Nowadays I’m hugely passionate about indoor cycling, but 20 years ago I came at things from a design perspective. I used to work in the furniture industry, and prior to that had been involved in the design of other products too, from textiles to fashion accessories and glasses. Design has always been my first love and forte. 

“We believe even the best can always be better. We’re constantly creating, which is what makes my job fun”

At the time, the model was the BODY BIKE Classic. I was fascinated by its quality, but believed a few design changes could make it even better. That included fully enclosing the bike to protect all vital parts from sweat, making it even more long-lasting – an attribute BODY BIKE has always been famous for.

Since then, we’ve continued to push the design boundaries in pursuit of the perfect indoor bike. We believe even the best can always be better – an ethos that’s kept me enthused and engaged over my two decades at BODY BIKE. We’re constantly creating, which is what makes my job fun.

What’s driven your product evolution?

We’ve always given ourselves permission to innovate and experiment at BODY BIKE, which is ultimately what drives our product evolution.

But in terms of key themes over the years, I’d have to spotlight technology and sustainability – both things we couldn’t have predicted 20 years ago.

Back then, cycling classes were screen-free. Now there’s an interest in performance data, so in 2016 we launched the BODY BIKE app; we’ve never believed consoles to be the best approach, as we believe riders should own their own data.

“We’re on a mission to make all our models sustainable, using recycled materials and reducing each bike’s CO2 footprint.”

Meanwhile, sustainability has become a mantra at BODY BIKE. Our sustainable BODY BIKE Smart+ siblings – OceanIX and Forest Green – blazed such a strong trail that we’re now on a mission to make all our models sustainable, using recycled materials in their manufacture and working to further reduce each bike’s already-low CO2 footprint.

And now, in 2024, we’re about to unveil our latest evolution: the new BODY BIKE Phantom, which launches at FIBO next month. With its magnetic braking system, Quattro resistance knob – four clicks per turn for precise gear changes – and inbuilt usage tracking so clubs can rotate bikes for even greater longevity, this fantastic new model continues to move the dial for riders and operators alike.

Has the company changed much?

The ethos and philosophy at BODY BIKE are essentially unchanged from 27 years ago. Each bike is still lovingly hand-crafted in Denmark, with quality, creativity and passion at the heart of what we do. The team is also only 20 per cent larger than it was at the beginning, with great continuity over the years. BODY BIKE was founded in 1997 by Jørgen ‘Peiter’ Petersen, who remained a mentor and brand enthusiast until he passed away in 2017. It is now led by his son Kim Hessellund, who joined the business in 1999. There’s a real sense of family, with several team members with us from the very beginning.

But we have grown and evolved, of course. We now wholly own a 12,000sq m factory in the north of Denmark, including on-site metalworks, and you’ll find our bikes in all corners of the world. In fact, although we’re proudly Danish and have a strong local fan base, 80 per cent of our production is now exported. We also launched BODY BIKE APAC last year: our first investment in establishing our company overseas rather than using local distributors.

Where else does your creativity shine?

We’ve become magazine publishers, launching RIDE HIGH in 2017 – a brand-neutral publication that champions and celebrates indoor cycling around the world. Anyone can promote their own products. I really wanted to bring something to the table that would inspire our whole sector on to even greater things. I’m hugely proud of what RIDE HIGH has become –the fascinating people we’ve interviewed and the great insights and perspectives we’ve shared.

“I wanted to bring something to the table that would inspire our whole sector on to even greater things. I’m hugely proud of RIDE HIGH.”

We have a lot of fun with our FIBO stands too: from spaceships to forests, we create out-of-the-ordinary, crowd-drawing spaces.

And in 2021, we launched BBCARGO: a sister brand to BODY BIKE. This best-in-class eCargo bike puts all our sustainability learnings and bike-building expertise to good use. It just felt like the right thing to do given all the environmental pressures on the world around us.

How has indoor cycling changed?

The arrival of the boutiques was a big one. These beautiful spaces, with their rockstar instructors and incredible music and light shows, took riders into another world, while ‘dancing on a bike’ programming brought a new element of fun to indoor cycling. All of this has driven a dramatic change in consumer expectations, forcing other operators to up their game.

We’ve also seen the diversification of programming generally. From the old days of fitness cycling to generic music, we now have everything from on-the-beat choreography to performance classes and everything in between. There’s something for everyone.

I’ve mentioned technology already, but its impact goes far beyond data. From spectacular AV to wraparound screens, the rise of immersive experiences has been transformational for our sector. I remember the first time I tried Les Mills’ THE TRIP. I had goosebumps. 

It was a privilege to supply BODY BIKES for the global roadshow that introduced THE TRIP to the world. In fact, I’d highlight our strong, long-standing relationship with Les Mills as one of the highlights of my time at BODY BIKE.

What’s the future of indoor cycling?

Right now, indoor cycling isn’t as hot as it has previously been: reformer pilates is the big trend at the moment. I firmly believe indoor cycling is here to stay, though. It’s arguably unique in the way it caters for all ages and abilities in one class, and it has and will continue to stand the test of time – provided it evolves in line with consumer expectations.

In many cases, operators cutting back on indoor cycling – quoting reduced member interest – are in this position because they haven’t invested in creating experiences. It’s understandable, so I’m not criticising: the last few years have been incredibly hard for everyone. But now, as investment budgets finally return, it’s time to upgrade spaces, equipment, technology and most of all instructors. My simple advice: hire the people who will fill the room.

“In many cases, operators cutting back on indoor cycling – quoting reduced member interest – haven’t invested in creating experiences”

The post Uffe A Olesen appeared first on Ride High Magazine.

Psycle launched in 2014 with an ambition to get people hooked on the transformative power of movement. There are no metrics, no scoreboards, no focus on weight loss or calorie count. Just encouragement to come to class, move your body, get lost in the music and free your mind. It’s all about how our classes make you feel.

Our fundamental belief: that the state of people’s health has a direct influence on how they feel, that how they feel determines the attitude and energy they bring to their lives – and that within this pathway to happiness, exercise and movement have a big part to play. 

It’s a judgement-free approach that’s won Psycle a loyal customer base over the last 10 years. 

“Obviously ‘Psycle’ immediately says ‘cycling’, but we don’t want to rebrand. We’re proud of what we stand for.”

How does this approach translate to your cycling classes?

Our programming has always been about putting aside inhibitions and losing yourself to the movement and the music. You will be challenged physically, but you’ll be immersed in the shared rhythm of the class, focused on gratitude for your body and your life, and the endorphins will flow.

We also embed a consciously meditative moment around three-quarters of the way through class. Coming straight after a high-exertion track, riders are in exactly the right frame of mind to switch off mentally and zone in to the rhythm of the music and/or the instructor’s voice.

And in fact, the ‘psy’ element starts even before class, with our instructors spending up to five minutes welcoming people, dismissing preconceptions and sharing the Psycle ethos.

“We’re looking to open a couple of single-discipline locations where we already have Psycle communities.”

When we launched, our mind-music-movement connection was a real USP. It’s less so now as more operators embrace this thinking, but I believe we still bring it to another level through our relentless focus, with regular check-ins and instructor workshops ensuring it’s embedded in every class. 

