For the next 3-5 years, I don’t see Peloton spending too much time pursuing the performance segment of the market.
Their current user base is so different than TR, and their current fitness market segment is so big, they don’t need to pursue the much smaller performance oriented segment. It would be a distraction from their core business.
If anything, Peloton is more likely to compete with Zwift for the overlap between the segments.
I think you hit the nail on the head here. To be a “cyclist, skier, golfer”, or whatever means that you have some buy-in to the culture of the activity. That doesn’t necessarily mean you spend hours upon hours of time researching gear, reading race reports or whatever. But when I think of someone who is a cyclist (or skier, golfer) I think of something more than that person’s involvement in the sport starting and ending when they hop on and off the bike.
If I met a random person at a cocktail party and they said “I’m a cyclist” and you asked them what kind of bike they rode and they said “Peloton” my reaction would me “oh, ok”. Maybe that makes me snobby. I don’t think you can put a definition on ‘what a cyclist is’. But it’s like porn, you know it when you see it.
All that said, there is absolutely nothing wrong with Peloton, if it gets more people in shape that’s a good thing, we certainly need more of that. My gut as a non financial or fitness professional is that it will probably level out to fade away like most other fitness trends have. I’m not overly familiar with the product, but I don’t see any ‘special sauce’ that is going to keep people more interested than any of the other fitness trends we’ve seen over the years.
What if that same person replied with, “Zwift” or “Wahoo”? 
Fair question. Someone up-thread mentioned a ‘line in the sand’ and I don’t think there is one, like I said you know it when you see it 
But I guess my reaction is that the zwift or wahoo person is much more likely to be an outside rider, have interest in the culture etc. That may just be where the customer bases of each product is right now. May change in the next few years depending on what all these companies do
A point which I don’t think has been brought up is that cycling differs from other sports like skiing, golf, skating, ball sports, etc., simply because it is not stationary or fixed by location.
Either you do a neighbourhood loop all day long or eventually you find yourself a long way from home with only your bike & legs to get you back. Other sports are contained on a course, hill, arena, field, et al where you most likely have your car parked. You can stop at any time, get in your car & drive home.
In this way, Peloton is more like other activities and less like cycling.
Perhaps Peloton is to cycling as the driving range is to golf. If all I did was play mini golf, could I call myself a golfer? If I played only floor hockey, could I call myself a hockey player?
But all this distinction is neither here nor there. Getting more people more active is a good thing. Unfortunately, the overall trend in the populace is for more people to be less active and more obese. Good luck trying to conquer a culture, PTON.
If TR sticks with its niche market, they’ll never attain blockbuster status, but they will continue to be a viable company (profiting from both the heavy lifting and fallout from the rise & fall of billion dollar exercise businesses).
I don’t think there is enough of a market of dedicated cyclists for TR to ever become what Peloton is as far as market share goes. And I don’t think TR is aiming to be that company either. To me, Peloton is just another fitness fad like Keto, Paleo, Bowflex, I can’t even think of all the crap that has come and gone throughout the years. Peloton is great at milking money from their clients for a perceived premium experience. Arguably, the biggest cost of their machine is the screen, because the rest of it is so primitive in nature its almost like it came out of a 1990s catalog. They charge $2,500 for a machine that without the display isn’t even worth 1/2 of that, and still has a manually adjusting knob.
They have a Peloton store/booth/kiosk at some of our local malls, last time I stopped in and had a brief and painful chat with the sales girl, she had no idea what a smart trainer or zwift was, I didn’t even bother bringing up things like FTP based training. She did tell my wife “its got a great screen and the classes are really fun, have you seen our commercials?”.
Peloton won’t be the “in thing” in 2-3 years, mark my words…
I guess you can tell I’m not a fan
Speaking of fans…I don’t recall ever seeing any large industrial blower fans set up in any of their commercials. Wondering how many P-fans ditch the bike after realizing how GD sweaty things get. 
(add to that, there never seems to be any type of drip mat/floor covering to keep all that high-end hardwood flooring sweat/salt free. Ah, well…just one more thing for the maid to clean up!)
The thing that bugs me about this thread is the assumption that “we”, a minority of bicycle riders who take it a little too seriously, are “real” cyclists and have rightful ownership of that word. There’s a lot of snobbery in this thread.
Would you also say that “drivers” are people who go to track days, run racing tyres on their car, take an interest in motorsports, etc? Of course not. Because that would be silly. Drivers are people who drive cars for their own reason. Cyclists are people who ride bicycles for their own reason. I’m not sure what word identifies “us” as a subset of cyclists, but we are cyclists and so is anyone else who rides a bike (even a Peloton).
Interesting thread for me as I am a 4+ year Peloton owner (yes I still use it and exclusively do power or heart rate based workouts) and have a trainer for TR and Zwift. I’m a year round outdoor cyclist and also had a great 1st road racing season this year.
This season I used TR plans for training as a framework for training but would use Peloton classes sometimes which I knew fit the day’s plan on TR as well as adding in outdoor rides with a coach and my teammates. The TR calendar and analytics really helped (the Peloton rides sync right in there).
It seems that is an easy conclusion to draw, particularly taking an “observer view” of the posts. But my “interpretation” of most of the comments is that they are more of a “defensiveness” mindset, trying to draw a sharp line in the sand or concrete wall between the two target market or user bases.
IMO, the generalization may be accurate, but the line/wall is far from sharp, and in fact, there is a significant overlap. If one goes on Peloton as a user and looks at the “output” (measured in Watts) of the top 10-20% of Peloton users, it would be pretty easy to conclude that this is a group that not only would “do well against” the bottom 1/3 of TR users in a road race, but from a power standpoint, would fit into many of the upper tiers of the TR user base power charts.
