Get Your Sweat on with These Exercise Bikes for At-Home Workouts

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Staying active and healthy throughout the year is a challenge we all face. While the difficulty can range from building the right eating habits to carving out time throughout the week for workouts, a great way to make exercising a little bit easier and more convenient is with a stationary exercise bike.

Riding a stationary bike is a low-impact, efficient way to get your daily cardio done without leaving the house. You can squeeze this workout in between conference calls or errands with ease. At the same time, owning an in-home bike is a great alternative to paying for in-person spin classes.

At-home exercise bikes come in a range of options, offering varying resistance levels, riding positions, features, class inclusions, and price points. This style of workout is prime for everyone, from folks rehabbing after injuries to athletes who want to get a fast burn on their lunch hour.

These are our top recommendations for the best exercise bikes for at-home workouts, plus advice on essentials to consider before you shop.

For more great ways to outfit your workout space, check out our picks for the best home rowing machines, stair steppers, and adjustable dumbbells.

The Best Exercise Bikes

• Best Overall: Schwinn Fitness IC4 Indoor Cycling Bike

• Best Value: Yosuda Indoor Cycling Bike

• Best Classes: Echelon Smart Connect Fitness Bike (EX-15)

• Best Upgrade: Sunny Health & Fitness Magnetic Belt Drive Indoor Cycling Bike

• Best Handlebars: Cyclace Stationary Exercise Bike

What to Consider

Type

There are three types of exercise bike to consider: upright, recumbent, and indoor cycling bikes. All have resistance adjustment, and bikes with a flywheel have an emergency brake.

• Upright bikes are the original exercise bike—the kind you see in the cardio section at your local gym. These are well-suited for less intense workouts, and usually have a smaller footprint than other styles. These also often have fewer features.

• Recumbent bikes have seats with a back, and the seat and pedals are at roughly the same height, so you ride in a seated position with your legs extended. This puts less minimal on your joints, making them a great choice for recovery riding and for people with back problems.

• Indoor cycling, or spin, bikes are what you see in spin studios. These are ideal for multiple seated and standing positions, and can offer high-intensity workouts.

Size and Style

Consider your own height and weight to pick the correct bike size, taking into account the adjustability of the seat, handlebars, and resistance for maximum comfort and your preferred riding style. The style is also important, and should be chosen based on your fitness goals and the intended use of the bike. If you’re looking for a rugged workout with health app compatibility, an indoor cycling bike is your best bet. Looking for rehab-friendly workouts? Opt for a recumbent bike. For more casual riding and a smaller space requirement, a classic upright bike is a great option.

Features

Some bikes have media stands for holding a tablet so you can read or stream the content of your choice, while others have built-in screens to stream proprietary or membership-based classes. If you purchase a bike with a built-in screen, consider the screen size and how user friendly the display is. You’ll likely monitor stats like speed, distance, and calories burned while riding, so having clear information to navigate quickly and easily is key.

Types of Resistance

There are three types of resistance: magnetic, friction, and air. Magnetic resistance uses two magnets that are close to the flywheel. The closer to the flywheel the magnets are, the more resistance it gives. Magnetic resistance is perfect for even, consistent resistance as you pedal. Friction resistance use side pads made of cotton or leather to press against the flywheel, adding more or less tension based on your adjustments. These pads require occasional replacement but are effective and quiet when in use.

The final option is air resistance. Air resistance is different than the other two options because they aren’t set levels or adjustments a rider can make. Instead, the flywheel is replaced with a large fan, and your pedaling creates the resistance. So, while there aren’t set levels, your intensity on the bike creates more resistance in the fan.

Space

Some bikes take up significant space in your home, while others are made to be folded up and stored in a closet when not in use. Even similar models will have some variation in footprint, weight, and the availability of wheels for portability. We’ve listed the dimensions to make it easier to choose.

How We Selected

We chose these bikes based on comparisons of hundreds of user reviews. We also talked to members of the spin and cycling communities, and then compared features, metrics, and usage standards across style categories. We looked for a range of prices, styles, sizes, and features to fit any space and need, and from there, narrowed down our choices to fit the categories we look for with our at-home exercise equipment. All of the bikes you’ll find below come highly rated by users, or were directly recommended from people in the spin and cycling communities.

IC4 Indoor Cycling Bike

If you're looking for a great overall exercise bike at a reasonable price, then this one from Schwinn is an excellent pick. The bike is quiet, the resistance is easy to adjust, and it operates smoothly. Customers rave about its performance, and it comes highly recommended by our colleagues at Runner's World.

It has a 40-pound flywheel that runs smooth and silent, and can support users up to 330 pounds. The ride-style seat is fully adjustable, and there are two water bottle holders attached below it.

At 106 pounds, this bike has more heft than some other options, so while it's popular with users, it may not be the best choice for those who would like to move their bike when not in use.

Indoor Cycling Bike

This indoor cycling bike from Yosuda proves that a budget buy doesn’t have to mean going bare-bones. Made with durable, quiet components, this bike has the features of a more expensive model, but with a reasonable price tag.

The smooth 35-pound flywheel helps keep the bike stable, and the seat and handlebars have the same variety of position adjustments you see on higher-end models.

