Peloton Cross Training Bike+ review: the best exercise bike for those who can afford it

You only have to cast your mind back a few years to recall when Peloton was the poster child of pandemic fitness: the shiny exercise bike everyone either wanted, already owned, or was on a hefty waiting list for.

Since then, the post-pandemic market has shifted, and Peloton has experienced a more challenging financial stretch, with a few loss-making quarters as the business recalibrates.

Still, Peloton is doing what it can to get back on top, including the launch of an all-new Cross Training Series in October, which represents more than a simple refresh across its bikes, treadmills, and rowing machines.

On the Cross Training Bike+, there are some juicy hardware updates, such as a built-in fan so you can ride Beyoncé style, a redesigned saddle that promises to be more comfortable on the junk in dat trunk, and a handy phone tray for those who can’t live without their handset in view at any given time.

One of the biggest switch-ups, however, comes in the form of Peloton IQ, an AI system that uses a new integrated camera to track your movements, count reps and nudge you about form during strength sessions. Basically, a digital coach that tells you how to move properly without pulling something.

But will this collection of updates be enough to persuade existing users to upgrade, and sway potential buyers away from cheaper alternatives? The original Peloton Bike+ was an outstanding bit of kit (I gave it a full 5 stars back in 2022), blending top-notch hardware with a pretty addictive streaming platform. But as the brand’s latest top-tier exercise bike, the Cross Training version isn't massively different in design.

I’ve been living with the Cross Training Bike+ for several weeks, having previously spent months with the original Bike+ to find out if this is genuinely a next-gen upgrade, or just the same bike with a fancy camera strapped to the top. So, whether you’re brand new to Peloton or already knee-deep, let’s find out if this new shiny bike is worth your hard-earned dosh.

Peloton Cross Training Bike+ review

Price and availability

The Peloton Cross Training Bike+ stands proudly as the new flagship bike in Peloton’s line-up. In the UK, it's available to buy now direct from Peloton with an RRP of £2,299. Although at the time of writing, it's listed at £1,849 as part of an ongoing Cross Training promotion. In the US, it’s got an RRP of $2,695, reduced to a pretty decent $1,995 as part of the same deal.

In continental Europe, prices are higher: in Germany and wider EU listings, the Cross Training Bike+ typically retails around €2,899, though exact official Peloton listings vary by retailer and promotions.

Down under in Australia, Peloton lists the Cross Training Bike+ at around AU$3,899, again with the All-Access Membership sold separately.

Discounts or not, that’s still serious money, but you’ll be pleased to hear there are a few ways to soften the blow. In the UK, for example, you can finance the Bike+ from around £155 per month for 12 months at 0% APR, and there are also bundle packages that throw in shoes, weights, mats and resistance bands at a lower combined cost.

Peloton sells the Cross Training Bike+ on its own, as part of a Starter Package that adds shoes, weights and a mat, or as an Ultimate Package that includes more accessories for a full home gym-style setup. It’s a shame you have to buy these separately - it feels a bit stingy that they’re not included as standard, especially given the initial cost.

As before, the one-off bike cost isn’t the end of it. To get the full experience on the Cross Training Bike+ you’ll need an All-Access Membership, which now comes in at £45 / $49.99 / €45 / AU$65 per month, a small yet still very annoying hike from the old pricing. That subscription is what unlocks Peloton’s library of live and on-demand classes across cycling, strength, yoga, running, rowing and more, as well as all the new Peloton IQ features.

There are cheaper ways into the Peloton ecosystem if your budget can’t stretch to this new mode, as welll. Peloton still sells the base Bike and offers refurbished original Bike+ units and rental options, which can make more sense if you just want a great spin bike and aren’t too bothered about AI strength coaching. But if you’re after the latest and greatest Peloton experience in one machine, the Cross Training Bike+ is the one.

What’s more, every Bike+ purchase comes with free home delivery and setup, a 30-day risk-free home trial, and a 12-month limited warranty on the frame, touchscreen and most components, which you can extend with an optional protection plan.

Setup

One thing Peloton has always nailed is the out-of-box experience, and that hasn’t changed with the Cross Training Bike+.

