Not long ago, indoor cycling was synonymous with mental toughness. When the weather, time of day, or season didn't allow for outdoor cycling, people would leave their bikes in the garage, open a window, and hop on their stationary bike or indoor trainer. Such indoor workouts without any distractions or motivational aids can feel like they drag on forever. While a movie or audiobook can be a good distraction when the physical intensity kicks in and you start to suffer, nothing beats having a cyclist ahead to chase, the next curve to take with momentum, or the approaching hilltop to conquer.

Experienced cyclists and athletes remember the days when they had to adjust the resistance to increase or decrease the load manually. Training sessions were self-designed, or one would simply ride at a continuous load—very boring. The automatic adjustment of resistance or cadence, simulating a natural elevation profile, only came with electronically braked ergometers and roller trainers. Indoor cycling felt more like being guided by a trainer or the terrain, making it more exciting—but it still had little in common with a varied ride through mountains or local forests.

Around the mid-2000s, a quantum leap occurred. Roller trainers – simplified modules for bikes that create artificial resistance and keep the bike upright – merged with home computers and the internet. This meant that training control was no longer limited to the software with the device. Parallel to this, the first related services sprouted from the World Wide Web. They processed the performance data measured on the bike and simultaneously influenced the generated resistance. Indoor cycling became interactive! Manufacturer Tacx even offered a steering sensor for the front wheel in the early years, turning the bike into a kind of input device for virtual worlds, a controller like in a video game.

Although the steering function did not catch on, it is mainly handled by the computer, but since then, two completely new worlds have developed in terms of hardware and software. The range and technical finesse of roller trainers, or as they are now called, thanks to power meters and control technology, smart trainers have produced various models and technical features. Wahoo offers a complete set that includes a lift for the fork to simulate the bike's angle on inclines, a fan that blows more air into your face depending on your speed, and a control element that allows lane changes in the virtual world, although not free steering. As the realism of the devices increased, the apps also improved.

Zwift is currently the most well-known app and was one of the first to connect virtual reality with smart trainers. It is still one of the best paid indoor cycling apps. Although "virtual" is not entirely accurate, many apps use authentic images and videos to translate training data into movement on the screen, while others use artificially generated worlds. Four broad distinctions can be made: 

Real Videos with and without Avatar: Apps like Kinomap and FulGaz use recorded videos of beautiful and actual cycling routes, sometimes even in UHD quality. You ride the roads from a first-person perspective, and depending on the app and mode, the playback speed adjusts to the power you pedal. If that's not enough motivation, most providers of such video routes allow the display of a leading avatar that you can chase or follow in augmented reality style. Group events are also possible. 

Virtually Recreated Courses and Routes: Platforms like Bkool or Sufferfest represent a mixed form. With more or less attention to detail, programmers have digitally recreated actual routes with corresponding topography, flora, and landmarks. This looks more or less real but has the advantage of allowing more influence. You can encounter other riders on the courses, skip boring parts of the route, or change the weather or lighting. 

Virtual Worlds: Direct competitors to Zwift with similarly freely imagined scenarios do not currently exist but are expected. You ride as an avatar through digital fantasy worlds ranging from non-existent but realistic-looking training routes to futuristic and surreal environments. Since you are no longer dependent on topography, you can adapt the landscape to the training plan or goal rather than vice versa. Competitions can also be designed completely freely and thus excitingly. 

Pure Training Apps: Platforms like TrainingPeaks and IC Trainer focus purely on fitness goals without complete representation of routes or avatars. They prepare the measured data from the smart trainer graphically and scientifically, allowing the cyclist constantly to monitor interval times, performance values, cadence, and pulse. They generally offer the most pre-designed training courses.

In short, it is fun and motivating! As mentioned at the beginning, roller training at any performance level can feel like it drags on while group rides or tours in nature fly by. With a smart trainer and an app for virtual training, you get relatively close to this real feeling. Indoor cycling not only loses its stigma of stupidity but becomes an independent experience. Some cyclists collect more kilometers online in a year than on Strava, the most well-known online platform for archiving real training rides. Riding famous, spectacular, or renowned routes via PC monitor shortens the training time significantly, and interactions with other riders bring the feeling of actual races into the living room. This is also a big bonus for Zwift. With its vast member base, you can find hundreds of bikers on the fictional terrain of Watopia, even at three in the morning, with whom you can ride together or compete in official races. Due to the trainees' underlying, accurate performance values, such races are so realistic that professional racing teams have already offered contracts to online champions based on their performance. There is even an online world cup currently hosted on MyWhoosh, with the current world champion (2025) being German athlete Jason Osborne.

As mentioned, the bidirectional data flow between the smart trainer and the app as a controlling element is necessary. A power meter on the bike with cadence or speed sensors could also work as a power meter. Still, without the counter signal indicating how hard the smart trainer needs to brake, you can't fully utilize the advantages of a smart trainer. Drafting behind other riders or inclines would not affect the training. 