To give just one example, I was visiting my friend, John, on Cape Cod that trains indoors exclusively on Peloton (and he is well aware of TrainerRoad as he follows my indoor and outdoor rides on Strava). While my FTP is 3.6WpKg, not only could he hang with me on the entire 25mi ride we did, but he could hold 300-400W on the hillier sections of road , including darting ahead when he chose to do so. He does many similar rides with his friends. Is John really only a fitness person and not a cyclist?
Similarly, over the past year here on the Forum, there have been several TR user posts stating that they just want to become fit with no specific performance goal, ride for fun with their friends and thus wanted to know what plan to follow as none stated “Get Fit” or similar (sound like a "Peloton” user?).
I think the larger opportunity and issue for TrainerRoad is not whether TR users want to characterize themselves as cyclists and Peloton users as fitness people, but the business opportunity/risks of both user growth and fluidity amongst the target user base (i.e. target market) - the #s are actually quite significant.
It’s sharp if said person is a Peloton only user w/ overlap created if said person also cycles outside.
Bottom line, PTON going public isn’t going to effect my personal cycling experience.
I fully understand and respect your personal decision! and the intention of the overall thread and the post above is in no way meant to influence a TR user to shift to Peloton.
The purpose of the thread - and perhaps I could have/should have expanded the title further to reflect that the question is of TR, the company/user base as whole, and not of a single existing TR user - is to get TR users feedback of the impact of Peloton’s expanded visibility and clear spectacular #s to back up that visibility, on TR’s prospects. I waited for about 80 posts to post my own as to not influence early contributors, but in summary I think there is a short term opportunity for TR with low risk, but the long term risks are quite significant.
Agreed.
Bit of a change of direction but I downloaded the Peloton app and Airplay’d it to the TV yesterday to see what the fuss was about.
I can see why people would get into this. The feeling that you’re in a live class is cool and the instructors are good looking and genuinely fit and strong looking (well the few that I tried).
Didn’t do a full class because I had a proper effort I wanted to do later in the day, and honestly, it’s a bit crap changing gears to go in and out of the saddle compared to what this would be like on a spin bike with just a quick flick of the resistance knob.
No reason at all why you couldn’t keep it in harder gears for the full workout and give yourself a proper session. Even have your HU record and show you power. You could get best of both worlds.
I do like the entertainment aspect of it, definitely a huge step up from looking at a movie or interval bars, and if this was setup so that the instructor was actually loading a workout which controlled the resistance on your smart trainer… well, now you might have something really special for roadies.
A lot of people are saying to me that Zwift’s group rides are pushing them way harder than normal. They’re not just sticking in their FTP and doing their workout - they’re actually increasing the FTP on the app to work towards the front. Clearly that’s a massive motivational boost coming from the social and competitive aspect. Super cool for getting through the harder workouts.
Initially I wasn’t thinking Peloton had anything to offer me. But on reflection that was a bit myopic on my part. Thinking something like that could have a hell of a lot to offer me now, but it would need a different form and to work with smart trainers.
If you’re still not imagining it, then consider Nate or another TR trainer leading a live class at TR HQ, and it’s streamed and the workout was loaded to your smart trainer. Bet you’d smash the intervals you usually struggle with most…
As seen this morning on men’s road race It’s official - UCI has no intention of supporting Peloton!
Went to the gym this morning and did Volunteer on Stages SC3 bike before lifting. It was an hour before cycling class, and 8 people had already reserved bikes. I knew 3 of them. None ride outside. They don’t consider themselves cyclist, they go into gym and do an hour of strength training followed by 45 minutes of cardio with a group of 20 (usually). At least around here, the majority of people I’ve met in cycling classes are just getting their cardio done. These are the same people that ask for my opinion of Peloton. While there are certainly cyclists in the Peloton community, I think cyclists are in the minority. Every power lifter I know with home gym has a cheap stationary bike. Most don’t ride, there are exceptions of course. I think those are fair generalizations.
So I presume by that comment with the accompanying picture in this thread that the UCI whole heartedly endorsed TrainerRoad?
I think the center points of the “typical” Peloton user are easy to characterize (e.g. fitness oriented) and similarly, that of the TrainerRoad user (e.g time-crunched cyclist/athlete). However, the boundaries of both the upper and lower ends of each category are not clear - it’s more of a Venn diagram overlap - with both opportunity and risks based on product offerings and market changes.
LOL when I saw that was half expecting to see Zwift on that top banner! Just adding some levity to the convo.
p.s. Bob I’m sure we could have some fun with a whiteboard talking about the market 
Absolutely!
Maybe next time there is another TR group ride here in the Bay Area you’ll be able to join or happy to go on a ride with you otherwise (once my knee gets fixed).
“If you’re still not imagining it, then consider Nate or another TR trainer leading a live class at TR HQ, and it’s streamed and the workout was loaded to your smart trainer. Bet you’d smash the intervals you usually struggle with most…”
It’s even better than that. Your friends are all riding with you live and can see when you slack off or challenge you to keep up. Can’t ride live? Do it on demand and try to keep up with your friends who took the class earlier. It’s very highly motivating to push hard when you know your best friends are watching and you’re going to have to talk about it later. To me - this is where Peloton absolutely nails the social aspect.
@Pbase Much of what you are describing is what took place at the TR user community-led Worldwide Disaster Workout Day (Dec 15, 2018). With little promotion of the event, over 100 TR users participated. The subsequent survey revealed tremendous enjoyment from this group event and desire to do it again (as well as additional such events). The event’s planning committee is working hard on the 2019 event that we will announce in a couple of weeks. Be sure to participate!
