Best Exercise Bikes for 2024

If you’ve been looking to buy an exercise bike, you’ve heard of Peloton. It has a reputation for higher-than-average build quality, a large, crisp display and slick branding. Peloton bikes are frequently compared to Apple products when it comes to look and feel, and it’s not hard to see why. The frame can be easily adjusted to suit a variety of body types, with a frame that’s easier for many kinds of cyclists to use.

The Peloton experience is most known for its classes. It offers a wide variety of highly interactive experiences that allow you to see your performance in real-time compared to others who have taken that same class, and each is recorded in actual Peloton studios with expert instructors. You can even take part in live classes, where you could get a shout-out from an instructor as though you were right there in the room.

Myx bikes have always been aimed at hardcore fitness fans, but when it merged with the folks at BeachBody an already great experience expanded to way more people as it released the Myx II Plus. This is a great bike for a variety of different body types and offers the ability to adjust your screen in just about every direction. Unlike many of its competitors, Myx II Plus makes it very easy to share the bike with up to five other people without needing multiple subscriptions.
Where most exercise bikes offer the ability to do a variety of workouts while on the bike, Myx II Plus offers a ton of things to do off the bike as well. The included software offers everything from yoga to kettlebell classes with everything in between, in addition to an array of spin class-style workouts and even live classes you can join throughout the week. It’s one of the few exercise bikes in this price range to truly deliver a full-body workout solution.

Don’t let the Peloton folks hear this, but not everyone wants or needs a big screen on your bike with a class instructor shouting at you. For some folks, an inexpensive tablet sitting on a simpler bike playing this week’s episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds to help get you through an hour of exercise is enough. If that sounds good to you, the BowFlex C6 may be exactly what you’re looking for. The frame adjusts for all sorts of body types and riding positions, so anyone from novice to century riders can climb on and get a decent workout with minimal effort.

With its simple display to show you your distance traveled and heart rate if you connect the included armband monitor, you can get plenty of information from your workout on this comparatively simple yet effective exercise bike. A Bluetooth connection to the bike will allow you to use just about any cycling app, but performance-focused cyclists will find the speed and cadence data it pushes to apps like Zwift isn’t as accurate as other bikes.

The Wahoo Kickr is the closest thing you’ll get to an outdoor road bike, right down to the customizable gearing and simulated shifting. The aggressive seating position is designed to mimic a racing road bike and the resistance you feel when riding matches the software you’re using. That means when your virtual ride in Zwift or other apps starts to go uphill, the bike adjusts your resistance automatically to give you the most realistic feeling possible as you ride. This is the only exercise bike capable of making you feel like you’re riding where the virtual ride shows you on the screen, and it’s incredible.

If you’re a serious cyclist looking to improve your performance when it gets cold and dark outside, and you’re unwilling to sacrifice that real bike feeling to get it, the Wahoo Kickr bike is your best option. Like everything designed for hyper-accuracy in the cycling world, you’ll pay for the experience. If you go this route and add in the real-feel wind fans and a big enough screen, you might forget for a moment that you’re riding indoors.

Instead of buying a separate exercise bike to ride when you can’t ride outside, you can instead use a Direct Drive Trainer. If you’re going to go this route, you want to make sure it’s smart enough to intelligently adjust alongside your favorite workout apps.

Swap out your rear wheel for the Saris H3 and you now have a balanced surface with built-in cadence, speed and power sensors to give you the data you need to measure performance. These sensors communicate with everything from Zwift, BKool and TrainerRoad to the included one-month access to Rouvy to offer an interactive experience like mountain bike rides. Magnetic resistance changes based on what you see in your app of choice, and since you’re using your real bike, your power and shifting will reflect that same real-world feel.

Indoor trainers can also be used, but if you’re looking for a combination of smart feedback, performance monitoring and price, this is the way to go.