Peloton Bike

Submission 6,413

About

Peloton Bike is a stationary exercise bike produced by Peloton. Unlike other exercise bikes, the Peloton Bike comes equipped with a tablet computer that allows users to sign into and join online exercise classes. The bike and Peloton-produced commercials have since become the subject of mockery online.

History

Peloton launched in 2012.^[1] The company was founded by Graham Stanton, Hisao Kushi, John Foley, Tom Cortese, and Yony Feng.^[2] That year, on August 21st, the company launched a Twitter account.^[3]

On June 24th, 2013, the company launched a Kickstarter ^[4] campaign to fund "The Peloton Bike." That day, the company raised more than $300,000 from 297 backers.

The following year, the company launched its first Peloton Cycle center in Manhattan. The location doubled as an exercise bike studio and a streaming studio, where exercise classes would be beamed to Peloton bikes. The company also began selling bikes this year.^[5]

Reception

In 2018, PC Magazine called the $4,000 Peloton treadmill the "Best Health and Fitness Device" at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES).^[10]

Online Reaction

On November 17th, 2018, the company released a commercial called "inside a Class." The post received more than 7 million views in six months (shown below).

On January 27th, 2019, Twitter user @ClueHeywood tweeted,^[6] "Love putting my Peloton bike in the most striking area of my ultra-modern $3 million house." The thread included a series of mocking criticisms of Peloton's commercials, which generally feature lavish and expensive homes. The tweet tread received more than 27,000 retweets and 117,000 likes in two days (excerpts below).

Several media outlets covered the thread, including The Daily Dot, ^[7] Bicycling.com,^[8] For The Win^[9] and more.