The “Peleton” name is set to be more than just a name in Australia, as the exercise bike is set to roll out to our neck of the woods.
Gym attendance might be slightly down — thanks, coronavirus — but that doesn’t mean you can’t get on a bike and burn some calories. While there’s always a real bike for riding around, if you’re keen to stay home and burn those calories, there appears to be another option rocking up to Australia later this year, and it’s one that has only launched in a handful of places.
Founded in New York, Peleton’s brand of fitness bike technology is arriving in Australia, featuring an elliptical workout bike with a touchscreen, providing workouts on demand essentially. It’s not the only bike of its kind, though it’s one that has fans around the world in the places it has launched, and may end up getting the same locally.
Here in Australia, Peleton will be launching both the original Bike and the newer Bike+, and while both are similar, the Bike+ variant includes support for Apple GymKit and the Apple Watch, an “Auto Follow” feature that allows the bike to be adjusted by the instructor to make things more like how a real physical trainer would work, as well as a bigger touchscreen that can rotate in place, and let you do your fitness in other ways, too, not just on the bike.
Set to launch later in the year, Peleton will join other fitness gadgets in Australia, though it won’t be cheap. While there’s no official release date beyond “the second half of 2021”, Peleton has announced that the Bike will cost $2895 and the Bike+ for $3695 locally, while the “All-Access Membership” will cost $59 monthly in Australia, providing the content for the Bike and Bike+ across an entire household.
Local representatives have said that you’ll need the Peleton All-Access Membership to make use of either the Bike or Bike+, as that’s where the library of fitness programs comes from. You may be able to use a Peleton bike without the screen, but if you want the exercise programs, the app and membership are required, so factor that into the cost of ownership, bike plus membership.
While that might be initially hard for some to buy into, Peleton says it will showcase its concept and technology — which is based on real-time exercise programs — at physical stores in Australia, specifically focusing on Sydney and Melbourne when it launches.