(B)East
Celebrity News
Baldwin, Brooke, and Bon Jovi Spinning in the Hamptons
Friday of Labor Day weekend, and it's time to check in once again on the intense Hamptons spinning scene. Always interesting to see which celebs have that masochistic spinning gene. Well, my people report spotting Alec Baldwin, Aerin Lauder, Sean Avery, John Bon Jovi and SNL producer Marci Klein pumping away at Ride the Zone in East Hampton, while Tory Burch and Brooke Shields hang out at SoulCycle in Bridgehampton. Oh, to be in spin class with Baldwin! All that pent up aggression. And Bon Jovi? Amazing the man has still got it in him! No word yet on A-listers at upstart studio (B)East, but, despite all the drama, we've been hearing good things from the Amagansett crowd.
Awkward
Defection Rocks Hamptons Spin Scene
While we're dishing on the beach scene, it's high time we noted the Big Hamptons Spin Scandal. Brief history: Until now, the Hamptons spin battlelines were drawn between SoulCycle, which started in the city, and Ride the Zone (formerly ZoneHampton), which was founded by hyper-energetic local girl, Marion Roaman. R.T.Z. loyalists suggest that the SoulCycle crowd is a bit more Ladies Who Lunch. At $30-plus for a 45 minute drop-in class, safe to say, neither studio is cheap. (For many riders, no doubt, preference was a function of location -- Bridgehampton vs. Southampton and Easthampton.) This comfortable Coke-Pepsi grudge match was disrupted this spring, however, when one of Marion's regular teachers, Romaine Gordon, defected to open a new studio on Main Street in Amagansett -- which she chose to call (B)East. ("Perfect name for it, muttered one Marion devotee.) According to rumor, the problem wasn't the new studio itself, but the fact that Romaine opened it without telling Marion, and with the latest and greatest RealRyder pivoting bikes -- heretofore a Ride the Zone exclusive in the Hamptons. ("Bad karma," says our source.) Traitorous or not, the (B)East studio seems to have hit the ground running, with a full schedule of classes (a relative bargain at $25 per). Among the two dozen or so teachers listed on the (B)East site are many popular teachers from the Equinox stable, includnig Lacey Stone, Nadia Zaki and Will Ashley. Buyer beware, however: A closer look at the class schedule reveals that the big names show up rarely, while the bulk of the teaching load is carried by non-celebs and Romaine herself.