The Peloton story: everything you need to know

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The camera zooms in on two well-formed cheeks clad in white shorts. These buns of steel belong to one Hudson Williams, star of the steamy hockey romance Heated Rivalry. As the camera pans up, a bead of sweat drips down his chin toward his clavicle. Sweaty abs are shown. The music swells. Hollywood’s mega-hunk of the moment is swaying his chiseled visage back and forth, semi-gyrating on… a Peloton treadmill. A $6,695 Tread Plus, to be exact.

Peloton said on Friday that it’s cutting around 11 percent of its staff, mostly impacting “engineers working on technology and enterprise-related efforts,” reports Bloomberg.

Last August, Peloton laid off six percent of its workforce and told investors it would continue layoffs globally in 2026, in an attempt to cut at least $100 million of annual spending by the end of the fiscal year.

Peloton has been angling for a redemption arc ever since its status as a pandemic darling started faltering when the world reopened for business. It tried to steady the ship with a series of layoffs, a pivot to subscriptions, and a leadership shuffle. Now, Peloton’s hoping to kick off a new era with the Cross Training Series, a total refresh of its product lineup consisting of a new Bike, Bike Plus, Tread, Tread Plus, and Row Plus.

“The impetus behind the Cross Training series is, ‘Let’s just give people one place to do all the strength and cardio workouts in one spot,” says Nick Caldwell, Peloton’s chief product officer. “We now make that convenient, all in one.”

Peloton said it’s not sweating tariffs in its Q3 2025 earnings today, noting it is “predominantly a subscription business” while acknowledging that macroeconomic uncertainty could impact demand for its pricey bikes and treadmills.

“During the period of GDP decline between 2008 and 2009, external data showed that us spend[ing] on fitness continued to grow, and that implies the fitness industry has some resilience to external economic factors,” Peloton CFO Liz Coddington said on its earnings call, while underscoring the company’s main revenue comes from subscriptions and that it has a loyal subscriber base. “Or to put it more plainly, the data suggests that fitness isn’t among the first places that consumers are likely to scale back when times are tough.”

Peloton announced the launch of Strength Plus, a new standalone, audio-based strength training app. The app was introduced in a limited beta program earlier in September, but is now officially available.

The Strength Plus app allows users to generate custom workouts by choosing workout length, equipment, experience level, and which muscle groups they want to focus on. It also includes multi-week programs curated by Peloton’s strength coaches, though workouts can be done at a user’s own pace. Strength Plus includes audio cues and tips from instructors, as well as a library of instructional videos demonstrating exercises and equipment setup. It’s more like a strength training playlist than Peloton’s typical classes, which have you follow an instructor as they do the workout in real time. It works with the Apple Watch and users can log weights and reps within the app. And, instead of being stuck with instructor-curated workout music, users can listen to their own music, audio books, or podcasts.

Peloton’s got a new head honcho. The company announced that Ford executive Peter Stern will take over as CEO and President starting January 1st. Stern previously worked at Apple and Time Warner Cable.

“As a cofounder and driving force behind Apple Fitness Plus, Peter led his growth to millions of members, and is responsible for successfully scaling over a dozen other subscription services ranging from Ford BlueCruise to Apple iCloud to Time Warner Cable Home Security,” said Karen Boone, Peloton’s interim CEO, on today’s Q1 2025 earnings call. “Importantly, Peter has also been a passionate member of the Peloton community since 2016.”

Peloton’s CEO Barry McCarthy is stepping down after announcing yet another round of layoffs, this time affecting about 15 percent of its remaining workforce, or roughly 400 global team members. It’s the fifth round of layoffs to hit the pandemic darling and comes after McCarthy said on its Q1 2023 earnings call that the company was done with layoffs and that the “ship was turning.”

“Hard as the decision has been to make additional headcount cuts, Peloton simply had no other way to bring its spending in line with its revenue,” said McCarthy in his outgoing message, noting that it’s a crucial step as the company seeks to refinance its debt. The layoffs are part of a 12-month restructuring program meant to reduce annual expenses by more than $200 million.

Update, Thursday, February 15th, 2024, 1:07PM ET: Now Peloton says it’s heard the feedback “loud and clear” and has canceled its plan to drop GymKit support. The title of this post has been updated to reflect that the original article continues below.