The result is an uplifting, high-energy, addictive product that’s also low-impact, lending itself to high frequency. When you combine that with the community we’ve created and the ability to get everything in one place, I’m confident ours is a product with longevity.

Everything in one place – how so?

Psycle started out as an indoor cycling brand, but in 2017 – the year I joined the company – it added three additional concepts to its roster: strength (HIIT), barre and yoga. In 2018, we also launched memberships and a benefits package to encourage people to commit and take part in more than one concept.

Ride remains our north star, available in all five Psycle locations and enjoyed by 85 per cent of our customers. However, we recognise that there’s no one perfect workout, and that a rounded approach to training is critical to a healthy body and mind. 

“Pre-COVID, there were too many operators charging premium prices for average products. There is no space for that now.”

Where we have bigger spaces, we’ve therefore introduced additional studios and rolled out concepts that match the demographics of the local market. Of course, this also allows the business to maximise its commercial potential by utilising all available space.

Sadly, demand for yoga was impacted significantly by the pandemic, exacerbated by an ongoing abundance of content available for free online. We do still offer 1.5 days of yoga each week, but have also introduced a fifth concept – reformer pilates – in response to community demand. Since COVID, we’ve realised we need to be in-tune with customer wishes in a way boutiques didn’t really have to be in the pre-COVID boom years.

Can you credibly diversify with the name ‘Psycle’?

Obviously ‘Psycle’ immediately says ‘cycling’, but we don’t want to rebrand. We’re proud of what we stand for. If anything, with mental health an increasingly hot topic, we want to go further in telling our story and explaining our ethos.

But we do now have five different products, so we are considering a reorganisation of the words we use. Rather than sitting five programmes – Ride, Reformer, Barre, HIIT and Yoga – under the Psycle banner, we may shift to ‘Reformer by Psycle’, ‘Barre by Psycle’ and so on. In this way, we take our brand credibility with us, but with more clarity around our expanded roster of classes.

What’s next for Psycle?

We’ve experienced good momentum since COVID, with consistent profitability, which is pleasing. 

Customer experience is now high on our agenda. We’re looking to upgrade our communal spaces to make people feel more luxuriously welcome, creating environments that nurture our community. We’re also exploring benefits and partnerships to further enhance the customer journey and encourage even longer-lasting relationships.

Meanwhile, we’re looking at opportunities to open a couple of single-discipline locations where we already have Psycle communities – where there’s scope to complement our existing offerings for an already-engaged audience. These will not be focused on indoor cycling, as we’ll be opening them in areas where we already offer Ride.

In the future though, even in new locations, we may launch multi-concept studios without indoor cycling. With the cost and complexity of creating a Ride studio – we’re talking over £1m – there are only limited locations in and around Greater London where it’s really viable. Running costs also mean we need 1,000+ bodies on bikes each week just to break even.

“Consolidation under one brand is the way to achieve scale… We’re looking to invest in businesses with ready-made communities.”

Add to that the fact we burned so much money during COVID, and the lack of access to capital right now, and we need to be flexible in how we scale.

What are your plans to scale?

We’ve identified three sites in London that could support multi-studio locations with Ride, and another eight to 10 that could support non-Ride studios –that is, offering site-specific combinations of our four other concepts. After that, we’ll start to look at the white space beyond London, in big cities across the UK.

Looking ahead five years, I’d also like to be in key cities in Europe and Asia, ideally with a local partner but still in control of the brand and the product.

But all of this will only happen if we reach the sort of scale in London that unlocks access to capital; 10+ clubs is the point at which we believe private equity will be interested. 

I believe consolidation under one brand is the way to achieve that scale.

A large number of small operators are running on survival right now, unable to invest in their people or consistently deliver a good enough product. They simply aren’t long-term viable, and in this challenging market, there are few options to turn that around.

This is how we’re looking to scale Psycle, without being aggressive or underhand. We’re looking to invest in businesses with ready-made communities, where the current owners don’t have the funds they need to uplift the product, regain price appreciation and become long-term viable. We’ll invest, become owner and majority stakeholder, put Psycle above the door, bring in our programming and infrastructure, and offer earn-out opportunities.

“We don’t see ClassPass as a discounting tool. In fact, it’s where we drive our highest yield.”

How is the London boutique market post-COVID?

This is a hard business. Many people perceive boutiques to be highly cash-generative, but costs are high if you want the best staff, the best facilities, and to offer great instructor training and development (see ‘A best in class team’, below). You must be committed to a relentless pursuit of class excellence – and even then, there’s no guarantee of success. 

In fact, it’s even harder now than pre-COVID, with ever-increasing rents, rates and service charges alongside consumer behaviours that have fundamentally changed. It’s super-positive for Psycle that the majority of the people who used to train with us still do, but they’re coming 40 per cent less often due to changing working patterns and the ongoing impact of working from home. 

The cost of living crisis is another factor. We’ve seen customers move to lower-frequency products and have introduced a new lower-frequency membership tier to allow for this. We’ve also introduced an under-27s membership, targeting younger customers on lower incomes who used to come more often than they do now. 

“Many smaller operators are leaning on deep discounting to drive footfall at any cost. It’s devaluing what boutique stands for.”

But product quality must still be consistently high. Pre-COVID, I would argue that there were too many operators charging premium prices for average products. There is no space for that now. 

The problem is, as market conditions bite and the number of boutique operators continues to contract, things are going the other way. The sector is now dominated by a handful of multi-site brands alongside ClassPass-led, one-stop shops that are driving prices to the floor. They’re devaluing the product to the point that audiences are unsure what ‘boutique’ really means. 

Doesn’t Psycle use ClassPass?

Since COVID, yes, and actually we really like it: it helps us fill spots that would otherwise not be filled. We allocate the inventory we want, manipulating demand and supply to add footfall across all studios and times.

We don’t see ClassPass as a discounting tool, though. In fact, it’s where we drive our highest yield. 

The cheapest way to enjoy Psycle is always through our own credit packs and memberships, meaning direct-to-Psycle customers continue to make up the majority of our attendance. What ClassPass does is unlock an audience we might traditionally have missed – people who enjoy the flexibility of picking and choosing from a variety of studios and concepts. 

The point is, the discounting issue isn’t because of ClassPass. It’s because of the prevailing mindset in the market. Many smaller operators are now very short-termist, leaning on deep discounting to drive footfall at any cost. It’s devaluing what boutique stands for, and it’s only getting worse.

Boutique is about beautiful spaces, great service, best-in-class instructors and delivering consistently high-quality classes – but it gets increasingly hard to deliver that when there’s so much discounting going on. The sooner we stop the downward price spiral, the sooner we’ll all feel we’re building sustainable businesses.

The post David Watt appeared first on Ride High Magazine.

I’m from Germany, but I’ve moved around quite a lot: school in England and university in London, time spent working for a consultancy firm in Sydney and so on. Each new city I moved to, I’d find a place to work out. I always saw that as my opportunity to meet people – much easier than trying to make connections in the workplace.

There weren’t really boutique fitness studios back then, but there was already a trend – especially in Sydney – towards a more personalised set-up, with small hot yoga studios, PT spaces and so on. Here, you were part of a community: a name, not a number. When I returned to Germany in my early 30s, I really missed having somewhere like that.

