Whether or not you’ve ever been a fan of the Tour de France, you’ve probably heard the word “peloton” tossed around during the summer when the race is running. It’s derived from the French word for “platoon,” and it refers to the huddle of riders in a bike race: how they lock together tightly to cut down on wind resistance. The word evokes the idea of serious bicycling—whether it refers to the Tour or not, people who use it aren’t talking about a quick Sunday spin.
HD Touchscreen | Credit: Peloton
Peloton is the perfect word to express the competitive intensity of the group paradigm offered by the bike-and-technology company Peloton. The company’s product is a high-end stationary bike with a video screen that pipes you into live or recorded classes in exercise studios. Imagine riding your Peloton bike with, as founder and CEO John Foley put it in a recent Fast Company interview, “400 people in that class with you worldwide.” Foley, who has previously served on executive teams at Barry Diller’s InterActiveCorp, Evite, CitySearch, and Barnes&Noble.com, knows a thing or two about the evocative power of media.
Peloton’s hardware is expensive: each Peloton bike costs $1,995. (The company reported sales just shy of 20,000 bicycle units at the end of 2015.) A set of complementary products — including cycling shoes and cleats, bike mats, hand weights, headphones, and towels — sells for $150 to $250. But subscriptions are the company’s long-term revenue stream. Foley has described himself as an addict of group exercise classes, and his company seeks to foster that addiction in its customers. Owners of Peloton bikes pay $39 a month to join the video-streamed classes in Peloton’s Chelsea studio from anywhere in the world.
Peloton’s product-and-service offering combines biking with custom software, the proprietary touchscreen hardware of large-scale computing tablets, and personal heart-rate sensors. CEO Foley claims the company is more than a lifestyle fitness business: “We are a pretty hardcore technology company,” he said in an interview on Bloomberg.com. But Peloton’s goal is to provide members with a fully immersive sense of being in a real bicycling platoon. Class leaders call out encouragement to far-flung exercisers in real time, and members have been known to follow up on their intense online relationships by meeting in person.
Peloton Bike | Credit: Peloton
Peloton’s closest competition in the field of tech-based home-cycling simulation lacks that interactive, social edge: The ProForm® TDF Pro 5.0, which is similarly priced around $2000, provides neither real-time interaction with rider companions, close or distant, nor the encouragement of a cycling coach like the Peloton. But the ProForm TDF Pro does allow for a 10-inch video touchscreen-enabled experience, embedding users in the actual 2015 Tour de France race as well as programming options for other video race courses worldwide. SoulCycle, the other coached bicycle fitness experience, offers gym-based intensity but not the globally-networked experience provided by Peloton, which to date has reached participants in 50 states and 22 countries.
Peloton has raised more than $119 million in investment capital, including two series with Tiger Global Management. It has recently opened showrooms in Marin County, California; Fashion Island, Los Angeles; Dallas-Fort Worth; and East Hampton, New York. The company received a Big Apple Entrepreneur award in 2016.