Peloton’s New Rhythm Fitness Game “Lanebreak” Is Awesome

I love my Peloton. Like any others, we splurged on the ultra-premium piece of live-service workout equipment during the pandemic, and I haven’t regretted it for a single day since. The rides are fun, the content is extremely varied and well-produced, and I don’t have any excuses anymore about going to the gym… Since it’s basically just downstairs.

Just a few days ago, Peloton released Lanebreak – their new rhythm/fitness game that is available exclusively on their Peloton Bike and Peloton Bike+ models. The game is a mix between Guitar Hero and a spin class – and it’s an absolute blast to play.

I’m a pretty simple man – if you “gamify” it, I’ll give it a shot. But Peloton hasn’t just tacked on additional points or leaderboards to their already somewhat-gamified Bike UI, they’ve created an entirely new series of mechanics for the Lanebreak mini game.

In Lanebreak, you pick a themed ride (I tried out the hip-hop and EDM ones – all rides range from 10-30 minutes), and then riders use the Bike’s resistance knob to steer the wheel left and right as it rolls infinitely down a Tron-esque track. Each ride reminds me of setlists from Guitar Hero, and contain a few songs in the genre you chose. As the ride goes on, you’ll rack up points as you weave your wheel between lanes, and passing through nodes and strips of neon lights to juice up your score.

The game isn’t perfect – it’s definitely still in an early phase of ideation and could use some more “meat” on its bones – but it’s a blast to play as a change of pace from your typical instructor-led workouts. The playlists I’ve tried are great, and before I knew it I had been riding for 20 minutes already and was cruising around 50+ on the resistance knob which is normally VERY heavy for me in regular classes.

The weirdest thing about Lanebreak is that Peloton isn’t pushing it at all. They released an announcement when it first began in development, but the only ads I could find were ones from Peloton’s German YouTube channel. Even the classes themselves are somewhat buried in the Bike’s UI (you have to go to “More Rides” and it’s grouped next to the Augmented Reality “Scenic” ride tours, which is a pretty baffling decision for such an exciting new aspect of Peloton’s content library.

In any case, if you’ve got a Peloton – go play some Lanebreak. It’s fantastic, and like I said a great change of pace from your typical rides. I wouldn’t exactly say “go buy a Peloton right now so you can play this”, but who knows… Maybe Peloton will continue to invest in new content like this and that sentiment will change.