Kettler Polo S Exercise Bike

Just to give you a little background, I am a professional and certified personal trainer. I live, breathe, and sleep in the gym.


This is a bit more expensive bike than its counterparts especially since it’s a high-seated type unit but as long as you are not too short you’ll find it plenty comfortable. Everything is adjustable as you would expect and it is very high quality in terms of construction and parts. They apply a nice finish or paint to it and it looks pretty good as a result, at least as good as an exercise bike is really going to look. You’re probably not going to find many better looking stationaries. It’s pretty lightweight too but not enough that it’s going to fall over on you, which is another reason I liked the Polo S: You can work out at a high intensity without the bike crapping out on you. It doesn’t have too big of a footprint and would probably work well in a garage or a home office or something like that. Maybe even a good idea for an office.


The built-in console has most of the things you’d expect on a stationary bike, like a big LCD, pulse rate, RPM, speed, distance, etc. All of that stuff is important because you can use it to track progress, but really when I pay that much for a bike I expect it to have these kinds of features.The biggest issue I have with the bike in fact is that it just doesn’t really stand out, as in all of the features it has are pretty much included on any bike. What you’re really paying for in buying the Polo S is its durability and Kettler brand because it is definitely going to last you a while. Still, I was very much unimpressed with what it had to offer in the way of electronics (no training programs, really?). The one thing that I definitely appreciated was the HRC (Heart Rate Control) program that would dynamically change the resistance based on the heart rate of the user. I usually define my own resistance manually but my students used it and liked HRC because it created a very personal workout for them.

I would recommend this bike to anyone, but I think it especially applies to beginners as it is no-frills but offers all the features you need to be successful.