NordicTrack Commercial S27i Studio Cycle Review

NordicTrack has always been an innovator and for decades has often led the pack when it comes to new technologies and clever ways to improve the effectiveness of its products. If something hasn’t been done before, then the smart money is on NordicTrack to clear a path that others will end up following. The current NordicTrack range is definitely focussed on two main elements, the mechanical specifications that provide the foundation for an effective, reliable workout, and, the iFit interactive training ecosystem that’s designed to keep you engaged in the long term and help prevent your bike from turning into an expensive coat hangar.

We took a close-up look at the NordicTrack Commercial S27i Studio Indoor Cycle, to give it its full name, which is the latest, and top-of-the-range flagship model in the NordicTrack indoor cycle range.

Before diving in, we should clarify that despite the name this bike is squarely aimed at the home market and comes with a domestic warranty. It is not intended for gyms, schools, private personal trainer studios, or indeed any commercial application at all. But, it is very well specced and has much in common with a commercial bike, hence the name.

Like virtually every indoor cycle on the market today, the S27i comes ‘flat-packed’ and needs to be assembled. And, while there are many retailers out there offering assembly services, there’s really no need to enlist the help of a professional installer to get the S27i put together. It’s definitely a two-person job but one that’s essentially straightforward. The manual is nice and clear, the steps are easy to follow, and there’s nothing required that would present any kind of a problem to the overwhelming majority of home users out there. Once out of the box, assembly took just shy of an hour, including getting everything nice and level using the leg levellers on the bike, which is a very worthwhile, but often forgotten, exercise to perform before you go for your first ride.

Once built, this is a good-looking bike. It has a sleek grey and black finish and an obviously very heavy-duty frame. It looks like it’s built to last. It also looks hi-tech, boasting a truly massive 27″ full-colour touch-screen display that gives it the look and feel of a truly state-of-the-art machine. It has to be said that when you’re up close and personal with this bike it’s not hard to quickly come to the conclusion that what you’re looking at is a bit of genuine quality. The components are obviously heavy-duty (just picking them up during the assembly process confirms this beyond doubt) and the bike overall oozes quality.

Ergonomically the S27i has plenty of adjustments and more than enough of them to ensure it’s possible for just about everyone to get a proper riding position. In testing, every member of the team, from tallest to shortest, was easily able to make the adjustments needed to feel comfortable, and with a quick-release mechanism for every adjustable part, from seat to handlebars, it’s a genuinely quick and easy process to get yourself settled properly. Yes, you have to set the angle of the saddle during the assembly process, and changing that specific bit is not a quick-release affair, but the vertical and horizontal adjustments for the saddle and handlers are quick release meaning that for the vast majority of riders in a home environment that has multiple users, this setup is properly practical.

Getting a good riding position is, of course, absolutely key, and for the vast majority of riders, the S27i has more than enough fine-tune adjustments to guarantee a good riding position. The saddle adjusts both vertically and horizontally, as well as tilting back and forth, while the handlebars adjust vertically and have several different grip positions providing the rider with plenty of adjustment. The saddle, as you’d expect is a racing style of the kind commonly found on road bikes but if that’s not your thing and you prefer to fit your own saddle this is simple enough thanks to the standard bike fitting for it. On this particular model, the pedals are dual-sided so if toe-clip pedals aren’t to your liking then just flip them over to use the SPD side, which is a nice touch.

The console on the S27i is an absolutely huge 27″ colour HD touchscreen monitor that’s got the latest chipset from NordicTrack in it. Interactions feel slick and responsive while the characters are large and easy to read thanks to the sheer size of the screen. The menus are easy to navigate and are logical to the point where, for the most part at any rate, the user manual isn’t necessary. It’s easy to just browse through all the available options and find your feet in virtually no time at all. Of course, the manual is worth reading especially if there’s a specific task you want to carry out that isn’t immediately obvious (changing the readings from miles to kilometers for example), but simply spending half an hour browsing through all the options is likely to be enough for most people to get cracking once the iFit sign up is has been completed.

