Bowflex - C7 Bike - Black

Mine just arrived a couple days ago and i assembled it right away to find that the piece which bolts to the back of the screen and holds the screen onto the bike wont fit the coord inside as it should. Its bent too narrow for the cable to go inside so I'll be contacting bowflex for a replacement. However, im very happy with the workouts. To get your free year JRNY membership you have to go and act like youre purchasing the membership from their website, then itll give you a free code at checkout. Use the same email as you'll use to log into the bike. I was sweating and tired on the first assessment haha. I do recommend getting the comfier seat option as the one that the bike comes with is almost unbearable to sit on. Overall, im happy I bought it.

I love this exercise bike! Has essentially all the functionality of the peloton yet it’s about 1/3 of the price. It’s also whisper quiet!

An excellent purchase! My husband and I choose our workouts based on our individual preferences (length of time per class, challenge levels, and music). Having multiple accounts makes it easy to keep track of my own progress and workout history. I love the functionality of this bike- it’s so easy and fun to use!

Meh. No prebuilt workouts. Just with membership. Can use any app with it. Seat is very uncomfortable and makes my legs fall asleep.

I was excited to receive the excercise bike, but upon finishing assembly I was really disappointed. The packaging was not damaged, but parts of the bike were scuffed, torn, and the touchscreen is crooked due to bad welding placement. -The touchscreen is crooked and cannot be straightened because the welding for the screw was placed poorly. This drives me nuts to sit and stare at a crooked screen. -There is a deep cut in the rubberized grip of the handle that seems to have come from the facrory that way. -The top part of the bike facing the seat is scuffed down to the metal, below the paint. It seems to have arrived from the factory that way and not due to shipping mishandling. Where was quality control? Refer to the photos.

Best Buy had this bike on a 1 day flash sale for $800. At that price it was a no brainer. The C7 is very similar to a Bowflex C6 or Schwinn IC4 but with a screen attached for streaming and some modifications to the handle bars. Seat and handle bars are fully adjustable up/down and front/back. Pedals are cage on one side and SPD Clipless on the other side. Also they are a standard pedal thread so get any pedals you want. Installation also very simple. Bike comes mostly assembled. Just install seat, seat post, pedals, weight/bottle holder, handlebars, screen and lower stabilizer feet. All the major mechanicals of the bike are already assembled. 30 to 60 minutes tops. The box was a little beat up when I got it but the contents were well packaged and nothing damaged inside. I couldn't find any documentation for the JRNY free trial that was supposed to be included. After a quick online chat with bowflex they gave me a code for a free year of the app otherwise it is $150 a year. Bike is very stable. Only complaints are you have to use JRNY app to stream Netflix/Prime, etc. However, I got a year of the app free, $150 a year isn't bad, and I actually like the content on the JRNY app. Also while the bike is compatible with peloton, zwift, and all that the built in screen, which is just a modified android tablet won't allow you to install those apps. You would have to stream to a separate device. But none of these cons takes away from my satisfaction with the bike especially at the price I paid. If you can get this bike under $1000, which is not hard to find at that price, I think it is the best value bike under $1k

