Dave Ambrose, a 34-year-old venture capitalist in New York City, had a problem most of us can relate to: Work got busy and his time to ride outside evaporated, resulting in low energy and weight gain.
By the end of 2016, he was the heaviest he’d ever been, carrying 190 pounds on his 5’7” frame. “I would come home from work and want to do nothing but sit on the couch. I was truly tired,” Ambrose says. His friends suggested he try indoor training, but he was against it. “I thought it was boring,” he says. “I wanted to meet people and be outdoors.”
But they were persistent and finally, Ambrose agreed to go to a friend’s apartment and try out Zwift on a Wahoo Kickr. “I did 45 minutes for the first ride and thought, ‘This is amazing.’ You actually feel like you’re riding outside. The resistance is changing with the terrain. There are other riders everywhere. It’s competitive. It changed everything I thought about indoor cycling.”
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Hooked, Ambrose got his own Kickr and Zwift subscription. He soon began riding 100 miles a week—twice as much as he ever did outdoors. He got inspired to start cooking more and eating out less. By the end of that first year, he was down 25 pounds.
“I had a ton more energy. Now that the weight was coming off, I wanted to get even fitter and stronger, but I didn’t want to go to a gym. I figured—like with cycling—there must be something I could do at home.”
His fiancée was into Peloton. Though he wasn’t interested in the cycling classes, he discovered the platform’s strength classes and started consistently tacking on core workouts to his Zwift routine.
He now trains indoors with the TrainerRoad app, competes in Zwift races, and does core workouts via Peloton. The subscriptions (sans equipment) add up to about $55 a month, which is more affordable than the average gym membership in New York City. Ambrose says they are totally worth it. “I feel like a new person.”
And he is. Today, Ambrose goes to bed at 10 p.m. and gets up at 6 a.m. to do an hour-long ride to start his day. He’s landed at a healthy 147 pounds, down more than 40 pounds from less than three years ago. “It’s an incredible time for a cyclist to get fit and stay fit no matter the season or how busy they are,” he says.
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Truer words have never been spoken. Long gone are the mind-numbing trainer sessions during which you try to will time to pass faster as you slog along on a stationary trainer watching A Sunday in Hell for the 27th time.
Today’s indoor cycling experience is interactive, immersive, and honestly enjoyable. Like outdoor riding, it can also serve specific goals such as building a base, losing weight, winning a race, or just having a good time on two wheels. As Ambrose’s story shows, you just need to choose the right indoor training system (or systems) to get it done. Here are some of the most popular indoor cycling options to help you accomplish any goal.
Zwift
Best for: Riders who want to bring all the fun of cycling inside
How it works: Pure joy for you is rolling from the coffee shop with 15 of your friends, chasing each other up hills, sprinting for town signs, and chitchatting while you spin down new roads. Watopia and the seven actual and fantastical courses on Zwift are the perfect places for you. You create a personalized avatar, input your height and weight, and zip down the road at speeds based on the power you’re putting out for your weight.
There are tons of options for cycling fun: join group rides, line up for a race, meet up with a friend and just ride, or do some of the pre-programmed Zwift workouts. You can also take an in-app FTP test and follow one of their training plans to get ready for a century or other goal. But the real gold is in the game: earning new wheels, unlocking new courses, “chatting” with fellow riders via the app. It’s all the trappings and socially competitive stuff you love about outdoor cycling, indoors.
Details: $14.99/month; available for iOS, Apple TV, Android, Mac, and Windows/PC; requires a smart trainer for the best experience, but non-smart trainers and rollers are compatible with the use of an ANT+ or bluetooth speed sensor or a power meter.
