Peloton’s assembly a workout

It wouldn’t be the first time a song led me down the garden path. In this case, it was the hypnotic hook for “On to the Next One” — the G-rated portion of a song by rapper Jay-Z, used in the first commercial I recall seeing for this thing.

At 2020’s end, after viewing a string of subsequent commercials and talking to some owners and fitness trainers, I decided to take on a Peloton.

For those living under the proverbial rock, Peloton is the popular brand of stationary bike with a computer monitor that allows people, via subscription, to take advantage of livestreamed spin classes led by various instructors.

Trouble is, none of those commercials — all depicting sweaty, maniacal-looking riders — tell you what you have to go through prior to actually hopping on and going for a ride.

I ordered the bike at 2020’s end. As I awaited delivery (no seven-to 10-day shipping period here), I saw that a Facebook friend had posted an assessment of his first experience using his Peloton. That assessment came with a post-ride selfie in which he looked like a prisoner of war.

He noted that the bike seat was too narrow. I didn’t know the half of it.

My first rude awaking about the World of Peloton came via an accessories package whose delivery predated the bike’s by several weeks, and included the special cleated shoes required to “clip in” to the special pedals.

The bike was to come assembled; sadly, the shoes didn’t. The cleats, their screws and a hex key were in a separate bag. Also, the shoes have three straps, two of which conveniently fasten via Velcro. The bottom strap fastens via a large, intimidating contraption that’s basically a crank and a release lever. Overwhelmed, I put the shoes aside.

Ha. The fun and adventure were only beginning.

The day before the bike’s March 11 arrival, I found myself caught in the middle of a standoff between the delivery company, whose representative insisted that they had to bring the bike by after hours or ship it back to Peloton, and the condo-building lawgivers, who said there were no exceptions to the 8 a.m.-4 p.m. delivery rules. I made a final appeal to the former and, whew, the delivery guys made it around 2 p.m.

Too bad they didn’t bring the rest of the seat. The Facebook friend was right: I’d seen wider bananas.

But first there was the matter of assembling those shoes, donning them, getting those bottom straps to close with the crank buckle thingies, then clipping in … fitting the cleats into those corresponding holes in those space-ship pedals.

Attaching the cleats to the shoes turned out to be easy peasy. Fastening the shoes remained a challenge. Clipping in was … well.

Then came that moment I decided I wanted off the bike … and couldn’t get the shoes out of the pedals, despite following written instructions. I managed to undo the left shoe and got out of it, but couldn’t undo the right shoe. Neither could my husband, so I did what any good wife does: I made him take the full brunt of my increasing panic before finally wiggling out of the shoe.

We then spent probably an hour trying to figure out how to dislodge both shoes from the pedals. I called the support hot line and was promised an instructional email that never came. Googling the problem, we got the shoes loose only by loosening the pedal screws Peloton owners are warned

never to loosen too much, due to risk of pedal damage. (Note: Peloton has YouTube instructional videos for clipping in and out. I didn’t know it at the time, but I doubt they’d have done any good anyway.)

Now, to the problem of the seat. Amazon provided me with a substantially padded replacement that had drawn positive reviews from other Pelotoners. Somehow I thought I was DIY-savvy enough to perform the replacing act. The new seat, the bike itself and the shoes had all come with assembly/attachment/maintenance devices, so I now had a tool kit’s worth of hex keys and weird wrenches. What could go wrong?

Yeah. A couple of sweaty hours later, I faced the fact that I could neither get the new seat on nor restore the original seat. Whew again: Our building’s maintenance man saved the day and attached the new seat.

Now the only thing standing in the way of Peloton

“heaven”: Me. My longtime Zoom fitness classes and freestyle cardio dancing were zero preparation for my first livestreamed biking class, one geared toward beginners. During these classes, a peppy leader eggs you on to accomplish various riding feats. At the bottom of the screen you get to see your name and icon along with your cadence (revolutions per minute), resistance level, output, calories burned … basically, how bad you’re doing keeping up. I lasted for six minutes of a 20-minute class.

Ah well. As long as I don’t have to set up or fix anything right now, I’m “on to the next one.”