When London-based commercial litigation lawyer Faye Walton was seeking a fresh challenge away from city strife, the mother of four spotted a gap for a fresh approach to fitness in her Surrey home town.
“Haslemere has a couple of gyms and a leisure centre but my vision was to fill a niche for an aspirational facility to be at the heart of a fitness and wellbeing community,” she states, “a cool, contemporary space appealing to school-run mums who have moved from the city, pre-commuters and young professionals looking for a unique workout environment: a really mixed clientele in fact.”
The result is CYC:D, a boutique fitness studio delivering a style and décor geared to a ` fast in, fast out, no hassle’ model that Faye believes is exactly what the town needs.
Modern approaches across the board
Purely drop-in, with no members, (customers pay per class) CYC:D offers a host of classes that are already filling up nicely, only weeks after opening in late November.
“High-energy cycling forms the core of the studio,” Faye explains, “but HIIT, Barre, Pilates and Yoga are all popular. We’ve worked hard to recruit the bext of the best instructors and create carefully selected music playlists to deliver the sessions wnich I believe are crucial to the success of the business.”
She combed the market for the right suppliers, “trying out every indoor cycle make until I chose the Schwinn AC Performance with carbon blue technology – still the brand leader in my view”.
The changing facilities had to complement the interior look and feel of this fast-track facility, and after researching suppliers, Faye chose Crown Sports Lockers. “I looked at their earlier projects and liked the lockers so invited them in,” she recalls.
Working closely with the studio on designs for the fitout, Crown fitted a double row of smooth white lockers complete with Omar electronic locks – a bottom row of larger units, with hanging space, to store coats and bags and an upper tier of smaller lockers for bags and personal belongings. Reception desk, juice bar and vanity benches, fitted and adjusted on site round off the install.
Seamless integrations
The juice bar included split level worktop in white Corian, contrasting oak cladding, built under storage units and display fridge for chilled snacks. There is an integrated fridge/freezer tower behind and the worktop extends on to the window sill to provide bar-top seating.
“The Crown team worked really hard over the three days they were on site. Nothing was too much trouble for them and everything ran really smoothly under project manager Sam Palmer,” Faye comments.
More sites are choosing digital locking because of the greater management control they offer operators and CYC:D is no exception. “I preferred the electronic option and liked the ease and function of the Omar keypad, which operates with a four-digit access code – and we have a master switch to open lockers if we need to,” Faye adds.
With more classes planned for 2017, Faye also aims to target the 18-30 demographic to enjoy a classy, modern facility that is a first of its kind in this leafy Surrey suburb.