There are rows of bikes as far as the eye can see: it’s the church of indoor cycling

The challenge with indoor cycling is always to make it more immersive, and I simultaneously don’t really understand this – because people who love it already really love it – and understand it completely. Indoor cycling is at the outer edge of exercise maximisation.

People go to a stationary exercise-bike class for one purpose: to get fit. They want results, they want euphoria, and they want those things fast. The more intense your sensory diversion, the less you’ll notice the pain and the harder you’ll work. So you get a lot of innovation in the field. There are classes with a nightclubby ethos: loud music, low lights. Or there are futuristic ones, where you’re cycling through a CGI landscape. There are chill-out classes, with blissful music and instructions to “just ride”. And now there is uber-indoor cycling, with rows and rows of bikes as far as the eye can see. The church of indoor cycling.

I’ve been to an indoor bike “amphitheatre” called 1Rebel, and I admit, I love the aesthetics – 86 bikes laid out severely like in an exam room, with the invigilator to match. Where it gets weird is that once you’re cycling, you don’t really notice how many people there are. Unless there’s someone very high-energy, whooping, you get your head down and your butt up, you follow some kind of cardio sequence and, as far as you’re concerned, through a combination of concentration and effort, you’re the only person in the room.

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First Light, in Westfield London, has a slightly smaller studio but more of a sense of comradeship because it has a narrative. The idea is that the artificial light emanating from the back screen will take you through a single day, morning to nightfall, and you’ll get into some kind of circadian rhythm – fierce in the morning, unstoppable at lunchtime, steady in the afternoon, and relaxed and whizzy in the evening. All in an hour. Being asked to buy into this collective fantasy undoubtedly bonds you to the rest of the room. There were only about 15 of us on the Sunday morning I was there, but I could describe them very closely: the silver fox who looked like Richard Gere; the young guy who whooped regularly; two blond women who looked as if they were off to do something much more fun afterwards.

It would not be true to say that we spurred each other on; who knows, maybe I spurred them on (as a cautionary tale), but they didn’t have much impact on me, since once I get going it’s just me and the bike. I loved the rather silly conceit of moving through the hours, but hated the holograms of characterless buildings, like fake upon fake. I loved the instructor. I maintained self-awareness throughout, but I worked like a dog.

What I learned

New-school indoor cycling is a full-body workout with added arm weights. Start with the light ones.

• This article was amended on 16 November 2018 to remove an incorrect reference to “spinning”.