I know this post is not so much about a vegan or even an offroad product. But as I continue to invest in my health, I figured most people would appreciate some information about my experience in ordering, receiving, and using one of the latest fitness technology entrants to the marketplace.

ORDERING

Ordering the Peleton was simple. We decided we’d put $2500 cash down, and use Affirm’s 0% financing to cover the rest of the $4295 purchase price. I was VERY surprised that I ordered the Tread on Thursday afternoon, and it was delivered Monday morning. That was absolutely amazing, especially since Peloton and other customers were posting 4+ week lead times.

The process of course was all done online and was seamless, which most of us have come to expect as e-commerce technology improves. Peloton kept me posted at every step of the way, so I knew where I was in the process, and wasn’t left wondering. Their brand, and ordering process was flawless.

The next day (Friday) I woke up to a flurry of activity on Instagram, as Peloton had announced their Black Friday deals. And of course, as my luck would have it, they were offering FREE Essentials packages with the purchase of any Tread. So I contacted customer service, and they advised that since I was within the 30 days, they would be happy to honor the offer for me. So I was going to receive two weight sets (I chose 30# and 10#), a mat, and resistance bands. GREAT customer service.

I spent time over the weekend preparing the office for the Tread delivery on Monday morning.

RECEIVING

And that, unfortunately is where this whole thing starts to fall apart.

The delivery window that XPO (their logistics partner) gave me was 9:00AM-12:00PM. They called me the night before to confirm. They also said the driver will call 30 minutes out.

Well, the driver did in fact call me. However his message was that “due to policy they need 3 people in the truck to deliver this, and their boss had only sent two. So you will need to wait another week until we can deliver.”

I basically told him that was unacceptable. I had reserved the morning to receive the Tread, and to hear this 30 minutes out was just not going to work. So I offered to help the two guys unload the truck. They still came up from Knoxville.

The truck arrived, and as promised I helped unload the base. The guys gave me the liability talk, and I accepted responsibility if I got hurt. With some informal shrugs, we grunted and loaded the base onto a hand truck, onto the lift gate, and over to the building where my home office is.

They opened the base packaging, and the deck plates along side the Tread were badly scratched and marked up from vibrartions and the packaging. In some spots the power coat was rubbed off pretty deep. So I had two options – refuse delivery (and wait God knows how long for a replacement), or accept delivery, document everything, and try to work it out with Peloton after the fact. I went with the latter, so I would at least be able to get running.

Even though the guys complained about their experiences delivering Treads and Bikes, and that they left the Box truck in my driveway running for 2 hours (filling my house with diesel fumes) the rest of installation was smooth. They left, and I calibrated the machine.

RECTIFYING

I contacted Peloton about the scratched up rails. Right up front, I sent them pictures I took. Once received and reviewed, the rep refunded my entire $300 delivery fee. They also sent me a “care package” of towels, and some other swag (not sure as it isn’t here yet). So again, +1 for customer service.

I am apparently in some queue now, with “Hardware” to discuss and decide next steps. Will they replace the base? I don’t know as I have not yet heard back from Peloton about the base being scratched up. I will update this post.

EXERCISING

After calibrating, connecting to Wi-fi, and syncing my profile, the machine was ready to go. I took some time to familiarize myself with the interface. Of course the experience is elegant, and based around gobs of data. I am happy that we can delete workouts, as I wanted to test a few and get a feel for them without contaminating my own results.

I do wish Peloton had a way to “Preview” a class for 5 mins or so, and you would not need to go back and delete the data. As a new user its nice to learn about how instructors will have you adjust speed/incline, and just the overall mechanics of the courses.

Aside from the class-based content, and the data I have, my favorite feature of this device is the running surface itself. The slat design is absolutely perfect. It is easy on the knees, and the overall running experience is simply perfect in my opinion. I hated running on my old treadmill with the standard belt and what seemed like dense particle board underneath it. The Tread is light-years away as far as the road feel.

So far, I have run 3 days out of 4 (Wed was my rest day). My legs and body overall feel perfect and awesome. I am very excited to have this option for my personal workouts, and plan to add a profile for my 13 year old Son, as he is training for High School football. My wife also has a profile.

That being said, I do have some feature requests that maybe Peloton can look into and add to their backlog:

• Preview Classes: As I mentioned before, allow people to sample classes for a few minutes. No data will be “saved” to their workouts unless they decide to continue that class. **The community told me I can preview workouts!**
• Swivel Screen: I do wish for floor exercises, that the screen would swivel to the right or left, so that it would be easier to see from the side of the Tread.
• Scenic Runs: I love this feature! I just wish the speed and incline were better matched. Also, allow me to choose music types for these runs.
• Allow me to hide class types. I’d like to hide riding classes, as I don’t have a bike.
• Instructor settings: I would love to see the current tread settings for the instructor. Sometimes I miss a cue, and am not sure if they dropped the incline yet, or picked up the speed (and to what).

CONCLUSION

If you are like how I was last week, and “on the fence” about buying a Tread, I say DO IT. It has been a life changer in only 3 days, and I look forward to smashing my personal records on this thing. The deck surface is flawless, and the content is actually really fun and engaging. The data is a nice touch if you like data.

However, Peloton needs to really work on the delivery angle. I want this company to be profitable and sustainable (So I am not stuck with a $4,000 paper weight). And yet I cringe to think about all the free stuff, and discounts they had to give just me. Let alone how many bases have to be re-shipped and re-installed. That cost must be astronomical.

It is also a huge risk for the Brand they have worked so hard to build. Every contact I have made with Peloton from research, to order, to fulfillment, to Customer Service has been phenomenal. But the delivery experience was a big fat “F.” That disparity in expectations will cause damage to the Peloton brand.

I’ll update this post as the situation progresses.

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