Departure of big-name Peloton instructors is not a good sign for fans
Ross Rayburn, Kristin McGee and Kendall Toole just taught their last classes
Longtime readers know I'm low-key obsessed with Peloton. We’ve owned our bike since 2020, like absolutely everyone else, though even before the pandemic I'd given up on in-person spin classes.
They were expensive and humid and inconveniently timed and — not infrequently! — absurd. (I refuse to race other women to the locker room showers like a Hunger Games contestant fleeing the cornucopia.)
But it would appear that most people don’t share my lingering antipathy for in-person fitness. Peloton is tanking — has been for years — and no one in a long chain of successors seems able to right it.
The latest sign of this corporate spin-out was last week's departure of instructors Ross Rayburn, Kristin McGee and Kendall Toole, who taught their last classes on June 29 and 30.
Like many of their peers, Rayburn, McGee and Toole have dabbled more and more obviously in non-Peloton side hustles in recent months, from modeling to affiliate sales on social media.
McGee started a Substack in April. Toole just launched a podcast. Eight instructors have published books in the past year or so — including Rayburn, who has hit the press circuit hard to promote his.
The side hustles, even more than the executive shuffling or the free-falling stock price, feel like a terrible omen to me: a sign that even Peloton’s instructors are actively looking for their Plan B.
Peloton, for its part, indicated in a June 30 press release that the three instructors left after normal contract negotiations: "We are excited about the opportunity to bring new talent to our Instructor roster to continue offering an impactful and entertaining experience for our Community," the company said.
I hope that's true, because there’s no Plan B where I’m concerned: Peloton absolutely ruined me for gyms. Also, it took months to pay off this bike. I'm not walking away from THAT investment.
Caitlin Dewey is a reporter and essayist based in Buffalo, N.Y. She was the first digital culture critic at the Washington Post and has hired fake boyfriends, mucked out cow barns and braved online mobs in pursuit of stories for outlets including The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Guardian, The Cut, Elle, Slate and Cosmopolitan.