Bowflex VeloCore Bike Review | Stationary Bike That Leans

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Bowflex is known for its boundary-pushing perspective on home fitness equipment. With a product line that includes stair steppers, stationary bikes, treadmills, free weights, and full-body home gyms, the brand is no stranger to the fitness world.

The latest entry into the stationary bike market, the VeloCore Bike, aka the Bowflex Leaning Bike, more than lives up to the high standards set by the company. Weighing in at 158 lb with a total height of 60 inches, the VeloCore is a mammoth of a machine and is a welcomed addition to the already great Bowflex bike range.

Wondering if this piece of workout equipment is worth your time and money? Luckily, we tested and reviewed it ourselves. So without further ado, here’s our in-depth analysis of the Bowflex VeloCore Indoor Bike.

Design Features

Whether you should buy the VeloCore will depend on how its features match up with your personal needs. We discuss the best features below.

Cycling modes

The Bowflex VeloCore Bike is a prime example of how fitness equipment adapts to your needs. With both a Locked Mode and Leaning Mode, Bowflex is elevating what users can expect from a stationary bike.

Leaning from side to side might not sound like a selling point. But, Bowflex designed this feature on the grounds of providing a more natural feeling and immersive ride.

In Leaning Mode, you’ll face a sense of stability loss while riding. Where it does matter is in the core workout this mode offers. This technology forces you to engage your core which takes your workout to the next level.

JRNY

Heads-up displays and LCD screens have been a staple of indoor cycles for quite some time now. However, having a display in the form of a touchscreen is redefined on the VeloCore Bike.

Featuring either a 16” or 22” HD touchscreen, the Velocore comes standard with Bowflex’s JRNY software. In a market that is filled to the brim with similar studio-ride apps or software, JRNY has some unique features.

Buying a JRNY subscription from Bowflex will allow you to log into third-party streaming services such as Netflix, HULU, Amazon Prime Video, and Disney+. These come preloaded. We liked that the JRNY software allows you to select a preprogrammed ride to follow while you stream your favorite shows.

A drawback that we found is that you have to purchase a JRNY adaptive fitness membership subscription in addition to your standard subscriptions to your streaming services. While it requires you to spend a bit extra, it does add to your overall experience.

What also stood out to us was the live-filmed locations that you can choose to ride through with the bike’s Explore the World feature. These are rendered with crisp and clear visual quality, thanks to the high resolution of the screen.

We like the virtual coaching and adaptive workouts offered by JRNY while using this feature.

JRNY also learns more about you while you ride. Adapting to your preferences, performance, and workout style, JRNY creates a suggested list of workouts. These go into your library, which is surprisingly already packed with preprogrammed workouts as well.

Frame

As mentioned earlier, the VeloCore is quite large compared to other stationary bikes in the same class. Built from corrosion-resistant reinforced steel, this does translate well into the bike being very sturdy and stable.

We found that the build of this new Bowflex bike, although heavy, maintains ease of adjustment in all areas where you’d want it the most. This includes the seat, handlebars, and touchscreen, to name a few.

With a frame design that is easily recognizable in a matte black finish, the VeloCore has a very sleek look.

Additionally, the bike can support up to 325 lbs of weight. We thought this was quite impressive, especially considering that the weight support doesn’t change based on cycling mode.

Seat

The seat of the VeloCore Bike is, like many of its competitors, designed as a racing-style seat. Utilizing a narrow design, the seat has light padding and does not result in any discomfort.

Easy to adjust, the seat of the VeloCore can be set at different angles as you’d expect. The design of the seat is reflective of Bowflex’s superior quality – something we have come to love.

Pedals

The VeloCore bike pedals come as a set of hybrid pedals. This means you have an SPD clip on one side, with a standard flat-base pedal that has an adjustable strap and cage on the other.

This small but brilliant feature of its dual-sided pedals is something that we loved because it gives you the option of using cycling shoes or regular athletic shoes when riding. It’s this kind of variety that allows you to improve and adapt your workouts as you progress.

Footprint

Measured after a complete set-up, the VeloCore’s footprint is 60” L x 24” W 55” H. Compared to similar products like the Bowflex C7 Bike at 48” L x 21” W, the VeloCore does take up more space.

As for its width, the VeloCore also falls comfortably in with its competitors at 24”. However, due to its functionality and especially the Bowflex bike Lean Mode feature, we recommend giving yourself enough movement space on both sides of the bike.

Overall we found that the VeloCore packs quite a lot of functionality into a small and compact design, which considering the price range it falls in, is excellent.