When the Bowflex C7 Bike, on sale, was a no brainer for me. I was looking for an indoor exercise bike to keep me in shape for summer outdoor riding. Plus, like most folks working from home, I was starting to get that pandemic, sitting in an office chair all the time, shape. I spent a good deal of time researching bikes, watching online review videos, reading articles, and even reading the Best Buy reviews about the pros and cons of many bikes. I found a lot of information on the C6, which is the C7 without the Android tablet, and got a good sense of the pros and cons. Setup: Best Buy delivery folks were good enough to drop the 100lb+ package in my room of choice. The C7’s body is almost exclusively metal. The flywheel is 40lb all by itself. Do not kid yourself. Get a buddy to unpack and position the bike. Your floor will thank you. I planned an hour for unpacking and assembly. Some of the parts slide right into place without any fuss. Other parts, such as the seat and handle bars, needed a good whack to get them to slide into place. The bike has a nice smooth paint job. However, Bowflex needs to spend a little more time on smoothing out the edges where parts meet. The only real issue I had with assembly was passing the power cable for the Tablet through the neck of the tablet’s stand. I do not believe anyone at Bowflex spent any time vetting this piece. The neck ships with a thin, plastic coated wire that you are to use to help snake the power cable through the neck and around an elbow. First, the wire won’t work because the power cable harness on the end of the wire is too big to fit around the elbow without a lot of helpful force. And when I say force, I had to use a very big flathead screw drive and some pounding force on the head of that screw driver to force the assembly around that elbow. I made it work but really Bowflex?! If it was that easy then it probably would have been better if the neck shipped with the power cable pre-inserted. Once the bike was setup, adjusting the bike for my comfort was easy enough. I am of the minimum height for this bike so seat and handle bars are set their lowest levels. Android Table: First, you have to setup a JRNY account. You have zero choice in the matter! It took me three tries to setup my account because the process kept freezing the tablet. There is no timeout for program, and no “home” or “rest” button that will break out of the sign-up process. You will have to unplug the table, wait a minute, plug it back in, and then start all over again. Second, you have to run the calibration segment. Again, you have zero choice unless you want run without the table and without any metrics. However, you do not need to pay for a JRNY subscription to get basic functionality from your bike. Actually, 90% of the workouts offered on JRNY have zero to do with the bike and more to do with streaming different types of workouts through the tablet. No thank you. I just want some road videos and some metrics. The metrics captured during your ride are things like heart rate, cadence, calories burned, speed, and distance. There are three free routes to ride, though you do need to dig them out of the JRNY app. I had to press the “Heart” icon on the three bike routes after browsing through 50 or so workouts that have zero to do with riding the bike. Everything else is like weight training, yoga, and resistance training videos. I find this absurd and obnoxious. There should just be a screen dedicated to riding and the free stuff should be front and center. The paid content should come next with some description of what would compel me to invest in a subscription. I also find it absurd that I must subscribe to a paid JRNY membership to stream services that I already have subscriptions to. The solution? Sports headphones, tablet, and/or phone. I use a combination of sports headphones and a Windows Tablet. I also stream music from my phone to the headphones when I just want music. The handlebars have a mount that will handle a 10” tablet. However, depending on your riding angle, the android tablet can block the top part of your tablet’s screen. Should not be an issue for something as small as an iPhone or Android phone. The handle bars are rubberized. This is grippy enough to allow a larger table to rest comfortably under the mount without worry of it slipping onto the floor while riding. You will want to be careful if you go with this configuration because the tablet will be close to your hands which increases the opportunity for it to be bumped and dropped onto the floor. Thus far, I have had no issue with either an HP windows tablet or my MS Surface Table. The one thing I found the most annoying about the included Android table is that the speakers randomly generate white noise. I press a physical button and the speakers give me three seconds of white noise. I press an on-screen button and I get three seconds of white noise. The table performs a software update and I get constant white noise. This is true regardless if the speakers are muted in software or not. I finally pulled the speakers plugs from the system board in the tablet to end the problem. What a pain. The good news is that I never had any intention of subscribing to JRNY or using any of their services other than what shipped free from the manufacture. Otherwise, I would be a little upset that I have a constant source of white noise that the developers from Bowflex seem to not care about fixing. The issue only seems to get worse with every update. Riding: Overall, the bike is very smooth to operate and super quiet. The number two reason I chose the C7 is because of the magnetic resistance is super quiet to operate. All I can hear while riding is the magnet on the flywheel passing bay counter on each revolution. That’s just white noise at speed. I live in a fairly small home. Nobody in the house knew I was riding the bike until they came to check on me. Noise is 100% not an issue with this bike. The seat is very hard. At first, this did not bother me. After a week I migrated my gel seat cover from my road bike cover the C7’s seat. And even now, I am thinking about wearing my padded bike shorts. Some people like hard seats. Some people do not. I am someone who does not like a hard seat. Peddling is very smooth. The only resistance I feel is the resistance being applied at the flywheel. The bike does not flex very much it at all. The bike does not have that “athletic center” kind of solid feel to it. I feel it is very solid for a consumer style bike. I use sneakers for riding. The straps are on the peddles are perfect for sneakers. I have had no issues with my feet sliding from the peddles in any direction. I do not have special riding shoes that clip into the other side of the peddles so I cannot comment on that feature. The heart monitor is another cool accessory. I hook it up to my forearm while riding. However, I have to re-setup the Bluetooth connection every time I want to use it. Maybe this is because I unplugged the unit when not in use. Why would I leave it plugged in if all I get is white noise from the unit for my troubles? The monitor is as accurate as my exercise watch. My heart rate is shown on screen while riding. My heart rate is also visible on my watch while riding. The numbers match. The heart monitor also comes with a USB charging dongle. I usually let the heart monitor dangle from the dongle when not in use. Final thoughts: At full pandemic prices I think this bike was a tough sell for me. On sale, this was a no brainer. The bike is of solid construction, is very flexible with seat and handlebar positions, and I am not forced to pay for the full JRNY subscription to get meaningful use out of my exercise routines. My goal with the bike is to keep in shape so I can have some meaningful biking experiences during the summer months. I have no interest in the full body workouts provided by JRNY. The bike is small enough to fit into the limited space I have available. It is super quiet, does not vibrate, and the resistance settings are enough for me. I would have preferred a bike that I could do routines with variable, pre-programmed, automated resistance. This bike does have some minor, annoying issues. But overall, I feel like I made a good choice and look forward to getting a lot of use out of it.

Durable bike. Not crazy about the seat and subscription service.