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Old 08-08-21, 09:27 PM
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mattcalifornia
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Bikes: 2002 Eddy Merckx Team SC Resto-Mod; 2019 Ibis Hakka MX; 2017 Spot Brand Ajax Belt Drive

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The thing with Peloton is that you're not buying it for the bike itself. The bike is a fine spin bike, but you can get comparable quality spin bikes much cheaper. The only reason to buy a Peloton is to take advantage of the large universe of classes. If you just want to get in shape through biking and other fitness classes (yoga, Pilates, strength training, stretching, etc), then the Peloton is hard to beat for in-home exercise programs. It works particularly well for families because there are no extra charges for additional users and the variety and quantity of classes is outstanding. However, if your primary goal is to train yourself for outdoor cycling, you should get a road bike with a smart trainer and use Zwift. (There is a whole thread elsewhere debating whether spin classes are good training for road biking. I think they are, but it depends on what kind of spin classes and what kind of riding you are training for.) For me, the Peloton is a good deal when compared with a gym membership, and much more convenient for me. It's not a good deal if you compare it to a smart trainer or a generic spin bike. If I had a generic spin bike, I probably wouldn't use it. It's the classes that keep me motivated and coming back for more. YMMV.

Our family has Peloton, a NordicTrack iFit incline trainer/treadmill and a subscription to Apple Fitness+. The Peloton is leaps and bounds better than the other platforms at this point. I would strongly advise against any iFit products (they have some great features, but they charge extra for every user and the software has a lot of glitches, lags bugs and annoying features). The Peloton just works almost flawlessly (the only caveat is that the power/wattage readings can be wildly inaccurate if your bike is not calibrated properly because the bikes don't use true power meters. It's annoying, but it's still a great product).

Apple Fitness+ is a pretty nice app, but it is still pretty new and has relatively few classes. I haven't tried their cycling classes, so I can't comment on how good they are. I've only done yoga and such. The nice thing is that if you are an Apple household, you can get a combo monthly subscription ($30 I think) that inlcudes full access to Fitness+, News+, Apple Music, AppleTV+ and some iCloud storage, so it's kind of a no brainer.
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