Families That Bike Together… Sweat Together?

There was one holiday commercial this winter everyone was talking about. Cheesy and painful to watch, it portrayed a young woman expressing overwhelming gratitude for receiving a gift that induces sweat, exhaustion, and face contortions like you’re passing a kidney stone. The object of her appreciation was her wonderful husband, whom she gazed at with such loving affection, it seemed impossible to believe. I mean, I’ve done some pretty awesome things for my wife, and she has never looked at me like that. Not even when I proposed or said “I do”. Naturally I was inspired, and so for Christmas this year, I bought my wife a Peloton.

Ok who am I kidding, I bought myself the Peloton and passed it off as a gift for “us.” My wife doesn’t need it. She’s a badass who makes me look like I’m stuck in slow motion. She’s already done the Pan-Mass Challenge three times, and I made the incredible mistake of suggesting I’d do it with her this year, even though my rear hasn’t touched a road bike seat in over twenty years. To survive this nightmare, I was in desperate need of something to train on.

Sure, there are a lot of other options I could have gone with. Indoor trainers are great to mount a road bike on, only, I don’t own a bike yet. I could join a gym, but a 40-minute workout is really a 2-hour work interruption, when you consider the time it takes to get over there, shower, and drive back to work. And even if it wasn’t winter and I did own a bike, I’m not interested in road training. I’m the guy driving the Chevy Silverado, cursing out cyclists for hogging up the road during the morning commute. Well, I curse them out in my mind anyway. I also fantasize about jerking my steering wheel into them, but I never do it.

So, it was Peloton or bust for me. I have no delusions that my wife will ever look at me like the girl from the commercial, but maybe, if I’m lucky, she’ll stop looking at me like I have one foot in the grave. I’m two weeks into my Peloton “journey” now, and I have to say, I love it. I’ve lost several races to members of the greatest generation, was soundly whooped by an extremely overweight 50-year-old from Brooklyn, and my best finish put me right around 10,000^th place…out of 15,000. Despite my results, my lovely British instructors tell me I’m doing great, like, realllly, really great. And you know what, I actually believe them. I’m feeling like next week, I might break into the 9000ths!

But it doesn’t matter what place I finish in. Or that my wife is thousands of places in front of me. The Peloton really was a gift for “us”, because I thought this seemed like a good thing we could do together. Her, so she can get to do what she loves from home, and me, so I can try to keep up. Turned out to be a pretty good gift. My wife loves it as much as I do, and as an unintended consequence, so do my kids. Something we can all enjoy together is a good thing, especially as the children make their hideous transformation into teenagers who want nothing to do with us. Hey, maybe shared gifts will be my new present-giving strategy from now on. Next gift will be a little easier on the wallet though. Perhaps a really nice board game or a forced family night out to dinner. As they say, it’s not about the bike.

Disclaimer: This post was not paid for by Peloton to repair its reputation for drawing the collective ire of the Twitterverse. I’m sure you will be just as happy getting an Echelon or a NordicTrack or one of the other ones out there. Me and my new Peloton family fully support you, wherever your journey takes you.