Here’s how to find general starting points for your seat height and setback (how close your seat is to the handlebars). You can refine these numbers as you spend more time on your bike. Jen Luebke, a professional cyclist and mountain-bike coach, recommends writing down your measurements so that you always have them at the ready. We took note of whether we felt any unsteadiness when seated or when we stood out of the saddle.
And Wirecutter has twice now had more than half a dozen bikes simultaneously parked in the office, most recently in the summer of 2022. Along the way, 15 volunteer testers—from indoor-cycling beginners to aficionados who brought their own shoes—have taken some of the bikes for a spin. The water-bottle holders were the nicest among those on bikes in our test pool, sturdily made and positioned conveniently within the handlebars. The seat is a slim racing style, and although it didn’t differ drastically from most of the others we perched on, it wasn’t quite as comfortable initially (but we warmed to it). The Spinning Aero Connected Spinner Bike comes with a cadence sensor, which you attach to the pedal crank (we installed it easily).
Much of how smoothly an indoor-cycling bike rides has to do with its flywheel—the main wheel that powers the bike. Flywheel positioning can be either in the front of the bike or in the back of the bike (we’ve ridden on both styles). We took into account the weight of the flywheel, knowing that a heavier wheel theoretically results in a better ride. The flywheels of our picks all fall between 30 pounds schwinn bicycles and 45 pounds (plenty of weight to generate a robust amount of centrifugal force). For greater specificity, we wish the cadence (rpm) showed as a standalone number instead of on a sliding graph at the top of the console. In addition, we found that it’s possible to hit a knee on a taller water bottle while pedaling—a combination of the slight angle of the water-bottle holders and personal fit.
The pedal clips, which are Look Delta–compatible, hold the Peloton cycling shoes or other appropriate bike shoes securely. (You need to buy shoes separately.) Over the years, we’ve experienced easy clip-ins and clip-outs, and we’ve also had to work hard to release our shoes from the pedals. During our most recent testing of the Peloton Bike, we ran into an issue with the shoes not clipping into the pedals. A technician was able to quickly fix the problem with a set of new pedals (the company’s troubleshooting advice didn’t work in our case). In our tests, the bike easily connected to the Peloton app, showing real-time cadence, though it doesn’t indicate watts (a measure of power output). Since the IC4’s resistance range doesn’t match directly with Peloton’s, riders have come up with various conversions to help match the resistance numbers.
Our electric bikes are your best friend, powerful and sturdy enough to help you get things done safely and quickly. This recall involves Schwinn Abbott Adult Men’s Full Suspension Mountain Bicycles. The bicycles are black with green, yellow and blue accent colors on the downtubes. “Schwinn” is printed in green and yellow on the downtube of the bicycle and “Abbott” is printed in blue on the top tube of the bicycle near the bicycle stem and handlebars.