“The body needs to do complementary workouts to feel good: yoga, strength training and so on. You can’t just do cardio”

I was still working in consulting then, but in 2015 I went to the Burning Man festival and everything changed. I found my love for cycling and music.

Stopping in Los Angeles on the way out, I tried SoulCycle for the first time and was really excited by it. And then Burning Man… it’s such a huge area that you cycle everywhere. Everybody picks up an old bike and dresses it in ribbons and lights – it gets dark in the desert at night! – and you’re cycling around constantly listening to music, because there’s music everywhere, with different DJs all over the place. You’re never without music. And you’re always cycling.

Experiencing this, having already experienced SoulCycle in LA, I started to ask myself why this wasn’t a thing yet in Europe. Why were our cycling experiences all in brightly lit rooms, in big box clubs, with music as mere background noise?

In the space of a week, I realised this was what was missing in Europe, and that it was my calling to bring it back to Germany. The whole idea of founding BECYCLE pretty much happened at Burning Man.

How did you get it off the ground?

When I came up with the idea, I was introduced to another lady – Viola Huetten – who had been thinking along similar lines. Also German, she was living in New York, and together we set about trying to find investors who wanted to help us build this business in Germany. With no financial crisis or pandemic at the time, there was a lot of appetite to bring successful American businesses to Germany: it wasn’t hard to tell the story or get funding through Viola’s New York network.

“It wasn’t hard to get funding. The challenge was finding a suitable space in Berlin. People didn’t take us or our concept seriously.”

What was more challenging was finding a suitable space in Berlin for our first club. The owners of the buildings we looked at didn’t take us or our concept seriously. They saw two women in their mid-30s and the track record of fitness businesses – which the banks had never seen as a great bet – and they laughed at us.

Finally we found a building in Berlin Mitte, a really good neighbourhood right in the centre of Berlin. The owner still laughed a bit, but he wanted to see if we could make it happen. We had to do everything from scratch, funding the whole renovation and fit-out ourselves, but we knew location was everything and we were prepared to do it.

When did you open?

We finally opened our first BECYCLE in 2016: a 550sq m club with a much bigger concept than originally intended. We’d planned to create a cycling studio, but we ended up creating a place where people came together, with a café and huge community area, kids’ activities, a cycling studio and a second room for yoga, barre, HIIT and now also mat pilates.

My background obviously isn’t in fitness, but I just had a gut instinct that people wouldn’t want to cycle four or five times a week. The body needs to do complementary workouts to feel good: yoga, strength training and so on. You can’t just do cardio. So I pushed to get the broader concept through and we managed to persuade the investors, and in the end it’s what’s seen us through the pandemic. People’s mindset changed during that time and we now have a lot of customers who don’t even cycle at all, so it’s been really positive to have a more holistic offering.

And we encourage people to do a bit of everything: I know my best week is one where I work out four times and can do all the different modalities. Not everybody does that, of course, but the different classes really do complement each other. For example, we introduced mat pilates to meet post-pandemic demand and now people tell us the breathwork they’ve learned is helping them perform better in our cycling classes too.

What’s your style of cycling?

There’s nobody else in Berlin doing our style of cycling, which is performance-based like they used to do at Flywheel; we actually had one of the Flywheel master trainers come over to help develop our programming. We use metrics from the bike, riding to RPMs and watts, and we use leaderboards. It’s very much about improving your performance, not just having fun and dancing on the bike.

“Successfully expanding a business like this is hard. It’s a passion project and highly dependent on the people running it.”

It actually really intrigues me that most other studios in Berlin have gone down the party-on-a-bike route. I never would have thought Germans would be so open to workouts so rooted in pure fun rather than science, but they seem to be doing quite well.

And it’s great for us, because at the moment what we offer is unique. So while in most of our disciplines we simply ask our freelance instructors not to teach at other clubs in a 2–3km radius, we ask our cycling instructors not to teach our style elsewhere at all.

Our standard Ride class is 45 minutes, but we also have a 60-minute Ride+ class, while our 30-minute Ride Xpress is often combined with 15 minutes of strength for a full-body workout. We want the experience to feel personal and truly boutique, so our classes are quite small: for Ride, it’s 30 bikes; for yoga and barre it’s just 18 participants.

What are your clubs like?

We now have three clubs – two in Berlin and one in Düsseldorf – and they’re all third spaces where people come together, work and work out. They’re like mini Soho Houses, with lots of space to linger and connect.

We frontload our investment, working with the same architect across all our clubs to create distinct but equally beautiful spaces across our various locations: wonderful designs and special features, premium materials and so on. In fact, our club in Berlin Mitte won an architectural award.

We also have a specialist lighting designer who’s known for the projects he’s done for a famous Berlin nightclub. We’ve worked with him on our Ride studios, creating ceilings where the lights pulse and chase overhead, spurring you on in your workouts with different colours and intensities and speeds.

The boutique market isn’t very developed in our markets yet, so for now our high design spec is a USP for us. We believe it’s worth the investment, because it means we don’t have to do much marketing. Our customers do it for us, taking photos of our clubs and sharing them on social media.

Club #2 opened mid-pandemic…

It took a while to become well-known in Berlin, reaching occupancy levels that meant our first club was working financially. Our breakthrough year was 2018, with 2019 the best year we’ve had. So that was the year I started thinking about expanding the business.

My sister-in-law, who lives in Düsseldorf, was a huge fan of our concept and asked me to dinner to propose that she set up a BECYCLE club there. I was delighted, because successfully expanding a business like this is hard. It’s a passion project and highly dependent on the people running it: it’s not something you can easily franchise. You need the personal connection of an owner who also runs the business and is there every day.

“I see more opportunities in Berlin: we’re in the east and haven’t yet tapped the many opportunities in the west.”

We found a space in Düsseldorf and created a beautiful club. It’s bigger than the first – we were doing well and wanted to expand – with four studios to offer Ride (cycling), Reformer (reformer pilates), Refine (barre, mat pilates, HIIT and yoga) and personal training.

And then along came the pandemic. In the end, the club opened in July 2020 – after the first, shorter phase of lockdown – so it had a really tough start. The government was great with all the support it provided during lockdown, but as soon as things opened up again, that support stopped. Yet people were still hesitant to come to class. So that was actually the toughest time: 2021, when we’d fully re-opened, and into 2022.

In fact, I can only safely say that we bounced back in January this year – 2023. And even now it’s not easy. We’re definitely still not where we were before COVID.

Tell us about club #3.

Club number three is back in Berlin, in an area of the city called Kreuzberg, but this time it operates under the BEYOND brand as there’s no cycling at this club at all – just reformer pilates, barre, HIIT and yoga.

I’ve become very interested in the reformer pilates trend and how it’s moving in a group fitness direction, set to music and at times featuring some more cardio-focused movements, but still staying true to pilates. And it’s going really well for us, to the point that we’ll probably make reformer pilates our primary focus now, at least in cities where we already have a club that offers cycling; new cities will still have cycling in the mix.