It’s difficult to overstate the impact that such a large screen has on the training experience. With such a large screen, positioned so close to the riders face, it’s very easy to find yourself in the world the screen creates, and this is the whole point of the S27i. After laying down a superb foundation by way of the mechanical elements of this bike, the rest of the focus is on the training experience. There are no ‘programs’ to choose from here, and no on-screen graphs that show you where you’re at in your workout. All traditional ‘onboard’ programs are nowhere to be found, replaced instead with a combination of different streamed videos, and map-based workouts. You can choose to ride in manual mode where you control speed, incline, and resistance completely manually, or perform a map-based workout where you ride along a route on a map (this changes each day), or you can choose from a selection of high-definition streamed videos featuring personal trainers that guide and motivate you throughout your workout. These training options are available whether you subscribe to iFit or not so it’s not necessary to pay for the full service in order to use the bike, however, the S27i comes with a 30-day family membership to iFit giving you a chance to checkout everything it has to offer before deciding on whether you want to subscribe or not. iFit also gives you access to tailored personalised training programmes, allows you to race courses against other iFit members, lets you map out your cycling route using Google maps, provides advice on sleep and nutrition and a good deal more. For full details on everything iFit click here to visit their website.

The whole focus of the S27i is squarely on the iFit training experience however and it really does take things to a new level. Once subscribed you gain access to literally tens of thousands of training videos. These come in the form of global rides in exotic locations all over the world including famous cycling routes, also as on-demand studio classes, yoga classes, mindfulness classes, strength training classes, and more, all of which are led by elite personal trainers that will guide you through every session. Many of these videos require the rider to dismount the bike in order to perform a particular exercise, and others such as the mindfulness classes don’t require use of the bike at all. For the videos that require you to dismount or not use the bike at all, the screen on the S27i is mounted on a bracket that lets you easily turn it to face you so it’s easy to stay focussed on the session whatever the particular exercise is.

The overall iFit experience is very impressive and is added to thanks to the motorised incline/decline function. The resistance levels are in sync with the level of incline/decline so if you’re cycling up a hill on the screen, the whole bike will tilt backward to a maximum of 20 degrees, and the resistance will increase accordingly. And, if you’re cycling downhill it’ll tilt forward to a maximum of 10 degrees and the resistance will automatically decrease. The motor that controls the incline is quite a bit quieter than those we’ve seen on other NordicTrack models which is a nice improvement too making the whole experience that much more seamless.

All the different workouts that we tested are genuinely immersive and there’s no doubt that they’re effective too. Challenging and fun they get results and while it’s possible to manually adjust the difficulty of these workouts during your ride or simply select a more difficult or easy ride to begin with there’s a feature of iFit we found really interesting which is the auto-adjust function that’s powered by AI. This function can be switched off completely, or overridden at any time during a ride, but we don’t recommend switching it off. It takes a few sessions to figure out your level of fitness and after that, it automatically adjusts the difficulty level of your ride to match your fitness levels. This means that no matter which video you choose, the AI knows how hard to push you and over a period of time it starts to push you that little bit harder. This has the considerable benefit of ensuring you don’t need to faff around pressing buttons and making adjustments during your workout. Instead, you just choose your video, and off you go, and all you need to do after that is focus on completing the ride. It works well and if you’ve got multiple riders, it works for each rider individually (assuming you have a family iFit membership) so there’s no need to re-adjust the settings for each different rider as this is done automatically based on the selected user profile.

This eco-system does mean that unless you’re using the manual workout mode, you’ll need an internet connection at all times in order to stream the videos to the console as they’re all stored in the cloud and while this requirement shouldn’t pose a problem for most owners it’s something worth keeping in mind.

To complete the package the S27i comes with a Bluetooth heart rate receiver, 30W dual 2″ speakers, Bluetooth headphones connectivity, dual water bottle holders, a workout fan that works pretty well, and two 1.5kg (3lbs) dumbbells for carrying out off-bike workouts, and an accessory tray.

The whole package here is very impressive. The S27i isn’t cheap, but considering what you get, it’s not expensive either. What you get for your money is way, way more than your average indoor cycle. In a word, impressive.