In many ways an exercise bike is the best piece of home cardio fitness equipment you can buy. They’re more compact than a treadmill, rowing machine or elliptical, and you don’t have to spend quite as much to get a sturdy, high-quality machine.
We’ve picked the best exercise bikes to suit a range of budgets below, from cheap and cheerful to money-no-object splurges. The bikes are in price order so you can zero in on the ones that suit your budget quickly, and you’ll also find a buyer’s guide to help you pick the right bike for you.
The Best Exercise Bikes
Even though exercise bikes take up less space than other home cardio machines, few fit in a cupboard under the stairs. This folding model will, however, and at 13kg it’s unlikely to put your back out when you take it out of storage. It has an exceptionally light 1.6kg flywheel, making it very much an entry-level bike for low-intensity steady-state cardio workouts, but that can be just the ticket if you’re looking to start building up your fitness. There are more expensive models available in the range, which offer more resistance, but they all have a max user weight of 100kg.
This budget bike will suit beginners well and it’s a great option for shared homes thanks to the small footprint. It also uses a belt drive, which runs quietly so you won’t disturb the neighbours or the rest of your household. The 4kg flywheel is a little lightweight and might not provide enough of a challenge for fitter riders, and it’s an upright bike designed for steady cycling, rather than an indoor cycle built for high-intensity spinning classes. However, it’s ideal for people just starting a health kick and there are 10 levels of magnetic resistance to increase the difficulty as your fitness improves.
This is an excellent entry-level bike for people who want to bring the feel of the spinning studio home. Although the 7kg flywheel on the JLL IC200 isn’t as heavy as on pricier machines, you can still jack up the resistance to a point that will provide a challenge. One advantage of the lighter flywheel is that the machine is more portable, and it has wheels on the bottom to help you slide it out of the way after use.
If you need more resistance than the IC200 can provide, check out the JLL IC400 PRO (opens in new tab). While it’s more than double the price at £599, it offers a 22kg flywheel to ensure that even the most experienced amateurs will get a challenging ride.
The Cyclo-Go is a comfortable upright cycle that’s ideal for those starting a fitness kick, whether you’re looking to lose weight or get in better shape. The 11kg flywheel and 21 preset workouts will ensure that the bike continues to challenge you as you get fitter, and it’s easy to track your stats and check your progress during a guided workout on the colour touchscreen. You can even design four training sessions yourself, once you’ve exhausted the preloaded options.
The CBC bike has a tablet holder on the console and links up to the iFit app, which means it offers a similar experience to more expensive options like Peloton, since the app can control the resistance level to match the demands of instructors during classes (iFit membership is required – you get a 30-day subscription with the bike). The bike has 16 levels of magnetic resistance, and you can adjust the handlebars and saddle to achieve a better riding position.
The great advantage of this upright bike is connectivity. It works with the Kinomap app, which will automatically adjust the bike’s resistance according to the real-world route you’re following on the app. If you upgrade with a pair of Bluetooth pedals you can connect to Zwift, the Sufferfest or other cycling apps, although being an upright bike you’ll be at a disadvantage if you try racing other riders using spin-style bikes or turbo trainers. For £100 more you can get a self-powered model, ideal for garage set-ups without a mains connection.
If you’re looking for a Peloton-style experience on a budget, this is your best bet. The Connect Sport links up to the Echelon app, which is packed with both live and on-demand workouts to follow on a phone or tablet mounted on the handlebars of the bike (there’s no built-in screen here, as there is with Peloton or NordicTrack spin bikes).
We tested the Echelon EX-3 bike, which you’ll find further down this list, and were impressed by what if offers. Compared with that bike, the Connect Sport has a lighter flywheel and cages on the pedals rather than clips, making it more of a beginner/intermediate option. Just remember that in order to get the most out of the bike you also need to commit to a £40 monthly subscription to the Echelon app – that comes down to £25 or £20 a month if you pay for one or two years up front, respectively.
This is another Peloton alternative, and with Apex you save not only on the cost of the bike but on the subscription to the app too, which is £30 a month rather than the more typical £40. As with Echelon, there’s no built-in screen with the Apex bike, just a tablet holder on the handlebars, although in this case the app is currently only available on iOS devices.
