SoulCycle CEO Evelyn Webster joined Cheddar News to discuss the fitness company's newest, strongly-named campaign aiming to inspire riders "F#ck It, Let's Ride." Webster also teased a move towards other forms of workouts rather than sticking purely to spin. “It goes way beyond the physical experience," she said.

Between Bells

SoulCycle CEO on Adding Other Types of Workouts: 'Never Say Never'

everyone between bells and cheddar news after the past two years have shifted the way we work, eat and workout Fitness companies, Soulcycle Now calling riders back to the studio, this with a brand new campaign called f it, Let's ride the new Call to Action, aiming to offer riders the opportunity to put the past behind them, come together and keep on moving together. So joining us now is Evelyn Webster, the ceo of Soulcycle. Evelyn, such a pleasure to have you here. Thanks so much for joining us. So let's talk about this new campaign interesting bold effort. I think it's great. What was sort of the mission of the tagline? Why do you still want to go this direction? Do you know if you've ever been to a Soulcycle class, you will know the energy in the room is the best part, that's the best part. And so you can just imagine any one of our riders kind of saying let's go and that's the energy and spirit behind this campaign. So especially given the fact that the pandemic, it sort of changed so many things for how so many people had worked out, How did you sort of navigate that period of time with Covid, especially as so many people started gradually started going back to the spin studios, going back to the gym, but in a very sort of small sort of way, you know, the last couple of years have been defined by so many twists and turns, it's incredible, but we are Soul Cycle is home to an incredibly powerful community and so we show wherever they are, which has meant that we were teaching classes outside in hot and extremely cold weather That we've written in studios where we have six ft of distance, sometimes we've been riding in a mask however, we needed to show up for our community, it was really important that we do that. Well what did you maybe learn during the pandemic? That is now the future of working out because there there are people who said look, the future of working out is working out at home, you have the access to all these trainers and you have this equipment at your home, but now that people want to go back to the studio is now the next, the future of the hybrid model, what is it? The future is definitely a hybrid model, there will always be consumers who want to either work out exclusively at home, the vast majority want to work out in person or a combination of in person and at home and so long may that continue. You can ride with Soul in a studio, which we think is somewhat better, but you can also ride with Soulcycle at home or in a hotel or when you're on the go. So wherever you want to exercise workout kind of flexion muscles, your mind, your heart Spirit, you can do that with Soulcycle during the pandemic, we pivoted. So to ensure that we will, wherever they wanted us to write and you guys have a Soulcycle bike similar to some of your competitors as well. But what was, what was the soulcycle customer telling you about like the last few years? Did they want to be back in the studio, which is sort of the rush to get them to come back with 1000%. The superpower of soul cycle is the strength of the community. And of course during two years where we couldn't be together quite as often or as much as perhaps we had been prior to that, we made it work whether that was outside inside at six ft, our community want to be together, we are better together, stronger together, more energy in the room, better spirit, more accountability. They want to be together. Our riders were telling us that our community was telling us that the world is saying, let's draw a line. Now let's move on, let's ride. When we look at the global exercise bike market, it's expected to reach about 863 and a half million by 2027. And it's interesting because your direct competitor peloton, which has had ups and downs on a lot of different areas. They have about 5.9 million members, but obviously the, the you guys having the in studio classes and the bike is sort of the different comparison to all of that is that sort of giving you this advantage against the company like peloton, which is still sort of right now trying to figure out the identity of who, what peloton is in a post covid world. Absolutely. So, as I say, we believe in being wherever our riders are. If they want to ride in the comfort of their own home, on their own with their partner, they can do so they can be on a soul bike, they can be on any at home bike. But what they're streaming is soul content. It's the sole content. The soul experience our rockstar instructors, that is the secrets. Well, I'm glad you mentioned the instructor because that's the other sort of thing that peloton and other brands have sort of created, which is the instructor is almost an influencer in a way you peloton has done that to Soulcycle has done that too. But do you see it changing now because of what we saw with the Cody rigsby or all these other individuals, You know, it's interesting. Soulcycle has almost 300 instructors, Every single one of them is unique. There are no archetypes. There are no very specific cohorts that each of our instructors speak to, they all bring their own true authentic cells to the podium. What they teach is very unique to them, which is why we often say if you ride at soulcycle, you come from it for a phenomenal workout. But soul goes beyond the workout. We often say we put the heart in fitness, it's about exercising your body, but also your mind, your spirit. Often our riders will describe it being an emotional reset. Who you choose to ride with that Soul cycle, you'll have an entirely different soulcycle, always sort of stay as sort of a biking company and biking classes. And I mean that as in you would never sort of pivot to a different sort of group fitness class or something else without, without outside of sort of the bike. Never say never, never say never interesting. But is that sort of the way that you sort of see the brand evolving on, how does soulcycle sort of evolve? So I think, I think there are two big opportunity for us fitness as a discipline has evolved, of course, of course we will continue to evolve with it and that may absolutely look look out opportunities for us to get off the bike to supplement what we do on the bike, what we do on the bike, pretty cool to what the soul experiences, But we are called soul cycle for a reason, leaning into soul often, you know, 71% of our riders, so they ride with soul because it gives them an emotional reset. It goes way beyond the physical experience. I think that starts to present really interesting opportunities for where soul might move in the future. We frequently say we move people to move the world, that is our purpose, our mission, we will always stay true to that, but how we do that, that can be on or off the bike? Well, I'm one of millions of americans. Happy to be back inside of the studio, working out. I could not stand working out in my tiny apartment for for as long as I did, congratulations on all the success Eve Lynn Webster is the ceo of Soul Cycle.