Best exercise bikes 2024: Boost your fitness with these home spin bikes

The best exercise bikes come at a range of price points and will do different things depending not just on how much you pay, but the type of exercise bike you buy.

At the most basic are stand-alone exercise bikes. These just let you sit on and pedal, with a dial to alter the resistance offered. They'll often fold away easily for storage and may be light enough to carry around the home. That means a low mass resistance unit, which doesn't give a ride feel that's much like riding a real road bike outdoors.

Then there are spin-style exercise bikes, of which the best known is Peloton, with Echelon hot on its heels. These provide additional functionality and allow you to join online classes for a workout. They usually work on a subscription basis; you pay for the bike at the start, then a monthly subscription to follow the online routines offered via the large screen that's typically fitted up front. There is a bit of a difference between indoor cycling vs spinning, but both types are broadly classed as exercise bikes. 

Choosing the right exercise bike for you can be difficult. Below, you'll find our pick of the best exercise bikes across all of the types available from the basic to the sophisticated. Towards the bottom of the page, there's a buyer's guide to how to choose.

Quick list: Best exercise bikes

Best exercise bikes

Spin-style exercise bikes

The two big players in the at-home spin bike space are Peleton and Echelon; both app-based and highly interactive, offering thousands of classes and workouts for you to choose from. Spin bikes will generally prioritise interactivity and community over and above features, and much of the resistance will be either set by an instructor or manually altered by the rider. 

Spin bikes normally require the addition of a subscription to continue the usage of the bike, alongside an upfront cost of the bike, and so you’ll have to factor in the value of the platform going forward when making a decision about the bike you select. 

Best budget Peloton alternative

This budget Echelon exercise bike, the Connect Sport, offers much of the functionality of its higher-priced siblings but saves money by excluding a front-mounted screen. Instead, owners of this exercise bike will need to bring their own screen, which if you already own a smart device such as a tablet (or want the versatility of owning a separate tablet device) won't be an issue at all. Simply load up the Echelon Fit app on your device, connect the bike via Bluetooth, and you'll have access to all the classes you need. 

It comes with a 7kg flywheel, which left us wanting more on occasion, although the magnetic resistance did help to prevent the draggy feeling that can plague some of the more budget exercise bikes. A total of 32 resistance levels offer a good spread of difficulty levels, while the 96 x 51cm footprint is stable enough for all but the most rigorous efforts. 

Best budget Peloton Bike

Exercise bikes have been in gyms for as long as we can remember, but Peloton has changed the game and reinvigorated a segment of indoor training for the masses beyond the Zwifters. In terms of the Peloton Bike itself, it's really not all that revolutionary; a knob near the handlebars adjusts the resistance, a 17kg flywheel maintains inertia, the saddle and bar position are adjustable without tools and there is no freewheel so you can't coast.

But it's not the bike itself that has created the phenomenon, it's the sweatproof 22-inch touch screen at the front. This enormous head unit is WiFi, ANT+ and Bluetooth enabled and runs the Peloton app which features thousands of pre-recorded classes as well as live classes run by professional instructors. 

One thing the app doesn’t do is adjust the resistance; you’ll have to do that manually to hit your targets. The higher-priced Bike Plus, seen below, can offer this functionality. 

As with any of the other training apps, the sessions range in difficulty from easy spins to disgustingly difficult; there are scenic rides too. Peloton has also added a community aspect to its ecosystem; you can follow and chat with other people who are doing the same class, and see live rankings on who is pushing the most watts. 

Best premium Peloton alternative

The EX-5S is a more premium step into Echelon's ecosystem, and in this case, there's no need to bring your own screen, since it comes with a large 22-inch sweatproof HD screen mounted up front. A slightly larger footprint helps to offset the top-heavy weight added by the screen, so it remains stable in all workouts, and it's widely adjustable, so it's fit for most of the family.

The same 32 levels of resistance provide the variable resistance, however, unlike even the budget smart bikes, it still doesn't offer 'ERG' mode, so all resistance changes will need to be done manually, rather than electronically. 

Best Peloton exercise bike

Peloton's most recent response to the rise of the smart bike is the Bike Plus. This takes the original Peloton Bike and adds a slew of updates like a larger screen that is more adjustable, more speakers, a better camera, Apple Watch integration, USB-C charging and more. However, for us, it's the integration of 'auto follow' that sets this Peloton apart from its direct competitors. 

