SoulCycle: A bike that transfers you to another world

Alone on a stationary bike, you can spin your wheels: Boredom sets in and your workout stalls. Imagine a spiritual cardio party where the lights are dimmed, the music is pumping, and your body is moving so quickly you feel like you're flying. That's SoulCycle. "You are sort of dropping all the senses," says Rice, who cofounded the cycling empire with Cutler in 2006.

 "When we set out to create SoulCycle, there were plenty of ways to burn calories, but none were social and joyful," Rice says. Classes incorporate dance moves and upper-body and core exercises, so riders travel—up, down, left, and right—as one. The room brims with collective consciousness, not competition. Instructors are part DJ, part guru with intensely loyal followers, many of whom consider noon on Monday, when online registration opens, to be their most important appointment of the week.

SoulCycle now has 14 outposts in New York and California, and a partnership with Equinox means it will eventually reach over 35 locations. And though it attracts a glamorous clientele of fashion types and celebrities—Katie Holmes, Kelly Ripa, and Chelsea Clinton are regulars, and Lady Gaga and Lena Dunham celebrated their birthdays at SoulCycle—there's no VIP section, unless you count the front row. It's this energy and inclusiveness that turns riders into zealots. "The strength you feel on the bike can correlate with the strength you feel in the outside world," says Cutler. Adds Rice, "There's this positivity that radiates from each person when they leave the studio. That's the soul in SoulCycle."

Έχεις κάνει ποτέ SoulCycle; Αν όχι, ήρθε η ώρα να το δοκιμάσεις.Φαντάσου ένα χώρο όπου τα φώτα είναι χαμηλά, η μουσική στο τέρμα και υπάρχουν πολλά ποδήλατα ειδικά σχεδιασμένα γι'αυτό το σκοπό. Υπάρχουν στιγμές που ξεχνάς πού βρίσκεσαι. Η ένταση είναι τόσο μεγάλη και η προπονήτρια φωνάζει τόσο πολύ και είναι τόσο πορωμένη που δεν μπορείς να χαλαρώσεις ούτε λεπτό.