Because creating cycling studios is very expensive: you need to build soundproofed rooms, ideally with theatre-style tiers, and install lots of specialist lighting. There are no such specifications for reformers: you can build multi-purpose rooms and put whatever you want in there.

I also really like the fact that reformer pilates appeals as you age. The way we do cycling, with loud music in a dark box… when you get to 50 or 60 or 70, that isn’t necessarily what you want. Given our members in Berlin are typically aged between 30 and 50 already, and only slightly younger in Düsseldorf, we do have to think about that.

The next challenge will be to find older instructors: at the moment, they’re pretty much all in their 20s and 30s. I find that a shame: I’m inspired by older people who are fit and looking after their health, but older instructors are very hard to find. I don’t actually think there are any in Berlin!

What are your growth plans?

We’ll grow further in Berlin, where we should have taken a cluster approach from the outset. With the market not yet saturated, people are still willing to travel for the experiences they want, and by creating different offerings across our two clubs, they’ve cannibalised each other a bit.

But I do see more opportunities in Berlin, which remains quite a divided city in many ways: we’re in the east and haven’t yet tapped the many opportunities in the west. In fact, there’s another location we’re in discussions on at the moment, which if it goes ahead I hope to open in September.

And I definitely think there’s space for a couple more clubs in Berlin, but this time we’ll cluster. For example, we already have our club in Berlin Mitte, but there’s no reformer pilates there at the moment, so that’s an opportunity.

“The secret is continuing to have fun. We all need to do something we really enjoy, because life is very short.”

I’m also not fixed on any specific modalities: I’m always open to exploring what else is out there, adapting to new trends and interests, and I think we’ll always have at least two rooms to offer a variety of experiences.

Meanwhile, we’re doing well in Düsseldorf. The club is growing every month and it’s a good, affluent city to be in. I’m pleased to be there. But it’s also a smaller city than Berlin, so we’ll stick with one big club and potentially look at other smaller studios in the future.

At some point we might also consider southern Germany, and because my husband and I love Lisbon, potentially Portugal if we can find the right partner: someone who’s willing to invest themselves and have skin in the game.

So there’s a lot we could do. But with life so uncertain at the moment – not only with the situation in Ukraine, but with rising costs too – we have to be a bit careful. Our costs are up 20 per cent, but we haven’t passed that stress on to our members.

What’s the secret of your success?

The secret, I believe, is continuing to have fun. My husband works in start-ups and it’s all about profits and planning exits, but that’s not what I want my life to be.

I think we all need to do something we really enjoy, because life is very short. This is my passion business. I do it because I personally love to take classes every day. I love coming into the studio. I enjoy connecting with customers when I take my turn on the front desk.

And that’s so important. If you lose the connection with your customers, you won’t know what’s going on and you won’t be able to keep improving your services.

My view: if you’re in this business and you don’t feel a passion, it’s probably time for you to be doing something else.

The post Gundula Cöllen-Sorger appeared first on Ride High Magazine.

As the loser, his challenge was to raise lots of money for cancer research, which he did along with his co-hosts of Knæk Cancer – a massive televised event in Denmark which raises money for cancer research every year, and which translates as ‘Crack Cancer’.

It gave me the idea for a much bigger 24-hour indoor cycling event, which would be part of Knæk Cancer each year. The first cycling4cancer event took place in 2014 and we’ve continued every year since then.

“The event is an overwhelmingly upbeat one, filled with positive vibes and happy memories of those we may have lost”

What’s the concept?

Cycling4cancer is a 24-hour indoor cycling event that finishes at 6.00pm on the Saturday of Knæk Cancer, while the TV coverage is ongoing. For 2022, that meant starting at 6.00pm on Friday 28 October and finishing at 6.00pm on 29 October.

It’s the ultimate corporate teamworking and networking event, with businesses paying for a bike – a minimum donation of DKK10,000 (around €1,350) that goes directly to Knæk Cancer – and asking their employees to ride it.

There are 24 sessions of 45–50 minutes each, with a short break in between while we change the instructor and DJ, and every bike must be ridden for the full 24 hours.

We’ve set DKK10,000 as the minimum donation because at this level, your company’s name comes up in the Knæk Cancer TV coverage. Some organisations donate more, though: in 2022 we had a bank pay DKK50,000 for one bike, while a plumbing firm took two bikes at DKK25,000 each. Other companies pay DKK10,000 but also donate DKK5–10 per kilometre cycled by their employees.

We do also have individuals who fund a bike themselves and put a team together to ride, often because they have a relative who’s sick or who they want to remember. These stories are very moving; I admit I find myself crying quite a lot throughout the 24 hours. However, the event is an overwhelmingly upbeat one, filled with positive vibes and happy memories of those we may have lost.

Finally, I have a couple of bikes where – if you really want to take part but can’t organise a team or afford a whole bike – you can ride for an hour for DKK500.

“Exercise and positivity keeps cancer at bay. I will do this again and again and again to keep raising money for cancer research”

Tell us about the 2022 event

It nearly didn’t happen, because my girlfriend was diagnosed with cancer in April and died in August. I honestly wasn’t sure I had the energy to do it. I also started to question the purpose of doing all this every year when my loved ones were still dying.

But then I reminded myself of my personal motto – that exercise and positivity keeps cancer at bay – and I decided this was no time for quitting. Cancer never sleeps, and I will do this again and again and again to keep raising money for cancer research.

And it was an incredible event, with 118 BODY BIKES provided by our sponsor Fitness Engros in action for the 24 hours. That’s 30 more than last year and there was a lot of love, happiness and sweat in the room!

People also brought family and friends to support them and enjoy the event: we had over 4,000 people in attendance.

We are hugely grateful to our 24 incredible instructors and our best-in-Denmark DJs who gave their time for free, and our sponsors who provided the bikes, the venue, the refreshments, the lighting and everything else we needed to put the event on. As always, the whole thing was done for free: not one bit of money passes through my hands.

What’s your role on the day?

I used to be one of the instructors, but I now host and push to get fundraising as high as possible. Between each session, I get up on stage and ask everyone in the saddle to post on their social media and LinkedIn accounts asking for sponsorship before they start, and to post again afterwards to say how far they cycled.

I then kick every session off – calling out “Knæk!” from the stage, to which all the participants shout back “Cancer!” – before leaving it to the instructor and DJ to crank it up.

All sponsorship goes direct to Knæk Cancer using a dedicated MobilePay code, so funds are allocated to our event and we know how much we’ve raised.

And how much did you raise?

I had hoped to raise DKK3m in 2022 (a little over €400,000), but with the economic crisis hitting hard, we didn’t quite reach that target: the figure we announced on the day was DKK2.1m.

Money is still coming in, though; we’ve already passed DKK2.4m and, once the final bits of sponsorship are counted, I expect to hit DKK2.5m. I’m pleased with that. Knæk Cancer lowered its overall 2022 forecasts by 30 per cent and ended up bringing in DKK117m on the day, down from DKK150m in 2021. Meanwhile, cycling4cancer will have raised DKK2.5m compared to DKK2.6m in 2021. In spite of all the pressures in the world at the moment, our event continues to have great momentum.

Once we’ve added 2022’s fundraising to the DKK8.3m we raised between 2014 and 2021, our running total will hit DKK10.8m.

