It ain’t over ’til the fat lady spins.
A fragile Manhattan lawyer quit his gym after a “large, heavyset” woman sat on him in a bizarre attempt to get him off his stationary bike during an overbooked spin class.
Now he’s suing to get his $1,500 membership fee back.
Clyde Eisman, 41, claims he was assaulted by the big-boned, alpha spinner he accuses of “embarrassing and offensive touching.”
Eisman says he joined Bally’s Total Fitness, at 139 W. 32nd St., in August 2007 for its spinning classes.
The club is only a few blocks from his single-room office on Seventh Avenue, where the former Department of Defense law clerk now hangs his private-practice shingle.
But other gym members were mean to him, and he found it nearly impossible to get a bike seat in the basement spin room, according to his lawsuit, filed last week in Manhattan Supreme Court.
Eisman says he “found it difficult for a newcomer to join the spinning class, as the classes were full and seemed to be controlled by a small coterie of members” — a secret spin society, if you will.
The Tulane Law School grad tried signing up for classes at the front desk, his complaint says, but other members in the busy health club continued to outmuscle the mouthpiece.
Finally, following the lead of other territorial gym rats, Eisman arrived early to class one day and placed his towel over the handlebars of his stationary Schwinn to reserve his space in the class.
Things quickly spun out of control.
While the lithe litigator pedaled away, “a large, heavyset female placed her body over” Eisman, according to court papers. The unidentified woman apparently felt she had first dibs on the spin cycle.
“It was embarrassing,” Eisman said in a brief phone interview last week.
He declined to comment Further. Nor would he explain why he decided to file the suit nearly two years after the December 2007 incident.
Bally also declined to comment on the suit, but none of the instructors that work at the West 32nd Street gym seemed surprised.
“People tend to get excited in this class,” one said last week. “If they can’t get a bike, they freak out. They just want it so much.”
Eisman never returned to the club.
This is not the first case of “spin rage” to hit Manhattan.
In August 2007, around the same time Eisman was allegedly being cowed by the plus-size gymgoer, a hedge-fund manager was assaulted by a fellow cyclist for whooping too loudly at an Upper East Side spin class.
The attorney charged in the spin assault was eventually acquitted by a jury.