Best Budget Recumbent Exercise Bike – Top 5 Compared & Reviewed

When looking for the best budget recumbent exercise bike, the best you can hope for is a well-made machine with enough strength in the resistance that you won’t outgrow it too soon.

Recumbent bikes in this price bracket aren’t going to come equipped with advanced features like HD color screens, wireless heart monitoring, and high-end fitness apps like iFit. And its difficult to find heavy-duty builds and heavy flwyheels.

5 Bikes I’m Happy To Recommend

There are five recumbent bikes out there right now that boast the quality and enough resistance strength that they’ll make a great choice for first-time users. Two even have a sturdy heavy build which is rare in this price range.

Ease of Access is Important

Still, it’s not all about build quality and resistance strength. Ease of access comes a close second. Your recumbent bike must be easy to access.

The whole purpose of a recumbent is to provide comfort, be easy on the joints, and much easier to get on and off than your regular upright exercise bike. This means your recumbent bikes must include a wide padded seat, the desirable walk thru frame design, and the seat handlebars need to be a decent length so you have something to grab onto when lowering yourself onto the seat.

And lastly, you don’t want the bike to be too low profile in design. One of the problems with many recumbent bikes is that they are too low, which means you have to bend down quite far to sit on them, which can be painful for people with bad knees.

5 Best Budget Recumbent Exercise Bikes For 2023

So in today’s guide, I’ve chosen the top 5 budget recumbent bikes I feel boast the best build quality, comfort and, importantly, are easy to get on and off of. Please pay the most attention to the first two recumbent bikes in the list, as they are the two I most highly recommend. 

First, a quick look at the comparison table, then on with the review summaries

Best Budget Recumbent Exercise Bike Reviews

1. Sunny Health SF-RB4850 Recumbent Bike ($369)

Sunny Health & Fitness are a company that’s been around for decades. They specialize in low-cost cardio gear and are one of the only companies I’ve come across that can deliver a quality product at a low price. If you want budget fitness gear, always check out this company first.

These guys make quite a few low cost recumbent bikes, but the SF-RB4850 is by far their most impressive for the price.

What stands out most about this machine is its weight. It weighs 87lb, that’s the same weight as a mid-level recumbent which costs twice as much. That extra weight tells me it’s made from quality materials, and also, because it’s heavy, it’s sturdy. It doesn’t feel cheap and unstable, and this is exactly what you want for a home recumbent bike.

Still, it’s not just the build quality that impresses me about this bike; the design is great too. You have the walk thru frame for easy access to the seat, and the seat is a little higher than most budget recumbent, so you don’t have to bend so far to sit down, which is great news for those of you with bad knees,

Also, the seat handlebars are pretty long, so there’s something to grab onto for support when lowering yourself onto the bike.

Something else that surprised me about this recumbent bike is that you can adjust the resistance level digitally from the monitor. You don’t have to reach down and manually turn a resistance knob as you do with nearly all budget recumbent bikes.

You get 16 levels of magnetic resistance with the Sunny recumbent bike, which is easily enough for most levels of fitness. The flywheel weighs 10lb, so it’s not light. There’s enough weight there to keep resistance strong in the all-important upper levels, and the 10lb flywheel is heavy enough to keep the pedaling motion smooth, which is also very important.

The seat is wide, comfy, and contoured and has ten adjustment angles with a height range of 4’11″to 6’1″, so you shouldn’t have any problems finding the perfect cycling position to suit your size.

Overall the Sunny SF-RB4850 is a surprisingly well-made recumbent bike. It’s a heavy, sturdy bike for the price point. The monitor includes 16 resistance levels and 12 workout programs, the design is well thought through, and the resistance is strong. There’s not much I can fault about this recumbent bike. For $370, I think it’s a bargain.

Our Full Review: Sunny SF-RB4850

2. Harrison B8 Recumbent Bike ($459)

Harrison hasn’t been around as long as Sunny Health and Fitness, but over the past couple of years, they’ve really started to make their mark in this space. I’ve reviewed a few of their products, and I’ve been impressed with what’s on offer for the price.

