1. Part of the $44/mo Peloton subscription is subsidized by the $2500 bikes. Given that they fucked up by scaling production to a vastly overestimated demand fo

1. Part of the $44/mo Peloton subscription is subsidized by the $2500 bikes. Given that they fucked up by scaling production to a vastly overestimated demand forecast AND that increasing the subscription price for all members will lead to future problems also, it makes total sense for Peloton to reclaim some of the value this way. 2. As others noted here, Peloton bikes sell for well under MSRP in the secondary market. A $1000 used Bike+ (or Bike with the swivel attachment) and a $95 one time activation fee is much cheaper than spending $2500 new before taxes and delivery fees. 3. I did road cycling for a long time. I still do, but much less frequently than I did in the past. Raced for a little. (I was terrible, but also not very committed.) Peloton is amazing. The instructors are top-notch. Way better than your local cycle instructor, on average. The programming is vast and really well done. There's something for everyone. The community is quite social, if you're into that (I am not). The bike itself is really well made as well. Nothing cheap about it. I'm especially fond of the auto-resistance feature because it gives me a good ballpark as to how hard I should be working to get the most out of whatever class I'm taking. (The resistance on the bike is extremely well calibrated and calibrates on boot, I believe. This is a huge problem at cycling studios, since you're usually using beat-up bikes that haven't been calibrated in a while.) You can absolutely get some other spin bike, strap a tablet onto it and use Peloton that way, but I think you'd be missing out on a lot. You could also fix your road bike to a trainer and use something like Zwift, Strava or Wahoo but that's an entirely different thing.