I just assume people like being at the top of leaderboards and just ride their own rides starting at 55+ resistance from the jump. This is what i tell myself as i cant sleep at night finishing in the bottom half of most rides while following the instructors guidance.
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Podcasts are your friend over an hour. Also, having a quiet mind helps
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How to people watch/listen to other things while taking a Peloton class? Doesn’t that effectively defeat the purpose of taking the class?
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you’re just limiting yourself if you think of the ranges as absolutes. No, I do not stay within the resistance range. But I still think I follow the instructions and class. I stay in the cadence ranges they ask for, and adjust my resistance “plus factor” depending on how I’m feeling that day and the difficulty of the class.
I usually start around +7 above the stated ranges at the warmup (usually 42), and go from there. If they ask for 50-60 resistance, I go to 67 during that segment. If I’m feeling good through the first couple segments, I might bump it up to +10. But I always follow along with the class.
I don’t think of that as cheating, the instructors talk about maintaining form, and if you’re bouncing around to add resistance all the time. 40-42 is about my floor for where I can keep my form.
I can’t stress how much of this is mental, and believing you can push through it. It’s not like traditional sports where you’re totally gassed but react to the play or whatever almost out of instinct. This is a repetitive, 100% on you just deciding you want to do it activity. Emma is one of my favorites because I do listen to her “call outs,” or challenges. Often in her rides she’ll call out a range, and then half way through ask you to turn it up to your highest resistance of the ride. Or she’ll tell you that there’s a 1min break after this section, and to hit an output you’re not comfortable that you can maintain. She’ll remind you that she said 60-80, but the knob goes to 100. Don’t let the class programming hinder your progress.
but you’re damn right I like being at the top of the leaderboard.
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It depends on the class. For PZ Endurance classes there are long stretches at a single zone and it can honestly get boring (though it does have a purpose). Watching sports at least casually when you’re just keeping it at the same pace is fairly straightforward
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but also you
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ah ok that makes sense
I had it re-calibrated a couple months ago. 
Some say “tomato” and I say “tocheater”
I know I know - I’ll stop ribbing you about this one day. I promise.
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I can do it only under these circumstances:
PZ Endurance (45-60) bc the intervals can be up to 6-10 minutes long at a moderate cadence/resistance. So, Z2/3 intervals.
Closed captioning so I can read while I listen with one earbud in.
Ride Wilpers bc the music isn’t worth listening to while pedaling.
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If I insinuated “cheating” - apologies that’s not what i meant. My current fitness level doesn’t allow me to exceed the given ranges…i try to ignore the leaderboard…on my own journey and all that. I was more saying it making fun of myself. My bad if it didn’t come off that way.
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Thinking about jumping in to the peloton universe, any chance people have a referral code or whatever? Even if it doesn’t net me anything I figured I’d help out a fellow refugee while I start.
Yep hold please
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I usually pull up DVR golf from that day / the day before when I ride. It’s just passive enough that if I need to feel like I’m ignoring the ride for a little bit, I watch a few shots (read: putts and / or commercials) before focusing back in on the ride.
OK, here’s my referral: JY2DQW
I think it only gets you off like $100, but it gives me $100 in credit for apparel. I think. But feel free to use it! $100 is $100, right?
You should absolutely do it, it’s amazing and they just lowered the cost of the original bike.
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Just did my first Emma ride. That’s quite the ego check, could not keep up at all. Next goal is to finish a whole ride in the yellow for resistance and cadence for a 20 minuter.
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nah, all good. I was probably too defensive about it.
I meant to provide motivation. I started out with the bike in Jan, with outputs in the upper 200s for 30min, looking at guys like @anon43372372 as having otherworldly rides. I’ve effectively doubled my output in 6mos.
I’m a regular dude. There’s no reason others can’t see the same progress I have. Don’t let the instructor ranges limit your growth.
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I agree with this, we use to take a class at a spin studio with a live scoreboard - I always rode over the suggested resistance levels and thus was near the top of the leaderboard. My wife called me a cheater a few times, until she actually beat me
They also have deals for first responders, nurses, military, etc if you fall into that bucket. They have a chat feature on the website to go through for those deals
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