Before our Bike+ even arrived, I was given a delivery window and a quick rundown of what to expect. On the day, the Peloton delivery crew rolled up, lugged the bike up my stairs to my spare room, assembled it and talked me through the basics - all in about 20 minutes or so. No flat-packed nightmares, no massive cardboard boxes to try and squash into your recycling bin, and no YouTube assembly tutorials required.

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Once powered on, the Bike+ guides you through a slick set-up wizard on the touchscreen. You create or log into your Peloton account, connect to Wi-Fi, pair any Bluetooth heart-rate straps or headphones, and set your basic metrics.

The new Peloton IQ questions then pop up, asking about your goals (strength, endurance, weight management and so on), how many days you realistically want to train, and what sort of music you like.

Adjusting the bike for your height and riding style is as straightforward as ever. If you’ve set up a spin bike in a studio before, you’ll be right at home. If not, Peloton’s on-screen guides make it easy. I was up and spinning within half an hour of the delivery van pulling away.

Design

Peloton didn’t need to reinvent the wheel here, and it hasn’t. At a glance, the Cross Training Bike+ looks almost identical to the original Bike+, which is by no means a bad thing. It’s still a very handsome bit of kit, boasting a sleek black frame, subtle branding, and minimal clutter. It wouldn’t look out of place in a boutique studio or a high-end living room, that’s for sure.

The frame is built from high-grade powder-coated carbon steel, giving it the same rock-solid, gym-grade feel as the previous Bike+. At 137cm long, 56cm wide and 152cm tall, it takes up about the footprint of a yoga mat, but it doesn’t fold, so you’ll want to commit to a permanent-ish spot if you can.

Two small transport wheels at the front let you shuffle it around the room fairly easily, but you’re not going to be wheeling it in and out of a cupboard every day without losing the will to live.

If you’re already familiar with the Bike+, you’ll notice Peloton has made a few refinements to the new Cross Training model. Front and centre is the slightly larger 23.8-inch touchscreen (over the previous model’s 21.5-inch display), mounted on the same 360-degree swivel arm.

The size upgrade is a welcome improvement but not all that noticeable when you’re in the thick of training. Something I would have preferred to see on this display is a higher resolution, as it still sports the same Full HD, 1080p screen. Since your face is so close to the monitor during spins, I do think the experience would benefit slightly from a 2K resolution, especially now that the screen is a little bigger.

Still, the panel itself is bright, sharp and responsive. It also tilts and rotates smoothly like before, allowing you to position it perfectly for riding, then swing it around for floor-based strength, yoga or stretching.

Above the screen sits the all-new star of the show - a new movement-tracking camera. This is the hardware heart of Peloton IQ, a tech that blends AI and computer vision so the Bike+ can track your reps in real time, analyse your joint positions and flag dodgy form, although this is only during strength sessions. (I’ll go more deeply into this in the performance section.)

Audio has had a serious upgrade, too. The Cross Training Bike+ features Sonos-tuned speakers, including Peloton’s first integrated subwoofer on a bike. The result is a noticeably punchier, richer sound than the original Bike+. Music tracks have more depth, instructor voiceovers cut through clearly, and the whole thing feels more “studio-like” - especially if you like cranking up the volume on big climbs.

One of my favourite design additions on the Cross Training Bike+ is the new built-in fan, which sits on top of the monitor. It’s a small change that makes a big difference, especially once you start sweating. It’s quiet, adjustable via physical buttons or on-screen controls, and powerful enough to take the edge off mid-class. It’s even able to reach you when you’re on the floor in front of the bike for strength work. But more on this later.

As I mentioned earlier, Peloton has also added a phone tray, which sits neatly beneath the screen. It supports both portrait and landscape orientations and comfortably fits modern big-screen phones - or even a small tablet. It’s such an obvious addition that you wonder why it wasn’t there from day one.

The saddle has been redesigned, too, now with a focus on better weight distribution and comfort. Saddles are wildly subjective, of course, but I found the new one more forgiving over longer rides than the old perch, especially for multi-day streaks. You still get the usual height and fore/aft adjustment, so you can adjust your position properly.

