Last week, Caity Weaver and I took a break from stuffing our faces to attend Dave Duminuco's Be (Better Than) Beyoncé workout class, which is currently held on Friday evenings at Awakening NY in Brooklyn's Greenpoint neighborhood. Here is how the one-hour class's Facebook page describes it:

After shaking his head dejectedly at our last foray into trend piece fitness (“That sounds like a workout for an old lady, or someone who had been seriously injured”) Gawker’s resident demon-beast of muscle and tears and intensity trapped inside a mild-mannered Floridian body, Hamilton Nolan, made a pitch: Leah Beckmann and I would come to his boxing gym one night after work for a “real” workout, and at the end of the session, he would crown a winner and award them one (1) Buy-One-Get-One-Free Chipotle coupon he had been saving for months for some reason. (He also noted that no prize was necessary because “boxing is its own reward.”)

Biking in New York City is tired. Citi Bike^SM takes up space on the street and a little bit of the sidewalk that was previously occupied by the street and a little bit of the sidewalk. They'll let any roving brood of vagrants into SoulCycle these days. Where can New Yorkers turn if they want to enjoy a stationary bike ride by candlelight but don't want to do that in an environment that can sustain a Mogwai's gentle magic?

Gawker's least favorite exercise fad, SoulCycle, is opening shop in Williamsburg. "Hint, hint: If you've never been to Brooklyn, now might be a good time to check it out," says the press release. Ha. "Cross the bridge. Change your body. Find your SOUL!" continues the press release. Ha ha.

This past January, three intrepid Gawker employees traveled to around the corner from their office to try out New York's bougie new fitness craze: SoulCycle. What the experience lacked in comfort, it made up for in terror and also seeing Chelsea Clinton. Emboldened, last night two of them (the third is on a cruise eating hot dogs from a buffet), accepted an invitation to tackle a new fitness fad, this one favored by women of a certain age: Zumba.

Spinlighenment fitness craze SoulCycle has swept New York and recently landed in the pages of New York magazine, in which writer Alex Morris described it like this: