Issues Resolved – Echelon Connect Sport Exercise Bike

The wife and I decided to get the Echelon Connect Sport Indoor Cycling Exercise Bike that’s available through Walmart. It comes with a 6-Month Free Membership which was attractive, and it looks like a decent competitor to the expensive Peleton bike. At a price of $497 vs. the $1895 (minimum) price of a Peleton, it’s a bargain.

The setup wasn’t too bad. It is pretty heavy though. The box is around 95 lbs and I elected to open the box in the drive way and then carry the parts to our master bedroom, where we decided to locate it. We picked that spot because we have a smart TV in the bedroom and we hoped to connect the app work to our Sharp TV.

Here are several issues and/or tribulations with the Echelon Connect Bike that we had to work through

• When you download the app to your mobile device, you have to go to the ‘Forgot Password’ screen to find the “Create an Account” option. :-/
• You can have up to five family members use the app/subscription, which is nice. But after I set up the account and added my wife as a family member, we assumed she would download the app and log in with her credentials that we entered. NOPE. She had to log in with my email and password, but after doing so, she could choose her name/profile.
• Within the app, you have to make sure the correct bike is chosen under MY EQUIPMENT. We originally had the wrong bike (a ‘Slim Cycle’) chosen, which didn’t work. The Connect Bike was the proper choice, but you have to take a picture of the bike’s serial number with your smartphone. This proved challenging. We had to get good lighting on the serial number sticker while taking the pic before the app was finally happy and let us proceed. There’s a support article on this topic too that can help.
• One of my biggest frustrations involved getting the pedals to move at all! The Echelon Connect app seemed to connect to our bike just fine, but the pedals were totally locked and wouldn’t budge. I totally missed the early setup instructions about a locking bar/strap, so low and behold, there are two long bolts under the bottom (front) flywheel that need to be unscrewed/removed in order to release a locking bar that prevents the front flywheel from moving. :-/

• The next frustration involved the exercise videos. As soon as we tried to play ANY exercise video, we were greeted with an error in the app which said, this product is no longer active for your account. The subscription that we listed under our “My Account” screen was the Sport Plan ($19.99/month). We had to click on the “Upgrade Subscription” button and choose the Echelon United Monthly Plan ($39.99) to fix this. We worried that we would immediately (or in the near future) have to start paying that amount, but it worked out. The site shows our renew date is 6 months out.

Two Tips for your New Echelon Connect Bike

The first tip involves the seat. The Echelon does take a standard bicycle seat so if you want a bigger or cushier seat, you can buy any standardized bicycle seat to upgrade your comfort. We would suggest avoiding any that are overly large as they can impede your ability to pump your legs.

The last tip involves getting the Echelon app onto your TV screen. We use the iPhone, so if you have an Apple TV or a newer Roku box, you can use an iOS feature called Screen Mirroring to mirror your iPhone or iPad screen to your TV. Newer Samsung TVs often support screen mirroring too, so give it a try if you have a Samsung smart TV.

If you have an Android phone or tablet, you can mirror your device to a TV if you have a Google Chromecast device. Those Chromecast devices are pretty affordable, so consider getting one if you don’t have one yet.

Lastly, when you use this mirroring feature with your mobile device, you’ll likely notice a slight out-of-sync issue with the video vs. audio. It’s an unfortunate side effect of screen mirroring, but it’s not too bad.

Are we happy with the Echelon Connect Bike?

The Echelon is a very sturdy, well-built exercise bike. It doesn’t have all the bells and whistles of a Peloton, but given the price, we didn’t expect it to. Once you figure out some of the quirks with the app, it works pretty well. I wish there was better integration with my Apple iWatch so that my current heart rate would show in the Echelon Fit app, but the Apple Health app does collect my exercise efforts. So far, we’re happy with our new Echelon Connect Bike.