Like the Sunny Bike, the Harrison recumbent bike feels solid, many users have praised how sturdy this machine feels. Harrison uses a heavy-duty frame for this bike, which is rare for this price bracket. So yes, just like the Sunny recumbent, the quality is there with the Harrison bike.

What’s most impressive about this budget recumbent bike has to be the flywheel weight. It weighs 20lb. You usually have to spend over $1k to find flywheels this heavy on recumbent bikes.

The weight of the flywheel will determine how strong your resistance feels in the upper levels, but where the flywheel weight is most important is in keeping the pedaling motion smooth and consistent. The heavier, the better.

So with Harrion’s recumbent, not only will you have resistance strength strong enough for most fitness levels, but you’ll also have a very smooth pedaling motion which is excellent.

Where the Harrison bike is slightly let down is with the monitor. There are no built-in workout programs, and you can’t adjust resistance strength from the monitor. Instead, you have to manually adjust it via the tension knob situated under the monitor. The monitor is a bit of a letdown with this bike, especially considering the Harrison bikes cost $100 more than the Sunny.

Overall a well-built, well-designed budget recumbent bike, only let down by its monitor. 

Our Full Review: Harrison B8

3. JeeKee Recumbent Bike (Best Under $250)

Usually, I wouldn’t recommend a recumbent bike under $300 because they tend to suffer from poor build quality, the flywheels are under 5lb, and in general, they’re just lightweight machines that don’t last long.

And the Jeekee, while not being anything special, is the best of the under $300 recumbent bikes. I actually like this bike; it’s not super lightweight. It weighs nearly 70lb which is excellent considering the price, so it doesn’t feel too cheap or unstable. And what surprised me most about this bike is that you get a 10lb flywheel, so the resistance is fairly strong in the upper levels, and the pedaling motion is smooth.

And I feel what many people will like about this recumbent bike is that it is compact, assembly is easy and is very easy to use thanks to the basic monitor. It’s the sort of bike you can just hop on and get pedaling.

You also have the walk-thru frame for easy access and a 9-position seat with a height range of 4’11” to 6’2″, which is impressive for the price.

It’s a $240 bike, so as you’d expect the monitor is very basic with no workout programs. All the monitor does is track your vital workout stats such as time, distance, speed, etc. There are only eight levels of resistance which is normal for these cheap bikes, but at least the resistance system is magnetic, which is the best choice as it’s smoother and quieter than other resistance types.

Overall you won’t find better for the price. A sturdy, compact recumbent bike that gets most of the essentials right.

Our Full Review: JeeKee Recumbent Bike

4. Exerpeutic 900XL Recumbent Bike

Exerpeutic are a company that specializes in low-impact fitness gear. They’ve been around a long, they know what they’re doing, and most of the time, they do it well.

The 900XL is one of their lowest cost recumbent bikes; I think it’s around $250 right now, which is a good price for a reasonably solid bit of kit. The good thing about 900XL is that it’s been around for years. It’s a budget recumbent bike that’s stood the test of time. People are still praising this bike years after purchasing it, which is a good sign and feedback you don’t usually hear from such a cheap machine.

There aren’t many features on the 900XL. It’s a basic recumbent bike. There are no workout programs and no color screen. It’s very basic similar to the JeeKee recumbent bike. It’s a no-frills machine, it does the job it’s built to do, and that’s about it.

You get eight levels of magnetic resistance which you can adjust via the resistance knob under the monitor. The 900XL also uses a belt drive much quieter than the noisy chain drives, and when combined with the magnetic resistance system, you basically have the quietest and smoothest combination you can find for any recumbent bike.

The seat is great on this bike; they use high-density foam, this is the good stuff because it’s not too soft to cause stability or too hard to be off-putting. It’s just right and excellent to see it featured on a budget recumbent bike. The seat has ten adjustment positions with a height range of 5′ to 6’2″. The backrest of the seat is also padded for extra comfort.

