Spinning Is Winning

IF THE WORD “SPINNING” INVOKES MENTAL IMAGES of a gym full of identical indoor bikes being pedalled frantically to loud music then you are pretty much correct. It wasn’t until I started to research this article that I realised Spinning is like Kleenex, Hoover and Biro—a trademarked name that has become the default term for the class of goods (in this case indoor cycling).

Mad Dogg Athletics owns the name Spinning. Two cyclists named John Baudhuin and Goldberg started the Spinning craze in the early 90s with a determination to bring the benefits of outdoor cycling indoors, and to non-cyclists. By the mid-90s it had caught on and was very trendy. While it seems to have died down some after that, it is now back and popular once again—only this time with two key variations to the theme. The fact that Shimano