UrbanUpdate

For some people, spin class is their church, a sanctuary of communal self-improvement fueled by both the latest Pitbull joint and also an overpowering desire not to be embarrassed in front of the extremely attractive sweaty young people cranking away on all sides. For others, however, the experience is more trouble than it's worth. The classes fill up too quickly, the start times are inconvenient, the fees are outrageous, and that one instructor always plays either way too much Pitbull, or not nearly enough, depending on your point of view.

It is the members of this second group who are most likely to be intrigued by Peloton, an in-home spin bike that attaches to what looks like a giant iPad in front of the handlebars. (Other than the color—black—this thing would look right at home in an Apple store.) But instead of requiring that you trek to an overcrowded studio and shell out $5 for a Smartwater, the Peloton's touchscreen brings the spin class to you. You can either join live sessions taking place at the company's brick-and-mortar studio in New York, or stream old ones on demand, like a Netflix queue that consists entirely of fake hills to climb. Here's what I learned when I tried this thing out.

The good:

1. It's pretty. Most in-home exercise equipment is, objectively speaking, ugly as hell. This is not! It's sleek-looking and whisper-quiet, and it requires only two cords: one connecting the bike to the touchscreen, and other running from the bike to a regular old wall outlet. If you want an in-home gym that won't make the room feel vaguely like a mid-90s community center, this is a strong entrant.

2. The leaderboard is kinda neat. During a workout, the right side of the screen becomes a leaderboard that measures the output of everyone participating in the class. As with other trendy fitness programs, you know where you rank at all times. I assumed this information would be uninteresting to me, because, I mean, I can't even see those people. I was wrong, though! I absolutely wanted to leapfrog the names that kept clustering around me and CRUSH EVERYONE with my bottomless reservoir of cycling power. (Side note: I am petty and childish.)

3. It keeps you on your toes. In a fun twist, the instructors sometimes call out the names of remote attendees, too, as if they were right there in the studio. Since at-home users don't always use their real names, this can get hilarious ("DannyFromFlorida69! Great work!"). During one of the live classes, I'm pretty sure I heard my name, which made me feel super important, until she followed it up with a scornful "This a light day for you? What is that shit?" Kind of hurtful, but I begrudgingly pedaled a little harder.

The less good:

1. Video has limits. Spinning comes with its own vocabulary, and in any class, it can be tough to track what an instructor wants you to do. This is even tougher on the Peloton, since there are no people around you to mime, and the torso-up shot of the instructor often prevents you from seeing how fast their legs are moving, which is...an important detail. They do call out out numbers ("Resistance at 50, cadence not below 95, FOUR THREE TWO ONE LET'S GO"), but the clarity of these directives is...uneven, and it was easy to get lost. This is better than aimlessly pedaling on an exercise bike by yourself for an hour, but it's not the same as being there in person.

2. Oh God, it's expensive. Your price tag: $1,995, plus a $39/month membership fee for access to unlimited classes. Yeah, yeah. Even when purchased in bulk, spin classes are expensive, and if you think of this on a per-month basis, you easily save money over the long term. I get that. But still, throwing down two grand up front for a piece of exercise equipment that does one thing stings, man.

3. Space is precious. The ads for this thing, which feature an incredibly fit mom waking up in her tastefully appointed house surrounded by lush green forest and climbing on her Peloton in an in-home studio outfitted with floor-to-ceiling windows, are pretty clearly targeted at buyers who won't blink at the price tag. (For God's sake, a shot of the woman's position on the leaderboard conspicuously notes that she's in the Hamptons.) If you live like a normal, not-fabulously wealthy person, though, I'm not sure it's the kind of thing you want in your living room or bedroom or whatever. It's also heavy as hell, so don't plan on shuttling it out of storage for a workout and then quickly burying it when it's time to have people over. Understand that this is basically furniture, and then decide if it has a place in your home and your heart.

Should you cop? Prepare to be shocked, but it depends. If your schedule doesn't permit you to be beholden to a studio schedule, or you're the type of psychopath who would do this seven days a week if you could afford it, or you love cycling but are also a hermit, sure. If you're not ready to commit to spin as your primary form of exercise, or you're concerned about disrupting your living room's carefully curated aesthetic, or an important aspect of attending spin class is the opportunity to meet attractive single people, this is...a lot of money, and you should find another way to scratch your possibly-unhealthy competitive itch.

Watch Now:Biking Is Still Great, ThoughJay Willis is a staff writer at GQ covering news, law, and politics. Previously, he was an associate at law firms in Washington, D.C. and Seattle, where his practice focused on consumer financial services and environmental cleanup litigation. He studied social welfare at Berkeley and graduated from Harvard Law School... Read more