In 2006, SoulCycle felt like just another fitness fad—a flash in the organic-coconut-oil-greased pan. But what was once a trendy little candlelit Manhattan cycling studio is now a national fitness juggernaut, with 57 locations from coast to coast, each bringing in an average of $4 million a year. The original team of two co-founders has expanded to 1,752 employees. And no employees are more important than the instructors, the faces of the brand—277 chiseled men and women with the uncanny ability to simultaneously ride and dance on a bike.

Half motivational speaker and half sex object, the typical SoulCycle instructor looks like a soap opera star and talks like a coxswain. Instructors conduct class while literally up on a pedestal, and have such godlike followings that they’re now starring in strangely accurate music videos for mediocre electro-pop acts. We are desperate for their approval. But what do they think of us?

In the lead-up to SoulCycle’s 10th birthday this month, we interviewed more than a dozen current and former instructors to find out what life is like in their clip-on shoes. We heard stories about riders giving instructors Christmas gifts of cars, jewelry, and envelopes full of cash. We learned that sometimes riders in the throes of exertion actually shit their spandex. And we asked them to tell us the truth about whether they ever want to see us in the real world, whether riding a stationary bike is a legit way to make a living, and whether SoulCycle is really a cult.

Be honest, do you really want to hang out with any of your riders from class?

Marvin: That’s happened, though it is my personal preference to have more of a separation between church and state.

Ross: I’m always down to have a cup of coffee with a rider, or grab a juice after class. It’s hard not to develop relationships with the people who are coming to your classes over and over again. It’s a funny experience, though. Seeing riders outside of class is kind of like when you were a kid and you saw a teacher in the grocery store.

Pixie: Think of it like this: Class is 45 minutes long, but this isn’t a job where you can go clock in and clock out. There’s the 15 minutes before class and then the 15 minutes after class. Now, a lot of people may think, “I would love to do that, you only work for an hour and a half,” but the truth is that your phone is blowing up before and after each class with e-mails, with social media, with text messages. Just everything from “I really loved that song that you were playing the other day, can you play it again?” to “It’s my best friend’s birthday, we’re surprising her” to “I’m running late, but please don’t give up my bike” to “I’m going through a really hard time right now, and something you said in class gave me great relief” to “Sorry I wasn’t on my A-game today.” You get so many things on your phone that work just continues. And the truth is, there’s only one of you.

Charlee: I try to keep myself separated, only because that’s mine. That’s my personal life. That’s what I get to hold onto. I know some instructors become very close with their riders, and there are riders that I’m close with, but for the most part I really do try to keep it professional.

What’s the toughest part of the job?

”Being a fitness professional that works out 12 to 18 times a week, I feel like I should have a rock-hard six-pack and the most insane, Barbie-doll body.”

Ross: Definitely the recovery. When you have a schedule like ours, it’s hard to fit in the right amount of rest and recovery. There are weeks where I’m just exhausted and my body hurts and my head hurts.

Willie: I’ve been an instructor for less than two months now, and the music is one of the toughest parts for me. I’ve always had rhythm, but I’m not a dancer. I didn’t know eight counts. I didn’t know how to listen to music in order to create a specific mood.

Eric: The constant laundry I had to do. Laundry was ridiculous.

Marvin: As an instructor, you become the manager of the room and you’re dealing with so many different things. You’re dealing with the temperature of the room, the music, the volume, someone who is pregnant, someone’s birthday, five new riders, someone who wants the fan turned on. And the only way to learn what works and what doesn’t work is to go through the process.

Willie: The majority of riders are generally—well, there’s a couple types of people, but SoulCycle could be more diverse.

Pixie: Being a fitness professional that works out 12 to 18 times a week, I feel like I should have a rock-hard six-pack and the most insane, Barbie-doll body. And the truth is that I have a great body that’s super strong and super healthy, but there’s this part where physically I feel like I’m supposed to look a certain way so that I’m more inspiring.

It must be hard to find the time or energy to exercise outside of class. Is SoulCycle your primary workout at this point?

Ross: I jump in the pool or jump into a yoga studio every now and then, but all I really do is Soul. I don’t even own a gym membership. Now, if I were advising myself, I would say, “Ross, do some cross-training. You need to do that.” But the reality is—if I’m being totally honest—my job is so physical that the last thing I want to do in my downtime is sweat more.

Emily: I try to take dance classes or yoga classes. Anything that will move my body in a different plane. But sleep and hydration are everything to me, and there are just weeks that are more demanding than others. So if I have a week like that, no, I’m not going to go out anywhere. I’m going to go home and drink water and be in bed by eight.

Charlee: I was able to just cycle for about a year and a half, until I started to notice that I needed to start doing something else.

Conor: When I first started at SoulCycle, I was teaching 18 to 19 classes without doing any strength training, and I was just running myself into the ground. I ended up injuring my knee outside of class because my body was so run down. After having knee surgery and my initial physical rehab, I picked up strength training again. I do it twice a week now.

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Karyn: I’m taking a shadowboxing class later. It’s nice to take a class where you’re not the one talking. It’s nice to have someone tell me what to do.

I imagine you have to be eating a lot of food when you’re teaching that many classes in a week, too.