What comes next for you?

We’ll keep raising the bar with cycling4cancer and we’ll keep fighting.

At the moment, I organise just one event each year, although we do sell ‘f*ck cancer’ merchandise throughout the year. I do this alongside a full-time job and it’s all-consuming: finishing at 6.00pm on the Saturday, by the Sunday morning I was already thinking about next year’s event!

However, I would like to grow to at least two events a year – one in the spring and one in October – as well as potentially organising some pop-up events too. I want to keep driving awareness of my motto and belief that exercise and positivity can keep cancer at bay.

I’d also love to make this a global event, finding local organisers who can partner with me to host simultaneous events around the world, with all funds going to cancer research in those countries. I’d love us all to stick up our middle fingers and say together: ‘F*ck cancer’.

The post cycling4cancer appeared first on Ride High Magazine.

Formula Wellness & Spa is a large and beautiful club right in the heart of Odessa. It’s a very interesting building architecturally, as it was a theatre until it opened as a health club and spa in March 2006. It was also the first club of its kind in Odessa, with such a wide range of facilities all under one roof, spread over three floors and around 4,500sq m.

We have a 25m swimming pool, a gym and over 30 types of group exercise class, from HIIT to indoor cycling, dance to pilates, TRX to aqua classes. There are also dedicated yoga and CrossFit studios, two squash courts and a fitness café. Alongside this is a separate spa zone with a Turkish steamroom, Finnish sauna and a salt room, as well as spa treatments including medical treatments conducted by doctors.

“Indoor cycling isn’t a big thing yet in Ukraine, but it’s working well for us. Before the war, our cycling classes were waitlisted”

Our members typically live, work or go to school nearby and it’s a very family-orientated club: the average age of our members is around 45 years, as parents come with their children of various ages, many of whom go on to become adult members themselves. Membership, including access to all facilities, costs €1,000 a year.

How popular is indoor cycling?

Indoor cycling is fairly new at our club – we only introduced it about two years ago – but it’s my favourite group exercise class because the results are amazing. 

Indoor cycling isn’t a big thing yet in Ukraine and it’s quite unusual for clubs in Odessa to offer it; there are only one or two that do. Even in Kyiv, only a few clubs offer indoor cycling classes. 

It’s working really well for us, though. At first, our members were unsure about it: they worried it would be too hard a workout. But then a few people tried it and enjoyed it and the word spread. Before the war, it had got to the point that our cycling classes were waitlisted. We were really proud of that.

How has the war impacted your club?

The war has brought a lot of changes. When it started, we had to close our club for three months and stop all our activities. It was only at the beginning of June that we decided to slowly start back up again, with our swimming pool and spa centre only re-opening in October. We’re still offering less group exercise at the moment: around 25 per cent of our usual class schedule. 

In terms of our membership, before the war we had 1,500 members and we welcomed around 450 people a day. Now we have 1,000 members and maximum 200 visits a day. 

Of those 1,000 members, around 70 per cent were our members before the war. The other 30 per cent have either moved over from other local clubs – Odessa might be safer than other parts of the country, but it isn’t 100 per cent safe and many clubs are still closed – or else they’re people who have relocated to Odessa from hotspots of the war, moving to our city for its relative safety.

What we are seeing, though, is that people aren’t committing to annual memberships any more, or even six-month memberships. They’re buying a month, maybe three months at a time – sometimes even just two weeks. 

How close to the fighting are you?

Odessa hasn’t been one of the war’s main hotspots so far, but some of our members and team members have gone to the front to fight. It’s impossible to contact them or know where or how they are, but we’re incredibly proud of them and hope they will return safely so we can thank them for their bravery.

There have been times when the war has come very close, though. On 23 July, rockets attacked the sea port right in the centre of Odessa. It was like a horror film. There were fortunately no victims, but children were crying, people were running everywhere, our team members couldn’t remember what to do – where to take our members to ensure they were safe – even though we’d built a shelter on the ground floor of the club before we re-opened. It was the first time any of us had experienced anything like this and people panicked. It was an important lesson in embedding our safety procedures.

“People aren’t committing to annual memberships any more. They’re buying a month or three months at a time – sometimes just two weeks”

Now, I actually feel safer at work than I do at home – ours is a big, strong building with a shelter, which I don’t have at home – but as we speak, the last few days have still been horrible, as our city has been under constant drone attack.

Even now, I find it so hard to believe all this is really happening. I feel like I’m watching a movie, or else I wake up in the morning and feel like it must all have been a bad dream.

Why re-open Formula so soon?

Choosing to start things back up again was the hardest thing we’ve done, and we thought about it for a long time before we actually did it. We didn’t know how many of our members were left in Odessa, because when the war came, many of those who had a chance to move out of Ukraine did so. We also didn’t know how willing people would be to spend their money on fitness.

“No matter what happens now, I will stay here with my team. This is my country and I don’t want to be anywhere else.”

So, we didn’t know if we’d have enough money to pay our team’s salaries or our utility bills. Choosing to re-open could have been more damaging to our brand and our business than staying closed until things were more stable.

We also have a smaller team now as some people have moved away – as indeed I did for a while. I’m a single mother with two children and I was afraid, so initially I moved to Moldova to escape the war. However, I came back when we decided to re-open the club. No matter what happens now, I will stay here with my team. This is my country and I don’t want to be anywhere else.

And honestly, our team has been fantastic. The most positive thing to come out of all this was their response when we told them we were going to re-open. We asked who was ready to work and everyone who was still in Odessa said yes. 

Additionally, not one of them asked about salary. They just wanted to know the schedule and how they could help get Formula up and running again. They’ve been so dedicated and have worked so hard to make re-opening possible. Everyone tells me they’ve really missed having a routine, going to work and speaking to colleagues and members. People are working for the pleasure of feeling normal again.

Our members also tell us they’re so glad we’re open. People need to do something with their stress at the moment, and fitness and sport are the best possible things for this.

“Everyone tells me they’ve really missed having a routine. People are working for the pleasure of feeling normal again.”

Will the war change things forever?

I’ve been at Formula for 13 years now and I can confidently say our club won’t change as a result of the war. We’re confident the business will come back. People need to do familiar things. They need to deal with stress. Our members tell us they’ve missed their fitness and spa treatments. They’ve missed being able to look after themselves.

So for now, we’ll work to build the club back up again, getting memberships and revenues back to how they were before the war. And then, in the second half of 2023, we’ll look to do all the work we had planned for 2022.

Because we had big plans, including building a new reformer pilates studio and launching new spa treatments for face and body. That’s all on hold while the unbelievable horror of the war continues, but it is just a pause. We’ll get back to our plans in 2023.

What are your hopes for the future?

I always try to think positively, so I look forward to a future – just a couple of years from now – when all our cities have been rebuilt and restored to their former glory. I hope it will be a new era for our country, when Ukrainians return home and we welcome tourists and share our experiences with them.

In the meantime, I simply wish for a peaceful country where I don’t have to worry for my children every time they go to school. My hope and belief is that before the end of 2023, we will have peace.

Information correct at the time of publishing

The post Selling normality in Ukraine appeared first on Ride High Magazine.

