I did it. In a long-anticipated moment of fear and excitement, I pressed the "buy now" button on a brand new, beautiful Peloton bike. After seeing Peloton everywhere - all over my Insta feed, TV commercials on the Olympics, raving comments from friends who owned one - and after obsessing and dreaming about it for months, I decided to go for it.

That was two months ago. Since then, I've completed 38 rides and 21 off the bike workouts (yoga, core, arms, etc.). No, I haven't worked out every day. But I have worked out ~5-6x per week, which is huge for me. I'm tend to go through phases of working out, hard, every day - but that usually trails off after 2-3 weeks. So to still be consistent after two months means that Peloton is working! Here's why it works for me, and why some go as far as to say that it actually makes working out addictive.

1. I CAN WORK OUT ON MY OWN SCHEDULE IN MY OWN HOUSE

I've tried SO many fitness classes. Crossfit, SoulCycle, Flywheel, Equinox (which is amazing by the way), Pure Barre, Orangetheory, solidcore, Beachbody, bootcamps… even fitness pole dancing. You can't beat the quick intensity you get at Crossfit, or the club music in a dark, candlelit room at SoulCycle, or the addictive eucalyptus scent of Equinox. But no matter what fitness class you attend, you have to schedule it and drive across town, which usually means having to leave work early or stop some productive task, get stuck in traffic, and get really stressed out. Having to be on someone else's schedule and fighting traffic always led to inconsistency for me.

Working out is already hard to do - why accept any more obstacles to make it happen?

I like that I can keep my Peloton in my living room or even my bedroom if I feel like it. I can get the same workout as I could at SoulCycle without leaving my house and I can do it at midnight if I want to.

AND I can make my own environment. I'm working toward a beautiful home gym complete with SoulCycle's Jonathan Adler grapefruit candle, a mini fridge of eucalyptus scented towels and Boxed Water, floor to ceiling glass windows, lots of fans, and all kinds of motivating paraphernalia. The environment matters.

2. THE WORKOUTS ARE FUN

Peloton has LIVE classes that happen just about every single hour, broadcasted from the "mothership" (their studio in NYC) with real riders in real time. But they also have a massive on demand library with thousands of classes… strength rides, scenic rides, metrics rides, power zones, and my favorite - themed rides (e.g., Grease theme, Britney vs Xtina, Greatest Showman, Pyeongchang Olympics rides, etc.)

Essentially, it's the Netflix of fitness.

I now find myself willingly turning off Netflix to get on the Peloton - because they're both equally entertaining. That's crazy.

Part of it is because the music is always on point. Music is such a key part of a workout. I tried Beachbody for a little while, and while it was intense and it made me good and sore - it's not as fun because it lacks awesome music and an inspiring setting, and most classes are almost an hour long. And without being inspired, I struggle to get and stay motivated.

Again, if working out is already tough - shouldn't it at least be fun?

3. PELOTON INSTRUCTORS WILL PUSH YOU, AND YOU WILL FALL IN LOVE WITH THEM

Every rider has their favorite instructors. They all have their own style, their own types of classes, and motivating catch phases. And when I'm off the bike, they remind me that I need to go work out on Insta - and of course I follow their amazing lives there.

"Are you ready? Yes or yes?" - Ally Love

"You didn't get up to be mediocre." - Robin Arzon

"This ain't daycare." - Alex Touissant

"I am. I can. I will. I do." - Christine D'Ercole

4. OTHER RIDERS WILL PUSH YOU

Equinox has an awesome competitive spin cycle class complete with a leaderboard with your name and everyone else's names so you can see who is pushing the hardest. You get to play games with the rest of the class… like a spin cycle tug of war… to create more output than the other team. It's amazing. And Equinox is amazing. But they're not in the Atlanta area 😭 so that's not an option for me right now.

Enter Peloton.

Every ride has a leaderboard so you can compete with every other rider who is taking or has taken that class. Sometimes it's more than 50K people! And I'm rarely in the front half of the pack. You can even filter the leaderboard by your age or your gender to see where you stand among people like you.

Side note: Hugh Jackman has a Peloton, and he recently placed 10th. Who was 1-9? 😲

The competitive side of it makes me push about 10x harder than I would if I didn't know where I stood among the competition. Which means - that I can use that data to beat my own personal best, and track my progress over time.

I don't know about you, but I'm totally motivated by fitness data, and by a little healthy competition.

5. THE PELOTON COMMUNITY WILL UPLIFT YOU EVERY SINGLE DAY

With all this said, the best part is not even the bike itself. It's the people that you're riding with. Peloton's closed Facebook Groups (there are many official and unofficial groups) uplift me and motivate me in all the off-bike hours.

People share their weight loss journeys, the things they discover about the bike/instructors/videos, photos of their home gyms, and best of all, their struggles and victories. There are always heart-tugging stories about cancer survivors using Peloton to fight harder.

BONUS REASON: PELOTON IS AN IMPRESSIVE COMPANY

And as a marketer, I can't help but love that Peloton is just a brilliant business model. They're already a $1b valued company after only a few years. In fact, in their first four years, they increased sales to $4MM in revenue - beating Facebook's, Apple's, and Google's revenue at their respective four year marks (adjusted for inflation) as noted by Peloton CEO John Foley in the closed member Facebook group. What makes them so successful is that they sell hardware (the bike and soon - the Tread), software (the video platform), and content (the classes) broadcasted LIVE from their studio. Influencers are baked into their business model, not tacked on in some random marketing plan. And the community is baked into the product - it wouldn't be successful without the 500,000+ people who ride every day.

The bottom line: I have never met one Peloton owner who didn't want to talk about it all day long. And that’s saying something.

After the Tread arrives in the Fall, I can't wait to see what they come out with next…