4 Indoor Bike Trainers
Kinetic R1
Allows the bike to rock from side to side for that real feel
Elite Suito
Easy to carry, easy to store, and ready to use out of the box
Wahoo Kickr Core
Nearly all the functionality of a Kickr in a compact design
BKool Smart Go
Lightweight, portable, and affordable smart trainer
TrainerRoad
Best for: Riders who want progressive, structured training—no games necessary
How it works: You don’t really care about dazzling animation, virtual hangouts, or earning trophies or other pixelated bits of bling. You have concrete IRL cycling goals and want a progressive, structured training plan to crush them. TrainerRoad is your jam. The whole system is geared around your FTP, which you establish via an in-app baseline test. Then choose from one of more than a hundred training plans (or 1,000+ workouts) to prepare for whatever races or events you have on the calendar. The professionally-created plans are periodized to take you from building base to honing your performance needs to reach your specific goal. The guided workouts include motivational text from on-screen coaching instruction. But the on-screen entertainment is on you—the app lets you watch whatever you want while the workout streams on the bottom of the screen. The workouts can also be optimized to take outdoors on the road via Garmin Edge and Forerunner devices, as well as Wahoo head units when nice weather beckons.
Details: $19.95/month or $189/year, available for iOS, Android, Mac, and PC; requires a power meter and smart trainer to have automatic resistance control. VirtualPower requires only a speed sensor.
Sufferfest
Best for: HIIT fanatics who are hunting for solid power-based training and complete fitness coaching
How it works: If there’s anything greater than hammering through the searing acid-bath of that final high intensity interval, you don’t know what it is. With workouts called “Violator” and “The Hunted,” Sufferlandria is the place you should go for indoor training. The Sufferfest employs a proprietary power measure they call 4DP, short for 4 Dimensional Power. It tests your 5-second, 1-minute, 5-minute, and 20-minute power to see your max wattage measures up from sprinting to time trialing. Your training plans are adjusted according to target the areas you need to build to achieve your goals. If you geek out on HIIT training, you’ll love it. It’s also one of the best apps for multi-sport and all-around athletes, as they have running, cycling, and triathlon videos, as well as mental training programs, strength training, and cycling-centric yoga workouts.
Details: $12.99/month or $99/year, available for iOS, Mac, and Windows; requires an indoor or smart trainer. Android and Apple TV versions coming soon.
Peloton
Best for: Spin class lovers and riders who just want to get or stay fit
How it works: Peloton has become the big player in high-energy studio cycling workouts by offering an array of classes you can do right in your living room. The interactive fitness platform is designed to be enjoyed from the perch of a proprietary Peloton bike, complete with a built-in digital screen that can stream live and on-demand instructor-led classes from the brand’s New York City studio, but you can also get in on the fun by pairing the Peloton digital app with your regular indoor training bike.
For a subscription fee of $19.49 a month (for non-Bike and Tread owners), you can access live studio classes and stream one of thousands of on-demand classes. If you like the indoor cycling class energy and just want to maintain your cycling fitness through bad weather months and busy times, it’s a great option. Peloton also offers running, walking, bootcamp, strength, stretching, cardio, yoga and meditation, so you also can use it for general strength and fitness training instead of going to the gym.
Details: $39/month with purchase of a new bike ($2,245). The Peloton Digital app alone is $19.49. Available for iOS, Android, and Web.
A Smart Indoor Stationary Bike
Best for: Serious, all-season cyclists who want to simulate the outdoor riding experience indoors on a moment’s notice.
Smart Stationary Bikes
$3,499.99 Wahoo Kickr Bike
Dial in the perfect fit, and connect instantly to training apps.
Great for smart apps like Zwift and a small footprint.
Technogym Skillbike
Real-like shifting enhances the indoor experience
Super quiet, excellent fit, and no need to plug in
How it works: New high-tech, smart stationary bikes await if you’re willing to invest in what is essentially a permanent inside ride. Unlike basic indoor cycling bikes commonly used in Spin classes, these specialized bikes are designed to more closely mirror your outdoor bike, from the geometry and fit to real shifting and accurate gear ratios—the Wahoo Kickr can even match your 11-speed drivetrain groupset. These smart cycles can cost as much as a second bike, but if you want to really bring the outdoor experience indoors and are tired of dragging your bike through the house and wrestling it on and off the trainer, they could be worth it.
