OpenRide is a free, independent workout app for the Peloton Bike (Gen 2) and Bike+. It replaces the screen you normally see when you turn on the bike with a similar-feeling experience — live stats while you ride, a library of free cycling videos, workout mini-games, and a history of all your past rides — without needing a Peloton subscription.
It's installed using a free tool called OpenPelo, which lets you add apps to the bike's tablet. This doesn't require rooting the device or unlocking anything permanently.
Your music now has a place in the app, the bike's home screen is a setting you can switch on, and the heart-rate strap and the ride screens got a round of fixes.
- Music player — see what's playing in your music app, with its cover, song and artist and previous, play/pause and next buttons, in the top bar and on the Just Ride screen. Tested with Spotify, Apple Music, Pandora, SiriusXM and Plexamp. See Music player.
- Music in the games — game music steps aside while your own music plays, the ♪ button in the hub and in every game opens the player, and there's a Game music switch in the hub's settings.
- Home screen setting — Profile → Device → Home screen → Turn on makes OpenRide the screen the bike starts into, with no computer or
adbcommands. This fixes #47, and the home-screen part of #63 on the newer tablet. Pressing Home also no longer opens a second copy of the app. - Heart-rate strap — it now connects reliably, reconnects by itself when the link drops, and shows Connected • 72 bpm on the pairing screen. Your heart rate also shows in the games.
- Ride screen and display fixes — bigger readings on the ride screens, form labels that no longer overlap their boxes, games that fill the bike's whole screen with no side bars, and one sensor warning that every screen shows and clears together, including when the bike's sensor board goes quiet.
This update brings a new Kart Race, a games hub for your workouts, better game graphics, music and sounds, and a new look for the whole app.
- Games hub (BETA) — pick games and circuits, build your own circuits, and play as many as you like. The whole session saves as one ride.
- New game, Kart Race — 3-lap races against seven rivals on four tracks. Pedal to drive, lean to steer, and add resistance to drift. Grab items along the way and see if you can be first across the line.
- Better graphics and sound — every game has a new look, new music and new sound effects, and they load faster too.
- A new look for the app — bigger controls, sensor and heart-rate status always in view, and simpler navigation with tabs along the bottom.
- Easier to install — you can now install OpenRide straight from OpenPelo's app catalog. See Getting the app.
- Live stats while you ride — cadence, resistance, power, and speed, pulled straight from the bike itself, with no subscription required
- A screen built for the bike — big, simple controls readable from the saddle, tabs along the bottom, the bike's sensor and heart-rate status always in view, and each rider's own colour throughout
- A profile for everyone in the house — each rider gets their own name, picture, and workout history
- A library of free classes — a constantly-updating selection of cycling videos pulled in automatically, so there's always something new to ride to
- A music player for your own music — what's playing in Spotify, Apple Music, Pandora, SiriusXM, Plexamp and other music apps, with controls, right on the ride screen. Details below
- Mini-games (BETA) — five pedal-powered games, including a full Kart Race, plus 20-, 30- and 45-minute game circuits and circuits you build yourself. Details below
- Ride history and personal bests — a calendar of every past ride, plus your all-time best output, cadence, and duration
- Export your ride data — download any ride as a file (TCX or CSV) to keep or use elsewhere, so your data is always yours
- Heart-rate strap and Bluetooth headphone support — pair a heart-rate monitor, see your bpm on the ride screens and in the games, and headphone audio just works once paired
OpenRide shows whatever your music app is playing: the cover, the song and the artist, with previous, play/pause and next buttons. It's a card in the top bar on every screen, and a larger panel beside the numbers on the Just Ride screen. It doesn't stream music itself, so you keep using your own app and your own account. Class videos have no player, because the class's own audio is the point.
It works with music apps that tell Android what they're playing. It's been tried on the bike with Spotify, Apple Music, Pandora, SiriusXM and Plexamp (a way to play your own library from a Plex server on a NAS).
To set it up, open Profile → Music:
- Music app — pick the app you listen to. When nothing is playing, the player offers to open it.
- Now playing — tap the row. Android needs you to give OpenRide Notification access before it will share what other apps are playing, and takes you to that screen.
