10 Hacks Every Peloton Rider Should Know
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A Peloton may look like any other spin bike, but there’s a lot more you can do with it than pedal in place. Below are my 10 favorite hacks, all of which will work if you have the original Bike (though most of them will also apply to other models, like the Bike+ and Cross-Training Bike).
Take the hidden German and Spanish classes
Peloton’s class offerings aren’t just in English—they also have plenty of classes in Spanish and German. Don’t discount these just because you don’t speak those languages! Classes are usually structured enough that you don’t need much narration, but English subtitles are usually available anyway.
I love this option because some of my favorite instructors only (or mainly) do classes in a non-English language. I really enjoy Erik’s German classes, for example. He programs good workouts and I love the music he plays, so I’ll do those rides whether they have subtitles or not. Power Zone or cadence/resistance cues will still show up at the bottom of the screen for most classes, so you’re not missing much. And who knows, you might learn a few words of another language—I now know that the German word for knee is "knie," and I can count backwards from fünf!
To open up your options to classes in other languages, go into your account’s Preferences. You don’t need to change your account’s languages; instead, scroll down to Class languages. Add in German and/or Spanish classes, and indicate whether you still want to see those classes show up in your results even if they don’t have English subtitles.
Take a screenshot during your workouts
Did you like that screenshot I put in the hack above? Pretty clever, huh? The Peloton's screenshot feature is a well-hidden secret, and you’ll need an Android device to be able to get the screenshot off of your Peloton tablet.
Here’s how you do it:
Press the power button at the same time as the volume-down button. (You may need to hold the buttons in for a second.)
A message will appear in the lower left corner asking if you’d like to share the screenshot. Tap Share.
On the next screen, choose your nearby Android device. (iPhone devices may show up here, but I’ve never managed to successfully share a screenshot to an iPhone.)
If you want to share your screenshots later, go to the three-dots menu in the bottom right of the home screen, and then go to Device Settings, then Storage, then Files (even if it looks empty), then Pictures, and finally Screenshots. Here you can view, select, and share any of your past screenshots using the instructions above.
Get heart rate data on your Peloton screen
Your Peloton equipment can record and display your heart rate, as long as you give it some heart rate data to read. You don’t need to buy Peloton’s branded heart rate monitor; any Bluetooth device will do.
So you can get, say, a Polar H10 chest strap, or go with my budget pick the Coospo H6, or use a fitness watch, if you’re already wearing one—Garmin, Whoop, Fitbit, and Amazfit are among the brands that have a “broadcast heart rate” option on some or all of their devices. (You don’t necessarily need to double-log your workout to get this—read more about that in my post about syncing Peloton and Garmin data.)
Once you have your device broadcasting heart rate, pairing to the Peloton Bike (or other equipment) is simple. Tap Settings in the top right corner of any screen (even while you are in a ride) and tap Heart Rate. You'll see a listing of paired and available Bluetooth devices, and you can select your watch or chest strap from there. In the future, the connection will happen automatically, but you can always come back to this screen to disconnect a device or pair a new one.
Compete in a race against yourself
During a Peloton class, there's a leaderboard showing everybody else who is taking the class right now. You probably know that you can filter the leaderboard to show certain groups of people, or to show everyone who has ever taken the class.
But if you've taken the class before, your past self is on the leaderboard too. Race yourself by filtering the leaderboard to "all time" and to "just me." If you've taken the class multiple times, you'll have multiple past selves. The system will steadily increase their output number from 0 to the number of kJ that you finished that ride with. That means they won't necessarily surge and slow down when you're doing intervals, but if you finish the class ahead of one of them, you've improved.
Reset your PRs without losing any data
Peloton keeps track of your best effort in different lengths of class. It's really motivating to keep breaking your own PR (personal record) when your training is going well. But if you're coming back after some time off, or if you're dealing with illness or injury, those old PRs can feel like more of a burden than a motivation.