And just like all the other bikes in this review, you have the walk thru frame for easy access to the seat. Still, the 900XL is a low profile bike, lower than most, which is great for stability, but if you have bad knees, it might hurt bending that much further to sit on this one.

5. Marcy ME-709 Recumebtn Bike

The lowest priced bike in this guide is the Marcy ME-709. The 709 has been for around for a long time and is the most popular budget recumbent bike for under $200. Marcy sells thousands of these things. And I can understand why it’s built by Macry, one of my favorite brands and one of the most respected in the low cost brackets.

Still, this machine weighs only 50lb. It’s not as light as the worst budget recumbent bikes, but it’s not far off. The Macy ME-709 is not a recumbent bike for anyone who takes their fitness seriously, it’s something that will last a few years at best, and then you’ll need to upgrade.

If your budget is really tight right now and you don’t want to spend over $200 buying a recumbent bike this cheap from Marcy is better than buying one from anyone else because, like the 900XL from the Exerpeutic, the ME-709 has been around for many years. I think I first reviewed it over six years ago, and it’s still around today selling just as well, which should give you some confidence.

The positives of this bike are that it includes the walk-thru frame, a magnetic resistance system, and a belt drive system, which is great; the seat is padded and wide. Plus, this machine is compact. It’s smaller than most and easy to move around because it is light.

But what really puts me off the Marcy is that the seat isn’t adjustable. You have to adjust the base bar of the frame to move the seat forward or backward, which is a hassle, especially if more than one person is using the bike.

Buying Tips & Info

Resistance

All of the recumbent bikes in our review use a magnet to create resistance; it’s probably the most popular resistance type available right now. Until fairly recently most exercise bikes and rowing machines used a fan to create resistance (air resistance)

Fans were and still are an excellent choice of resistance type, fan/air resistance has many positives, the main being the natural feel you can achieve with air resistance. The faster or slower you pedal, the harder the resistance felt. This mimics that of real bikes.

However, air resistance does have one big negative, and that’s the amount of noise caused by the fan.

Not so bad if you’re using an air resistance bike in a gym, but if you want to use one of these machines at home, the noise of you exercising on your bike or rowing machine will disturb others around you. And more than likely, you will need a dedicated room to house the machine.

Magnetic machines combat the sound issue rather well; instead, of using a fan, magnetic exercise bikes utilize a magnet to create resistance.

On the whole, most magnetic machines are whisper quiet in operation, allowing you to exercise without disturbing yourself or anyone else around you. You can even watch TV while you exercise.

Resistance Levels

Unlike air resistance, where your level of difficulty increases as you pedal faster, resistance from a magnetic machine will only increase if you manually select a more challenging level of resistance.

One of the benefits of owning a magnetically operated machine is the fact that magnetic resistance is constant, by this I mean you can cycle at a slow pace on a high resistance level, something that is impossible with air resistance. As we mentioned above, air resistance only increases as you pedal faster, dynamic resistance.

Generally, for a budget magnetic recumbents bike, we are looking at eight levels of resistance, one being the weakest and eight the strongest.

Resistance levels are usually chosen by turning the resistance knob to the desired level, or if your lucky enough, your budget recumbent may allow you to select resistance via the monitor.

Monitors/Control Console

This is where most budget recumbents fail. You may well find a very well built recumbent in this price range, but what you won’t find is a competent monitor.

Not everyone needs an advanced monitor, and to be honest, paying an extra few hundred bucks for a more advanced monitor usually isn’t worth it. Advanced monitors typically provide options such as BlueTooth, pre-set workout programs, and a much higher selection of resistance levels.

Choosing which monitor is right for you depends on your fitness level, i.e., how many resistance levels do you need? And your budget.

If you are happy with a reasonably basic monitor, you can find great deals on some competent recumbents, such as ones in this review.

