Good afternoon everyone, welcome to Pedal with Grant. Just kidding, I’m not turning Travel with Grant into a fitness blog, but I wanted to share my experience renting and using my Peloton bike in 2023. I wish I could say that I rode the bike everyday and lost 50 pounds, but that was definitely not the case last year.  Even though I didn’t live up to my Peloton expectations for 2023, I’m starting 2024 off on a strong note and hope to keep the pedal to the metal for the rest of the year.

Here is the origin story for how the Peloton bike ended up in our “workout studio” aka the garage. Back in late 2022, Laura and I decided to try out the Peloton bike. I was worried that we would buy the bike outright and then “forget” to use it and have it sit “stationary” for months. Luckily, I stumbled onto a Mashable article that mentioned renting the bike directly from Peloton and I was surprised by the affordable monthly price. As of January 2024, the Peloton bike rental program is still running and the monthly price has remained the same.

For starters, you can rent the original Peloton Bike for $89 / month or the upgraded Peloton Bike+ for $119 / month.  Instead of going for the more expensive Bike+, you can buy a $50 screen attachment that will allow you to adjust / rotate the monitor.  Both bikes have an initial $150 delivery and set up fee, but there is no long term commitment and you can end the rental anytime and have the bike picked up for free. I liked having the option to return the bike if we didn’t like it or use it enough to justify keeping it.  There is also an option to buy out both bikes.

Peloton Dollars and Cents

The fee for the Bike rental is $89 / month which includes the Peloton digital membership, which is $44 by itself. Regardless if you own or rent the bike, you need to have a digital membership to stream live and on-demand classes.  If you subtract the $44 digital membership monthly fee from the $89 monthly rental, you are essentially paying $45 / month to rent the bike, which I think is a pretty good deal.  Depending on your state, you may also be charged sales tax (like in California).  Unfortunately, I haven’t found any credit cards that offer bonus points for Peloton memberships, but I did buy a few $200 Mastercard Gift Cards when they were on sale at Staples and Office Depot to cover a few months of membership.

I also like the ability to pause your monthly Peloton rental for 1 month and have no charges or penalties applied. This “worked out” great when we were traveling for several weeks and not home to use the bike. If you pause the rental, you can actually resume your membership before the month period is over and your new billing cycle will start that day.

I’m fortunate that my employer offers a fitness reimbursement program that covers 50% of the first $700 of fitness classes and equipment per year (with a $350 maximum reimbursement). This helped lower the rental cost even more.  Due to pausing the rental for 1 month in 2023, the total rental cost was $1,062.16 (11 months x $96.56). With my fitness reimbursement program, I was reimbursed $350, bringing my net total down to $712.16 for 2023.  For reimbursement purposes, you can view and save each monthly bill.

Regarding renting vs. buying, I crunched the numbers and found out that the breakeven point is 27 months for the Bike and 30 months for the Bike+.  Currently, Peloton is offering 2 months of free membership if you purchase a Bike or Bike+.  In the below tables, the columns are: month, initial rental or purchase price, monthly membership, and running total.  I haven’t figured out how long I will keep the bike, but I thought it would be better to rent the bike for several months and then upgrade to the Bike+ or a future Peloton bike.  I didn’t want to deal with buying and selling a bike each time I wanted to upgrade.  I also looked at the buy out options, but based on my calculations, you never come out ahead with the rental buy out option vs. buying the bike from Peloton at the beginning.

Peloton Workout Classes and Experience

Just like switching between different Netflix profiles (and Peloton just added the ability to stream Netflix, YouTube TV, MAX, and Disney+ on the monitor screen), the Peloton bike allows you to set up a unique profile for each user to track your completed classes, bookmark your favorite workouts, and record your personal records (PRs). This meant that Laura and I could use the same bike but have our own profile so we wouldn’t interfere with each other’s experience using the bike.

Peloton has tons of instructors and thousands of different classes, so there is probably an instructor or type of class you will enjoy. Ever since I started, I have only done classes with Ben Alldis (#bensarmy in the house!) He has been with Peloton Studios London for 5 years and he has hundreds of different classes available. I really appreciate his motivation, encouragement, goofiness, taste in music, and passion for fitness. Plus, his British accent makes me smile and encourages me to give it my best effort, even when my legs feel like they are going to fall off.

The sheer variety of workouts is incredible. If you don’t feel like riding the bike, there are cardio, strength, stretching, yoga, meditation, etc. for you to pick from.  Here are my lifetime stats (December 2022 – January 2024).  I completed about 150 total workouts in 2023, mainly cycling and strength.  Feel free to add me as a friend on Peloton, just search for TravelWithGrant. For 2023, my personal goal was to use the bike 1-2 times per week, but I slacked off most of the year and came up with many different excuses: “I am too tired”, “I am too busy”, “I just ate a big meal”, or “I am too sore from working out a few days prior”. My 2024 goal is to use the bike 2-3 times per week and not use as many excuses this year. In reality, it’s amazing how quickly a 30-60 minute workout goes by once you get started.

If you have any question about renting or using a Peloton bike, please leave a comment below.  Have a great weekend everyone!

P.S. There is no referral option for renting a Bike or Bike+, but if you would like to purchase a Peloton Bike, Bike+, Tread, or Row, you can use my referral link to get $100 off accessories with a Peloton Bike, Bike+, Tread, or Row order.  There is also a referral link to get a Guest Pass for 60 day free access to the Peloton app.