Fortunately, you can reset your PRs without actually deleting them. From the three-dot menu in the lower right corner of the Peloton home screen, select Profile Settings, then Personal Records, and then Manage. Here, you get to set a start date for PRs. By default, Peloton counts all efforts you've ever done. But there's an option to have your PRs only count from a certain date. Tap this, and a date selector will pop up. Some people reset their PRs every year. Resetting doesn't delete any data, so you can always set it back to "all time" later, or to any date you like.
Analyze your data with Pedaltrak or other apps
If you’re serious about training for cycling fitness, you may want more data than the Peloton interface gives you. This is where you can sync your data to one of the many third-party apps and services that can collect and analyze the results of your workouts. None of these are affiliated with Peloton directly, but all of them can work with Peloton data:
Pedaltrak is a Peloton-specific app that tracks your fitness over time, gives feedback on each workout, and includes a few fun games like Instructor Bingo.
mPaceline Pulse is another tracking app for Peloton data, and it can also connect to a non-Peloton device via Bluetooth to give you similar data as what you’d get from Peloton.
Intervals.icu is a popular platform for cyclists and runners. It can calculate your training load, estimate your FTP, compare activities, and more.
Find friends outside of the official Peloton apps
Over the years, Peloton has added more and more social features, allowing you to search for your friends by name or join goal-oriented teams. But the old-fashioned way of finding friends to work out with is still arguably the best. And the trick is, you do it anywhere but the Peloton platform.
The Peloton interface only lets you high-five your friends; you have to go to other places if you want to actually discuss and chat. So you log on to the r/pelotoncycle subreddit, for example, and join one of the group rides (or group yoga, or group strength...) or find the latest Power Zone program. Or you join the Power Zone Pack, which is a Peloton training group with a paid membership.
There are tons of Peloton groups on Facebook and pretty much everywhere else people gather online. Look for groups in your city, or groups associated with hobbies or athletic goals that you’re into. HomeFitnessBuddy has a list of some of the biggest groups here, including instagram team accounts for particular instructors.
Double-tap the screen to make all the metrics go away
During a ride, there's a ton of helpful data on the screen, from the leaderboard, to the time remaining in the class, to the resistance and cadence that you're pedaling right this moment. It's enough to be overwhelming at times, so here's a little trick—just double-tap your finger on the center of the screen. It will all go away.
You can bring each item back, one at a time, if you find you miss something: just tap on its area of the screen, and there will be an icon to tap to bring it back. This way you can get your cadence and resistance back, but hide the leaderboard, high fives, and the timer.
Filter, preview, and count down Power Zone classes
Power Zone classes are the structured ones that I love best. You can choose classes to fit your training—endurance on some days, max on others—but Peloton doesn’t give you a way to easily browse them according to their structure or how hard a workout they would be.
The Power Zone Tool at HomeFitnessBuddy is, however, the perfect tool for that job. Classes get added in batches, so the most recent ones may not be on there. But it’s a gold mine for picking out exactly the ride you want to take today. You can search or sort by which zones are included, and by TSS, which is “training stress score.” The higher the TSS, the harder the workout. Click on a ride, and you can view a graph of all the zones, labeled according to how long you spend in each zone. Peloton’s own search does have this information, but it’s much harder to find and read. Click the link to the class, and as long as you're logged in to your Peloton account, you'll be able to bookmark the class from that webpage, or add it to your queue.
There's another killer feature built into this tool: a timer that can keep track of the intervals in the ride. It's a godsend when you’re in the middle of a five-minute Zone 4 interval and have no idea how long ago it started. You can hope for the instructor to tell you how long is left, or you can just glance at the HomeFitnessBuddy timer tool. And since you no longer need the instructor to tell you when to change zones, you can turn off the instructor's audio and play your own playlist. You can even start a scenic ride instead of the class, and do the same workout without playing the class at all, if you prefer.
Cast your workout to your TV
If you want to take a strength or yoga class, you don’t need to watch it on your Bike’s screen. There is a mobile version of the Peloton app, of course, but you’re not limited to your tiny phone screen, either. Both the mobile app and the Bike (or other Peloton equipment) can cast classes to compatible TVs. Here are Peloton’s instructions to cast from phone app or direct from the Bike.