The bike does feature a sturdy tablet holder, plus there's an LCD display to track basic metrics, but it’s fairly small and may be tough to read for some.

Smart Connect Fitness Bike (EX-15)

This is about as close to a Peloton competitor as you’ll get—for a fraction of the price. The Echelon Smart Connect uses a membership-based program for streaming workout classes, plus it offers an interactive ridership community.

The bike has 32 resistance levels to ratchet up in steps, and provides a sturdy ride no matter how hard you pump toward your end-of-ride goal.

We’ve listed the EX-15, which is Echelon’s basic model, and with it you can set up your own monitor or tablet to connect to the Echelon app and workouts. Upgrading to the EX-5 gets you a 21.5-inch HD touch screen comparable to what you'd get with a Peloton.

Magnetic Belt Drive Indoor Cycling Bike

This magnetic-resistance indoor cycling bike is high-quality without the expense of a trendy brand. A solid lineup of features includes smooth operation, simple adjustments, and streamlined resistance fine-tuning.

The bike is stable and quiet, with a four-way adjustable seat and handlebar positions, plus steel toe cage pedals with adjustable straps. While it doesn’t have an integrated display screen, there is a device holder for your tablet, so you can stream the classes or videos of your choice.

Stationary Exercise Bike

There's a lot to like about this feature-packed, reasonably-priced stationary bike. It offers excellent value, with a belt-drive system, multiple handlebar positions with an attached LCD monitor that tracks your stats, and a media stand for your tablet. We think like the slick design with neon-yellow accents, too.

This exercise bike also comes with PVC-coated handlebars that hold up over time. These handlebars also have five different spots to place your hands to get and stay comfortable based on your workout type.

NS-654 Foldable Upright Exercise Bike

There are plenty of compact, inexpensive exercise bikes out there, but we love this model for its foldable storage capabilities (with wheels!), the simple display to track your workout, and its stability compared to other similarly sized bikes.

This is an upright bike, so you can't do the same choreographed rides as you do in spin class, but with adjustable resistance and a display that shows speed, time elapsed, calories burned, and distance, you can tailor workouts to fit whatever you’re looking to get out of your ride.

Because of its size, this bike has a lower weight limit of 250 pounds.

230 Recumbent Bike

The price, stability, and durability of this recumbent model make it a top contender for those seeking the kind of low-impact, ergonomic ride that only a recumbent bike can deliver.

The seat back is ventilated and contoured, the bike itself features 16 resistance levels with 13 pre-programmed workouts. A basic console and small LCD screen keep programming simple. While small, it comes with all the controls needed to operate this exercise bike, though be wary of potentially inconsistent Bluetooth connectivity.

Price- and feature-wise, this model falls right in the middle of Schwinn’s recumbent bike line, so if you’re looking for a backlit display, more program options, or a less expensive model, be sure to check out other options.

Original Bike

Perhaps the most well-known name in exercise bikes, this option from Peloton has everything you need to start or expand your fitness journey. The bike itself has a sturdy construction, and a relatively small footprint, making it easy to fit anywhere in your home.

What sets Peloton apart from many other exercise bikes is the all-access membership. The membership, which costs $44 per month, has everything from live classes to workout programs for both on and off-bike workouts.

Indoor Cycling Exercise Bike

Here’s another popular, well-priced exercise bike with a bevy of value-packed features. One of its most notable is an incredibly smooth pedal stroke, but it also has a heavy, 49-pound belt-driven flywheel that gives you the feeling of an on-road ride.

Other features include a knob mounted on the top tube to adjust resistance, pedal cages to keep your feet from slipping, and an easy-to-reach emergency brake. There’s no media stand, which may be a drawback for some, and no monitor display, so if you’re exercising, it will be just you and the bike.

AirBike Classic

For an exercise bike with a different style of resistance, consider this AirBike from Assault Fitness. With a fan in place of the flywheel, the speed and intensity of your pedaling powers the fan, and determines the resistance. So, if you want more resistance on your ride, pedal faster.

This exercise bike also has connected handles that work in tandem with the pedals, so you can take some of the focus off your legs and work in your arms as well.

Commercial Series R35

Another recumbent exercise bike, this option from NordicTrack is built for long-term use and durability. With a 10 year warranty on the frame, you can expect this exercise bike to be a mainstay of your cardio regiment for years to come.

Alongside its durability, this bike has an ergonomic chair, up to 26 levels of magnetic resistance, and a 14-inch touch-screen monitor to control your workouts.

You also gain access to a 30-day free trial of the iFit training membership when you buy this exercise bike. It will cost money once those 30 days run out.

Original Bike

There’s no arguing that this fan favorite is a high-quality, high-tech piece of equipment. It features a 22-inch HD touch screen to stream classes and see your stats, secure adjustments for the seat and handlebars, plus it’s fairly compact at roughly two feet wide and four feet long.

Perhaps the best reason people splurge on this bike is for its vibrant ridership community (with star-status instructors), the variety and frequency of live and on-demand classes, and access to its top-notch content library.

Membership isn’t required, though it’s tough to imagine buying a Peloton without a subscription. If you want to get an idea of what to expect before purchasing a bike, join the app for $13 per month for access to workouts.

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