Echelon GT Review
This is the Echelon GT review, and in the next few minutes, I’m gonna unbox it and give you my very first impressions of it. I bought it for about $600 and in the course of this video we’re going to compare it against the $500 variation of this bike, the Echelon EX-15, that you can buy on Amazon. I’ll also be comparing comparing some of the components to its bigger brother, the Echelon Connect EX7S, also available to buy on Amazon.
I have a review coming on the GT+ coming here in a few days. The Echelon GT is actually just about $100 more than the Echelon Ex15 that you can buy on Amazon. So both the Echelon Es15 and the Echelon GT are both significantly less expensive than the Echelon Connect Ex7s also available to buy on Amazon.
I’m noticing the similarities and differences between the Echelon and the cheaper Echelon Ex 15. Echelon GT’s flywheel is on the front and enclosed similar to the Ex 15. This one just has a colored housing. Also, we can see on the Echelon, the frame arm curves a little bit there, whereas on the EX 15 is more straight up and down. Additionally, there is a little cutout here that makes it look a little bit prettier than the Ex 15, and on the Echelon EX15 we can see there is a little bit of a Gray color, whereas on the GT it’s flat black.
On the Echelon GT, you get a SPD style pedal option on one side. This is very similar to the big brother of the Echelon GT, the Connect Ex7S where you get a SPD clip-in on one side and a cage on the other side.
On the Echelon Ex 15 you get a cage style pedal and on the other side there’s a spot to put an SPD clip in, but it doesn’t come on the Ex 15 out of the box. Another notable difference on the Echelon GT is the handlebar and water bottle and tablet holder is different compared to the handlebars and the tablet holder over here on the Ex 15. Comparatively, the Echelon GT has handlebars that are more similar to what you find on the Echelon Ex7S. Additionally, the Ex 15 comes with a single water bottle holder, whereas the Echelon comes with a dual water bottle holder that will be mounted up here similar to the Ex7S, and it appears the saddle that comes on each of these bikes is the exact same.
The Echelon GT comes with a Gray resistance knob and as comparison, the Ex15 has a red resistance knob just like the Echelon Ex7S. The adjustment knobs on them also appear to be a softer touch compared to the plastic material on the cheaper Echelon Ex 15. So now I’m going to put the Echelon together. If you do need help building this bike, I do have a separate video on how to build the Echelon Ex15, and it appears the assembly process for both these bikes is basically identical. If you already built your Echelon bike and you’re having problems with the flywheel not moving, don’t forget you have to remove this insert as well as remove the stop down here on the bottom. It appears that about 13 inches is as big as you can fit for a table in the Echelon GT. This model right here is the ipad Pro 12.9 inch, and as you can see, it fits right in there nicely.
The Echelon GT or the Echelon Ex 15 do not come with a tablet, but they do have that Bluetooth connectivity. Therefore, you don’t necessarily have to commit to any one particular platform. So unlike on the Echelon Connect EX7S or the models of the Echelon bikes that come with a tablet on them, these models like the Ex 15 and the Echelon GT can run whichever platform you would like. You get a 30 day free trial of the Echelon app out of the box. But as you may already know, what a lot of people choose to do with the Ex 15 and probably will be happening with the GT as well is you can pull up the Peloton App or Stryde. If you want to do Stryde classes on here, you can do that too.
You just have to download these apps on your own device. And then what you would do on your second device, and partly of the good old Peloton hack is to download the Echelon app on a second device like your cell phone, for example. And you can get all your metrics right up on here like your cadence and your resistance and all of the output via this device here, the Bluetooth will send it to your phone and you could do like I mentioned, any class you would like up here, Peloton or Stryde or whatever you want. The Echelon App is very easy to use and navigate. At the bottom, you have the featured tab on Demand, live your progress and more. After you go through the settings and put in the serial number, you can connect your ipad up to the bike, and from here you can start an Echelon class. Also, what you can do is click on Freestyle Ride, and it will pull up all of your metrics right down here. And as you may have seen in my previous videos, right down here, you get your resistance number right up on the screen from a scale of one to 32, as well as your cadence, which is just how fast the powers are turning over and your power output in Watts. And these will be your three main metrics for doing rides on this bike, whether you’re doing the Echelon app or the Stryde app or the Peloton app or whatever you choose to do. So if for whatever reason, you decided you didn’t want to do the Echelon classes and you wanted to use a different platform, you would need two devices.
So if you haven’t seen how this works by now, basically, what you do is get a second device like your cell phone, for example, pull up the Echelon app on there, pull up the freestyle session and you can see your resistance, your power output and your cadence right here. So on the smaller device, you could get your metrics and then your bigger device like your ipad, you could pull up a different app like the Stryde app or the Peloton app here, for example. Of course, you do need to sign up for the Peloton Digital App membership, which is $12.99 a month at the time of this recording. But what you do if you haven’t seen it is you just start the course and you can do the Peloton class right here and get your metrics right here for following along. Of course, there is a conversion chart for the resistance, because Peloton measures the resistance on a scale of 0 to 100, where Echelon does 0 to 32.
So let’s talk about some of the specs of the Echelon. This is a belt driven bike with magnetic resistance and the flywheel mass is 7 kg, which is the exact same as the Echelon Ex 15 and that comes out to 15.4 pounds and the magnetic resistance is controlled by this physical resistance knob that takes twelve turns to get from minimum resistance of one up to maximum resistance of 32. And since the Echelon has a physical resistance knob to control that resistance, you will not be getting automatic adjusting resistance on this bike. The maximum user weight listed for the Echelon GT is 300 pounds and the actual mass of the bike is 100 pounds, compared to larger bikes like the Echelon Ex7S or the Peloton. Plus, the Echelon GT or Echelon Ex15 are relatively small bikes. I’m 6’5″ and I’m probably about the maximum height that can comfortably ride the Echelon GT. If you’re taller than 6’5″, you might find it a little bit difficult to fit on the Echelon GT.
So now let’s talk about the drivetrain feel of the Echelon. After spending some time on the hopping back and forth between this bike and the Ex 15, there’s absolutely no difference between the drivetrain feel in either of these two bikes. So if you’ve had a chance to watch my Echelon Ex 15 review, which I have linked below this video, you’ll get a pretty good idea about the drivetrain feel of the Echelon, even though the flywheel mass of the Echelon and the Echelon Ex 15 is 15.4 pounds, which ranked on the lower end of flywheel masses compared to other bikes. These bikes feel great to ride the belt drive system in combination with that magnetic resistance creates a smooth feeling drivetrain feel riding these Bikes.
One of the downsides of the Echelon is the maximum resistance of this bike isn’t the strongest of the bunch. When you have the resistance cranked up all the way to the maximum of 32, you’re definitely going to be getting a hard workout in and it will be a struggle for most people to maintain riding on that maximum resistance. But if you are a particularly strong rider, the Echelon may leave a little bit more to be desired in terms of maximum resistance.