Our Year in Review: digital fitness in 2020 & lockdown lessons

2020 has been a challenging year, but it's a challenge the indoor cycling community has met head-on. Armed with an internet connection and big ideas, many hosted countless classes online and even rented out their bikes during lockdown. Digital fitness is here to stay, and this year we’ve been more determined than ever to help you make your classes available anytime, anywhere. Here's what we learned from 2020!

Lockdown lessons – it's time to go digital!

By April 2020 half the world's population were under lockdown orders, and gyms and fitness studios were forced to go digital. Since then, our userbase has been booming and it isn’t only larger, it’s more diverse counting users from 49 new countries. They’re not just signing up, they are creating and running workouts. We have seen a 221 % increase in workouts played post-lockdown (comparing a monthly average based on January 2019-February 2020 to March-October 2020). In November alone, our users collectively spend what amounts to 3 years, 331 days, and 39 minutes on the bike. 2020 has underlined the importance of a digital fitness strategy for all fitness professionals – if you aren’t taking advantage of our software to connect with members at home already, now’s the time to start!

New digital experiences – a quick rundown of our 2020 releases

Not sure how to get members over your digital doorstep? We're here to help. Here's a quick rundown of our 2020 releases and what they can do for you!

New lockdown-friendly players

• Live Player: Stream live classes and connect with members at home! We display all essential workout details at the bottom of your live video feed – all your instructors have to do is coach.
• Team Player: Add an extra social element with our group display, and showcase that team spirit!
• Virtual Player: Members can use the Virtual Player to run workouts on the big screen in your studio in between live classes.
• Ticket to ride: Use our ticket to ride-feature with any of our players to allow members to join your live classes from anywhere in the world.

The Journey
Run any workout from our workout catalog in The Journey and take your members on a virtual indoor cycling adventure to three new worlds: Mineshaft (dragons & treasures!), The Beach (endless summer), & Winter Wonderland (it's Christmas every day).

The Intelligent Cycling app
Connect to your favorite Bluetooth device and start tracking your training with our Strava integration. In 2020 we added 4 brand-new official Intelligent Cycling "camps" to our workout catalog as well as an entire TOP BRAND category with workouts by your favorite brands, so there's plenty of quality workouts to choose from.

Stronger together – we wouldn't be here without you!

In 2020 we started featuring workouts by industry giants like Keiser, Wattbike, and Body Bike on the Intelligent Cycling platform. We want the Intelligent Cycling app to be the go-to place for world-class workouts, and, to us, that means sharing top-quality content across brands. As we head into 2021 we have 9 Top Brands featured on our platform, each bringing something unique to the table that helps inspire and motivate our users.

This year, we also welcomed new clubs into the Intelligent Cycling family and partnered with no less than 6 virtual workout platforms where our on-demand classes featuring The Journey are now live.

Last but not least, we had the great honor to work with Wattbike on their Wattbike AtomX. Our world-first technology connects to each Wattbike AtomX in class independently and personalizes the resistance on each bike to match the fitness level of each individual rider using ERG mode. All you need is a smartphone!

Partners old and new, thank you! We couldn’t do what we do without your support and feedback.

See you in 2021!