This 20-minute Peloton class teaches you about exercise in space, and it's unlike anything else.

Peloton instructor Robin Arzón just took fitness out of this world and into space. Her new 20-minute class features astronaut Jessica Meir, who was broadcasting straight from the International Space Station when the ride was recorded. The class is available for free on Peloton’s YouTube channel or through the Peloton app.

The ride starts with Arzón introducing Meir, who shows riders her view of Earth from the space station’s cupola, the dome-like observatory that many astronauts use to photograph Earth. Meir remarks during the ride that the view of our planet is magical and “never gets old.”

Meir joins the class on an exercise bike that resembles a minimalist, high-tech unicycle mechanism with no seat or handlebars, anchored to the wall, called the FERGO, or Flight Ergometer. In microgravity, pushing down on a pedal would launch an astronaut backward to the ceiling. To stay in place, Meir wears a wide waist belt secured to rigid side struts, with her cycling shoes clipped into specialized pedals with straps.

Meir talks about the importance of cardiovascular activity and “living happily in isolation” in a short video during her prior stint on the ISS in 2020, during the COVID-19 lockdown. There, she and fellow astronaut Drew Morgan showed off an earlier model of the bike, called CERVIS (Cycle Ergometer with Vibration Isolation and Stabilization System), as well as a T2 treadmill for running that uses a harness and bungees to counter near-weightlessness.

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