Ride a Peloton
A Peloton keeps its numbers to itself: it sends nothing over Bluetooth on its own. Grupetto, a free community app you install on the bike's tablet, changes that. It makes the bike a standard Bluetooth trainer, and Indoor Bike on your phone or tablet connects to it like any other.
You get Indoor Bike's workouts, routes and free rides, with your power, cadence and heart rate recorded and saved as files you own. You set the resistance with the Peloton's knob, and Indoor Bike tells you which way to turn it.
What you need
- A Peloton Bike or Bike+. We know it works on a rider's Peloton. Not every model and software version has been tried.
- The Bluetooth build of Grupetto, from github.com/doudar/grupetto. The original Grupetto shows your numbers on the bike's screen but does not send them anywhere; this build does.
- A computer and a USB cable to install it, with OpenPelo, a free tool for installing apps on Android-based fitness equipment.
- Indoor Bike on an Android phone or tablet near the bike.
Set it up
- Install Grupetto on the bike. Follow the instructions in the Grupetto build's README. They start with a firmware reset of the tablet and turning on USB debugging, so read them through before you begin. Then OpenPelo installs Grupetto from your computer in a few clicks.
- Start Grupetto on the bike. It shows your numbers on the bike's screen and broadcasts them over Bluetooth as a trainer named
Grupetto. - Connect Indoor Bike. On the Ride tab, tap Trainer under Before you start, then Scan for devices, and choose
Grupetto. Indoor Bike calls it Peloton (via Grupetto) from then on. - Pair a heart-rate strap with Indoor Bike if you use one.
Riding
- The ride starts on your first pedal stroke, with no countdown, so Indoor Bike's clock matches the Peloton's.
- You set the resistance with the knob. In a workout, the power readout says add resistance, ease off or on target, judged on the last few seconds so it does not flicker. The Peloton's resistance, as a percentage, sits under it.
- Routes work too. The road won't change the Peloton's resistance, so turn the knob as the road climbs; your speed along the route follows your power.
- The first ride explains the knob once. Close the note and it stays closed for your bike.
What is different from a smart trainer
- No ERG mode on the Peloton Bike. Its resistance is a knob, so nothing in the app can hold the target wattage for you.
- The Bike+ may do more. The Grupetto build says it can take power targets on a Bike+, which would let Indoor Bike hold ERG there, but that has not been tested on a real Bike+ yet. If you try it, tell us how it went.
- Distance and speed differ from the Peloton's screen. Indoor Bike works out your speed on a flat virtual road from your power and your weight, the same way for every trainer, so its distance comes out about 6 to 7% lower than the Peloton's. Power, cadence and heart rate match.
Good to know. Grupetto is made by its own community, not by us and not by Peloton. It uses parts of the Peloton software that are not documented, so a Peloton update can break it until Grupetto catches up. Installing it is at your own risk. Questions about Grupetto belong on its issue tracker; questions about Indoor Bike on ours.
Thanks
To Baptiste, a rider who wrote in to show us that this works and sent the rides and screenshots that shaped this page, and to the people who build Grupetto and OpenPelo.