Pumpkin Pie Fizz

Today I’m serving up this Pumpkin Pie Fizz in honour of two things: 1) American Thanksgiving coming up real quick, 2) drowning out the memory of my recent spin class experience.

As you may know, if you follow me on Instagram and watch my stories, I enjoy working out but I have never been fond of spinning. My coworkers have been on a spin rampage lately and somehow goaded me into going with them to a lunch-hour class.

After completing that class, I’ve become worried about my coworkers – what sins are they punishing themselves for? I’m quite certain that if you manage to derive pleasure out of a spin class that you must also really enjoy getting Brazilian waxes and waterboarding in your spare time.

Seriously, what the fuck? I’m pretty sure spinning was an ancient form of torture practiced by devil-worshipping cults that bougie white chicks have commercialized. That and crystals. 

There are a few hints that give the game away though. 

First off, the only lights in the whole place are candles. Second, there is a lot of chanting in unison. AND there is vaginal penetration.

For those of you who haven’t been to a spin class recently, let me walk you through it.

You’re packed into a room the size of a shoebox with a lot of waifish twenty-something white chicks, wearing more money in Lululemon than your last mortgage payment. You are clipped into your bike with these things that are trying to be shoes but are failing. The instructor is clearly drunk on power and probiotics. 

At the appointed hour, the instructor starts yelling excitedly and turns the latest Ariana Grande up to a deafening volume – torture tactic number four, if you’re keeping count. 

Then the punishment begins. You start pedalling. “If you want a challenge, pump your right leg to the beat, right, right, left, right, right.” First of all…what? I’m on a bike, I’m chained to the pedals, how do I make one leg work more than the other? 

Fine, I ignore instruction number one. NOT TODAY SATAN. 

Moving on, into the second song, a.k.a the second circle of hell. Now the instructor maniacally yells, “And now let’s bring in the upper-body. With me, for four, pump, and pump, and pump, and pump, now DIP.” For your reference, “pumping” is the equivalent of doing a push-up into your handlebars, “dipping” is the equivalent of doing a tricep dip into the handlebars.

Okay, at this point I look like E.T. with rickets trying to do the meringue on two wheels. 

I narrowly survive that ordeal and by this point I’m sweating from places that I didn’t know I had. 

Track three begins with the sweet vocal stylings of Cardi B. Instructor comes back on the mic, “WHO’S READY FOR A HILL CLIMB?!” – Gregorian chanting from the woo girls. (Woo girls are girls who yell, “WOOOOO!” at the slightest provocation).

“Come up off the seat, reach down and add two full turns of tension. Okay, now when the chorus drops, just tap back, and come up, tap back, come up, tap back.” 

What he meant to say was, “And now when the chorus drops, JUST THE TIP, and come up, JUST THE TIP, come up, just the tip.” 

That bike seat touched a place in me that hasn’t been touched in months. 

At this point, things have gotten a lot more interesting. And mercifully, the next song is a “dark track” which means they blow out the three candles that are lighting the place. 

I presume this is the part when they sacrifice a virgin in the back – luckily I escaped that fate because my bike seat just made me call him Daddy. 

The lights come up, ever so slightly, there are a couple more songs and then mercifully we’ve come to the end of this hell ride. I look AND feel like I have been waterboarded for the last 50 minutes.

I go to get off my bike and I’m trapped. Those monstrosities masquerading as footwear quite literally have me chained to the bike. The ceiling is closing in on me, I see my fate flash before my eyes as I thrash wildly trying  to escape with my life, if not my chastity. 

Eventually, I channel my inner Houdini and just pull my feet out of the shoes and walk out – head held high. Leaving the shoes firmly affixed to the pedals. 

So next time you’re at Wheelhouse on Bank, pour one out for the ghost rider on bike 24. 

Pumpkin Pie Fizz