Elliptical vs exercise bike: standing up or sitting down for the next five years

If your knees, back or balance need a break, or your ceiling is low, buy an exercise bike. If you want a standing, whole-body workout with no impact and you have the floor and the headroom, buy an elliptical. That’s the whole decision for most people, and the rest of this page covers the details that tip it one way or the other.

We don’t track exercise bikes in our database yet, so the bike side here is general and has no model numbers. The elliptical side uses the Sole E25, the elliptical we recommend to most people. We haven’t bench-tested it yet, so this comparison runs on the published specs; we’ll add measured noise and assembly time after our bench test.

Joints and posture

Neither machine has an impact, which is why both exist. The difference is where your weight goes. On a bike it goes into the saddle, and your knee turns a smooth circle against whatever resistance you set. On an elliptical it goes into the pedals, so you’re standing and balancing while your hips, back and arms work.

For a healthy body, that standing work is a plus. For a sore knee, a tired lower back or shaky balance, it’s the reason the bike is gentler. A recumbent, with a backrest and the pedals out in front, is the gentlest cardio machine there is.

Bikes have their own complaints. A narrow saddle hurts until you get used to it, and an upright bike puts some weight on your hands and wrists. The elliptical has none of that, and the E25’s 20-inch stride fits users from about 5 ft 2 in to 6 ft 2 in without a shuffle. If pain is the reason you’re shopping, ask a physical therapist which motion the joint prefers. They’ll often say bike for a knee and elliptical for a hip, but not always.

Calories and effort

At the same heart rate for the same minutes, an elliptical and a bike come out close enough that we wouldn’t choose on calories. How each one gets you there is different. The elliptical uses more muscle at once, so a given resistance feels like more work. A bike makes it easy to sit and spin lightly while you read, which is fine, and also why so many bikes end up as coat racks.

Both have ways to make it harder. The E25 has 20 resistance levels and a 20% power incline, and with both up it’s as hard a session as we’d want. A bike has resistance and, on an indoor cycle, a heavy flywheel you can stand up and sprint on. Ignore the calorie readout on either console. It’s a guess.

Space and ceilings

The bike wins here easily. An upright bike takes a patch of floor not much bigger than a chair, and your head stays at seated height, so a 7-foot ceiling is fine. A recumbent is longer, about the length of a loveseat, but still low.

The E25 is 70 by 24 by 64 inches, doesn’t fold, and lifts you well off the floor at the top of the stroke, so a tall user can need more than 8 feet of ceiling. It also weighs 189 lb and comes in more pieces than a bike, so plan on a longer build. Our compact ellipticals page lists the smallest we track. If there’s no floor to spare at all, the seated pedal units on our under-desk ellipticals page, like the Cubii JR2, are the answer.

Noise

Both are quiet, because neither has a foot strike, and foot strike is what travels through a floor. A magnetic-resistance bike is close to silent, with a belt-drive hum you only hear in an empty room. An indoor cycle with a friction pad makes a steady hiss that rises with effort. An elliptical makes a flywheel hum and a little bearing noise from the pedal arms. How we test explains how we’ll measure the E25. Either is fine at 6 a.m. above a neighbor.

Cost of ownership

Bikes cover a wider price range than ellipticals. A basic magnetic upright costs less than any elliptical we’d recommend, while indoor cycles with screens can cost more than the E25 and then want a subscription. At time of writing the E25 typically sells for $999 to $1,299; check the retailer. It has a lifetime frame warranty, 3 years on parts and electronics and 1 year of labor. The Sole E35 adds a heavier flywheel and longer parts cover for more money.

Running costs are small on both. Neither has a motor working against your weight, so the power draw is the console and, on the E25, the incline motor. Upkeep on a bike is the saddle, the pedals and, on friction models, the resistance pad. On an elliptical it’s the pedal-arm bolts and a drop of lubricant on the rollers. With no belt or deck to wear, both usually outlast a treadmill.

Which one we’d buy

For a sore knee, a low ceiling or a small apartment, a magnetic-resistance bike, and a recumbent if balance is part of the picture. For everyone else with the room, the E25. Standing up and working your arms makes for a better 30 minutes than sitting and spinning, and the incline means it can be as hard as you like. It’s also the standing machine we point older buyers to, which is why it anchors our ellipticals for seniors page. If you want the hardest whole-body session a machine can give, read rowing machine vs elliptical next. If impact doesn’t worry you at all, treadmill vs elliptical is the comparison you need.