Android words that permission as access to all notifications. OpenRide only uses it to find out what's playing: it never reads, stores or reacts to a notification, and nothing leaves the bike. You can turn it off again at any time in the same place.
Good to know:
- Songs and playlists are picked in your music app. OpenRide shows and controls what's playing, but Spotify, Apple Music and Pandora don't let other apps browse their libraries.
- Players disappear when music stops for a while. Most apps let go of their session after a pause, and the player goes with it. Press play in the music app and it's back.
- In the games, the ♪ button in the hub and in each game opens the player (a game pauses until you tap Done), and game music turns itself off while your music plays.
Important
The mini-games are in BETA. They are new, they have only had a little time on a real bike, and difficulty and scoring are still being tuned, so expect rough edges. Feedback, ideas and pull requests are very welcome — they are how we make this better. See Help us make it better below.
Workouts that play like games. Tap Enter Games (the Games tab, or the Games BETA card on Home) and the Games hub opens: pick a game, a circuit or build your own, calibrate the camera once, and play as many as you like. The whole visit is saved as one ride. The bike's cadence, resistance and power are the controller: pedal to move, turn the resistance knob to score more, and the game keeps track of the rest. Each visit shows in your history like any other ride.
| Game | How it plays |
|---|---|
| Dodge Ball | A first-person ride down a sunset road. Lean your head to dodge balls coming at you — or switch to Catch mode and lean into the gold ones. Keep your cadence above the floor so your points count. Uses the camera. |
| Tug of War | A rope across a river and a robot on the other bank. Your watts against its watts: out-pedal the bot to win the round, and brace through its surges. Best-of-rounds matches. |
| Safe Cracker | A vault dial that you turn with the resistance knob. Hit each number and hold it to crack the safe, then move to the next — but keep your power under the cap or the alarm trips. |
| Cadence Karaoke | A neon tunnel with a target rpm set to the beat. Pedal at the target to keep the ball in the box; the − and + buttons set the pace you're comfortable with. |
| Kart Race | A Grand Prix of 3-lap races against seven rivals on four tracks. Pedal to drive, lean your head to steer, add resistance to drift and charge a boost, and tap to use the items you pick up. Pick your kart and starting track in the hub. Uses the camera. |
Each game can be played on its own as a Just Ride — for a set time, open-ended, or (for Dodge Ball, Tug of War and Safe Cracker) a set number of rounds — at Easy, Standard or Hard.
A circuit strings the games into a structured interval workout — warm-up, work and recovery segments, each with its own game — in 20, 30 or 45 minutes, or one you build yourself (up to 12 games and 90 minutes, saved as My circuit 1-3). A progress strip shows where you are, and the summary at the end lists every game and its result.
- Resistance scores more. In the effort games (Dodge Ball and Tug of War), points get a multiplier from 1.0× at light resistance (30% or less) up to 1.5× at 60% and above — but only while you're pedaling at 60 rpm or more, so grinding at a standstill doesn't count.
- Targets follow your FTP. Games scale their power targets to your FTP. Set it in Profile → Edit profile; until you do, they assume 150 W.
- The camera is optional, and private. Only Dodge Ball and Kart Race need it (and Tug of War's optional brace lean), to find where your head is. It looks for a head position, and nothing is recorded or saved. If you don't allow the camera, circuits swap Dodge Ball for a camera-free game. A well-lit room helps.
- Music and sound effects are generated on the device. Game music turns itself off while you're playing your own music (you can set it to always on or off, and set volumes, in the hub's settings).
- Stars and personal bests. Each game awards up to three stars and remembers your best.
The games are the newest part of OpenRide, and the part that most needs real riders. The difficulty numbers are educated guesses, there are rough edges nobody has hit yet, and there are plenty of ideas still to try. If you ride them, please tell us what you think:
- Feedback and bugs — open an issue. Was a game too hard or too easy? Did the camera lose you? Did the music or a screen feel off? Tell us your bike (Gen 2 or Bike+) and what happened.
- Ideas — a new game, a new circuit, a better way to score? Open an issue and describe it. The tuning and follow-up list shows what's already planned.