In an email sent to users Monday evening, Peloton revealed that starting February 27th, it will start transitioning Apple Watch users from GymKit to Peloton One-Tap tracking.

Just like all gadgets, even tablets solely devoted to fitness will eventually meet their software demise. That time is rapidly approaching for Peloton’s first-gen bike tablets, known as Quartz. Peloton sold these first-gen bikes between 2013 and 2016. The company already cut off software updates for the early touchscreens back in 2019. But now, as reported by Pelo Buddy, the hammer is coming down, and Peloton will completely cease support for the tablets in June 2024. If you don’t make a move by then, you won’t be able to access classes anymore, leaving “Just Workout” as the only feature that will still work.

So what’s a budget-conscious Peloton devotee to do? Well, there are a couple of options to choose from. Affected customers can take advantage of an exclusive $500 discount on the modern Bike Plus. If that’s way outside the scope of what you’re willing to pay, Peloton is also offering a much more modest $50 off a replacement 22-inch touchscreen tablet, which would bring that price to $325.

Peloton is opening up its app to third-party treadmills for running, walking, or Tread Bootcamp classes. Pelo Buddy spotted a new support page on Peloton’s site announcing that the app can now record and display metrics on any treadmill that uses Bluetooth FTMS. The offer is only open to subscribers of the company’s most expensive subscription workout plan, Peloton App Plus.

To pair, you’ll start a Tread class in the Peloton app, then tap the “Connect a Bluetooth Device” option. Pick your treadmill from the list, and a green check mark lets you know when it’s connected.

Many Peloton users were unable to get into Thursday’s Thanksgiving ride, prompting the company’s CEO to apologize. At 10AM ET Peloton kicked off its 10th annual “Turkey Burn” event, with the goal of breaking the Guiness World Record for “largest live cycling class.” But the company struggled with the demand, and many users were unable to participate at all. “We let you down,” CEO Barry McCarthy said in a statement.

According to McCarthy, over 37,000 people were able to participate, while it’s unclear how many couldn’t get in. “The number of members trying to join the ride overwhelmed our technical infrastructure and we were unable to support all those attempting to participate in the class,” he said. The Peloton status page notes “elevated errors with live classes” for about an hour starting just a few minutes after the class kicked off, and resolving at 11:07AM ET. Some users who got into the event also noted technical issues while it was live. At the time of writing everything seems to be operational.

Tom Cortese, Peloton co-founder and chief product officer, is stepping down from his role. In a press release shared on Tuesday, Peloton says it will replace Cortese with former Twitter executive Nick Caldwell.

“After nearly 12 years of pouring myself into Peloton and serving our Members, I have decided it is time to move on and create space for new perspectives,” Cortese says. “I’m eager for new growth for Peloton and for me personally, but I’m also excited to support and watch this next phase of Peloton’s evolution.”

In its latest earnings call, Peloton reported a net loss of $242 million for the quarter. It also lost 29,000 subscribers from last quarter and had a higher-than-anticipated monthly churn of 1.4 percent. While some of that was attributed to summer doldrums, Peloton noted that costs for a recent bike seat post-recall “substantially exceeded” initial expectations to the tune of $40 million. An estimated 15 to 20 thousand members also chose to pause their subscriptions ahead of receiving replacement seats.

But speaking of recalled products, Peloton CEO Barry McCarthy said in its quarterly shareholder letter that the company plans to resume US presales of the Tread Plus this holiday season for a retail price of around $6,000. (For context, the Tread Plus originally cost $4,295.) The Tread Plus was recalled in 2021 after several reports of injuries and the death of a small child. The treadmill was subsequently discontinued, but earlier this year, the company got regulatory approval for a new rear safety guard — which is likely why the company is entertaining bringing the premium treadmill back into its product lineup. The plan is to sell out the existing 10,000 units in inventory with the new rear guard before starting up any new manufacturing.

Peloton isn’t keen on the fact people mostly think of it as that bike company, which is why CEO Barry McCarthy says the company will “relaunch its brand” later this month so that more people are aware that it does other things, too. Part of that is relaunching the Peloton app with a new tiered subscription structure.

There’s no information on the pricing just yet, but on today’s Q3 2023 earnings call, CFO Liz Coddington said the “app tiers will have different amounts of content variances” depending on the price. Only users who have bought Peloton hardware and pay for All-Access membership will get everything Peloton has to offer.