#46: Baby's First SoulCycle

SHORT STORY

Give a girl a free workout subscription and she’ll sign up for a SoulCycle class. Give a girl a free SoulCycle class and she’ll narrowly escape a cult.

Ari walked into the studio Wednesday morning matching set clad, but it wasn’t SET or alo, so there was no hope of blending in. The girls at the counter were too bouncy for the hour and too cool to care about her Midwestern charm (see: over apologizing). Free sticks of gum and mints and hair ties and ear plugs (?) sat on the counter next to $18 boxed water. She was asked her shoe size (10, humiliating) and given the “tour” which was basically, “here’s a locker, here’s the door to the studio, bye.” No mention of the bathrooms or the showers with the fancy soaps she’d heard so much about. No matter, she was there to sweat. She strapped up her toddleresque velcro shoes and click-clacked like a clydesdale to bike 39.

The same cool-hot-probably-hated-her desk girl helped her get clipped in. The process was surprisingly difficult and included some very cool very casual pedal stomping and wheel halting.

At one point, Ari felt a little more snug on her shoe-pedal and thought I’m in! So she said, “Oh, I think I’m in.” To which the hot-cool girl replied, “You’re not.”

Ari knows there’s a dick joke in there somewhere, but her b-hole is too sore to noodle on it right now. After several minutes, the hot-cool desk girl declared she would, “just do it herself.” And she did. She walked around to the other side of the bike and hammered Ari’s foot right in. Except Ari wasn’t ready for the hammering and teetered over to one side, crashing into the bike 8 inches from hers. (Any OG Ari fans flooded with the memory of a similar situation circa sixth grade? It’s the big-footed recurring trauma for me.) Did I mention the studio was filled with approximately one thousand bikes all positioned within a foot from one another? Cramped like airplane seating and designed for rigorous exercise. Basically, hell. Ari let out a little Hoosier, “Ope, sorry!” and climbed back onto her bike, leaving her pride at the base of her neighboring one.

The class began when the instructor — black sports bra, black leggings with a skull and crossbones (spooky), long loose dark curls, and a Britney mic — leapt onto the raised platform at the front of the studio. This leaping was absolutely reckless and unsafe considering that the entire platform was covered in lit, scented Anthropologie candles. She stood up there, clipped effortlessly into her pedals, and swished her dark mane, like a saint on an altar. The riders were there to worship, and she would be their guide.

“Hello, Family,” she crooned.

“Hello,” the riders replied in eery unison.

“I love you. Let’s ride.”

The lights were dimmed. The desk girls lined the walls in front of the doors, watching them like guards. There was no leaving without going past them. It didn’t matter. She couldn’t unclip on her own anyway. She was stuck. Stationary bikes famously have nowhere to go.

They began with an uphill climb, which was of course imaginary and based only in the feeling of a climb as simulated by raising the resistance on the bike. The woman in front of her bounced easily to the pop remix rhythms, her light grey bike shorts unblemished and dry as a bone. We’ll see how long that lasts, Ari thought as sweat began to pool in her seat. The woman’s grey booty bounced and lunged in front of her in perfect time.

They rode.

A hot girl (not blonde, so brave) in the front, who had absolutely done this before chomped away at one of those free sticks while she tightened her perfect pony in the studio mirror. Ari thought why not me? lean in. etc. and popped in a piece of her own. Because did I mention her matching set had pockets? Those rich bitches should have been jealous of her gum storage capabilities. She was looking cool, or at least cool-adjacent. She couldn’t see herself in the studio mirrors because those hot desk girls stuck the newbies and the uglies in the back, farthest from the light, so they didn’t detract from the beautiful paying customers’ experience. Ari chomped to the beat and chomped in the heat and chomped til the gum was no longer sweet. When it had lost its flavor, she began to regret ever chewing it at all. What was she going to do? Put it back in her legging pocket? Stewing on this chewing and completely losing the impossible rhythm of the class, she became very aware of the gum in her mouth and by proxy, the saliva pooling around it before sliding down her throat. She needed to stop thinking of her throat.

“Family! Feel the rhythm in your soul.”

Ari could not feel the rhythm. She could only feel the gum growing stiffer in her cotton mouth. Throat tightening.

“Family! I love you. Let’s ride!”