Only with this compatibility and mutual interaction between the trainer and software can you truly immerse yourself in the virtual world and forget where you are. How well these worlds are made and how easily you can get lost in them or be motivated by them depends more on the apps than the smart trainers. Besides the four levels of reality outlined above, there is also a distinction between free and paid apps. We have listed the paid ones below; there is a separate article for the free indoor cycling apps.

To some extent, you can weigh the pros and cons of such a service, but ultimately, personal taste always plays a role, and sometimes, the hardware works better or more efficiently with a particular app. An example would be the Wahoo Kickr Core Zwift One Smart Trainer, where the Zwift app can easily control the bike's shifting. Therefore, the tip is to first decide on a trainer compatible with your bike and then choose the appropriate app. All paid apps offer a free trial period for orientation. Here are the top eleven paid apps with their focus and monthly price:

The Zwift platform has the largest community and fully plays this card by making interactions between users, such as group rides and races, a major part. "Playing" is an appropriate keyword, as you can earn rewards in training by collecting bonuses and experience points. With the freely generated environment called Watopia, this feels like a mix of virtual training and a video game. The action-packed presentation and numerous events significantly shorten the perceived training time. The graphical representation can become monotonous over time, even though the developers constantly expand and develop the route network and the sometimes crazy eye-catchers like dinosaurs. Zwift is a great mix of entertainment and training tools that are easy to understand, and the races, in particular, motivate you to push harder. However, for casual winter endurance training, €20 per month is relatively steep.

Among the providers of paid virtual indoor training, Rouvy is probably the most up-and-coming. Unlike market leader Zwift, Rouvy uses real images, i.e., high-quality filmed routes, optionally with avatars overlaid in the sense of augmented reality, called Omnimode. However, the virtual companions move rather unrealistically compared to the realistic background. The routes are backed with topographical data, so the smart trainer adjusts the resistance according to the route. Watching new or familiar routes from the training room is even more entertaining than good fantasy worlds. This program allows bikers to view original triathlon routes or mountain passes and prepare for a competition or pass crossing. In terms of training, you can rely on programs from top professionals in the cycling and triathlon scene, but community interactions are only possible to a limited extent. However, with the relatively new Omnimode function with overlaid avatars, more and more will surely emerge. Over 1,500 routes make long endurance training sessions fly by, and €15 is reasonable for the effort.

Bkool offers a mix of virtual and real worlds for little money. A large selection of route videos with resistance adjusted to the elevation profile makes training time fly by. The quality of the films seems, on average, worse than Rouvy's – more traffic on the roads, lower resolution, and shaky optics. This is partly because users can upload their GoPro films as routes. The artificially recreated events and locations are much more attractive, though less numerous. Graphic designers have painstakingly recreated stages of the last Giro d'Italia or famous Granfondos, where you can compete with other athletes. Highlights are various recreated velodromes to which normal athletes have hardly any access. The tactical games on the wooden oval alone can keep you entertained for half the winter. Spinning classes with an instructor round off the wide range. Bkool is great for those who don't yet know what they enjoy. At €11.99 per month, Bkool is quite affordable. 

Kinomap also uses real videos, but unlike Rouvy and Bkool, not only from roads but also hiking trails or water routes are in the database, for example, for training with a rowing ergometer. You can synchronize the route videos with a range of fitness equipment. The selection of routes is huge, but the mentioned synchronization is not as realistic as with others; it's more about entertaining movement than realistic training. The playback speed can be continuous or adjusted to the power output of the smart trainer. The former is much more fun for the less fit user. The pre-set fitness programs also seem more geared towards hobby sports than high performance. Importing your GPS routes is just as possible as downloading routes before training, which is good for basement workouts without Wi-Fi. If you expect entertainment rather than simulation, you won't be disappointed for €12 a month.

Since January 2005, the FulGaz platform has been part of the digital world of fitness equipment manufacturer Wahoo, but its functions remain autonomous. FulGaz is essentially the opposite of Kinomap; although it is also based on videos, the selection is smaller, but the quality is significantly higher. It’s not just about particularly isolated routes or challenging passes; you can also ride on easy off-road trails or to landmarks. The smart trainer is simultaneously fed with data that creates a realistic load profile. Bonus: Like Kinomap, you can adjust the video speed to your pedaling power or let it run continuously, but you can also artificially smooth the elevation profile, allowing you to climb spectacular mountains with less fitness. The videos are so brilliant that they sometimes seem artificial, including many courses from past cycling and triathlon championships. There are few events and races, but there are entire tours, i.e., several events over several days. Regarding quality, €11 per month is quite affordable.

