Investing in one of the best budget exercise bikes is an easy way to boost your cardiovascular fitness. They are versatile, take up less space than some other cardio equipment, and offer a huge variety of beginner-friendly workouts. You can use it for long rides or short, sharp HIIT-style sessions, and everything in between. The best part? They will drain your wallet like some of the more premium exercise bikes we tested.

While it is never a bad time to take up cycling, fall can be a particularly good opportunity to get the pedals spinning. For starters, the temperatures are plummeting and days are getting shorter — a great excuse to stay indoors! Plus, many budget-friendly bikes are getting even cheaper in the run-up to the Black Friday sales.

But which exercise bike should you choose? Don’t worry, we have done the heavy lifting for you. Our experienced fitness reviewers have tested a variety of budget exercise bikes, looking at their design, features, performance and value for money, and picked only the models that they would use themselves. You can read more about our testing protocol in the How we test section below.

Why you can trust Live Science Our expert reviewers spend hours testing and comparing products and services so you can choose the best ones for you. Find out more about how we test.

The Yosuda indoor stationery bike is the perfect machine for those looking for a basic design, made well, at an affordable price. It’s small but sturdy and a great option for smaller spaces.

The ergonomic seat is also really comfortable, which makes it a great choice for those who tend to struggle with bike saddles. It’s certainly not a complex model, but for a good workout at a budget price, the Yosuda has everything you need.

As with many of the cheaper exercise bikes, it only has a small LCD screen and it doesn’t come with any pre-programmed or on demand workouts, so we recommend finding free online classes. There are many on YouTube or via the iFit or Peloton app.

Despite the low cost, the Yosuda bike is extremely robust, with a heavy steel frame and a surprisingly quiet 35lb friction resistance flywheel. It’s wide base adds stability and the front-loaded transport wheels mean you can easily move it and stow it away between uses.

The only real drawback we found at this price is that it doesn’t track cadence, which can be really useful on a bike. However, you can measure your own metrics using some of the best fitness trackers.

The Sunny is a really good entry-level machine for beginners. It’s easy to ride, with comfortable adjustable pedals to keep your feet secure, particularly if you stand on the pedals.

However, like many cheaper models, the bike doesn’t come with a cadence tracker. This makes it a little harder to assess the intensity you are working at, though a good fitness tracker can certainly help there.

Also in common with other cheaper models, the Sunny doesn’t have a screen, nor a device holder or any preset workouts. The only accessory at all is a water bottle holder. There are online classes on the Sunny website and YouTube channel, but they aren’t the best options on the market. This is not a real issue as there are many others you can use online.

One drawback of this bike is that our reviewer did find the seat quite uncomfortable, especially during longer rides. However, you could swap it for a more cushioned seat or even invest in a thick seat cover and/or padded cycling shorts.

For those who want a bike that comes with a huge array of classes, the Echelon EX5s is a really good choice. You’ll certainly be able to get a challenging cardio workout, with classes for everyone from beginners to advanced riders.

The hill classes were particularly great for raising the heart rate, and the enthusiastic instructors were great at encouraging you to push yourself, whilst also allowing you to work at your own pace. You get real time data during the session on the screen, but in addition after each session you complete, you receive an email report. This makes it a great way to track progress over time.

However, it can be find to find the right sessions for you. The screen navigation is not the most intuitive and the class descriptions are a little vague. You will need to use a bit of experimentation to find the right instructor or instructors for you. We found some a little hard to follow.

The initial outlay for the Echelon is certainly not budget-friendly, but the monthly membership required to access classes is much more reasonable than some alternatives. And you’ll certainly never get bored with the huge library of on demand classes.

We would, however, like to see a few more classes that go over the 45 minutes mark. And we also noted that many of the classes are not captioned.

Since smart bikes became mainstream in the pandemic, they have remained the premium offering. There is often not only a steep initial outlay but also an ongoing monthly subscription cost. While the Zwift Ride may not be as wallet-friendly as a basic home bike, what you do get for your outlay is hugely impressive: and with a lower ongoing cost to boot.

The Zwift Ride is based around the Wahoo Kickr Core turbo trainer. And if you already have one of those, you can save still further by simply buying the Zwift Ride frame separately. The Kickr Core may not be the top trainer on the market, but unless you have ambitions to win the Tour de France, it’ll likely offer more than enough range for your home cycling needs.

For those new to the system, the main feature to get used to will be the lack of gears. These are instead changed automatically and electronically on your ride. This leads to the potential drawback, because it means you can’t use another platform like Trainer Road.

The Zwift Ride may also lack the very fancy features of the most advanced smart bikes, such as vibration for different virtual road surfaces, but for your money you get a well-made, easy to put together and robust ride, all immersed in the virtual Zwift world.