Check out all our expert comments here or download a PDF of the full magazine, including the supplement, above.

Here, we share the perspective of Jordy Kool, chair of Urban Gym Group in the Netherlands. Interview conducted 2 November 2022.

Urban Gym Group is performing well. Profitability isn’t yet back to pre-COVID levels – not least because we’ve made a number of acquisitions and opened new clubs – but average club attendance is exceeding 2019 levels, driven in particular by our Trainmore brand.

There are a number of headwinds, but decisions we’ve made over the last couple of years are helping us navigate these.

Prices of equipment are up; one supplier has raised its prices by 16 per cent. Fortunately we saw COVID as a time to invest, including new equipment across our estate. In combination with a diversification of our supplier portfolio, we’ve avoided the worst of the price increases.

There’s huge pressure on salaries, too. Our staff make a difference in our business, so we’d already planned to pay them more to help with their own rising costs. However, this is a major consideration for all operators right now.

Rent is also up: in the Netherlands, landlords are allowed to increase rent in line with the consumer price index, which is currently 14 per cent. I’m expecting the government to get involved, so that may change, but meanwhile we’re in a good position: our strong footprint in Amsterdam and our continued growth makes it wise for landlords to support us.

Rising electricity and gas prices are having a huge impact on the sector, but we hedged our costs for the long term and aren’t feeling it yet: at the majority of our clubs, we’re still on the old prices until the end of 2023. 

“We’re doing what we can to lower our energy consumption, including speaking to landlords about co-funding solar panels”

It will come, though, so we’re doing what we can to lower our consumption now: building smarter, including LED lighting, and speaking to landlords about co-funding solar panels, as well as a range of other things. We’re also getting better at simply turning things off when not in use. 

We already removed sunbeds as not core to our healthy offering, and in some clubs removed saunas that weren’t used much to expand the gym. Both decisions, while not driven by energy costs, have positively impacted our energy use.

But some things are harder to control: air conditioning, for example, which members can sometimes even turn on themselves, and the length of people’s post-workout showers. And in the end, however much you try to cut consumption, you still have a service and a product to offer. I can only sympathise with those who have swimming pools to run. 

I’ve been speaking to operators whose electricity bills are five, six, seven times higher than they used to be. You’re never going to be able to compensate for that. Even two or three times will send some businesses into a loss. 

And all of this at a time when interest rates are rising and impacting the ability to raise debt; when customer acquisition costs are going up and lifetime value down as members pay less and don’t stay as long; when over-supply in the boutique segment means aggregators won’t be able to subsidise everyone; and when even high-end wellness operators, unless they have particularly strong margins and non-price sensitive members, will find it tough.

We aren’t exempt from the pressures. We’ve closed two of four standalone High Studios, for example, as they weren’t making a profit, and put the programming into GX studios at our other clubs instead. But we’re in a good position having raised new debt at good rates during COVID. We may not have the deepest pockets, but we  do at least have pockets. We can survive another crisis and make further acquisitions. And we do expect to make acquisitions. How can smaller operators survive in this climate? There’s only so far you can raise prices for the consumer, if at all. 

The post Navigating the headwinds appeared first on Ride High Magazine.

Check out all our expert comments here or download a PDF of the full magazine, including the supplement, above.

Here, we share the perspective of Andreas Paulsen, CEO of EuropeActive. Interview conducted 18 October 2022.

Across Europe, we’re seeing governments collaborating and taking extraordinary steps to bring energy prices – particularly electricity and gas – under control. Political efforts are being coordinated through the EU to ensure gas reserves are full, for example, and significant political measures are being taken to bring more energy supply into the market and to temporarily cap energy company profits to quickly bring down consumer prices. 

As a result, we’re seeing gas prices begin to flatten and even fall. This is likely to continue in the coming months as the EU’s domestic production of gas and other types of energy is dramatically increased, reducing reliance on import from places like Russia. 

“If we bring energy under control, it is likely that the cost of living crisis can be brought under control generally”

In the current cost of energy crisis, inflation seems largely centred around energy and food supply, which in turn is directly linked to the situation in Ukraine; it is not general inflation. If we bring energy under control, it is likely that the cost of living crisis can be brought under control generally. 

With this in mind, we cross our fingers that EU and national measures take effect and start to improve the situation quickly. And, of course, we appeal to everyone to take societal responsibility as citizens, reducing daily energy consumption as much as possible.

For our sector, there are significant challenges; for many businesses, they are existential. Yet even amid these challenging circumstances, we must keep fighting and stay focused on our bright future; over the next couple of years, leadership will be defined by effectively addressing current circumstances, turning challenge into opportunity.

I believe one way for our sector to get value from the current situation is to use it to inform our long-term energy and environmental sustainability. We must look at ways to cut superfluous or unnecessary energy consumption, and crucially, we must do it in dialogue with club members, communicating strategically with them both now and moving forward. 

Short term, as a reaction to the current situation, I’m sure most members will understand that tough decisions have to be made. Clubs with facilities like saunas, for example, will likely have to temporarily close them. Open, honest conversations with members will be necessary.

Longer term, it’s about building sustainability into our strategies, looking at things like insulation, smart electricity, heating and water systems. Put together, they can significantly reduce energy consumption and costs. They can also be part of our collective image-building as a sector for the future.

In Denmark, for example, people are being offered government-backed loans to gradually pay back any energy costs that exceed their Q4 2021 baseline. Similar measures are being offered elsewhere in Europe. This represents a valuable opportunity to build cost-reduction measures into our longer-term strategy – starting now – and factor repayments into our recovery plans.

I see a crucial role for industry associations, too. We must actively encourage sharing of best practice among our members and partner associations across Europe, and ensure politicians understand the negative impact on population health that will result from our sector not being able to deliver its services.

I see a very positive future for our sector as we position ourselves as need-to-have health rather than nice-to-have leisure and consumer demand for personalised health and wellbeing continues to grow. But there will be challenges on the way. Overcoming the present need to balance rising energy costs against squeezed disposable income among consumers is unquestionably one of them.

The post Plan for the future, now appeared first on Ride High Magazine.

Check out all our expert comments here or download a PDF of the full magazine, including the supplement, above.

Here, we share the perspective of Michal Homola, founder of Terra Hale in the UK. Interview conducted 13 October 2022.

It’s true that the current energy crisis is impacting everyone. However, our lower energy usage means we are less affected than others.

Ours is a group of three – soon to be four – personal training and body transformation studios in London, UK, where everything revolves around being eco-friendly. And I mean everything, from plants in our studios for oxygen to exploring ways to minimise our carbon footprint. For example, as we look to expand overseas, we want to minimise how much equipment we need to import, so we’re experimenting with gathering plastic waste and using it to 3D print the equipment we need. In the process, we’ll also help clean up the locations where we want to build. It’s a win-win.

We teach our customers to be more eco-friendly in their lives, too, from giving them bamboo toothbrushes to educating them on eliminating the big users of electricity from their lives.

We’ve certainly done that in our clubs. Our lighting is the most energy-efficient LED lighting you can get, and we’ve kept the set-up pretty simple. There’s nothing flashing, nothing fancy, and at any point in time, we only have the lights on in rooms that need to be lit. The same applies outside: the lighting in our external signage is only switched on at night.

