SoulCycle - Crowdsweating

There’s a certain advantage to stationary biking. For one, if you get tired half way through you don’t need to worry about how to get back. From a gym’s perspective a person on a spin-type bike does not have a very large footprint so a relatively small room can be used to accommodate a lot of people. Welcome to SoulCycle. Some 100 souls, unless I miscounted.

We went to SoulCycle in DC and found it easily enough. The facility is great, clean and modern, as seems to be the trend. For those of use doing this for the first time we had to fill out some papers and get our rental shoes. Spin cycles require shoes that clip in. I was glad to have them.

Soul Cycle provides locked for folks to stash shoes, clothes or whatever. It’s coed so any changing takes place in the restrooms.

We had arrived early, like we do, to make sure we had the place figured out before looking foolish. For this outing we had two special guests in the form of Rick and Glenn. Rick is great for observational humor (“I need to duct tape my ball sack”) and Glenn is always up for a challenge.

As we milled around waiting for the next class to start it became obvious that there’s not much room to mill about when everyone shows up for class. Once the next class let out it was really tough to stay out of the way but they got us in quickly enough.

The room is amazing. Another scene from Tron. The bikes are packed in so tightly there’s just enough room to get to your reserved bike. We had all reserved our bikes in a cluster so we’d be together. The music is loud even when there’s no class going on. The sound-proofing on the room is such that we had no idea it was so loud until we went in.

Meg identified her newbies and came over to help us get clipped in and understand the equipment. She asked our names but my voice doesn’t carry well so there was no way she could ever hear me. Glenn and Rick she heard and she referenced then often during the workout. To be fair to Meg they do look like they’re more fun than me.

We all settled in and Meg took her place at the DJ booth. Honestly, the room was more like a nightclub. Our ragtag group was surrounded by a sea of very young, very fit people. The good thing about being the oldest person in the room is that outlasting anyone is a triumph.

The warmup started. The warmup was easy. The warmup had me thinking this might not be so tough. Then I looked around again and saw the impossibly fit people and figured there must be something more to this. I was right and the real workout started.

We were out of our seats and increasing the resistance in the bike. I had to vary siting down and standing and was having a tough time until, far later than I care to admit, I realized I was peddling all out and most of the rest of the group had a slower and steady cadence. Pace yourself and it’s better. In fact the longer I did the workout the more confident I was that I could do this. By then the sweat was flowing but we had towels and water at hand.

The part of the workout I had trouble with was the pushups. No officially pushups but essentially pumping your upper body over the bike handles. One thing I had to get used to is the proximity of the rider’s backside ahead of me, for me that was Patricia’s. But, the distance was fine and the workout was tough enough that I focused on my handle bars and peddling. I’d better clarify; like any time I am in heavy traffic my main concern is avoiding rear-ending the person in front of me. I imagine it would be all the more embarrassing to rear end a friend in traffic.

So push-ups. I didn’t get much out of this. We also had to push to one side or the other. I understand the concept that race bicyclists must get over the bars and must lean around corners but doing this quickly and so many times can cause trouble. I tweaked my left shoulder right where it meets the neck and it took weeks to recover. Not debilitating but annoying.

Meg had some great song selections and the fact that she could bark orders to Glenn and Rick while doing the exercises with us is amazing. There are a few words she says that sound exactly like Katherine Hepburn (Now, is one of them. Go is another) but that adds to her charm.

There is a point where we use the light dumbbells that are on our bikes. At first this felt like an add-on workout but it really did burn, even with 2 pounders. Toning work but effective.

We had our cool down and then it was time to try to figure out how to get unclipped. The bikes are close enough that it’s tough to get leverage to twist out of the pedals. I managed but Lisa had to abandon her shoes. That practice is acceptable at SoulCycle, by the way.

So then we were among the last few out into a space approximately the size of half a Metro rail car with 200 people. The 100 coming in and the 100 going out. Since most of the young and fit there were the approximate width of a #2 pencil and half of us were pretty well lubricated with sweat is wasn’t that bad. About 10 minutes to get to my locker about mid-way through the room.

Changing was not an option and even putting shoes on was challenging. Shoes went in to a bin and we set up our Meg-bomb and duck walked out in to DC with our diaper bike shorts.

There are a lot of spin classes out there. SoulCycle focuses exclusively on spinning and it shows. They have a location and a formula that draws a lot of people to them. DC is full of young people who love the club atmosphere and staying fit. SoulCycle nails both. For me I like SoulCycle better than clubs because I’m not expected to talk to anyone. Who can hear in those places?