Spinning homeless Spinning homeless

NY sweats with Fat Jew on Citi Bikes

His impromptu spin classes may be a performance art publicity stunt, but comedian Fabrizio Goldstein also sees them as a public service

By Renee Ghert-Zand

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24 June 2013, 11:29 am

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Renee Ghert-Zand is the health reporter and a feature writer for The Times of Israel.

The Fat Jew (aka Fabrizio Goldstein), right leads a spinning class for New Yorkers on docked Citi Bikes. (photo credit: YouTube screenshot)

There are only a few things The Fat Jew (aka Fabrizio Goldstein), a comedian and performance artist with a massive Jewfro and chai pendant, takes seriously. It turns out that helping homeless people get in to shape is one of them.

The corpulent Goldstein isn’t your typical spin class fitness instructor. Nonetheless, he’s discovered a new calling since Citi Bike bike share stations recently started popping up around New York. He took one look at all those docked bikes in his Lower West Side neighborhood (where the bike share program has been slow to take off) and saw opportunity.

“It started as a joke,” he tells The Times of Israel of the spin classes he began offering two weeks ago for whoever passed by his local bike station. “It was just performance art stuff, part of the weird stuff I do around the city.”

The Fat Jew. His tattoo reads, ‘Mazel Tuff,’ the name of his all-Jewish motorcycle gang. (photo credit: Courtesy of The Fat Jew)

He posted about what he was doing on Twitter and word started getting out. But then he made and posted a video last Wednesday of his fourth class, and things started spinning almost out of control.

The video went viral, media outlets started covering what he was doing (“I was just interview by [the Spanish language network] Telemundo —that’s so crazy”), and corporate sponsor offers even started coming in.

“At this point, it’s the real thing,” Goldstein, 30, says in what seems like all seriousness. With actual spin instructors offering to lead the classes (Goldstein’s no expert — he just picked up some spinning basics when he went to a few SoulCycle classes in search of women to sleep with) and interns willing to help with scheduling and publicity, he’s ready to launch a full-fledged fitness operation on the plethora of docked bikes at stations across the city.

“The bikes don’t offer the same kind of resistance you get at SoulCycle, but you have to cycle backwards on them, and that’s a good workout.”

http://youtu.be/eABKmjgDGTc

Goldstein plans on spinning until the authorities catch on.

“It’s only a matter of time before Mayor Bloomberg locks the pedals and put the kibosh on it,” he says.

Goldstein hopes the city will be open to his plan. Noting that New Yorkers did not have enough of a say about the installation of the bike stations, he says would like his venture to open up a discussion.

“In such an unrealistically expensive city, it would be nice for people to at least get this deal,” he says of the free sessions.

The Fat Jew appears to be looking out for the interests of others, but he also has an ulterior motive. “At the end of the day, it’s something I’m doing for a bunch of different reasons,” he remarks.

“One of them is to get a sick bod and look better in my Speedo this summer.”