SoulCycle Could Be in Big Trouble
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SoulCycle is a known favorite among celebrities who go to spin class.
The spin class purveyor, however, is facing a lawsuit from one unhappy rider.
A woman named Carmen Farias filed a lawsuit against the company last week, claiming she was “catastrophically injured” after instructor Angela Davis caused her great "shame" for going slow in a Beverly Hills SoulCycle class in 2014, BuzzFeed News reports.
Farias was new to spin class and attended SoulCycle with her colleagues for a work event. Farias claims that she never signed a new rider waiver, and that employees at SoulCycle didn't ask or check for it before the class, according to Daily Beast.
The lawsuit attests that Farias and other people in the class were told to go faster, and that Davis apparently made fun of her for slowing down. Farias also claims that she was not instructed on how to use the SoulCycle machine properly or how to take her shoes out of the bicycle clips.
"The shame caused Carmen to momentarily attempt to pedal faster," according to court documents acquired by PEOPLE. "Her legs were shaking. Carmen had to stop the pedals from turning, but she did not know how to stop the pedals."
The lawsuit states that she experienced fatigue and disorientation and "fell to her right and off of the saddle of the spinning cycle."
Flickr/Nicki Dugan Pogue - flickr.com
Gabrielle Etrog Cohen, a SoulCycle spokesperson, told ATTN: via email that SoulCycle does not comment on ongoing litigation.
The lawsuit is drawing mixed responses online.
Jezebel writer Clover Hope wrote that Farias' injury might have been a result of an inexperienced rider not asking for help:
"Farias cites 'the bikes and lack of instruction,' according to TMZ, as the cause of her injury. So it’s not that this intensely soulful instructor ignored her request for assistance; it’s that the student simply didn’t ask for help."
StyleCaster writer Rachel Krause, however, wrote that she's experienced discomfort at SoulCycle:
"I have felt both personally victimized and at risk of grave injury in all of the five SoulCycle classes I’ve ever taken, a situation I resolved by never going again. Unfortunately, Carmen Farias, of California, was not so lucky."
