Torq Ride, YYZ | 4

◊ THE CLASS: Torq Ride ◊

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WHAT YOU NEED

OVERALL REVIEW

With so many great studios in our area it’s easy to hang around King West, but we wanted to spread a lil’ pineapple love to Leslieville. Plus we’ve heard HEAPS about Torq Ride. Torq’s studio is in a great location on Queen Street East. Easy access for us westside folk, near a lot of great restaurants and cafes, and the Leslieville friendly neighbour vibes are strong with tons of buddy-buddy regular riders.  The space is pretty minimalist with not a lot going on in the way of change rooms, which can make getting ready from work a bit toight, but I guess that’s what you get for being nestled near a lot of homes. Most people probably go straight from their houses. The staff are incredibly welcoming and our instructor pushed us the whole class while we sweat away all of our workday stresses. If your looking for a new spin studio, or have always wanted to see what a spin class is about, Torq is absolutely worth a sweaty visit.

 LOCATION 

978 Queen Street East, Toronto, ON

Located right on the corner of Queen East and Carlaw, Torq is super easy to get to. The 501 tram goes straight down Queen and stops in front of the studio. The 504/514 is another option that runs down King and is about a 15 minute walk. There is meter parking on Queen (free after 6pm and on Sundays) and some free parking on the side streets if you can snag a spot. 

CLASS SCHEDULE + PRICE

Torq’s class schedule is kinda lean but very focused. They clearly know what works for their community. There are 3-4 classes each day, with early morning rides on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, some noon classes and weekend classes done by 1pm.  The signature class is Torq Ride but very often you’ll find them adding in fun themed classes, like St Patty’s Day with beer afterwards, or Tulip Rides where they were giving away mason jars of tulips after class. We missed that one. damn. This studio is actually pretty awesome at keeping things fresh.  One of our fav things is their Ride for Red Door classes, which gives all the proceeds from the $15 classes back to the women’s and refugees Red Door Shelter. Classes are the first Thursday of every month and you should pre-book cuz people have big hearts and this is usually full. 

Class prices are pretty average for a spin studio and they also offer deals for students and seniors. Monthly memberships make sense if you’re going to frequent this orange love fest more than 3 times a week. 

• Intro Offer First Ride $15 and Students/Seniors get $15 anytime
• 1 Ride: $22
• 2 Rides: $40 ($20 per ride)
• 5 Rides: $99 ($19.80 per ride)
• 10 Rides: $189 ($18.90 per ride)
• 4 Rides Membership (auto renews): $69 ($17.25 per ride)
• 1 Month Unlimited: $189

 VIBE

The studio is bright, orange and doesn’t mess around with much other than spin. Which is totes fine. You’re there to spin. There is plenty of space in the lobby to sign in and get ready and the narrow hallways are lined with lockers and a couple of washrooms. There aren’t change rooms FYI so, if possible, come ready to rock. There is a little alcove to duck in with a mirror and some space to organize your life but most importantly to get out of peoples’ way when there is a change over of classes. The lockers are a bit small but there are plenty of hooks for jackets and space for your outdoor shoes. 

The capacity of the spin studio is a little bit smaller than some of the other spin studios we’ve been too, but it was great because we could see Justine from all angles of the room. One of the draws to this studio is their cutting edge equipment. They have 36 Stages Cycling (SC3) bikes which means they have Stages Power technology that captures data from your ride. You will receive an e-mail immediately after class that will show your power, total calories burned, RPM and miles so you can continually challenge yourself and track your progress. Woot. 

Our class was about 60% full with an older crowd of 30-50+. The class had more males than females by a 60/40 split, and pretty much everyone in the class (besides us) looked like they spin on the daily. Lots of people had their own clip-in shoes and padded shorts. Wow intimidating, but actually it was totally fine. That’s the bliss of a dark room, it doesn’t matter AT ALL if you’re a beginner, no one can see you. 

AMENITIES

• Filtered water
• Showers
• Lockers
• Small sweat towels
• Shower towels for $2
• Torq branded product for sale
• Their bikes are compatible with any standard SPD pedal
• No bike shoes to rent, but you can purchase

INSTRUCTOR

Justine Keyserlingk

The staff at Torq are on it. As soon as we walked in they knew who we were, from signing up online prior and knowing that we were new to the studio. That was a lovely touch actually. Torq has 12 instructors on their roster and it’s one of the most varied instructor benches that we’ve seen with almost as many male instructors as female, and a wide range of ages and experience. Our instructor, Justine, was all over getting us set up on the bikes and she was incredibly friendly and had amazing arms. Her class was killer, perfectly timed to the music with extra loud beats when we were riding hard. Then there was a sweet sweet Fugees Ready or Not remix for when we needed to get in the zone. YUS. Justine rode with us for half of the class, off her bike for the other half getting people water or shouting out motivation and form tips. She nailed it.

 LEVEL OF DIFFICULTY

WAY HARD | HARD | MIDDLE OF THE ROADSIES | CHILL | HELLA CHILL

We’re rating this class a MIDDLE OF THE ROADSIES. The class started out with an easy ride warm up, with Justine giving us some time to get used to the bikes and familiar with the torqing stick – which is apparently exclusive to their bikes. But the easy ride was short lived as we quickly moved into interval training. Working through a series of sprints, our legs were moving so fast we thought we might actually take off. Then it was hill time. Oh the hills, how you result in us awkwardly climbing stairs the next day. Although spin is usually a create-your-own-adventure, we thought this class would be great for beginners, as it primarily focused on intervals of speed with intervals of resistance with only some sections off your seat and a decent amount of rests. There wasn’t much full body or arm work so you were exclusively focused on your glutes. Which ain’t a bad thing, so this still earned a half a pineapple from us! 

To try this class or anything else on their schedule, see Torq’s contact info below.

Torq Ride
Web:www.torqride.com
E-mail: hello@torqride.com
PHONE |647) 715.5309
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