The former training platform Sufferfest is now part of the Wahoo cosmos and runs under the collective name "Wahoo X." It is aimed more at competitive athletes. On Wahoo X, the extensive library of structured intervals and workouts and the strength training, yoga, and mental training instructions from Sufferfest are combined with the virtually recreated courses from RGT Cycling, which was also an independent app until recently. Through the merger, you can choose between these graphically well-made routes, considered particularly worth riding in the cycling scene, and action-packed video compilations of professional bike races. Wahoo seems particularly proud of the training evaluations, which consider more factors than others. Wahoo X will thus merge into a comprehensive platform of all types of indoor cycling apps in the coming months, with beginnings already offered under wahoofitness.com. The current $15 would be perfectly reasonable for this bundle, but it would not be surprising if the price were adjusted to Zwift's level with three apps in one. 

Their slogan, "no game – just train," is probably a challenge to Zwift's more playful design. Indeed, IC Trainer is a more data-driven app where training data and performance values are the focus. You can do without entertainment and fill the screen with a wealth of live data and averages, both numerically and graphically. This can also be engaging, and you can train more targeted. If the session is too long, you can stream videos in the integrated browser or follow your GPX tracks on a map. There are a few route videos now, but that is not IC Trainer's core competence. It lies more in creating individual workout programs and its music database, which is supposed to deliver songs in the rhythm of the cadence. If you don't want to plan yourself, the collection of structured training sessions is huge and diverse. Fitness athletes and long-distance runners will have less fun with IC Trainer, but the app is worth its €2.50 per month for performance-oriented training.  

Tacx was one of the first providers of smart roller trainers and suitable software for virtual training. They were a bit ahead of their time as Garmin acquired Tacx. Typical for the Americans: The Garmin apps only work with a Tacx smart trainer. Those with a Garmin watch or corresponding bike computer will quickly get used to the similar navigation. This app also uses road videos but no avatars or other augmented reality. The tours are well-filmed but sometimes appear dark, almost dreary – perhaps not perfect for motivation. The selection of routes is large and colorful but cannot compete with the top apps. Better are the challenges known from Garmin, small to large tasks running over weeks that ultimately trigger a sense of accomplishment. The Garmin devices or their calendar probably prove the planned training sessions, but importing from this app (Connect) does not always work smoothly. Some basic functions are free. For owners of a Tacx roller and a Garmin computer, the €10 per month is worth it (premium membership for €13.99), but everyone else should stick with Rouvy, Bkool, and FulGaz.

The TrainingPeaks app has long been an established software for documenting and analyzing training data. It was previously used more for communication between coach and athlete and is quite scientifically designed. Recently, TrainingPeaks Virtual was created by adding a graphical component similar to Zwift, although the extreme game character remains their monopoly. Until March 2025, the app is free, after which you get both the entertaining, well-made virtual app and access to the established analysis tools for around €19. The artificial courses are similarly invented as in Zwift but without their typical light effects or surreal views. The fact that the TP worlds often and quickly seem to repeat themselves is probably due to the small number of graphical elements used in the beta version. For example, forests consist of only three different trees. However, TrainingPeaks already includes wind direction and drafting in this development stage, so you must ride tactically. The app combines top-class coaching and some entertainment, but you must provide your motivation. For competitive athletes, TPV is very effective and reasonably priced. 

The Trainerroad app or service provider is the exception in this selection. There is no entertainment, no virtual, and no real worlds. Trainerroad is similar to TrainingPeaks, a training diary, training planner, analysis tool, and advisor for competitive athletes. This app also controls the smart trainer but solely implements desired training content; as mentioned, there are no routes or worlds. The more training sessions you complete and the more data the connected sensors collect, the more precisely the algorithm behind the app can analyze the athlete and, based on this, provide both a status report and precise training plans. By using artificial intelligence, these analyses are supposed to come quite close to a real coach's, especially in determining the FTP threshold value. Based on this, the app suggests suitable training designs for the roller. If the coaching of the Trainerroad app is as effective as it claims, just under €21 per month would be a lot but well-spent money for real competitive athletes. 

Elite, alongside Wahoo and Tacx, is one of the three major manufacturers of smart trainers and has its training software for their control. Like Tacx, the software works best with the in-house hardware. Elite's offering also includes training control with pure data fields on the screen, the simplest use being resistance control with a smartphone, which is practical, for example, when warming up before a race. You can entertain yourself in the categories Realvideo and My Realvideo. The former are professionally filmed and show, among other things, notorious bike races. However, they incur additional fees without the premium subscription. This is not the case with My Realvideos, but here you see rather shaky amateur videos uploaded by users. Better are the analysis tools for fitness assessment and pedal technique analysis. According to many user reports, pairing the trainer and sensors with the app and calibration is time-consuming. Vouchers for free trial months are generally included when purchasing an Elite trainer. Unlike most other apps, if the technical setup works well, you can secure a complete, albeit not as well-developed, service for only €20 per year. For those without an Elite device, stay away.