Pedal Power: How Bay Club quadrupled group cycle attendance

Tell us about your club and the Bay membership model?

Marjolein Mayer (MM): I’m the Regional Group Fitness Director at Bay Club and El Segundo is part of our multi-site model, offering access to three locations under a single membership. Currently, we run about 160 group exercise classes a week, spanning HIIT, dance, cycle, yoga and more. Our Les Mills offering includes SPRINT™, BODYPUMP™ and STRENGTH DEVELOPMENT™.

The heartbeat of what we do, and our biggest retention driver, is the sense of community we provide. You can't put a price tag on that. It’s crucial, considering how opportunities for human contact and togetherness are reduced in an increasingly digital world.

Megan Cloe (MC): I’ve been with Bay Club since 2017 and am fortunate enough to be teaching and training Les Mills as my full-time hustle! I’ve been a Trainer and Presenter with the Les Mills US TAP team since 2019. I started teaching BODYPUMP in 2016 – I call it my gateway drug!

Community is key to club success, but tricky to create. How does it show up at Bay?

MM: It's a really good question. We’re intentional about community because it’s what keeps our members here. It’s not just about getting the workout in. Coming here can be the most important part of a member’s day. We’re intentional about inclusivity. Pre-COVID, we had conventional individual or family memberships. When we were building back, we embraced the idea that family can mean different things to different people. So we created the shared membership model. It allows people to bring their friends, kids – whoever they acknowledge as family.

That in turn gives them more options to create their own community within the club, supported by key pillars like group fitness, PT, family programs, recovery, business suites, or healthy dining at our cafe. Our members can spend a big part of their day here and it all helps drive retention and satisfaction.

MC: As Instructors, we’re there for each other, but also for our members. We work hard to prevent class cancellations, because it can ruin a member’s day. It’s my responsibility to mitigate absences. If I can fill in, I will, because I want our community to stay active and engaged. It’s about being a team player. If you want a robust group fitness program or gym community, you need people who are truly invested.

Your LES MILLS SPRINT™ community is thriving. How did you boost average class attendance from 7 to 50?

MC: I would like to say magic, but SPRINT is my heart and soul! We went out to members and spoke about the workout in specific, educational terms, by explaining how it differs from traditional cycle classes, supported by how it will change their fitness. If you frame up specific, measurable outcomes: increased aerobic capacity, the ability to build lean muscle, and overall improved fitness, members understand immediately how it fits into their training.

It's exercise prescription. My participants know they need to show up twice a week, and they do, because they have a deep understanding of what’s on offer. They know they won't see the results they want if they’re not consistent. It's been so cool to watch the seven that started out bring their friends, who then bring their friends, and the community expands.

How do you cultivate the passion of your members?

MM: Word of mouth is an unbeatable marketing strategy. Seven members take a new class which they absolutely love and spread the word and tell their friends. Participants didn’t grow from 7 to 50 overnight, but slowly and surely, word got out and even the sceptics gave it a try and got addicted. That's when community comes into play, right?

MC: We have front row supporters who drive internal recruitment. One of my participants is constantly recruiting off the gym floor because he truly believes in this workout. Every time he walks in, he says: “I’ve got a new one!”

When members believe in what they’re doing and see the results, they become a club’s biggest and best advocates. I get tagged in Instagram stories every single day by members talking about things like their VO2 Max gains, and they’re telling their online followers about their SPRINT class.

How important is the Instructor to SPRINT?

MM: Megan’s confidence and skill make members feel they’re in great hands. The cycle studio is next to my office and it's a tough class, but hearing every single word making sense is so important. I can hear that Megan is firm, but she’s holding them accountable, and people crave that, it’s what they come for.

How do you approach Instructor recruitment?

MM: We try our best to drive in-house recruitment, to help keep our Instructors motivated and offer them more classes. But SPRINT is another example of how our community really drives outcomes. Megan is now mentoring one of her participants to become a SPRINT Instructor.

MC: The best Instructors are passionate members – it’s how I started. Passionate members have got skin in the game and a love for the program that’s easy to spot. I kept it casual and asked my class if anyone was interested in training, and the member I had in mind immediately approached me. She had been thinking about it for months and had even looked up training. Keeping the communication channels open, but relaxed, is key. It's so cool to mentor and see the way that the community is coming together to support her through her team teaching and her filming.

What should operators look for when they're seeking cycle talent?

MM: With cycle, it’s all about motivation and elevating the experience. Because it's a hard class, if you’re not excellent at motivating, it’s going to be hard to get members to return. That’s huge for cycle.

MC: You need different things from a SPRINT Instructor compared to an RPM™ Instructor. RPM is about creating the journey of the music and focusing on the feeling and expressiveness of the ride.

With SPRINT, it's about finding people who are willing to be in the work with members. It’s a very unique cycle class and that's how I speak about it. As a training modality, we treat the bike like a training tool, so you have to find an Instructor who is willing to go there with participants, feeling the same things they are. My members come back because they see that I'm willing to be there with them.

Group training encompasses many categories. What does cycle offer that’s unique?

MM: Crucially, cycle complements other workouts so well – SPRINT does this especially well because it's only 30 minutes. Members tight on time can fit it in easily, or even on top of a strength workout. SPRINT ticks that extreme HIIT cardio box and then you can move on to a strength or yoga class, so we try to offer a timetable that makes that possible for members.

How do you approach timetabling?

MC: When we launched SPRINT, Marjolein and I were intentional about the time slots we chose so members could piggyback with a BODYPUMP or a different option before or after it.

MM: Making life easier for members makes it easier for us to keep them. Expecting members to show up in the middle of the day for a 30-minute class is a hard sell if there's nothing else before or after. If you can put them together to elevate the member experience, it’s better for everyone.

MC: Morning people are different though, right! Today I had 45 people at 6:15 on Monday morning – and that’s because they buy into the message and the outcomes. A few of those do a second workout after that. But if you're coming to the gym at 6:15, before work, you’re going to work hard to justify being there.

Who is coming to SPRINT? Does it attract a particular demographic?

MC: Everybody. We've got high schoolers, Baby Boomers, Millennials. SPRINT attracts a lot of men. But I call our student volleyball players the ‘meat and potatoes’ of the class! They see this type of workout as being just as important to their regime as strength or beach training.

It's for everybody because it's low-impact. I have one participant who has had two knee replacements, two shoulder replacements and is still showing up and able to take part. Next to her, we have student athletes competing at the highest level of college sport. That’s the power of the workout.

MM: A lot of people still look at group fitness like it's for a certain type of person, and not so much for younger generations. But with SPRINT, it plays right into younger exercisers’ preference for short, powerful workouts. Lots of our young members are in and out, they’re time poor, so they want something that hits hard, and is an efficient workout.

How have you managed to attract more males to the studio with this workout?

MC: A lot of it tracks back to how we talk about it, how we train the program, and because they see the results, they feel confident to bring their buddies. I’ve got five men who just keep bringing buddies along. It’s great to watch them show up and be emboldened to try other things in the group fitness studio. They’ll take SPRINT and then try STRENGTH DEVELOPMENT or BODYPUMP.

MM: I think the fact that we offer weightlifting classes like BODYPUMP and STRENGTH DEVELOPMENT attracts more men, because they’re lifting and gaining strength, so it really breaks down the barriers around what group fitness looks like.