Eric: You’re eating constantly. Literally eating every two hours, which gets expensive.

Conor: I eat all the time. I have to. It’s constant. And lots of coffee. Coffee and food.

Charlee: The first year I trained, it was like, “Oh, my god, I can eat whatever I want!” And then in about a year and a half, it all starts to catch up.

Karyn: I try my best to keep my diet super clean. I feel like I don’t need as much food if I keep to that.

Ross: It’s about trying to keep up with the calories you’re burning, and last week I taught seventeen classes in seven days, so…

Are there ever any moments in class that you just have to step back for a second and say, “I can’t believe that just happened”?

Ross: As instructors, we want every class to be epic and life-changing. But that obviously isn’t possible.

Willie: I’ve been an instructor for less than two months, but I’ve cried at least three times. I don’t even know why. I wasn’t sad or angry or bothered or anything like that; there were just tears. It’s happened in class, after class, while in training. I’ve never been like that in my whole entire life.

Eric: There are some very bizarre moments. I was three or four songs into a class once, and all of a sudden the music just stops and the fire alarm starts blaring. Next thing I know, the strobe alarm goes off and I just remember thinking, “Oh, shit. This is really happening.”

Emily: There was a terrible thunderstorm during one of my earlier classes and the power went out, so obviously the sound system went down. I told everyone to keep moving their legs, but I couldn’t think of how to get my music to play. I was fully prepared to just sing the songs, ’cause I knew all the words. Finally, one of my riders waved me over and said, “Unplug your computer from the sound system!” It wasn’t very loud, but it was better than me singing and clapping for the next 20 minutes. **

**

Charlee: I gave myself a black eye. I think I have a photo of it on Instagram, but I literally hit my face on the handlebars because I’m an idiot.

Karyn: I’ve definitely been overly enthusiastic and flown my head into the handlebars before. I’ve walked out with a welt on my forehead. That’s always cute. We slip and fall off the podium all the time. That’s just par for the course.

Marvin: It was my very first class, and I was hoping that no one would sue me. It was towards the end of class, and I was trying to stage one of those more internal moments for my riders at the end of class. I thought I was saying the most influential and inspiring things and got on this high. So I kept talking more and more and more. By the end of the song, I tried to slowly let my voice go out and at the same time planned to blow out these two candles so the room would go super dark. Well, I blew out the candles a little too hard and blew hot wax onto two of the riders in the front row.

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Pixie: One time, I had food poisoning really badly. I was “better,” but I wasn’t better, you know? That seems like TMI, but everybody has suffered from food poisoning at one time! I’ve puked in my towel before. I think it was the first time that the owners, Julie and Elizabeth, took my class, so I was beyond nervous. Plus, it was one of the toughest classes I have ever taught. I actually had to walk to the corner of the room during the middle of class and just puked right in my towel. I just rolled it up and threw it in the corner and nobody knew.

Is working as a SoulCycle instructor a viable career option?

Ross: I think burnout is definitely a real thing in any endeavor, especially a really physical or emotional one. But as long as the job keeps fulfilling me in the way that it does now, I don’t see myself giving it up anytime soon.

Pixie: I remember when I first started out, the company told me, “We don’t want you to have five jobs. We want to make this your career.” We get benefits, we get vacation, we get a stipend for clothing. They take care of us. It’s a real job with a 401k.

Emily: Acting and dancing is why I originally came to New York, and I’ve still been pursuing that, but what I’ve come to realize is that I’m not going to leave SoulCycle for any ol’ job. It would have to be a show that’s really progressing my career or really important to me. I’m not going to leave SoulCycle for some production of The Music Man in Wyoming.

Eric: I gave myself five years when I started teaching. I told myself, “I’m not going to do this for the rest of my life. Let’s just see how far I can go with this before the wheels fall off.” The wheels fell off a little early for me, though. I had two slipped disks in my lower back. My doctor just told me, “You need to stop, otherwise you’re going to have severe problems when you get older.” It was a little heartbreaking for me.

Charlee: I am in it for the long haul with SoulCycle. I’ve already put the work in. I know a lot of people are like, “How long can you just ride a bike?” Well, how long do you plan on walking for? Until you’re 80? You’re still putting one foot in front of the other. That’s my mentality on it.

Conor: Once you get a taste of the podium, there’s no going back. It doesn’t feel like work at all. I’m like the super-senior in high school who won’t move on. I’ll be here until they say there are no more classes for me to teach.

A lot of different people have used the term “cult” to describe SoulCycle. What is your response to people when you hear that?

Pixie: People say that and I’m like, “Ok, so don’t go to SoulCycle, but continue to go to the bar three days out of the week.” What’s the technical definition of a cult? I don’t know it, do you?

I’m not sure specifically what it is. I could look it up.

Pixie: Let’s look it up. What’s the definition of “cult”?

“A system of religious veneration and devotion directed toward a particular figure or object.”

Pixie: Ok. So, yeah, for sure, SoulCycle is a cult. If that’s the definition, I would proudly say that you could call SoulCycle a cult. If you’re saying that the object is a healthier lifestyle and a positive change, you know what I mean?

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