DIY Peloton Bike Setup for 75% Less than the Cost of a Peloton Bike Health and Wellness by admin - August 4, 2020April 16, 20220 Please follow and like us: So you want start getting your workout on but you don’t want to spend all the money that it costs to buy a $2500 Peloton bike. Well believe it or not you don’t have to, I’m going to explain to you how I got the exact same experience 25% of the regular cost. That’s right for about $600 to $700, I was able to experience the burn of a Peloton work out and not have a hole burned into my pockets by paying the costs of a small used car to get my workout on. So my indoor cycling journey started when I decide it I could no longer spend time (hour and a half) walking 5 miles for a workout, it was just taking too much of my time to complete the walk with my busy schedule. The coronavirus pandemic made going to the gym dicey, plus I’m just not that committed to actually show up at the gym on a regular basis when that requires me to leave my house at some oddball hours to do it. So here we go how was I able to create a $2500 indoor cycling experience for only $600 to $700 and get my serious workout on. Well first I started by looking online for an indoor cycling bike, and believe me because of the pandemic everybody is trying to work out from home so picking are slim for a local store pickup. Many of the local stores were fresh out of indoor cycling bikes. Now I had looked at several different makes and models including the Peloton, Echelon, Sunny Bike, and the Schwinn IC3 and IC4. Those prices ranged from approximately $400 to $2500 and I wanted something that would last me for the long haul because I’m committed to long term health while also making it convenient to fit into my busy entrepreneurial schedule while also not getting the cheapest thing I could find and then desiring some of the features that may keep me motivated to up the ante on my health and fitness. There just had to be a happy medium and I think I found it. Now the Schwinn IC4 is the latest model for Schwinn family of indoor cycling bikes, but I actually settled on the IC3 for a few reasons. The first reason is because I wanted a bike that day and this bike was available in the local area store. As a matter of fact I got the last bike in the store, because again due to the pandemic everywhere is sold out of all makes and models of indoor bikes. Also I was able to buy my IC3 for about $350 less than the latest IC4 model. I was as always looking for bang for the buck. Now I am not a big work out guy, I’m probably more like everybody else just a regular dude trying to get some exercise to lose some unwanted pounds and build up my health, strength, and immune system because of this crazy coronavirus that is plaguing the globe. I did not want a huge $900 investment in the latest greatest (IC4) at that moment and I definitely did not want to spend $2500 on the high end Peloton bike. Even though I looked at the Echelon, Sunny, and Peloton, I bought the Schwinn IC3 Indoor Cycling bike and brought it home in the trunk of my car as it was unassembled and still in the box. It took me maybe an hour to put it together and it was pretty simple to do. I did not need any additional tools as all the tools needed we’re already in the box (which was 1). Within an hour or less it was assembled and ready to ride. Now I know you’re wondering, how did you get the Peloton experience? Well if you have a tablet device, or smart phone then you can subscribe to Peloton online for only $12.95 a month. The only real difference between the Peloton bike and my Schwinn IC3 is that the Peloton comes with a built-in computer monitor, but most of us already have some type of tablet computer at home. Luckily I already had an Apple iPad. I simply download it the Peloton app from the Apple AppStore and placed it on the handlebars of my bike, which came with a tablet holder built in. This was actually another one of the reasons that I bought the Schwinn IC3, because that particular model bike came with a tablet holder built-in, in the same position as the Peloton bike which ships with the computer monitor attached to the handlebars. For $12.95 month I am able to do all of the rides, workouts, meditation, yoga and other workouts that are offered by the Peloton company. Comparably if you order the actual Peloton bike the monthly fee is around $39.95 each month. So again this is about a 75% savings over having the actual Peloton branded equipment. So the final piece to making the experience about as close as possible was to add a cadence monitor and heart rate monitor (HRM) to my bike. Yes real Peloton bikes come with this already but again the cost for me to add them was still far less than buying the bike. The way I did this was to buy a third-party sensor which is called a Wahoo Cadence Monitor and I also bought a Wahoo Heart Rate Monitor (TICKR model) as there is also a chest strap heart rate monitor so you can pick which one you are most comfortable with. The accuracy of each was within one or so heartbeats so it wasn’t significant to me. The cost of the Wahoo Cadence Monitor was approximately $40-$50 and the Wahoo Heart Rate monitor was $70. So that was an additional $120 out of pocket in order to see my cadence and heart rate on the screen of my iPad while watching the Peloton on demand workouts or the live schedule class workouts so that I could determine my speed and stress level. So, altogether for about $720, I was able to build a Peloton experience without having to spend $2500 in one big chunk. Now you may be able to do it slightly cheaper if you choose the Sunny bike but again I chose the Schwinn IC3 because the bike was available in my local Dick’s Sporting Goods store. The Sunny bike would have required me to order it and wait a couple of days and let’s face it I’m impatient guy at the time I was ALL IN TO GETTING STARTED OR BUST. None the less, I find that the workouts are exhilarating, exhausting, and highly effective, no differently than if I would’ve had a more expensive Peloton bike in my living room. I hope this description has helped some of you who may be on the fence about buying this bike or any other bike, much more comfortable with the fact that if you are trying to save money you can have 98% of the experience with out all the cost of a Peloton bike because the one thing that you can’t see on the screen of your iPad, that you actually do see on a real Peloton bike is the resistance level when the instructors tell you to increase or decrease your resistance to a certain amount when you turn the red resistance knob that all bikes have, but eventually you will figure that out based on feel and it’ll be just fine if you are going to save over $1800 on your purchase. Happy workouts and now that you’ve saved all that money you can take a vacation to show that body off. Yes I’m a travel agent, so its a shameless plug. LOL!!!