MYX Fitness Bike review

MYX Fitness pitches a Peloton-rivaling experience that comes at half the cost and in half the time — literally, Peloton’s shipping estimates fall around two months, whereas your very own MYX Fitness Bike can arrive in two weeks.

Besides faster availability for people hoping to achieve 2021 fitness goals, the MYX Fitness Bike also slices into Peloton’s share of the best exercise bikes with a softer $1,299 price tag, swiveling display and hundreds of proprietary, heart-rate-based workouts. It might not offer live sessions, but the 1-to-1 dialog with charismatic trainers offer a refreshing change from the competitive nature of group classes. MYX Fitness is as close as you’ll get to on-demand personal training without inviting someone into your home.

I took more than 100 workout classes for this MYX Fitness Bike review, and while that’s helped me get in great shape, there’s more you might want to know about this exercise bike-fitness service hybrid than buckets of sweat and sculpted abs before making an investment. Be sure to check out why we recognized it in the 2021 Tom's Guide Award for Health and Fitness, too. 

• The best Peloton alternatives

MYX Fitness Bike: Price and availability

There are two costs that come with MYX Fitness: The actual bike and the class subscription. The MYX bike costs $1,299, but if you drop $200 more for MYX Plus, you also get a Polar OH1 heart monitor, large exercise mat, 6-piece dumbbell set, kettlebell, foam roller and resistance band. You can use any of the best yoga mats, best adjustable dumbbells or best resistance bands of your own, though.

MYX offers free shipping, and currently estimates 2-5 weeks for your bike to arrive. By comparison, Peloton estimates it’ll take 8-10 weeks for free delivery. Echelon and NordicTrack charge $199 for shipping, but neither company is facing severe shipping delays. You can also return the MYX bike in 30 days if it’s not to your liking.

A MYX Fitness subscription costs $29 per month for access to the class library. Although the membership is technically optional, you’ll need it to take advantage of classes on and off the bike as you would with Peloton, Echelon and NordicTrack. Those memberships all cost $39 per month.

MYX Fitness Bike review: Design and setup

The MYX Fitness Bike is no dainty machine. Luckily, the 134-pound unit comes pre-assembled, and the company’s delivery partners help you get set up in your home. My servicer positioned my white review model (it also comes in black) on top of the included floor mat, plugged it in and showed me how to create my account. I ended up moving the location after they left, which wasn’t difficult thanks to the two wheels on the front base bar of the bike as well as the four adjustable leveling feet. 

While the MYX Fitness system is more compact than a traditional home gym set up I still needed to create a nook for the 4.5 x 3.9 x 1.8-foot exercise bike. I make it work for my apartment, although it has dwarfed my living room a little bit. On the bright side, it’s sleek-looking thanks to limited branding and hardware details, so I don’t mind that it’s in plain sight. 

And since the 21.5-inch touch display swivels and tilts, I can move the screen to face wherever I’m working out, even if it’s 180 degrees from where I’d sit on the bike. (If you want a rotating screen on your Peloton, you’ll need to upgrade to the Peloton Bike Plus, which starts at $2,495.) MYX’s other manual adjustments include seat height, seat depth, handlebar height, handlebar depth and, of course, a resistance knob.

Once you’ve found your adjustments you have two options for using the food pedals. On one side you strap regular sneakers into cages, and on the other you clip in any of the best shoes for Peloton and other exercise bikes. I both use and recommend investing in spin cleats for both safety and sturdiness. 

MYX Fitness Bike review: Display and interface 

Before my first workout, I took some time to explore the MYX Fitness Bike’s display and interface. In addition to the power button and volume controls on the side of the screen, there’s a built-in USB port for charging your heart rate monitor or other device. All other features are controlled via touch screen.

The interface’s home screen gives you a great overview of your profile. You can see a running tally of your minutes exercised, calories burned and classes you took  the week prior. Next to that, you’ll see a highlighted class, which is usually one of the newest uploads. Then, as you scroll down, you’ll see Netflix-like menus for classes based on workout format, recommendations and classes you’ve favorited. There’s also a section for scenic rides, the Newsy channel and original MYX programming around topics like mental health.

Across the top menu, there’s dedicated tabs for bike, floor, cross-training and recovery classes. Within those submenus, you can filter classes more thoroughly based on type, length and level. When you’ve found a class you like, click on it to read a brief synopsis, see the equipment you’ll need, pair your heart rate monitor and/or Bluetooth headphones and hit start. 