Elsewhere, the updated Bike+ keeps much of what I liked before. You still get the chunky resistance knob just above the flywheel, with support for auto-resistance during compatible classes. The aluminium pedals work with Delta-compatible cycling shoes. The handlebars are adjustable and offer plenty of grip, even when you’re dripping in sweat. There’s a USB-C port for charging a phone or tablet while you ride, and Bluetooth 5.2 on board for connecting heart-rate straps and wireless headphones.

Performance

On the performance side of things, the Cross Training Bike+ is every bit as good as its predecessor - and in a few small ways, better.

The magnetic resistance system and heavy flywheel combine to deliver an incredibly smooth, quiet ride. At low resistance, you can spin your legs at silly cadences without any juddering, and at the upper end, there’s more than enough grunt to simulate brutal hill climbs.

The frame stays impressively stable even when you’re out of the saddle, sprinting or grinding at high resistance. Something I’ve definitely not experienced in rival exercise bikes (cough, Speediance, cough).

Peloton’s renowned red resistance knob remains precise and responsive. A tiny twist in either direction quickly translates into clear changes in effort, and you soon get used to fine-tuning it by feel. As before, its party trick is the Auto-Resistance tech it has baked in. Flick this on during compatible classes, and the Bike+ will automatically adjust resistance to match the instructor’s cues. That means less fiddling, more focus, and - if you’re anything like me - one less excuse for ignoring the harder parts.

As I mentioned earlier, the new fan is probably one of the design additions I appreciate the most, and it actually proved more of a performance upgrade than I was expecting.

I’d even go as far as saying it’s a game-changer. On longer rides, having a steady stream of cool air aimed at your chest and face makes it much easier to push hard without overheating. I ended up leaving it on low or medium for most workouts and found that, overall, I didn’t need to keep using my towel to mop my brow. Dreamy.

Then there’s Peloton IQ. This is where the “Cross Training” part really comes into its own.

Hop off the bike and into a strength class, and the camera quietly gets to work. Peloton claims the system can recognise around 120 different movements, tracking your reps and assessing your form in real time. During dumbbell squats, for instance, I found it counted reps accurately and nudged me with reminders like “Keep your chest lifted”. During overhead presses, it flagged when I started using momentum instead of muscle, telling me to “Avoid swinging your body”, which worked well.

All in all, I found the rep counting to be surprisingly accurate (once I was in frame properly - which can take some adjusting), and the form feedback was generally useful. It’s not a substitute for an in-person coach, of course, but it’s a lot better than blindly hammering through sets with no idea whether you’re doing them well.

Since the system doesn’t (yet) know how much weight you’re holding, you tell it your light, medium and heavy dumbbells during setup, and can update them on the fly using either touch or voice commands (“Hey Peloton, I’m switching to 10 kilos”). If you blast through far more reps than prescribed, it might suggest going heavier next time, and if you’re clearly struggling, it’ll encourage you to drop back.

Self-paced strength classes are another great addition. Rather than being locked to the instructor’s timer, you can work through sets at your own speed, with the Bike+ automatically advancing once you’ve hit the target reps.

During AMRAP-style sessions, having each movement, rep target, and round clearly listed on screen, with an automatic rep counter, was a game-changer. It definitely made staying on track far easier than trying to keep count or scribbling notes on a bit of paper.

The whole system feels well integrated generally, but it’s by no means perfect. For example, the camera can struggle if you’re too close, too far away, or half out of frame, so you do need to respect its sweet spot. Form cues can occasionally feel a bit generic, and if you’re already very experienced with lifting, you might not find the coaching earth-shattering. But as a way to keep you engaged, I think it works really well.

Classes and app

Peloton’s platform remains one of its biggest selling points - and with the Cross Training Bike+, you’re getting the best version of it yet.

While it doesn’t come cheap, the All-Access Membership unlocks thousands of live and on-demand classes across a massive range of disciplines. You’ve got cycling, of course, from quick-fire 10-minute spins to hour-plus endurance rides.

There’s strength training in all flavours, from full-body to upper or lower body splits, bodyweight-only options and heavy dumbbell work. Bootcamp classes mix time on the bike with floor-based moves. Then you have yoga, Pilates, stretching and mobility sessions, as well as outdoor audio runs and walks and, if you own the hardware, rowing and treadmill workouts too.

