get some that fit (cycling shoes are designed to be stiff so they don't 'wear in' to the same degree as other footwear.

> I'm surprised that they haven't expanded into rowing, seems like an even better fit.

I'm just gonna drop a shameless plug here and note that I recently joined the team at Hydrow; rowing is our business and our machine feels really good--the quality of the product was a nontrivial part of why I signed up.

https://hydrow.com

I don't see the value proposition in this business model. You can have a full time membership at gym with in person cycling classes not to mention yoga classes, saunas, pools, weightlifting equipment and cardio equipment for the same price as their subscription.

I don't have a Peloton at home but I do have a treadmill, elliptical, and some weights and getting a stationary bike is on my list. It is really convenient not to have to go through the ceremony of going to the gym. I can go to the room across the hall and work out anytime in front of my TV. You really don't need a lot of different weightlifting equipment to stay in shape. Just an adjustable weight bench (which I have) and adjustable dumb bells.

You can stream Yoga classes if you want. I also don't have to be around germ infested sick people in the winter and wait on equipment.

+1. Honestly, if I go to the gym it's because I want someone else to tell me what to do, and for the social aspect, not because my home setup isn't sufficient (bench, adjustable DBs, stationary bike, rowing machine, medicine balls, slides, resistance bands, TRX, bosu).

The other part of the story is that I spent over a decade as a part time fitness instructor going around to over a dozen gyms during the course of a year and the energy of being in front of a class and the friendships I made were priceless.

But as $life_happened and I stopped teaching and moved away from my friends, I really started hating everything about the gym and having to work around the gym schedule. There are times I hang out with my wife until she goes to sleep and then work out after 9PM.

I could imagine getting one if I had some amount more money. I work from home and my gym is just far enough away that I can’t go there on a standard lunch break. In the summer I run or bike outside. A Pelaton for me would just be for lunchtime workouts in the winter... can’t justify that financially but I do see the appeal.

Glassdoor reviews indicated their backend interview is unnecessarily difficult

Difficult for you, maybe. How else do you expect them to find the top 0.01 percent of the candidate pool they're looking for?

I think OP is saying the interview asked for a much greater skill level than is actually necessary to do the job. The equivalent of requiring a PhD for a job doing Bachelor's level grunt work.

Sorry, I was being facetious. I've seen this kind of screening "process" many times and find it totally ridiculous.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com