MYX Fitness Bike review: Experience and performance

Once you’ve started a ride or other MYX Fitness Class, a dashboard appears on the left side of the screen showing you the time elapsed, calories burned, and current heart rate. If you’re familiar with OrangeTheory or other heart-rate-based training, you’ll know that an accurate gauge of your pulse is important to pacing yourself in class. 

Over the course of this review, I learned a lot about heart rate zones. No matter the class type, the coaches offer verbal cues for what zone you should be in. While I wish I could use my Apple Watch Series 6 as my heart rate monitor, the included Polar OH1 I wore on my forearm offered instant readings. This helped me know when it was time to put more effort in or scale it back. Most classes provided quick warm ups and cooldowns for managing heart rate zones, too. 

As for the feel of the bike itself, MYX uses a 41-pound flywheel with friction resistance, which differs from Peloton’s magnetic wheel. I tend to prefer magnetic because it’s quieter and offers more specific resistance changes, but MYX’s wheel makes little to no noise and I felt acute control over the wheel’s weight beneath my feet. Still, a magnetic wheel would perhaps feel a bit smoother — sometimes when I changed resistance drastically the MYX bike’s pedal momentum threw me off balance. The MYX bike couldn’t automatically change my resistance like the Peloton can, either.

MYX Fitness Bike review: Class selection

MYX Fitness classes are more personal than competitive. There’s no leaderboards like in the Peloton app — instead, the coaches speak as though you’re having a one-to-one conversation, motivating you to work on your individual fitness goals. I enjoy how they talk the entire class, chiming in with personal stories, tips on attitude and relatable struggles just like an in-person trainer might. 

Within the bike category, there are endurance rides, resistance-heavy climb rides, HIIT rides, rhythm rides, warm-up rides and recovery rides. I usually preferred cycling to the beat of the music with rhythm rides, although I always did a warm-up ride before a floor-based workout, too.

Unlike Apple Fitness Plus, where most of the trainers are dedicated to select workout types, most of MYX’s bike coaches also train on the floor for targeted strength training, high intensity interval training (HIIT), kettlebell training, barre, mobility, pilates, core, yoga and dance. I appreciated that I could diversify my exercise regime while building this weird virtual relationship with the certain coaches I grew to favor.

The classes vary from 5 to 60 minutes, and cross-training classes combine multiple workout styles into a single session. New workouts are added every week, but you take classes from the entire MYX backlog as well. Peloton has a larger library of classes, plus live classes each day, but even after working out almost every day for three months with MYX I haven’t run short on options.

I have to admit Peloton does music better than MYX, though. MYX uses a Pandora-like radio system, so there’s no set playlist for every class. You can skip songs, but you aren’t hearing the same music as the coaches did when they recorded the class, so it feels like there’s a disconnect. Plus the stations can get repetitive. Luckily, you can adjust the music volume independently of the coach’s volume if you want to enjoy your own tracks.

MYX Fitness Bike review: SmartMYX training programs

Halfway through my review, MYX launched SmartMYX, a personal training dashboard that recommends a class cadence based on your workout goals. It has its own tab on the MYX interface to keep track of your weekly criteria.

I set my SmartMYX profile to 180 minutes of working out per week, consisting of 45-minute cardio, strength, cross-training and recovery workouts. I followed the cadence at first, but the program needs work. It only recommends 45-minute classes, so you can’t compound a 30 minute and 15 minute workout one day to meet your threshold, for example. Plus any classes taken outside of the SmartMYX interface don’t count towards your weekly goal.

SmartMYX is as close as MYX gets to rivaling Peloton’s multi-week training programs. With some upgrades, I think it can actually provide superior personalization compared to Peloton, especially for the price.

MYX Fitness Bike review: Verdict

Although I tend to switch up my workout routines, I’ve found myself wanting to get on the MYX bike or launch a MYX floor class almost every day since I’ve had it in my apartment. The relatable trainers and abundance of exercise styles has made staying in shape as painless as it’s ever been. Don’t get me wrong — I’m left heaving over the handlebars after an intense hill. But workout beginners and pros alike will find the MYX system is capable of keeping you accountable to your fitness goals. 

No question about it: The MYX Fitness Bike is the best Peloton alternative for the price. And price aside, for people who prefer a personalized workout experience over a class-like one, I’d say MYX’s program is a better choice than Peloton. It has the large, swiveling screen and diverse class portfolio, and you can actually get it delivered (for free) within a few weeks. No culty vibes, either. 

• Plus: Read our Echelon Stride treadmill review