President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. moves into the White House on Wednesday facing many weighty issues: a global pandemic. A crushing recession. Racial injustice. Right-wing extremism.
But Mr. Biden's personal weight-control and exercise regimen will face a different kind of burning question: Can he bring his Peloton bike with him?
The answer, cybersecurity experts say, is yes. Sort of. But more on that later.
A
Peloton, for the uninitiated, is part indoor stationary bike, part social media network. The bikes are expensive — upward of $2,500 apiece — and have tablets attached, enabling riders to livestream or take on-demand classes and communicate with one another. Each rider has a "leader board name," a unique identifier posted on the screen alongside "output," a measure of how hard the rider is working.
When
Mr. Biden was cloistered during the coronavirus surge this spring,
The New York Times reported that he began each day "with a workout in an upstairs gym that contains a Peloton bike, weights and a treadmill." The Biden team did not respond to requests for comment, but a person close to the president-elect said that Mr. Biden and his wife, Jill Biden, engage in regular morning negotiations over who gets to ride first.
But the Peloton tablets have built-in cameras and microphones that allow users to see and hear one another if they choose, and for Mr. Biden, therein lies the rub. The last thing the C.I.A. wants is the Russians and the Chinese peering or listening into the White House gymnasium. Last week, Popular Mechanics
warned about the security risk under the headline "Why Joe Biden Can't Bring His Peloton to the White House."