“We define ‘warm enough’ differently from most. Even when it’s cold outside, we focus on getting our clients warm through exercise”

It’s similar with heating. We have no boiler at all – just electric panels in the ceiling that heat up really quickly. As soon as the room is warm enough, we turn them off. And we define ‘warm enough’ differently from most. Even when it’s cold outside, we focus on getting our clients warm through exercise rather than having the room really warm when they come in. That’s not to say we make it uncomfortable for people, not at all, but our rooms are always a bit below your typical room temperature. We soon get them – and the people in them – warm through working out!

Other than that, all we have plugged in are a music speaker and a coffee machine. We don’t provide towels for our customers so we don’t have to wash them – that’s a very power-intensive process. Neither do we have steamrooms or saunas. And while we do offer showers, only around 10 per cent of our members use them. They’re also electric showers, so we’re only heating the exact amount of water we need.

We use clean energy – wind, solar and hydro power – via our renewable energy providers, and none of our equipment is powered. Our rowers use water resistance, our treadmills are self-powered and our bikes actually generate electricity that we sell back to the grid. It isn’t enough to live on or run the business on, but compare that to having to power plugged-in bikes and treadmills and it isn’t hard to see which is the most sustainable.

I know this might all sound like small details, but it really does add up. I would estimate that we use around 80 per cent less energy than the typical gym, in spite of being open from 5.00am to 10.00pm.

The post 360° eco-friendliness appeared first on Ride High Magazine.

Check out all our expert comments here or download a PDF of the full magazine, including the supplement, above.

Here, we share the perspective of Steven Ward, strategy & innovation director for GO fit in Spain and Portugal. Interview conducted 28 October 2022.

People are saying we live in uncertain times. I disagree. It’s certain that the volatility and complexity we’re experiencing will continue for the short to medium term. 

At GO fit, we’re seeing continued demand for our product, with net growth every month for the past 20 months other than in the Omicron wave of December 2021. Key to this is our continued focus on delivering an overwhelming value proposition; we will always offer value that far exceeds our actual membership fees. Our focus on measurably impacting people’s lives is valued by customers to the point that we aren’t a luxury they can dispose of, nor a commodity they can replace with a cheaper option.

Yet for our sector as a whole, we’re now operating in a very different climate even from 12 months ago, and there is no easy solution to any of it. 

If you look back through history, inflationary environments such as the one we’re in now typically end in recession, either of a technical nature or one that truly bites. We’ll see interest rates continue to rise until there’s a decline in economic activity, and this will hit many businesses in our sector hard – especially those that have scaled on what was once cheap debt, or grown through leveraged positions of their owners. We have yet to see what the impact of this will be, but it will undoubtedly also hit public sector construction and private sector borrowing. 

I do see strong recovery for our sector in the long term, but things will remain tough in the short to medium term as central banks work to bring the situation under control.

Much of the conversation right now is around energy, which has always been a top agenda item for the GO fit executive team: our brand values and commitment to sustainability mean that as an organisation, we want to be 100 per cent powered by green resources. We already have solar installations and other energy-generation investments in our facilities, but these will never provide all the energy we need year-round. So in 2019, GO fit entered into a 10-year fixed rate agreement with a leading green energy provider in Europe that covered the vast majority of our energy requirements. 

It was a bold decision to make, because we were committing to above-market rates at the time. However, the company felt it was the right thing to do for the planet and the board backed the decision. 

And now, although we never went into it for cost reasons, we’re facing this crisis in a very strong position; I strongly suspect that, had my colleagues not had this foresight and sustainability agenda, our energy costs could have doubled by now.

We are feeling some impact of the current crisis, as a small proportion of our energy requirements aren’t covered by our fixed arrangement. However, it’s a fraction of what it could have been. We also have a comprehensive energy strategy for this remaining element, looking at a whole range of initiatives to build resilience ahead of certain future energy shocks over the next couple of years.

“Our specialist team is in the market every day, looking at futures and fluctuations to ensure we procure energy at the best possible time”

We have a relentless focus on identifying the best moments to procure energy: our specialist team is in the market every day, looking at futures and fluctuations and making sure we’re negotiating at the best possible time. As we speak today, for example, the recent warm weather means ships are sitting outside ports unable to deliver their gas, because reserves are full. It’s pushed gas prices temporarily down, making now a great time to buy. That won’t still be the case next week. Sorry if you’re reading this some time after!

We have an equally relentless focus on efficiency of energy usage across our business, with highly intelligent facilities run by highly experienced facility professionals. We have visibility and control over our whole estate in real time, so we can adjust energy usage in real time based on customer need and demand, footfall, the climate outdoors, the temperature in the club and so on. This has a significant impact on our overall consumption.

“Government subsidy interventions are removing the imperative to think responsibly about energy consumption”

This is what modern, world-class facility management looks like, but not everyone is doing it yet. It’s a cold thing to say, but government subsidy interventions in the face of this crisis – the figure currently stands at €500bn globally – are weakening the price signal to businesses and removing the imperative to think responsibly about energy consumption. Poorly managed organisations are being bailed out at the cost of well-managed organisations, rather than being forced to operate as sustainably as possible. It might be essential in the short term, but economically, this moral hazard is wrong. Every organisation must take responsibility for its sustainable use and future procurement of energy, and this crisis has brought that home.

Looking further ahead, all indications are that we will see a natural energy revolution across Europe in the medium term, with significant policy reforms that decouple the cost of electricity – and with it, the cost of green energy – from the cost of gas. We will also see major infrastructure investments in renewables. This will be instrumental in the move towards a self-sufficient, sustainable future that gives us more energy security and that’s simultaneously positive for businesses and the planet.

The post A sustainable vision appeared first on Ride High Magazine.

We launched Holy Ride in April of this year, inside our first Saints & Stars club in Amsterdam Oud-West – a club that originally opened in 2018.

The ‘why’ is interesting, because when we went back to our original drawings for the club, it included a Ride studio; even before we launched Saints & Stars, we had always planned to offer indoor cycling.

At the time, though, I thought it might be tough to execute three distinct group exercise formats really well, all at the same time. So instead of group cycling, we created our Personal Training offering – something I felt really comfortable with having worked in clubs for years – alongside boxing concept Holy Box and cardio HIIT bootcamp Holy Shred.

Now I realise we should have done Holy Ride from the beginning! Because it’s what our members want, and that’s how we make all our decisions.

We did an in-depth survey of our members and our former members to understand what more they wanted from us and why they had left. The findings were very clear: people loved our brand but we didn’t have all the concepts they wanted. Specifically, we lacked indoor cycling and reformer pilates – with cycling far and away the number one request – and people were going elsewhere for these two disciplines. The decision to create Holy Ride was therefore a very easy one.

How would you describe Holy Ride?

Indoor cycling is the #1 group exercise format in the Netherlands, and in Amsterdam, boutique cycling is incredibly competitive. We knew we needed to do something very different to stand out in a mature market.

