Let's Get Cyc'ed!

Li & Loo Tackle Cyc

Safely Store Away Your Belongs

Ladies and gents, today we're going to take a closer look at  Cyc Fitness ("Cyc"). As you can probably extrapolate or infer from that name, it is a group fitness class for cycling. Ever since the emergence of Soul Cycle in 2006, cycling has been the foundation block of New York group fitness scene, partly driven by its accessibility and prevalence for people with different fitness background. Additionally, these cycling classes aim not only to provide you with a good sweat and workout, but good vibes.

In this competitive cycling group fitness landscape, Cyc aims to creates its own unique brand identity. In our opinion it is closer to a Soul Cycle class than a Flywheel class. Cyc offers a series of fast-pace, beat-bumping rides that activates the whole body, the whole time. Each unique class combines calorie burning endurance intervals and weighted sectors with high-energy playlists and motivating instructors. The Cyc experience consists of  3 different types of classes: Cyc45 (most popular and common workout - for 45 minutes, let your instructor take over and just ride), CycLift (like Cyc45, but with additional elements of weight training incorporated into your ride) and CycLean (opposite of CycLift, this class focus on your stamina building and it's weight free). We took the classic Cyc45 class.

Most people are fairly familiar with cycling group fitness class due to the popularity of Soul Cycle, Flywheel and Peloton, so for us the deciding factor comes down to the instructor for your class and we got a great one today.

Now let's rate this thing:

Motivation (5) - As we mentioned above, the deciding motivational factor of the class is mainly determined and heavily influenced by the instructor. For this weekend's class, our instructors was Aaron Albert and tell you what, he was hands down one of the best cycling instructors we had, all time. The style of the class was very upbeat and motivating right from the beginning. Similar to most instructors, Aaron too, incorporated his own choreography and style of riding, however, his energy was phenomenal, especially when he would sporadically just free-style and improvise during middle of a song - his energy was contiguous.

Amenities (3.5) - The gym offers you the soup to nuts amenities similar to the rest of the group cycling classes, so if you don't have your own cycling shoes, the gym does provide you with rentals. There is a locker area downstairs from the studio, along with separate restrooms.

Intensity (4.5) - The class was fast-paced and mixed with variety of different workouts, including the weight component. While the intensity of the class was largely dictated by the our instructor, he did provide the class with the opportunities for feedbacks throughout the session. The class rode with great intensity and chose the "harder" options every chance we got. Needless to say our shirts were completely drenched by the end of the class, it was a great cardio day.

Overall (4.5) - The class definitely pleasantly exceeded our expectation and it was probably one of the best cycling classes we've taken thus far. Granted this is the only Cyc class we've taken, so it's hard to tell whether if all Cyc classes are like this, but if most of the Cyc classes provide similar quality, we're confident that you'll hear more and more about this brand of cycling. Also, Cyc is available through Class Pass.

Class Locations: 

Cyc Chelsea
555 Sixth Ave.
New York, NY 10011

Cyc Hell's Kitchen
700 Eighth Ave.
New York, NY10036

Cyc UES
1231 3rd Ave.
New York, NY 10021

-L&L