A few weeks ago my mother and I went to our first ever SoulCycle class in the newly opened Chestnut Hill location.
What. An. Experience.
I overhear a lot of Long Island-y type of girls from school talk a lot about SoulCycle or wear the little SoulCycle leggings or tank tops around to class, so I was always curious about what it was. My mother had acquired free passes to what is otherwise quite an expensive hobby? Addiction? Workout? All of the above? So one morning, we naively decided to give it a try.
At $20 for your first visit they get ya hooked, and then raise the price to $37 plus $3 to rent the little bike shoes required for the special bikes. And as absurd as it may sound, I can totally rationalize why someone would want to spend $40 to get their ass handed to them by some guy named Chad with biceps the size of my torso.
Because you feel GREAT afterwards.
But first you feel a lot of other things...
First of all the room is dark. Like really dark. Music is BLASTING. And everyone, and I really mean everyone, was skinny, pretty, and dressed head to toe in Lululemon.
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| Picture taken from SoulCycle's website. |
I kind of felt like I was at a frat party that was cycling themed.
The instructor (Chad) had his own little stage and a DJ set up next to his bike and the music was SO good, honestly the music is what made the class. We were encouraged to "pedal to the bass," which only made it feel frattier. It was also kind of like trying to dance while also exercising harder than possibly ever before...so oftentimes balance was kind of an issue.
At one point Chad told us to reach behind ourselves for the weights strapped to the back of our bikes. I thought he was playing a sick joke but, no, there really were weights. He instructed us to "punch out our stress," with the weights which actually did kind of work.
Throughout the class I felt energized, I felt strong, I felt weak and like jelly, I felt like I wanted to smile do a little "woop!" like some of the other women were, and I felt like I wanted to cry. But after all that at the end I felt like I had reached some sort of catharsis. It was a full emotional roller coaster and I couldn't wait to ride it again.