At the same time, though, we felt there was an opportunity to raise standards. Looking across the market, we saw too little focus on performance. Yes, a ride has to be fun and a great experience, but we believe the output is important too. We saw strength tracks that we didn’t think were particularly good. We saw immersive environments poorly executed. We saw inconsistencies in quality within brands.

We therefore talk about Holy Ride as ‘Redefining the Standards’, because we’ve taken all of this and turned it on its head in our concept.

We use bikes where you can track all your data and we deliberately make our workouts a little tougher. It’s OK not to be for everyone. We format all our classes, minute by minute, because we believe a strong brand comes from providing the same experience and quality across every class. And we’ve spent €100,000 on the Holy Ride audiovisual system alone, for an immersive experience like no other.

That makes it the most expensive AV system we’ve ever installed, but we had the luxury of the new studio being the conversion of a pre-existing space. The club also already had members, so Ride classes were full the moment the studio opened. We expect to achieve ROI in three months.

Over and above all that, you only have one chance to make a good first impression, especially in a mature market. We were never going to cut corners or skimp on the investment.

“Holy Ride classes were full the moment the studio opened. We expect to achieve ROI in three months.”

Tell us more about the AV.

We knew we wanted to create something really special, so we went outside the fitness sector and spoke to Awakenings Festival – the best festival producer in the Netherlands. It had previously used our studios for smaller events, so we’d seen the incredible lighting and sound effects they could create just from their laptops – far better than anything we’d ever done! We were therefore really keen to work with them, and they were excited by the chance to think outside the box and work on a brand new, small-space concept.

The result is exceptional. We have lasers and LEDs. We have ‘moving heads’ – the tool we use most, which allows us to create all sorts of shapes and effects with our lighting, flooding the space with light and movement.

We have water-based smoke, which is really cool. In a cycle studio, you’re part of a pack, but you also want your own space to focus on yourself. The smoke helps create that sense of personal space, which is impressive given we have 60 bikes in 130sq m of floorspace. I’ve never put so many people in a room

And because our classes are formatted, we know exactly what’s coming, so the sound and light all comes together perfectly with the class content. In a climb, for example, we use music and beams of light to build the ‘scenery’ of a climb. In a sprint, the lighting is suddenly very quick, with lots of colour and lots of white, culminating in a blinding flash of light at the end – done! – and then a sudden plunge into total darkness and silence before slowly building back up again.

The instructor also has the best seat in the house when it comes to the sound. This isn’t the standard approach, but it ensures they’re absolutely on-point in their delivery

Are your stars OK with formatting?

A lot of people say formatting kills creativity, but I disagree. All our classes are formatted, not just Holy Ride, and I believe it’s a real strength for us.

It certainly doesn’t mean the experience is repetitive. Our members typically do around three classes a week, and we change formats regularly enough that you’d be unlucky to do the same class twice. This isn’t hard to do, either, because there are moves in indoor cycling that you always do in every class. If you move sections around to be in a different order, change the music and the lighting, it’s instantly a very different experience. Even just changing 15–20 per cent of a cycling class makes it feel totally different.

Then consider that even good instructors elsewhere might use the same playlist multiple times… I don’t think it’s formatting that makes the experience boring!

The challenge was persuading star instructors of this –because as with all our concepts, I wanted the absolute top indoor cycling instructors in Amsterdam to come onboard and deliver Holy Ride.

We’d done our research and we knew who we wanted, but getting them onboard was the toughest part of the whole project. The secret – other than paying them well and continually training them, which is something we’ve always prided ourselves on – was to get them involved early. We invited them to help develop the concept and the formatting, creating the product they would deliver, and we got the instructors we wanted.

“Our member base grows each time we add a new concept, so it makes sense to make our products as ‘whole’ as possible”

So, you have seven concepts now?

Yes, we have Holy Ride, Holy Shred, Holy Box, Holy Booty, Holy Build – a small group technique-based workout for members only, not those on class packs – Personal Training and our Open Gym.

Holy Shred is the only concept that’s currently on offer at both our locations, because our clubs only about 10 minutes’ cycle ride apart. It’s easy for people to use both of them, depending on which workout they want to do that day.

Our members typically each do three or four of our seven concepts. There’s one cluster who veer towards Personal Training, Open Gym and Holy Build – typically members who like gym workouts but who want a more experiential environment. The other cluster is more group exercise-focused, whereby people mix and match between Holy Ride, Holy Shred, Holy Box and Holy Booty.

When we first set out, I feared that if we offered too much – too many concepts – we might dilute the brand. I no longer worry about that, though, and in large part that’s because our marketing is higher level, focusing on our overarching purpose at Saints & Stars. Particularly for an audience of Millennials and Gen Zs, that’s really important. They want to know why you do what you do.

It’s also the case that our member base grows each time we add a new concept, so it makes sense to make our product as ‘whole’ as possible.

Will you launch more Holy Rides?

We won’t retrofit Ride into our other existing club in Amsterdam Oud-Zuid. The club is large enough to house another studio, but our members spend lots of time in our communal areas and we don’t want to detract from the experience by cramping the space, especially since the 30 per cent growth in membership.

We are, however, opening a new club in Amsterdam in early 2023. If Ride is still in our top three concepts when we design it, it will probably have a Ride studio!

As I say, we respond to what our members want, so in any new club we’ll put in the most popular concepts. We might even introduce an eighth concept in the next one, which at this stage would most likely be reformer pilates. But we’ll always have flexibility in space and mindset to change things in the future if needed. The Gen Z mindset changes all the time. You have to be ready to change with them.

“We respond to what our members want. The Gen Z mindset changes all the time. You have to be ready to change with them.”

Any other plans you can share?

The boutique sector remains challenging, with studios sadly still going out of business since the pandemic; I imagine there may be opportunities to grow further by acquiring and converting existing studios. I’d also love to take Saints & Stars beyond Amsterdam.

The pandemic changed my outlook in other ways, too. For example, I always said we would never do digital content, but in lockdown it was one of the many things we did to keep our community and our instructors engaged with our brand. The content was free to use at that point, and accessible to everyone, and it was great for brand awareness.

Moving forward, although I’m still not 100 per cent sold on digital, I have to recognise that hybrid lifestyles have embedded themselves. It won’t be this year, but at some point in the future I can see us doing some sort of paid-for digital offering.

What’s the future of indoor cycling?

In Amsterdam, which is the market I know, I believe indoor cycling will become increasingly immersive and experiential. There are still a lot of dark boxes at the moment!

We’ll see the technology that customers experience at festivals, for example, becoming affordable for smaller-scale delivery in fitness studios. Operators will need to keep their fingers on the pulse to find the next exciting thing that will engage people in their studio experiences.

We looked at holograms for Holy Ride, for example. In the end, the technology was still too expensive for our business model – for now anyway – but things like this will continue to come through and we need to be ready to embrace it.

“I believe indoor cycling will become increasingly experiential. There are still a lot of dark boxes at the moment!”

What drives you in all of this?

A business like ours isn’t based on spreadsheets or business models or trying make the most money possible. The only way to build a business like this is to do what you love, focus on what you can be really good at, add your own flavour – because a copy job will never, ever work – and then put your whole soul into it.

I love fitness – I train every day – and I love looking for new trends and creating new things. This is my passion and I love the fact that it’s also my job.

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