Staying Postive: BRCA positive: Peloton Anniversary

As of today, July 6th, I have been a Peloton member for 1 full year. What a year it’s been!

There are a lot of opinions about Peloton, thanks to that commercial and the high price. I gave gotten some criticism or side glances for the choice to invest, but here’s my analysis of it.

In one year, I did 508 total work outs with Peloton. This includes a majority of them on the bike, but also treadmill, guided meditations, some strength, yoga, and stretching classes through their app.

If I had paid the regular price for a Peloton, $2245 and membership $39 per month. The grand total cost would be $468 + $2245 = $2713. That means $7.44 per day for the year. Continuing on though, I will only have the membership cost, so that cost per day will only go down from here as we own and use it longer. If I look at this cost in comparison to the number of workouts I did in a year (508) thats $5.34 per work out. Not awful...that’s the going rate some places where you do a punch card or what you'd pay for drop in for classes.

my scoreboard

However, we didn’t pay that for our bike. I started as just an app user. I thought the concept was intriguing, but wanted to try it out before committing. I had a knee injury among all my other reconstruction in the past and wanted to make sure it would be something that wouldn’t cause pain. I started with just the app on my phone and would use the old schwinn bike in the school weight room. I was able to get 3 months of the subscription for free. I would also cast the app onto a tv and use the treadmill or strength workouts both in the weight room and at home. So my cost for the membership is cut to $39 x 9 = $351.

After proved to myself that I consistent i consistently used and loved it for 3 months, I decided we should to invest in the actual bike. I dedicated a portion of my tutoring money to the Peloton fund and kept watching the site to see if they ever ran sales. I scoured Craigslist and Facebook market place for used ones. It took awhile to find one locally that was for sale by someone who appeared to be not scamming us. Finally, in October I found the perfect used one that made us pull the trigger. A local person was selling one with all the accessories. As we started communicating about it, he indicated that it was used once. He bought it but never could get himself clipped in/out using the shoes, so decided to get rid of it. He turned out to be a man in his 70s and even said "I don't mind going for a drive on a Sunday, so for $50 more we can deliver it to you." We paid him $1850 for essentially a brand new bike with two of every accessory and delivery.

So my cost was actually at $1850 + $351 = $2201 for the bike and year of membership. This works out to $6.03 per day which divided by my workouts = $4.33 per workout.

Mitch's scoreboard

However, I am not the only one who uses it. Once Mitch saw how awesome of a workout it was, he started riding too. It's now a battle to see who can get on the bike first after we come home from work. That would make a better commercial Peloton! Because the membership is per bike, you can have as many family member accounts as you want, so the kids have one too. So when you add in the 234 workouts that he's done and the 10 rides that our kids have done, our account has done a total of 752 workouts in a year.
$2201 divided by 752 work outs means $2.92 per workout

PLUS Mitch works for a company that offers rewards for being active and staying heathy. You earn "Vitality Points" for getting 10,000 steps in a day, working out, buying healthy food, getting regular doctor check ups, etc. These points can be redeemed like credit card points for flights, hotels, Amazon gift cards, etc. In the past ten years we've used them to buy...my DLSR camera, Dyson vacuum, a huge snowblower, and a gas grill. All this for just wearing a fit bit and being willing to scan a card when we shop at Walmart and letting them see how often we buy bananas and spinach.

While it would be awesome if the Vitality company would partner with Peloton to offer some discounts on the machines or something, they do not. COME ON, Vitality and Peloton! However, Vitality does offer each member a gym rebate for up to $400 in gym fees per year. So we get a rebate for our monthly membership paid out by Vitality, making our grand total paid for membership per year $68 rather than $468. Also with the Peloton we are now maxing out on the activity points you can earn each year, which is in turn earning us more Amazon gift cards that I'm already itching to spend.

So our final calculation for our cost of our Peloton for 1 year is:
$1850 + $68 (membership) = $1918 / 752 work outs = $2.55 per workout--a rate that is totally worth it to me.

Between the Peloton work outs and my recent surgery to explant and revise my reconstruction, I have never felt better. I am stronger both mentally and physically. I feel good in my skin again. I turned 38 years old and feel better than I since I began my BRCA journey over 8 years ago. Hell, I wore a bikini at beach the other day for the first time since our honeymoon 14 years ago! And what's been amazing to me is that it hasn't been about the amount of weight loss. I honestly have no idea where that's at and I really don't feel a need to check because I'm feeling good and that's all that matters.

somewhere on a beach

The instructors and community of riders have been awesome to get to know and are incredibly supportive. I've been able to get to know a group of Peloton riders that are also breast cancer survivors, teachers, and fans of a type of ride called "Power Zone Training." There is a camaraderie and sense of teamwork that I had no idea would be part of this. While it's not the same as those friends that I met while working out at Energy Fitness, this is a good fit for me and where I'm at in life right now.

Nerf gun is always within arms reach

We don't have a beautiful work out room and haven't put our bike in front of a window with some amazing view. Come on Peloton, get some more realistic commercials! But it has been a great addition to our home and well worth the investment. If you're considering getting a Peloton, please use my referral code 79YDQD as both you and I get bonus swag! See you on the leaderboard!