- Pull requests — very welcome, from a typo to a whole new game. docs/GAMES.md explains how the games are built and how to add one (they're a Godot project). Small, focused PRs are easiest to review, and it's worth opening an issue first for anything big.
Please keep any new game original: mechanics can be inspired by classic ideas, but names, art, audio and code should be your own or under a permissive licence.
OpenRide isn't in an app store, but you don't need to be technical to install it: it's listed in OpenPelo's app catalog, so installing it takes a few clicks.
- Set up OpenPelo on your computer and connect it to the bike, following its instructions. OpenPelo brings its own connection tools; you don't need to install anything else.
- Pick OpenRide. In OpenPelo, choose the bike under Target Device. In Compatible applications, open the Fitness category (or All apps) and tick OpenRide.
- Click Install selected. OpenPelo downloads the latest OpenRide release from this repo and installs it; ADB activity shows the progress.
- Open OpenRide on the bike. It starts on a "Who's riding?" screen: add a rider and you're in.
-
A downloaded APK: grab the latest
openride-real-*.apkfrom the Releases page, then use OpenPelo's Install local APK, oradb install -r openride-real-*.apkif you already useadb. -
Build it yourself: you'll need Java 21, the Godot 4.7.2 editor (the mini-games are a Godot project; see docs/GAMES.md) and a copy of this repo. Then, in a terminal opened to that folder:
export GODOT_BIN=/Applications/Godot.app/Contents/MacOS/Godot # wherever Godot 4.7.2 is ./gradlew :app:assembleDebugReal
The app lands at
app/build/outputs/apk/debugReal/app-debugReal.apk; install it as above.
To make OpenRide the screen that greets you when the bike turns on, open Profile → Device → Home screen and tap Turn on, then choose OpenRide in Android's prompt. Turn off puts the bike's previous home app back. Making sure a Peloton software update doesn't undo this, and what to do if Peloton's own screen still comes up over OpenRide on newer software, are covered step by step in docs/INSTALL.md. Please read it in full before starting: the order of steps there matters.
Once it's installed, OpenRide checks this repo's Releases on its own each time it launches, and shows a notice at the top of the screen when a newer build is available. Tap it (or go to Profile → App updates) to download and install; no computer needed. Reinstalling from OpenPelo's catalog also gets you the latest release. See docs/INSTALL.md for details.
The rest of this section is technical detail for anyone contributing to the code — feel free to skip it otherwise.
- Kotlin + Jetpack Compose, single-activity,
minSdk 29(the Bike+'s Android 10), packagedev.digitalducktape.openride - Sensor access sits behind a
BikeDataSourceabstraction with aMockBikeDataSource(simulated ride) so all UI/logic development runs in a standard emulator; only the real system-service binding needs the physical bike - Room database:
Profile/Ride/RideSample(per-second samples — required for TCX export) - Content browser fetches per-channel YouTube RSS (
/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=…) on-device: no API key, no quota, no backend - The music player reads other apps' Android media sessions (
core/music/NowPlayingMonitor, which needs Notification access via an emptyNotificationListenerService), with no per-service SDKs or accounts; the games reach it through the bridge'snow_playingandmusic_controlmessages - Mini-games are a Godot 4.7.2 project in
games/, embedded throughGameHostActivityand theOpenRideBridgeplugin; APK builds export it, so they needGODOT_BINpointing at the Godot editor (unit tests don't) — see docs/GAMES.md
OpenRide is released under the Apache License 2.0. Attributions for prior community work and bundled dependencies are in THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md.
OpenRide is an independent, non-commercial project. It is not affiliated with, authorized, sponsored, or endorsed by Peloton Interactive, Inc. "Peloton" and "Peloton Bike" are trademarks of their owner, used here only to describe the hardware OpenRide runs on.
OpenRide ships no Peloton source code, artwork, branding, audio, video, or class content. It reads the bike's own sensor values through an existing, unprotected on-device service (no root, no firmware modification) purely for interoperability, and streams third-party workout videos through YouTube's official player. Any UI resemblance is limited to common layout and interaction patterns. For the reverse-engineering and trademark basis, see docs/INTEROP.md.