The app contains both live and on-demand workouts with a range of instructors, so you can find at least one or two that suit your own style. The flywheel is light at just 4kg but we’ve found that the bike still provides a fairly smooth ride at high speeds, and there are 30 levels of magnetic resistance so even fitter riders will be challenged. Lead times for delivery are four to six weeks.
Read more in our Apex Bike review
Probably the simplest way to explain this bike is that it’s a bit like the archetypal spinning bike and app service Peloton (below), but without the built-in monitor, although you need a monitor to follow the companion app. That might sound like a bad thing, but the Echelon bike is considerably cheaper than the Peloton, so you can use the saving to buy yourself a very nice tablet to slip into its holder to follow the live and on-demand spinning in the app. And then you have a very nice tablet as well as an exercise bike!
You will need a subscription for the app though – which, like Peloton, costs £39.99 a month. It also includes other classes like strength and yoga sessions, and videos of scenic routes you can watch while cycling if you need a break from the motivational spiel of the spinning instructors.
If you enjoy the Echelon experience and do want a bike with a built-in screen, the company now has two models with a screen – the EX-5S (opens in new tab) and EX-7S (opens in new tab), which cost £1,599 and £1,999 respectively.
Read more in our Echelon EX-3 review
If you’ve ever taken a spinning class in a gym or specialist studio and thought you’d love to have that experience at home, the Peloton bike is your best bet. Though imitators are springing up everywhere, the quality of Peloton’s set-up is unrivalled, with a quiet, smooth-riding bike that boasts a large HD screen on its handlebars showing live spin classes as well as thousands of on-demand video classes.
The experience is impressively immersive, especially during live classes, and there are workouts to suit all abilities and goals. Motivation is never in short supply – the onscreen instructors beseech you to keep on pushing through every interval and to the end of every class, while the onscreen leaderboard shows where you rank for that class overall and against people of the same sex and age.
And a Peloton subscription gets you more than just spinning videos: there are classes for all kinds of things, including strength, cardio, yoga and outdoor runs.
The only reason to hesitate is the price of the bike and monthly subscription, although it’s comparable to having a gym membership (at a pretty fancy gym). If you’re all about the best home spinning experience available, however, Peloton can’t be bettered.
Read our Peloton Bike review
The Technogym Bike is the most convincing alternative to Peloton we’ve come across, and actually improves upon the Peloton experience in several ways. The bike itself is an impressive bit of kit, with a 17.4kg flywheel providing a smooth and stable ride even as you crank up the resistance and get out of the saddle, and it has a 22in (56cm) HD touchscreen on the handlebars that opens up a world of in-ride entertainment.
If you opt for the £29 monthly membership you can access live classes from London studio 1Rebel and Milan studio Revolution. However, unlike on other smart bikes, other sessions are available to follow for free. This includes Technogym’s on-demand classes, which are engaging and almost as good as a live studio session in our experience, plus scenic rides set all over the world and total-body workouts for when you’re done with cycling.
One welcome difference from Peloton which has nothing to do with fitness is that you can access streaming apps like Netflix through the screen. So if you’re not in the mood for a peppy PT’s HIIT session or scenic tour, you can always stick on a favourite TV show while you ride and enjoy it on the massive HD screen rather than a tablet mounted on the console. The bike can also connect to devices like Google’s Chromecast to stream from your devices, unlocking even more entertainment options.
Read more in our Technogym Bike review
The bike involved here is the Keiser m3i Lite, which is a terrific bit of kit with a heavy flywheel that provides a smooth and near-silent ride, and the resistance can be easily jacked up with the lever on the handlebars. The console is a little basic but the bike will link up to London studio Digme’s At Home app, where you’ll find a wealth of live and on-demand spinning classes to join.
Digme’s service feels a little different to those from the likes of Peloton and Echelon. Each live class is a Zoom session and the number of people in the class is much smaller. It makes for a more communal feel, especially given the instructors can chat with the class. There are daily live classes in the morning, at lunchtime and in the evening, and there’s a sizeable library of on-demand sessions if those times don’t suit you.
