In an email last week, Monet Berger received some upsetting news. “I nearly cried when I read it,” Ms. Berger said. “My heart sank.”
The local press reaction was dramatic, as well. “Total Tribeca Meltdown Alert,” the Tribeca Citizen warned. Racked.com prevailed upon its readership to maintain calm: “SoulCycle Tribeca Closes for Renovations — Nobody Panic!”
Yes, the spinnerati of downtown Manhattan has had to face its greatest fear: The TriBeCa flagship studio of SoulCycle, the chain of indoor cycling studios that is a haven to celebrities and everyday-workout-obsessives alike, closed last Monday for renovations, for three weeks. The construction, which began in February and was to have been finished by Labor Day, will double the location’s showers, bathrooms and locker space.
The company, whose clientele pays up to $70 (for priority booking) for a 45- or 60-minute class, anticipated the concern of its devotees. In announcing the closure, it tried to strike a reassuring tone, promising to schedule additional classes at nearby studios. “We understand that SOUL is an important part of your day,” said the email alert to SoulCycle disciples.
“After I’m done crying, I’ll get over it and go to another studio reluctantly,” said Ms. Berger, who, when choosing a New York City apartment with her husband, evaluated the proximity of those under consideration to the TriBeCa “Soul sanctuary,” as the company refers to the studio.
“Closed for 3 wks @soulcycle what ever will I do?!” Jennifer DiDomizio, a rider, said on Twitter. In an interview she called the classes her “therapy” and said other fitness options are not an option: “You can’t go elsewhere.”
TriBeCa, of course, has multiple high-end gyms, some that offer spin classes. But rock stars, as SoulCycle calls its riders (who include Lena Dunham, Harry Styles of One Direction, Oprah Winfrey and, since a SoulCycle opened in Washington in August, Michelle Obama) accept no substitutes.
“Once you go Soul, you can’t go back,” said Suzanne Xie, who rides at TriBeCa on weekends.
At the tenoverten nail salon, a frequent pre- and post-workout stop that offers SoulCycle-branded colors, Nadine Ferber, an owner, said she sensed the anxiety. People are “definitely nervous about how they will cope,” she said.
To avoid rock-star-grade meltdowns, SoulCycle has buttressed class offerings at the West Village studio, roughly a mile from the TriBeCa location. But with classes now taking place there every half-hour at peak times, the already mad crush to sign in and find a locker is more of a workout than usual.
And there’s the loss of V.I.P. status that regular TriBeCa riders enjoy at their mother ship. At other Soul studios, the receptionists do not recognize them (or know their shoe size). It then becomes an even steeper challenge to charm staff members the riders do not know in order to land a slot in class.
Kira Weintraub, who has surrendered to SoulCycle’s yoga-flavored mantras (“We inhale intention and exhale expectation”) in TriBeCa for three years, said: “If I’m on a wait-list, I’ve always gotten in at TriBeCa because people recognize my name.”
At the TriBeCa studio on the day before closing, Charlee Atkins, an instructor, acknowledged the emotion. “This is the last hoorah for TriBeCa,” she yelled. The 60 riders (among them Jenna Bush Hager), panting from a sprint up a steep hill, did not (could not) reply. “But let’s get excited for more than one bathroom,” added Ms. Atkins, ever the motivator.
Still, the shift to other studios has led to some anxious recalibrating, especially among mothers who go straight from school drop-off to 9:30 a.m. classes. “It’s all about where your kid goes to school — it’s ‘Can you do the turnaround fast enough?’ ” said Ms. Weintraub, who planned a strategy in tandem with a fellow mom.
Many riders are taking the disruption in stride. Lauren Crampsie, who lives across the street from the TriBeCa space, said she had mapped out her travel to the West Village for a 7 a.m. class with military precision. It “will take six or seven minutes in an Uber, if I get on Google traffic and tell him which way to go,” she said.
Ben Zumsteg, a TriBeCa SoulCycle regular, said that after an initial pang of worry (“I’m like, ‘don’t talk to me about Tribeca, I can’t deal,’ ”) he breathed through the stress.
In the past, he has traveled to the Hamptons specifically to spin with an instructor named Rique Uresti (“A tight bike equals a tight body”). Comparably, the West Village is not that far, Mr. Zumsteg said. “Having him within 20 minutes of my apartment instead of three blocks away is probably not the end of the world.”View the original article here
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