All the bodies in the room hunched forward low over their handlebars. Ari lurched to do the same, but the gum caught. She began to choke. Gasping for breath, she sat up on her bike. Ass to the seat. A cardinal SoulCycle sin. The woman to her right shot her a dirty look, still low over her handlebars. Ari’s hands were up to her throat, the universal sign for choking. The woman rolled her eyes. It was her time to ride! Ari began to panic. She turned to the woman on her left. Begging for air. Maybe if she could unclip from the pedals she could Heimlich herself over this pointy-ass seat. There was no time. She’d never get out of the clips in time. She was trapped, oxygenless. Finally, she threw her arm out and smacked the rider-to-her-left’s shoulder. The woman punched her swiftly in the throat, the gum went flying, and they both went back to the ride.

I’m kidding. Do you really think Ari felt confident enough to take a piece of the free gum when it was sitting unmarked, no price tag or free sign, next to an $18 single serving of water? Even after she saw ponytail girl take one for free, no charge? Not a chance. She chewed no gum and there was no choking, but she did fixate on the possibility of this scene while she watched the ponytail girl ride up front, and in the process, she completely lost the rhythm she barely had in the first place.

They rode.

Have you ever smelled rich people sweat? It’s different than normal B.O. All their fancy lotions and perfumes melt off and the air becomes sickly sweet. Or maybe it was Ari’s B.O. mixing with the Anthropologie candles because there wasn’t a wet pit in sight. Women kept dabbing themselves with the towels, but for what? Ari’s was soaked, a drippy puddle of sweat pooling around her bike. Meanwhile, half of those women had their hair fully down, blowouts intact.

Ari’s wrists began to hurt from all the handlebar leaning and head banging to Megan Thee Stallion’s “Girls in the Hood.” The moment she realized this, the instructor made an announcement.

“Family! Your wrists should not be hurting. If your wrists are hurting, you’re doing it wrong.”

Was she inside her head? Ari panicked.

“You’re a hot girl. You do hot shit. I love you. Unless your wrists are hurting and then you’re a piece of hot shit who shouldn’t be in the class. Not like an attractive shit. Hot like temperature. You’re a steaming shit who doesn’t deserve this Family. I don’t love you.”

How much of that had she actually said out loud? What was the modification for hurt wrists?

“Let’s turn up that resistance, Family!”

Someone up front let out a “whoop!” followed by someone else’s “ow-oww!'“ Then a woman just outside Ari’s periphery let out an “AAAAUUUUURRGGHHHHHH!!!!” like she was being brutally murdered.

“Family, give me a smile! SMILE!”

Fifty blonde women smiled with all their teeth toward the studio mirror. Ari couldn’t muster one. Her wrists still hurt.

A woman in the front squeezed her eyes tight, her hand lifted to the heavens. She was smiling and…crying? All of a sudden she burst into bright, manic laughter. I think she came on the seat.

Ari fixated on the neon sign in the corner of the room: Take your journey. Change your body. Find your soul.

“Family! I love you. Let’s ride.”

This was the final push. For some reason, they played “Wonderwall.” The mural in the studio, a jumble of white, black, and gray in the dark, reminded them the goal was to be, “addicted, obsessed, unnaturally attached to our bikes, high on sweat and the hum of the wheel.” Something in the bouncy bilateral stimulation put their psyches in sync. Luckily, Ari never found the rhythm. The Cycle couldn’t seep into her soul. Her body emerged unchanged, soul still missing as far as the altar could tell. She’d made it through. She escaped. She had sweat stains pluming from her crack, across her cheeks, and down her thighs. The grey bike shorts girl was still dry. It pays to sell your soul to the cycle.

Ari limped home, pulse in her sit bones, and pulled her buttcheeks apart in the bathroom mirror and see if her crack was bruised. It wasn’t. Not yet. But it would feel like it for days. There’s no longer solace in sitting, shitting. There is only Family. I love you. Let’s ride.*

*Adding this footnote so I don’t get sued by SoulCycle. I am a drama queen and obviously parts of this are fictionalized. The SoulCycle girlies were actually very kind. One of them called me yesterday to ask if I was sore (I was) and inform me of a sweet new deal they’re doing where you get two weeks of classes for $99…!(?) I politely acted like I’d consider it even though I think we both knew I’m not going back. Still though, as far as cults go it seems cool and relatively healthy. So if you’re in the market for a cult and you have the cash, give SoulCycle a try. Wow, actually now I feel like I should email this to their headquarters because maybe I should be a brand ambassador? #girlboss #cultcutie #letsride

Family! I love you,

Ari