Peloton recalled over two million exercise bikes to replace their seat posts

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you watch television, then you have encountered ads for the fancy Peloton PL01 exercise bicycle (shown above), which sells for $1445. An article at the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) on May 11, 2023 is titled Peloton recalls two million exercise bikes due to fall and injury hazards. A Peloton web page titled Peloton Original Bike Recall and Free Seat Post Repair explains:

 

“The original Peloton Bike seat post can break unexpectedly during use, creating a potential fall and injury risk. Peloton has identified 35 reports of seat posts breaking out of 2,160,000 units sold in the US. There have been 13 reports of injuries, including a wrist fracture, lacerations and bruises.”

 

Another article at DC Rainmaker on May 12, 2023 titled Peloton’s seatpost recall, Zwift’s curious steering rebirth, and GoPro price drop described the problem:

 

“The issue stems from the seat post, specifically the welds. There have been sporadic reports on Peloton Facebook and Reddit groups over the years of the seatpost snapping or separating during use.”

 

An arrow in the image shown above indicates the L-shaped seat post, which consists of two oval-shaped tubes connected by an elbow. The post can easily be replaced by the bicycle owner.

 

Yet another article at Reuters on May 11, 2023 titled Peloton recalls 2.2 million exercise bikes over seat issue describes the financial impact:

 

“During the January to March quarter, Peloton said it had accrued $8.4 million as an estimated expense related to ‘voluntary corrective action plan’ involving the defect.”

 

Still another article by Edward Segal at Forbes on May 16, 2023 is titled How product recalls can create a crisis for companies. This recall is a potential crisis because of the huge number of products, and parts which needed to be stockpiled before announcing it. There have been other CPSC recalls involving seat posts, like for Faraday electric bicycles on July 2, 2019 titled Electric bicycles recalled by Faraday; seat post poses fall hazard, But that recall involved just 4,450 bicycles – 485 times fewer than Peloton.

 

Failure analysis of a product typically involves an attempt to isolate the defect to a problem that occurred at a specific time period. Apparently due to the small number of broken seat posts Peloton was not able to localize a time, and had to recall all of them.

 

In early 2022 another problem with bicycles at Peloton was reported. An article by Patrick McGee at Ars Technica (from the Financial Times) on February 22, 2022 is titled Inside “Project Tinman”: Peloton’s plan to conceal rust in its exercise bikes, along with another by Lucas Nolan at Breitbart on February 23, 2022 titled ‘Project Tinman:’ How Peloton planned to conceal rust on its fancy exercise bikes.

 

The image of a Peloton bike came from Wikimedia Commons.