In any event, here’s the main homepage of the Bkool Indoor app:Īt first glance you might assume it’s all videos, but in reality, each one of these videos is actually a threesome: It’s a video, a 3D representation of the world (à la Zwift), and then a map-view of the world. The logic behind splitting it out is that the more casual fitness crowd that’s using the Bkool Fitness app isn’t likely to need all the very bike-specific features like racing or more complex structured workouts of the Bkool Indoor app. If you buy a full subscription, you get access to both. I’m going to mostly focus on the more typical trainer app here, though I’ll briefly touch on the other bit. One app is essentially the Bkool that you know and love from yesteryear with races, group rides, outside video rides, VR rides, etc… While the newer secondary app is basically a blend of Peloton and structured workouts, with a substantial amount of Spanish classes. ![]() And actually, they’ve got two different apps. These days though, they divested their hardware business last fall, and now focus exclusively on software. Bkool:īack in the old days, Bkool sold hardware. Again, they’re all ordered alphabetically, and you can use the navigational sidebar to skip ahead to the different chunks. ![]() With that – let’s get straight into the apps. We could go beyond that and talk about how to get this stuff up on a big screen TV, and I did that a few years ago too, but for now, we’ll just focus on the apps themselves. Some apps even require two pieces of hardware (such as a phone + a bigger screen device). Each app varies on what platforms they support, but the vast majority of apps today support at a minimum iOS and Android, or Windows and Mac. Whatever it is, you’ll need at least one device. A computer, a phone, a tablet, perhaps Apple TV. From budget to expensive smart trainers, and my favorite accessories, it’s in there.įinally, you’re going to need something to run the apps on. Go check that out, it’s just as detailed as this post, except it’s about trainers instead of apps. I’ve got a separate post on that with all my recommendations. Still, a lot of you will have (or want) smart trainers. Most of these apps will have those models in there and you’ll be up and running with usually nothing more than a speed sensor. Ones you might have laying around in your garage from a decade ago. Virtually every one of these apps will actually work with so-called ‘dumb’ trainers, ones that don’t have any smarts at all. But it doesn’t have to be an expensive one. It probably goes without saying that you’re going to need some sort of indoor trainer here. In fact, I pay these companies as part of my monthly subscriptions, just like you. None of this is sponsored in any way, shape, or form. Oh, and finally – I paid for access to all these apps myself, or used their various 14-30 days free trials. And while I’m sure someone from missed apps may disagree, I think this is by far covering every one of the major and middle players of apps people are using these days. Ultimately, as I said before that I could try and get everyone on this guide, but then the guide wouldn’t ever happen. For example some of the one-person developer type apps like Arcade Fitness or The Velo Set, or a handful of others. Then there’s apps that are much smaller, but still might be cool for a follow-up in future weeks. ![]() One might also suggest OneLap – though given my readership here is 99.9% not in China, and that platform is 99.9% catered to the Chinese market (albeit with some rough translations for some parts in English). One could likely argue for PerfPro, or Golden Cheetah. – Peloton Digital App (sans-Peloton Bike) So, without further ado – here’s what I’m covering this time around, in alphabetical order (use the left sidebar to quickly skip to a different app): With Zwift at more than 300,000 users, the stakes are higher – as is the baseline. With that metric largely being driven by the userbase, and how often I actually hear people talk about it.Īs much as every company wants to tell me their app is most important, I tend to find if nobody is talking about it…then nobody is actually using it. While many of those apps do still exist and are now more mature, I’m going to focus this round-up on what I believe to be the Top 11 indoor trainer apps. Last time I covered some 20 different apps. This time though, I’m simplifying it a bit. But now that a lot of us are either stuck indoors, or about to be, it’s as good a time as any. While I had planned to write this last fall, that didn’t happen. Which is roughly how long I needed to recover from writing the last one of these things.
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