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 Cycling the world
Center allows riders to train on virtual trips
Ben Smith | The Journal Gazette
Published: March 22, 2009
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Photos by Clint Keller | The Journal Gazette
Mark Miller opened the Peloton Cycling Center in the Spiece Fieldhouse in January as an indoor alternative for cyclists.
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Behind a nondescript door at the end of a short hallway, on the far side of the basketball courts at Spiece Fieldhouse, a woman is riding a bicycle toward a distant range of snow-capped peaks.
A few feet away, another rider is leaning hard over his own handlebars and pumping furiously, now that the bay and the cruise ship are in sight.
A few feet away from him, another rider has climbed off the bike, toweled off, and is headed out the door.
“Hey, I just passed you,” the woman says to him.
And if your curiosity isn’t piqued by now … meet Mark Miller.
It’s his virtual cycling world at the Peloton Cycling Center, and everyone else is just living in it. Riding through mountains. Following a road that ends at a cruise shop. Taking advantage of Computrainers that simulate dozens of rides from the obscure to the famous.
You can, for instance, attack the formidable L’Aple d’Huez mountain stage on the Tour de France program – via a tiny digital version of yourself pumping away along a tiny digital road on a 22-inch monitor.
There are a dozen stations inside the Peloton, divided into two groups of six, and you use your own bike or a rental bike (Miller suggests the former, for your own comfort).
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 A computer screen provides feedback to riders at the cycling center, who can choose various exotic locales.
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You can program the Computrainer to experience the same ride with as many as five other riders, with the obvious advantage that, unlike a real ride with a group, everyone can ride at his or her own pace and never fall out of the group. Or you can race each other, if you’re so inclined.
“It’s healthy for the community because it promotes socialization, camaraderie,” Miller says of the group aspect. “The name of our business is ‘Peloton,’ which means a pack of riders. So it just kind of promotes that whole group atmosphere.”
To be sure, it beats the heck out of spending the winter months slogging away on a stationary bike in your basement, Miller says. Or shelling out the $1,400 to $1,600 it would take to buy a Computrainer system for yourself, which is ultimately why Miller opened Peloton in January.
A former high school cross country runner, he quit running in college, then took it up again once he was out of school. Pretty soon he was doing marathons and mini-marathons … which led to his first triathlon in Warsaw six years ago … which led to his involvement in cycling.
“The bike portion of a triathlon is probably the key to a triathlon, because you’re on the bike the longest,” Miller says. “If you’re gonna be competitive in it, that’s where you’re gonna make or break time. So a lot of the focus goes into bike training.”
Because of that, Miller knew about the Computrainer technology. The cost, however, made him shudder. And when he started asking around town to see whether anyone might lease or rent time on a Computrainer, he quickly discovered there was nothing like that available.
And so the idea for Peloton was born.
“We go clear across the spectrum, from the casual rider all the way up to the racing circuit,” Miller says. “We’ve been encouraged by the number of people who are utilizing it.
“We live in the Midwest, so you can’t ride outside all winter long. This just is the closest thing you can get to being outdoors.”
Miller emphasizes that Peloton is a training center, not a bike distributor. That’s part of why he enourages riders to bring their own bikes. To facilitate that, he operates what he calls a “valet service,” storing riders’ bikes, keeping the chain lubed and setting them up for riders who call ahead to book time.
“If we know you’re coming in, we’ll set it up for you,” he says. “And then we’ll wipe it down and put it away for you.”
Until the next time you go chasing that cruise ship.
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