Toe cages are designed for a men’s size 10. Men’s size 10 goes all the way to the front of the toe cage- otherwise, you want the BALL of your foot to be on the CENTER of the pedal and tighten the straps from there.

During class-pedaling is a constant forward motion—we never stop pedaling. You might take resistance off to make it easier, but, the pedals are always in motion. NEVER stop pedaling while you have resistance on the flywheel-take resistance off and be at a flat before slowing your pedal stroke.

White knob below the handlebars. Turn to the right to add resistance, left releases. Press straight down on this knob and it is your brake.

Any button activates it. Top line is current RPM (Rotations Per Minute), middle line is Heart Rate (see box to right on 1st page), bottom line rotates (by pushing M for mode) between Time, Calories Burned and Distance (Play/Pause button will start tracking). The lower left button is the backlight for the monitor.

There are 3 points of hand placement. Hands at 1 (currently not accessible as the monitor mount is blocking), or Hand Position 2 are for seated positions. 2 is hands directly on the horizontal part of the handlebars. Hand position 3 is for a standing position – hands are all the way to the top of the vertical part of the handlebars. More recently, hand position 2.5 has also been deemed safe in seater or standing. This position is midway on the vertical part of the handlebar. Hand position 3 should not be used in a seated position and hand positions 1 and 2 would only be used in limited standing movements (running on a hill, jumps, sprints).

The biggest complaint of those new to SPINNING is that the seat is not comfortable. It takes a few weeks of coming consistently to adjust to the discomfort of the seat-but it will happen. In the meantime, we usually have gel seats available if you want to give that a try (ask the instructor), or you can purchase your own if you think you might prefer that.

Your instructor will describe a terrain or an intensity on a scale of 1-10 that you’ll use your resistance knob to mimic. One of the ideal aspects of Spinning is that if you are not yet able to sustain a strong, steep, extended climb – you have several options to adjust. You can make it easier (not making it as strong/steep), you can do less of it, or you can do none at all and remain on a flat surface. Your entire ride is controlled by your resistance knob.

For your first class, we’d like for you to use it more of a time to get accustomed to the bike setup, function and class flow. Ideally you will do most of class on a flat surface and test out the hills periodically to see how it feels and what it takes. We do NOT want you to try to keep up with the class.

It is not a competition and many in class have been working weeks and month even years to build the needed strength and endurance to sustain some of the stronger climbs. For a climb, if the instructor is doing a 2 minute hill, you might come up for 15-30 seconds and then go back down to a flat to recover and then join in the climb again for another few seconds and repeat.

A 2 minute hill may not sound like a substantial effort-but, if you are not conditioned to tackle it – it assures you will spend the next day meeting muscles you never knew you had and didn’t want to meet. This is not our goal for you.

We would like gradual growth and minimal muscle soreness (extra stretching later in the evening and the next morning before you get out of bed can help minimize muscle soreness). For your first class—ideally you will do 25% or less of what the class does and grow 5-10% each week