One thing I will say is that, as a keen yogi, the yoga classes on offer feel a little off the mark. All the yoga sessions I tried seemed very fitness- and recovery-focused, rather than an authentic kind of class you’d experience at a yoga studio.

Searching for “rocket yoga” or “Ashtanga yoga”, for instance, surfaced no results from the oodles of classes in its database, which was pretty surprising. If you’re a yogi, just don’t expect too much from Peloton - it’s definitely aimed more at the fitness crowd.

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The same can't be said for the strength side of things, however. With Peloton IQ baked in, this area has had the biggest glow-up. There’s even a Strength+ workout generator, which lets you build custom sessions based on which muscles you want to hit, how long you’ve got and how hard you want to work.

You can log your weight rack so the system can track your progress and nudge you when it thinks you’re ready to bump things up. It all feels very personalised, too, which is nice. For example, weekly summaries highlight your PBs, show how your training is balanced across the week and suggest tweaks, whether that’s more recovery or a different type of session altogether.

On the cardio side, you still get live and on-demand rides with all the filters you’d expect: instructor, music genre, class length and difficulty. Leaderboards, high-fives, personal records, streak badges and themed programmes all play their part in keeping you coming back. It really does feel like it has it all, and that Peloton has thought of everything its users might want.

Okay, some of the instructors might be on the corny side, with Americanisms that will make British riders wince, but not all of them are like this. And since there are so many classes to choose from, you can easily avoid that if you find it off-putting, as I do.

What’s more, the interface remains one of the best in the business. Not only does it feel super premium, but it’s also easy to navigate around - offering up all the data without overwhelming you. Post-workout summaries are clear and motivating, and the integration with Apple Health, Garmin and Fitbit means your activity lives outside the saddle.

The obvious elephant in the room is the membership cost. It's one of the priciest out there, especially on top of an already expensive bike. But, I guess, if you compare that to the cost of boutique spin classes, or separate strength and yoga memberships, it still works out reasonably competitive (as long as you’re using it regularly).

However, if you’re purely interested in cycling and couldn’t care less about at-home strength sessions, you might be better off with the cheaper base Bike. But if you want one membership and one machine to cover most of your training, the Cross Training Bike+ and Peloton IQ make a lot of sense.

Verdict

There’s definitely a lot to weigh up when considering the Cross Training Bike+. Besides the obvious high upfront cost and the ongoing membership, there’s also the space it uses, and whether you’ll actually use all the features enough. But much like the original Bike+, a lot of those concerns fade the moment you start using it every day.

The workout experience is just top-notch – it’s hard to fault it. The small but impactful upgrades mean it’s still the best exercise bike I’ve tested. The hardware feels premium in every detail, from the rock-solid frame to the upgraded sound system and cooling fan.

The redesigned saddle and phone tray fix a couple of niggles I had with the old model. And Peloton’s classes remain top-tier, offering a fun, varied and properly motivating experience (even if they do sometimes hit levels of cringe that not everyone will appreciate).

What elevates this new version is Peloton IQ. The movement-tracking camera, rep counting and form cues aren’t gimmicks - they genuinely make it easier to build and stick to a proper strength routine alongside your rides. Self-paced strength, custom workouts and smart weekly summaries all nudge you towards a more rounded training plan, not just endless spin classes.

Worth the upgrade?

If you’re already a Bike+ owner, the upgrades are great, but I still don’t think they’re quite enough to warrant another purchase. Unless you’re a massive Strength class user and you’re willing to pay whatever it costs for the IQ tech, you’re probably not going to benefit enough from switching out for a Cross Training model.

If you’re a regular first-gen Bike owner, though, then that’s a different story altogether, as you’re getting all the original Bike+ upgrades of the swivel screen for floor workouts, the bigger, better screen, and whatnot, with the additional Cross Training model improvements on top. Definitely worth thinking about.

And if you’ve never owned a Peloton before and are seriously considering one - believe the hype (again). Peloton’s Cross Training Bike+ is the best all-around home fitness machine you can buy right now, as long as you’re willing to pay for the privilege.