Connectivity

Another noteworthy feature of the VeloCore is its Bluetooth connectivity. The speakers on the bike are solidly built and deliver a high sound quality.

We found it fairly easy to connect our mobile devices to the speakers for audio streaming when the touchscreen display is not on.

This adds to the VeloCore as JRNY comes with Bowflex Radio. We love the variety of its music library and genre list.

Additionally, you have the option to stream from other service providers such as Spotify by using your mobile device via the speakers.

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Bowflex VeloCore Bike – Available Attachments

The VeloCore Bike comes with three standard attachments.

First up is the two weight cages fitted on the stationary support arm that holds the touchscreen display. These cages are designed to fit the two 3 lb dumbbells that come included with the bike.

These are a great addition, but they are only to be used with non-leaning workouts. We were concerned that there wouldn’t be many of these as the Lean Mode is a core feature but were pleasantly surprised by the number of workouts that incorporate them.

Secondly, the VeloCore comes with a ‘media rack’ that sits firmly attached to the front of the touchscreen display. This rack is big enough to fit both a phone and tablet, although, considering the leaning functionality, we won’t recommend placing your tablet in the frame.

Although we didn’t find it such an issue, especially when taking into consideration that there isn’t much your phone offers that JRNY doesn’t.

There is also a small pocket holder for your phone inside the handlebars, which does make the media rack slightly redundant.

Lastly, the frame is fitted with two cup or bottle holders, placed on either side of the handlebar post. During our time with the VeloCore, we found these holders were pretty flimsy when we wanted to place anything except plastic water bottles into them.

This surprised us considering the overall quality of the bike. It’s not a dealbreaker, though, because they are placed in an easily accessible spot.

With a lot of the workouts designed for the bike being high-intensity, the accessibility of your water bottle is pretty high on the list of priorities.

Bowflex VeloCore Bike Exercise Options

What makes the VeloCore special is that it learns and adapts the way you do. As your workouts progress, JRNY develops workout options tailor-made to your fitness level and ultimate goals.

The Bowflex VeloCore aims to give you a challenging workout, and it succeeds.

In Locked Mode, the bike is perfect for upper bodyweight exercises, as it comes designed with two free weights. Its design is also aimed at satisfying any isolation exercises for either your upper or lower body.

In Leaning Mode, you’ll be engaging your entire body. This mode allows for a killer core workout that engages your abs while giving you the lower body workout you can expect from cycling outdoors.

Here we also found the 100 different resistance levels to come into play. Due to the VeloCore having such a broad range of resistance levels, the bike is perfect for HIIT or LISS workouts.

Here are the main types of exercises you can expect to get from the Bowflex VeloCore Bike:

• HIIT (High-Intensity Interval Training)
• LISS Workouts (Low-Intensity Steady State)
• Isolation Exercises
• Full-Body Conditioning

Warranty

The Bowflex VeloCore Bike comes with the following warranty:

• 10-Year Warranty – Frame
• 3-Year Warranty – Parts
• 1-Year Warranty – Labor

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Customer Reviews

It can be easy to be swayed by online reviews of any workout equipment if you don’t have a broad range of information about the product you want to buy. So now that you know our technical review of the VeloCore, let’s consider other users’ feedback.

With nearly 190 and 150 reviews on Amazon and BestBuy respectively, the VeloCore sits at a comfortable average of 4.4 out of 5-star review score. This bodes very well for this bike as most buyers seem to indicate that they would recommend the VeloCore to their friends.

Here’s a rundown of the most common pros and cons of the Bowflex VeloCore Bike found in customer reviews.

Pros

Listed here are the most mentioned pros of the VeloCore.

Durability

Users found the build and material used for the Bowflex bike to be very sturdy, robust (yet compact and visually appealing), and durable. We agree as the corrosion-resistant reinforced steel frame is well put together.

Lean mode

Arguably the standout feature of the bike, the consensus is that the inclusion and focus of the Leaning Mode make the VeloCore exceptional. This is especially true considering the availability of its riding modes.

Easy to assemble

With an expected setup time of around one hour, users expressed their happiness with the VeloCore’s ease of assembly.

Cons

Here are some cons found in customer reviews.

Pricing

Overall the Bowflex VeloCore Bike sits at the top tier of indoor bicycles. The bike does come with some exceptional features, but customers found the price tag a bit high.

Noise issues

Quite a few users reported loud and continuous noises coming from the bike after some usage. These included a ‘clicking’ noise coming from the bike’s rear, especially at high resistance.

Pros & Cons Summary

Pros:

Cons:

• The price range is relatively high.
• Lean Mode might not be ideal for everyone.
• Noisy after some time of use