Apex Teams Up With Boom Cycle For New At-Home Bike

LONDON, United Kingdom — Apex, a new at-home bike marketing itself as an accessible alternative to its competitors, has enlisted boutique studio brand Boom Cycle to create exclusive classes for its users.

The bike, the latest contender to take on market disruptor Peloton, claims to be the only premium product of its kind to boast a more affordable price point. At £1200 plus a monthly class subscription fee of £30, it’s around half the price of both the Technogym and Peloton bike.

“When we began building a brand for Apex, we wanted to create something inclusive and encouraging, against the grain of the competitive and athletically skewed players on the market,” co-founders Simon Cook and Charlie Lucas tell Welltodo.

“We just want people to get on the bike, have fun, and get a sweat on,” they add. 

To further differentiate the brand from other players in the market, the duo, who have been working on the product for the past two years, has also paid special attention to the bike’s aesthetic. Sporting a fresh, sleek and ergonomic design, it comes in four colours (black, navy, white, nude) to cater to different tastes, and slot more seamlessly into the home environment. 

“Exercise bikes have been too utilitarian and too ugly for too long. In the past, understandably, there was very little thought given to how equipment like this would fit into the home and slot into people’s daily lives, so when we started, we set out to change that by aesthetically upgrading the old clothes-horse,” they explain. 

To recreate the boutique experience within the home, Cook and Lucus have enlisted the help of London-based fitness studio Boom Cycle. The indoor cycling brand has created exclusive class content that Apex says is fun, energetic, encouraging and most importantly, inclusive.

“With our Apex classes, our mission has been to translate the same unique environment offered at Boom Cycle onto a screen, so that people can have an immersive experience in the comfort of their own homes,” Cook and Lucas tell Welltodo.

The collaboration for Boom Cycle, meanwhile, is a great fit, according to co-founder Hilary Rowland, who says the bike and its content will help to make at-home fitness of this kind more attainable.

Having long been at the forefront of innovation, being the first boutique spinning studio to launch in London back in 2011, Boom has accessibility and inclusivity baked into its DNA. The brand currently operates five fitness studios in London but has been strategizing about how it can offer live streaming without taking away from its core brand offering, says Rowland.

“We felt this partnership was the perfect way for us to achieve this,” she tells Welltodo.

According to Rowland, since the COVID-19 outbreak, Boom Cycle has had an overwhelming number of people requesting to hire its studio bikes, as well as inquiring if the brand plans to live-stream classes. So, the launch of this partnership, she says, will also enable the business to offer an alternative way for its riders to enjoy their favourite workout whilst its studios are closed.

For Apex, the current climate is also generating new opportunities. The mass adoption of at-home and digital fitness propositions is helping to accelerate the growth of the at-home fitness market exponentially.

And as a more mainstream demographic continues to adapt its behaviour, Apex has the potential to cement itself as the brand that makes “at-home exercise as fun, painless and immersive as possible,” Lucas explains.

A partnership with British department store John Lewis, which will see its bikes sold via the retailer, will further help to propel the brand into the mainstream market.

However, Lucus acknowledges: “That isn’t to say that these circumstances haven’t come with their own challenges. We’re seeing a lot more competitors come into the market – especially now – so the need to stay relevant and ahead of the game is crucial.