One 10: Everything you need to know about Tim Benjamin's new spinning class

Team GB's Tim Benjamin is on a mission to make indoor cycling more competitive. Phoebe Luckhurst enters the race

London is competitive. The city thrums with the energy of contest — it’s part of its DNA. Indeed, one way to beguile a Londoner is to promise competition: watch the glint illuminate their eyes as they set them on the prize.

And this is particularly true in the world of boutique fitness. We are entranced by classes that makes us go harder and faster, where we can outperform others and outstrip our own performance in the last class. For a start, it enlivens the monotony of routine.

Certainly, Tim Benjamin’s eyes are glinting as he explains the concept behind his competitive new indoor cycling class, Paceline. The former Team GB 400m runner is now an indoor-cycling obsessive: his Marylebone cycling studio, One 10, opens today — offering two classes, the aforementioned Paceline, and another one called Nirvana. He takes me on a studio tour of the complex, stroking the sturdy handlebars of a TechnoGym bike with the fondness of a fanatic. Benjamin retired from running in 2009, blaming a persistent hamstring injury — he says one of the great advantages of indoor cycling is, besides the cardiovascular benefits, the relatively low risk of injury.

So what’s different about One 10? Chiefly, the offering is about competition. Before your first class, you get a full body composition analysis — when you climb astride a bike you can log into your profile and get precise, real-time analytics for your power, heart rate, cadence and calories.

Now the games can begin. In Paceline, your performance in watts and revolutions per minute will then be broadcast and ranked on a leaderboard at the front of the class — which will certainly motivate you to up your ante. Unlike most indoor cycling classes, the instructor rides with their back to other riders, which adds to the sense of a high-speed peloton, and the data is also sent to your personal profile, putting you in competition with yourself too.

Nirvana is, by contrast, a more familiar — and just as fun — proposition: an indoor, high-speed cycling class, conducted to the high- velocity music that is broadcast into a soundproofed room by Bose speakers. But there is still a gamification element: every time you propel a pedal, it will be logged in your profile. You can convert these stats into targets: like, cycling the distance from London to Brighton, Benjamin suggests. Smash a target and you’re in line to win tank tops and other kit from the shop in the studio’s reception. Try hard enough and you might never have to buy kit again.

“There are two reasons why people do indoor cycling classes,” he says. “For some, it’s the pleasure of it, for others it’s competitive. So we’re putting the two concepts under one roof, to unite two audiences.” Presumably, he hopes some people will be seduced by both classes.

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Nirvana and Paceline take place in two different studios, each designed according to the personalities of the class. Duly, Nirvana looks more like a nightclub — the lighting flashes in time with the music — while Paceline’s studio has road markings on the floor. There is a juice bar, workspace and merchandise at the reception upstairs; your Paceline progress will also be broadcast on a screen in the reception area, for maximum exposure.

Today, a fitness brand must pedal a lifestyle and Benjamin has taken a thorough approach to putting One 10 literally in your hands, via a smartphone app that syncs your One 10 profile up with fitness trackers including your Fitbit, to keep all your data in one place. The app also includes workout programmes you can do at home.

The One 10 rides will change regularly to preclude any monotony — mixing up resistance and speed in different orders and intensities. Each Paceline ride has nine stages — of varying levels of difficulty (though they will definitely all be difficult). Moreover, unlike on many indoor bikes, you don’t up the resistance by turning the knob but instead hit a button — which guarantees it will get harder. “Every month we’ll release a new class type and new competitive challenges to aim for,” adds Benjamin, “like the furthest distance, for example.”

Competition is undeniably the name of the game, then. Though Benjamin insists that One 10 is also a (relatively) democratic workout. “Big guys in a weights room can be pretty intimidating, but indoor cycling isn’t about size.” Saddle up: it’s game on.

Follow Phoebe Luckhurst on Twitter: @phoebeluckhurst

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