Indoor bikes provide an excellent way to cycle when weather or distance make outdoor cycling impractical, boasting special features that enhance the experience.
These amenities may include access to on-demand and live classes, a 22-inch rotating display screen, incline/decline training programs, and other motivators to get you riding regularly. Although not necessary, these amenities may help inspire and encourage regular use of your bicycle.
Upright Bikes
Exercise bikes can only truly serve their purpose if you can stay motivated to ride regularly, with even basic models providing plenty of features to keep you interested and active – for instance, Expresso Go Upright bike offers 43 unique route options taking riders through seascapes, snow scenes, outer space vistas and beyond! Plus it comes equipped with thumb buttons which serve as resistance adjustors so that resistance levels can be manually altered on demand.
Stages Cycling SB20 smart bikes, designed to measure power output, automatically adjust resistance based on virtual roads on Zwift or ensure you meet a specified wattage goal during structured workouts. Furthermore, this bike allows microadjustments of seat, handlebars and crank length so you can achieve an ideal custom fit.
For those in search of something more compact, the Marcy Foldable Upright Exercise Bike makes an excellent option that folds easily for storage space saving. Just remember that upright bikes don’t provide the same lean forward posture of indoor cycle bikes so may be less comfortable overall.
Recumbent Bikes
Recumbent bikes provide an enjoyable cycling experience with their more comfortable seat that eases pressure off of both back and legs, making them an excellent solution for people suffering chronic joint pain. Unfortunately, the reclined chair-like position makes full body workouts harder while reduced pedal force creates additional challenges when climbing hills.
Search for a bike with a comfortable, ventilated seat that’s easy to adjust and an LCD monitor that displays all your workout metrics.
Sunny Health & Fitness bikes are an affordable and compact solution with eight levels of quiet magnetic resistance for lower body training, exercise bands for upper-body exercises and a digital monitor to track your progress. Plus, our pick is supported by muuv app providing smart guided coaching, exercise demo videos and customized workouts; unfortunately though this bike tends to be louder than some others we’ve tested.
Spin Bikes
These exercise bikes resemble gym spin bikes and offer an intensive full-body workout, using a large flywheel to establish rotational inertia and connecting pedals via chain or belt to emulate outdoor cycling.
These models may also offer pre-set workout modes for an individualized experience; however, access may incur an extra fee or membership subscription to access. This feature of stationary bikes allows them to compete more directly with smart bike options like Peloton and Freebeat; it is important that before making a decision it will appeal to you.
Our experts found these machines relatively uncomfortable, with seats being relatively unsupportive and consoles difficult to read from a distance, yet still highly rated them for features which kept them motivated during workouts – particularly the automatic incline and decline adjustments on iFIT machines receiving praise from our testers.
Stationary Bikes
When you want a low-impact cardio workout that will burn calories quickly and effectively, stationary bikes offer an ideal way to do just that. These types of exercise bikes typically feature a weighted flywheel which requires energy for rotational inertia; when pedaled by you, kinetic energy stored within it produces similar experiences to outdoor cycling.
Modern stationary bikes often feature screens to help users follow live and on-demand classes, and feature various workout settings, including incline/decline capabilities and some that even accommodate bike cleats.
While stationary bikes can provide a solid workout, outdoor cycling provides a more challenging balance workout. Outdoor cycling requires your muscles to decelerate and react while traversing terrain in ways stationary bikes don’t. Because stationary bikes do not present this same challenge to balance, beginners may find stationary biking easier; outdoor cycling also often requires greater effort in order to enter an aerobic “zone” and burn fat efficiently.