The A20 even includes a few preset workout programs too.  And both the 900Xl and the A20 include pulse sensors in the handlebars, which is a great feature to have in this price range.

One of the things worth noting when buying a cheap recumbent bike is to be wary of any companies offering advanced monitors with lots of resistance levels, options such as Bluetooth, and large amounts of workout programs.

These options are usually reserved for bikes costing at least twice as much as the ones featured in this review.

If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is, the recumbent will suffer from build quality issues and the monitors, although offering a lot will be cheap and nasty and not last more than a few months.

When purchasing exercise equipment, its always good to buy from a company with history and lots of customer reviews, this way, you know what you are getting.

Build Quality

It was a pleasant surprise to find you get hold of a very well built recumbent for under $200, the Exerputics 900Xl is proof of this. When I look at build quality, usually one of the first things I look at is how much the recumbent bike weighs.

A general rule of thumb for a recumbent bike, actually, for most home gym equipment is the heavier, the better. Weight is an excellent indicator of the overall quality of the machine and the materials used in the build.

Weight also helps a lot with stability, and you will often find the heavier the bike, the more stable it is when in use.

Ok, were not going to find commercial-grade quality in this price range, but our top 2 bikes in this review are both robust, stable machines.

Frame Design

You may have noticed that most recumbent bikes do not have the awkward bar you must step over to mount the bike.

Recumbent bikes have a frame design called the step-thru. Step-thru frames are only found on recumbent exercise bikes; they allow users to easily get on and off the bike with as little discomfort as possible.

A handy design feature for people with joint problems or anyone who has difficulty mounting regular upright exercise bikes.

It’s worth noting step-thru frames are not an essential design feature of a recumbent bike. Many of the top-line recumbents do not have a step-thru frame, some have low angled bars, such as the Schwinn A20, and some even have diagonal bars similar to regular exercise bikes.

When choosing a recumbent bike, you need to choose a design that best suits your needs; if you have had trouble mounting a regular exercise bike in the past, it may be a very good idea for you to choose a step-thru frame.

Many people recovering from surgery tend to find step-thru frames provide a safe, pain-free way to mount the recumbent.

To Sum Up

Even though you’re not going to find many advanced features on these budget bikes, I was still happy to find a few really impressive bikes and two that punched way above their price tags.

The Sunny SF-RB4850 is surprisingly well built, this machine weighs nearly 90lb, giving it a sturdy feel, and you know it isn’t made from the cheapest lightweight materials. It really doesn’t feel far off a mid-level recumbent bike which is excellent, considering it only costs $350. The pedaling motion is smooth, the resistance is strong enough for beginners and intermediates, and its design makes getting on and off the bike as painless as possible. Overall I feel it’s unbeatable for the price.

If your budget is tight and you don’t want to spend over $250, then the JeeeKee is the best choice. This is a sturdy, compact machine, the monitor is basic, but it does do well on all the other essentials. One of the only low-low-cost recumbents I’ve been impressed with.

Best Budget Recumbent Exercise Bike FAQs

What is The Best Recumbent Exercise Bike For Older Adults?

Choosing the best recumbent exercise bike for older adults depends on a few important features.

Here are the four features you should look for:

• First, look for a walk thru frame, as this will allow easy access to the seat
• Make sure the seat isn’t too low. Otherwise, you’ll have to bend far to sit on the seat
• Easy to read large display screen
• Long seat handlebars to hold onto for support as you lower yourself onto the seat

Can I Lose Weight Exercising With a Recumebtn Bike?

A recumbent bike works the same large muscles as an upright stationary bike. These large leg muscles have a high caloric output demand, meaning you’ll burn at least 260 calories every 30 minutes at a medium intensity.

What is Better, a Recumbent Bike or an Upright Bike?

A recumbent bike is designed for low-impact workouts and comfort. An upright stationary bike is best suited for high-intensity workouts. However, both types of bikes work the same muscles, which means both are highly effective for calorie burn.