Auto-follow - perhaps better known as 'ERG' mode among the smart bike scene - allows the app (in this case, the Peloton app) to control the resistance, rather than relying on the athlete to twist the knob on the top tube (though this does still exist). It also includes a power meter to more accurately measure and report on a rider's output. In use, this could be a little delayed at times, but it mostly made life easier, not having to remove your hand from the bars to adjust the resistance. 

Among this genre, we see the Peloton Bike Plus as the most complete device currently available, but in our opinion, from both a technological and user interface standpoint, smart bikes still win out due to the addition of gradient replication, power measurement accuracy, and the varying choice afforded by third-party app connectivity. 

Read our comprehensive review of the Peloton Bike+ for more.

Budget exercise bikes

The best budget exercise bikes are usually the most straightforward: the ones offering a simple manual resistance and basic trackers to measure your progress against. As with most things budget, you’ll have to consider where you’re comfortable with trade-offs, and what can be compromised to get the right price for your pocket. On budget exercise bikes you’re less likely to get as many features or connectivity as smart or spin bikes, and the pedalling isn’t going to feel quite as true to riding a bike, but you’ll still find models that offer enough to get a good sweat up. 

Budget bikes don’t have subscriptions you’ll need to think about and as such, they are more cost-effective in the long run. However, quality and durability should be a big consideration when looking for an exercise bike as it’s always cheaper to keep the bike you have rather than replacing every time a component wears out!

Best for features on a budget

The 'Basic Exercise Bike 100' from Domyos is a very simple design, but while the overall number of features is low, each one is a welcome inclusion that adds to the experience without unnecessarily adding to the overall cost. 

Up front, there is a multi-position handlebar that offers no fewer than 10 different positions. There's a small LCD display at the centre, and that offers the basic ride metrics like speed and time. 

There are a couple of small caveats: at higher resistances, the resistance pad can start to heat up and smell due to the friction. This isn't detrimental to its performance, but will likely accelerate wear over time. Secondly, the Domyos exercise bike's stability can falter during all-out sprint efforts, as it's not the most planted of things. A small trick here: if your floor is flat enough to do so, remove the adjustable feet and place the bike onto an indoor trainer mat for grip. This lowers your centre of gravity by a couple of inches and helps keep it a little more stable. 

Those aside, if you're after a simple exercise bike without the big expense, the Domyos 100 is a good place to look.

Best fold-away exercise bike

Not everyone wants or needs a high-tech exercise bike with masses of resistance and oodles of stability. For many people in this world, a simple exercise bike that tracks basic metrics in use, before being compact enough to fold away afterwards is the perfect solution. 

Enter the Pro Fitness FEB2000. FEB stands for a folding exercise bike, and this little unit weighs just 16kg, so is easy to carry up the stairs and put away in cupboards when you've finished your workout. 

Now, of course, there are some trade-offs: the 3kg flywheel provides about as much inertia as an ant rolling down a hill and is a good few kilos lighter than the Domyos flywheel. This means the pedalling feel is pretty unrealistic, and it's easy to unbalance if you get enthusiastic in your sprinting, but for someone who wants to get the legs moving and elevate the heart rate, this is perfectly up to the task, and the inbuilt heart rate sensors will help you keep an eye on your progress too. 

Best budget spin bike

The Schwinn IC7 is a good at-home replica of the 'spin' bikes you'll likely know from the gym. Its fixed freehub and 18kg flywheel take a little bit of extra torque to get going, but the inertia generated helps to prevent that 'pedalling-through-treacle' feeling you can get with cheaper, lighter flywheels. 

The IC7 comes with an LCD display that shows your speed, time, distance, RPM, and estimation of calories burned. Its 58cm width and 45kg weight help to make it stable, and while it's certainly possible to unsettle it, that doesn't happen during normal use, even when sprinting. 

It also comes with dual-sided pedals, which include SPD 'clipless' pedals as well as a toe clip side so you can wear your normal shoes, and this also means it's rideable straight out of the box. Like other simple exercise bikes, you will have to bring your own entertainment, but it comes with a screen holder at the front, as well as a bottle holder for your hydration. And finally, its fit is widely adjustable, so it'll be good for the whole household. 

The best exercise bikes compared

How to choose the best exercise bike for you

With such a wide array of different options competing for the title of best exercise bike, making a decision on which to buy can be daunting. In this section, we'll run you through a few questions to answer and considerations to make, which should steer you in the right direction.