So I have been exercising for some time now on a treadmill and rowing machine in my basement. I finally decided that I wanted to try cycling as well. I bought a $499 Eschelon bike from Walmart and downloaded the Peleton app to my tablet. I was surprised by how many non biking classes they have. I followed one today on my treadmill and it was a great workout.

They also have a lot of classes for body weight and exercising without equipment. Just my two cents that it’s worth checking out even if you aren’t going to drop thousands on a special bike.

Oh and if you do want to use your own equipment I found that following a class on my “fake Peleton” worked great. No, I wouldn’t show up on leaderboards but I wasn’t going to anyway…haha. I did a prerecorded class and I could follow along well with my bike, and I’m pretty sure I got the exact same workout that the people with the 2500 dollar bike did. Also the app is only 14 a month if you don’t have their official bike, versus 40 if you do. Why it’s cheaper without their bike is beyond me but I’m not complaining!

If you use the app with the peloton bike or treadmill it keeps track of your workout metrics and heart rate so you can see if you’re gaining strength. You can also meet up on the bike with your friends that have bikes and cheer each other on. It’s pretty fun, but I’ve suspended my app because I started getting a pain in my knee when I rode and my favorite instructor left.

Yeah, I can see the social and tracking parts being better with the full link up and branded equipment. I’m not as concerned about those parts so I’m happy with this setup.

Going from running and feeling pretty confident in my skills to biking was pretty humbling I have to say- the muscles are very different and I need to build up different ones now. I like having greater variety in exercise, though, because just running is obviously missing some key muscle groups.