It is a fact that indoor cycling has been generally controlled by large equipment manufacturers since the 1990’s who are still, now in 2025, building the same basic bike whose latest upgrade has a fancy coloured frame or just looks a bit different, means that indoor cycling is bound to stagnate because there is only so much you can do to a bike to make it progressive.
Since 1988 when Maddog and Jonny G teamed up and created the Spinning concept there have only been three major advances in bike tech that stand out. In 2006 Dennis Keiser created the M3, featuring magnetic resistance and PolyV drive belt instead of a chain and in 2012 came the M3i which added Bluetooth tech and then in 2018 the first attempt in immersive tech with the onboard ‘coach by colour’ concept from ICG… and that’s it in 35 years? Its obvious that the ‘Spin Bike’ itself has been pretty much done to death, whether you like your flywheel at the front or the back, whether a resistance lever or knob, or a power strain gauge or calculated power systems you know what, a bike is a bike and there isn’t much stuff you can do to it to make a particular bike radically different to all the others… or is there?

As you probably know my background is in elite road cycling, and the growth of indoor cycle training for road cyclists with turbo trainers with ERG mode has seen monsters like Zwift and Rouvy servicing a huge industry now with ever changing, ever improving innovative cycling environments through the software by Bluetooth connectivity.
Now, group cycling in a studio is obviously vastly different to an individual cycling on an indoor trainer, but only by application. The basic technology and knowledge is identical as bikes are basically geometrically identical and physically and biomechanically the people sitting on them are doing the same thing, and if done correctly the same basic benefits can be felt by a group cycling rider led by a dance track as an elite cyclist led by there own motivation, as long as the details of each interval are applied correctly. An elite rider understands the importance of the length of interval, intensity of interval and RPM of interval in terms of training results and his knowledge and desire for results will drive him.
A group cycling rider probably doesn’t have this knowledge, or motivation, however they could really benefit from the incredible physical gains that can be achieved by riding a properly profiled and delivered session.
CicloStudio was developed to give the group cycle rider the benefits by motivating them to adopt the correct intensity, interval length and RPM in a class by setting the targets, connecting the rider to the session and gamiefying the results, which we achieved through clever algorithms and data monitoring and then the results meant the same ‘hook’ and addiction that indoor road cyclists enjoy when training could be replicated for the studio cyclist. The real trick was to level the playing field so any ability could compete with any ability and by offering the most advanced rider onboarding and power profile creation we have been able to achieve this without nasty FTP testing.

Now going back to MY training, I mean the riding I do indoors to make me a better road cyclists involves me taking advantage of one piece of tech that has been included on Turbo trainers for a few years now, ERG mode, or ERGometer mode. This involves the trainer I am riding adding the precise amount of resistance automatically to my ride through the trainer to put me precisely in the correct intensity Zone and the correct RPM for exactly the correct amount of time. I don’t even have to take my hands from the handlebars. Now the game changer, and I mean ‘THE GAME CHANGER’ I always foresaw would be the addition of ERG mode in the indoor cycle studio. Until now, ERG mode has only been available on plugged in devices, as mains power is needed to make this work and this has always makes ERG just a dream and totally unavailable in group cycle studios where it is physically impossible to have every bike mains connected. Being able to generate power, contain and store the power onboard and then utilise the power to run ERG mode motors and software is not something legacy indoor cycle manufacturers are ever going to be able to do. This needs a new advancement in indoor cycle design and manufacturer… and boys a girls it has arrived!

Enter Energym, a startup indoor cycle manufacturer based in Birmingham, UK whose CEO Will Flint, driven by regenerative power solutions for health and fitness studios designed and built the ReGen bike with a unique USP of regenerating power into the studio infrastructure, which by itself is a great, unique power train which had the capability of capturing all of that power created by riders in a class and then distributing this power back into the studio in the form of clean regenerated power reserves. All very clever, incredibly smart and commendable by itself I’m sure you will agree, however unknowingly they had developed the perfect solution for the ERG mode conundrum. A chance meeting of myself with the Energym team and on first view of the Regen bike my realisation was that what I was looking at could quite possibly be the biggest advance in indoor cycle group fitness in the last 20 years. After both development teams put forward a great cooperative effort the incredible ReGen ERG bike was born. Imagine now an entire studio, power profiled on their own FTP profile, having the studio software put them in their perfect training zone in every interval in every class. In fact, with the Studio Freestyle mode the instructor controls the zone and RPM of the software to their own music and then the interval created by the instructor controls the ERG on every bike in the studio, guaranteeing results, gains and easy to gamiefy and reward with preset targets on weekly/monthly km ridden, power created, or simply most minutes spent in red zone in a month, It’s endless. ERG offers the ultimate indoor cycle experience, so much so that once you have ridden ERG you will find it so hard to go back to manual classes. This project has only been possible due to the Energym and CicloZone development team being agile and uniquely open with their creativity, something that hardware companies definitely are not. We are able to bespoke create details around the studio software to provide special branding, integrations and even content access within any existing club software.

The indoor cycle industry needs a new concept, you only have to look and see how ERG mode revolutionised indoor road cycle training and gave birth to Zwift and ROUVY and increased sales of indoor ERG trainers massively since 2015. Its obvious that cycling tech will work its way into the indoor cycle studio and ERG is the one. It will set the standard from now and with Energym and Ciclo any studio now has the opportunity to jump ahead of the industry in their cycling offering. Education included…. Support included…. Development guaranteed. It’s a no brainer.