SoulCycle Showed Me I’m a Hypocrite
I’m telling everyone now, but this is something I was too ashamed to admit to even my best friends for the longest time.
More than a year has passed since cancel culture came knocking on SoulCycle’s front door last August. I must admit it feels like a lifetime. That’s because SoulCycle, the indoor cycling giant, inadvertently handed me a new existential self-awareness … I’m a hypocrite.
Let me start by saying I am well aware there are much more serious problems going on in the United States right now, from the racial unrest to all the death and despair caused by COVID-19. Everything these days feels so heavy and serious, and this essay is not that.
If you can’t recall the big SoulCycle kerfuffle of 2019, allow me to refresh your memory.
The billionaire real estate tycoon Stephen Ross — owner of SoulCycle and its equally hoity-toity sister gym Equinox — was outed for hosting a Donald Trump fundraiser at his Hamptons home. For $100,000, attendees would get a photo and lunch with Trump, according to an article in the Washington Post. A cool $250,000 would buy not only lunch, but included a photo and invitation to a private roundtable discussion with the president.
Trump runs counter to the lefty, love-all messages of inclusivity that SoulCycle brandishes. And so it wasn’t totally surprising the internet broke in the wake of this news.
Celebrities including Chissy Tiegen and comedian Billy Eichner urged fans to boycott the popular fitness brands. It consumed the news cycle for days. SoulCycle’s dominance in the indoor cycle wars over, some surmised. Meanwhile, SoulCycle feverishly distanced itself from its Trump-supporting owner, but ridership still declined — at least for a bit.
This is where my personal epiphany begins. I must admit, I was one inside the leftist social media echo chamber posting anti-SoulCycle news.
“I love my YMCA and will always support them,” I captioned a Facebook post, never mind that I’d never been to a SoulCycle class. In fact, I knew nothing about it. That SoulCycle was tangentially connected to Trump was enough for me to dismiss everything about it.
Not long after word of the fancy Hamptons Trump fundraiser came to light, my friends and I discussed various aspects of the story during a casual Friday-night dinner party.
“Why would anyone pay 35 bucks for a 45-minute spin class?” I asked. The cost per class was almost half the monthly dues I paid at the Y for a family membership that includes childcare.
“There has to be something to it,” my friend replied. Otherwise why is it this popular? “Maybe they give you a magical potion that makes you lose ten pounds on the spot!”
“I overheard some ladies at Starbucks saying Giselle goes to SoulCycle in Chestnut Hill (a nearby neighborhood),” I said. We laughed and proceeded to drink our cabernets, while the guys at the party listened on, perplexed.
But the day after the dinner party, I was still thinking about SoulCycle. What is the allure of an expensive cycle class? Was it the gratification of paying more money for a standard product? The same idea of paying for something “luxury” just to make you feel rich?
That’s when I decided to try it. I purchased a “first-time rider class” for $20, thinking I’d have more ammo in my contrarian war chest.
I showed up to the grapefruit-scented studio, taking in the sparkling white walls and free hair ties and earplugs.
“I’ve never been here,” I told the college-age woman at the front desk. She was friendly and patient, pulled my cycle cleats, which I’d never worn before, from the shelf and helped adjust the bike to fit my height.
The class was dark, candles showcased the instructor’s sinewy body. There was music — really good music, like Lizzo, Drake, and Riri remixes I’d never heard before — and lots of bass. It felt like the days in my early 20s when I used to frequent downtown dance clubs in New York City. To my surprise, however, the instructor mentioned the Trump fundraiser. Many instructors were gay, lesbian, as she was, or people of color. This news had upset SoulCycle insiders too, along with those outside.
“Well how was it?” Mark, my husband, asked right when I walked through the door.
“It was the most fun I’ve ever had while working out,” I told him.
He gave me a blank stare. “Why?”
It was the pounding music, the effervescent instructors, the infectious energy. It was the first time I’d gone to an exercise class and not looked at the clock every five minutes, I said.
Still I didn’t know what was next. I was embarrassed I liked SoulCycle so much. I could never go back after all the smack I’d talked — about Trump, the ridiculous cost of the classes. It was all so silly and frivolous, I reasoned. I could take cycle classes at half the cost of this.
That week I went took a cycle class the gym where I have a membership. I found myself watching the clock again. The clock hand ticked down minute by minute while “It’s raining men” played and the instructor talked over it.
The thing is, SoulCycle was fun. A lot of fun. But if I wanted to go back there, I needed to acknowledge the conflict living inside me. Humans are full of contradictions. The reason this business is so popular is because people love it, including me. Does it matter if a Trump supporter owns something that provides joy to many, and employees athletic instructors of all races and beliefs? I’m not sure there’s a “right” answer, but for me the joy of going to these classes outweighed the reasons not to go.
Liberals like me may not enjoy hearing this but it’s true: I don’t like the notion that with every class I’m incrementally making Ross, who financially supports Trump’s re-election bid, wealthier, but I don’t hate it enough to forgo SoulCycle. We all make compromises in life. My best friend shops at Hobby Lobby despite disagreeing with the store owner’s stance on women’s rights. Or, you may be a Reagan-loving republican but get books at the library or drive on the Interstate highways — both forms of socialism.
I grappled with this gray area for a while. I’d mocked a company I knew nothing about solely on the basis of its owner supporting Trump. I started slow, going to SoulCycle classes here and there. But it morphed into regular riding. My husband saw how much I loved the classes and started going too, and entirely on his own accord.
It also became part of my weekly writing routine. Pre-pandemic, I’d book a Sunday morning SoulCycle class, wake up early that day to go write at a Starbucks nearby.
This cycling studio had become part of the routine before the pandemic and lockdown arrived and the world became so small.
In a world that feels ungrounded, we all long for the comforts of our former lives. One day, I hope to go back to the loud music, the dark studios packed to the gills with riders, to a place I recognize as normalcy.