The cost of the service is hefty, however, and the process of signing up is complicated by the array of options. You pay a monthly fee (from £39) to rent the bike, plus another £30 a month for the Digme At Home subscription, then other fees like pick-up and delivery costs come and go depending on the length of the contract you opt for, with the longest being 36 months. You can also buy the bike outright for £1,999 and get a year’s subscription to Digme At Home thrown in, and there are membership options that get you access to Digme’s London studios as well as the At Home app.
Read more in our Digme At Home spinning bike and app review
Smart exercise bikes like the Atom can link up to training apps like Zwift and The Sufferfest, which make your experience far more immersive and entertaining. You pay a premium for the connectivity, but we’ve found the Atom is one of the better-value options. It connects seamlessly with Zwift and mirrors gradient changes in the app quickly. The Atom is also quiet as a mouse, very stable even when you’re riding out of the saddle, offers a realistic feel of riding a bike and displays a wealth of stats on your session if you have a tablet to rest on the handlebar stand.
The Wattbike app also contains training plans and workouts you can use to prepare for a sportive, or focus on one aspect of your cycling, such as power, speed or endurance. The app can also analyse your pedalling technique live to help you become more efficient.
Read our Wattbike Atom review
We’ve yet to test this new option from Peloton, but the Bike+ takes the winning formula of the Bike and improves some of the tech. You get a bigger HD screen for one (60.5cm vs 55cm), a better sound system, and the Bike+ can connect with Apple GymKit to send more accurate information to an Apple Watch when tracking workouts. The new screen can also rotate 360°, which is handy for angling it to see better when doing the other types of workouts in the Peloton app, like strength and yoga sessions.
Perhaps the best new feature, though, is the automatic resistance. This will adjust in line with the instructor’s demands in class, so you don’t have to twirl the knob yourself (though of course you still can increase or decrease it manually).
It’s not an especially significant upgrade on the original Bike in truth, and you’ll have to pay £2,295 for the Bike+, a hefty £545 increase on the current cost of the original. So unless one of the new features above really leaps out at you, we’d suggest that the cheaper Peloton is better value.
If you’re a keen road cyclist looking for the most realistic ride available on an exercise bike, then call off the search – the Wahoo KICKR Bike is the machine you want. A lot of that is down to the way the bike can tilt forwards and back to replicate hills (and it moves automatically when linked to apps like Zwift), but just as important is the way the KiCKR Bike can be set up to replicate your road bike. Parts of the frame can be extended or shortened to mimic your bike, and you can set up the gears on the KICKR Bike to match your real gearset – there’s even a satisfying clunk when you change gears on the KICKR Bike. The customisation is also made easy with a Fit Wizard in the app, while the power readings on the bike are also calibrated automatically and rated to be accurate to +/-1%. It’s very expensive, but if you are committed to training for outdoor cycling, it’s as good as it gets.
Exercise Bikes Buyer’s Guide
What are the different types of exercise bikes?
Why you can trust Coach Our expert reviewers spend hours testing and comparing products and services so you can choose the best for you. Find out more about how we test.
There are a few types of home exercise bikes. The first is upright bikes, which are designed for comfort and good for beginners (as well as usually being cheaper).
Indoor or spinning bikes mimic the forward-leaning riding position of a racing bike and are great for more intense sessions and getting in shape for outdoor cycling. You’ll be familiar with them if you frequent spinning classes, and there’s a relatively new subset of these bikes designed to work in tandem with glossy subscription apps that stream live or on-demand spinning classes. It makes for a much more engaging experience, if a more expensive one with continuing costs, especially if you opt for a bike with a built-in screen to display the classes.
The third, and least common, kind of exercise bike you might consider is the recumbent cycle. This is the most comfortable of all thanks to the laid-back riding position, but they do require more floor space.
How much do exercise bikes cost?
You can find exercise bikes that cost under £100, but they are generally folding options that aren’t very sturdy and are only meant to be used for very light exercise. You certainly shouldn’t attempt any kind of HIIT or spinning on them.
Good upright bikes start from around £150 and are generally cheaper than indoor cycles and recumbent bikes – almost all options are under £1,000. The cheapest indoor cycles cost £250-£300, and the price can rise to over £3,000 if you want the most realistic ride experience.
The key extra features that you tend to get with more expensive bikes are heavier flywheels, greater connectivity (including to partner apps with guided workouts in some cases), and more preset workouts and resistance levels.
